my brag blog post

For some crazy reason, I decided it would be fun to try to make some Christmas presents this year.  Luckily I had this idea way back in September, so I had a head start.

I made a table top quilt for my Mom,

A blanket for nephew Max, I was able to use my mom in law's awesome sewing machine to personalize it.

Capes for Luke and Easton.

Best of all, I was able to convince Spencer to join in on my crazy ideas and he made the cutest puppet stage for the boys.  So I straight up copied almost all of my presents I made and the stage idea is from one of my favorite stores, The Land of Nod.  I think Spencer did a great job and it looks even better than the one at the store.  (And it didn't cost us $89 :)

I made the puppets to go with the stage that I also ripped off from The Land of Nod.

And Spencer was kind enough to make something for me this year too.  He made the creche to go along with my Willow Tree Nativity set.  Aren't I lucky to have such a handy man?

SNOW

Denver came through for me this year and delivered a white Christmas.  AND we were all able to make it safely and on time, so it was perfect.

We took the boys sledding for the first time and they loved it.  Ryan was very brave and wanted us to push him down as fast as we could.

Christmas Morning

The big present, the much anticipated "Spider Man Bike".  (This is not the bike we came home with however, stupid Target.  The bike had something wrong with it so we bought the Lightning McQueen Bike from Costco instead.  We told Ryan that Santa said we should do that.)

Trying to gather in the troops to get going on presents.

Mabel had a wonderful first Christmas.

She received our first Grange house baby doll.

And stockings opened up after presents, it's a Grange thing.  Spencer said it was great as a kid to go see what was in your stocking after opening up all your presents.  There was one more thing to look forward too.  

We had a wonderful Christmas in Denver with Spencer's whole family!  The week was filled with LOTS of food, games, and fun.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas-time favorites

Here are some of the things I love to do most at Christmas:

Parties-  Here we are at Ryan's preschool party.  I love Christmas parties at church, school, home, they are all great.  The more white elephant gift exchanges, the better.

Christmas goodies:  I let the kids decorate our sugar cookies this year.  We've also made peanut butter balls, wassil, cheeseball, almond crescents, fudge, and candy cane cookies.  I look forward to eating Dixie's kringla's and my mom's pecan logs soon!

I love decorating the tree every year.  As soon as I am finished eating Thanksgiving dinner, I am ready to bust out the tree.  Both Spencer and I received an ornament every year growing up so it's fun to look at our old ornaments and build up the boys collection.  Again, I let the boys help me with the task.  I even tried to not rearrange the ornaments too much after they were done.

Christmas books:  We have a LOT of Christmas books and I still buy too many every year.  We do the 12 days of Christmas in books with the kids.  They get to open a book every day and we read it together.  Ryan has got used to me crying through my favorites like The Christmas Oranges or A Christmas Dress for Ellen.  

And the thing that almost always gets me in the most Christmasy mood is singing Christmas songs, I especially look forward to the Sacrament Meeting before Christmas.  Here are the cute kiddos ready to go to church today.  It was wonderful and I loved all of the musical numbers.  I participated in one and asked Andrew if he liked it, but he said "I didn't like it, the singing was too loud".  Thanks Andrew!

Every morning,

we watch the school bus leave.  The bus stop is right in front of our house.  The boys always stop playing when they hear it pull up.  I don't think that Mabel has any idea what we are looking at, but she likes to follow her brothers around.

It's crazy too think that Ryan will get on that bus in August!

Gingerbread house and crazy hair

Ryan and his Dad made a cool Gingerbread house on Saturday.  I made some frosting for them and was quite proud of how strong it was.  Thank you allrecipes.com. 

And now that Mabel's hair is getting longer, she has some crazy hair dos after naps.  With our boys, at about this age is when we cut their hair for the first time.  I hear we aren't supposed to do that with girls though.  I have no idea what to do with the awkward mullet stage.  Babies hair seems to grow a lot faster in the back then on the sides.  At least she's super cute!

some holiday cheer

ok, so this isn't a Christmas picture, but isn't she cute?

The boys both were excited to see Santa at the ward Christmas party and jumped right up on his lap.

Ryan was a shepherd for the program.

And here is our Mabel all ready for church.  I love this dress.

It even came with a cute coat!  Thanks Aunt Lindsey!

Letters to Santa

This is Ryan's first time sounding out words by himself.  He usually insists on me telling him how to spell words but he agreed to do it on his own.  I think he did great.  Can you figure out what he asked for?

more time outside the belly..

9 months!!!

The only recent pics I have of Mabel are the family pics we took, so here's some more to enjoy.  Mabel weighs 16 lbs. 11 oz. and is 28 inches long.  She is starting to cruise along furniture and her 2 top teeth are about to poke through!

The Polar Express

Our Thanksgiving this year was spent at home and we feasted with friends from the ward.  Since we weren't driving far to see family, we took a little drip to Durango, CO to ride the Polar Express.

Durango is beautiful and only 3 1/2 hours away so it was the perfect little getaway.  The Polar Express is actually the Durango Silverton Railroad that is done up all cute for the holidays.  The best part of the ride (at least for Spencer and I) was seeing this cool old steam engine roll up.

The ride wasn't until night but we got there early enough to check out the train and museum before it got dark.  Ryan is sometimes too cool for pictures.

The boys loved the trip.  There was hot chocolate and cookies, Christmas carols, and the North Pole where....

This guy got on handing out bells to the kids to which Ryan replied, "This is just what I wanted for Christmas mom!!!"

Oh good, I'll take back all your presents and just buy some more bells. :)

and some more

cute kiddos.

family pics 2009

A friend took some pictures for us this weekend and she did a great job.  Here are just a few of my favorites...and these aren't even the best ones.  I am saving those to pick from for Christmas cards.  It's always a relief after taking pictures with little children to see that there was some success!

a day

My family has been requesting more pictures.  So here's a picture from a typical day at our house.  Ryan was being very sweet and teaching Andrew how to play Connect Four while Mabel just happily watched.  And yes, Andrew is wearing underwear and not peeing on the floor.  I was cooking dinner in our clean house and all was good.

I would love to pretend that this is how it is all the time.  Kids not fighting, baby not crying, little boys not peeing all over, and me happily going about my wifely duties...

ok, so it's hardly ever like this.  But it's nice when you get these little moments.  It tricks me into thinking that this is easy :)