Lexie's 3rd birthday

Lexie informed me about four months ago that she wanted a princess birthday party and who she wanted to invite. She told me that she wanted a pinata and crowns, she had it all planned out for me. I usually don't do birthday parties at this young of an age, but how can you resist that.

Her birthday happened to be on a Saturday, so I thought I would do it on her actual birthday. Nate fixed her the breakfast of her choice then we opened the presents from family. As you can tell in the pictures she got A LOT of princess stuff, that is all she wanted. Then we got ready for her friends to come over.

We had a pretty good turn out for the party. Luckily Chan and Spence stayed, so that Jacob would not be on his own with a bunch of girls. I tried to have things for both princesses and princes. We started out with having them color and decorate a crown. Then we played a Snow White game. I hid about five apples, one of which was suppose to be poison. The kids were suppose to find the poison apple before Snow White (Lexie) could. They were able to do it pretty quick.

Then we had them search for the puzzle pieces to a Sleeping beauty puzzle, and put it together. It was on to the pinata, it was a pull kind..so no bat swinging. I think all the kids got to pull about three strings before it broke. The kids had fun grabbing all the candy and prizes.

We headed upstairs to do presents, she got tons more Princess stuff. I did not get too creative this year with her cake. I bought a princess cupcake stand and then made pink cupcakes with pink frosting. While we waited for the mommies and daddies they colored a princess picture. We had a little drama when they were playing with Lex's dolls, but what is a party without some drama, right? I hope that everyone had a fun time. Parties are fun to plan, but they tend to wear me out.

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

The week between Christmas and New Year's Nate's parents came to visit for a few days. They flew out for Camilla's baptism, so they spent 1 1/2 days with us and 1 1/2 days with Ryan and Anne. Me and the kiddos picked them up at the airport Monday evening and then we meet everyone for dinner at a local mall's food court.

Then we drove to see the lights at the temple. It was more like a mad dash to get inside the visitor's center, the wind was blowing so hard it blew right through you. The nativities from around the world were amazing. They are always fun to look at and see the different ones. They were having a youth symphony play that night that were absolutely amazing. Everyone was in awe at the youngest ones that played so well.

On Tuesday we went to a museum, the kids were having a fun time dressing up in the uniform. Then we stopped to get Chick-fi-la before we drove through the winter lights in Gaithersburg. On Wednesday we went and picked up Emmett and Gabbie and drove to the Air and Space museum to see the planes. I really tried hard to get Bob and Julie in pictures, but they did a good job avoiding me:) Later then night we went to Camilla's baptism, everyone that spoke did a great job. We had fun with the few days that we spent with them, the kids were really sad to see them go.

Christmas 2010

Christmas came early at our house this year. Chandler was so excited to open presents that he woke up at 3:30 to see if it was time yet. I put him back in bed ant told him he could come back in around 6:30. Well needless to say that he came in about a half hour later asking if it was 6:30 yet. I put him back in bed once again and told him three more hours, we will come and get you when it is time to go downstairs.
I think it was around 7 when they kids came in and we got up to go downstairs. The kids were so excited to hand each other a gift when it was their turn. We left all the presents under the tree this year and went around and took turns opening up presents. Wesley had so much more fun playing with everyone else's toys than his. After awhile he did decide to play with his owns. We got some wonderful gifts this year.
After we opened all the presents the kiddos played while I cleaned up the wrapping paper and Nate took a nap. I think next year I will decide to either sleep in or take a nap and let Nate do all the present opening and clean-up (if you remember last year Nate never came downstairs to open presents, he missed it all, then this year I cleaned up while he slept). Just kidding, I could never sleep through present opening. Great memories:)
After a yummy breakfast we took all the toys downstairs and then got dinner ready. Ryan,Anne, her dad Mike, and their kiddos came for dinner. It was fun to have a house full of laughter and good food. The adults played Ticket to Ride, while the kids watched Snowball Express, it was fun. So all in all I think everyone had a good Christmas and can't wait to do it again next year. The first picture Spencer took of our table before breakfast:)

Christmas Eve 2010

We had a great Christmas season this year. The beginning of the week was filled with sickness, but luckily it passed for the most part before Christmas eve came. Nate had the day off, so it was filled with cleaning, wrapping presents and of course making a yummy dinner. We had a delicious ham dinner with all the trimmings. Then after we watched Mr. Kruegers Christmas, had hot chocolate, had cookies, read the Christmas story out of the scriptures, opened one present,read Twas the night before Christmas, and then put out cookies and milk for Santa.

For the last four or so years we have had this tradition of staying home just our family and doing the above, the meal sometimes changes..the rest stays the same. The only thing I would do different is the cookies, we usually do cut out cookies.

Since the flu had hit out house, we settled for m&m cookies that were easier. They did not turn out very well at all, I used shortening instead of margarine and I did not think they were very good. So I apologize to those that got these cookies, I would not feel bad if you did not like them. It was really fun leading up to Christmas we had about 7 different countdowns going on. We had 4 advent calendars, which Wesley did not really participate..so we did not need that many. We had a sucker tree, lifesaver tree, candy cane calendar, and a chocolate one. Each year it gets more fun, because the kids get older and really get into the spirit of Christmas. I was really impressed with the fact that three of our kids knew the real reason we celebrated Christmas. It helped that we talked about it a lot at the dinner table. So after all these fun festivities the kiddos went to bed, so that Santa could get to work.