First Time Sledding

Thanks to Santa, the kids both got new sleds for Christmas. After shoveling the driveway one day, we made them a little sledding hill that they played on for a while. We realized that we hadn't actually taken them sledding yet, so we threw everything in the car and headed to a famous local sledding spot. Ok, it's just an outdoor ampitheatre, but it makes a perfect sledding hill in the winter.

Here's Hailey getting ready to head down the hill - yes she went all by herself!


And here's Zach getting ready to go down.


Even though they had to carry their sleds up the hill by themselves, they were still all smiles the whole time we were there.


Think they're having any fun???


It was a bit tricky getting those big sleds (well, big in comparison with the kids' size) up that hill, but they both did great and didn't complain one time.


And because I couldn't help but take some video of them while we were there, I thought I'd include a couple for you to see the sledding in action.

Hailey Sledding Video:



Zach Sledding Video:



The kids had a blast, which meant that Jeremiah and I had a blast watching them. Jeremiah even went down a couple of times with Hailey. We have plans to go again soon since the kids absolutely loved it!

Hailey's Birthday

Believe it or not, Hailey turned 4 this year. You're right - where did the last 4 years go? I can't believe she's already that old.

The day started off just right with a breakfast fit for a princess.


That's right, those are pink pancakes you see on the plate.


Needless to say, she was really excited about the breakfast surprise. Zach wasn't so sure about them at first, but once we convinced him to try it and see that they didn't taste any different, he thought the pink pancakes were very cool. In fact, he's already put in his request for green crepes for his birthday!


Unfortunately, it snowed all day, so there wasn't much else we did that afternoon other than decorate the house and get it ready for the family party that evening (I completely forgot to get a picture of the decorations - pregnancy brain is hitting me hard this time around!).

Once everyone made it to the house (some even traveled 2 1/2 hours for a normal 1 hour trip to get here), we had dinner, then opened some presents.


Hailey was absolutely thrilled with everything she got.


And here she is with all of her presents - quite a haul!


The large item in the brown box is a dollhouse. It was from Jeremiah and I and we were very lax and completely forgot to put it together before her birthday, so she got it in the box. She wasn't very excited about it since she couldn't tell what it was. So here's a picture of it all put together the next morning and set up in her room. It turned out even more cute than I imagined!


Here's the birthday girl with her birthday crown on - all smiles of course!


And here's the "cake" I made for her. She was very determined that she wanted cupcakes this year, so we did sort of a pseudo-cake make out of cupcakes pushed together. Not nearly as cute as I've seen in other examples, but she was thrilled, so I considered it a success.


And here's the big girl blowing out her candles. Seems like not too long ago she had to have help blowing them out and now she's big enough to do it all by herself.



Yep, it was good birthday. In fact, she made my day later that night as I was tucking her into bed. She told it me it was the best birthday ever! Sure, she probably doesn't even remember the last 3 birthdays, but as a Mom, there's nothing that makes you happier than realizing your child was in heaven and couldn't have imagined anything better.

Happy Birthday Hailey-Bug! We can't believe how fast you're growing! We sure love you to pieces!

Christmas

Well, I'm a bit late getting around to a few of these posts, so sorry for the Christmas overload in advance.

This year was really a great Christmas. Not only did the kids make it so much more fun, but it was really relaxing this year. After trying to think of why it wasn't as crazy or stressful, I boiled it down to a few things, so I thought I'd share them with you as more of a way to imprint them in my brain as a reminder for next year:

1. Advanced planning and preparation makes all the difference. Having all of the gifts bought by Thanksgiving, wrapped a week later, and put together before the 15th really allowed us to enjoy the holiday.
2. Keeping the true meaning of Christmas forefront in mind helped me not worry about the little things that did or did not get done.
3. Not worrying about capturing everything on camera/video or getting the perfect shot.

This last one was more poignant the day of Christmas than anything else. Last year Jeremiah and I drove ourselves crazy running around trying to get the entire morning of Christmas on film (either video or camera) and this year we decided not to worry so much about it. Although we did keep the camera handy and snap a few shots, we found that what we really missed out on last year was seeing the joy and excitement of the kids opening presents because we were stuck behind the cameras. This year was a lot different and although I didn't get as many pictures, I feel like I gained a lot more being apart of the experience instead of trying to just record it.

So that having been said, here are a few of the pictures I did manage to get this year:

I realized I never took a picture of our tree this year, so thought I'd better put one of it on here. We decided to try out an artificial tree this year to see how we liked it versus the real tree we've gotten every other year since we've been married. The jury is still out on the verdict - so many pros and cons to both, we're still trying to decide which we like best!


Here are the gifts that Santa left this year. As you can see, 3 of the 4 members of our family wanted bikes. I decided that since I am 4 months pregnant and not supposed to be on a bike anyway, I'd forego that request this year. I bet you can't guess which bike is for whom!


The kids were thrilled with the bikes Santa left them. In fact, the stocking and sleds were pretty much thrown to the side as they examined their new bikes.


And here's a picture of both Zach and Hailey opening one of their presents. It was cute to see how happy and excited they were as they were opening their presents this year.



In all, it was a very fun day. We were also happy to have Nana, Papa, Aunt Kylie, and Uncle Jedd join us for lunch and even some games in the afternoon.

