Santa Scooters!!!

Santa brought the girls scooters for Christmas. They were so excited!!

Ellie on her Rapunzel Scooter

Brook on her multi-princess scooter :)

Tye Dye Party

Ben and I gave the girls baking kits for Christmas with some plain white aprons to tye dye together. I'm not skilled in the ways of tye dying, but Aunt Stacy is, so we headed to her place so she could assist (or just do it :) The girls picked out their own designs and got to work!

They turned out so fun! They can hardly wait to start baking in them!

Christmas Day!!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas! It was Smith side this year and we ended up at Papa & Grammy's with just Becky and Trevor. We woke up about 9 and after a little devotional, headed down to see what we got!

We had Becky and Trevor for Christmas this year- it was fun to find all sorts of random gifts for them!

Little purple riding hood :)

All the Smith kids have been saving up for a few years now to give my parents a jump start on their missionary fund. It was such a neat experience to give it to them. I'm so happy they are going to have the opportunity to serve missions and bless so many people's lives!

Lincoln is Ellie's little bud! She absolutely adores him!

He's not too sure....

It ain't Christmas without Uncle Stan's deviled eggs!

Sacked out by the end of the night watching family slide shows

Merry Christmas!

Pre-Christmas 2012

On December 18th, we started the long drive to Grammy's house!

We stopped in Park City, Utah on the way to have a little fun-

Dad went skiing with Uncle Harry and we girls shopped and went to the movies!

Hooray! We made it at last!

Baking cookies with Grammy & cousins

Nice work Aunt Becky!

Dad set up his train and felt like a kid again :)

Ellie loved on this cutie

We made gingerbread houses!

We have to convert the garage into a living room for enough space for our big brood. Ellie helped with a little cleaning. How do you like them stockings?!?!

On Christmas Eve, we got to participate in a service project for a needy family in the area- the girls loved getting to wrap gifts for some little boys in need!

Then came the white elephant exchange! Papa Perry actually got a white elephant!

Christmas Eve evening, we got to spend a little time with the Douglass side opening gifts. The girls got new pillows and pillowcases from Grandma, which led to an impromptu pillow fight. The girls wailed on Grandma while the rest of us were laughing to hard to help her!

New Christmas Jammies! Thanks Grandma!

One more sleep 'til Christmas!

PreFinals Vacation

Ben's classmate, Chris, was kind enough again to let us use her town home up at Copper Mountain for a little R&R before school really heated up for Ben with finals.

There was a lot of this going on:

We woke up to this!!!

Our friends' little boy, Callum Foulger, and the girls were all buds

There was just enough snow to play in for a few minutes. Unfortunately, it was like a thousand tiny ice crystals, so no snowballs fights or snowman building could ensue :(

Skiing with Dad is always fun!

Some of the humorous events of the trip:

Vacation: by Ellie Douglass

The drive home was sad, but beautiful!

We feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends who are generous and kind! We had a wonderful trip and it was much needed! Thanks Chris!!!

Christmas Cookie Exchange

We love to make Christmas cookies!!! I had a great reason this year too- we had a Christmas treat exchange for our relief society activity this month. The girls had so much fun helping.

Brook mixed in some red food coloring

Ellie did what she does best: smashed!

Both girls got to roll out and shape candy canes

The final treat plate to take to the activity-

Candy Cane Cookies (My momma's recipe)

Chocolate Dipped Macaroons (Paula Deen's recipe)

Brook was so excited with how her cookies turned out!

And she was thrilled that they tasted even better!