Sledding with the Balmforths

Over Christmas break, our good friends the Balmforths invited us to go sledding with them.  Little did we know that we had a fantastic hill about a mile away from our house!

Austin and Kate on the tube together.

Kate, Austin, Scott, Brenna, Ty, and Meredith

Kate and Brenna

Clara and Scott 

We got skis for the strider bike and this was our first time trying them out.  They were such a hit, all the kids loved them (although Ty had a hard time sharing)

Austin on the sled

Meredith and Clara

Meredith pushing Jeff and Scott

Kate and Austin

Such a fun day and a great way to break up Christmas break!

Happy Birthday Ty!ll

We have been celebrating Ty's birthday in June on his 6 month birthday so that it wasn't so close to this Christmas.  This year, the day after his birthday, he said, "Where is my cake and fire (candles)?"  So we made him his funfetti cake and you can see he was very happy about it!

Grandma Packer had a present for him too. 

We sure love this little Ty-man.  That is Jeff's nickname for him and Ty even refers to himself as Ty-man often.  Ty brings a lot of laughter and fun to the family and loves to be in the center of things--whether it is wrestling or trying to get a big reaction out of everyone by turning off the tv during a movie or video game.  Ty is talking really well.  He wasn't talking much when he turned two, but once he decided to, he completely took off.

Happy Birthday Ty!  We love you!

Merry Christmas

We had such a nice Christmas!  I think the highlight for me was that no one was sick--at least no flu going around that wiped us out so bad last year.

Austin, Scott, Kate (Ty was still sleeping and we decided to let him!)

The kids checking out their toys from Santa

Kate got this movie that she had really been wanting.

Scott checking out his parachute man from his stocking

Ty was very excited about this BYU train!

Ty opening his present from Kate.  The kids drew names and Kate had Ty.

New Paw Patrol characters in their cars!

Scott had Kate--he got her a pack of boondoggle

Kate giving her presents to mom and dad

Kate gave us some really cute new ornaments, so we hung them up right away!

 Scott, Kate, and Austin opening presents from Grandma Packer, it was so fun to have her with us for Christmas!

Ty had Austin, Austin loved his lego set!

Ty really loved this microphone radio set.  He sang on it all day (as well as everybody else!)

Kate got a new doll armoire for her doll Kirsten, she was so excited to organize her stuff!

Scott with his new lego set

Ty and his drill set

Grandma and Grandpa Lewis came over in the afternoon so we could exchange presents.  Here is Austin giving them a hug, he loved his Minion Operation game!

Ty loving on Grandma

Ty was excited to get his very own little lego set so he didn't have to steal his older brothers' pieces

Later in the day, dad took all the kids sledding.  We woke up to a lot of fresh snow, so he pulled them through the neighborhood on a tube.  They loved it so much!!

It was such a wonderful Christmas, nice to have a day together as a family that was pretty low key and just nice!

Christmas Eve

We made our traditional gingerbread houses, only this time, they were sleighs.

Scott working on his, Kate helping Ty with his

Kate with her finished product

Scott with his masterpiece

Ty 

Austin with his sleigh

For the first time, instead of just reading the nativity story from the scriptures, the kids acted it out.  I'm not sure how spiritual it was, but I think they really enjoyed it!

Ty was a shepherd

Kate was Mary and Scott was Joseph

Austin was a wise man

For our Christmas Eve game, we got Magformers

Scott, Austin, Kate, and Ty all in their Christmas pajamas

Kate's letter to Santa

Austin's letter to Santa

Christmas morning!

We had a really nice Christmas Eve.  Grandma Packer and mom spent a lot of time making lasagnas for dinner, between that and the gingerbread houses, it was a pretty busy day!