Goodbye 2009....

Wow, I am so late getting everything posted, but I will make a valiant effort to catch up! New Year's Eve Day started out a little iffy, but the night was GREAT!

Tori got a Barbie guitar with your gift certificates, so she played it pretty much all day. She asked for a pink guitar every time anyone asked her what she wanted for Christmas. Unfortunately Mom and Dad were already done with shopping by this point, so she was left to her own resources. One her dream was fulfilled she insisted on "Rock Star hair" to go with her performance.


Her groupies loved it!

After a rocking afternoon we went to a party--it was a little crazy, but SO fun! We got to play "grown up" games without too many interruptions, and the kids had a blast too! We had a slightly early count down for the little ones so that they could start to wind down. It was a fun night and a great memory! Thanks all for making it happen!

Christmas!!

As is the Whitmill tradition, our first Christmas Eve activity was the annual devotional. This year we participated with several other families in our stake. It is the best way to start the holiday! We get to start the festivities by remembering our Savior, and the reason for all the celebrations! This year we decided to take some family pictures before we went to the devotional. Hey--with 11 grandbabies, you take what you can get. I actually think that they turned out pretty well!


Then....there were the ones of our little family...we were not so fortunate...

Just so we didn't feel too bad about our family pics...Liz did a little performance throughout the large group pictures. Here is a sampling of her work.

Next we went to Nana and Papa's house. We ate our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and opened presents--starting with new pj's!

Then of course we had Christmas morning at our house. We had a GREAT Christmas with so many things to be thankful for!

Christmas Preparations

With all the happenings at the end of November/beginning of December, we got a bit of a late start to our holiday preparations. Fortunately we still got to most of our traditions, like:

1-Decorating the tree

2-Baking cookies--we made some cookies with our family, and others with some cousins

3-Getting new clothes and dressing up! They looked so adorable in their new Sunday clothes!

Christmas Program!

Lizzie and I had our first preschool program. We visited a retirement center and sang some Christmas songs for the residents. The residents really enjoyed it, and the kids were REALLY stinking cute! We'll have to do that again next year!

Catching up

I am trying to catch up. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, and I have been stressed, to say the least. We were in SLC for Thanksgiving, which was great. We loved spending time with Tom's family.
While we were there a friend passed away from a brain tumor. It wasn't a shock, but it was still really hard on me. She left behind three very sweet little girls. She was 34 years old.
Upon arriving home late Monday night, we threw the kids in bed and I checked the voice mail. Never a good thing when the bishop wants to meet with you the day you get home. Well, less than 24 hours after arriving home, and about 36 hours before I was to play a good size role in a funeral, I was called to be the ward primary president. YIKES! Slightly overwhelming. (Oh, and PS, you need to call everyone and have primary fully staffed within the next week so that you can do the teacher orientation/training meeting one week after being set apart.)
Well, after rearranging preschool and receiving babysitting/preschool help from several wonderful people I attended the funeral for Jennifer. It was a little harder than I expected, but thanks to all the help we made it through.
Last Sunday I was sustained, and also came down with strep throat. ROCK ON! Well, today we had our first teacher training meeting. Short, and to the point, and most importantly OVER. Next week brings one Christmas Program/field trip, two preschool Christmas parties, one kindergarten "Winter Party" and a partridge in a pear tree.

My girl

My girl is HILARIOUS! Liz cracks us up all the time! She says the funniest things. Here is a small sampling:

1-While waiting for our plane at the airport, I told Liz that if she looked close at the window she could see the pilot. She immediately crumbled to pieces. "I don't want to get on the airplane! I don't want to ride with the pirate."
"No baby, not pirate, pi-L-ot, with a L sound." The next several minutes were spent trying to coax her onto the plane. Finally we make it down the jetway and she sees the flight attendant and the pilot
"See Liz, there's the pilot."
"Oh, I want to go on the airplane."

2-On Thanksgiving she decided to tell everyone that there are some things that we are not allowed to say at our house. "We don't say stupid, and we don't say 'you're ruinining my life'". Thanks to Barbie for the quotable....

3-So we were explaining to Tori what it means to give someone your heart. Liz said "I game Mommy my heart, and my heart is fabulous!"

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great! We got to meet our newest niece, and spend some time with a nephew we almost never see. Here are a few of the highlights:

The kids really shocked us and did surprisingly well on both flights! Thank heavens for laptop computers to watch movies on!
Graham and Owen had a fabulous time together! We need to get these two together more often! They will be trouble when they get older, but for now they were just REALLY cute and fun!

The girls loved the hot tub. Mom is a chicken and because of O's breathing problems after the last hot tub exposure (which was probably completely irrelevant, but...) I wouldn't let him get in.

It was fun to see the lights at temple square again. It has been a long time. Although, it was thoroughly disappointing to hear that Grandpa Peterson had been replaced as the narrator of the Christmas story. What were they thinking?

The goodbyes are always the worst! The girls cried, and so did Grammy, but Liz could NOT pull it together for one last picture.

Thanks for all the fun!