Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. My parents drove down from Seattle and were here with us for about two weeks celebrating Christmas and the New Year. My parents helped out with the cooking and boy was Christmas dinner Fantastic....Thanks Mom and Dad!! The kids were spoiled this year and loved the attention and time that they got to spend with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here is the letter Santa left the kids telling them thank you for the cookies and milk, and that he saved each one of them a cookie to eat.
The kids left Santa's reindeer some carrots...here is a picture of the reindeer's mess.

The kids waiting at the top of the stairs to come down and see what Santa brought them.

Raleigh loves Hannah Montana....note the Christmas Eve PJ's and here new CD from Santa.

This was Sandon's favorite thing from Santa and he hasn't missed a day of playing time since then. Notice his Christmas Eve Mario PJ's.

This is the cutest game....UNO Animals

This is a fun game too...Whats in Ned's head

Temple Square Christmas Lights

My parents arrived in town today, and my brother Andy called and said they were in town and to meet them down at Temple Square to go and see the lights. We packed up thermoses of hot chocolate and bundled up tight and away we went for one cold cold cold evening. These are my brother's boys...Conner, Peyton, Rylan, and Karter with Sandon and Raleigh. Notice Raleigh is the only girl and the only one in pink!

Cookies with Santa

This last Saturday morning Santa came to have cookies and sing songs with the kids at our ward building. Santa was so much fun and Raleigh wasn't even scared of him....that's a first!

This is Ral's buddy Luke from Nursery

This is Sandon's good friend Avery from school and church, she is a cutie!

Sandon's 6th Birthday Party

We celebrated Sandon's 6th Birthday this last week. We like to do it a couple of weeks early so it's a little separated from Christmas. This year he wanted to go to the Classic skating rink which also has a bouncy land and pirates cove. The kids had a blast and we closed down the skating rink. I can't believe my baby is 6 already.

Getting ready for Christmas

We had decided that we were going to cut down a tree this year to decorate, but when we got out there all there was were scotch pine trees that we didn't like. We are so used to the pretty firs from Washington. We're spoiled......we ended up buying a fake tree and setting it up. So much for the pine smell though.

Every year we paint ceramic ornaments with the kids for them to hang on their Christmas tree. Can you guess who painted what?

Sorry So Long

It's been 6 months since I have posted. We had a busy, crazy, and partly horrible summer. We found out I was pregnant at the end of August and the sickness set in. I was in bed for 9 weeks straight puking all day long. The only way I could keep anything down was to take Zofran, a drug they use for chemo patients. It helped with the vomiting but not the nausea and lethargy. I had to go in and get IV's when I became too dehydrated. That was a joy. They couldn't find any veins and four nurses later they got one. I also had the joy of 2 intestinal blockages from eating nothing and laying in bed all day. We have decided that this will be the last baby for us. This pregnancy has been too hard for all of us. Thank goodness Doug has been a saint through all of this and took over everything. We found out that the baby is a girl and due in April. I have finally gone back to work.....thank goodness they were understanding about all of this and the other girls covered my shifts. Life is getting a little better each day and we can now finally start to think about being excited for our new arrival. I'm so jealous of all you girls that have no sickness with pregnancy. You are soooo lucky!!

I did finally add some posts to our blog if you want to check it out. I'll try and do a better job of updating now that I am functional.

First snow fall

Last Saturday November 14th it snowed all day. The kids begged us to play outside so we managed to find all of their winter clothes and let them go to town playing in the snow. They had such a blast throwing snowballs at Mom and Dad in the window and making snow angels. I couldn't find my snow pants so Doug and I stayed inside and made Muddy Buddies for the family to eat after playing in the snow.