Six years.  Our blog has been going strong for six years.  We have managed to publish on almost every Sunday since we set our minds to it.  These last few months we have dropped the ball.  I am here to tell you that we are back and ready to go strong. I am putting this specifically in the blog so that we can hold ourselves to it.  It is a wonderful feeling to hold a published and bound copy of our annual Hazard Chronicles.  These stories and updates are priceless to us.  Thanks for joining us on the journey.

Hey. This is Logan. I know I made the same promise a few weeks ago. Well, Rachel apparently has more zeal than I do because it was her that spurred this renewed effort at blogging. It is true that our lives are considerably different now than they were when we started this thing, which should give us even more reason to write. Unfortunately, this also gives us more reasons, distractions, and excuses not to chronicle our adventures in writing. But we are here, and we're not giving up. Now, back to Rachel.

Blah, Blah, Blah.  On to the holidays! But first I just need to put in there that Logan built a tree house. In one day. We decided to redecorate the play room and create a fun environment for imagination.  It just so happens that the kids love The Magic Tree House.  Also, it just so happens that the Scripture
Scouts (which the kids also love) happens in their tree house.  And is just so happens that tree houses are extremely cool!  Anyway. We are in the midst of creating a fun play land for our crazy kids. I will update with pictures and video next week when it is completed (yes, i put that in the blog to give us a deadline...).  Just as a side note- Logan is amazing when he decides to do something.  I blink and it is done!  He's great.

Now we are really going to talk about Christmas. Did I mention that I have great kids? We now have an awesome minivan with a DVD player, but if you know our family you probably know that the DVD player doesn't get used much.  Anyway. I asked the kids if they wanted to watch Tangled on the way to grandma's house.  They seemed disappointed until Evelyn mentioned watching Planet Earth instead.  Smiles all around and the vote was unanimous! We have really come to enjoy watching Planet Earth together.  Thanks Griffin for the great Christmas gift a long time ago!  The shows have given our kids a lot of knowledge about animals and the world around them.  They also have a great understanding of how the food chain works.

We began our adventure to Grandma Almond's house.  I must insert here that our kids are very good travelers.  I enjoy driving with them.. for the most part.

We stopped in Rexburg to visit for a few minutes and to enjoy a quick Christmas gift exchange before we finished our trip to Utah.  We gave some fun things and got some fun things.  G and G Hazard gave the kids the Scripture Scouts CD's of the Book of Mormon stories.  If you haven't heard of these you should look into them and you should get them for your kids!  It is a story you listen to about three kids and a dog who form a scripture club.  They tell the stories, act out the stories, sing fabulous songs about stories and important principles found in the scriptures, and they have really cool object lessons to teach about the ideas in the scriptures.  The kids love them and are already singing the songs and pretending to be the characters (they sat in their tree house this morning and listened while they acted out the stories).  My family must think we are crazy because of how excited we got about it.  Anyway. Logan and I ended up buying the New Testament version for the kids during out Utah stay.

We had a great time at Grandma Almond's house.  The kids enjoyed playing with all of the 'Grandma toys,' and we enjoyed talking, visiting, playing with kids, and playing games.  On Christmas Eve we headed to Shannon and Tyson's house in Layton. They were great hosts and we had a wonderful time.  We played games, talked, enjoyed the X-box Kinect challenges, and playing with Tirza.  Pictures below will help tell the story of our time with my family.

Christmas morning was great fun.  I love having kids!  It feels like I am getting a ton of presents even though they are actually for my kids!

I have to say that the tradition of making Christmas gifts lived on this year.  I love making Christmas gifts because it gets me into the spirit and I am able to focus and think about each person individually.  This year was especially exciting because I made repeats of some of the gifts for myself!  I also got the kids in on the action.  They made fun bubble magnets for their grandparents.  They had a fun time and I had fun seeing what ideas they came up with for artwork.  I hope to carry this tradition on with them.  Making gifts has become a big part of Christmas for me that I love.

I will leave you with two quick kids stories.

Maren has decided that she likes to stand on her own.  Last week I went to set her down and she decided to stand instead.  She just stood there for a long time.  I finally decided to start counting so that I could have some measure of how long she stood.  I got all the way to 30!

Maren is very independent   Starting at about 6  months old she decided that she was the only one who could put the pacifier in her mouth.  If I gave it to her she would take it out again and put it in by herself.  She is the same way with walking.  If I try to stand her up her legs will turn to jello and she will stick them strait out so that I have to sit her up.  I routinely look over at her and she is standing on her own.  I have even see her stand up in the middle of the room.  Anyway. Today she decided that she could climb the stairs.  I looked down the stairs and she was standing by herself on the second stair up.  Needless to say- the baby gate came out today!

