"Verity, Rhiannon, and Wade--treasure hunters!"

On Sunday Rhiannon came down with the yucky cold the rest of us have dealt with already, so apart from going through WAY TOO MANY Kleenex boxes, we've been taking it easy, watching our Christmas-gift movies, and playing WII, WII, WII all the way home. :)

Today we got McDonald's for lunch and then we stopped off at the fantastic nature trail in our neighborhood. It's been a while since we were there, and we had a great time. The kids played a bit on the tiny playground set, and then we walked down to the stream. We climbed down to the bank of the water, and Rhiannon and Wade picked up rocks and threw some around. A simple thing to do, but they didn't want to leave!!!! We've had ridiculously mild weather lately (50s and 60s), and it felt good to take advantage of it today.

On the trek back to the van we were talking about how much fun we'd had and the new things we'd discovered (besides all the rock fun, we also found out this little field in the woods has a built-in baseball mound!), and Wade piped up, "Verity, Rhiannon, and Wade--treasure hunters!"

Speaking of treasure, we talked about 2009 family and personal goals last night, and we've got some GOOD ones to work on!

Best wishes to everyone as they ring in the new year!

A perfect day

This has been a wonderful Christmas season for us. We'll stretch it out for a few more days, too. :) Santa came and was spot-on with his gifts this year--hooray! AND we are now Wii-ing and having LOTS of fun with that! (So far Wade is our boxing and bowling champion, and Rhiannon gives me a good tennis workout!!!)

After dinner we went to a beautiful Christmas music program at the church. It was the perfect end to a really perfect Christmas day!

We hope you had a perfect Christmas season, too, and wish you all the best as you close out 2008!

Finally, some cookie decorating!

I think the one thing I really let slide this year was baking! I did next to none. We weren't hurting for sweet stuff, with all the yummy food people dropped by! (THANK YOU!) Wade and Rhiannon got an extra-special treat when Brother and Sister Romney invited them over for cookie decorating on Christmas Eve afternoon. Their home was crawling with grandkids, so our kids fit right in. They had a blast!!!





Brother Romney is one of Wade's good buddies. We sit right in front of them nearly every Sunday at church. We're grateful for his family's friendship!

Christmas Eve with friends

On Christmas Eve we were invited to join the MacArthur family for dinner and a Nativity play. We had a wonderful time with them. The food was amazing and the play (written by Mary Jane) was incredible. Jason and I got to be narrators, while the kids and Tashia and Matt played parts ranging from Samuel the Lamanite to a donkey to shepherds. Mary Jane was very gracious and asked Rhiannon to play Mary and Wade to be Joseph. It was a fantastic evening and the perfect start to our Christmas celebrating!

This may be the only way we'll disco...

THANKS, AUNT JAYMIE!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Wade's Joy School Christmas Party

Hansel and Gretel

10 days left, but who's counting? :) This past Tuesday Rhiannon went caroling and delivered cookies with a bunch of girlfriends from church. She had a TOTAL blast! Jason and I enjoyed the Christmas party we went to on Saturday night, also. We'll all go to Wade's family Joy School party tonight--I'll put pics up later of that.

On Wednesday we broke out the gingerbread house kit from Grandma Deb.

We loaded it up with lots of candy, candy, candy....

and took pictures with it....

It was a thing of beauty, but then slowly the candy started to disappear...

"Someone" had their fill--it was fun while it lasted!

The culprits play dumb: "Who, me?"

Cushing Christmas Card, blog-style

 

So, I've been working on real-life, send-in-the-mail Christmas cards the past few days. I love doing it, especially when I'm armed with a thin-point Sharpie, various Christmas playlists going in the background, and peel-and-stick EVERYTHING. But after checking out the new Picasa today (thanks, Aimee!), I may re-think our annual "card" next year, and save a few bucks, too. :) Enjoy our annual family pictures and Christmas newsletter!

The countdown begins

Today we'll start three different Christmas countdowns. We've got the yummy chocolate candy one, and Wade made a great paper chain at Joy School last week, where you do something nice for somebody else each day (thanks, Angie!)

I am most excited about the countdown in December's issue of the Friend magazine--each day you read a different scripture about the Savior. This morning's scripture was in Isaiah, the one that reads, "For unto us a child is born..." I started singing the verse and got all excited about it. Luckily (or maybe not so lucky?) for the kids we have a CD of Handel's Messiah, so I turned it to track 11 and turned it WAY up. We'll do this countdown in the morning at breakfast--it'll be a good way to start the day!

The scripture countdown!

"Take a picture of us with our animals next, Mom!"

Wade took this picture--Rhiannon finished a Warriors cat book this weekend and was very excited about it!

Wade: "Will you please come take a picture of what I did?"