A Wonderful Christmas!

We had such a wonderful Christmas!  We went down to the cabin at Brian Head with Brad's family.  It was beautiful there.  Since there wasn't any snow at home it was really nice to be surrounded by lots of snow for Christmas!  

After we got to the cabin we put up the tree and decorated it.  Aleah thought that it was cool that Grandpa had to use the "biggest ladder" to put the star on the top!

When we go to the cabin we have to fly paper airplanes!  Aleah and Cade loved to see how far their airplanes would fly.  

We decorated gingerbread houses or gram cracker houses in our case.  We did it during Cade's nap and we never had time to make one with him after that.  But, he probably would have just eaten the candy anyway!

I did the frosting and Aleah did the rest.  She choose the shape of her house, the candy, and where she wanted to put the candy.  She is getting so creative!  I had a lot of fun helping her with her house.

Aleah and Cade are at such a fun age!  They ran around the cabin with their cousins playing and laughing.

We went sledding every day.  We went out on the side of the cabin and sledded down the edge of the ski slopes.  I just realized that we got video of the sledding but we didn't get any pictures.  Just picture lots of smiles and giggles!

On Christmas Eve we played our white elephant game while we waited for our dinner to get done.  The kids had fun opening crazy gifts.  Aleah kept getting electronic things and every time Cade had to choose a new gift he couldn't pass up the gift that his cousins Ethan or Bryton offered him.

After dinner we got out our Christmas Eve gift.  Cade was too tired and just wanted to play with the iPod. So Aleah opened it for us.  We got slippers this year!

Christmas morning we all gathered at the top of the stairs ready to open our Christmas presents.  Aleah and Cade were really excited.  They are just starting to understand gifts so it was fun to see their excitement.

After breakfast we had a wonderful Christmas program.  We watch a nativity video, acted out the nativity (Aleah got to be the star), and the kids played the bells for us.  Aleah and Cade loved ringing their bells.  They didn't quite figure out that they weren't supposed to ring them through the whole song, oh well, maybe next time.

Brad and I got to go snowboarding the day after Christmas.  It was a beautiful day.  I love snowboarding with Brad.  It is always fun going down the mountain and then really nice on the way up.  We get to sit and talk and enjoy the peace and the beauty that is around us.  I will say it again, I love it!

When we got home Brad set up the train set that the kids got for Christmas.  They love it and will play with it for hours.

My Christmas present from Brad was a kitchen makeover.  Now that I am cooking everything from scratch he thought that it would be nice to have some things that will make it easier for me.  Also, I really needed new pans.  I have still been using the pans that we got when we got married 10 1/2 years ago.  One of the things Brad got me is a really fancy rice cooker.  It also cooks oatmeal!  I eat oatmeal almost every morning, I love oatmeal.  This rice cooker is nice because we can set it up before we got to bed and tell it that we want to eat at 8:00 and that's all, we are awakened by a yummy smell in the morning!

We did not send out a Christmas card this year.  I was hopeful that I would get it done in time for the new year, but that didn't happen either.  Sorry!  We want everyone to know that we love you and that we love our Savior!  We are thankful for this time of year.  It gives us a chance to reflect on the birth and life of Jesus Christ.  We are thankful for Him!  It also gives us a chance to be thankful for all our friends and family.  We rely on you and we are thankful for all you do for us!  Merry Christmas!

Party with Santa!

The Santa Party is a party that I have looked forward to since I was Aleah's age! I love Santa, he is a wonderful family friend. It is so much fun to get to watch my kids sit on his lap and talk to him just like I did growing up.

I started preparing my kids for the Santa Party a few weeks ago.  I talked to them about who Santa is.  I told them that he can sometimes be really loud and silly.  But that he is very nice and not scary!  I told them that they get to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas and then he will give them a candy cane.  I could tell that Aleah pretty much understood.  But when I asked her what she was going to ask Santa for Christmas she would say, "A candy cane!".  Cade understood that Santa says, Ho Ho Ho.

When we knew that Santa was about to get there Brad grabbed Aleah and I grabbed Cade.  We sat down in the big room to wait.  We told the kids that Santa was coming and reminded them that he was not scary!  Santa came in and Aleah and Cade did great.  They even laughed at all his jokes (those of you familiar with Santa know what I'm talking about when I say, jokes)!

Aleah was the second kid to sit on his lap. She was so excited and ran right up to him. She told him that she is three!  He talked to her about her birthday party and asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  She was about to tell him when he said, "Should I bring you something for your doll?", she said, "Yes!".  Cute girl.  I just really wanted to hear what she was going to say!  She gave him a big hug and loved the candy cane he gave her.

