Christmas Day...Finally!

I was greatly looking forward to this Christmas. Cole is starting to be old enough to remember things, so he was pretty excited and Emily always likes to follow Cole, so if he was excited, so was she! (This picture was taken before Christmas, but I'm considering our Christmas picture. I'm obviously not a professional!)
I woke up about 7ish, not wanting to miss the kids reaction when they walked out and saw the presents and stockings, but I stayed in bed and just listened. Addy woke up at some point and I brought her into our room. Emily came walking in about 8 and didn't say anything. I wasn't completely surprised because she usually just makes a beeline for our room in the morning and doesn't stop to do anything else. So we hung out in our room and waited for Cole. I just knew it was going to be great!

At 8:30, when Cole still wasn't awake, Chad decided he was going to take a shower. Cole finally walked in at about 8:45 and said nothing about Santa coming or anything. I was starting to go nuts and Chad was still in the shower so I couldn't even guide them out there! Finally, Chad finished and I starting asking Cole if we should check and see if Santa came or not. He looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, he came, I looked before I came in here." This was like 10 minutes after he came into our room! I couldn't believe I was so excited for a reaction and I got nothing!



It was now after 9 and we had not done a single Christmas morning thing! Who does that with a 4-year-old?!













Stockings were always my favorite part of Christmas morning growing up because Santa always brought us a new book and some other fun gadget, plus we could get up early and open our stockings without our parents. Santa was apparently better when I was a kid though because my kids aren't into the stockings nearly as much as I was! Although Cole wanted to show Chad every single piece of chocolate in his stocking! It was quite humorous.


After the stockings, it was on to the presents. Cole can read names now, so he was in charge of handing out the presents, although he sometimes confused the "To:" and "From:". Of course, he wasn't very speedy, which tried his Dad's patience at times, but for the most part, he did a good job.
Here are a few snapshots.













































































Addy and I in our Christmas morning glory!













Chad, freshly showered, looks much better than I do!








The kids were much cuter than their parents on Christmas morning! (Although Addy is a little lost amongst the presents and stockings.)













Ok, and now the fun stuff!
Every year, Santa brings Chad a new atlas because he's (Chad, not Santa) sort of a map geek! As shown in this picture, he's turning Cole into one as well! The two of them spent way too long examining the new atlas that is barely different from last year's version!



I was very excited for two of the gifts that Santa brought for the kids. First of all, we got a magazine in the mail about 6 weeks before Christmas that Cole looked through. He found this castle that he told me he really wanted. I tried to talk him out of it and into a different castle many times, but he stuck to his guns that he wanted the one from the magazine. So, I made sure Santa was going to bring him that castle. However, the picture on the box looked completely different than the one in the magazine and I did not get the reaction I was going for!

I was also very excited about a present for Emily that was an easel with a chalkboard on one side and a magnetic white board on the other side. So, I also made sure Santa brought that to Emily. However, due to its size, Santa did not wrap it, he just put it backwards so you couldn't tell what was in the box. Once again, that was apparently a mistake because I did not get the reaction that I was looking for there either! However, I should just stick with the $5 puzzle because that got the biggest reaction of all of her presents! Oh well! Live and learn!


Thankfully both presents have lived up to my hopes since then and have been played with a lot!
Just like that, the excitement of Christmas morning was over. Over a month of planning, shopping and wrapping was finished in just over 2 hours! (That's a little depressing to think about!) But, overall we had a great Christmas! We are grateful for our children and the good life that we have!

A Little Sugar and a Lot of Sprinkles!

Ok, since it's already the middle of January and I'm trying to get through all of my December pictures still, I thought about skipping the Christmas Cookie pictures. But, as I was looking through my pictures, I remembered some funny things that were too cute to resist sharing! So, December continues for a few more posts.

First of all, I obviously have not made sugar cookies enough because 1. I do not make good dough and 2. I forgot what a huge mess they are. But it's a Christmas tradition, so carry on, right?

We invited our cousins, Morgan and Mason over to help us decorate cookies. I was hoping the older influence would do us some good and make it a little easier. Which it did.
They all wanted to help roll out their own dough, so I let them. Which of course didn't go all that well, but live and learn! However, it did lead to one of the funny moments. Emily was "rolling" her dough out in front of her and I heard her say something about a turtle. I thought that was a little odd because I was pretty sure my Christmas cookie cutters did not have a turtle in them. So I looked over and saw this.
Somehow she had managed to roll her dough into a pretty good turtle shape and she was quite proud of herself.
After we baked them and let them cool (and played the Wii while we waited), it was on to decorating.
Cole started out pretty good, a normal amount of frosting and some sprinkles.
Morgan and Mason did a great job on theirs. They were very creative with their decorating. They made a baseball and a nicely frosted Santa Claus, etc. Just the influence I was looking for.
Cole continued to add sprinkles.
Emily went down for a nap somewhere in the baking and cooling part, but we saved some for her to decorate when she woke up.
And Cole continued to add sprinkles!
Seriously, his cookies were dripping with sprinkles! I wish I'd taken a picture of the finished products because there was a very obvious difference between the cookies made by the 9-year-olds and the cookies made by my kids! Oh well, they had a good time and Cole was proud of his cookies. Chad was even nice enough to choke down a few of them. (Although I think he scraped off half a bottle of sprinkles when Cole wasn't looking!)

