Hsiao Family Christmas Party

While Mark's brother Luke was in town we had the Hsiao family (minus those not in Utah at the time) over for a Hsiao Christmas party.  It was a fantastic day!  We ate two huge amazing meals, the kids went sledding, some people rode horses, and Mark and Luke prepared items for each kid to make their own marshmallow shooters, which were then used for an epic marshmallow war outside.  It was so much fun and so nice to be with family!  My brother-in-law took some great pictures of the kids sledding.  I love this one of Timmy!

December 2015

As always December was packed with parties, concerts, fun and all sorts of Christmas season joys!  At the beginning of the month Brian and Timmy had their Reflections Contest awards assembly.  Timmy won for his piano composition and Brian got a participation award for his artwork.  There were over 50 artwork participants and only 3 music composition entries.

Mark built part of the horse stall wall in the barn using this really cool huge gate that was here on the property when we moved in.  It is so neat to re-purpose such a solid interesting piece.  I wish I knew it's history.

The boys decorated the entire Christmas tree which we got at the Black Friday Home Depot sale.  It was fun for me to sit on the couch and watch them enjoy decorating.

Timmy testing out the Christmas light glasses.

One weekend in December our renters moved out to their home they bought and the next day our new renters moved in.  We had a few hours in between to finish cleaning up the apartment and to patch and paint some spots on the walls.  How's that for not missing a day of rent?  The new couple living in the apartment is fantastic and they seem to like the place.  They had to move on the craziest snow day of the month, but Mark got the drive and paths cleared for them so it wasn't too much trouble.

I helped Timmy's Kindergarten class make candy houses.  Timmy thought it was so cool he asked for a gingerbread house to decorate for Christmas.

I baked for the first time in months and made cookies for the ward party.  They were delicious, but I was reminded why I don't bake very often.  It is so much work and clean up!

The ward party was a success with a great visit with Santa and a lovely dinner with friends.

 At home I tried to keep the horses well fed through all that snow!

Mark traded his little utility trailer for a much larger and more useful one.  He has been fixing it up and he put hay bales and Christmas lights on it so he could pull the youth of the ward around to sing Christmas carols.  They had a great time and it worked very well.

Mark gave the boys a haircut.

During Christmas break Brian and Timmy made a huge blanket fort in the basement where we read many books and they slept there a few nights.

We had so much fun enjoying the Christmas spirit!

The weekend before Christmas, Mark's brother Luke came into town from Stanford.  We were lucky enough to have him stay with us because Mark's parents are on their mission.  Brian and Timmy loved having him here!  We really missed Sunny but we were so happy to have a favorite uncle for a few days!

Not only did Luke play with the boys, help them with their homework and practicing, babysit for us while we went to a party, and helped clean the house, but he also taught them how to program.  Brian thought is was pretty cool!  Thank you Luke for visiting and helping with so much. It was so appreciated especially with me being sick.

 During Christmas break we got to do our annual TRAX trek downtown to see the Grand America and Temple Square.  They boys look forward to this every year and they often say their favorite part is riding the train.

 After Christmas we had two of Mark's best high school/college friends and their families over.  I don't know why I didn't take pictures, but it was so fun to see them and meet their kids!  We decorated cookies with them and then Brian and Timmy finished decorating that evening.

Timmy went nuts on the frosting!

During the break we also went swimming at my parents condo. It was such a fun time.  The boys love swimming and having Mark there and cousins made it even more fun!

Brian also got four teeth pulled over the break to make room for teeth coming in.  We also caught several different viruses including a stomach bug and a nasty cough that just won't go away.  It was kind of nice to just be home and recover and relax.  December was wonderful as always!

Samiclaus Party 2015

This year we were able to spend the whole day up at the ranch for the Samiclaus party.  I'm so glad I got ranch Christmas time in on that day, because Brian was sick Christmas Eve and we didn't make it up there.

The kids started out playing outside on the cool natural ice sculpture from the fountain.

Several times I looked out to see Brian practically swimming in the ice cold water.  He thought it was pretty awesome.

There was also a fascination with the ice on the pond.  Luckily this year Timmy did not fall through like last.

I helped get the yummy food ready.

After dinner while we waited for Samiclaus, my mom helped the kids make marshmallow snowmen.

Then before we were even finished with the snowmen we heard that Samiclaus was here!  We all gathered around for each to take their turn getting a bag full of goodies!

He told Timmy that he is really good at doing homework and practicing, but he needs to remember to not make a mess with his toothpaste.

Brian was a little shy and dashed out of there as fast as he could.  I think Samiclaus told him to keep his room picked up.

Brian wasn't shy though about digging into that bag of goodies there with his cousins.

Then everyone performed a Christmas song while we danced and enjoyed.

Timmy got to finish his snowman.

And then they went outside again to play.  Timmy's snow stuff was so wet that Grandma got him some items to wear from the stockpile at the ranch.  A too short red jumper with pink and blue huge gloves and to top it all off some tissue in his nose to stop it from bleeding. He was still cute.

Thank you Samiclaus and to my mom for the perfectly perfect Samiclaus day!