Christmas Day

I took a few pictures on Christmas morning, but then didn't take any the rest of the day. I definitely have NOT been taking many pictures lately!!Handing out the presents.
Rob tries out his new bow as Dad looks on.
Morgan holds up the skirt that Marissa got for her and she is wearing the hat that Grandma Housley made for her. The girls all loved their hats from Grandma. When Marissa picked out this skirt she felt like it was a perfect Morgan thing.

Marissa got a GPS which she is really excited to use when she goes to college. Rob got his bow and a bunch of presents that he picked out online and ordered. I thought it was great that he just took care of my shopping for me. Morgan got a flip cam and a camera. Maddie got a camera and a DSI XL ( a complete surprise and a definite hit!). Reagan got a motorized scooter which she loves. The whole family got some games and a Play Station 3. The girls have especially enjoyed Killer Bunnies and Pit and Rob has loved the PS3.

Christmas Eve

We had over 50 people over to our house for Christmas Eve. Normally, we go to our friends house on Christmas Eve. This year I offered that they could hold their party at our house. They loved the idea so it was at our house instead. We had the regular people plus my friend Lori's family, a new family and the missionaries. Once again I didn't get my camera out, but at the very end of the party Megan got my camera out and took some pictures.
Jeff - This was our last chance to see him before he left to start college at BYU.
Trent
Marissa - Kind of a scary picture, but Megan loved it.
We read the Christmas story from the Bible and then we passed out the pajama presents to the kids. They were looking and looking for Rob's and weren't able to find it. When they told me they couldn't find it, I remembered it wasn't wrapped. Whoops!!
Marissa, Rob, Morgan, Maddie & Reagan in their Christmas pajamas. (It's grainy because the battery on my nice camera was dead!)
The Christmas tree after all of the presents were out and Santa had come!! Grandma and Grandpa Hislop gave Morgan & Maddie the big stuffed dogs. They had seen them at Sam's and fell in love with them. I was hoping they might forget about them, but they didn't. They both love their dogs!!

Reagan's School Christmas Parties

Reagan had two school parties at Kindergarten this year. At the first one, they made small gingerbread houses. The houses are assembled in advanced using a glue gun. The kids are then able to frost and decorate their own house.Reagan intent on decorating her house.
Reagan's finished house. She did it all by herself.
The second party was a grinch feast. Nancy's mom couldn't come so Nancy got to sit by me so I could be the Mom to both of them.
The yummy food for the grinch feast.
The kids watched the cartoon of the Grinch while they ate their treats!!

Rose Hill Wrestling Tournament

Rob is in 9th grade and he weighs 80 pounds. The lowest weight class in wrestling in high school is 103. We were prepared for a long miserable wrestling season, because giving up 23 pounds plus is a LOT of weight to give up in wrestling. Most the time when Rob weighs in he weighs between 83 to 85 pounds but that is with is clothes on, shoes on, cookies in his pocket, etc. Rob's head coach told me that after the Valley Center meet the head coach said to him afterwards, "That little guy on your team, when he gets to be 100 pounds he is going to be a man among boys!" He is wrestling jv because he isn't big enough to wrestle varsity and the varsity kid at 103 from Rob's school is the defending state champ and has never lost a high school match. Rob's record is 7-1 and at least half of his wins have been by pins He has only wrestled one kid that was as small as he was and he pinned him in the first round.This was Rob's first match of this tournament. You can see how much bigger the other kid is.
Rob pinning his opponent.
Rob lost to this kid 3-0. This kid looked a little smaller then some of the others, but we are guessing he was still at least 15 pounds heavier than Rob. The tournament was a round robin tournament and you got more points for a pin. Rob pinned his other 2 opponents and ended up winning the tournament even though he lost this match.

The River Walk

This was my first visit to San Antonio. We went down to the River Walk for at least a little bit all 3 days that we were in San Antonio. It was really neat!The first day was at night and we went and walked around and saw the Christmas lights at the River Walk. We ended the evening by Grandma buying Morgan a chocolate covered strawberry from the chocolate store. Morgan loved it!
Morgan had my small camera and she definitely took a lot more pictures on the trip then I did.
The second day we rode a boat around the river. This is an optical illusion that we saw of the face of a building where it looks like it is just free standing all by itself.
A big Christmas tree we saw from the boat.
A really pretty picture at the River Walk taken by Morgan.
Andy poses with Morgan.
Morgan posing
Lance doesn't want to miss out on the posing fun.
Morgan running up and down the stairs getting her P.E. in since she is missing it at school.
Mom and Morgan
The whole group - not a great picture, but the best one I had. Morgan is the photographer.
Kim, Jill, Me and Mom - My sisters and Mom.
Andy, me and Kim. Andy loves to harrass me!

