Christmas Snow!

It snowed and rained on and off all Christmas Day. The next morning we woke up to about a foot of snow that had drifted A LOT! The first picture is the drift in front of the garage door. The second is in front of the front door. The last is Jayden helping Chris snowblow the sidewalk.

Christmas JOY

We spent Christmas Eve with Grammie Janet at her house with the aunts and uncles and cousin. We had a nice dinner and then exchanged our presents. The kids each got some new jammies! What is Christmas without new jammies?! We got home around 9 and then watched Joy to the World the church movie about christmas. Chris and his brother Ben went and picked up all the gifts that grandpa Rod was so kindly hiding for us. The kids finally got to bed around 10:30. Santa didn't even land on our roof until 1! So when Jax woke everyone up at 5 am we kindly told him it was WAY TOO EARLY and they all went back to sleep on the floor in our room. Around 7 grammie and susie knocked on the door and that was the end of sleeping! Susie had just got off working from 10 pm to 6 am she was a little tired as she was working on over 24 hrs without sleep!








Jax wore these batman wings all DAY!
grammie enjoying the festivities
ben decided to spend the night on our couch and helped play santa with chris. he said that christmas is way more fun when there are little kids to watch. so he was there
here's susie telling everyone to keep it down so she can go back to sleep!

Bad Mom Alert

Last night I laid down with Payton for a little after dinner nap. He quickly fell off to sleep, but I was unable to stop my mind long enough to rest (or Jayden's interruptions) so I left him on my pillow all covered in his blankets off in la la land.

The rest of the family and I played the wii and decorated gingerbread men cookies (thanks lisa and jim). I sent Mykenzie and Jaxon to take showers. A few minutes later, Mykenzie come running downstairs, "Mom, Dad, Payton fell behind your bed!"

Oh yes indeedy he sure did! there is about 8" inbetween our mattresses and the headboard and the little stinker managed to move up there and get wedged in there and then fall through. We found him under Chris' bed.

I felt so bad. But he seemed to have endured this trial just fine...thank goodness!

Congratulations!

Jamie and Michelle are getting married in just a few hours here in the Sacramento, CA temple! Congratulations you guys! We are, yet again, so sorry that we aren't there! We hope that you have a special day and a good start to your new life together! WE LOVE YOU!

Hidden Talents

Jaxon and I had the funniest conversation yesterday afterschool. Actually, it started a the day before that. He told me that they were having a talent show at school and that he wanted to show off his "moves". I didn't really think anything about. I didn't hear anything from the teacher...no notices, no memos or anything of the like that would indicate any such festivities. So Jax came home from school yesterday and we started talking.

I asked him what happened at school. Oh what a treat I got! He told me that they did indeed have a talent show in his music class (his teacher is our first bishop's wife--when we first moved here). So I asked him what the kids did for talents. He told me, "Mom, I showed them my blocking moves!" I'm thinking...OK what are you talking about? He said he asked for a volunteer to come up and then he blocked all his karate moves! He said almost everyone volunteered to be his helper, but he chose Malcom (a good friend of his). He told us how the teacher moved all the chairs out of the way to make room for the performers. Now, Jaxon has never had any kind of Karate lessons. He has picked up what he calls his "moves" from movies like Ninja Turtles and Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, now you're getting the picture.

Oh, I can just imagine what that teacher was thinking. I can only imagine what Jaxon's 'blocking his friends moves' looked like. He was so proud of himself!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

So we finally got our christmas tree. I had all these visions of a great bonding experience filled with fun and laughter as the kids ran around trying find the best tree in the lot.

Really, I should know better than that by now. I should not have visions in my mind of these great experiences...they never work out!

Real life...we meet at Chris' mom's house around 6:30. We start to head to the lot and then realize we need some cash. So we go to the ATM. We drove past the lot and then had to make a u-turn and come back. We get out and just can not find a good tree...quite a few of them looked like they were already dead!

Anyway, we don't even start decorating the tree until 9:00 after a "nutritious" meal from our friend Wendy. So at 10:30 we start our festive christmas movie...the Polar Express. I passed out somewhere in the middle of that. I don't remember the rest of the evening. Only that I was tired and disappointed.Jaxon hanging the ornaments
kenzie hanging an ornament
feeding payton
Jayden taking the ornaments off the tree
Yes, I know some of these pictures are fuzzy...that is how the night went. But this is all said and done and ready for a movie!

Girls and Dolls

There is nothing like a girl and her dolls! Kenzie always has a doll somewhere near by. She and Jayden practice for Payton!