Christmas 2011

This year we decided to stay home,  it was our first Christmas ever away from family.

 The kids were pretty good and didn't get up to early

That is one way to come down

 We hid a present for the kids up in the media room which as you can see up to this point had really just been a storage room. They were so excited and before long we had the room cleaned up and transformed into this

I got a new phone

We had a great year. We got up and opened the gifts left from Santa, had breakfast and then got ready for church. After church we came home played around with our gifts and then later that evening opened gifts from each other. I was a very relaxing enjoyable day.

Christmas Past

Photos Nov. 11

Gram needed a picture of the kids for her Christmas card so one Sunday after church we stopped at a neat spot and came up with a few.

Of course there had to be some fun

In the end this is the one she ended up using

The funny thing is this is not a typical Austin scene. In fact the kids kept saying how much it looked like Utah in the fall. Very few trees change colors here. Apparently we found a cluster of the trees that do.

Gingerbread house tradition

Whitney

Back

Landon

Every Thanksgiving night the kids decorate gingerbread houses. They are getting better every year.

Whit

Halloween

 Mike and I dressed up for a Halloween party with our friends

Whitney went to soccer practice. What a mean coach

Halloween afternoon Teegan walked past a big box in the garage and decided he wanted to be a lego or a robot. Whitney and I spent the next few hours making him a robot costume. It only lasted a street or two and he came back home to change. He could not walk very fast and worst of all he could not put his arms together very well to get the candy and put it in the bag. All the work, sigh. Oh well, he said everyone told him it was the best costume of the night.

End of Season

   A  plain bar of iron is worth about five dollars. But that same iron, if made into horseshoes, would be worth $10.50. If it were made into needles, it would be worth $3,285. And if turned into balance springs for watches, its worth would be over $250,000.

Apparently the value of the raw iron is only what it costs to process it from the hill. Its greater value is determined by what is made of it. People are much the same as iron. You or I can remain nothing more than raw material, or we can be polished to a high degree. Our value is determined by what we make of ourselves.

          -Pres Spencer W Kimball