It's Christmas

I made the kids matching pajama bottoms and bought matching t-shirts. I tried and tried and tried to get a pict. of the 3 of them. Its hard to believe but this was the best. My baby has developed camera phobia. She sees the camera and she starts screaming.
hunter was quite surprised that Santa brought him a pirate ship.
Santa brought Madelyn a Cinderella and Snow White polly pocketts and a princess purse to keep all the little pieces in.
Santa brought Emily this worm she can pull around. The worm makes funny faces when its being pulled. It also holds three balls that spin around when its on the move. Its quite distracting to her. She doesn't pull it far before she stops and start playing with it.

We invited some friends over for a big dinner. Afterwards the kids played with the new toys, the daddy's played the WII, and the mommies chatted.

Kory took the weekend and monday off. We've had him to ourselves for 5 days. The kids our missing him already this morning. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. After the many hours of planning, shopping, baking, and all the many other preperations it's hard to see it end in one day. Yesterday was a great day and the kids our already asking when we can do it again.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve afternoon we invited some friends and we all went bowling. We had the adults on one lane and the kids on the other. We were at the bowling alley about 1:30. Only one other family was there. It was like having the place to ourselves. It was great. Both Maddie and Hunter were too funny to watch.


This was the worse game Kory has ever played. Hunter was so excited to learn that he had more points then his Daddy (thanks to bumper pads). Later that night we went to a different friends house for an evening of fondue. Yum Yum. I forgot my camera so I don't have any picts.

The Nativity

Preschool was peforming the Nativity for their families and tonight was the big performance. The kids have been practicing for 2 weeks now. I think all the kids were on a high tonight with excitement. Not one of them could sit still. Maddie played "Mary". Hunter played the Inn Keeper. His wrap kept falling down so he just yanked it off in the middle of their little production.
Amber was our "Princess Shephard" and Jolie was our "Angel".
Bryant played "Joshep" and Jaxen was the "Wiseman".
Good Job Hunter and Maddie.

Heaton Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Heaton Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Heaton Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Vintage pics

Ward Christmas Party

Tonight was our ward Christmas party. With Kory being out of town I really didn't feel like taking the kids by myself, but I knew Santa was going to be there and this would be there only opportunity to see him. They've been talking about what they were going to ask from him for several days now.

Maddie was really good. She hopped right up on his lap, looked right at him and said "thankyou, I want a big barbie like Aunt Hanna". I was standing to close to Santa for Emily's comfort. She was crying and trying to climb over my shoulder. This is the first year Maddie would even get close to Santa and this is the only picture I got. Hunter wasn't to sure of Santa. He was right behind Maddie but let several other kids go ahead of him. He just stood there and watched. I had to hold his hand and walk him up to Santa. Santa just bent over, picked him up and placed him on his knee. This is what Hunter does lately when he gets nervous. He starts pulling at his cheeks. It makes him look so funny. But he did talk to Santa while pinching his cheeks the entire time, he asked for a Spiderman.
Maddie's been saying for weeks now that she wanted a Princess Polly Pocket and Hunter wanted a Pirate Ship. I know Santa already has his gift for each of them. Hopefully they wont be to disapointed when they don't get the Barbie and Spiderman that was asked for tonight.
After Santa the kids decorated their own sugar cookies and ate them while watching Frosty The Snowman.
With a cookie in hand Emily finally let me put her down.
After the sugar cookies Maddie and Hunter put together a foam Snowman.
We all had a good time. The kids want to go back to the church again tommorrow and talk to Santa. I told them Santa has to go home now. He has to go to work, finish making all the toys. Maddie said "Santa can't work tommorrow. It's church day and we don't work on church day. He has to go to church just like me." What to say to that??? I told her she was right Santa will go to church tommorrow just like her but he goes to church in the north pole.

Hunter's Nativity Pictures

This afternoon I've been working on putting together a Nativity Scene for me to use during my Nursery Class this week. Hunter decided to draw his own. Josheph and Mary around Baby Jesus in a stable.
This is Mary and Josheph around Baby Jesus. I thought he had also drawn sheep (copying my pict. but he says they are the stable doors. The doors have to be shut to keep baby Jesus and all the animals nice and warm.

Sleeping through the night

Emily is 14mo. old and still does not sleep through the night. For a few weeks now I have been able to pat her back for a few minutes and she'll go back to sleep. Between 11pm and 5am this occurs about 3 times. This morning I rolled over and realized it was 6am and I hadn't gotten up once and neither had Kory. As Kory was getting ready for work I asked him to go check on her just to make sure she was still breathing. Kory came back chuckling. He told me I needed to go look at the girls. This is what he had discovered. Maybe she did wake up but this would be why I didn't hear her during the night.

Gingerbread Houses

For Family Home Evening last night we invited some friends over to make gingerbread houses with us. The girls waited so patiently as the 2 daddy's became the architect's. Once the houses were ready to decorate the kids took over.

Besides the houses we also had gingerbread men.
After about an hour of decorating these are the finished products.

Last year was our first year decorating little houses. The kids have been asking to do it again for a few days now. I think decorating gingerbread houses has now become one of our family traditions.

Snow

Yes, it does snow in Prescott Valley, Arizona. It doesn't happen too often and when it does we're lucky if it sticks for more then 12 hours. The kids however look forward to it every year. I told the kids it might snow last weekend but it didn't. Since then in every prayer Hunter gives he says something like this "and yesterday remember when mommy said it might snow but it didn't. Please help her make it snow today..." Hunter's prayer was answered saturday night.

Emily wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Once she got the hang of it she did like it.
After playing for little while with no coats/gloves the kids came inside for some homemade chicken noodle soup. YUM!
By sunday morning the snow was gone except for on the tree branches and peoples rooftops. Despite snowing on our way to church, during church and after church it just didn't stick. (Only 3 more Sundays of chuch being at 2:00 YEAH!!!) Supposedly we are expecting rain/snow through wed. the kids are hoping to be able to build a snow man. I don't think we'll be able to in our front yard but maybe we'll have to run up to the mountain and try there.

Christmas Tree

We've been telling the kids since we got home from Thanksgiving that we would set the Christmas Tree up last night for Family Home Evening. Daddy ended up working very late but the kids insisted on putting it up without him.I think they had more fun putting the tree together then putting all the decorations on it.
Emily loved playing with all the balls.

The end product turned out pretty well. Since we've been married I have collected 1 ornament to represent each year. The kids had so much fun asking about each ornament. For each of their 1st Christmas's I made a hand/foot print in plaster that we hung up. It was so fun to see them compare their hands now to 3/4 years ago.

A Package for Uncle Travis

All day yesterday the kids and I were putting together Uncle Travis's Christmas package. He is still in Iraq and in order for him to get his gifts by Chirstmas the package must be sent by today.

Hunter and Madelyn made him a Christmas Tree using their hands, they decorated it and of course it had to have a star.

Uncle Travis needed some reindeer in his package.

We made several homeade goodies to send. One being 2 big hershey's kisses made out of rice krispie treats.
Where was Emily in all this? Eating the broken candy canes in her high chair.