Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas and we're excited to see what this new year has to bring.

We had our annual Christmas Eve party at our house this year. My Grandpa Thompson's birthday is on the 24th of December, so we have always gotten together with all the cousins, Aunt's and Uncles to celebrate his and Jesus' birthday. After my grandpa died about 5 years ago we decided to continue the tradition with our own families. It's fun for us all to get togther with yummy food and fun entertainment.

Another tradition we've continued is giving the kids a Christmas eve present, which is traditionally pajamas. After they get all dressed in their Christmas themed p.j.'s we write a note to santa and leave him out cookies and egg nog. Then in the morning the kids wake up, come get us, and we all walk into the living room together to see what Santa brought us. We open presents as fast as we can, get ready and head over to Grandma & Grandpa Thompson's house for breakfast. After that it's the Howell get together until we finally decide it's time to head home for bed.

Christmas is always a busy day for us and we are completely exausted by the time the day is finished.

We are so grateful for our Savior and his life and we're glad to have this time of year to celebrate his birth.

Here are our pictures for Christmas 2009. Enjoy!

Christmas Morning

These are the kids on Christmas morning seeing their gifts for the first time. I think Kaman's the most excited. He got the big gift this year, and we couldn't tear him away long enough for him to see what else he got.

Christmas Card

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Love, The Howell's

What We've Been Doing...

It's been too crazy around here to blog, so I'll give you a fast update on what we've been doing these past couple weeks....

This year I hosted Thanksgiving for the Howell family and it turned out great. All the food was perfect. We almost had a mishap with the gravy, but we worked it out and it turned out wonderful. Here are some pics...

Then we decided the first week in December to go to the Festival of the Trees. I took pictures of some of the gorgeous trees.

Duane was able to deliver some of the Christmas trees to those people who purchased them. He said the family of the baby pictured next to this tree had decorated it, and then a family in her ward bought it and gave it back to them.

We came across a tree that was made in honor of my mom's best friend and my YW camp director while growing up.

Grinch Tree

Race Track Tree


Breath Of Heaven Tree

Believe Tree


...and some amazing gingerbread "houses" (some of them were more extravagant then just a "house").

Duane said most of the people he delivered the trees to were older couples in modest homes, and one couple about our age buys a tree every year and then gives it away after Christmas.

This is a wonderful way to raise money for the kids at Primary Children Medical Center and well worth seeing.

She's Here!

Trisha's baby, Lily Alana Sanderson, finally arrived on Friday, December 4th around 6:00pm. She has lots of auburn hair and weighed in at 7 lb. 1 oz. and 19 in. long. We are so excited to finally have her here!

It's a girl....congrats, Trisha!

Today we celebrated the up coming birth of my little sister's first baby. She's been waiting for this little miracle for over 8 years and I'm so excited for her. We had a scrapbooking/baby shower and even though My sister (Heather), Mom, sister-in-law (Mindy) and me hosted the shower, I think Trisha put in more work then we did. Trisha said she stayed up until 3:30am the night before cutting out the kits for our party. And to top it all off she also made popcorn treats for her guests to thank them for coming!

We had a good time and got some cute scrapbooking pages done for the fun memories she's going to have with this darling baby girl.

p.s.. Thanks Linda for providing all the scrapbooking supplies. You are awesome!

Nerd Day!

Danielle and Ashley love dress up day at their school and today was declared "Nerd Day". This is Danielle in her nerd outfit. So funny! (Ashley was sick so she couldn't participate)



Duane had to show Danielle what she's going to be putting herself through today by having that sign on her back. He's betting she'll have it off by the end of the day.

Simple Minds.

Duane and I often comment on how young children have the simpliest minds. We find it funny that kids will interpret some of the things we adults say as something completely different then what we mean. For example, Kaman came to me this afternoon with a liquid measuring cup and asked me what it was for and I replied, it's for measuring cups. Here is what he thought I meant...

Halloween Day #2

Day #2 - Halloween Day! We love to decorate for Halloween (well, I do. I don't know how much Duane enjoy's it). Every year we put out the "tame" Halloween decorations on the 1st week of October, and then the "scarier" decorations on Halloween day. We do get a few brave souls who come through our "bloody" sheet and knock on our door, but I have a feeling there are a lot who don't dare.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our front yard. I didn't get a picture of inside the "bloody" sheet - I guess next year you'll just have to come see for yourself, if you dare...Mwahahaha!



The dedicated pumpkin carvers.
Ashley, Kaman and Danielle carving their pumpkins.
Danielle's pumpkin is all finished...isn't it awesome!
Here's Danielle's pumpkin lit up.
This is Holly's pumpkin.
And Duane's pumpkin.

Disneyland '09

Here are about 1/4 of our pictures from Disneyland. Enjoy!

Halloween day #1...

Because Halloween comes on a Saturday this year, we have to dress up the kids two days in a row. Here's day #1 - the girls school Halloween parade......

Danielle is an 80's Rocker Chic.

Ashley is a Geisha.

The girls right before they left the house for school...

This is Kaman at his school Halloween program...

Every year on Halloween we take the kids to my sister's work for some trick-or-treating and to check out their fun decorations. The theme for my sister's office was Where's Waldo. Here's some pictures....

Day #2 pictures coming soon...

The quilt is finally finished!

Lots of stitching, re stitching, sewing and re sewing, ironing, tying,1 migraine, and six long 8 hour days later and my quilt is finally finished. But I couldn’t have done it with out the help of my very talented mother (who later told me she was more excited to see the finished product then I probably was).

She helped me buy and pick out the material,


She helped me figure out my sewing machine I received for Christmas and had never used.


Next came cutting the material to just the right size

And then figuring out the pattern, sewing, ironing, and tying...

and finally binding it just perfectly.

24 hours later it was put to good use…