Utah

Kind of a last minute decision, we went to Utah the week after Christmas and stayed until New years. We figured we wanted to do something while Elle was out of school and we hadn't been there in awhile, so we packed up and drove over. The kids actually did pretty good driving except that neither of them slept there or back the entire eight hours. We had fun though. Ryan and I went skiing while the kdis stayed with his parents. We all went down to Temple Square one day and saw the new Joesph Smith movie, which was great and Elle loved it. And we walekd through the visitors center to see the Christ statue and Elle had me stop and read every description under each painting hanging up. I am glad she is so interested, it is fun to see her learning about the church. Let's hope it lasts:) The kids were so enthralled at all the people getting married, they loved seeing all of the brides.

Elle and Reese by the statue of Christ in the visitor's center



I thought the temple looked so pretty against the gray sky and the light snow. I was kind of wishing I was getting married that day because the pictures would have been so pretty.

Elle in fron of the Joseph Smith statue in the Memorial Building

Super cute craft

So some girls in my ward are getting together to do a craft next week and I thught I would share the website becuase the cans are a super cute thing for gifts or visiting teaching or whatever. The website is http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/2009/07/canning-with-pizzazz.html. Have fun!

More sledding

The day after Christmas we took the kids sledding over to a hill in the neighborhood. Elle is the biggest daredevil and she loves flying down the hill a hundred miles an hour, even when she gets snow plowed in her face. Reese, on the other hand, was down with the street sledding but not so much the hill sledding. What is the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words." She went down once with Ryan and laughed the whole way but would not go again the whole time we were out. She stood at the top of the hill and watched. Both of them love to go home after sledding and drink a cup of hot chocolate though.

Sledding on Christmas Eve

We had snow this year at Christmas, so the kids got to go out and get on Ryan's old fashioned sled and we pulled them around on the streets. They had a really good time.
Reese always say she wants her "siwwy hat", or silly hat. She loves that hat for some reason.

Christmas Eve and Christmas

We have a tradition that I started that we all get to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it is always a new pair of pajamas. Ryan's mom makes pajamas for all the kids, so those are ususally the ones they open. This year, Elle got princess ones and Reese got cupcakes so they were both super excited to wear their new jammies to bed.



Christmas morning was really fun this year because both of the kids understood Santa and everything this year. First they had to check out their Santa gifts. At our house, Santa always leaves them each one big present. This year, Reese wanted a "peek kitchen" (pink kitchen). Unfortunately, Santa only had brown kitchens available but she loved it nevertheless. Elle got a DS lite from Santa. I think Elle thought she got jipped a little bit because her DS was not as BIG as Reese's kitchen. It is funny what kids think in their own little minds. After presents, they had to check and make sure Santa ate his pumpkin bread and milk and that the reindeer got their carrots. Santa must get super full from all the goodies he eats on Christmas night:) The rest of the day they just played with toys and Ryan's sister and her family came over to eat. It was pretty uneventful, but nice and relaxing.

Christmas Best

So I have this tradition of having the girls wear special dresses to church on the Sundays of Easter and Christmas since they are special days. These were this year's dresses and I thought they looked so cute in them, I had to post the pictures. Plus, my mom wanted to see them in their dresses.

Some of the many cousins

Ryan's brother and family drove into town from Dallas over the holidays to ski and stuff, so they stopped in Colorado Springs on their way to Breckenridge and we went down and all stayed at Ryan's sister's house for a night. Unfortunately, Ryan had to work that Saturday so he didn't get to come. But it worked out well for me becuase he went Christmas shopping for me that night:) Reese was not a happy camper about taking this picture, as can clearly be seen. Ther are my two kids, Katie's two kids, and Ron and Janice's six kids in the picture. These brave people are adopting two more kids from Ethiopia, making the total come to 8! Wow, I could not hack it!

Random

This is just a random picture I took of the kids riding Grandpa, or "the horse" as we like to call him. Just a quick sidenote to say that my parents are awesome when it comes to fulfilling the desires of my kids (among other things they are awesome for). The kids love "gami and gampi", as Reese says, and all I have to say is thank you to my great parents. Oh, and also, poor grandpa.

Decorating the Tree

Okay, everybody, I am so sorry but it has been awhile since I have done this. So, just to forewarn there will be a slew of posts coming in the next day or so. I am finally getting things settled down after the holidays and our trip to Utah. So here goes... Decorating the tree was interesting this year. Ryan had to work the day after Thanksgiving, which is when we always put our tree up. So we waited and waited because he was supposed to be home by around 10 am. Well he got stuck and the kids were buggin' to decorate. So, being the wonderfully nice mom that I am I crawled into the crawl space and got the huge carton of decorations and the very large christmas tree box out by myself. SO by that time I was already sweating and tired. Next was the actual assembly of the tree, that was fun in and of itself, if you remember that we have quite a tall tree and I am not quite a tall person. All went well and then we came to the lights, which Ryan normally does because I am not tall enough. To make a long story short, I almost broke my whole body trying to get the lights up (standing on the window sill, etc...) but we did it and it actually looked pretty good. So here are the kids in their glory putting ornaments on the tree. I love putting ornaments up with them becuase it is so cute to see their faces light up with each one. They especially love the ones that are from their first Christmases and that they have made.