Christmas!

My little girl is growing up! I've never seen anyone get so excited to eat carrots. She has never liked rice cereal, but she loves her vegetables!

Merry Christmas Kate! Kate's present actually came early cause we both needed it. It's the Fisher Price Rainforest jumperoo, she is becoming quite the jumper.

We've had a very full week of Christmas, including our house. We were very lucky this year to not have to travel. My family came to us instead. Due to weather conditions and storms they left a couple of days earlier than originally planned to eat the storms. Their presence brought the number of people in our house to 17 the Sunday before Christmas. Aside from my own little family we had Brad's sister and her family (We took them to the airport Tuesday morning), my oldest sister and her family (they were just staying the night on their way to Mesquite, NV to spend Christmas with her husband's family), and then my parents and 2 youngest sisters. We had to move our table into the kitchen so we could use the nook area for sleeping quarters. It was insane, but fun to have so many people here. Needless to say my parents went and stayed at a motel that night, the only floor space left was on our bedroom floor.

Christmas Eve we held a little devotional, sang Christmas carols accompanied by my mom on piano, and Daylen and Kate got to open 1 present, which of course were Christmas PJ's from Grandma. Kate actually opened hers by herself and beat Daylen to it.

Grandpa giving Daylen a horsie ride.

Daylen and Kate in their Christmas PJs


I realized at the very end of opening presents Christmas morning that I hadn't been taking pictures! Ahh! However I did get a couple of Brad opening his present from me which he didn't know he was getting. He said on more than 1 occasion that this was the first year he knew EVERYTHING he was getting for Christmas. Hehehe, little did he know I had gotten something he has been wanting for a LONG time, but I kept putting it off saying we didn't need one, it was too expensive, bla bla bla. Well, I decided it was probably time that Brad get his wish granted, I gave in and got him a 120 gig ipod classic. It holds more memory than we will ever need stored, at least it sure seems that way now. He was in shock and loved it of course, though the picture doesn't really show his excitement, he's holding it all inside. Merry Christmas Brad!

Snow Adventures

With all the snow storms we've had lately, Daylen has loved going out and playing in it.

Mandy, Lori, and Kara building a snow bear.

Ivan and Daylen giving the snow bear kisses.

Ivan relaxing in the snow.

Over Thanksgiving we inherited a 4-wheeler from Brad's brother, Randy, when he moved up the Alaska. We noticed our neighbors out pulling sleds behind their little mini ATVs and thought it looked fun. So Brad ran to the store to buy a sled and got the LAST one left! It was the perfect toddler sled for pulling behind a 4-wheeler. He and Bryson pulled Daylen and his cousins, Nathan and Lily on the sleds. Here is Brad pulling Daylen.

Brad and Daylen, and Bryson and Nathan coming up the street.

Lily and Nathan

I love this picture of Lily, she looks like she is trying to suppress a smile, but she is secretly LOVING this!
We had so much fun having family here for a week, off and on. Besides playing in the snow we ate lots of good food, shopped, watched movies, played lots of Bohnanza (our new favorite game), sang carols, bowled, and just enjoyed being together.

Tis the season for parties and families

One of the things I love about Christmas is the time spent with family and all the parties we get to go to! The pictures below are from a few of these get togethers we went to this past month. First of all, my uncle John who lives in West Jordan turned 60 so we went to his birthday party and Santa Claus showed up! Daylen wouldn't even go near him, and you can see what Kate thought about him.

This picture was taken at our ward Christmas party and I'm trying to think about how cute he is here and ignore him crying in his room cause he won't go to sleep now without me or Brad laying in bed with him until he falls asleep. I gotta break this habit and fast!

My grandpa Gilbert came to Utah for the week of Christmas so we went and spent an evening at my Aunt LuAnn's house while he was here.

We had the girls side of the room and the boys side of the room!

Once there was a snowman...

...Snowman, snowman,

Once there was a snowman

tall, tall, tall!

In the sun he melted, melted, melted,

In the sun he melted,

small, small, small!

I got this idea from my sis-in-law. Daylen and I made these snowman crafts today out of cotton balls stuck to contact paper, with construction paper for the accessories. He had a lot of fun sticking everything on, even it wasn't all in the right places (much cleaner and easier than glue.) Can you guess which is his?

I just want some cheese!

So last week my mischevious and ever so independent Daylen thought he would just help himself to some cheese. Doesn't bother to ask because everything is, "my do it!" anyways. I had just put Kate down for her morning nap, and Daylen wanted to watch "King is Born" so I thought sure ok, then I can just run and take a shower real quick, right? Well I get out of the shower and I hear some loud noises downstairs, it sounds like Daylen is getting into the dishwasher, so I hurry and and get dressed and run to the top of the stairs to see what he's doing. I found him with the block of cheese on the end of the couch and in Daylen's hand is one of my VERY SHARP Cutco knives!!!! AAAHHHH!!! I hurry as fast as I can down the stairs trying to calmly get Daylen's attention and ask him to give the knife to mommy. I don't want to yell and scare him into accidentally cutting himself. Thankfully he hands it right over after I very quickly and firmly start telling him he CANNOT touch mommy's knives, they are very sharp and he could hurt himself. Miraculously he didn't cut himself at all. He knew from experience that his spoons just don't work on a block of cheese. He had also seen mommy cutting cheese with this very knife the night before for dinner so he knew this one would work. He found it hiding underneath the bowls in the dishwasher and hey, problem solved right? He was just happy to have some cheese, but he about gave me a heart attack!

