holly jolly christmas

our weekend was wonderful, full of family, food (oh, the food I consumed!), and frolic. we hope that all of you enjoyed Christmas, celebrating the great gift of our Redeemer and eternal families. Ian was able to give a talk yesterday in primary and did a wonderful job summing up why this season is wonderful and why we celebrate. His theme was 'I know that my Redeemer lives'. He talked about Grandpa Dan (my father), Grandpa Harry and Grandma Duck how even though they have died and aren't with us anymore we know that we'll be with them again because of the gift our Savior gave each of us. Such a simple subject, but it has had me thinking about how blessed I am and what a wondrous gift the gospel is to each of us. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope that you feel Heavenly Father's great love for each of you throughout the year. Enjoy some of our picsenjoying the Cementary luminaries.  Grandpa & Grandma's headstone looked beautiful.  They were so loved.

the nativity at Grandpa & Grandma Denie's house a holiday tradition that gets better and better.  we're pro now, we even have costumes.  we're just missing one wiseman and everyone seems to think that means austin & i are supposed to have another baby.  i'm still not too sure about that yet, though it's not entirely out of question either.

Joseph and Mary

Christmas Day at our house.  Busy fun.

Josh got a thumbwrestling ring and was the champ for quite a while till Tyler finally took him down.

Austin got a catapult, which Mick used to bombard the other party goers with cottonballs.  I liked this pic because of his maniacal look picking out his next target.

The whole nativity cast.

pillow pets were a huge hit at our house Christmas morning.

Ian "mantis" Cope

Fiona & Lydia loved the furniture that Santa found for their dollhouse

Fiona, the baby unicorn

 

the boys working on their legos

 On Christmas Eve we played outside and had a great time in the snow.  It was perfect for snowmen, snowball fights, making snow mountains to climb on, sledding and even building snow forts.  Austin worked on his fort while the kids were down for quiet time.  It took him a little over an hour to finish it.  He leveled the ground, made sure it was square and level.  He's quite the builder.  The kids loved it and it only took them less than 15 minutes to totally destroy it while Austin was napping to recuperate.  We had a talk about non-destructive play.

 

they really brought the walls down fast.