Christmas Pictures

Every Christmas Eve my mom's family all gets together. The family gets bigger and bigger every year, so what used to be all evening has turned into a short message from my Grandpa, singing some Christmas carols, and a little chatting, then everyone goes their seperate ways. The picture below is of my aunt Chris wanting to sing White Christmas because it was her husband's favorite, he passed away this year, so she was a little emotional.

A view of my huge extended family from the top of my mom's stairs
The Bishops (my mom's sister and her fam) stayed at our house to have dinner and then we all went caroling after a lot of indecision on whether we should go and risk our lives in a huge snow storm. By the time we decided to go, the storm had let up which was nice. This is my favorite tradition that we have. I have been going since I was 8, and haven't missed a year since. The people are always so appreciative and most get emotional. It helps me to see the true meaning of Christmas.*Funny story of the night* My aunt went up to an older lady after we were done singing to her and rubbed her hand and told her Merry Christmas. The nurse afterward leaned over and told her that the woman had a skin disease and that my aunt should wash her hands immediately! Yikes!
Aunt Mary, Shannon, Uncle Dan
Brynlee, Bethany, & Halle
Brynlee & Ryan

Melanie & Ryan
Greg and I
Lisa & Scott
Greg & Mom
Cody & Sarah

Carl & Mel
Shannon & Tim
We have a gift exchange between the siblings and also our kids have an exchange. Carter got this fun dart gun (from the dollar store) and played with it all night!
After caroling and the gift exchange all the kids went upstairs and the adults played another quiz that James had put together. One of the rounds was singing Christmas songs in a different way like rap, country, barbershop quartet, or boy band. This is Scott being the leader of the boy band and shaking his booty. We were all laughing our heads off with the latino dance moves.
We finally at about 11:30 went to our own houses to get ready for Christmas. I did not have one thing wrapped before Christmas Eve. I did some that afternoon but still had a ton to do at midnight. I vow next year to do it a little at a time, because it was rough! James and I didn't get to bed until about 2:30. We did manage to have Santa come and eat some chocolate chip cookies and mince pies, while Rudolph got some carrots. Carter thought it was so cool.

He filled our stockings...
...and left us tons of gifts! We video taped most of Christmas morning at our house so no pics, sorry! I figured we had enough of other things! The boys woke up at 7:30, opened their presents, we talked to James' family on the webcam, made a yummy breakfast, and hurried to get ready to be at my mom's house at 11 to open presents.
To simplify things this year my mom decided to give the kids a dollar for every year old they were. About two days before Christmas she decided she thought it was a dumb idea but still went ahead with it since there was no time left to shop. She also gave all the boys a soft football and the girls some lip gloss. Carter thought it was all great. Preston didn't know the difference!
Carter picking the ball out he wanted
James with his new bike helmet from my parents. He was way excited! We got so spoiled this year! From my parents my big gift was a beautiful mirror to put in my room. I'm not sure if I will put it in there because I want everyone to see it! James got a deep fat fryer to make fish and chips, a really fun game Ticket to Ride Europe edition, and some new clothes. All in all we had a great day and hope you all had a very Merry Christmas too!

Friends Day

I thought that I would post these pictures in fear that they would get lost in the shuffle of all of the holiday pictures to come. Friday was so much fun! My friend Natalie is moving to Australia and left Utah on Sunday for good. She was awesome enough to fit in a few hours to get together with me and my other friend Ashleigh at my house to chat. I am so glad we are still friends after all these years (we have known each other since we were 7). Carter had a great time running around with Ashleigh's girls and is still talking about when his new friends are going to come over to play. Natalie, you will be very missed and it was so fun to have you live in Utah for a little while before your next adventure. Thanks girls it was so much fun!

Ashleigh, Natalie, me actually getting a decent close up shot!
This picture was 4 years in the making. My best friend from highschool, Karynn and I had not talked in this long. I finally emailed her after being a little hesitant to do so, and we decided to meet up at the Olive Garden and catch up. It was so good to see her and it was just like old times. I am so grateful for all of the great friends in my life.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Cards

My little elastic Christmas card holder was finally full yesterday after receiving 5 cards in one day! Is it just me or do you get excited every time you go out to the mailbox too? This is one of my favorite things about Christmas. Thanks to all of you who have sent me a card and made my day a little brighter! Another favorite thing about Christmas time is having my calendar full every night of the week! From today until New Years, I have something EVERY night. I love to be busy. Especially when being "busy" includes parties, yummy food, family, great conversation, and presents!!

