New Year's Eve O'Connor style :)

First of all, it's kinda funny that I am posting this before it is officially the new year :) But we did have a FUN family New Year's Eve party! First, we ate lots of "junk" food. You health nuts don't judge ;) but we had pizza rolls, chicken wings, velveeta nachos, and candy! It's kinda tradition and we love it. After "dinner," we did the photo booth. Ashtyn and I had fun making the props and we all had fun taking the pictures. Then we played Spot It card game, Crazy 8's, did Sparklers, played Hide-n-go-seek in the dark, and made "noise makers" (by putting beads in empty water bottles. FYI they are NOISY!!)I also took them one by one and recorded them answering some questions like their favorite things. They gave some really cute answers :0 Around 8:00 we "rang" in the new year by making NOISE NOISE NOISE!! We blew "blowers", shook our bottles of beads, and threw confetti!! I am pretty sure the neighbors heard us. Then Chris had a sleepover with the kids in the living room. The boys slept in their tents (although Camden went to his bed, but Collin is fast asleep in his new tent.

Christmas 2012

I say this every year, but Christmas is just so much fun with kids. Our kids are at just the right ages where they still believe in Santa and get SO excited about Christmas. A couple days before Christmas, my family came.
Friday, my mom (mostly) and I made lots of goodies like, caramels, divinity, bread, toffee, etc. We went to a fun Christmas party put on by Desserae for just the adults on the Cram side. We ate dinner and played White elephant, Family Fued Christmas style, and an oven mitts game. It is always fun to get together with just the adults and have a relaxing fun night!

Sunday we went to church and Grandma made sugar cookies for the kids to frost for Santa.
Christmas Eve we made cinnamon rolls (to eat Christmas morning) and rolls for the Christmas Eve party, a cheese ball, and a jello salad. Needless to say, we did a lot of baking this past week, but was so fun! That night, we went to the party. We eat and exchange gifts so we each get to open 2 gifts which is always a blast! Chris and I got a "date night jar" with a gift card to Costa Vida, Ashtyn got a bead set and art set, Camden got a remote control car and transformer, Collin got a remote control car and another car, Adisyn got a stuffed monkey and a "phone." We went home, put out the cookies for Santa, and headed to bed!

Christmas morning we planned on opening gifts at 7:00 a.m. unless the kids woke up SUPER early. Well, Ashtyn woke up at 5:15 and she woke up Camden. So we decided to just let them open them at 6:00. I texted my family to be there at 6. It was early but I remembered being a kid and it was SO SO SO hard to wait and we figured we weren't gonna be able to go back to sleep, so what the heck! We always watch the Nativity movie before opening gifts (although nobody really watched it this year due to excitement :) I always like to look back at which year my kids got which toys, so here is a run down of what we each got :

Ashtyn got a "big" bike, karaoke machine w/cd, password journal, Princess "chapter book", underwear and stocking stuff from Santa, a Dream lite and fake nails from Grandma and Grandpa Cram, and an art set from Uncle Denny and Aunt Rachelle, and new scriptures with a case (that mom sewed). Camden got a bike "as bike as Ashtyn's", a ninja turtles sword/mask, koosh gun, Ninja turtles book, underwear and stocking stuff from Santa, Dream lite and ninja turtles cape from Grandma and Grandpa Cram, new scriptures/case from mom and dad, remote control helicopter from Denny and Rachelle. Collin got Magformers, ninja turtles sword/mask, Berenstain Bears book, mini nerf guns, and stocking stuff from Santa, scriptures/case from Mom and Dad, a tent/sleeping bag/flashlight and ninja turtles cape from Grandma and Grandpa Cram, an art set that projects images to trace from Denny and Rachelle. Adisyn got a baby doll, an "elephant" that blows balls up, and a farm animals book from Santa, a dress and jacket (that are THE cutest!) from G &G Cram, and a letter toy from Denny and Rachelle. Candice also got the kids this "cardboard playhouse" that you can color and play inside. The family got new games like UNO, connect 4, Spot It, and puzzles. Chris got a new TV for our bedroom and I got an Ipad. We were super spoiled and had a great Christmas season! It was so fun having my family here for this past week. It made it just that much better.

