Merry Christmas!

I'm sooo impressed with myself. Last year I didn't get my Christmas post up until the end of January...I'm so on the ball!
Thankfully the boys gave us all a Christmas present and slept in until 7 am

It turned out Jemma was more interested in her bottle and cuddling with grandma than she was her presents...But that changed when she realized that she had a few fun things under the tree.

Matt and I were a little worried about Bennett this season. All he asked Santa for was a lady bug pillow pet. And since Jacks really didn't know what to ask for, Bennett took it upon himself to order a frog pillow pet from Santa's workshop. We thought he would see it and find the pillow a big disappointment, but we were wrong. Both boys loved their pillow pets. Amazing...

Jacks also got a few dinosaurs and trains.

Bennett is becoming quite the artist and received an easel complete with chalk board and white board. He's been thrilled and has been drawing and writing for days.

Jacks with his Diego train set... a BIG hit.

Jemma and her Busy Zoo Activity Cube

Bennett and his V-Motion.

Christmas was just as relaxing as Christmas Eve. We all stayed in our pjs (except for mom...what a party pooper!). We played all day...watched some movies...ate our traditional breakfast hash (at noon) and potato soup for dinner.

We had a great Christmas! I hope everyone else had a day as great as ours!

Happy Holidays!!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was so enjoyable. We had a very relaxing day. My mom and I (well mostly my mom) made all sorts of yummy things to eat. Matt got home early from work and took the boys out to play in the snow...

Dinner was ready by 4:30...

Santa cookies were baked, frosted, and placed by the fireplace...

Christmas pj's were donned and the Nativity story read...

Kids were in bed by 7...

I did not see the back of my eyelids until after midnight... I am no longer a fan of wrapping paper.

The Polar Express

Depending on who you ask, the Polar Express was fantastic! Whoever didn't have Jacks slapping, punching, hitting, biting, and slamming their head into the window, was having a very enjoyable time.

We boarded the train in Williams just in time, with only a few minor mishaps, like...Matt losing Bennett in the train depot. Matt and my mom searched frantically for him, while unbeknownst to me, I dragged a screaming Jacks and Jemma to the train car. (Everyone passing me had the same expression on their faces... "I hope they aren't riding with me!")
Bennett was very excited to board the train and was very content the entire ride to sit and enjoy himself. He hadn't heard The Polar Express story, but once they handed out the cookies and hot chocolate and began reading the story he was enthralled. As we passed the North Pole and waved to Santa his excitement level went up a notch. As we started back and realized that Santa had boarded the train he could hardly stand it.

I was certain when Santa entered our car Jemma would go into hysterics, but she graciously accepted her bell and Bennett and Jemma had a marvolous time shaking their bells in each others face.

The Polar Express was a great experience. I'm glad we got to go this year.

Santa Claus and Snowmen

Bennett's preschool met Santa today.

He's been looking forward to it all month (mainly because I made such a big deal out of it)

Unfortunely, he woke up with a stomache bug. We were going to keep him home, but he was extremely sad about missing out on all the fun, so I figured it was alright to give Santa our own little gift for Christmas.

We made him abstain from cookies and juice until we were safely home. I couldn't risk Santa knowing what kind of illness to expect in the days to come...and especially who to put on his naughty list.

Poor Jemma...I had to do it. Poor Santa gets a crying baby and the flu. Jacks really has perfected his scowl and used it as he backed away from Santa. So no Santa picture for him.

Bennett is very proud of his snowman. He loves playing in the snow! (Weird) Thank goodness for a dad who loves playing in the snow with him.
Jacks loves our christmas tree. He's trying sooo hard to be good and not touch, but sometimes he has to give into temptation and take an ornament off the tree. However, he treats them nicely and just likes to watch the ornament dangle from his little finger...he's fasinated

What a week!

I'm certain I've mentioned before that by moving to Arizona, I had certain expectations about the weather. Mainly 60+degree Christmases.

This December I had hope. The month started out in the 50's-60's...not bad.
Monday my hopes were dashed.

At 2pm the snow started in earnest. A storm warning was issued. (However, being from Idaho, I know the National Weather issues those all the time and never get any results)

Matt called at 4pm. They sent some home early from the hospital. Unfortunetly, the mountain was shut down and he was stuck at the bottom with everyone else waiting for a snowplow to take them up.

At 5pm I decided to do some shoveling. I turned around after 30 minutes of hard labor to discover that my clean sidewalk was piled with 2 inches of snow again.

