Merry Christmas 2011!

 Christmas Eve cookie making and delivering

 Miya was Mary for our Nativity--she was so tender with her baby Jesus.

 Celebrating with our good friends Jim and Cindy

 Tracking Santa on the Ipad... the excitement was building...

 Christmas morning--the kids woke us up at 5:59 (they were supposed to wait until 6--not bad:)

After Church on Christmas Day. Notice Miya's red lips--she was loving her red chapstick she got in her stocking. We had a lovely program with lots of Christmas music--it was such a great way to focus on the true meaning of Christmas (even though Grant, Miya and Garrett all fell asleep by the end of it). I wish we had a church service every Christmas.

So I was a slacker mom and forgot to take pictures the rest of the day. Needless to say, Santa found us this year and the kids enjoyed lots of presents and playing with their new toys all day. 

Merry Christmas!!

Catching up

Before Christmas we traveled to Cleveland to be with my side of the family. We had so much fun being together. Everyone was there except Jacob who is serving a mission in Manchester England, but we were able to call him for Christmas and talk with him and hear his Brittish accent and vocabulary. It was smashing and jolly good fun!

Garrett building his own wooden toy at Santa's workshop (which happens to be in Kirtland, OH--who would have thought!)

Hyrum working with his elf on his wooden toy

Tyler made this rocking horse for Miya


Hadley and Shayla painting their identical twin horses


Grandma and Felicity working with their own personal elf

The Magleby's all getting in on the fun

Grant milking a cow--we each got a turn. I felt bad for the poor cow as we all lined up to take a turn milking it.

Meeting Santa right in the train station. Shayla was worried about his authenticity--no worries, Shayla, Santa has lots of helpers.
Traveling on the train--kids were exhausted


Grant and Hyrum both caught a nap, too


Garrett and Hyrum wearing matching outfits given them by Grandma

Waiting for the train in the snow. It was so beautiful! We even took advantage of the snow and went cross country skiing one day. It was so fun I want to buy skis for the family--I'm hooked!

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.
Sarah, Kris and Ang

Heber Tate's blessing day

Garrett and Uncle Curt at the Bishop's Store House, filling Christmas food orders.

Definitely a highlight of the trip. The kids loved it and so did I.

Shayla loved the clipboard and bossing Uncle Ricky around :)

Hadley and Ty filling the frozen foods orders--we were supposed to be meeting everyone at the nursing home but we couldn't tear them away!

Christmas caroling at the nursing home--highlight was when one of the staff requested the Grinch song, and Kris performed a great impromtu performance "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch..." It was awesome!

This is what the kids thought of caroling

It was such a great trip, and even though I'm 2 months late, I wanted to post a few photos. Merry Christmas in February!

Merry Christmas!

Waiting at the top of the stairs to come down to the tree

Miya, too.

The kids had an exercise in patience as we forgot to download the old video off the camcorder to make room for the new, so they had to wait 30 minutes while we did that. We were not popular parents first thing Christmas morning!

Miya's new hairbow

Miya is such a daddy's girl--she always backs into his lap whenever he is sitting down.
I love it!

Shayla and her new jewelry

A football like the pros use was his request

Grant's bowling set

I love this one!

Miya got a toothbrush in her stocking. Now maybe she will stop stealing everyone elses. She loves to suck on it and carries it with her throughout the house. Maybe we've got a future dentist on our hands...

Stocking stuff

Shayla stocking

Look at that face! This kid is intense about his gum!!!

Come to think of it, we all love gum around here

It was a wonderful Christmas day, complete with fun family time playing with new toys, good food and a sledding trip with friends.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

And here's to catching up the blog so I can start blogging about the current events and be a bit more consistent!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we invited two couples over to enjoy the festivities with us. We did our traditional reenactment of the Nativity with a complete cast this year, plus camera crew. It was great!

As usual, Santa dropped off a surprise package on the doorstep of PJ's for the kids. No one was more shocked than myself when we heard a knock on the door, ran to get it to find Santa himself in the driveway waving at us. This created quite a stir, with Shayla saying, "That can't be the real Santa--he wouldn't let us see him if it was! Who WAS that?!!" The next day the kids found Santa's hat out on the driveway, with his glasses tucked inside. They were pretty worried about it until we reassured them that Santa probably has a few back-up pair of both. It made for an exciting night!

The excitement was palpable! The four oldest "slept" together in one room. I don't know how much actual sleeping took place, but they sure had fun.

Merry Christmas!

Okay, here is a hodge-podge group of photos. I call it "Catching up with the Hackings and their lovely visitors." Catchy title, I know.

Fun with Grandma at the Mill Museum (left), and Tyler and Miya on Christmas Day 2009. Which one looks more tired?

Garrett and Eva, in disguise. She loved to wrap up in blankets and walk around. Our very own Mary, (or homeless person :)

Christmas morning--the excitement was tangible

A week of fun with Kristina and her girls Felicity and Eva--such good times!

Kris, you kept me sane during the month of December--I am indebted to you!

Sleepy sisters

In January Seth and Emily came out for a fun visit--so great to see you both! To see great photos/video footage of their visit, check out Emily's blog here
(thanks Emily!)

Miya 5 weeks old

Okay, that's all for now...more rambling catch-ups to come