Happy 2014!

 (Sorry pics are out of order, as usual.) Alice at McDonald's on New Year's Day.

 My magformer creation: What does the fox say?

 Now that Grace is done with ballet, we're back to the piano. I reviewed with her the stuff we learned before, and she remembered it all!

 A few pics we missed from last week: You can't see it, but after a long stretch of boring dry weather, it flurried for 10 minutes on Christmas Eve - it was magical!

 We had some friends over for Christmas Eve dinner, then we did the nativity with them, and ended the night with me reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

 When Mom/Dad Gabe arrived on Christmas night, they brought a few more gifts. They weren't wrapped, so Grandma would put each gift in a grocery sack, then have the person cover their eyes with a Santa hat and reach in. The hat covered Alice's whole head!

 Magformers have endless applications!

 We planned to start our New Year's diet goals on Jan. 2, since Jan. 1 was a holiday. So we went to dinner at McDonald's on New Year's Day. Each kid got a Happy Meal with their gift cards from Mom/Dad Flake. Thanks!

 Magformer earrings.

 Metal hairclips add to the fun!

 I love Paul!

 Elaine's husband surprised her with a family trip to visit Emily for New Year's. We went over for dinner on Friday and had a nice visit.

 Emily made delicious soup, bread, and chocolate chip cookies. (Well, Spencer made the cookies.)

 Paul and Clinton hit it off:) We really had fun.

 BYU suckers are messy.

 Such a boy - he got a helicopter and a John Deere tractor from Mom/Dad Gabe for Christmas.

 I took the kids to the library on Monday so they'd have plenty of books and movies for the last few days of the break. Grace LOVES reading!

 Cutie Alice.

 Cheerio!

 We couldn't find a sash to make him look more like the New Year's baby, but we took a naked picture anyway.

 Doing his workout.

 Ready to pounce.

 Aaaah! Extreme close-up!

 Cinderella was a good helper when Grace went back to school on Thursday. She helped me do the dishes, then washed the table.

 She gets to marry the prince!

 Friday was a snow day! Grace had school off, but Paul still had to work from home. We all decided to play in the snow.

 Charlie was excited!

 It was bitter cold. The beautiful wet snow that we'd watched fall for hours the night before froze into ice crystals and powder. We couldn't build with it.

 Charlie sat on the tarp to stay warm. He actually cried a lot - it was so cold!

 We stayed between fences to block the wind. It was in the teens.

 Cold!

 We got the trash can lid and sledded a little.

 I finally took Charlie in because his face was getting so red.

 Paul took the girls out front to shovel the sidewalk.

 Cool icicles on our front siding.

 Our official snow shoveler. We chose him over the guy who rang our doorbell at 10:30 at night and wanted us to pay him to shovel our sidewalk while it was still snowing hard.

 All of the kids have gotten back into the piano spirit!

 Grace's New Year's resolution is to read two pages of the Book of Mormon everyday so she can be done before next year. (She turns 8 in 2015.) Paul and I are doing it too, in addition to our other scripture studies, for solidarity. Anyone else care to join? (We do allow catching up if you miss a day!)

 Last night for our date, Paul and I messed around with familysearch.org. I uploaded some pictures of Grandma and Grandpa Emery, since there weren't any in there for them.

Happy first day of primary! She was nervous today, and I had to sit with her for a few minutes, then she moved back a few rows and sat with Grace, but they said she finally did go to her own class. Charlie, however, made me hang out in the nursery with him. It's gonna be a long 4 months before he can go in there officially. 

The Verhaarens watched our kids yesterday so we could go to the temple. Alice hurt herself with a board or something, so it will look like she has jam on her lip for a little while. The kids loved playing the Wii while they were there - who wants to get us one? We spent most of the afternoon at a baby shower (whole family invited), but the kids were tired from playing all morning, so we had a rough time with them. Good food and visiting though. We put the kids to bed at 6:30, and Charlie got up at 8:15 this morning!