Merry Christmas! Part Two ~ 2011

After our fun hotel extravaganza we headed down to Jared and Megan's for the rest of the weekend.  Before we left we had to enjoy our tree...I sure loved our tree this year!  Funny story about our silver star...I had been looking for one everywhere and couldn't find one that I liked.  Well, one day we were at Target and we went and looked again because you just never know what you'll find.  We had gotten separated a little and Landen was ahead of me.  He stopped and pointed at something down an isle and he was acting a little weird.  I walked down there and looked and all I noticed was this family trying to pick out ornaments and the mom was squatting and her butt crack was showing...which is what I thought Landen was talking about because is was pretty funny...but no, it wasn't that.  He had noticed that they had a silver star (the ONLY one we could find in the store) and a pink star that they were trying to decide between.  This is the point where all pride goes out the window and we totally kind of stalked them...we just kept within sight of that silver star.  At one point they all walked away and left it sitting on the ground but then the lady came back...noooooo...but then luckily she walked away again and that time we didn't give her a chance to come back!!!  We swooped in, grabbed the star, and practically ran down the next isle just in case she came back.  It was ours!  It was finally ours!  The perfect silver star to top my tree!!!  I was so happy!

Friday night we all went to Spanish Fork to drive through the lights at the golf course.  We packed into Jared's Explorer and just held the kids on our laps as we drove though.  It was fun and the kids loved it!  Rylie loved the castle!  It was a really good light display!  On our way home we stopped at McDonalds for dinner and so the kids could play for awhile.  It was a fun night!

Rylie and Maya ready to go see the lights!

Christmas Eve was a fun day!  Well, except that Jared's sep pump went out and blew a fuse in part of the house so the heat and lights went out...he has the worst luck on Christmas Eve.  Last year their crawl space flooded because of the sep pump.  Luckily him and Dad were able to replace it and fix part of the pipes that had frozen and every got running smoothly again.  While they were working hard we played with the kids.  Nathan was building with his legos and I painted Mom and Rylie's nails!  They're so cute!  Later on Mom and I took Nathan and Rylie to the theater to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked."  It was a pretty cute movie and the kids loved it!  It was good to get out of the house for a little while :) 

Christmas Eve a lot of Megan's family came over and we ate lots of food, what we call in our family "The Spread," talked and played games.  Then it was time to read the Christmas story, biblical and fictional, and get those kiddos off to bed so Santa could come deliver their presents! 

Christmas morning was a blur!  Megan's family returned, so along with all of us there were lots of people and lots of presents!  My favorite part was watching the kids...they just get so genuinely excited.  I love it!  Nathan got a racetrack and Rylie got a princess castle...those were some excited little kids.  My favorite part about Rylie was that at any moment she was not opening a present she was at that castle playing.  So adorable.  I love Christmas and I was so grateful I was able to spend it this year with my family!!!

I was really impressed with the fireplace they made:

Rylie's excitement was so fun to watch!

Maya got this little rubber seal that lit up when you hit it on something...she was totally enthralled!

Landen's excitement is almost as good as Rylie's!!! I got him one of his favorite movies of all time, "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

Landen got me one of my favorite Christmas movies, "I'll Be Home for Christmas."  By the way, we did get other gifts, he got a new phone that he's in love with and I got some sweet Chaco sandals!  Mom and Dad got us Scattergories...I LOVE THAT GAME!!!  I even reminded Mom that I wanted it but she's so good and had already bought it :)

I think this is my favorite picture from the whole day:

After present opening we all got ready and headed to church.  It was great to be able to feel the real spirit of Christmas and be uplifted in worshipping our Savior, which is what this day is all about. 

When we got home Grandma and Grandpa had a very special surprise for Nathan and Rylie.  Since they aren't usually able to be out here for birthdays and Christmas and have to mail gifts they can't get anything too big. So this year they did something special and got the kids some gifts that were a little larger than usual...Nathan got a Transformers scooter and Rylie got a Princess bike.  They were so cool! The scooter lights up and the bike has a basket on the front that is a carriage and you can put your doll in it!  I may have been a little jealous...

