Merry Christmas Mom and Dad!

This year for my Mom and Dad, we painted their family room and built a mantle around their fireplace. Jeff and Mindy planned it all out and we met them on Tuesday to help with cleaning, moving furniture, and painting. Curtis and Brittany helped with painting too. Sharlie and Jason helped out by watching all the kids. We did the whole thing in one night while they were at a company party for Dad's work. It wasn't a total surprise since Jeff had asked Mom which wall she would want painted. But the mantle was more of a surprise.

It turned out really good and makes their home feel so much warmer. We hope you like it Mom and Dad!

Goofy Burk Boys

Monday, the 17th we had fun playing with Parker and Payton. Those boys are so much fun- so full of energy. Payton loved making a melting face for the camera. And Parker flexed his big muscles. Mom and Dad Burk took us to The Pie. They have the yummyest pizza ever. Then we went to the South Jordan ice rink and watched the ice skaters.

Home for the Holidays

We made it to Utah with few complications. We just had to reschedule our flights from Richmond. Which meant we left 3 hours later and flew to Atlanta instead of Cincinnati. We were happy to be going south of the storm instead of right through it. As a gift from the Delta lady that rescheduled our flight, she upgraded us to first class on the second leg of our trip. We could tell that she didn't want anyone else to know what she had done because she whispered it to us and then whispered, "Merry Christmas." It was great. We had the best airline food ever -grilled chicken, manicotti, salad, roll, and cheesecake! I love first class!

Girl's Night!!

The first night we were here Ann got all the girls from high school together for a Girl's Night of dinner and games. Ann made some very yummy enchiladas. And then we played the Wii - but mostly we just talked and caught up. It was so good to see Falen, Ellie, Carlee, Bethany, and Jessica. Thanks Ann for putting it all together. Maybe we should make this a tradition :)

Elise insisted on having her own Wii remote. She would get upset if someone tried to give her a tv remote. She even has her own Wii remote with no batteries in it. And Sophie was as cute as ever with her stylin' hat. Matt has really enjoyed getting to know his little nieces better. He will even pick them up and play with them.

The guys wasted no time in setting up the basement for their Halo 3 tournaments. They have been waiting months to play all together in the same room and now they play every spare moment they can. The only problem is they all need their own tv and XBox. They aren't really good at sharing yet. Can you see the determination in Matt's face? You can't talk to him at all when he's in "the zone." (he gets mad)

Night with the Chapman Clan

2Sunday all the Chapmans had a really nice dinner. Then Tom read some pages from a cool book based on an experience some soldiers had during WW2. I'm interested to read the rest of it. Sophie was being so cute (as usual) while she was eating her vegetables and puffs. I got to use my zoom lens to get some good close ups while she was playing with Brian.

The guys played video games...surprise, surprise. Even Grandma and Grandad came to say hi. Oh, and Justin came to play games with the guys.

The Plane

When we were in North Carolina Matt bought a Wright Brothers model airplane. He started working on it as soon as we got home but had to stop because of school. After all his tests were done he moved all his pieces out to the dining area and quickly took over the apartment with pieces of his plane. He worked really hard on it for three or four days and it looks great. I didn't realize how big it would be. Everyone has asked Matt if he is going to display it in our apartment. He quickly tells them, "No. I'm going to fly it. I didn't make it just to look at it." The box said it can be a kite or a glider. It will be fun to see it flying (i hope).

One Last Party

We got together one last time with our friends before leaving for Utah. We exchanged some gifts (Matt got a princess poodle, Brian got a princess party kit, Kimberly and I got a glass bear filled with the ingredients for brownies, Cameron and Haley got a labyrinth game, and Brian and Kimberly got Barbie Uno). We played with their kittens, then played Hand and Foot. I can't remember for sure but I think the girls won. After we ended the game, we attempted a Simpsons puzzle. It was the hardest puzzle ever. Each piece had lots of little pictures on them. And the hardest thing was that the pictures repeated. We worked on it for about 20 minutes then everyone agreed it wasn't worth it. We went back to "playing" with the kittens. First, someone thought it would be a good idea to take the shirt from the princess poodle and put it on Daisy. She could hardly move in it. She kept falling over. It was really quite sad. Then Cameron wanted to show us how high Wicket could jump. It was surprising how high he would jump for his feather toy.

Matt's Birthday/Williamsburg Christmas Parade

For Matt's birthday he decided he wanted to go to a parade. We had it all planned out that we would go to the parade in Richmond. But at the last minute he changed our plans and Saturday morning we were up bright and early driving to Williamsburg with Cameron and Haley. The hour and a half drive was made much shorter when we realized we didn't have that much time to get there before the parade started. Haley's Dad grew up in Williamsburg and plays the fife in the Fife and Drums Band. They told us last year they missed him playing, so this year it was very important to get there on time. We got there and quickly realized this wasn't your ordinary parade. Practically everyone had at least one dog with them and many spots in the parade were dedicated to these dogs. Haley was in heaven seeing all the Burnese Mountain Dogs. They are huge and SO nice. And Matt was in heaven when we saw a French Bulldog. He has not stopped talking about how much he wants a dog since we've come back from that trip. We got to meet Haley's Dad and SUPER-NICE stepmom. Angela was seriously the nicest person I've ever met. She was a joy to be around. We shopped at the stores which were highly overpriced but still fun to go in. And Matt got some candy at the candy shop. We enjoyed hot beverages at the cafe- Matt got hot chocolate and I got hot apple pie cider. It was delicious!! Then Haley's Dad treated us to pizza. My favorite part of Williamsburg was all the wreaths. They were amazing. And most of them were made with real fruit. They must have weighed a ton!



That night we had our friends over for games and goodies.