I have to apologize because this is going to be a long post but I can't shorten it so please forgive me. December is quite a busy month for us which was made even busier by the fact that Troy has been out of town pretty much the entire month. So we had to squeeze all of our normal Christmas traditions and birthday celebrations into what turned out to be very short weekends.
It started with Mikayla's birthday party. This is the party with my family and Troy's dad and his wife Cynthia. I forgot to take any pictures at the birthday party with Troy's mom (sorry guys!) 
She got so many great things like a loom and a quadruple combination scriptures. It is tradition in our family that you get a Book of Mormon when you are 8 and a bible at 12. Well it cost just a tiny bit more to get a quad instead of a Bible so we did that instead.
This is her cake. She wanted everything pink. So we went to Smiths and got her a very pink cake.
The morning of her birthday I got up extra early and made her sweet rolls as she requested. Of course we had to have pink frosting!
Then as is tradition I checked her out of school and took her to lunch for her birthday. This year though we did something special. I took her to get her ears pierced. I make the girls wait until they are 12 so that they are old enough to take care of the cleaning process themselves. I just sooo do not want to have to deal with that and all the whining that comes with it.
She was sooo nervous. I warned her ahead of time that it was going to hurt a little. So she psyched herself out, and was doing deep breathing to keep calm. You can see that she is trying not to cry here. (she is 12 and a young adult after all, that is a quote Mikayla is using often now!)
The girl who did it was fantastic. She kept Mikayla calm and did a great job. Mikayla of course picked the pink flower studs. She loves them and they look great! Thanks to my mom and Kara who took time out of their day to come with us. We had a blast trying to make Mikayla laugh.
She got so many great things like a loom and a quadruple combination scriptures. It is tradition in our family that you get a Book of Mormon when you are 8 and a bible at 12. Well it cost just a tiny bit more to get a quad instead of a Bible so we did that instead.
This is her cake. She wanted everything pink. So we went to Smiths and got her a very pink cake.
The morning of her birthday I got up extra early and made her sweet rolls as she requested. Of course we had to have pink frosting!
Then as is tradition I checked her out of school and took her to lunch for her birthday. This year though we did something special. I took her to get her ears pierced. I make the girls wait until they are 12 so that they are old enough to take care of the cleaning process themselves. I just sooo do not want to have to deal with that and all the whining that comes with it.
She was sooo nervous. I warned her ahead of time that it was going to hurt a little. So she psyched herself out, and was doing deep breathing to keep calm. You can see that she is trying not to cry here. (she is 12 and a young adult after all, that is a quote Mikayla is using often now!)
The girl who did it was fantastic. She kept Mikayla calm and did a great job. Mikayla of course picked the pink flower studs. She loves them and they look great! Thanks to my mom and Kara who took time out of their day to come with us. We had a blast trying to make Mikayla laugh.Next we had the Christmas program at school. Owen was starting to get sick but he went and sang with his class. They sang "Must be Santa" It was so cute to see him doing all the actions!
Morgan's class sang "Santa, I Just Got the Measles" She was the girl with the measles. It was sooo cute. I love to watch little kids sing Christmas songs.
Mikayla is in the school show choir called "Musical Express" They did a couple of songs and Mikayla even had a solo. Which by the way she totally nailed!! Way to go Mikayla!
That weekend we took Mikayla and her very bestest friend Christina out to dinner and bowling. We first had to stop at the Real Salt Lake Stadium to pick up a Christmas present for my brother. Our friend Dave works there and let the girls go in and look at the field. They thought he was the coolest guy ever!
Oh we also took them to Raphael's for dinner. MMMM yummy. I tried something new and LOVED it. But seriously its Raphael's how could you not!
Here is the girls at the bowling ally. They had a blast even if they spent most of the time throwing gutter balls. They got better for the second game though. 
Here is Christina admiring her last throw. Notice all the pins are still standing there almost in defiance.
This is how Mikayla bowled the entire second game which dramatically improved her scores. She came close to beating me!
Then the final event of our week was the annual Beardall Family December birthday party (which as I already mentioned I have no pictures of) and ginger bread house decorating competition. Its not really a competition just fun. My sweet sister in law Kelli went over to the Beardall's house and put them all together so we only had to worry about decorating. She was my favorite person that day! So here is our final product. If there was a competition I say we totally won!!
I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and a VERY happy new year, full of joy and happy things!!!
Morgan's class sang "Santa, I Just Got the Measles" She was the girl with the measles. It was sooo cute. I love to watch little kids sing Christmas songs.
Mikayla is in the school show choir called "Musical Express" They did a couple of songs and Mikayla even had a solo. Which by the way she totally nailed!! Way to go Mikayla!
That weekend we took Mikayla and her very bestest friend Christina out to dinner and bowling. We first had to stop at the Real Salt Lake Stadium to pick up a Christmas present for my brother. Our friend Dave works there and let the girls go in and look at the field. They thought he was the coolest guy ever!
Oh we also took them to Raphael's for dinner. MMMM yummy. I tried something new and LOVED it. But seriously its Raphael's how could you not!
Here is the girls at the bowling ally. They had a blast even if they spent most of the time throwing gutter balls. They got better for the second game though. 
Here is Christina admiring her last throw. Notice all the pins are still standing there almost in defiance.
This is how Mikayla bowled the entire second game which dramatically improved her scores. She came close to beating me!
Then the final event of our week was the annual Beardall Family December birthday party (which as I already mentioned I have no pictures of) and ginger bread house decorating competition. Its not really a competition just fun. My sweet sister in law Kelli went over to the Beardall's house and put them all together so we only had to worry about decorating. She was my favorite person that day! So here is our final product. If there was a competition I say we totally won!!
I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and a VERY happy new year, full of joy and happy things!!!Merry Christmas!
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Here she is in the final dress. 
The dinner table.
