Happy Holidays

Thanks Jayme for the cute holiday pictures! Check out her blog we're missing the "naughty or nice" picture but you can find it there. She does an awesome job!

Christmas Time

Merry Christmas! I'm a little late with this post, just like everything lately, but that's okay. It's been a busy week! We had a great Christmas. Charlie was so excited for Santa to come. We had Christmas Eve at our house with Mark's family minus his sister Maurena and her hubby Nate who finally had their little boy Samuel on the 19th (almost 2 weeks late!). We got to go visit them that day and I forgot my camera. :( He is a cutie though.

Mark and his brothers Bryan and Rick

Me and my sisters in law Kristen and Christie (Rick's wife).

Charlie and his cousins Ricky and Hallie (2 of Rick and Christie's kids)


CHRISTMAS MORNING
Charlie woke up at 6:50, not too terribly bad especially for him but he couldn't wait very long so we had to wake up Kenya shortly after. She's still waking up right here and has her Christmas morning hair style. :)
When Charlie came down to our room he said "Mom, Santa came! I saw the presents and Kenya got a kitchen!"

Giving her lamb loves

She loves these babies! It is so cute to see her play with them.


She loves this gift! She has been playing with it so much, feeding the babies, pushing them in the stoller, putting them down for night night. It's so cute. Note the dolls she won't let go of.

Charlie was waiting pretty patiently until the end to open up his big gift from Santa. He was so excited to get a big race track that he wanted and hasn't stopped playing with it.

My mom and Rick came up from Arizona this year, it was great to see them for Christmas!

That night we went to Jared and Amy's for dinner. They are great hosts and we had a fun time.

The three babies. Greta, Knox, and Kenya

Sailor, Kaia, and Harper

We had a wonderful Christmas! This year Mark and I decided not to get each other anything since we need a new video camera (Santa did manage did get us each a new pair of shoes though) but I was totally content with watching my kids enjoy their presents, it brings the excitement of Christmas back again, (and no this does not mean you're off the hook for all Christmas's now Mark) :) I'm so grateful for my family and feel so blessed!

Let It Snow!

I have to say that I'm loving the snow right now! It has come at the perfect time and I'm excited that there will be snow for Christmas this year. It's the snow in May and June, okay March and April too, that kills me! Charlie is having a blast playing in our yard and tonight was Kenya's first official trip out in the snow! She loved walking by Mark as he cleared our drive way. Then she found the sled so I took her around on that. Charlie was pretty excited about this little hill that was created by our neighbors snow plow. He has a four wheeler with a shovel on the front. Let's just say Mark is envious and our 3 wheeler or the hand me down snow blower is now not good enough. He doesn't usually want things so this is unusual. We'll have to see if we can talk Jeff into letting Mark borrow his toy instead. :)

Sledding down the "hill"

Loving the snow instead of the dirt/mud on our yard.

Still trying to ride his scooter in the snow.

Little snow princess. Her eye is still crossing sometimes. :( Dr. Hoffman says it's not severe enough to need another surgery yet and her eyesite is fine. She also has a flat bridge on her nose so it makes it look like they're crossing even more than they are. Even still she's a cross eyed cutie.

A Warm Welcome

Our friends Lynette and Nate came down from Seattle last week so we were so excited that they got to come over and spend an evening with us and Paige and Russ. Lynette and I use to be neighbors when she decided she was too good for Farmington and had to move to Seattle! :) It was through her that I met Paige so I'm glad she left me a friend in her place. :) Anyway we had a great time just talking and laughing all night. Our kids love playing together and Charlie was in heaven, staying up late with a house full of kids. It took him a few days to catch up on his sleep but it was still worth it. :) Thanks for the visit guys, still hoping one day you'll move back!

As Charlie would say...How 'bout that for Kenya!

Kitchen for Kenya?... Check! I have been on the hunt for a while for a kitchen for Kenya for Christmas, a lot of looking on line, you know-finding one, finding it's sold out, looking on ebay, debating on which one, reading reviews, you do know right? Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this! Well I thought my search had ended a couple days ago when I found a kidkraft silver and red one for a great price (I decided to go gender neutral for obvious reasons,) then I came across one at Down East from here. I didn't pay much attention to it at first because it was totally broken on the showroom floor but thank you Lindsay who brought to my attention that they might have some more and they did still in their box! This retails for $249 so I was feeling good when the price tag said $99 but it got even better when they were giving an addtional %25 off! I love a deal, as I was driving home I was thinking I should've bought two in case anyone else was looking for a kitchen. So I've decided to share the deal with all of you! Thank you Down East, you have one happy mom.

