December and Christmas

December started out with that horrible windstorm and then life just kind of continued to feel like a windstorm throughout the rest of the month (isn't that how December always feels?). I have to admit that I was pretty happy when Christmas day came, just so I could sit around the house and not have to do anything for a while.

One of the first things we did in December was make a Graham Cracker house.

 I was surprised how well the kids did at not eating all of the candy for decorating the house. They had so much fun and loved helping me decorate it. I think we will try it again next year, but maybe we will try using real gingerbread instead. I bet it would hold together better than graham crackers.

Next I got to go on Beckett's first field trip with his Kindergarten class. We went to the Treehouse museum. I drove Beckett and two boys from his class in our car. Beckett was so excited and proud to have them ride with us. We watched a play that the kids participated in. Only one of the children was not afraid to say their lines in front of everybody. It was super cute. The kids also got to do a Chinese Dragon Dance. It was so cool. Each child got to hold one of the poles that held up the dragon and dance throughout the museum, while the adults made lots of noise with drums and cymbals. I think that might have been the favorite thing that we did that day. We also got to do a craft and then run free in the museum. It was a lot of fun.

After months and months of threatening to cut Anabelle's hair if she kept on sucking on it, I finally followed through.

On December 10th, I cut Belle's hair for the very first time, ever. It was difficult to do it, and not just for me, as you can see by the pictures, she wasn't too thrilled about it either. When it was all over though, I think she felt better about it, like she had passed a milestone and was a little more grown up.

I am a little sad that her long hair is gone. She had the cutest curls in the back of her head, just like me when I was her age. And just like me, once the hair was cut, the curls were gone too. But now her hair doesn't look all clumpy and gross. My mom didn't go for a styled cut, we just pulled her hair towards her mouth, and snipped it where it was just out of reach for her to get it in her mouth. Unfortunately, now it has grown just long enough that she can get it in her mouth again and she is starting to take full advantage of it. Urgh!! Why can't I get this child to understand how disgusting that is?! We have even told her that Paul (Matt's friend that Anabelle has quite the crush on, and yes, I am worried about that) doesn't like girls that suck on their hair, but apparently that hasn't fazed her. I guess she is just going to have to have short hair the rest of her life.

Also in December, I went on a date with my mom and aunt to see "A Christmas Carol." Two of my nieces and a nephew were in it and they did a fantastic job. "A Christmas Carol" is such a wonderful way to get you into the Christmas spirit. No wonder President Monson reads that every year.

I also got to go on a date with Matt to his company Christmas party, sans children. It was nice dress too. It has been a long time since Matt and I got dressed up to go out for a nice dinner alone (yeah. there were 400 other people there, but no children). We even got a nice picture taken, but I think Matt might have lost the link to our picture, so that was a bust. The food was really good and we sat with some fun people too. Despite the big let down of no gifts from the company, we had a really good time and were grateful to have had some time to ourselves.

That same weekend we also got to have a family sleepover with Matt's sister, Ana, and her wonderful family. We had a lot of fun having them stay with us. The kids had all kinds of fun together and Belle got to go shopping with Ana's family, so she had the time of her life. We adults made and ate way too much junk food and loved every minute of it. Isn't that what the holidays are all about anyways? I mean, really? One more bonus to having them stay with us, they put Netflix on our Wii, and have left it on there for us to use. It has been awesome! Ana and Scott, you are the best!!

The week of Christmas, both Anabelle and Beckett had parties at their schools. Beckett's was your standard school party. He came home with all kinds of gifts from his teacher and special ED teachers. Lucky duck. I don't remember getting presents from my teachers, let alone 3 teachers.

Anabelle's was a pajama party. She had a blast. Mrs. Claus came and so did the missing Gingerbread boy and girl (They went missing earlier in the month and sent them postcards from their travels all month long). Anabelle still talks about finding the Gingerbread girl. That must have been much more exciting than the big guy's wife.

Christmas Eve was spent at Ana's house, having dinner, painting ornaments, and busting open a pinata. This is two years in a row we have done this, so I think we might start calling it a tradition. The kids did much better at painting their ornaments this year.