Matt made it home at 8pm. Shoveled the driveway once more for good measure. At 11pm the power went out.

We woke to no power and our breath coming out in little puffs of white frosted air.

From Monday night until Wednesday night our neighborhood, and many others in the area were without power. And let me tell you...IT WAS COLD!

Tuesday afternoon the kids and I spent the day at Wal-Mart wondering around and sampling food from the deli (thank goodness for Wal-Mart's generator!)

We were able to light the gas fireplace so we shut the rest of the house off, pulled our mattresses to the living room, and made camp.

Wednesday the kids entertained themselves the entire day by jumping on beds and making forts with pillows, while I huddled around the fireplace. (Have I ever mentioned that I don't like being cold?... At all.)

We were down at McDonalds Playland for heat, food, and entertainment when news came that power had been restored.

One good thing came out of this experience...Well let me think about that. I'll get back to you later.

PS. We also had our ward Christmas Party

Matt and I were dreading it because our kids tend to make enjoying ourselves at these types of functions near impossible.

But we were prepared! Matt and I have a new parenting motto...Containment!

We strapped Jacks and Jemma into boosters. All went splended! We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly! The food was good as well as the company. We had a great program, and then Santa came. Bennett was so excited to tell Santa what he wanted. Jacks rushed up, snatched his gift bag and stalked back to stare at Santa from a distance. Our only mishap was when Bennett stormed the stage (thankfully with other children at his elbow for encouragement) (I mean thankfully because ours wasn't the ONLY one) during dinner and made his presence know through the microphone. Fortune for us...people still think he's in his cute stage.

Jemma

I've been forgetting to post these pictures.Jemma turned 9 months at the first of November. She is getting sooo big, it makes me sad.
Jemma started accomplishing all sorts of feats this month like crawling, standing, and even saying a word or two.
She nods her head yes and every once in awhile I can actually get her to say it. She says dada when Matt's around.
Jemma has also mastered the fake cry. She will make small whimpering sounds and then look out one eye to make sure she's being watched.

Wow, time really IS going fast.

Thanksgiving 2009

Nothing says Thanksgiving like spending it on the local indian reservation at the casino's all you can eat buffet...

This year we were not able to travel to Idaho so we went to the Hon-dah Casino conference center to eat our feast with some friends. The food was good, the kids were not! Matt felt really ripped off when he was only able to finnish one plate before he had to start chasing Jacks around the room.

But it was all made better when he became the MVP at the Woodland Lake Turkey Bowl!!! (Your welcome Matt!)

Since it was such a nice day we took the kids to the park. Jemma's first time down the slide...

Apparently she was not impressed.

Since we were home by 2pm and had nothing else planned we decided to put our Christmas tree up. The boys were really excited and were quite helpful in touching absolutely every ornament we own...but it was fun and nothing was destroyed (yet). (You can see how Matt was barely able to contain his enthusiasm)
Jemma also helped by trying to eat our garland.

Halloween

We started our Halloween off by carving these 2 huge pumpkins...
Unfortunetly, we left them outside the night before and they froze...so the carving had to wait until they thawed.

We headed to our ward Trunk-or-Treat first, then dashed home for a quick break before heading out.

Bennett was obviously Spiderman (So sad about this) We wanted him to be a cute furry animal again, but I guess he's grown out of that stage already.

Jacks was the dragon. Like every event in our lives, he forgot that we are the coolest parents for letting him go out and collect candy from strangers. He instead chose to focus on the fact that we were forcing him to eat dinner. (Which turned out to be candy since we went to Trunk-or-Treat before) (I guess we can't win them all)
Bennett and his carved pumpkin.

Jemma...Cute...I know.

She looks like she's already on a sugar high.

I Love Peanut Butter

Apparently peanut butter IS a mother's magic tool.
Bubble gum is now officially banned! Why he decided to rub it around in his eyeball is beyond me.

I included this picture of Jemma because 1. Michelle made such a cute bow and tutu for her (Thanks!) and 2. She's currently not on my bad list for mistreating gum.

Idaho Trip

We also did a little picnicing...(fast-food style)

A little playground playing...

(And when did Rigby Park take out all the fun, dangerous stuff like the witch hat ride and the merry-go-round. I use to have so much fun in elementary school defying death at every recess.)

A little pumpkin picking in grandpa's garden...

And a little apple picking from Great-Aunt Susan's neighbor's tree.

It was definetly worth the 15 hours it took us to drive home.