a December to remember!

We started the month off with building a chicken coupe! Yay!!! I'm pretty excited for FREE cage free organic eggs. I usually pay at least $4 for 12 and now we will get an unlimited amount. The coupe is almost complete. Hopefully by next month it will be done. Only thing really left to do is put hinges on the house so we can pull out the eggs and clean it out. And cover the top, to keep cats from getting in the the chickens from getting out.

The boys have been out of school for the last two weeks! Last week I spent the week finishing last minute shopping, buying food, baking and CLEANING. I don't know why I bothered but we were going to have a houseful of people Christmas morning and a HUGE mess from presents that I thought it would make clean up easier. And initally it did but after toys were assembled and packaging tossed around it really made no difference.

My brother Zack and Katrina are home for the Christmas break. I've missed them both so much.

Every year I usually bake cookies and deliver them to friends as gifts, this year I decided no sweet treats! Instead, I made mini Christmas center pieces. They are really cute. I had Blake (the 6 year old) gather pine cones from around our property and I bought some ornaments and such from the dollar tree and the dollar section of Target and voila! Instant homemade Christmas gifts!

Back to Christmas, which was amazing! Spent the 23rd at my sisters for a pre-Christmas kick off. Wine and laughs with my family and friends. Then Christmas Eve at my madres. Usually she makes Tamales but this year she made Barbacoa. It was delish! Then EVERYONE came over to our house for Christmas morning. Brandon was up at the crack of dawn...literally he and I watched the sunrise =) He was feeding the fire and I was starting the coffee. I love our little moments, these days it's a struggle to get any attention from my 12 year old. Then Blake woke up as everyone arrived. My parents, Matts parents, My sister Giselle and her husband Jack, my brother Evan and his girlfriend Sarah, my brothers Zack and Robb spent the night and my sister Katrina! There were presents flowing throughout our living room. Matt guessed that there were at least 100 gifts under the tree =) Boston was the first to open a gift. He was a bit sleepy but was very interested in the noise the paper was making. I can't believe how many gift he got! Probably just as many as Blake and Brandon. It was by far my favorite Christmas since I was a kid. Later we went to Matt's cousins house for Christmas dinner and some Wii dance of - which Matt did participare in.

Some other exciting moments in December:
Boston started sitting up
Breakfast with Santa with the LDS Church
A visit with Annette
Baby gift exhcange
Checking out Christmas lights
Blake's Christmas program
and much much more ;)

I can't say how thankful I am for having had such a great year! My kids are all healthy. We have food on our table and a roof over our heads. We truly are blessed and I am grateful for all that we have.