Vegas Baby

My mom, dad, sister, and family friend Linda went to Vegas for the Santa run.  This is the 3rd or 4th time they have gone to do the Santa run.  My mom and Linda got a little out of control with the Santa's on the strip!

I love my mama!

Christmas Card

Originally when I thought of doing this Christmas Card it was going to be the whole family holding up a stache but, things don't always turn out as you think they are going too.  Nonetheless I think this card turned out adorable.  I took a picture of the back but you couldn't read the wording so I decided to just show the pictures that I used and write what I wrote about that picture.

The starts out We Mustache......

What have the Musil kids been up to this year? 

 Natalie has joined community band and is also in concert band.  She is looking forward to a trip to Boston in the spring.  She also went Kayaking for the first time.

 Nichole is in the school choir and just joined the debate team.  She loves babysitting and she has also developed a love for reading.

 Tyler ran away from his first moose that was living in our backyard.  He went camping with The Boy Scouts for the first time.  It was a brisk negative 10 degrees outside.

Ella got baptized last month.  She can now cross country ski down a whole hill by herself.  She also enjoys ice skating.  Both of which she does during school.
Now we Mustache you....
Are you going to have a Merry Christmas?
We hope so. Love, The Musil Family.

These two pictures were the other pictures that turned out from our photo shoot.  I had to shoot with the front door open to get more light in the house.  We had a brief amount of time to get the pictures done before we froze to death.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

The Murphy's threw an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party this year.  Nate and I didn't have to look very far for a sweater I just borrowed both of them from my friend Lindsay.  Don't we look great.

 I got to decorate a backdrop for people to take their pictures in front of.

 This is The Quimby family.  Mike won second place for his maternity kitty sweater.

 This is The Nisonger family.

 This is The Fishers

 Blue steel pose

 Brett Ard's sweater says "Quite Stocking me"!

Palmer's Christmas Celebration

The family went out on a fun trip to get in the Christmas spirit this last weekend.  Our first stop was a trip to visit Santa. The kids weren't exactly thrilled to go and see him.  I am sad to say that I think my kids are past the believing in Santa at our house.  It makes me sad.  The big kids begrudgingly went up and got their photo taken with Santa.  When Ella was done she said she didn't think that it was Santa just someone dressed up as him.  I am not excited for this phase in our lives to be over.

 After Santa we went on a horse drawn carriage ride.  It was quite the experience. We didn't get to sit by each other at all.  Nichole sat in the very back.  Natalie and Ella sat one row in front of her.  Tyler sat one row in front of those two and Nate and I were up front with the driver. Everyone got a blanket to lay across their laps except for Nate and I.  It was really quite cold that day.  I was very thankful for the layers that I was wearing.

After the horse ride we went to see the Reindeer which are Caribou when they are wild.  Their fur is very, very thick.  I stuck my fingers in there and they probably went down 2 or 3 inches without even touching the reindeer's skin.  Talk about warm winter coat.

After our visit with the deer we went to see a Nativity exhibit that was set up at the LDS church in Palmer.  Each room had a theme to it with Nativities that went along with that theme.  It was decorated from floor to ceiling.  It was a really neat way to display the Nativities.

It was a great way to end our Christmas excursion and an even better way to start off our Christmas season!

Gingerbread houses

The Fisher's came over to our house for Family Home Evening and we made gingerbread houses and talked about building our lives with a sure foundation.  The kids loved it.  I made all of the gingerbread houses from scratch and hot glued them together.  It is so much better then waiting for the royal icing to dry. The kids all went home with their own masterpieces!

A little of this a little of that (a very little)

For some reason I got talked into going to Black Friday with some of my friends.  I have found that when I have been talked into doing something that I really don't want to do I have the best time.  Lindsay, Jessy, Terra and I went out Thursday night (which is when Black Friday starts. Pretty soon it will be starting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and they will still call it Black Friday) at 10:00 and went to Walmart.  Now I didn't need to buy anything for Black Friday I just was going to hang out with this bunch of rowdy girls.  What a mad house Walmart was.  They were having some really good sales.  The ladies all got exactly what they came for which is good.  Then we headed over to Best Buy where we waited outside for an hour for the store to open.  The umbrella was a genius idea.  Not having the snow on us helped out a lot.   It got cold toward the end but all in all it wasn't so bad.
After best buy we went to Target.  Now there was a huge line.  It wrapped around the store and up and down every aisle.  Lindsay and Jessy stayed with the cart in line and shopped at the same time, while Terra and I stood in line for some food and some hot cocoa.  The crazy part was There was only about 15 people in front of Terra and I but we still had to wait in line for an hour before we got to get our stuff.  By the time we bought the hot chocolate the other ladies were getting ready to check out up front!
I got home that night at 3:30 in the morning but it was a blast and well worth the time!
Tyler begrudgingly helped me out on Thanksgiving Eve getting the food ready for dinner.  He had to cut onions.  He wasn't very happy that the onions were making his eyes water.  He wondered if swimming goggles would help.  The verdict? They did. According to him anyway!

Decorating the tree.

 We decorated out tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It was trickier this year.  As the kids get older finding time between babysitting jobs is getting harder.  We has to wait an extra day to do it this year.  Nichole has to babysit on Friday. One more day didn't hurt us at all though.  We got right up in the morning and got to it.  We haven't bought our traditional ornament this year yet.  We seem to be behind in everything this year.  Decorating the Christmas tree as a family is a tradition that I hope the kids will always want to do.  We didn't put up as many decorations as we usually do and I am so thankful for that.  I never really like having decorations up everywhere I like just having a touch here and there and this is the first year that we did that.  I think it looks so much better around here like this.

Thanksgiving lunch

Ella's class celebrated Thanksgiving in school this year.  They asked that everyone bring in 1 traditional food item that you eat during your thanksgiving dinner.  Ella and I made rolls for it.  It was interesting to see all of the different foods that were brought in and to see what other people traditionally ate for their dinners.  There were the usual things like ham, turkey, rolls, stuffing, and green beans.  But there were also things like cheese quesadillas and fried rice.  Ella took a huge helping and ate almost all of it.  I was impressed!

Ellas birthday party

Ella's 8th birthday party took place several weeks after her actual birthday.  It was very informal (only one little girl) but, we wanted to give her the opportunity to have a party for her birthday.  The pictures turned out really bad because I don't like this camera at all! But I am posting them anyway.  They first decorated aprons and then they decorated a two layer birthday cake that they got to keep and eat for themselves.  After the cake decorating Ella opened presents and she had cake and ice cream! Very low key!