Christmas Splendor

We went up to Logan to my parents for Christmas Eve. We had dinner, and opened presents, and the cousin's got to play together. My kids were very excited, because they don't see their cousins very much.



The kids were waiting for it to be time to open presents. And I look over and this is what I see. Jayson is entertaining all the boys with a game on his phone.
Ahh the joy of Boys!




After Grandma and Grandpa's party, we hurried over to Jayson's Grandma's party. This is his mom's mother. We haven't been to a party for her side of the family in years. His grandma had asked his mom to try and get us all there this year. She is living at the retirement home in North Logan. She had the party there. We arrived a little late, but just in time for Santa!
The kids had mixed feelings about old Santa. Haha! But the boys were good sports!
Tregan got a rock growing kit!



Dax got a bunch of tatoos!

Aty got some Elmo Books
 And as you can see she was Not Excited to sit on Santa's lap. We tried to take her to see Santa on a couple of occasions before this night, And she would be so excited the whole way there, saying. See Ho Ho" and then we would get there and walk over to where he was, and she would grab on to me as tight as she could and wrap her legs around my waist, and say " No Ho Ho" So when we heard that Santa was going to be at this party. I was interested to see what she would do. She watched him with the other kids, and didn't seem bothered. But when he called out her name, Dax tried to carry her over to him, and she started to scream and try and get out of his arms. I had to run to the rescue. She wanted no part in getting on his lap. So santa asked me to sit with her. So I got to sit on santa's lap too! But no present for me. Boo....
She grabbed a hold of her present and held on tight and screamed until he was done talking to her.
Silly girl!
After Santa left, Jayson's grandma gave all the granddaughters, and great grandaughters, bracelets that she had made. Which was so sweet. And she gave the boys remote control cars.





After the Parties, we headed home, to see if the pajama elf had arrived. The kids were so worried that we would miss him. He comes to our door every Christmas Eve to bring the kids their pajamas. With a note telling them that Santa is on his way, so they need to get ready for bed.  They look so forward to this every year. This year the Elf brought mom and dad some pj's too. I forgot to take pictures though. Oops!
We hung out for a bit, and played some card games. Then it was off to bed... Well, the boys went anyway, Aty on the other hand, well, I guess she was too excited to sleep! haha! I layed in my room with her for over and hour, trying to get her to settle down. I finally got her to sleep. And crept downstairs to check on daddy's progress. Three hours later. Everything was ready, and Santa could come. I was so excited I wanted to wake up the kids. I tried to talk Jayson into letting us just wake them up and open all the presents and then we could go back to bed and sleep all day. He was not convinced...
So, we went to bed.



Christmas Morning.
I told the boys they couldn't get up before 8:00. And if they did, then they had to quietly come in our room and wait until 8 to wake Aty up. Jayson had set up a trap for them in the hallway at the top of the stairs. With the baby gate and a sheet. So at 6:45 ish. They come in our room, and wake me up. Tregan is talking as fast as he can, saying something about being hungry and the gate and he couldn't get downstairs, and his tummy was hurting and he just needed some food....
Haha! Nice Try!
So I go downstairs and get him some crackers and tell them to go back to bed for a while. That lasted about 10 seconds. So I got up and talked to them in their room for a bit, until I thought it would be ok to wake up Aty and Jayson.

Aty got a Super Cute Pink Kitchen!
She however, was not in the mood.  She was excited when she saw the presents. And she started grabbing them and trying to rip them open as fast as she could. Which would have been fine, If they were all her presents. But they were not. And so the boys were panicking, and she screamed, and screamed! We tried to keep her focus on one thing at a time, but she was loving ripping the paper, fortunately, after a while, and alot of screaming. I put on Toy Story 3 for her to watch. Which is her new obsession. And then the boys and Jayon and I were able to continue our present opening in peace.  After an hour or so, her crabbiness wore off, and she played for hours with her kitchen.

They all got Bean Bags.
Which we needed in a big way! We were sick of sharing one couch between all five of us.

The boys both got Nintendo Ds Lites.
 The funny thing is though, that they both got pink. There is a story behind that. But it is a long one. So, long story short, the stores ran out of other colors, so Tregan had to get a pink one. And well, I guess the elves painted Daxton's pink as well. They were only upset for a minute thank goodness! We reassured them that they can get stickers for them to cover it up.



Santa brought them a Kinect
They were Extremely Excited about it!

 After we finished opening presents, I made a big breakfast, and we got to hang out in our PJ's. This will be our first year that we just got to stay home for Christmas. It was nice! My parents came and saw us for a little bit, they even played bowling with the boys on our kinect! We spent the rest of the day playing games and just being together.  We even had a big Turkey dinner, later that night, Jayson and I played Track and Field on the Kinect. It was exhausting! Ha Ha! We were so tired and sore the next day. Who needs the gym when we have a Kinect!

                                                 So that was our Christmas! It was a fun day!




 

 











Things that make me Smile

Seeing my little girl, Wrestle with her daddy and big brother.

