Christmas Post

I really wanted to get this post done before Christmas day, so I will take advantage of this time where the kids are in bed but WIRED, and will be out to visit many, many times in the next hour. 

This has been one fun, crazy month.  We got some serious snow and took full advantage of it.  Snowball fights, sledding, and LOTS of hot chocolate.  Jake is a bit of a hot chocolate junkie.  The kids benefit greatly from it!

We found and decorated our perfect Christmas tree, we prefer Nobel Firs.   

Visited Santa and let him know the things we wanted this year.  Jaxon would like a Lego Slave 1, and Sage would like a Barbie Car.  Hazel would be happy with a big box of Cheerios.  She’s crawling now, and it’s ADORABLE!  She does a little army crawl that none of my other kids have done, and she is quick.  Since she’s learned that trick we have found many foreign objects in her mouth.  So we like to keep a fairy decent sized stack of Cheerios nearby to keep her occupied! 

We got an awesome week long visit from Heather and made gingerbread houses while she was here.  It was way more fun than any of us expected it to be!

We made a super quick trip to Utah to see friends and family.  It was worth every penny we paid in gas. 

We also stopped by Temple Square on the way out.  It brought back happy memories of my childhood and helped my son feel the true meaning of Christmas. 

I was in charge of our Ward Christmas program, and it went beautifully.  I love being the ward choir director and feeling the power that music has.  It was a fantastic Sunday.

And then today, on fabulous Christmas Eve, we were as busy as could be.  We stopped by the discovery museum this morning, then went to sing at a retirement center.  I love being able to have the kids sing their fun songs for the people there.  Just leaves you with all sorts of warm fuzzies.  Then we made lots of cookies, brought them to friends, came home, ate steak and other deliciousness, watched Polar Express, opened our Christmas pajamas, read and acted out the Christmas story from Luke 2, sang carols, left cookies and milk for Santa, and read Christmas books.  Whew!! :)  And like I mentioned at the beginning, the kids are now in bed just giddy with what’s to come.  Christmas is so magical, I love it. 

Merry Christmas everyone!!

All About Hazel

Today is my sweet little Hazy’s half birthday.  Six months ago today I went through the most intense natural childbirth experience and brought my sweet little angel into the world. 

I ADORE this little girl.  Me and her are like two peas in a pod.  She’s my first baby to be a real momma’s girl, and I hate to admit that I kind of love it.  Just tonight she was happily sitting on her daddy’s lap, and when I walked into the room she just started crying and trying to figure out a way to get to me.  I’m not so sure that daddy thinks it’s as cute as I do. : )  She loves my hair and plays with it (pulls it) whenever I hold her over my shoulder.  It’s sweet.

She is a great little roller, and can get around our entire front room no problem.  She loves to eat, and is already a pro at eating those little Gerber star things. 

She’s still not sleeping through the night, but we hope to remedy that soon.  Plus, with a face like this, I don’t mind so much helping her out in the wee small hours of the morning.

She loves her momma best, but I think Sage would probably come in number 2 (sorry Jake)  Anytime Sage comes around Hazel squeals in delight.  It’s very cute. 

She’s such a good, sweet, little baby, and I’m so happy she’s mine.

          

We love you Hazel

aka Meepers, Goober, Hazy, and sissy

BFFITWWW

I love my best friend.  She is the very best best friend a girl could hope for. 

She is the kind of friend who would do anything for you, no matter what. And she has proved this to me many times.

We’ve been through thick and thin together, to say the very least, and we are so much closer because of it.  Our mom’s are buried just a few feet from each other.  How many best friends can say that? (hopefully not too many!)

She’s the kind of friend that I can be completely myself around, and know that she’ll love me anyways.

We have SO many memories, that we can waste hours and hours just talking about them all.

We will be friends forever. 

I love you Kelsey, so very much. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Now, here are some fun pics of our weekend together!

 

Cute kiddos

Cute kiddos almost 4 years ago

Kimball….this kid is fantastic.

Bowling!  If I recall, our kids beats their kids!

 

Here we are with the freaky guy at Powell's.  What a strange picture.

We make such pretty babies! a

 

We had a fun, full weekend, and I was sad to see it end.  Thanks for coming Kels and Spenc.  Let’s do it again soon!

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Drum Roll Please…..

His smile is perfect.  And my goodness he’s handsome. 

Practicing for picture day

Jaxon had his school picture day a few weeks ago, and this is us trying to catch the perfect smile.

This is how the dialogue went

“Jaxon, show me how you are going to smile for your picture”

 

“Okay, not so crazy-like”

“Is that how you smile when you are really happy?”

“Well, show me some teeth still”

 

“Ummm, okay, we’re back to crazy.  Just show me how you smile when you think about your birthday in a few days”

“You know what?  Never mind".”

I can’t wait to see what smile he chose for the actual pictures.

Pumpkin Patch & Carving Pumpkins

I got to go on Jaxon’s Kindergarten fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch .  There is just something so magical about a pumpkin patch.  I love it.  We got to take a hayride out to the pumpkins, and then the kids got to pick any pumpkin they wanted, as long as they could carry it. 

I wasn’t supposed to bring Sage, but I did anyway.  How could I not? 

Yep, I pick this one for sure!

Here’s Jaxon with Mrs. Chambers.  He is loving school,and it’s thanks to this amazing teacher.  Each time I’ve been in his class, I’m amazed at how much control she has over the 24 students.  She really does a fantastic job.

Now that we had our perfect pumpkins, we needed to carve them.

It’s no wonder fall it my favorite season.

3 day Halloween

I sure do love this holiday, which made it especially fun to spend the whole weekend celebrating!  Jaxon had his Harvest Party at school on Friday, and then we went to Jake’s work to see everyone in their fun costumes.  Don’t they look great?  Jake wore his stand-by costume, Clark Kent.  He looks good in it, it works. 

We then headed over to Ihop for their free pancakes.  I even got one for Hazel. Then we decorated the back of the van and got ready for our ward trunk-or-treat.  But not before taking some super cute photos of the kiddos.

She’s my little caterpillar.  SO stinkin’ cute. 

A very excited witch

Awesome white ninja

Sage kept telling everyone that she was the good witch and I was the bad witch. 

Hummm….not sure about that, but I did love our matching tights. 

So Friday was a definate success.  Next came Saturday.  Sage had a birthday party in the morning, and as soon as that was over we went to the Outlet Mall for trick –or-treating.  It was fun to spend time with friends. 

We had Halloween pasta for dinner that night.  But that was about it for Saturday.  Oh, and our sweet little Gecko died on Saturday.  Sad. 

Sunday started our with a wonderful Stake Conference, and then a fun Halloween dinner.  Thanks to Darilyn’s post, I didn’t have to come up with any of it on my own.

First we had Mr. Veggie Bones.  I’ve never seen my kids eat so many vegetables.  This will be a halloween tradition for sure.

 

We also had mummy dogs, and Jello Ghosts

And with all those leftover veggies, I made yummy Minestrone soup.  It was fun having Halloween on a Sunday because I felt like I had all sorts of time to make dinner special. 

And the most important part of this crazy holiday…….

The LOOT!

Hazy liked it best of all! :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

(it’s always so nice when it’s over)