Kate just likes to chew on pretty much whatever she can get her cute little hands on. Everyone else is eating dinner, she might as well, too!

i love...

...my kids smiles...

...when Brad is home at night to help me put the kids to bed...

...that those many nights he is not home to help, i still get the help i need from my Heavenly Father...



...seeing Daylen and Kate asleep on their daddy...

...CHRISTMAS!!

Look what I can do!

"that foot looks really tasty! Maybe I'll just....

"Oh yah!"

tradition

It's tradition to set up our Christmas tree and decorations the day after Thanksgiving (if we're in town). Daylen had a lot of fun "helping" set up and decorate the tree. Unfortunately he likes to continue to "help" even though the tree is all up and finished. I feel like a broken record, "Daylen, don't touch the tree. Daylen, don't touch the tree. Daylen stay away from the tree!" After the tree was all set up he had fun just laying underneath is looking up at the lights. Do all kids love that? I remember doing that as a girl too! So cute huh?

I absolutely love having our tree set up and enjoying the twinkling of the lights at night. It makes the atmosphere simply pleasant, and when I can smell the holiday scent burning in my Scentsy candle it just makes it all more sweeter.
Here's a smile for you from my favorite girl!

happy thanksgiving!

I've been a bit lacking in my blogging lately, but hopefully all that will change now that I finally have a camera again!

We had a great Thanksgiving at home this year. It was my first time making dinner at my own house. Brad's sister, Mandy, and I made it by ourselves about 3 years ago, but this time I actually made a BIG turkey. 20lbs! We are still enjoying the benefits of the leftovers. Rachel came over Wednesday and helped me get a few things ready beforehand so I didn't have to make everything the day of. It was really fun making all the food, I love to eat, especially Thanksgiving dinner, so I think the anticipation helped. Our party got smaller the closer it got to Thanksgiving and it ended up just being us and Rachel and Tyler. So we had a LOT of leftovers. They dwindle pretty fast even with our small family.




That's some good lookin' meat! The turkey looks pretty good too, don'tcha think?
Mmmmmm..............

Yummy!!!!!
What a sweet girl! This was the first picture I took trying out my new camera. I love Kate's smiles!

I really do have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

I am thankful for:

• My family first and foremost
• My wonderful husband who loves and takes such good care of us
• 2 beautiful children who make me smile and laugh enough to counteract the difficult times
• Both mine and Brad's extended family, we come from the best families, we don't get to see nearly enough
• My testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
• The peace knowledge brings in these uncertain times
• Great friends
• Modern conveniences, appliances (it made cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner so much easier!)
• I am not pregnant so I could enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner this year
• A warm house to protect me from the cold. (Although Rachel might say otherwise during the winter-the part about the "warm" house)
• In Brad's words, "One handed catches by Austin Collie"

I really could say a lot more, but you probably wouldn't want to read it all. I'm just thankful for EVERYTHING I have been blessed with!

Twilight...

I finally went to go see the long awaited "Twilight" last night with Rachel and Tyler. I'm pretty easy to please so overall I loved it. I thought Bella did an amazing job, she really was perfect for the part. Edward was pretty good, I was disappointed when I found out who would be playing the part, I didn't think he was beautiful or muscular enough, I still think this. However, he did grow on me a bit and I've heard from more than 1 person that it's better the second time around so I'm already excited to take Brad to see it. I've also heard they are making the second one, hurray!

who knew vacuuming could be so fun?

If you went from a crummy vacuum that didn't "suck" very well, to this....da da-da dah!





THE FILTER QUEEN MAJESTIC!!

You too would think vacuuming was fun. It's power to "suck" is absolutely amazing. This passed week I have been vacuuming every nook and cranny imaginable in my house, and not just because I was bored out of my mind not able to leave my house with 2 sick kids, or because I wanted to pass the time while my husband was gone for 5 days to Florida. I would have done it anyways because it was FUN! I know I'm strange, but this is an AMAZING vacuum.

family picture time!

Saturday was a beautiful day to take pictures and that is just what we did. Amy Sorensen, a friend in the ward, took our family pictures out on the river trail by our house and I love how they turned out. We took them just in time because ever since then it has been cold, windy, and rainy here. She did a great job of getting some fun shots of the kids. Daylen has been a stinker lately about having his picture taken, he refuses to smile or to even look at the camera. He makes this face where he curls one side of his upper lip, I haven't got it on camera yet though. So Amy took some fun candid ones with him playing with the leaves, he was all smiles then. I've posted a few of my favorites.