Our gingerbread house

Kamryn had a lot of fun last year making a gingerbread house so we decided to do another one this year. The icing was a lot harder to work with so it looked kind of sloppy, but Kamryn said she liked it that way because it looked like icicles. I did the icing and she did the decorating. She did a great job and saved some gumdrops to eat for later of course!

Annual Barlow Christmas

Every year at Christmas time my mom's side of the family gets together. Kamryn had fun playing with Zack and Macy played with Andrew. Kamryn was so excited to get her very own pink fishing pole and Macy got Mega Blocks. Macy definitely had fun opening the presents this year. My mom's sister, Vicki, painted a beautiful picture for my cousin Kerry. It was a quick trip since Jeremy had to work the next day but we had fun seeing everyone again!

Holiday sing-a-long

The last day before winter break, Kamryn's class had a holiday sing-a-long party. It was also pajama day so she wore her Christmas nightgown. She did a great job singing and had fun ringing the bells for "Jingle bells". Afterwards they got to have cookies and hot chocolate. She sat by her friends Spencer and Kirk. It was a great way to start out her winter break!

Playing "dress up"

The other day I told Kamryn to play with Macy and she came up with the idea to dress her up. Macy loved it and Kamryn had fun dressing her. I can't wait to see them play more of this! Then when I was grabbing her pajamas from her room I come out and find Macy up on the computer desk! Crazy girl!

Santa

I really thought I talked Santa up this year so that Macy wouldn't cry when she sat on his lap. I even showed her all of the pictures of Kamryn sitting with Santa. So this past weekend I took them to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. Of course when it was our turn Macy was gripping on to me so tight so I let her go to Mrs. Claus instead. Maybe next year she will like him! After that they got to decorate an ornament. Then we headed over to wait for a train ride but the line was too long so we just visited with our friends and watched the fake snow fall. It was still a fun time.

Decorating the tree

On Sunday after Thanksgiving we put up the Christmas tree and other decorations around the house. Then on Monday night we decorated the tree for family home evening. Macy didn't last too long since she kept taking the ornaments off the tree! Even Sparky decided to help us out by climbing half-way up the tree. Kamryn was excited to put the angel on top.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year was the first year that I cooked for Thanksgiving. Jeremy had to work the night before so we weren't going to travel this year so we were so grateful to have Craig, Stephane, Tonia, Ammon, Damon, Jared, Melissa, Carson, Brooklyn and Ashlyn come to our house to celebrate with us. The kids had fun outside and even caught a grasshopper! Pretty much everyone had a job to cook something for Thanksgiving. I made a pumkin-chocolate-cheesecake pie, cranberry jello salad, sweet potato casserole and cooked the 20 pound turkey. Craig was in charge of the mashed potatoes, Stephane cooked the pies she brought, Tonia cooked the stuffing and Melissa was in charge of cutting the green beans. Everyone seemed to like it. The next morning Melissa and I woke up and left the house at 3:30 am to do Black Friday shopping! Some of the lines were pretty crazy, we got our caramel apple spice drink from Starbucks though and that made us feel better. We went to the Navy Exchange, Target and Wal-mart! We both said we probably won't get up that early again but it was a once in a lifetime experience. Kamryn started to get sick with a fever and cough so she played during the day but then started crashing in the afternoon. We let the kids watch movies in our bed. On Saturday we went to the Mormon Battalion in Old Town San Diego. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves and got to pan for gold at the end. It was a fun time playing games and just hanging out.