december highlights

here i am wondering where half of january has gone and i still haven't posted about december. we had a busy month and were blessed to spend lots of time together and with extended family and loved ones. here goes the marathon post:

one of our traditions is to bake Christmas goodies to share...

katy and her kids, who sadly moved to kansas right before Christmas, came over for a farewell dinner and we also decorated cookies and opened presents.

koby and magavin with their masterpieces

then we headed up to the mesa temple to see the lights

this is something i've never seen before, so i had to capture it on film. yes, those are oranges (or maybe grapefruit) blooming on the tree covered with lights.

we also got to celebrate koby's birthday with them at amazing jakes, which is a restaurant place with lots of fun rides and stuff like laser tag and go-carts...

calvin and delaney on the train

the carousel with delaney and dad

teacups...i had to laugh because i took this picture just as russell was trying to squeeze in behind the spinning wheel thing in the middle =)
we had a great time! we really miss having katy's family close by, but we're glad that they got to kansas in time to spend Christmas with dan.

our next adventure started the next morning when my sister heather and i left for utah with 3 little boys in the back of the corolla. (heather drove out here with her friend after their husbands were deployed to iraq.) needless to say, it was a long drive, but we thankfully didn't hit any snow and the roads were clear.

max and calvin didn't waste any time getting out the dress up stuff:

ezra is such a smiler for pictures and makes a cute lion!

russell flew up on the 23rd and my grandparents came down for a visit just before the snow started falling on Christmas eve.

calvin with great gramps and gram

that night we performed the traditional perkins family Christmas pageant

2 shepherds and the angel of the Lord

this was one of the best pageants ever, and maybe one of the most sacreligious, and i laughed so hard that i was crying (maybe you just had to be there). max started out as a shepherd, then decided that he wanted to be buzz lightyear. he insisted on accompanying mary (played by hannah) and joseph (my dad) to the stable and he had to carry the baby Jesus. he wouldn't let hannah pick up the baby to swaddle Him and put Him back in the manger, but he did it for her. buzz made an excellent addition to the pageant this year:

we also opened a present from grandma and grandpa and some new jammies

calvin with his power painting set
this was our best shot at this festive picture

new jammies, robe and slippers

our Christmas miracle was that all three little boys slept until about 8! here they are first thing:

calvin got a baseball mitt from santa and we made the mistake of having him open it first. he loved it and wouldn't take it off his hand to open anything else, so he went with the one-handed technique.

it started snowing Christmas eve and came down for about a day. we were glad we didn't have to go anywhere! here's the huge snowdrift in the backyard:
it's sorta hard to play in snow when it's taller than you, but calvin and daddy managed...


in addition to the snow, another unwelcome gift is that we all got sick. calvin got his first ear infection and russell and i got colds, so we did a lot of sitting around the first week and tried to squeeze in everything else the last few days. russell and i saw the movie twilight, which was entertaining, and we went to the temple with heather. we had to get breakfast at kneaders (yum!) and got the traditional chinese food feast for new year's eve. we also got to have lunch with some college friends in provo and went to our good friend's wedding before we left. it was a much-needed break and we are so glad we got to go.

calvin is still asking every day if we can go see grandma and grandpa and go to koby's house to play. how do you explain to a 2 year-old that it takes a day to get to utah or kansas?