Track Coaches Hall of Fame Banquet

All of my brothers and sisters and their spouses and my parents went to San Antonio to see Dad inducted into the College Track Coaches Hall of Fame. Mark couldn't get away from work so Morgan went with me instead. The others all flew from Utah, but it was only a 10 1/2 hour drive for us so Morgan and I just drove. It worked out perfect because we stopped in Edmond and saw friends on the way down and we stopped in Wylie on the way back.
John Anderson was the master of ceremonies for the program. He is an analyst for ESPN and he is also one of the hosts for the show "Wipeout". He was really, really funny and entertaining!
This was the start of the clip they showed about Dad.
Dad giving his speech
Dad with Dan Walker who is the current Weber State head track coach and the one who was onstage with him to present him the medal and trophy.
Wade Bell, Mom, and Dad. Wade was a college track star for my Dad who went on to be a star athlete at University of Oregon and an Olympian. Wade came from Oregon to see Dad inducted.
The boys - Andy, Chris, Dad, Lance & Kurt.
The people inducted into the 2010 Track Coaches Hall of Fame or their representatives.

Definitely Not a Super 8!!

When we went on our trip during the summer, we stayed at almost all Super 8 motels. Morgan is definitely not used to staying somewhere fancy! She was so impressed when we got to the Marriott Resort & Spa that we stayed at in San Antonio. She called it the castle and she took tons of pictures!!Morgan in our room.

The Christmas tree downstairs.
Morgan on our deck. ( We were the only ones in our group that had a room with a full-sized deck. It was great!!)
The view from our deck. The motel and grounds were beautiful!! It was in the 70's outside and the next day Morgan even got to go swimming outside in the motel's water park. Definitely, a great way to spend a December day!

Family Christmas Pictures

We had a family picture from Dave's wedding in April which we were going to use for Christmas cards. However, Marissa got her braces off this week and she really wanted to have a picture without her braces. Marissa tie-dyed matching Christmas shirts for us for the pictures. Today was pretty much the coldest, windiest day of the year; not a good day for picture taking!! We couldn't find the piece we needed to attach the camera to the tripod so we set the camera on a stool to take pictures. We were really struggling and then the doorbell rang. Everyone was excited because it meant we would have someone to take our pictures. Our 8 year old neighbor Hailey was at the door. I showed Hailey how to push the button down and hold it to take repeat pictures and so Hailey took the pictures.

Our best inside picture, but we decided to just brave the cold and wind and try a few outdoor pictures.
The best picture of Kate.
The picture we eventually used. It isn't perfect, but it was definitely the best one!

Treat Exchanges

Every year I host a Holiday Treat Exchange and it is one of my favorite Christmas activities. This year I hosted two treat exchanges. Both groups had 10-12 people in them. I didn't get any pictures at the treat exchanges, but I took pictures of the treats after everyone left.The treats from the 1st treat exchange.
The treats from the 2nd treat exchange.

Failed Taffy

I tried out a new recipe of peppermint salt water taffy. It definitely did not work. I let Reagan help me pull it. We kept putting butter on our hands and the taffy kept getting more and more buttery and it was definitely not forming like taffy.
Once I decided it was a flop, I just let Reagan play in it. It entertained her until she left for school. After school, she played with it some more along with Maddie. Our neighbors Bella and Mason played with it, too. Even though the taffy was a flop, the experience was definitely a huge success!!

Our Very Decorated Tree

Last year we had two Christmas trees. This year when we got out the Christmas tree, half of the lights weren't working. We used what we had and put icicle lights on the tree. (We bought new lights for the outside this year, because the kids thought our icicle lights were outdated). Rob then decided that it would be a challenge to put every ornament we owned on the tree. Marissa thinks our tree is tacky with all the homemade and mismatched ornaments, but the rest of us like it. Rob kept saying, "I love our tree. It brings out the Christmas spirit of a child!" He said this enough times that Marissa was getting really, really irritated.Morgan, Rob & Reagan decorating the tree.
Our lovely tree.
Rob adds some more ornaments.