Birthday Weekend

It is official. I have been alive for 27 years. 5 years ago James wanted to do a fun party for me and decided to put together a quiz full of 80's trivia since I was born in 1980. It was a hit, and now has expanded to sports trivia, history, spelling bees, dance offs, kareoke, and everything else in between. My family looks forward to it every year and so do I! Friday was the big day. We divide up into usually 3 teams and everyone has to pick a name for their team. This year consisted of The Ratholes, The Naughty Pirates, and Dunder Mifflin. One of the new rounds we added this year was giving each team a paper clip and they had ten minutes to go around the neighborhood and trade it for the best thing they could find. The winners were the Ratholes bringing home a cat. My neighbor Diana said that they could really keep it which was so hilarious! There is always something crazy to look forward to! My camera was all funky so I have no pictures of the actual blowing out of my candles or other rounds, but did manage to get it to work for the kareoke round. We had each team sing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin and winner got 5 points. The reason for choosing this song was because a few years back my brothers, Kevin and Greg, were arguing over which of them was the better singer. They decided to call my mom to be the judge and each sang A whole new world to her. Who won? Like my mom is going to say either one! She said it was a tie, but ever since we make fun of them for it! Greg really believes that if he had a few singing lessons he would be the next Backstreet Boy. That is a direct quote!!

The Ratholes-Dad, Greg, Shauna, Carl ,& Melanie
Representing for Dunder Mifflin: Kevin and Leah doing a duet
Kevin singing "Don't you dare close your eyes!"
For the Naughty Pirates: Megan & Mike...These two and the ratholes tied since they were both hilarious!
This was the most unexpected moment of the night. Tim was asked to show us how you would defend yourself against a grizzly bear. Carl pretended he was the bear, and out of nowhere Tim starts running after him grabs him and throws him to the ground. Notice in the picture Melanie's face and my dad putting his leg up in self defense! haha It was pretty awesome!
The Naughty Pirates were the winners (Mike Holdaway winning for the 5th year in a row) We decided to get one last shot before everyone went home. Thanks for all the gifts, food, and fun. Next year we are going to start getting t-shirts and the winner will take a trophy home. We are all so competitive and take this game pretty serious! It is a blast!!
Saturday, James took me up skiing at Sundance for a half day. I am not good and he is so nice to coach me all the way down. I may have decided this is it for me and skiing. My legs killed the whole way down because of the bad boots I rented. I just can't commit to spending that much money on skis when I am not obsessed with it ya know? Anyway, after one run I called it quits. I am pathetic I know, but the hot chocolate sounded a lot better than being cold and having my legs kill me. Melanie and Carl came with us so James went on a run or two with Carl and had a blast. Mel sat with me in the lodge and had some hot chocolate too. The scenery was gorgeous and it did feel nice to ski again since I haven't done it for two years. I am sure James will convince me to go again, I'm just not so sure how much fun I will have! That night I went shopping for some new clothes and found some things at DownEast. I also got some new shoes from T.J. Maxx after searching through racks and racks of clothes and finding NOTHING cute. I see all of these people that find really cute clothes there but for me it never happens. Sunday (my actual birthday) was pretty uneventful, just went to church. I had some neighbors stop by with gifts which was so sweet, and then went over to my parents house for dinner. I told my dad he had to cook for me so he made his famous swiss steak which I love! We just chatted and had a great night. 27 has started out to be a good year!

