We survived!!!

Quick notes-
 Joe and I celebrated 8 years of marriage and 10 years of togetherness this fall. I can't believe that it's been that long.
 I turned 34 by spending the evening in the federal women's prison. It was a wonderful experience. The bell choir from my ward performed and Christmas program and the spirit was wonderful. I even played well. :) Joe took a photo of my cake before the kids went to bed.
 Molly turned 5. Again, where have the years gone? She is such a funny girl. She likes to make her eyes go crazy, and I have finally found a way to break her when she's upset. Tell her not to smile, not to laugh, and she can't help but smile and giggle.
 Zachary turns 5 months in just a few days. Oh my. I can't believe it. He's such a wonderful addition to our family. He sleeps on a schedule that is so his own. I can almost set my watch to it, especially the 11 pm wake up. Though I am excited for that to end so that I can get enough sleep at night. He giggles so cute. He loves for me to hold him. And he's gained weight and is up to the 15 percentile. Woo hoo.
  The bell choir performance in the Christmas church program went well. We had one major mistake in not explaining to the congregation that that was an interlude in one song that they sang with us so they went right into the third verse of Silent Night and we all dropped out one by one as we realized that we weren't in the right spot. I made a lovely mistake to open The First Noel, one that I hadn't made before so I didn't even realize that the mistake was me and made it twice. Oops, really obvious because they were solo notes, oh well. At least we got the endings right. :) Quite an enjoyable experience overall.
 My in-laws brought us a Christmas tree back form the mountains before Thanksgiving so we've had it around for a while. So the day after Christmas it was undecorated, de-lighted, and chopped up by noon. I love all the Christmas decor but after a while it's nice to de-stuff the house.
  We really tried to concentrate on Christ this year for the Christmas season. We read scriptures and hung ornaments each morning having to do with the life of Christ. We left off from the tree most of our disney and secular ornaments from the tree and around the house. It's so amazing how quickly kids pick up on the santa and all the jazz so that aspect needs little encouragement from us. I think it was a wonderful 25 days of Christ. The girls got so excited to hold the picture or pull out the ornament, to read the scriptural account of the life of Jesus. I can't wait to do this every year. The learned so much. Next year I would like to make a felt nativity scene to go along with the three toy sets we have. I saw one on pinterest that looks so cute.