 You could actually see the different colors that they used, instead of mixing them all together until the ornament was unrecognizable, like last year. The pinata was also a big success. This year, they actually understood what they were doing, so it was a little more exciting. Ana found some super cute felt bags for them to put their booty into.

 We parents also got to play games, while the kids ate some candy and watched a movie. A great Christmas Eve, if I do say so myself.

My sister Christa, stayed with us over the Christmas weekend. It was fun to have someone else there to celebrate with us. She is always so good at helping the kids get excited about stuff and have lots of fun. Isn't that what Aunts are for? It was really nice for me because I had someone to talk to at night when Matt was playing with his Christmas gift, the Xbox.

Christmas was super exciting this year. Beckett remembered a lot from last year and so he was really into it. He wrote letters to Santa this year. The first one said,

Pretty direct and to the point. No messing around with that note. I think he started learning about sentences soon after he wrote that first note, because the next one said, "Beckett is the train." And then the final draft that he actually put in an envelope said, "Beckett, I want the train." Santa had no way of messing up that order. Anabelle also wrote her own letter:

I asked her what it said, and she said it told Santa she wanted a princess doll. I'm glad Santa could decipher that letter, because I never would have figured that one out.

The kids really wanted to leave out cookies for Santa, but we forgot to bake some. I don't think Santa minded because he wrote a very sweet note to the kids anyways, which they thought was pretty cool. Santa obviously got the message because Beckett got two trains and more tracks to go with them. Anabelle did get her princess doll (actually, she orginally wanted a set of all of the Disney Princesses, 7 in total, but Santa decided that was a little much), a Cinderella Barbie doll that she loves and Strawberry Shortcake with a bakery as a bonus. They got lots of other toys and wonderful presents that were loved just as much, but I don't want to bore you all with telling you about each individual gift, so I just went with the highlights.Thank you so much to those that gave us gifts this last Christmas. We loved and appreciated them all.

After Sacrament meeting that morning, Christmas day was spent at my brother Ben's house, eating more good food and playing more fun games. This is becoming a tradition as well. I guess we started all kinds of traditions this last year. We had such a good time, except that I started to get sick. The day after Christmas was spent mostly in bed, resting. I was able to actually take a sick day thanks to Christa. She took my kids home with her and brought them back the next day. That never happens for a mom. I appreciated it so much.

New Years Eve was a lot of fun. We spent it at our friends, James and Shana's place. We ate yummy pizza and snacks, and finally watched Captain America. We must be getting old though, because it felt like it took forever to get to midnight. We all kept saying to each other, "It's only 9?!", "It's only 10:30?!" Beckett and Anabelle, on the other hand, had no problem staying up that late. They could have watched stuff on Netfix all night long. They were mad when it was time to go.

Beckett enjoyed having a break from school, a little too much. I tried very hard to get him to understand that he was going to have to go back to school eventually, but I guess it didn't sink in because he put up a big fight when it was time to go back to school. It was worse than when he started school in some ways. I almost don't want to have Spring break if it is going to be like it was in January. Do you think they would give me a key to the school?

Out with the old, and in with the new.

Merry New Year! It sounds like everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I guess that is one of the advantages of doing my Christmas post this late, I have already read all of yours, and now I will try to outshine you all.
Christmas started with Matt's work party at the beginning of the month. Santa showed up and "surprised" us. He gave Matt his Christmas gift from the company ($50 gift cert. to Chili's - I kind of felt like Micheal Scott picked it just for us - and some chocolates). Then, all the kids were invited to go up and sit on Santa's lap. Belle was hesitant, but she still did it. Beckett was placed on Santa's lap and would only remain there as long as Matt was next to him. Oh, and as long as Beckett didn't have to look at Santa either. See what I mean.

Belle on the other hand, couldn't stop staring, possibly out of fright.