The Rest of Las Vegas

Circus Circus wasn't the only fun thing that we did while we were in Las Vegas. We also went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory to see the lights in the Cactus Garden and of course to have some chocolate! I'm not sure what is going on in this picture, but it's the best I have since Addy and I stayed out of the cold. If you look carefully, you can see the lights behind them.
Also at the Chocolate Factory, Weston got to hold Addy, which he thought was even better than chocolate!
We also got to see a real(?) mermaid! One of the casinos that's off of the Strip has a huge fish tank that every hour or so a Mermaid swims in. Emily thought she was great!
The next day, we took a trip to M & M World. (Yes, my kids are in different BYU clothes today!)
Our NASCAR junkies got to see the M & M car. Anyone know who the driver is? Cole does!
As we were walking down The Strip, we saw this funny guy who was spray painted gold and standing sideways.
We did however run into 1 major problem while we were walking around. How do you get 3 kids into a 2 person stroller? Stack them, of course!
One perk of Chad's job is that we get to stay at Planet Hollywood with the football team. They have a fun room that you can go hang out in. It has a big screen TV, ping pong, air hockey, lots of video games, and free ice cream and drinks. We almost just stayed in there the whole time! (This is a lousy picture from my phone. I never had the camera when we were in there.)
Then, according to Chad, the most important reason for going to Las Vegas. GAME DAY! Here Cole and Emily are teaching Addy how to sing Rise and Shout!
Aunt Katie was nice enough to keep the kids while Chad and I went to the game with his parents and my brother, Matt. Unfortunately, it was not a happy ending!
And then to finish the trip, we had to celebrate Uncle Matt's Birthday with a special birthday brownie that Aunt Katie helped Cole and Emily make for him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE MATT!

Circus Circus

The weekend before Christmas, we made what's becoming an annual trip to Las Vegas to watch BYU play in the Las Vegas Bowl. Thankfully Katie lives there, so Chad doesn't have a hard time talking me into going, even though it is so close to Christmas and I never have stuff done! Once I finally get there, I remember that it is lots of fun to have a family vacation. The last few years, we have visited the same places, so this year, we decided to try something new. We settled on Circus Circus! We had to start by seeing how we measure up to decide which rides to go on! (And yes, all of my kids have BYU clothes on!)
Then we started with some nice and slow and easy rides.Emily of course wanted the kitty cat when she rode on the merry-go-round.
We even let cousin Weston and Aunt Katie ride on some with us.
Emily was too small to go on the Spongebob ride, so only Chad and Cole got to ride. But who doesn't want their picture taken with Spongebob!
Weston much preferred checking on Addy to riding on the rides!
Then we played carnival games. Cole thought they were so cool because they were just like some of the games he plays on the Wii!
They even won some prizes (aka junk!)
And of course, Cole needed to teach Weston how to play arcade games.
And poor Addy missed out on all of the excitement!
Cole's favorite ride was the bumper cars. I think he rode them at least 5 times! It's a good thing he has parents that like to ride.
He also liked playing lazer tag. I think he was a little smaller than the average player. But he had a great time!
Emily's favorite ride was the frog ride. This video pretty much shows the personality differences between the two of them. This was Emily's third time in a row on the ride and she loved every minute of it, smiling and looking around as it went. It was Cole's first time, and also his last! He was a brave soldier and did not cry, but you can tell he really wants too by the end!

Addy did get in on a little bit of fun at the end. She decided she wanted a souvenir to remind her of all of the naps she took while we were there, so she had a blow out! Yes, poop all over everywhere with no spare clothes. So I was forced to find her a Circus, Circus onesie. Thankfully it was 70% off so it was semi-affordable!
What an end to a fun day!

A Preschool Christmas

Ok, due to Christmas and vacations, we are a little behind. But we will try to get caught up here before too long. This is Cole's Preschool Christmas Program. The first of many of these such events that Chad and I will get to attend. Chad is so excited!!
Cole's teacher read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Cole's class sang songs along the way. It was really cute. Below is just a sample of some the things that they did.

Cole put this stocking up for Santa on Christmas Eve, but Santa left a note saying that it wouldn't be fair for him to have a stocking that was so big compared to everyone else's!And these are two samplings of them actually singing. Thank goodness for the girls in his class who like to sing, and sing loudly!