Thanks for the gift, Santa!!!!

For Christmas this year we got a new toy.  We cleaned out the "book" room upstairs and made space for a ping pong table.  So we had to have a ping pong tournament.  It was lots of fun and MOM was the big winner....Oh Yeah!!!!

Christmas 2012

The children gathered in our room on Christmas morning.  We had agreed that 7:00am was the meeting time.  It is nice to sleep in a little bit on Christmas morning!!

                                       Hannah was happy with the loot in her stocking!!

Cute toe sock wearers!

                               Ben received a fifty dollar bill from Grandpa and Grandma Sullivan.....
                                         Do you think he was happy about it?   Oh Yeah!!!!!

          Grandpa and Grandma Sullivan gave Haley and Hannah each a journal and some Euros to                                   use on our upcoming trip to Paris.   They were thrilled!!!

We were so happy to have Allison, Tyler and Connor stay with us for the Christmas holiday!!

                              Connor especially loved the wrapping paper!! Who needs toys anyway??

                                      Santa was very good to Haley and Hannah!!!!

We sent Ben on a scavenger hunt to find his final gift.  He had about seven clues to find before he got to the final one.  When the final one told him to go to the garage, Ben said, "Yes, my drums".  We had a good laugh because he knew all along that he was getting them.  He had asked for them and before Christmas he would always tell people that he wished for drums when they asked him what he wanted for Christmas. Once he got that first scavenger hunt clue he realized that was why the drum set had not been under the tree.  He is too smart to trick anymore!!  He has really enjoyed playing his new drum set, and the best part is that they are digital so he can hear himself play with headphones, but no one else has to hear the banging.

Christmas night we had a hot chocolate/jacuzzi party.  It was pretty cold outside so the jacuzzi felt really good!  What a wonderful way to end the day!!!!

Sugar cookies...

                        It wouldn't be Christmas without the annual sugar cookie decorating activity.
                             Gotta have some yummy cookies to leave out for Santa, right?!?!?!

   Connor loved having so many people around to play with!!!

Christmas Eve fun......

We celebrated Christmas a little early this year.  Emily was on her way to Quito, Ecuador to live and work in an orphanage for two months.  She wanted to be there for Christmas, so we had some fun together before she left.  We did our usual Christmas Eve traditional stuff including chocolate fondue and hors devours for dinner, new jammies and a pyramid, sibling gift exchange, reading of the nativity from the scriptures, and writing down our gift to the Savior for the new year. It was a great night!!

                                     Hannah and Russ are going one year without candy...
                                  so no chocolate fondue for them.  They had oreos instead.

                                           Having Connor around sure made things fun!!!!

                                                Haley made Connor a little picture book.

The Judd Family December 2012

                                ( We took this photo in our backyard right before church.)

It's that time of year.....

We decorated the house right after Thanksgiving this year.  The girls were very anxious to get everything done...so we went to work setting up the trees, the nativities and our Christmas village.

The house looked so nice and festive when we were done.  It is amazing to me how an ornament can bring to mind such great memories.  I love that we have so many handmade ornaments that the children  made over the years. (Especially the ones with pictures!)

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year.  Maybe it's because it is in the fall, maybe it's because I get to spend time with my family, or maybe it's because we get to eat yummy food.  Whatever the reason...Thanksgiving rocks and this year was no different!  The guests this year included Grandma and Grandpa Sullivan, Uncle Brian, Tyler, Allison and Connor, and Emily.
(What I would call a manageable houseful!)

Great Grandma Sullivan made this adorable quilt for Connor along with the stuffed dinosaur!

                    Can you guess what is happening in this picture?... Yep, it's a Just Dance party!!

 Hannah put on quite the show for us.  She had everyone fill out their thankful turkey feathers, and then she performed a lovely dance routine she choreographed herself.

Ben and Haley joined in for the finale.

Since there was so much food to be consumed during our time together, we made sure to work some of it off at the park with a serious game of kickball..... 

and a little bit of jump roping.

               Have I mentioned the food??  MMMMMMMMmmmmmmm, we had a feast!

Another fun tradition is the annual "pass the pigs" tournament.  Everyone puts in a dollar to play and the winner takes all.  This is a very competitive group we have. Hannah was so stressed because she really wanted to win.   

             Grandma rolled a "never before seen in real life" double leaning jowler.  We were impressed!

But in the end.........Hannah was the big winner!!  Yeah for Hannah.