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope that all of you did too!

Christmas Eve

Thanks to advanced planning and organizing, we were ready for Christmas by almost Thanksgiving this year. This allowed us to really enjoy the month of December and especially the few days leading up to Christmas itself. We have a ton of things that we like to do on Christmas Eve and we were able to spread them out and really relax the whole day.

One of our favorite traditions is to make sugar cookies to leave for Santa. The kids love to be apart of the whole process - mixing the dough, rolling it out, using the cookie cutters, watching them bake, frosting them, and then applying sprinkles.

Zach is really getting big, I can hardly believe how much he is able to do all on his own. He was able to frost the cookies all by himself this year - a bit step up from last year. He loved doing the sprinkles and was so meticulous to make sure it they were very evenly spread out on each cookie.


Hailey is still working at her fine motor skills, so her Dad was kind enough to help her with the frosting. She was able very insistent on helping with the sprinkels and needless to say, her cookies were very well covered!


And of course the best part was taste-testing the finished product! Yummy sugar cookies!


While they were working, they each made 2 special cookies to leave for Santa. These are the cookies they chose all arranged on the plate we left for him.


Another of our favorite traditions is opening 1 gift from Mom and Dad. Since they got pajamas from Nana and Papa the day before (which we had to wash and wear again) they got slippers this year. Zach got Spiderman and Hailey got Dora. They were so excited and had to change right into their pajamas and put on their slippers.


After these fun activities, we settled down for the reading of the Christmas Story from the scriptures and talking about the true meaning of Christmas. The kids were very attentive and seemed to understand what we were talking about. It was a very fun day and the kids went right to sleep when it was bedtime. They really are good kids!

Family Christmas Party

The Annual Family Christmas Party was at Brian and Michelle's in Malad this year. WE all had such a good time! We ate, opened presents, played games, and opened more presents! It was wonderful!

The grandkids love the family party since Nana and Papa always do so many fun presents for the kids to open during the evening. They all definitely come running when they hear the words "present time!"

Here's one of the first presents, the girls got tutus and the boys got race tracks. Here are Hailey, Jocelyn, Nana, and Papa all posing as dancers:


One of the other favorites was when Nana and Papa gave everyone pajamas. My kids love the pajamas they get every year and were so excited to see what they'd get this year. Here's Nana and Papa posing with all the grandkids:


I snuck a quick picture of just Zach and Hailey in their Scooby Doo and Princess pajamas - they were so cute!


And of course the evening wouldn't be complete without an action packed game of Bingo. The kids usually do their bingo game first so that they can go play with their bingo gifts while the adults do their bingo game. Zach and Hailey had so much fun playing bingo and absolutely loved their gifts!


Thanks Brian and Michelle for hosting the party this year, we sure had a blast!

Reading Time

Now that Zach is getting better and better at reading, I've started suggesting he read to his sister. Especially when I see that they are fighting over having the same book. I haven't seen them both agree to this little suggestion until this morning. They were both fighting over the Five Green Speckled Frogs book and when I suggested Zach read it to Hailey, they both thought that was a fabulous idea! So they settled down next to each other on the couch and Hailey sat with riveted attention as her brother read/sang her the book.


It was so darling to see the two of them reading the book together. For once, it was something that satisfied them both and I didn't have to keep yelling or read myself (which is normally not a bad thing, but I was in the middle of doing the breakfast dishes when the arguments started).


I have to admit that I'm looking forward to this happening a little bit more now that Zach is really coming along with his reading skills. Hopefully they'll both be a little more willing to do it now that they know that they both enjoy it!

Playing in the Snow!

Up until a few days ago, we haven't had much snow here in Utah. Sure it's snowed, but not really much more than a few flurries and it's never really stuck around on the ground. Well, a few days ago, we got what I would term our first real "snow storm" of the year. The kids were so excited, they could hardly wait to get out to play in it. We had to wait until Zach got home from school of course, because he didn't want to miss shoveling the drive-way or playing with Hailey in the snow.

After helping me shovel for a few minutes, he gave up on the sidewalk and started playing with his sister. Their first order of playing was to make snow angels. It was hilarious watching the two of them plop down wherever (on the unshoveled portion of the driveway, on the sidewalk, in the flower garden, etc.) and start moving their arms and legs like crazed snow bunnies. But they were cute!


The next thing they did was take their shovels and start throwing snow everywhere - mostly on the already shoveling cement or each other. I didn't get a picture of this because I was too busy yelling at them to stop. Once I got the driveway and sidewalks shoveled and we'd determined the snow wasn't the packing snow we needed for making a snowman, I decided it was time to head inside. The kids were not even close to ready to come in, so I sent them to the backyward to play while I came in. When I looked out a few minutes later, they were having fun on the snowcovered swingset and slide. They couldn't get enough of climbing up the ladder (which must have been hard in all that snow gear) and sliding down.


They also loved climbing the monkey bars ladder at the other end and would take turns climbing up that while the other one went down the slide a few times.


In all, a pretty fun few hours for them. They sure love the snow and will wait until they are completely frozen before deciding it's time to come in. They must have inherited that from their dad because I HATE being cold!