Before the madness:

Adisyn was so cute! She got really excited for all her presents and loved it all! She really loves to give her baby and monkey hugs and kisses. Side note: she started officially walking about 2 days before Christmas. Also, she has started nodding yes or no whenever you ask her a question. It is the cutest thing EVER :)

The kids and their new scriptures:

Christmas Tree FHE

Last night after our FHE lesson we made "Christmas Trees." I really like making gingerbread houses but they are messy and more involved than I wanted to do this year. I found this idea on pinterest to use sugar cones and make christmas trees. Our kids loved it and I think it was a great replacement of gingerbread houses.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

First, I want to write down about our crazy past week! First of all, we all had colds coming home from Salt Lake. Monday, Adisyn started throwing up for about an hour. Babies do random things so I was hoping it was just a fluke and not a sickness. She also had just had a cold and was teething 5 teeth. Poor baby! Well, Tuesday I woke up with a stomach ache and felt really awful. I just laid on the couch ALL day. Collin started throwing up about 5:00 p.m. I started the next morning. The next couple days were awful for us. Chris took the day off on Wednesday to take care of us. THEN, that night Adisyn fell off our bed and broke her wrist! She only has to have a soft cast on for two weeks, so it's not too bad. Collin is still pretty sick, but everyone else is much better!

Despite of all the sickness going on we have been doing some fun things to get ready for Christmas. Luckily I got the tree and decorations put up on Monday before all the madness began.

(This is random, but Ashtyn made me breakfast one morning with a sweet note!)

Fred, our elf, made his way back to our house! He brought jammies, movie, candy, and a Christmas book.

He's up to no good when we sleep though :) He changed our milk to green!

The kids decorated the tree and they did a cute job. All the ornaments right in the middle!

I finally felt good enough to finish it right!

That silly elf painted all our noses red like Rudolph! Can you believe that? The kids thought that was HILARIOUS! He sure brings a lot of joy to our family ;)

Although they look miserable, they really were happy about their noses being red. When I wanted a picture of their red noses they all gave me ugly faces. Poor Collin's face shows how he has felt all week, though.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we went up north for Thanksgiving. It was a first for us, but it ended up being a blast! We left Wednesday night. Thursday was Thanksgiving and we spent the day visiting, playing games, making Christmas crafts with the kids, and eating YUMMY YUMMY food! Since it was "Black Thursday" the girls all went shopping that night. I look forward to this weekend ALL year long. We never really have that important of things to get, but being in the hustle and bustle of everything is just SO fun. Plus, it's JUST the girls, (well, sorta!) But no little kids! We went to Walmart first, where I may have saw my life flash before my eyes, but was still so fun. (West Valley walmart may be a little sketchy! Ha!) Next, we went to Target and stood in the FOREVER long line and froze to death but still loved every minute of it. We went to a few more stores before going home to sleep for a few hours. Woke up early and were off fore MORE fun shopping, standing in line freezing, laughing, and fun!

Later that night, we all rode the Trax train up to Temple Square to see the lights. The kids loved the train and the lights. As soon as we got home from that, the girls went to the new Twilight movie. It is tradition to go to the new movie each Thanksgiving! We were exhausted, but we loved the movie. Shelli may, or may not have slept through the WHOLE movie,ha ha!

On Saturday, we drove up to the Park City Tanger Outlets to do more shopping. It was a really fun day! Here are some random pictures from our weekend:

These are from when we got all bundled up to go to Temple Square:

Here we are standing in line at Target waiting for it to open:

This was the line, wrapped all the way around the whole store!

Adisyn's 12 month checkup

I don't have any pictures but I need to write this down before I forget! Adisyn weighed 20 lbs. 3 oz at her 12 month checkup. She is in the 50th percentile for about everything. At 12 months she is:
*trying to walk and is SO close
*Her new words are: kiss, hat, though she doesn't say anything very often!
*loves her pink silky blanket and sucks on it like Collin did. My kids are weird!
*still take 2 two hour naps a day
*SO happy all the time

We just cannot get enough of her. She is the cutest sweetest thing EVER!

Ashtyn's 7th Birthday!

We had a pajama party for Ashtyn's birthday. It turned out to be a LOT of fun! First, each kid got to color on a pillowcase to take home. They all seemed to LOVE it. A couple girls worked on theirs the entire party. Next, we played pass the socks (similar to musical chairs.) We play Charades after that. They were surprisingly good at it, too! Only 2 kids didn't want a turn to act out the words. I kinda worried that more kids would be too shy, so I was relieved at how much they all participated. Then, we sang karaoke and danced! It was super loud, crazy, and fun! Once again, I wondered how many kids would be too shy. To my surprise, every single kid was crazy and singing and having fun! I actually had to put the microphone up because everyone was fighting over who got to hold the microphone. They all sang and danced for a while until cake and presents. Ashtyn was spoiled rotten by all her nice friends. She got lots of coloring, beading,make-up, girly stuff.

On her "real" birthday we went to pasta factory for dinner and opened presents. She pulls the BEST faces when she is super excited! She got an ipod and a jump rope from us.

I made a pajama pants cake. It turned out super ugly but Ashtyn was excited about it, so that's all the matters.