13 months/1Year and 1 month Old

Preston is officially over the one year old mark. So I guess he is 13 months. Does anyone else hate having to tell your child's age in months after they hit one year? "He's 34 months." When does it stop? I mean it really doesn't bother me as much as I am acting like it does but I am more of the type of person that says they are 1, 1 1/2, 2 etc. What are your thoughts on the topic? Preston just started feeding himself with the spoon and won't let me help him at all! It rarely makes it to his mouth without half of it dropping out first. Gotta love it.
Here's another question to throw out into the void, Why is it that kids hate to get dressed after their bath,for church, school, etc. but the minute you ask if they want to put their snow clothes on it is a race to see how fast they can get dressed? Here is Carter today just hanging out in the backyard for awhile. *notice he has gloves now! wahoo!

Gingerbread House

While Melanie and Carl went to Carl's work dinner , we made a gingerbread house! They had so much fun eating frosting, candy, and a little bit of gingerbread! It fell apart about 5 times but we finally got it to stick together with ALOT of frosting on the top!

Kate, Carter, me looking like a babe, and Blake
Austin showing off his awesome gingerbread man
Carter hard at work

Isn't it lovely? We missed you Grandma!!

Happy Things

So I wanted to write down a few things that have made me happy in the past few days to remind myself it's the little things. Probably boring for all of you, too bad.

Preston.
Yesterday when he woke up I made his bottle and sat with him on the couch while he quietly drank it. Carter wasn't up yet, so the house was silent and we just sat there together. When he was finished he sat up for a minute and then decided he was still tired and layed his head down on my lap. I scratched his back and his head and he sat there and sucked his thumb and enjoyed the attention and alone time we had. He also really loves to play peek a boo and has recently started to cover his own eyes and will start the game and want me to play along. He really gets a kick out of himself! He also just started growling like a dinosaur just like Carter. It is so cute to see him look up to Carter so much already. Also the gap in his 2 front teeth, it doesn't get much cuter than that!
Carter.
While we were staying over at Melanie's house a few days ago, he found an ornament on her tree that was popsicle sticks colored and glued together to look like a snowflake. He pulled it off the tree and said, "Mommy look! It's a beautiful FLOWSNAKE!" I thought it might be just a one time slip of the tongue but it looks like snowflakes are officially called "flowsnakes" in our house. I was really nervous to go grocery shopping today because it was a big shop and he was kindof grumpy this morning. I had a talk with him before we left and he promised he would stay by me and not whine at the store. He kept his promise! I was really proud of him. My mom let him play with these 2 gold reindeer that she had as decorations last year and he loved them. He found them again yesterday and it was like not a day had gone by, he has been attached ever since! Thanks mom for letting him take them home, he took them in to Costco with us and played the whole time!
Mom.
I called her up yesterday to see how she was because I haven't seen in awhile. She told me about what she was up to and how she had Christmas decorations strewn all over her house trying to get them all up and decorated for Christmas. I figured she was pretty busy so I was about to hang up and she says, "Why don't I take you to lunch?" We went to the deli and chatted with Greg, Kevin, and Bethany. Afterward it was nap time for Carter so I said I would put him to bed and help her figure out where to arrange things if she wanted. We had fun all afternoon just laughing and putting up and taking down things if they didn't look quite right. She always values my decorating opinion, and was so excited when I gave her some ideas. I went over to watch It's a wonderful life last night for our yearly tradition too. I cry every time! Thanks mom, for always having the time to hang out with me even if you are busy, I love you!
Callie.
Good friends don't come along very often. The kind that you feel like you can say what you really feel and they like you for you. Callie is one of those kindof friends to me. Sunday she remembered that it was my birthday in a couple of weeks and asked if she could take me to celebrate over some sushi. I am afraid, but I know she won't lead me astray! Last night she called me to see if we wanted some fish and chips because they had a ton left over. It was meant to be for leftovers for today but it didn't make it past the doorway before me and James were devouring the yummyness!! She is always calling to bring us over food, invite us over, lift my spirits, and tell me how awesome I am. Love this girl!!
Melanie.
One of my favorite things about her is that she genuinely LOVES my boys. Every time she sees them she lights up and picks them up and gives them big hugs. They love it. I love it too. She is the aunt that lets Carter get away with murder and he knows it! We went to Bunko on Tuesday night and couldn't stop laughing. She was literally on the ground rolling, she was laughing that hard! I won't go into details, but it was pretty funny. We have also traded kids alot the last 2 weeks and it is so nice to feel like your kids are in great hands and are having a great time. Thanks for everything Mel!
James.
He truly wants to see people succeed and be happy. I love his passion for cooking and food and how it can take him a good ten minutes describing one recipe to someone that didn't know what they got themselves into! He was such a good sport yesterday after work. I was at my mom's house still helping to decorate and he had just gotten to our house. He called me and I told him to come over. He was tired and was just going to relax until my mom chimed in that she needed some help moving chairs down to her basement that were really heavy. No hesistation, he was over. I love that about him. He has been going to the temple once a week during his lunch break on Fridays. He has gotten some of the guys at work to join him too. Good job babe!

