Justin's Christmas Wish List

I am not the greatest at going through my kids backpacks! Before I sent Justin back to school on Wednesday (he had strept throat on Tuesday) I cleaned out his backpack. I found his "Christmas Wish List" he had made at school. I was quite surprised to read what he wanted for Christmas. Keep in mind he is in Kindergarten, and all of the things on the list are the real thing, not a toy.

1. Nintendo DS
2. Laptop Computer
3. Dog
4. Gold Brick
5. School
6. Car
7. Basketball Court
8. Bus
9. House

The only thing he got from his list was his first thing. I don't quite know what to think of his list. When I was in Kindergarten I am sure my list was full of toys, but for some reason my kids don't really play with toys. When I asked him why he would want a house when we already have a nice house to live in he said he thought it would be fun to have one for himself that he didn't have to share!

Tyson's Christmas

The theme for Tyson this Christmas was definitely BYU. He recently got a mural painted on his wall and so he also got a lot of accessories for his room to help complete the BYU theme. Grandma Yardley wanted to contribute and bought him some BYU sweat pants which he would have loved if only they would have fit! I thought I could make them work, but after he held them up we knew there was no fixing them, so I got a new pair of sweats and I had to buy something else for him to have from Grandma (he chose football cards). Tyson also got a BYU book that he loves to read, a BYU rug, and a BYU wallet. He can never have enough BYU stuff. The picture at the top is a picture of his wall. One of the ladies that I visit teach painted it just by looking at a small picture of it. I am so thankful other people's talents! She told me it wasn't very hard and I probably could have done it myself, she obviously has never seen me try to paint!

Merry Christmas; Happy New Year

We hope that all of you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year; I know we all did. Christmas was wonderful for all of us, and despite what Tyson said in our Christmas letter, I really didn't get rid of all of our traditions, we actually added a few new ones. Everyone had a favorite gift... Emily - Guitar Hero; Tyson - Rip Stick; Justin - Nintendo DS; Ryan - Geo Trax (Nicole's favorite too!) Abigail - Dora Backpack; Jeff's - Digital Picture Frame (and everything else that Nicole gave him). We have had beautiful weather, but because of it being so warm it hasn't really seemed too much like the Christmas season. Here is my favorite picture of Justin and Abigail, it is not very often that we have one turn out this cute! The next picture is of the whole family the Sunday before Christmas. I don't know how to make the pictures go where I want them to yet. Maybe I will figure it out sometime this upcoming year!

2008 was a wonderful year for our family, despite everything that is going on around the world, we have been extremely blessed. We are so grateful for all of our blessings. The highlight of 2008 were our two trips this summer; one to Utah and the other to Pennsylvania.

We started the New Year off with a night full of games. We played games until 12:00 with the three oldest kids. It is fun now that they are old enough to really play. We spent New Years day just relaxing and Justin and Tyson played flag football with some friends. Tyson would like this to be a tradition every year.