Holiday Fun!

Tonight we decided to go and have some fun doing some holiday things around Vegas. It really gets you into the Christmas Spirit. We were also lucky to have our friends come with us. We love doing things with the Albrights. We are blessed that our children are good friends with each other and we are good friends with each other. We really have fun when we are with them! We went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory to see the cactus gardens. It's free, and let's face it, the free samples of chocolate makes the drive worth it. Now, every year my pictures get a little bit better. I am still not there yet, but I am working on it. I love that Dallin found this on a wall. It says that chocolate or the cocoa bean means, "Food of the Gods!" Hello, I have been saying that for years!!!!

Santa is also at the gardens.

Allie, Rachel, and Aubrey

I always try telling my kids to pose nicely for pictures. Tonight I have given up. This is the way they pose, what can I do about it. They are cute! This is Ian and his friend Ethan.

The cute girls. They still listen to us and pose nice!

Kind of......

The boys say if they were a rock band, this would be their album cover.

I don't care what people say, this garden is so pretty at Christmas time.

We also went to the Bellagio gardens to see the fall display. This tree talks.

This was so cool. It was a replica of the Bellagio hotel made out of seeds, pine cones, twigs, and other live plants. You can even see the fountain going.

In the garden they had decorative peppers. You are not suppose to pick them, but Zach did. He was talking to us and we were all wondering if it was spicy. Well, we "triple dogged dared him" to eat it. First he put it on his tongue, and then when that was o.k. he took a bite out of it. O.k, it was spicy, very spicy! That will teach him! Don't pick the peppers in the Bellagio gardens!!!! Don't listen to people even if they "triple dog dare ya!"

Love Rachel's expression!

Deck The Halls!

Time to decorate!!!! We love to decorate the house for Christmas. I also love my Christmas ornaments, so here are some of our new ones for this year.

Ian has fallen in love with football, so he got a football one.

Zach is a senior in high school.
Austin got his Eagle Scout Award. This one was actually a gift for him.

Aubrey is playing the viola this year. O.k., her ornament is not a viola, but a violin. That is fine, it was all we could find.

Don put up our family one.

This one was given to us when we served in the Hill Cumorah Pageant Primary this year.

This is our Gettysburg one.

This is the one we got when we went to Nauvoo.

The tree is done.

Here is a funny story about these pine cones. Many years ago we were camping at a popular national park and we saw all these huge pine cones around. The kids wanted to take them home, so we let them gather a few. For years they have decorated our banister at Christmas time. (This is a horrible picture of them.) Well one day I happen to catch an episode of "John and Kate Plus Eight." Kate was in the same national park and got in trouble for collecting the same giant pine cones. I don't remember if she got in trouble, but I do remember them saying on the show that it is illegal to remove these pine cones from the park. Oh great, I not only broke some law, but now the illegal pine cones decorate my house every Christmas. Every year that I take these pine cones out I think to my self, "Yep, that's me, the pine cone offender!" It must not bother me that much, because they still decorate my banister every year. I just wish I had a few more!

Give A Kid A Camera........

O.k., so I really didn't give him the camera. Austin was bored while we were getting ready to decorate the tree, so he got a hold of my camera. This is just a small sample of some of the pictures he took. I have a ton of them. The good news is, that now I have all of my Christmas decorations well documented!!!! He is very proud of this picture he took of Aubrey.