I don't know what my deal is with these long posts, just feeling the Christmas spirit I guess, or because I can't go outside in the freezing cold weather! I have a lot to be happy about!

Fun Stuff of the Week

*Warning* This is quite a long post. You'll want to come back later if you are crunched for time!

It has been quite an eventful week for our family! Monday night my dad called and told me he had booked all of us to go on our cruise in March! I am so excited! (we are paying for ourselves he just put some money up front for us to hold the reservation) That cruise can't come fast enough.
Wednesday night I was the narrator for our enrichment night Christmas party. I thought the night turned out great. We talked about traditions and Christ-centered traditions that we could start with our own families. Good times.
Friday was not the best day for me. The kids had been whining at me for the past three days (Preston has been cutting teeth, and Carter who knows!) I went to the bank at about 2 in the afternoon, which I guess everyone else thought that was a good time too because it was packed! After the tellers bribed Carter with a horse ruler out of the bank, I was at my wits end! James came home a few hours later with these:

Isn't he the greatest? That night Mel and Carl watched the kids and we went out to dinner and saw Dan in Real Life. The food was great, the movie was average. It was just fun getting to be alone and have a date night!

Moving on to Saturday Dec. 1st. What does that mean? ADVENT CALENDARS!!! James' parents asked us to get the boys one each from the London Market from them since it is a big tradition over there. The big red one with the pockets I was given from James' mum the first Christmas I came to England when we were dating. She had filled it with all sorts of great little gifts and James continues on the tradition every year. Did I mention how awesome my husband is?! The other red one is for James(he shares the chocolate with me) so that we all have a little something to open every day! I love this tradition! I happened to get a mini flashlight for my car in case I break down somewhere. James is always in survival mode!
After waking up and eating some chocolate we looked outside to see the beautiful snow!! It has not snowed at all really this year (enough to stick on the ground for more than an hour), so James and Carter were so excited. A little peice of trivia about James is that he LOVES to shovel the driveway. Even if it is still snowing really hard (like the picture below) if he wakes up to a layer of snow, he will be shoveling it asap. Carter finally got to really use his snow boots and pants. He loved to help his dad. We really need to buy some new gloves for that kid. I can only find one in the basket of winter stuff. Grrr. FYI: James had to re-shovel this about 5 hours later. He loves every second of it. I got showered and hurried over to a baptism of a girl in my old Primary class. I am also friends with her mom and wanted to be there to support them both. What a neat experience. This girl's grandfather is full German and told of his experience being baptized in 1948 in a frozen lake in Germany. I need to go to baptisms more often because I felt so peaceful and happy the rest of the day just from being there.

Later on that morning: Sugar cookie making time! We made the whole batch which produced about 60 sugar cookies! Needless to say, we brought some over to some neighbors who were moving and then took some over to Mel and Carl's house for the kids to decorate. (We traded them for watching our kids the night before) We still have a ton left and I need to just throw them in the garbage because I keep snacking on them! The joy of Christmas time.
Here is Carter with his Hitler mustache. I couldn't stop laughing.
He was in charge of throwing the flour on the counter so that the dough wouldn't stick to the countertop. He took this job pretty seriously. I still can't get over the mustache...
Final stop: Outside again pulling Carter around on the sled in the backyard. We took in all we could of this wintery day. There are lots more storms coming according to the weather forecasters so maybe some skiing will be in our future. Who knows!

I can't believe you made it all the way through this post! Sorry it was so long but like I said, alot has happened this week. Just had to document the fun stuff.