'Twas the Night Before Christmas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did! We'll break our fun into a few posts, this first one all about Christmas Eve. At our house, Santa came a day early; Lucky us! Here we are walking to see our Christmas tree.

What's in this stocking? It's a Shake 'n Go Bear car. What fun!

Santa fulfilled Parker's wish of getting a game that the whole family could play when he gave us this 3-in-1 basketball, baseball, skeeball game. Here is Parker practicing his pitching. In the afternoon we drove to Grandma Pratt's down in Springville. We had so much fun eating delicious soups and breads, playing games, eating treats, listening to stories and visiting with all of our wonderful family! Here are the kids listening to Grandma read a story.

Here are the two smallest in attendance: Cache and Kade.

Grandma Pratt gave all the kids these sweet Santa pants filled with treats. Thanks for a great time, Grandma!

Afterwards we drove back to Salt Lake to my parent's home. We had a delicious dinner, read in Luke 2 and then sang Christmas songs. Here is Parker ringing his bells and singing "Jingle Bells".

My Grandma and Aunt Suzie were able to be there with us.

We ended the night with my first Monopoly game in years. I came in second to Angie, who had been trying to lose the whole game. How ironic she won. Actually, not really. One of the reasons I don't play Monopoly much is that it has a little too much luck for my preference. I usually prefer a little more skill to be involved so that I can feel some accomplishment in winning. I also don't play it much because of its length. I had a great time, however, in this round of Monopoly. Surely I can contribute that to the fantastic company.

We stayed that night at my parents. The kids actually slept all night until 8:00- sweet! Look forward to more of our fun coming soon!

Why I've Been MIA in the Blogging World

Well, I actually can't tell you exactly why I haven't posted in a while, because it has to do with "homemade" Christmas gifts. I'll have to post about that later. We have managed to fit in a lot of fun too. Here are some of the things we've been doing:

On Friday we made a quick gingerbread house. When I say quick, I mean it. Brad and Parker did the whole thing in fifteen minutes. Parker had a blast. Tonight he also had fun eating said gingerbread house- well as much of it as I'd let him. On Saturday we went to Salt Lake and visited with both of our families. We were so glad to have all of Brad's siblings meet up at his parents so we could see everyone. We started out dipping chocolates. Bellsie seemed to enjoy it the most.

Parker dipped a bit, but he was most interested in eating peanuts. He still loves them!

My nephew Isaac gets cuter every time I see him.

Jason has those elastic arms that all babies have and can reach a lot farther than you think. He sure loved the freshly dipped pretzel he found!

Brad with Kade and Jason.

We're so happy that Jada is in town! We loved seeing her and are excited to see her a lot more this week!

Adam is such a handsome kid! We're thrilled that he'll be a big brother soon! Here is my little elf a.k.a. Kade. Isn't he cute?

Afterwards we braved the traffic, the crowds and the cold to see the lights at Temple Square. It's always so beautiful!

It was great to have our nice manueverable double stroller. I love that in fits in our Civic's trunk without even taking off the wheels! By the time we took this picture Jason was out and we were just about to leave.

Jason woke up in the car and enjoyed a hilarious round of peek-a-boo. I love the little grin you can see behind his fists.

Here I am with my little boys. Behind me on our tree you can see a few paper angels. Those are from a family night a few weeks ago. Written on each one is our gift to Christ. Mine is to be early to church, which I anticipate to be tricky with the change to the nine o'clock block. Brad's meetings will start an hour earlier 6:30 AM (poor Brad). I'm determined to get the boys ready early, so wish me luck! Tonight we celebrated Christmas at home. We had a good dinner, did a nativity play and sang Christmas songs around the tree. Our nativity was precious. Brad had to narrate and be the camera man while Parker, Jason and I took turns being the characters. Jason kept wanting to run away and unwrap the gifts the whole time, but Parker loved it. He can't wait to act it out again with cousins.

We're heading down to Springville tomorrow afternoon; I can't wait to see all of Brad's family. Then we'll head up to my parents and spend the night. Because of that we're opening our presents tomorrow. When Parker wrote Santa, he requested that he come to our house a day early. Parker is estatic that Santa wrote him back a letter! (Thank you City of North Ogden!)

Well, I have finished creating/buying all my gifts, wrapping them and putting them under the tree. Three fourths of the gifts under our tree are to give away to others. It's fun to see them there, but it will be far more fun to see them opened by those we love. We hope you get to spend Christmas with those you love. Have a fantastic Christmas!

Lots of Fun (Mostly)

Sometimes kids just do not think things through. Today Parker put both my contacts down the drain and flushed plenty of water after them. Unfortunately I don't wear disposable, but gas permeable, which are around $65-95 per lens. Luckily we have vision insurance, but it's still and added expense and a huge inconvenience that I certainly didn't want the week before Christmas. What makes it worse is that I already disliked the way I looked in my glasses, but about a year ago Parker got to those too. One of the ear pieces is torn off, so they sit crooked. I think I prefer to go half-blind to Brad's work party tomorrow rather than wear my sorry pair of glasses. Well, what can you do? Practice patience and try to think about other things. Let's do just that, no one (including me) wants to think any more about frustrating things like that.

We have had a lot of fun in the past week or two. This week we did a few fun Christmas crafts.

Parker loves doing art projects!

Parker isn't the only one looking forward to Christmas! I assembled my gift that came today! No more pushing that extraordinarily unaerodynamic DuoGlider non-jogging stroller! Seriously though, I love so much about this season, not just new jogging strollers). I love the generosity, planning what to give, listening to Christmas music, the decorations and most of all the reminder of the birth of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. In the background of the picture you can kind of see our advent calendar. Here is a better photo. Every day, even before breafast, Parker runs to this calendar and hangs up a "little man" ornament. Then he runs to our count down chain. We made it for family night a few weeks ago and each day has something for which we are grateful to the Savior. He can barely contain his excitement daily that "It's almost Christmas!"

Here are a few fun pictures of Jason. I accidently put his hat on so that the neck and face holes were mixed up and didn't realize until I was buckling him in the car. He didn't seem to mind. He looks so cute in that hat (Thanks Aunt Amber!) I've put in all the cupboard locks, but not the drawers. Look at how much joy he gets out of emptying them. He cracks me up!

Parker is my super hero. He loves to put on his cape and run around helping everyone. Here he is one Sunday before church.Another Sunday evening Brad made some popcorn. Here are three happy boys eating it. On Saturday night Brad and I got to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. Earlier in the day we braved the snow to see Santa in his North Ogden cottage. I'm glad we did, because there wasn't any line. We just walked up and put the kids on Santa. The kids look like they have dandruff issues, but that is the snow. Jason was none too pleased about sitting with Santa. Once he got a candy cane he calmed right down and was perfectly happy to sit with Santa.

I hope that you have been enjoying December as much as we have!

Jason's Birthday Party

We celebrated Jason's 1st birthday on Saturday with a party in his honor. Here's the cake and cupcakes I made: Jason was spoiled by the generosity of all his family. Thanks! Here are the gifts: Of course every one year old prefers the wrapping to the presents.

What am I supposed to do with that?

He sure loved his first sample of cake!

Most of the cousins (and brother): Some of the guests:

We were also able to take a family photo. I'm so glad it turned out! Thanks everyone for coming to the party! I also did a first year video that I posted in the previous post if you feel inclined to check it out.