Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of Christ this year and we hope all of you did too. Some highlights of this year's festivities for our family included acting out the nativity on Christmas Eve night, our annual Christmas Eve Joseph and Mary dinner (pitas, fish, and grape juice), watching and participating in the Swift family talent show, visiting family on Skype, visiting the reindeer in downtown Anchorage, checking out Christmas lights, talking to Isaac who is on his mission in Japan (via Skype and then speaker phone), planning out and searching for gifts to give each other, attending the ward Christmas dinner, watching our favorite Christmas movies (The Nativity Story, Mr. Krueger's Christmas, Joy to the World, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, and White Christmas to name a few), picking out and decorating a tree, and enjoying the snow while living so close to the north pole.

This year we also started a couple of new traditions that really brought the Spirit into our home. First, each night from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve we sat down as a family and had a special Christmas Devotional. For these devotionals Julia would draw a yellow star out of a small box that had a story from Christ's life on it to share with the children, then Ethan would draw a green bell out of the box which had the number for a Christmas hymn to sing, and finally we ended with a family prayer. It was a fun activity that our children looked forward to each night and it helped us really focus on Christ throughout the Christmas season. Second, for one FHE we each decided on a gift we wanted to give to Jesus and wrote it down on paper hearts to hang on the tree; throughout the month as we saw the hearts we were reminded to be working on those gifts.

Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas too. Here are some pictures from December including our yearly family picture. We took it with our camera on timer at UAA in one of the classrooms, so it's definitely not very professional (but at least the background is authentic!). With the poor lighting from only 4-5 hours of sunlight a day, we haven't had the chance to take too many pictures of our other activities.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for and we love this holiday because it reminds us to focus on expressing our gratitude. In the most recent General Conference, President Monson said "Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of Heaven and helps us feel God's love." Although we would have loved to be around family this Thanksgiving, we definitely felt God's love for us as we took time over this past week to reflect on all of the many blessings He has given us.

It ended up being just us five for dinner. Our menu consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, Lion House rolls, green Jello, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sparkling cider, pumpkin pie, and blueberry pie. What a feast!

The next morning we went out shopping--mostly for the sport of it all. Later that afternoon we went sledding using Julia's new birthday sled. Even though we only stayed out for about 30 minutes (it started getting pretty cold), we had a lot of fun.

Joshua and Julia

Rebecca and Ethan

Then on Saturday we got our Christmas tree. Because we weren't really sure on the regulations for cutting down trees in the National Forests here (we're not familiar with the boundaries), we were hoping to find a tree at a local tree farm. That is what we did last year and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any in Anchorage. However, Lowes saved the day with some newly cut trees. We were able to get our tree, set it up, and decorate it that night.

Other exciting news: today after church we saw a moose running in toward the parking lot. It was a big bull with huge antlers. It stopped abruptly right before the church parking lot, turned around and then ran back off the same way it came--it looked so funny! Our current Moose count is: Joshua--9, Rebecca--5, Julia--6, Ethan--5, Christian--?

Christian Crawling

Christian has started crawling. It is not your typical crawl, but at least he is getting where he wants to go on his own. Although he has always been happy, he seems a little happier now that he can get around.

One year older and wiser too

Last week Julia turned four years old. We celebrated by opening presents first thing in the morning (at her request of course), going to an indoor kids' water park (it included two kids' pools, water slides, and a huge pirate ship), and enjoying some of Julia's favorite meals (breakfast cake and sausage for breakfast and macaroni and cheese for dinner). She then got to stay up as late as she wanted and she made it through two movies: Aristocats and Beauty and the Beast. She had a great time and we loved seeing her so delighted. She really is growing up!

She was really excited to open presents, but surprisingly patient--maybe because she had snuck out and saw us putting together her new bicycle the night before.

Playing with and wearing some of her new things.

Insisting that Ethan not blow out the candles!

6'1"?

So we've been waiting for Ethan to turn two and a half so that we could try out the height prediction theory--you double his height at 30 months to find his adult height (with girls you do it at 24 months). So Ethan was 36.5"--check back with us in about 16 years to see if it's accurate! Julia's at 24 months was 34.5".

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! This year we had a penguin, a bat, and a ballerina.

Had to include two pictures of him on this post. He just has such a great smile (amazingly he would turn on the grin as soon as he saw the camera lights). You can see the two bottom teeth, but he also he also has four that have all recently poked through on the top.

Julia chose to be a ballerina again this year. We were a little surprised because she could have been Cinderella, Snow White, or even a pirate -- but she chose a ballerina even though it was only 30 degrees out. Luckily they do a lot of indoor trick-or-treating in Alaska.

Ethan got to be the bat again. I guess Julia and Ethan were just duplicates from last year, but they really liked their costumes, and at least Ethan's was really warm.

So this year we went to a carnival at UAA. It was a total flop! It was really crowded and the only activities were booths with long lines that cost lots of tickets. The kids ended up using their tickets for a beanbag toss and balloon animals. After standing in line for a few more things we decided just to head to the tri-ward Halloween party.

The church party was great! There were tons of booths, candy, food, and activities. One of the wards in our building is a Samoan ward. They went all out with a haunted house on the stage, a bunch of spooky booths and cool costumes! They were also super generous with handing out candy--I think after visiting two booths our kids bags were already full! There was also a cake walk and a mad scientist's lab, among other things. We all had a fun time inside, then went outside for hot chocolate and grilled hot dogs.

The kids were really excited about their loot. It was a lot more than what it looks like in this picture. This is before mom and dad tax--all of the good stuff :)--has been taken out though.

Our Star

Julia was in her first primary program! She did awesome! She had her part memorized and she didn't get stage fright at all. She just walked up to the microphone and with her head barely peaking over the podium she said her part. On top of that she sat pretty reverently in her spot up on the stand throughout the program. We are so proud of her!

She talked us into letting her wear her Christmas dress early for the program.

"I love my family because we read scriptures together and learn about Jesus and Heavenly Father." She said it much clearer for the program.