A Holly Jolly Christmas

Christmas is the best time of year and it always goes by way too fast! It was a little different this year but there was still reason to celebrate. And it was nice getting to spend Christmas with my family this time. I didn't do much at the beginning of the month, but we crammed in a lot of fun later. We went to the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork...

We decorated gingerbread houses and gingerbread men

Christiana and David came by to visit me and we gave David his first experience at decorating gingerbread men..but he didn't even taste it (he missed out! :)

I took the kids to Temple Square. They loved the lights and wanted to take a picture next to every bush and tree. So cute!

Opened lots of presents before church

Keira and Thomas got a plethora of presents from everyone! Santa did good...again! :)

Keira got lots of princesses

Thomas got a big extended hand

I made Thomas a magician's cape to go with his hat and wand he got for his birthday

A sound/dry erase writing book for Keira

A doll house for all her princesses and little family figures

Iron man helmet (he actually wanted a darth vador one but I didn't find one. But Mike did, so now he has both is is well taken care of :)

And we made sure to act out the Nativity in which we drew names for characters. I don't remember it being quite so stressful to get everyone to want to do it. (I've missed out the last several years on this.) Maybe next time we will just read it or watch it. Thomas and Keira seemed to enjoy dressing up as the wise men, though.

All in all, it was a good Christmas season. Full of fun activities, a wonderful family, lots of treats to give and receive, good stories to read, and most of all, the remembrance of our Savior's birth and His life. I am so grateful for Him and His love for me!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well!

Halloween Disney Adventures

Disneyland is one of my favorite places ever! We got to go on Halloween, which was perfect because we got to dress up, see others in there costumes, and there wasn't very many people there. We mostly had just a 5 minute waiting time in the lines and the weather was perfect! We didn't stay for the trick or treating there, which would have been fun, but the kids were tired and it does cost a lot! But here are some of our adventures at Disneyland and California...

The kids got to sleep in the walk in closet

Kids watching the fountain at the mall in Irvine

They swam for hours at Steve Silverstein's house, while we were there for a BBQ. Thomas can now swim a short distance under water without floaties! :)

The kids with Steve, a family friend of Soozi's

We took the kids to the beach. The water was pretty chilly to actually swim, but they loved getting dirty in the sand!

Disneyland!

One of Thomas's favorites was the Haunted Mansion because it was all decorated like "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Keira was pretty scared of that ride but was super brave for all our taking her on some bigger rides. She did at one point say, "I'm scared of everything." Poor girl.

Abbi - 5 (I think)

We always have to see Mickey!

Tyler - almost 2

The parade! The kids really enjoyed this! Keira was even dancing up a storm by the end. It was so cute!

We had a wonderful time! We hope you all had a fun Halloween too!

Birthday Boy!

I can't believe it was 7 years ago that I was blessed with this adorable baby boy! It was a horrible idea to have been induced because Thomas did not want to come out and it was really rough. But once I was finally able to hold him, everything was so worth it! It has been a fun and adventurous 7 years with Thomas.

This year Thomas got to spend some time in Las Vegas on his birthday. He got to go swimming, went shopping for presents, got taken to McDonald's to play, and got to play with family from Vegas. He got a lot of things he wanted and needed. One of which was this Knuckles hat (Knuckles from the Sonic video game). He was even saving some of his tooth fairy money and what he had for this hat.:) Good for him! He only had to wait till his birthday though. He was so happy! And this is what he wants to be for Halloween!

We went to Grandma Malone's for a little party. And poor Thomas couldn't get to his present with Chris's wrapping job. He went crazy with the tape. It was pretty funny, though.:)

He was thrilled to get a magic set...and with a hat! Thomas has been fooling us with his tricks endlessly.:)

I love this little girl! She and I have created a little bond now. It was a happy day for me when she would actually let me hold her and be happy about it...which was a few months ago. But I just love how smiley she is now!

Cupcakes say TJ...Happy Birthday, Thomas Jones!

Thomas wanted to have a little friend party, so we did a few traditional games...this one was hilarious...no hands allowed:)

Present time

More cupcakes! We sure had a lot of sweets that day!

Thomas is 7 now! Crazy! He is in school all day and is losing teeth like crazy recently. Oh, he's growing too fast. A little about our 7 year old:

~ He loves playing the wii (Sonic in particular at the moment, but don't worry, we do limit his time on it)

~He still loves "being" different characters

~He is doing amazingly well in reading and even more amazingly well in learning and understanding Chinese

~He claims girls have crushes on him and he has crushes on girls, but his girlfriend is still Sierra (Mike's 15? year old cousin) Ha!

~He wants to work at Sonic when he grows up and wear the roller skates

~Loves playing with his best friend who lives behind us

~Like to sing the bad guy songs off of movies. I don't know if he thinks it is more fun but I keep trying to get him to like the heroes more. Maybe some day :)

~And of course, has his moments of not wanting to play or share with Keira and talking back. But he is overall a well behaved boy and we are so proud of him!

Happy Birthday Thomas!