Dax and Aty Dancing to Christmas Music

Building our Gingerbread house together

Watching Aty eat the frosting

Teaching my boys, how to make snowmen out of marshmallows

My Three sweet Kids and their smiling faces

Being able to go see Dax sing in his Christmas program

Watching him sing his little heart out!
So adorable! Melts my heart!

And of course, My daughter enjoying herself some Chocolate!
Ahh! What could be better?

Christmas is in the Air, Excitement is definitely Not, lacking at our household, as you saw above!
I love the spirit of Christmas and all the happiness and love it brings. I Love that I can be a mom to my three beautiful, sweet children. I love that I get to see them sing in their programs,  and see how excited they get. I love that Aty loves to make messes. (ok, not really, at least the clean up part, I don't love) But she does look pretty darn cute with chocolate smeared on her face! I love that this time of year, my kids are so happy and funny to be around. Yes, at times they drive me crazy! But it is So fun to be a mom. I wouldn't trade it for anything! I love that my boys jump at the chance to make crafts and help me bake. Because this is about the only time of the year, that I get that from them. They look forward to making the gingerbread house, baking the gingerbread men, and seeing if they come alive again!
It is so fun to have little ones in my house, It makes me sad to think of the future, when they are all grown up, and I don't get to do these things anymore. No more squealing with excitement on Christmas morning. No more wild, laughing, excited kids, that just
Can't sleep!

So for now, I will hold on, to these sweet moments with my little ones. And treasure them dearly! Because they are definitely on the top of my list, of things that make me smile!

Out of the Snow

We headed out of the snow for Thanksgiving this year. Off To Arizona! Thankfully, we all got over our sickness in time. Well sort of.. I was still pretty sick with a bad cough. And the snow storm threatened to stop us. But we decided to just Do IT! And we made it safely.
It has been over a year since the kids and I have been back there. It was kinda strange being there and knowing that we didn't have our house, to go home to. We went and visited our old town Anthem, and drove by our first house there. The boys didn't really even remember much of what they saw. Funny that they have forgotten already. We had to visit the famous Anthem Outlet Stores. They have a huge Christmas Tree every year. The kids used to always look forward to going there, and seeing it. They used to have snow machines that blew bubbly like snow, out. How funny is that? My boys loved it!It was a nice warm version of snow, for us. lol! And they also have a santa house with santa there. Aty was saying. "ho ho" The whole time, excited to see santa. But when I walked in the door and she saw the big jolly man in the red suit, sitting in his chair. She panicked and ordered me to take her out. Saying "no ho ho!" So much for that I guess.

Aty and her cousin Bella.
She was trying to read this book to her.
Aty had so much fun having her little girl cousin to play with. They both struggled a little with sharing however, being the only girl in their family. But they had fun. Every morning when Aty would wake up, she couldn't wait to get out of the bedroom and downstairs to see Bella, and of course the dogs. (she loved them!)

This was at the big park in Anthem, they have a lake there with ducks in it. It is a really fun, pretty park we used to always go to. We actually bid farewell to our only pet turtle, Flippy in this lake before we moved back to Utah. The boys have asked about him a time or two, wondering if he was able to swim and stay alive. We decided to take them back there,to see if we could catch a glimpse of old Flippy. But we didn't see him. Hopefully he is still alive and swimming somewhere. (poor turtle)

When we first moved to Anthem, we spent alot of time at this park, and these rocks were where the boys spent alot of their time.

They even have a sand pit with dinosaur bones

The famous splash pad, where they have about 5 different animals,that spray water. It was a very popular spot in the hot Summer!

The famous Christmas Tree
Tregan took a ton of pics of this tree. It was huge! But the ones I tried to put on here, didn't work. So you just get to see the bottom.


It was so fun to see Jayson's family and to be back in our old hometown! It is such a beautiful place. I miss the clean, beautiful landscaping everywhere you go. And of course the heat! We had 4 great years there, full of fun memories, and many trials. It all seems like somewhat of a dream. Now that we are living back in Utah. Aty was so small when we moved back here. So most of her life has been in Utah. It was a fun place to live. But I have to say, I am pretty partial to Utah, myself.



On our drive back, we got in a snow storm, by the time we reached Fillmore, the kids were so sick of the car, as well as Jayson and I. We decided to stop and get a hotel. Well I guess every other traveler had our same idea. All the hotels were full! So we drove on for a while longer, trying to see through the snow. And found a little hotel in a town called Scipio. They had a room thankfully. So we spent the night there, and headed out the next morning. We got home after noon, and ran the boys to school late. What a long trip back! Man 12 hours sure is a long ride!
But here we are, back in Utah in the freezing cold, and snow! Gotta love these Utah winters!
I am still, not loving them!

On Tuesday, Tregan went on a tour of the KSL studios with his scout troop. He got to meed Bruce and Carol. And watch them film the 6:00 news. He had a blast. I wish I could have gone with him.

Here he is with his troop