Christmas

Those last few days before Christmas really started to pick up steam. On the Sunday before Christmas we had a family coloring contest. After dinner the kids helped judge the entries. Can you believe that they couldn't agree on the winner? Scott still thinks that his should have won, and I agree that his was the best. As it turns out, Emma and Alan tied. The winners split a family four-pack of tickets to ride the Hilton Express Holiday Lights Tour. (luckily for us children under two are free) After the winner was announced, we made the hot cocoa and got the kids in their jammies and headed out to hop on the Hilton Express bullet train (our van). We passed out the cocoa sippies and we were off. Every time we passed a really well lit yard we would all say "Ooooo, Ahhhhh, Ohhhhh." Logan really got into it. Over the next few days we would often hear an Ohhhhh coming from him as we past some lights. Our tour even managed to find Santa's house. Emma really wanted to go knock on the door, but we explained that Santa was sleeping and needed his rest for Christmas eve.
Monday night we made spritz cookies for Santa. I found a really great recipe online and they worked really well. The kids were totally able to press them out on to the cookie sheet. Then we got to enjoy a few of them for treat.
Tuesday night we went to a super-fun Christmas Eve Eve party at the Mickelson's. It was great to see everyone, and Scott and I kicked everyone's trash at the game.
I was so sad Wednesday morning to wake up with a sore throat, head ache, and nausea. And to make matters worse Logan had thrown-up all over his room and then threw up again all over me. I was so sad that Christmas would be ruined. We had to miss the Hilton Christmas Eve party and my poor kids had chicken noodle soup for dinnner, made by Scott, or else they wouldn't have had anything. After dinner I had to go get some ibuprophren. The only place open was Smiths and the lines were all the way back though the other side of the store. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE. Once I was on ibuprophren, Tylenol, and nausea medicine I finally felt well enough to help get really for Christmas Morning.
Although I was worried Christmas would be miserable, it actually turned out to be very nice. The kids were so cute, nice, and excited as they checked out their stockings and opened their presents. Logan was espcially cute. He LOVED the dinosaurs, he kept making the big ones eat the little ones. After a super yummy breakfast, we played Candyland. Later we headed up to Mom and Dad's for dinner and we got spoiled with more presents. It was definitly a white Christmas and the weather was so crazy that we ended up spending the night at Mom and Dads.

Santa and all that Holiday Whobity Whaty

Wednesday afternoon was Emma's Christmas Preschool Program. Alan was so excited to get to play at "Emma's Park." It is just the play room at Emma's school. A few of his funnier moments were when he rolled a large foam like barrel into the middle of the room, stood it up on its end and then announced "Now I need to build stairs." Which he did. He also found a large cylinder that he laid on and said "I'm floating down a river on this log." Then the program started. They sang Santa Clause is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Jingle Bells. Then they told them to Sing Santa Clause is Coming to Town again really loud so Santa would here them and come.

Emma was so cute and sang VERY loud, especially for the last song.

As soon as Santa came out Emma yelled out "I want a pink computer." She said it more like she was just soooo excited and was not demanding. Then she nicely waited her turn to sit on Santa's lap and then told him about the computer. She is just so cute!

As you can see Logan did NOT share Emma's excitement about sitting on Santa's Lap

Once it was Alan Boy's turn, he got down to business and very nicely and seriously told Santa he wants lots and lots of so many dinosaurs. He may have told Santa that Logan wanted dinosaurs too. I guess Logan will learn that if you don't tell Santa what you want then you'll just end up with what your brother wants.

Later that night Scott and I went to the firms Christmas party at the Joseph Smith Memorial building on Temple Square. The room was on the 9th floor and had an amazing view of the Temple. Every year the firm supplies white elephant gifts for all of the couples. Most are actually pretty cool gifts, but there is always one or two gag gifts in the bunch. This year we got "The Worlds Largest Underpants." At the end of the party, Scott was nice enough to model them for everyone. I bet you didn't know that I was married to an underwear model.

After the party we took a quick stroll around Temple Square to see the lights. It was beautiful. We just had to stop and take a pic by my favorite spot (near the Assembly Hall). For years they have always had all the trees over there covered in pink lights. This year all the trees were covered in gold lights. I like the pink better, but the gold was still gorgeous.

Ok, so in other news it has been one month since I gave up chocolate and started working out. I was pleased on Wednesday to learn that I had managed to lose 7 lbs this months. Not too bad considering it was a month with Thanksgiving and Christmas goodies. Only 28 more lbs to go.

