Christmas Day

This was our first year that we had kids waking up all night in anticipation of Christmas morning. So at 6:30 we finally let them get their stockings. (In our home the kids are allowed to get their stockings without us, it keeps them occupied and allows us to sleep a little more if we want too.) Since we are totally mean and torturous parents we make our poor kids wait to open the rest of their presents until we have watched the movie The Nativity and talked about Jesus birth and the great gift God gave us in His Son. Then we make them eat breakfast, I know it's almost a mutiny every time. Especially because we eat a special Christmas breakfast that is a tradition from Cameron's family and it takes and hour to bake. So when all of that is done we start with the presents. This year was hilarious because Aftyn for some reason had NO desire to open her presents it took her FOREVER. It was really cute. But we all had a great time and of course the kids are already counting down the days until next Christmas.

Christmas Eve

We have a couple of fun traditions on Christmas eve. The first one we call pop-its and it comes from my family. We all draw a name from a bowl of someone else in the family. Then we go shopping for that person (something small less than $5.00). After we have made our purchases we all go out to lunch. Then that night we have dinner in the living room mostly out of appetizers and watch A Christmas Story (when I was growing up we watched A White Christmas). Then before the kids go to bed they get to open their Christmas p.j.s.

Christmas Mad Lib

We found the following Christmas fill-them-in-tale at Familyfun.com. It was a big hit with our kids. Hope you enjoy it too.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the shadow before Christmas, when all through the house not a parrot was stirring, not even a mouse.

The grasses were laughing all snug in their beds, While visions of onions danced in their heads.

Then out on the playground there arose such a clatter, I hiccuped from the couch to see what was the matter.

When, what to my wondering fingers should appear, But a miniature diaper and 12 fluffy reindeer!

With a blue old football player, so loudly and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney Hannah Montana, tooted with a bound.

He spoke not a kerplunk, but went straight to his work, And filled all the monsters then flipped with a jerk,

And laying his eyeball aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the curtains he rose.

And I heard him wiggle ere he threw-up out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night"

Gingerbread Houses

We love to watch Food Network Challenge as a family. This year they had a giant gingerbread house competition. This got the kids thinking that they would like to make some gingerbread houses. Ours weren't giant but they sure were fun and pretty easy to make. If anyone is interested in doing it themselves I found the recipe for the house dough and the pattern for cutting out the house on allrecipes.com.

It's a Boy

We were all very excited to find out yesterday that we will be having another boy! Tanner was really pleased with this news. He likes to tell us that there are "too many girls" in our family. The baby look nice and health and in typical Southam style was measuring 5 days bigger than he should be. Looks like it might be another 9 pounder for us :). Now we really need a name we have one that we like but it is different and I don't know if I want to deal with all of the negative comments and I don't want him to hate his name either. The name is a family name on Cameron's side. One of his great great great grandpas was an apostle and his name was Marriner Wood Merrill he just was a really cool guy and someone I would love to have our son named after so if you have a second leave a comment and let me know what you think.

So our first choice is

Marriner James Southam

O' Christmas Tree

We have this great Christmas tree farm that we discovered last year and really love. They have great trees that you get to cut down yourself and they're all just $20.00. The only problem is that they're only open Mon-Thurs. Since we can't go on the weekend that leaves us only one option (if we want Cameron to join in on the fun) and that is to find a tree in the dark. So this year that's what we did we hunted for a tree in the dark with just a little flashlight. It was really fun and we did end up with a pretty great tree.

Decorating the tree.

Thanksgiving Feast

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house and spent the day with our good friends the Dicks. We all had a lot of fun and a lot of food. I found a new favorite recipe too that uses yams, carrots, garlic and potatoes it was very yummy.

Health Insurance....YUCK!!

So we found out this week that Cameron's work has decided to switch health insurance plans. They apparently have been keeping track over the last year of how people are using their health insurance. So they have come up with a new plan that will save 84% of the employee's money. Then new plan is that they will not cover anything until you have met your deductible. The new deductible is ..... 10,000 that's right 10,000 dollars!!! No coverage until you have spent $10,000. It saves people $ because they do pay some of it into an account for your use and it only will cost us $30.00 a month. So as long as you don't go to the doctor it saves you money. So it's a real good thing we aren't having a baby this year or something! oh wait we are.... can't wait to find out how much a baby costs with no real health insurance. I just love being part of the 16% of the company that it really (hmmm how to put it nicely) screws over.

Baby Southam at about 13 weeks

Here are some of the first pictures of our baby. It's so cool to see them so little but they already have all of their parts they just have to get bigger. This little guy is only about 3 inches. Even though this is our 5th baby it never gets old watching them squirm around and see that they have two legs and arms and all their fingers and toes. So cool!

Halloween/ Trunk or Treat

We had a great Halloween and the kids really got a TON of candy. We live in a great trick or treating neighborhood so that combined with very mild weather made it one great night for getting tons of candy. Our ward also had a great trunk or treat. Our camera is broken so some of the pictures didn't come out, here are the pictures that did.

Aftyn our witch who refused to wear her pointed hat.

Tanner the pirate

Paytyn the bat.
Kaylynn as Hermione