After all the excitement it was unfortunately time for Mom and Dad to head back to Indiana.  We took them to the airport and had to say goodbye.  Gosh I hate it when they leave!!!  It was a rough day for me.  But anyway, it was so wonderful having them here to visit with us!  I'm so grateful they were able to come!!! 

The next weekend we headed up to Newton and spent New Year's weekend with Landen's family.  It was so nice to be able to go up and visit with them.  We had fun and just relaxed :)  That was much needed after my parent's visit. Adri, Landen and I stayed up watching a movie on New Year's Eve so we would be up to watch the ball drop...but we missed it.  Oops.  I'm over it! 

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

Merry Christmas! Part One ~ 2011

For the very first time ever, Mom and Dad were able to come out to Utah for Christmas!!!  It was absolutely one of my favorite things ever.  I love Christmas and it is so much better when I get to spend it with Mom and Dad...so I was one happy girl!  I'm not quite sure how Mom did it, but she was able to get the week before Christmas off...it took a lot of planning and PERFECT timing on her part to get those days off, but it sure paid off.  We were so grateful they were able to come out this year! 

The first few days were pretty low key.  We visited Jared and Megan and kids on Sunday.  Monday and Tuesday we had to work so Mom and Dad did their Christmas shopping.  Dad cooked us dinner a few nights which normally wouldn't be that impressive...but he did it in our so-called kitchen...with no stove!  And it was as delicious as it's always been.  Yum.  Mom did her Christmas cards and sent them out. HA!  Tuesday night Mom and Dad brought Nathan and Rylie back to our place with them and we had a sleepover.  Those kids are so funny!  Nathan loved playing the Wii, as usual, and got Grandma and Grandpa to play too!  Rylie especially loved our stairs again.  She would go up and down over and over.  She kept taking the gator up there and said he was taking a nap so we needed to be quiet.  The loved playing with my "easy button" and we made Christmas cards that they hung on our tree.  I took Wednesday off and was able to spend the day with my family.  I needed to pick up one last gift for Landen so Rylie got to be my special helper and go shopping with me.  She's such a good little girl.  We had some fun Aunt and Niece time!  Meanwhile Grandpa and Nathan went to the grocery store to stock up on some goodies for the evening.  It was a fun day :)

That's one tired little girl...

Dad and Mom bowling on the Wii...they're just big kids!

Nathan and Rylie having some "quiet time" before heading to the hotel

Wednesday night all of us went to Salt Lake to the Hilton Garden Inn for a night at a hotel!  Jared, Megan and Maya joined our party that was already in progress...Grandpa had taken the kids to the pool!  Landen joined us when he got off work.  First thing we did was go eat at Iggy's.  Delicious.  We took a little bit of a detour trying to find it and walked wwwaaayyyy out of our way, but when we finally found it we realized we HAD parked extremely close like we thought.  It was an experience to say the least.  But it all worked out. We went back to the hotel and got bundled up and then walked to the closest Trax station (it ended up being about 4 blocks away...and we had tired, cold children...) and took the train to Temple Square.  I love the lights at Temple Square!  It was snowing while we were there which made it even more pretty!  It was fun to walk around and see the lights :)  When we got back to the hotel the kids got to go to bed, it was way past their bedtime!  Then Jared, Megan, Landen and I headed down to the hot tub.  This hotel was awesome!  The pool was open 24 hours...oh yeah!  Early the next morning Grandma and Grandpa took the kids down for another swim before breakfast.  The hotel had this deal where you could pay $5 per person for the breakfast when you checked in and then you could order whatever you wanted at the restaurant...it was awesome!!!!!!!  Those meals were like $12 a piece.  Score.  It was such a fun time!!!  I think we were all a little sad to leave, but unfortunately life goes on.  I had to go to work and the parents and grandparents took the kids to see Santa.  Landen went home and relaxed! HA!  Smart guy.

Thanks Mom and Dad for such a fun time!!!  We sure enjoyed it!