the sweetest place on earth

With classes and finals all finished for the semester and work off for the day, we packed up and headed to Hershey, PA.

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Did you click on that link? You really ought to. I just love the catchy little jingle they have on the website.

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It really was so fun and all decorated and lit up for Christmas. It was a fun way to celebrate Matt's birthday.

The boys enjoyed being factory workers and taking the chocolate tour. In fact, they liked the tour so much that we did it twice.

Ethan's favorite part was the singing cows.

Oh, and of course all the chocolate.

We even took a Christmas trolley ride through town, complete with Christmas carols and Santa himself. The Hershey Kiss light posts were great- but it was too dark by the time that we got there to get a decent picture.

At any rate- we had a great time and ate lots of chocolate!

happy birthday

It's Matt's 28th birthday today.

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(by the way, it's also Abby's birthday. She's Matt's favorite relative.)

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If that doesn't scream "dig in", I don't know what does.

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Happy Birthday!

my Ethan, the patriot with M&M's

whatever it takes to get him to smile for the family picture!

the red plates

...go to Garrett tonight for dinner because he gave his first talk in Primary today.

He did so well!

santa must be from jersey

why else would he have a jersey accent?

feliz navidad

Feliz Navidad is the boys' favorite Christmas song.

At least once a day, we crank up the volume and

dance our hearts out!

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Glauser family memories in the making.

Dear Matt,

Just in case you're reading blogs during class again, here's what your baby girl is up to today:

She made it all the way to the top.

something familiar

Tonight the boys and I were singing Christmas songs from the Primary Children's Songbook. We started singing Once Within a Lowly Stable, and I had a glimpse of something familiar- something about Christmas as a child, and something about my dad.

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I can't pinpoint it exactly. A lot of my childhood years are fuzzy in my mind, mostly those around the time that my dad was sick and passed away. But I had this remembrance of something- maybe of my family gathered around that big upright piano singing songs together at Christmas time, and maybe that was my dad's favorite Christmas song, or maybe that was my mom's favorite, or maybe it has nothing to do with that particular song at all. I've probably sung that song a million times without feeling so emotional over it. . It was something though- something familiar; something sad because I miss him so much and it's getting harder and harder to remember him; something warm and happy because I was sitting there at the keyboard with my two little boys snuggled on my lap in their pajamas with the Christmas tree all lit up next to us; something nostalgic because of the innocence and joy of childhood; something spiritual because we sang about the birth of our Savior.

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It was a glimpse of something I treasure.

baby blue

Is it any wonder that she gets whatever she wants?

it's Christmas time in the city

We took the kids into the city last night to get a glimpse of the 88 foot Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

The tree was magnificent with its 30,000 lights. Adding to the excitement, we looked on with hundreds of people as a man proposed to his girlfriend on the ice skating rink beneath the tree. The whole crowd cheered their congratulations.

This is my absolute favorite New York experience. Directly across the street from the tree is Saks 5th Avenue. The entire side of the building is covered in these giant snowflake lights. Every 20 minutes or so, they give a spectacular lights show, choreographed to "Carol of the Bells". It is so loud, so full of energy, and oh so Christmasy!