Christmas Recital

(four students slipped out before we could shoot the picture)

18 of my awesome students played for our Christmas Recital Dec 14th and all did fantastic jobs. I guess all the hard work and lots of practicing payed off! :) Love all of you!

Hellyar Christmas Traditions

We started making gingerbread houses together the winter we were almost engaged. These are some old pictures I could find of us making the houses!

These are from our first winter together as newlyweds in 06. We made our houses out of graham crackers which worked pretty good and was fun and easy. I'm not sure why I look so mad!

Brad's house made out of graham crackers. Two stories with a fire pit in the middle. He is always so good at building things and being creative!

This year we decided to go all out and measure, cut out and bake real gingerbread to make houses with. It was kind of time consuming so we broke the process into two evenings. One to bake the gingerbread, and the other to decorate the houses.

Owen was so excited about all the candy (obviously) and bright colors and kept asking to eat the gingerbread or candy or whatever we would give in to!

Brad getting everything set up just right

Right at the start of the night I busted one of my walls in half. Thank goodness for frosting glue!

Just a quarter of the way done!

ahhh . . . Brad's masterpiece

My masterpiece even better! haha

We were totally excited how great our houses turned out. And we definitely want to make the gingerbread every time now!

Fairy-tale gingerbread land up close :)

Christmas decorating Fun

Owen was so excited to hang the ornaments on the tree. I just let him put ornaments wherever he could reach and I didn't move anything he put up.

Santa's little elves


We had a holly jolly time decorating our Christmas tree monday night for family home evening. Usually we put off decorating until right before Christmas and by then it seems like too much work for such a short amount of time. So this year we got right on it! I used to be all about the perfection of Christmas decorating but now I realize how great it is to just have fun with it as a family.

Thanksgiving 09

We had so much fun at Grandpa and Gramie's cabin for Thanksgiving this year.

Of course there was the famous slide . . .

And our cute daddy working his baby sleep magic

And our awesome three year old

and sleepy little cousin baby Freya

and cousins hanging out

These two are three weeks apart, Freya is older yet Chase is about 4lbs and 6 inches bigger!

and games and more games

and our famous thanksgiving cooks

and of course buddy the dog

and Gramie the wonderful babysitter

Birthday Fun!

Every year Owen and my birthday's are super close together so usually my birthday gets overlooked. But this year Brad planned ahead and filled my birthday wish list and threw me a surprise birthday on top of that. It was Great to have a great birthday and get spoiled!

For Owen's birthday we spent his birthday day decorating and making cupcakes for his party, going to the park and running around and getting frozen yogurt at u-swirl. He loved picking his own flavors of yogurt and pretty much always gets chocolate! He's so much fun and full of life like a three year old should be. He had a few friends over for his party and they had a blast with the train table his Grandpa Danny got for him.

Happy Birthday Owen!

Make a wish . . . Can't believe my baby's three now!

The train table was a hit!

Happy Birthday Me! I was actually really mad right before we got to the house when I realized it was a surprise party for me. Brad took me out on a birthday date that night, and made up a story about his stomach hurting so bad that we had to go home right after we finished dinner. Little did I know . . . silly guy!

Thanks mom for the home-baked cheesecake! I told Brad I wanted him to make me strawberry cheesecake for my birthday. He laughingly passed the task on to his mom. lol

Present opening just gets better and better each year!

Owen loved the chocolate cupcakes. He managed to cram a whole one in his mouth!

Fun at the park on Owen's B-day

Chase hanging out waiting for us to be done at the park so he could take his nap

The usual wrestling

My cute little runner . . . He'd say "I Win!" every time he'd race us, even if we finished first :)

The Race is on!