Christmas 2011 - with a little before and a little after

I'm kinda sad that the holiday season is over with all the lights, magic and good feelings it usually brings.  Not to look ahead to far, but I'm ready for spring.  Maybe that is looking to far and wishing away to much, but I'm ready for some spring like weather.  So..... here is our Christmas time of 2011.

With Grandma and Grandpa in Sweden (got to skype with them on Christmas day) we have had their dog Maggie with us.  I think she is getting used to the idea of staying here for a while now.

A couple of days before Christmas break, T got pink eye.  So, although feeling totally fine with just one yucky eye, he got to stay home from school.  And this is how he spent a lot of the day.

He would hide from the dogs and then call their names and they would find him.  He loved it and so did they!

Maggie has also taken Sunny's place on T's bed at night so sometimes this is how he has to sleep.

And while we are on the subject of the dogs still, here they are Christmas morning with their presents.

And here is OUR Christmas morning.

Then we headed to church and the kids sang some songs with the Primary and I played the violin while the choir sang "Once in Royal Davids City."  My first note was not perfect and my bow bounced once because I was nervous but I think the rest of the song went pretty well.  I've decided I'm not really much of a performer, I always do better in practice.

After church I wanted to get a picture of everyone dressed up but the boys changed too quickly so this is the best I could get.

And T wouldn't get in the picture because he was busy doing this.

For my birthday and Christmas we had tickets to both the Manhiem Steamroller concert and the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  Larry and I went to Manhiem Steamroller together and took the boys with us to the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  I loved Manhiem Steamroller and we all had fun watching the Trans Siberian Orchestra with even the lead violinist swinging her long hair with the "rockers" on the guitars. 

The day before my birthday we went to Temple Square to see the lights.  For the kids most of the fun comes from riding TRAX downtown.

And here is the only picture I took while we were there.  The weather was beautiful - you can see we hardly had even jackets on.  My kinda weather!

And to finish off the year we had our New Year's celebration here at home.  This is new for us because the kids always sleep at Grandma and Grandpa's with all their cousins and ring in the new year together.  But with Grandma and Grandpa out of the country we were on our own.  We had some friends over and R's friend ended up sleeping over so this is what it looked like after midnight.

And this is the lovely littlest wishing everyone a VERY happy and successful NEW YEAR in 2012!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!