Great Christmas!

We had a great Christmas. Just a few photos

Christmas Morning

I got a new flash for my Canon (LOVE IT!)

Christmas at my parents house

The quilt we made for my parents. They loved it! Mom cried

Sweet Kitty

I was going to post this pictures to show you how cute our kitty is. She loved those moose. She was pretty excited about the Christmas tree too. She would spend a good part of the day behind it, drinking it's water and playing with the branches. She was such a good kitty. I'm so sorry to say she died yesterday. Jonathan found her outside, she'd been hit by a car. We don't know when or how she got out. But that doesn't matter. She's gone and we are so sad. 

Graham Cracker Village 2010

 It's that time of year again. The construction of our Graham Cracker Village. We added a person this year and Luke made one too.

 

 Nathan working very hard on his haunted mansion

Hannah's Jeep and Teresa's Disney Castle

Luke and Ian's

Michelle's lake and fishing boat(is the snowman winking at me?)



Serina's barn



My dream house ;)

Ty's lighthouse

Jonathan's old town building

Christmas at Disneyland

Last week we took the kids to Disneyland. It was Nathan's first time. We got their early enough Tuesday evening to check out Downtown Disney. The Lego store is by far the coolest place. There were huge lego creations everywhere.

We surprised the kids with breakfast with Mickey and Friends. It was really fun. There weren't very many people there. The kids danced with the characters, play surfed, took pictures and got autographs. The breakfast was good too, they had so many different things. Oh and Santa was right outside the PCH Grill. What a treat that was. He was the best, nicest Santa I've ever seen. Nathan insisted he sign his autograph book. So cute!

They didn't actually ride the teacups - not a ride to take Nathan on. But a cute picture spot

Nathan calls it Little Town, instead of Small World

Tom Sawyer Island

What's Disneyland without Churros?!

We had a really great time. The day went super smooth, we didn't wait in line for too long and we got to ride every ride we set out to ride, two of them twice. We were also in the right place at the right time. For lunch we stopped at the Golden Horseshoe - and got a show too. Then, for the firework show - something we weren't trying to see, since rides were the priority, we walked out of our last rides and down the street a ways to a perfect spot to see the show and get snowed on. If you've never been at Christmas time, it is worth another visit. It's amazing!

Our Tree

I love that our Christmas tree has history.





 





This is for Jen, and anyone else who would like to know about the ornaments. The first one is from my aunt Nedra, in 1981. I believe is was one of the first ornaments she gave me. She gave all the kids ornaments for many years. The second is from Cambria , CA - the first time we visited there. The BABY wagon was Teresa's first ornament. The Disneyland was from my mom the year we went to Disneyland as a family in 2003. The little Raggedy Ann is one I made for Teresa in 2000 - it's the year I started giving ornaments to all my neices and nephew, just like my aunt did. But back then there were only 5 kids, now there are almost 22. The Mrs Claus was another one from my aunt. I believe one of my brothers got a Santa - I have a lot of cool ornaments from my aunt, some from foreign places. The last is Nathan's first onrament. I have one from Mexico, and Hawaii. And my mom gives us one, that sums up something about the past year. We have a little gingerbread house one for the year we bought a house. It's just full of memories and history, and I really love it.

And here is our latest addition - we took the family to Disneyland yesterday. More on that in another post. I will just say this. The day was Perfect, absolutely perfect!

Some Pics from a fun Weekend

Quick summary - train craft at Lowe's(not pictured) Craft at Michael's, Chic-fil-a, x-mas tree, decorating, playing, and a huge leaf pile is from Monday. I raked the leaves Friday and then we had a storm Sunday. Oh and Teresa saw Harry Potter with Grandma and Grandpa Sat evening.

Sproul Family Reunion

It was our year to host or plan to Sproul family reunion. So the idea was to gather in St. George for Thanksgiving and a fun day of games on Friday. We originally thought a picnic would be nice, but the weather was too cold for food and games. So we had some delicious burgers that James and Michael grilled for us and then headed to a nearby park for some games. The park was all decorated for Christmas with a huge tree(which I didn't get a pic of).

First a little tug-o-war

My brother John against all the kids



From the kids side
John won once and the kids won once



Oh yes, a little tug with girls on one side, boys on the other

Teresa is the only granddaughter, so I was helping,
then my dad helped, but we still lost. But it was fun :)





An egg toss - with plastic eggs full of birdseed



Down to 3 teams - Justin and Dylan ended up winning

We borrowed two really fun outdoor games from Ty and Michelle (thanks!)

A Three-legged race




We needed stronger twine
Rick and Justin

 


Nathan and Braden held it together and won





Here is the whole gang that was there that day. Michael left the night before.

 After the park we piled in the cars and a few of us went to check out a Geo cache.

The sun was going down, it was beautiful .



Here is Justin with the box they found. It was fun!



Nathan got out of the car without his coat, so he got really cold walking to the site.
Jonathan wrapped him in his coat, and by the time we got home, he was out

This isn't from Friday - although we did have a leftover Turkey dinner that night.
This is the spread John made us for Thanksgiving. Yum!

It was a really great weekend. Thanks to all that helped make it so nice! The rest of the Utah Sproul's were up north spending it together, so we weren't all in the same spot, but with family non the less



*Can I just say, I really hate the new format to upload pictures, I'm about ready to ditch blogger - too frustrating*