The kids got little CTR rings for Christmas this year.  Evelyn gives me reports all the time for all of the situations during the day that her ring helped her to make a good decision.  Most of these involve helping the other kids or being kind.  She has always had such a kind heart!

I could go on for a really long time about the kids and what is going on with them, but I will save that for next week.  Stay tuned for a really cool tree house playroom, and for more kids stories.

What would the holidays be without cooking?

 Maren has two expressions: happy/smiley/talker, and deadpan.  Here she is demonstrating the latter

 Adalie- Snow White doll and dress, Evelyn Merida dress and doll, and Jack just loved that whale

 Wesley was very brave!  He spun on that chair with kids for about an hour! I think they all had great fun.

 Of course there was a lot of reading going on!  Here is Marissa and Adalie

 Jack's firetruck Christmas (he got a book, really cool fire truck, and a fireman hat)

 Shannon and Maren

Playing outside with glow sticks at Grandma's house

And the winner is...

First things first. Regarding the gingerbread house contest. The votes are in and the winner is...

Team B with the candy cottage! Go team!

Team A- don't worry. You got a lot of votes too. Really, the lighthouse idea was a good one. I liked it. But you still lost. Sorry.

Alright. Now, for our week. By the way, I apologize ahead of time if this blog post seems to ramble or become disjointed at times. I am writing it while watching "Curious George" with the kids.

Anyway, Evelyn and I have been having some good times lately. We have a new tradition. Saturday mornings we go and clean the church (it's our ward's turn), and then we go out to breakfast together at McDonald's  I've really been enjoying the tradition. She has too.

Also, on Friday we (her and I) went on a hike. I was very proud of her when I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go exploring in the mountains. I pointed out to her that it was raining/snowing outside. She replied "Papa- that's why you put on boots and a coat!"

I was very proud of that answer.

So we headed out into the weather in our warm-weather gear to explore the mountains. And we found caves! Really- Evelyn is the one who found them- she was like "Hey papa, look! A cave!" And I was like "Hey Evelyn, that's just a pile of rocks." And she was like "Hey papa- no it isn't. Come and look- it's a cave."

And she was right...sort of. Really, it was just a pile of large boulders. But the way they had fallen on each other made a series of tunnels and passageways that was quite fascinating to explore. We found a different "room" for each person in our family. For those in my family who remember, it reminded me of exploring "the rocks" in Weldon at Donny and Ty's house. 

So there you go- at least we will never be homeless.

Also, I got my ACLS certification this week so that we can do sedation at work.

Oh- and work is going great! Rachel's advertising is amazing. To my family- remember those mailers you helped count. Well- they have brought in like thirty new patients! 30! Just so you know- that is pretty good for a single mailing. Rachel is awesome.

Um...Addy thinks she is a dog. She won't let us call her by her name. If we want her attention we must address her as "lost little puppy," at which point she comes over and whimpers and nuzzles into our leg. At first it was amusing. Now it's frustrating. Can I just get my Addy back?

This morning for breakfast Maren ate 2 whole pancakes, 2 pieces of ham, and about half a bag of pretzels- and that was after she nursed! That girl is growing!

Oh- I thought of something else that we did that was fun (I told you this would be a little disjointed). Heartwood Family Dental helped to sponsor the Post Falls Winter Festival (thanks to Rachel). It was a lot of fun. We were one of four sponsors and we got to do this thing where they announced us in front of the whole town and then we helped little kids to wave wands that magically turned on all the Christmas Lights around City Hall and started off the holidays for the community. I really enjoyed feeling like we were a real part of the community and I think that we have more things like this coming up. We also sponsored a big craft room that was at the same event, and really, it was just fun!

We finally got some snow at our house. Now it really is "beginning to feel a lot like Christmas." I love the holidays.

Oh- and on a more personal note. I have made it a goal to read through the 4 gospels in the New Testament between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am following the institute manual which brings you through them chronologically (so you are always skipping around within the 4 books), really giving you a sense for the life that our Savior lived. I have never read them this way before and I have to say that it is neat, especially around this time of year where all of the sights and sounds around town point to Him and his magnificent birth (at least in the small town of Post Falls). 

Now, I'm not real good at writing about spiritual things (I usually leave that to my mom or my sisters), but I have to say that it is downright AWESOME to think about the price he paid for all of us...and for me...and for you. And it is amazing to think that Jesus Christ, our Savior and our God, Creator of the universe and all that is in it, came to earth as an infant and was born in a stable. He had an amazing life, He gave himself up for a fallen world, and He lives!

Like I said- I love the holidays. Merry Christmas.