Here is a tiny picture. No fridge though, just the stove/sink.

No Naps?

It's 4:00, Kenya has been in her crib since 1:30 and she's still not asleep! What is going on! I took her binky away for her naps a week or so ago and wasn't very consistent with it for the first few days but for the last 3 days I've stuck to it and 2 of the 3 days she hasn't slept! I didn't think she needed it that bad, she doesn't have it at night anymore so I thought this would be easy. She doesn't really cry either, she's just jumping around in her crib, squealing, and talking. What do I do? I'm hoping if I stick to it then it'll work out and get back to normal but what 18 month old plays in their crib for 3 hours without falling asleep? Charlie is still taking naps, I know she's not ready to give them up. The crazy thing is that she's as happy as can be. I just went in to get her out and she just laughs at me. Who is this child? She's a different one. :)

The Lights!

We had a grand idea to go see the lights at Temple Square on the night that they lit them. Not such a grand idea after all! It was so crowded! We rushed through and went home. It was still fun but it's much more enjoyable when there's not so many people there. We decided to take Front Runner out there. It was our first time so that was an experience too! Kenya just wanted to do laps climbing up and down the stairs the whole way. My mom watched me wrestle with her, trying desperately to keep her entertained on my lap so I wouldn't have to follow her around while she did another lap. She later said to me "Your kids sure don't have your personality, you were such a mellow easy baby!" No fair, when am I gonna get one of those! :) The funny thing is that I thought Kenya was going to be my laid back child and she's totally turned on me! They are definately "spirited" kids but we'll keep them!


We managed to get a shot without somebody walking through the picture.

My mom and Rick on the train.

Kenya's great in this stroller for about 5 seconds if it's not moving.

Cami and Rich and their kids Kaia, Sailor, and Luke. It was Cami's birthday, Happy Birthday Cami! It was a fun filled day of black Friday shopping! I'm so grateful to have such a great friend for a sister.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My computer is  not letting me rearrange my text and pictures so this is all mixed up.  Oh well.

Charlie's first time ice skating

Grandpa and Knox

The kids table

My mom the Thanksgiving cook.

My mom's husband Rick gets malled by these girls every time he sees them.  They can't get enough of him.

My boys.  Charlie has discovered games on Mark's phone.  It actually comes in handy!

We had a few rock band sessions after the food.  Unfortunately this picture is blurry but is everyone except Luke and Rich who were sleeping.

 
I haven't posted our Thanksgiving week yet because I haven't known where to start!  Remember that this is like a journal for me so this may be kind of long!  We had a fun filled week.  My mom came up from Arizona with her husband Rick so we got to spend a lot of time with them which was nice.  Mark's mom was in Samoa with her new husband so we only had one family to go to this year.  So it was pretty relaxing.  We had all my brothers and sisters and their spouses/fiancee over plus my dad.  We did it at our house but don't worry, I didn't have to cook the turkey, that is the joy of having my mom come up and do the cooking!  Everything turned out great and we had a delicious dinner as always!  

Every year we get to go around the table and say what we are grateful for.  This year I am especially grateful for my dear husband.  He does so much for our family and has worked so hard to be where he is in all aspects of his life.  I appreciate all that he does for us and love him dearly.  I look forward to many more Thanksgivings with him by my side.  I am also grateful for my dad who let us live with him for 6 months and destroy his house.  I'm grateful for our new home and am looking forward to spending most (if not all) of our lives here.  I'm grateful for my two beautiful kids who have brought so much meaning and purpose to my life.  I'm grateful for my health and my families health.  I'm grateful for wonderful friends and family and their willingness to help me out with my kids when they can.  I'm grateful for the gospel and for the foundation that it has been in my life.  I feel so blessed to be able to live such a wonderful life.  

Another great part of my mom coming up for the holidays is our shopping trips!  We had a couple fun days of shopping, a girls best friend!  While we were out one day Mark took Charlie ice skating for the first time.  He was so excited to go and Mark said he did great.   A little hockey player in training.  When they got home Mark called me and said "Charlie wants to take his training wheels off his bike."  He's been asking for a while so I said "go for it!"  Mark called me back about 5 minutes later and said "Well that was easy! I took them off and he just took off!"  So when I got home he showed me and sure enough he was riding his bike.  I recorded it but it's not letting me upload it. :(

Well not as long as I thought.  I'm not much in the blogging mood right now I guess.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I'm also grateful for blogs so I can keep in touch with all of you with such ease!