Our next encounter with the jolly red guy was at WSU's bookstore. Santa came to visit and brought his reindeer and a lot of student elves, to help the kids make some Christmasy crafts. We made a picture frame for our pictures with Santa to go in and Beckett won an ornament craft to take home and do later. Pretty cool. Then we stood in line for the Big Guy. We waited probably close to an hour. I was able to get the kids sit in the stroller almost the whole time. I was surprised how well they did. As we got close to Santa and could easily see him, I held each of them up so they could get a good look. Belle got to see the crying, frightened children when she looked, so as we got closer, the more she wanted to run away. When it was our turn, it was all I could do to keep her from crawling over the top of me and running down the aisles of the bookstore. I tried to convince her to just sit in the stroller while brother saw Santa, but she kept trying to climb our and run away. I quickly got her to the other side of Santa, so Beckett could get his picture taken (which they still haven't sent me - grr). I was afraid Beckett was going to freak out having to go up all by himself, but he marched right up there, sat on Santa's lap, told him what he wanted (a train toy), and gave a wonderful smile for the camera. I was amazed. Santa then gave us our candy canes and I quickly got out of there so as not to traumatize my daughter any longer.

Outside of the school's bookstore, they had set up a Grinch Stole Christmas photo shoot thing. The kids loved it.

After our photo session, we went outside to see Santa's reindeer. I think this was Anabelle's favorite part. She does love a good craft though.

You can just barely see that she is smiling really big

We were able to get together with Matt's roommates the week before Christmas. It was wonderful, full of good food, lots of laughing, and of course, "School of Rock", their movie from when the boys lived together. We ended up staying the night because we were just having too good of a time and couldn't leave. Thanks Sam and Jenny for having the party and letting us crash there, and thanks Caleb and Jessica for coming back from Omaha so we could see you guys. We had a wonderful time and Matt is now boxer-puppy hungry.
The last Holiday thing we did before the big day was go to the Christmas Village in downtown Ogden. If you haven't been there, you should go. They have some really cute displays. Dress super warm though. I can't believe how cold it was. I was surprised the kids wanted to go through the whole thing and didn't complain once of freezing. I for sure complained, especially when the Coffee shop taunted us with their fire barrels that you can't use unless you bought something. How Christmasy is that?! It was fun though.

We spent Christmas Eve with Matt's sister, Analisa and her family. We had a wonderful time. We ate delicious glazed ham and my yummy new gourmet mac and cheese. It was quite the feast. Then the kids painted ornaments. Beckett had a Santa Claus and Belle an angel. In the end, they were unrecognizable because they just mixed all the paints together and so they turned out a funky brown-grey. They had a blast though. I was just glad it was at Ana's house and not mine, especially when she said she loves to let her daughter paint and get messy.

After that, we did the Jacob family tradition of busting open a pinata. Not your standard Christmas tradition, I know, but it is super fun. After the candy all fell out, Beckett quickly grabbed a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and immediately started to chow down on it, as if that was how he was going to keep all of his candy. Matt had to explain that he needed to pick up the candy and put it in his sack, then he could eat it afterwards. Lucky for him, the only other children there were Anabelle and their cousin Ally, who is a month younger than Belle, so there wasn't much competition to worry about.

Then we let the kids play downstairs (not with their candy), while the grownups played games upstairs. It was great. Finally, we read about the Christmas Story and our little family headed home. This was our first Christmas night spent on our own. It was really nice. The kids fell asleep on the way home and went straight to bed. Santa came and put out all the presents and Mom and Dad got a wonderful night's rest. It was awesome. I know this wont last for long, but we definitely enjoyed it this year.

Anabelle's gift from Santa

Beckett's gift from Santa

 Our living room is typically set up with the couches against the wall. Santa decided it might be nice to have them surround the tree and make a nice little nook for us all to be close and enjoy Christmas together. Unfortunately, I think it kind of upset Beckett because when he woke up and came out of his room Christmas morning, he said, "Oh no, what happened to my room?" He repeated it a couple more times until I could jump out of bed and go tell him that Santa had come. Then we grabbed Belle and Matt and proceeded with the festivities.

Belle got her art easel, chalk and crayons for the easel, Candyland (which she loved and we played that morning), and play food.

The children enjoying their toys after all of the unwrapping was done

Beckett got a Gordon train, a car for his Dinosaur train that came with a dinosaur, cars (for his road rug), a Sponge Bob Memory game, and a big model train that let off steam from one of his uncles that just couldn't help himself. The model train was his favorite. He played with that all morning. It went too fast around the track for him to really watch the wheels go or keep it's cars attached to it, so he took it off the tracks and held it in place while he watched the wheels go around. Unfortunately this broke it. It no longer goes. It still gives off steam, but doesn't move. I felt bad when it happened, but honestly, what do you expect from a 4 year old. Besides, he has more fun making it move himself while it is making noise and puffing steam.

