Magical

Last night Mike & I were reminiscing about this year with our little family. As we looked back through the zillions of photos we'd taken, I was so grateful that we captured the magical moments of their childhood through images. They are growing and changing too quickly! As my cousin just said in her Christmas letter, with children the days are long, but the years are short. We've had a few loooooooong, discouraging days here lately (does it ever seem like focusing on fixing behavior problems makes them worse??), but when I look back at the images, I realize we have a pretty magical life with these little ones in it. 

The kids acted out the Nativity with their puppets as Daddy read it from the scriptures.

We went on a hayride with the wonderful men & families Mike works with in his calling. The night was awesome, complete with a delicious dinner, hot chocolate, light displays, and desserts.

We played Christmas games one day, this one doing the actions the card says. They had a lot of fun melting like snowmen.

Ella (and her best little friend) came home from preschool with reindeer hats and reindeer food to put out on Christmas Eve, so they know where to find us!

Maddie and her friends made beautiful Christmas trees.

"Sleigh rides" have been a popular passtime of late.

Saturday morning the kids woke up to a new train set! Daddy has always wanted one and the kids were just as excited as he was to set it up around the tree at 7 a.m.!

As it got light we realized it was a winter wonderland outside, and spent much of the rest of the day playing in the snow.
 

The street turned into a snowman contest! Mike added a second head and our turned into more of a snow monster.... and after a few hours of leaning it bit the dust. But it was the tallest of the neighbors by 3 inches while it lasted!