It finally snowed

enough to go out and play. I am not sure what the deal has been with the weather this winter. It snowed once in October and ever since then it has been unseasonably warm. So this morning when we woke up to a snow storm the kids were so excited. I told them that we could go out and play once the snow let up a little, so we spent the morning making a Christmasy paper chain that we hung in the living room. Then just after I put them all in their beds for a nap, I came downstairs to see the sun shining brightly. I was worried that it would get too warm and the snow would be gone by the time they woke up from their naps, so I went back upstairs to ask if they would rather go out and play in the snow and then take a nap. Can you believe that they would all rather go play in the snow?
Man, playing in the snow is hard work. By the time I got them all bundled up, I was practically sweating. After getting Logan's snow pants, gloves, coat, and boots on he kinda tipped over on the love seat and whimpered a little "umm mom I am stuck." It was really cute. Once I got him down on to the floor he was able to move a little.
The kids were so funny. They insisted on wearing pants, coats, boots, gloves, and hats, even though I told them it was not that cold out.

They really loved playing in the snow

I just love snow babies

Alan was so cute he kept running around making snow angels and adding little pieces of snowman saying this is his nose.

Logan loved helping to smooth the snowman

Emma spent most of the time being a puppy, but she did give Baby Snowman his carrot nose.

Alan's awesome hat hair! It reminds me of when he was a little baby and he had super blonde fuzzy hair that stuck straight up.See what I mean? This is Alan 6 months old.

Update

I love love love the Christmas season. I must admit I look forward to it all year. I remember as a child the weeks and days leading up to Christmas seemed to linger on and on. Now the days fly by and I feel as if I have so much to do that I will never get it all done before the 25th. So much has been happening the last few weeks that I have not had time to blog about it.

One of the biggest changes in our home is that Logan is now walking all over the place. He took his first steps quite some time ago, but I think he was afraid to walk very much with Emma and Alan always running around like monkeys. They were all dancing to the Nutcracker the other night and Logan got knocked over several times.

So here is some video of Logan on the first day that he really started walking. It was the day after Thanksgiving, so if you are watching it, the song fits to the day and Logan is a bit of a Turkey. It was just before dinner and Logan is hungry and tired so it also shows him throwing some of his cute little baby fits.

We spent 4 days up at Scott's parent's house over the Thanksgiving week. It was nice to kinda go away for a while.  To help kick off the Christmas season we took the kids to the Nativity at the Kaysville Tabernacle. There were hundreds of nativities there from all over the world and fun crafts for the kids. The week after Thanksgiving was spent cleaning, decorating for Christmas, and making cookie dough. I was a little disappointed when I didn't get it all done by Sunday, but oh well. On Sunday we made our gingerbread house. The kids enjoyed it so much. All week Emma kept asking if it was Sunday yet so we could make our gingerbread house.  Emma also learned once again about Jesus' birth. All week she has been playing that she is Mary, Alan is Joesph, and Logan (or a doll) is Jesus. I think it's cute that Mary has replaced Hannah Montana in Emma's world of pretend. This week we have once again been too busy and the days have passed by too quickly. I try so hard to slow down so that the kids can take part in some of the joys of Christmas. It took me the whole first week in December to get the tree up and the lights on it. So on Monday the kids and I decorated it. They had so much fun helping with the ribbon, beads, popcorn, ornaments, candy canes, cookies, and pine cones. We don't have a lot of room in our current place, so I stuck a lot of our Christmas decorations in the tree (like cute tins and figurines). The kids also loved helping me set up the nativities around the house. It was a nice time to talk about Christ's birth with the kids. Tuesday was our ward Relief Society Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. Good friends and good food. That evening I was reflecting on all of the amazing women that I have been blessed to know and to be friends with. It amazes me how quickly we as women see talents and virtues in other women but don't always see them in ourselves. I have been blessed with wonderful, beautiful, and talented friends who often inspire me to try harder and to do better. So if you are a woman and I know you just know that you are awesome and beautiful.

Scott has had finals this week which has added to the craziness. We are SO EXCITED to be so close to being DONE WITH SCHOOL. After this, there is just one more semester to get through. His final on Thursday was with his friend Saul. So while the men were off taking tests, Saul's wife Ashley and their daughter Paige came over to play. We all had a lot of fun making candy cane cookies and just hanging out. 

I am so excited for the fun that we will have over the coming weeks and I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Baby Logan coloring like a big boy at the Nativity

Logan played with this marble works for over an hour

Alan was excited when we finally let him take the marble works apart

Logan hamming it up infront of the tree

He got very upset when Emma tried to get in his spot light

Emma loves wearing all her holiday outfits

Santa's Elves are Working Hard

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

What more can I say... it is just awesome. I saw Andrea's and just had to get in on the fun.