This was Christmas night

I got a beautiful new Thomas Kinkade 1000 piece puzzle (which I will never get to do until I no longer have children, believe me, I tried) and some new puzzle books. Matt also ordered me a kitchen tips book (totally awesome) and a vegan recipe book. I actually wanted a vegetarian cook book, but he gets an A for effort. I can't decide if I want to exchange it or keep it. I am trying to incorporate more veggie dishes in our home and try to have a little less meat, so I need recipes to help me with that venture. The vegan book has some tasty looking recipes in it (especially the soups), but it is a little extreme (they don't even let you use honey or sugar!). Plus they look super complicated. I want recipes that I can just run to the Stop and Shop down the street and get what I need (which, by the way, does not carry Asiago cheese. They hadn't even heard of it! What is wrong with those people! So maybe it will be Smiths that I run to)

Funny story, Matt and I both ordered each other books from Amazon, and all of them did not arrive in time for Christmas. Luckily, I had a brilliant idea. I got two empty boxes and printed off the pictures of the two book I got him. I cut them out and placed them in the boxes. I was going to just wrap them like that, but then I thought, he will get suspicious if they are both lite as a feather, so I went and grabbed our clothes iron and placed it in one of the boxes, on top of the picture. Then I wrapped it up. I put the other picture in an empty Quaker oats bucket and wrapped that up. He had no idea and was mad that my gifts had arrived before his, especially since I ordered mine the day after his. His face was so confused when he opened the one with the iron in it. I was laughing so hard. I told him to move the iron and then he saw the picture. It was some pretty smart thinking on my part. In case you are wondering, I got him books written by his favorite TV show, Top Gear, the British one (which is much better than the American one). He also got Bananagrams, which is one of our new favorite games. We also bought each other Lindt chocolates for each other's stockings, his milk chocolate and mine hazelnut. We are too much a like sometimes it is borderline cheesy.

We spent the rest of the weekend with family and had a wonderful time. Possibly one of the best Christmases so far.

I cut my hair during the week after Christmas, but you have already seen those pictures, so no need to put them on here again.

Matt had to work New Years Eve - Lame. But we did get to spend the night with my family playing games and making a cornucopia of delicious foods - fondue cheese, shrimp, clam chowder (I would not have ordered this dish), salmon, and I made brushetta for the first time (which was awesome, I am so going to make that again). We also watched the fireworks going off all over the Bountiful valley. It was wonderful and made up for the fact that Matt had to work that day.

On to the new year. I was able to visit with my roommates again on New Years Day and see some of them that weren't able to make it to the last one we had in November. It was great. I love those ladies. They all have super cute kids too.

Things have been pretty quiet so far, which in my opinion, is a good sign. My counselor has gotten mad at me for not doing my assignments lately, so I am starting the year off with making those my goals for the new year. One of those is making sure Matt and I have a date once a week (one of those can be one where we stay home and after the kids go to bed, we have a datish night, playing games and watching movies). Last weekend, we went bowling up at WSU. It was fun, but you could tell we were out of practice, both at bowling and dating. We acted so normal, not at all like the flirty couple we used to be. I think it might be because most of the dates we have been on since having kids have been to the temple, and you can't really flirt much there. I am positive this will improve as we go on more dates that don't involve the temple, not that we aren't going keep up the temple dates, just have other ones too. :)

My reason for bringing up the dating thing is because of this picture:

My little sister came up and watched the kids for us while we went on our date. When we got home, they all wanted to sleep together in the pull-out bed in Beckett's room. This is the results. Precious!

Remember our friend that was in the Doritos Xbox contest? Well he got 2nd place, but because the games did much better than the companies expected, both finalists were given the 1st price winnings. So everybody won. And now his cute wife has quit her job so she can be home with their cute little boys, who I have been watching for her two times a week (which has been nice to add a little extra income to the budget). This week was her last week. Their oldest is a couple months older than Anabelle. We joke with our friends that they are betrothed. This picture was taken on Tuesday, as they were leaving.

Wont that just be so cute if they do get married? I mean, how cute will that picture be at their wedding reception.

