Christmas Morning

We are building traditions at the Wood family. This is the first year we spent Christmas alone at our own home. Some of the traditions we have started are

1. Reading a childrens version of the birth of Christ before bedtime.

2. Tracking Santa with the NORAD "Google Earth" internet site.

3. Baking cookies and placing them on a special plate for Santa

Placing the cookies with a glass of milk by the couch for Santa to rest and snack

4. Once the kids were fast asleep Emma and Rob found themselves cuddling in front of a beautiful fire watching "The Three Tenors" sing Christmas songs on TV.

Santa came in the night and ate most of the cookies and drank all of the milk.

The kids were THRILLED to see he had come.

5. When Emma and Rob knew Santa had come, they placed wrapping paper up in the hall to prevent the kids from going in prematurely. They woke up at 6:15am and all together tore down the paper.

This is the sight they saw first, then found their stockings full of toys and candy on the couch.

Spending Christmas together developing traditions and lasting memories in our house was wonderful and more fun than we could have imagined. The kids have been so wonderful with each other and we have had the chance to relax and reflect on the reason for the season.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Pre-Christmas Fun

Emma and Rob had the wonderful opportunity to have a short but long awaited vacation. School finished up and we were exhausted. We were able to leave Cosette at a friend's for a few days while Grandpa Wood cared for Isaac and Ethan. He did a wonderful job and we are indebted to him and Darlene. Below is a picture of the boys at Grandpa Wood's

The week before Christmas Rob took off so have some festive fun. We all took a road trip to Salt Lake City. On the way we stopped to see some friends, the Woll's, both families had fun for a few hours. After that we went to temple square to view the lights. OUCH it was cold!

We attempted several times to get 3 wonderfully crazy kids to look in one direction. This was the best we got.How can we ignore the beauty?

This may become a tradition.

Knock Knock

Thanksgiving was nice with Ken and Darlene Wood. The food was great. We just finished the leftovers.
Decorating for Christmas. We don't waste much time changing holiday decor. This was done the day after Thanksgiving.
We invited our friends, the Clayson's, over for dinner and a movie. We watched the Polar Express. Here are our 6 kids hanging out together.

Isaac and Ethan love to trade knock-knock jokes.

Turkey Time

Where did the month of November go? Ethan's birthday was November 3rd, and today is December 3rd. What happened?Ethan decided his truck would taste better with peanut butter on it.
Isaac loves preschool. If you ask him whether he has school or not, he says, "No! Preschool!"
Here's Isaac's fantastic potato turkey with toothpicks. Colored marshmallows were supposed to be the feathers, but he ate the marshmallows faster than he could put them on the toothpicks.
Ethan had a late nap this day. While Emma was working on school stuff, Ethan entertained himself by stacking drink mix containers and jello boxes.