From Our Home To Yours

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

And a Happy New Year!!!

Miss Independent

Kayla is my independent child. This is great sometimes but not always. Today while I was getting dinner ready, she walked into the living room holding her strawberry shortcake nail polish and said "look mom, I painted my toe nails."  I immediately started to panic wondering what kind of nail polish mess/stains I would find.  I quickly surveyed all the rooms and was suprised when all I found was 2 small places on the rug in the bathroom that had nail polish on it.  

And she actually did a pretty good job.

Santa Clause Is Coming.....

The kids were super excited about Christmas this year. Every night they wanted to sing Christmas songs before going to bed and we loved driving around town looking at all the christmas lights. On Christmas Eve the kids opened up one gift.....new pajamas.  

Then we watched the story of Jesus' birth on TV

And we put together a yummy goodie plate for Santa

Kayla testing out the goodies

The kids went to bed that night excited....especially Austin. He kept thinking of excuses to come out of his room which I think was his way of trying to see if Santa had come yet. When Craig woke him up the next morning, he darted out of bed super fast.

 He went straight to one of the boxes saying "this is the tank!" And he was exactly right, Santa brought him the tank that he so desperately wanted. 

And Mikayla got her baby doll.

With Christmas being on Sunday this year, it was nice to be able to go to church and remember the true meaning of Christmas. We also got to talk with my brother, Nathan, who is serving a mission for our church in Argentina. That was fun. It was a great day!

Happy Birthday Austin

On Dec 22nd, my little boy turned 5 years old!! That is hard for me to believe. There are so many things I love about this kid:

--like how he still rubs his Cars pillow as he tries to go to sleep....a pillow that he has had for years now and really needs thrown away because it looks so grungy
--or how he asks me to scratch his back...."harder, harder" (just like his dad says).
--I love knowing that when he is in school, his church class or at someone else's house, that he is very well behaved.
--I love that when the attention is put on him, he suddenly becomes shy and gives a certain look with his face (which is impossible to describe but I know it well)
--I love that he is willing to play with his younger sister (most days) and involve her
--I love going into his room at night when he is in bed because he gives me the biggest hug around my neck. Tonight when he did that he told me "Do you know why I love bedtime? Because I get to think about things." So I asked him what he was thinking about and he responded "about Jesus".  I love that!!
--And I love hearing him sing the primary songs...especially "Scripture Power", "I love to see the Temple", and "I am a Child of God"
--I love that he likes to use his imagination and create things with his blocks.

Here is his Thundercat's Lair that he built all on his own (taken from the TV series Thundercats). Craig introduced Austin to that show this year and he loves it. Also notice the thundercat tank he built by himself. 

 

 I came into the room one day and found this on the floor and was so impressed. Austin has really learned a lot being in pre-K and I think he really enjoys it. One night I could hear him coughing a lot during his sleep so the next morning I told him that maybe he should stay home from school. He told me "No, my cough is gone. I'm all better."  It is nice to know that he loves school that much.

The last day of school before Christmas break, Austin got to bring cupcakes to school for his birthday. I made Rainbow Mario Cupcakes....he was super excited about them. 

Austin couldn't wait for his birthday to come...for the whole month of December he would ask me "how many more days until my birthday?"

Austin gave these Mario invitations to his friends with a gold (chocolate) coin inside.

Austin even wrote his friends names on the invitations and hand delivered them. Don't you just love a 5 year old's handwriting :)  

We had a Mario themed birthday party. First the kids played musical chairs to Mario music which was fun. Then they each got a Boo Ghost and tried to keep in in the air as long as they could. Then we popped the balloons and inside were gold coins. 

With all the games that we played the kids were able to collect gold coins.

They loved this!! 

My basket of Yoshi eggs 

Getting ready for the Yoshi Egg Race on a spoon

above: Connor, Elle, Evie, Damien, Austin

below: Audra, Klayton, Nathan, Tildon, Braxton 

 

 Kayla with her Yoshi egg

 How about a game of Mario bowling?

 Kayla demonstrating how to play

 I am definately not an artist.....but here is Pin the Mustache on Mario

 

The kids had a fun time with this game

Our final Mario with 10 mustaches

 Austin had lots of fun opening presents....the funny moment was when he opened up a transformer (which would be his first one) and exclaimed "this is the best present I have ever gotten!"

 The kids also played some Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo Wii

 And here is the cake!!!

 and my super cute kid!!

 I hope all your wishes come true!!

We love you Austin and are so glad that you are in our family!!

Happy Birthday!!

Dear Santa

We have seen Sants Claus several times this month. First, Santa came to my work and the kids had their first opportunity to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

Austin told Santa that he wanted a tank and and bow and arrow.

 Kayla was too scared to even go near Santa...she wouldn't talk to him. She only took this picture because Austin was there with her.

A week later we went to Woolaroc with the kids and Austin's school friend Braxton.

We had a fun time looking at the lights.

The kids enjoyed the animals at the petting zoo.

They had these cute fuzzy bunnies that the kids loved.

We took the hayride and saw this Indian riding around on his horse all lighted up

Pretty amazing....I still can't figure out how they did that.

We stopped and enjoyed some cookies and hot chocolate

Austin with his Grandma Reid who was serving cookies and hot chocolate that night.

Then we finally found Santa...and Austin again asked for a tank, a gun and a green arrow.

Once again, Kayla was too scared to get close to Santa. But she did manage to quietly tell him that she wanted a babydoll for Christmas.

The next night was our church Christmas party and Santa came.

All the children were waiting on the stage for Santa to arrive. When he came in he walked by the kids waving to them.....however Santa didn't see Kayla who was standing behind him. He accidently ran into her and knocked her down. She cried saying "Santa did it." At this point I was for sure that she would NEVER get close to Santa again.

But she suprised me.....after she settled down and all the other kids saw Santa, she actually went over to Santa, sat on his lap, and told him that she wanted a babydoll.