One more thing, Matt has started up school again this semester. Hopefully he can be done next year in the spring (fingers crossed).
Well, we are all caught up now, and hopefully I can keep it that way. Happy New Year to you all and I hope this year brings you all much joy and happiness.

Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody (3 weeks late). Here are some pictures of our Christmas. I hope you enjoy them.

Here I am reading one of my favorite Christmas books of all time to the kids. The kids just loved looking at the pictures. It has just beautiful paintings of Santa Claus. I have never read the words in the book, ever, in my whole life. The story is all in the paintings.


Christmas morning:
Belle got a tutu from Santa


She also got a little Kitchen from Grandma.


Beckett got a new engine and a freight car. Here he is plotting what to get next.


This is what I gave Matt. He always gets so cold at the computer at night, so I got him a Snuggie. It was a big hit. I might have worn it more than him on Christmas.


Playing with new toys.


The newest Jacob, cousin Graham. We met him for the first time the day after Christmas. He is so cute and Belle couldn't help kissing him. She just wanted to give him loves the whole time he was there.


Here are more Jacob cousins that we saw at Graham's baby blessing. Of course, my kids wouldn't co-operate.


On the Sunday after Christmas, my dad took me and the kids over to a neighbor's house that has a bunch of model/toy trains.


Beckett was in heaven!


This train set was actually a cookie jar, cocoa jar, and marshmallow jar, with a mug for the caboose. How cute is that?!



I hope all of you had wonderful Christmases and that you have a very happy new year. We love you all and wish the best for all of you.

Advent, advent, a little light burns

As long as I can remember, my family has had this advent calendar that my mom made that is a giant stocking, with 24 small pockets and one big one (for Christmas day). She would hide ornaments in each pocket and then, starting youngest to oldest, we would take out one ornament a day and put it on the cloth Christmas tree she had made as well. I remember being so excited to see which ornament got taken out each day. I remember waking up and running to the stocking when it was my turn to take out the ornament. I loved it.

Last year, my mom gave the advent calendar to me. I was so happy and couldn't wait to share it with my kids. So, when we got it out this year and showed it to the kids, they loved it. They did the same thing I did as a kid. The first thing they thought about when they woke up was to get the ornament out of the stocking and to put it on the tree. They also loved to get on the chair and just look at the different ornaments (Beckett especially loved the train one). It was so fun to share my tradition with them and for them to love it as much as I did.







Here is the tree when we were all done putting ornaments on it. It kept folding. I had to hold it open for this picture. Next year, I will have to figure out a better way to keep it from buckling. Any ideas, all you crafty people out there?

Happy Hallowgivingmas!

So, this update is a long time coming. I thought I would cover the last two holidays and a little bit of the present holiday all at once. Well, we have been kind of busy for the last few months. Matt and I got to go out to a nice steak dinner for Matt's birthday. It was great! (Thanks Ben & Kim for making it possible!) The place was decorated with lots of random antiques that had been collected over the years and lots of Tiffany lamps. It was a really fun place. We were way overdressed.

Halloween was fun. In my family, there are several birthdays in the month of October and one in November, so we decided to have big family birthday party on Halloween and then all of the grandkids went out trick-or-treating. Beckett really got into it this year. The first house we went to he saw a Hershey bar and grabbed that and started to eat it right away. At the second house he let us put the candy in the bag though. He had a great time. Anabelle survived, too. Unfortunately, no one gave her candy, so that meant that Matt and I didn't get any candy either. We had an easy time getting Belle into her Minnie Mouse costume, Beckett on the other hand... I think he thinks that his giraffe costume was a real giraffe or something because he refused to put it on or even let it get too close to him. So, the only thing he would let us put on him was a baseball outfit. (He was twins with his cousin Grant and we didn't even plan it)

A week after Halloween, my sister, Christa, and I "got out of Dodge" and ran away to San Diego. It was a fun trip and we survived driving in California. We stayed in a nice hotel and just relaxed. They had the coolest pools at the hotel.

