My good friend took a few pictures of the kids for me, and here are some of my favorites. I think they turned out great! 

Claire 

Look at those eye lashes! 

Carlie

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Gingerbread houses, neighbor treats, and Christmas shirts.

This year was the very first time ever in my life that we used a pre-made kit to do Gingerbread houses. gasp! The girls saw these kits at Sams Club and really wanted them. So Aaron gave in. Which is fine because I wasnt really in the mood to build 2 houses from graham crackers and homemade frosting. So this worked out just fine. Claire and Aaron worked on theirs, while me and Carlie did ours. Its funny how we have our trees and snowmen in the same places. Oh, it looks like we both have Santa on the roof as well. Although, Claire pointed out that Mrs. Claus in on the roof of hers. The girls were so happy that we finally made these! 

Last week the girls had a day off of school in the middle of the week for teacher conferences, so my friend Sarah and I made a TON of chocolate covered pretzels. I calculated and we made over 150 pretzels! They turned out great, and were so tasty! I really thought the white chocolate with crushed candy canes, with red chocolate drizzled over looked really cute, and the chocolate with crushed Heath bar were the tastiest! 

The girls were able to wear Holiday clothing for school on Friday (they normally have uniforms) I decided rather than buying a cute shirt from Old Navy like I normally do, I was going to make them a shirt. I saw this idea on Pinterest, and figured it would be pretty easy. I think they turned out cute! 

And finally, a week or so before Thanksgiving, Sarah and I made a bunch of hair bows. We made these cute Christmas Tree bows! So the girls got to wear these to school as well! 

Christmas Lights

These pictures are really bad quality, but oh well. 

One of my favorite things to do during Christmas is go drive around looking at Christmas lights! My friend told me about this one neighborhood where a bunch of houses go all out! It reminded me of when I was a kid and we would drive to "Tompkins" (Lots of houses with their yards, and garages painted!) I love that people put in so much effort to decorating for the holidays! 

17 Months

I feel like I just posted 16 months for Colton. This kid is just a crack up. He has started saying "LOOK!" and "OK".  

He loves his sisters. Loves pulling their hair, and messing up their toys! 

 Colton is SO social. He says hello to EVERYONE. Walking through Target, he says hi to all the ladies and babies. The old ladies just love him! 

Colton loves to draw. He holds his pencil correctly and just scribbles away. 

Boy, is this little guy naughty! He gets up on our fireplace (about a foot off the ground) he thinks its funny. Me, not so much. 

 He loves our cat. It doesnt look like our cat likes him very much in this picture, but our cat will does like him. He lets Colton pet him, and will go looking for him. kinda cute! 

Colton sits on the arm of the couch in the playroom to reach the top bins in the toy bin. This cracks me up! 

 He loves our phones. He loves listening with our headphones! 

 We were driving around looking at Christmas lights the other night, and he would ONLY hold Claire's hand. He didnt want anything to do with Carlie! 

We love our Colton boy!!

Visiting Santa

We went to Bass Pro to go visit Santa. We played a few games, walked around to see the fish, then finally it was our turn to see Santa. Thankfully my sister came with us, and helped me with the kids, while Aaron waited in line. 

 Colton was SO tired. After we saw Santa, he was OVER being out!

Grandma's Tree!

Every year we go help Grandma Valentine decorate her tree. Its fun to get all the kids together, and look at all the fun ornaments that Grandma has. Each year, we get Grandma ornaments with the kids picture in them, so its fun to see how the girls have grown over the year! This is another one of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season!

Ethel M Cactus Garden

I've lived her my entire life, and I dont think I have ever been to the cactus gardens! We took the kids and walked around. The kids loved it! Colton loved seeing the airplanes so close (its close to the airport). After we walked around for a while, we went inside and did the chocolate tour! We will have to add this to our list of traditions for next year!

Christmas Tree Decorating

We decorated our tree right after Thanksgiving this year. We put Colton down for a nap, put in A White Christmas, and got to decorating. The girls were a huge help! 

 Aaron with his UNLV REBEL ornaments. I LOVE these!

 The tree looked beautiful!

 Until this guy woke up. He took off every ornament that he could reach. The bottom of our tree is EMPTY!