As Aleah was getting her candy cane Cade realized that he wanted in on that.  He jumped off my lap and ran right over to Santa!  He sat on Santa's lap for about 5 minutes! He was so happy sitting with Santa.  His cousins decided that if Cade was happy with Santa then he must be safe and they started going up to sit with him.  Cade just continued to sit with Santa until they all got their candy canes.  I couldn't open it fast enough for him!

I am so thankful that my Grandma still does her Santa party.  I loved seeing Santa and I loved spending the evening with my extended family!  I don't get to see them enough.

We have a 3 year old in the house!

We celebrated Aleah's birthday on Saturday morning.  It was a wonderful party.  Aleah had been looking forward to her party and talked about all her cousins who were going to come.  When we put all the chairs in the living room she assigned everyone a seat.  Then she told me that she was going to sit by Uncle Todd.  We had blown up a bunch of balloons the night before.  So that morning Aleah and Cade were playing with the balloons.  Aleah stopped and said, "Mom I'm going to share all my balloons with my cousins for my birthday party."  Yay, I think she is starting to understand sharing!

The first few times that I talked to Aleah about her birthday party she told me that she wanted a smiley face party.  I was very excited thinking that would be a very easy cake for me to make!  Then one day she told me that she wanted a princess party.  I tried and tried to convince her that she really wanted a smiley face party, but she never went back.  I have to admit, it was a very fun princes party for my princess Aleah.

Aleah choose a green dress for her princess cake, just like Princess Tiana.  She only knows who Princess Tiana is because she has a Disney Princess puzzle.  I'm glad that she liked her cake and thought that it was pretty.

For her birthday breakfast we had blueberry pancakes.  Yummy!  We made her a number 3 pancake and she loved it.

She did really well blowing out all three candles all by herself.

This year she unwrapped her presents like a pro.  Every time I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she would say with a pleading look on her face, "All I want is a baby doll."  So we got her a baby doll.  It has been fun watching her feed her baby, put the bib on, take the bib off, burp her (complete with sound effects), and put a blanket on her and sing her to sleep.

After her party she had a lot of fun playing with all the fun presents she was given and she enjoyed painting an apron with her Dad!  During her quiet time I could hear her in her room sing, Happy Birthday, to herself over and over again.

That evening we went to Kangaroo Zoo to finish off her birthday!  We all had so much fun.  I loved running around with Aleah and Cade.  Climbing up and sliding down and then doing it, "AGAIN!".  The big slide tickled my tummy, it was awesome!

I can't even express in words how thankful we are to have Aleah in our life.  She is so sweet and loving.  If I am sad she offers me her bunny to hug or say, "Shhhhh, it's all right, it's just all right.".  She helps me with cleaning and cooking every day.  When asked a question her new response is, "Yeah, sure!".  She always reminds me how much she is growing up, her feet are even growing up, yay!  She loves to play with Cade, sing, dance, put clips in her dogs 'hair', read books (my favorite is when she reads to me), and do gymnastics.  She gets to move up to the advanced gymnastics class starting in January.  She will be the youngest in the class.  She is an amazing gymnast!  We sure love you Aleah!

Oh Christmas Tree

It is a lot of fun to put up our tree and decorate it with Aleah and Cade.  It takes us a few nights so we started the Monday night before Thanksgiving and finished the Monday night after Thanksgiving.  As soon as we brought the tree box upstairs Aleah and Cade went to work emptying it for us.  Then they would find the right color for us, help us fluff the branches and put it on the tree.

Aleah and Cade really loved decorating the tree and they did a pretty good job too.  We only had to move a couple here and there.  It's funny, I just noticed that Cade was wearing the same shirt the day we put up the tree and the day we decorated it!

I love having the tree up.  We leave the lights on most of the day because it is just so beautiful!

So much to be thankful for!

We really have so much to be thankful for!  Just to name a few; each other, our health, our wonderful family and friends, our Savior, our testimonies, our home, our cars, Brad's job, my new diet, and Cade's tooth that finally cut!  The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving we talked everyday about the things that we are thankful for.  When I asked Aleah what she was thankful for she said, "Ours house!"  She came up with some good ones.

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family.  We all stayed at my parents' house Wednesday and Thursday nights.  It was a lot of fun to be together as a family.  Friday we went to a movie and Saturday night we went to Temple Square.  It was a beautiful night.  The lights were amazing.  But it was very busy!

At the nativity scene Aleah and Cade loved showing us all the sheep and the stars.  I don't think that they really get it yet, but it was fun anyway.

Aleah and Cade are so silly!