A New Year....

So it's been a while since we've blogged so we have a lot to catch up on. Maybe this year we will blog more often :)

Thanksgiving:

Yay Turkey Day! This year we were thrilled to be joined with our friends Kevin and Kari Schroeder and their daughter Faith from Idaho, our Grami from Utah, and our friend Chris from Indiana. We bought this amazing cake from Shapiro's Deli in Indianapolis and that was definitely the highlight of dinner. (No offense to the poor turkey sacrificed for our meal:)

Here is the cake in all of its glory! It's a three layer chocolate cake and cheesecake combo. Yum!
This is our friend Chris. She has recently been baptized. We are so glad she's our friend!

Grami and Syd coloring in a Precious Moments coloring book. Syd wants the whole book colored!

And this is just a crazy picture that proves too much chocolate cake is never a good thing!

A few days before Thanksgiving, Simon got to skip school and go to Chicago with Dad, Kevin, Kari and Faith.

Here they are at the very tip top of the tallest building in Chicago. Simon absolutely loved it! He was super excited to be in the 3rd largest city in the U.S. for the first time.

Christmastime:

We took a trip to the Children's Museum! The Yule Slide was brought out and the Holiday Traditions exhibit was filled with fun games for everyone to play.We especially loved the giant chess set! (an inspiration for Simon's Christmas present!)



Holiday decorations atop the entrance of the Children's Museum! The Christmas tree is amazing!

Yule Slide race! Looks like Syd won that race! Better luck next time Dad :)

I think Drewbie won that race. Natalie's right on his tail though!

This Snow Globe is the right inside. It just puts you in the holiday spirit right away!

The Christmas tree in front of the Yule Slide!
The really cool chess set! This time at the Museum, the play was Dorthy Returns. Simon and Drew had fun dressing up like the scarecrow!

Christmas vacation!!!!! :

We started the day in Indianapolis and ended up in Salt Lake City! We had such a great time visiting with all of our cousins from Utah! We visited with Jessica, recently home from the South Dakota, Rapid City Mission, with Grandmother and Grami, then of course all of the cousins, aunts, and uncles. We went to the Nybo's new house in Kaysville, it was beautiful! And we made tons of delicious cookies!

Then on December 24th we traveled to Idaho! We had our annual Chinese haystacks and caroling at Grandma Mae's house, and then it was off to bed... (sort of :))

When 7:00 rolled around we woke up and Christmas began! We of course had to wait for Jan to arrive. Once she was there, we read the Christmas story in Luke. I love Christmas and the reminder each year of our Savior's birth.

Our presents were perfect! We had such a great year this year! Thanks Mom and Dad!

After presents at Grandma's house we went to Big Juds to have Christmas breakfast! It was super amazingly delicious! And we had our presents from Grandma and Jan of course! They were all so much fun!

Simon with his Chess set. (Wonder where we got that idea? :))


Drew opening some of his Christmas presents.

The girls each got one of these super cute flower headbands!

Awh... Mom and Dad Christmas morning!

While we were in Idaho, I got to go on a date with my good friend Nathan! We went ice skating in Idaho Falls and then we went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I had so much fun! Thank you Nathan! :)

So one of the things that I wanted to do in Idaho was go Prom dress shopping, because it is kind of hard to find a modest Prom dress here in Indiana. I wasn't expecting to find a dress on the first day looking but I did! It was super fun and exciting, so we decided to have a cousin fashion show so each of us could feel like a princess.

My Prom dress! I found it at the Circle of Love in Rexburg.

Ellie sporting a dress from Grandma's dress up!

Christian and Natalie dancing around! Another dress from Grandma's basement!Sydney wearing Mom's wedding dress. It is still perfectly white!

And Kira in another Grandma basement favorite!

We had such a fun time dressing up and jamming out to Natalie's new Taylor Swift CD! Doesn't everyone look simply gorgeous?

After our fabulous fashion show, New Year's Eve rolled around. The Niederer cousins from Boise joined the party and we all went to Jud's to celebrate. There was tons of good food, there was lots of Kinect playing and there was even a heated game of Blokus.

New Year's Day came and we headed to Utah to finish our vacation. Before we headed home though we HAD to go to the Taco Time in Kaysville, Utah. I don't know why, but it's like my favorite resturant in the world :) It is decked out with all kinds of Mexican decor and it is just the coolest place in Kaysville! (besides the Nybo's house of course!)

Heck yes we're at Taco Time!! And proud of it!

Free ice cream samples, always a plus!

Some sweet pictures of the girls :)

Gotta love the Taco Time pictures! Thanks for taking us to the greatest resturant on Earth Mom and Dad!

And that's all folks! I'll try to stay ahead this year!