There were water slides that emptied into two of the pools and a sand pit off to the side of another (I think that is to make up for the fact that it isn't located off of a beach). Everywhere we went, peopled just loved Anabelle. We got so many comments on how cute she is. I have to admit that they are right. She is a pretty cute baby (and these pictures prove it). We also did some shopping, went to the beach, did mud masks in our hotel room, and got a massage. It was a lot of fun. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

For Thanksgiving we went to Nate and Jana's in Colorado. We had a blast. We only wish we could have spent more time out there when Eric and Julia were there. The food was amazing and we played some really fun games, Speed Scrabble and a card game called "Rage". It is a lot like Trump (or Trumps, depending on which family is reading this) but has wild cards that change the trump color and different things like that. We also played Mexican Train, a domino game. That was a lot of fun too. Here is a picture of said Mexican train game:

I have to toot my horn here a little bit. I beat Nate at Speed Scrabble. This is no small feat. Speed Scrabble is where you have two piles of 12 or 14 scrabble tiles and then you flip over one of the piles and try to make as many words as fast as you can using all your tiles. Two letter words count too. Then, once you have used all your tiles, you say "Pick" and everybody flips over one tile from the second pile and that continues until all of the tiles are gone. Whoever gets rid of their tiles first wins. I think Nate won all of the times we played but maybe two or three and I was one of those. I know I just got lucky in my tile drawing, but I will take it. Thank you, Nate and Jana, for letting us come and feeding us so well.

Matt, during all this time, has been busy doing school work. He has made two short films (very short - they are both only about a minute long) with his friend, Kevin, for one of his classes. You can look them up on Youtube.com. Search for "Boxing for Keeps" and "That was not easy - Dial a Climber". Check 'em out. (I would put them on the blog, but it took so stinkin' long in my last blog to figure out how to get those videos on here that I just don't want to even try this time. I am not a tech geek at all. Plus, Matt will be adding them to his silly personal playground blog later...should he ever get around to it.) He finished up his finals this week. We are so glad to have his undivided attention again. And, if all goes according to plan, Matt will be all done with school this time next year. Keep your fingers crossed.

Another thing happening this week is that Mom Jacob is staying with us. We have made some yummy cookies (no, not my famous ones. We are making those this weekend), we have gone shopping, played games, and watched some of our new favorite movies, "Lars and the Real Girl" and "Penelope". We are hoping to see the lights on Temple Square while she is here and some other fun things, but mostly we are planning on just bumming around and just enjoying her company before she leaves on her mission to Melbourne, Australia.

Last you heard, Anabelle was starting to crawl. Well, she is full on crawling now and even "runs" away from me when she shouldn't be eating something she has found on the floor. She is pretty quick too. She loves us to help her walk around the house. She will be standing up to something and will cry until one of us comes and helps her walk to wherever it is she wants to go. I will not be surprised if she is walking by the end of January. She is getting more and more of a personality each day. She gets mad at Beckett if he does not share with her something that she really wants (usually food). She is still really good at pouting and looks at us to make sure we can see her bottom lip sticking out. She loves to clap and now expects us to clap for everything that she does. I think she is finally getting solids down (pun). She hasn't really liked baby food until this month. If she had her way, she would skip baby food all together and go right to whatever the rest of us are eating. We added dry cereal to her diet and she seems content for now.

Beckett got a haircut while I was in San Diego. Due to his hatred of haircuts, my mom cut it really short. He looked like a recovering cancer patient. It has grown in now and looks much better now. Although, on the Christmas card that we are sending out, he and Anabelle look almost like the same kid at first glance. I should have put him in a different color from Belle.

I have been to see "Twilight" twice now and I still love it. I give it a B+. I thought they did a decent job of adabting the book to movie. It isn't the greatest movie ever made, but I think it is cute and enjoyed it lots. I am getting excited for Christmas this year. It will be a lot of fun with Beckett. I have really been thinking on the true meaning of Christmas this year. In Relief Society last week, the member of the presidency that gave the lesson talked about how the wise men gave Christ gifts, and today, we give gifts to everybody but Christ. She then challenged us to give a gift to the Savior. It can be not gossiping as much, living more Christ-like, being more charitable, etc. I am taking that challenge and I encourage each of you to do it too. She gave us a little while stalking to put in a little piece of paper that we write down our gift on. You don't have to do that, but I am sure writing it down somewhere is a good idea.

Well, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a fun New Years. We love you all!