Christmas Break

Wow, it's been really busy. We had a great break. We had a lot of fun spending a lot of family time. Kyli was able to visit for a while. So I thought I'd go back to the beginning starting with Christmas Eve. We went sledding. My mom has this perfect hill in her front yard for my kids. The kids love the snow. We then went home and got ready for the day. We then headed back to my parents for a big dinner. On the way though we had a horrible experience. We came across an accident on the freeway seconds after it happened. (I know a lot of you got stuck in the traffic) Needless to say, no police or paramedics had arrived yet. We slowed down and yelled to see if anyone needed help. They said someone needed CPR, so I jumped out and ran to help. I won't go into many more details because the scene was not pretty. But, I stayed on the scene and tried to help (I didn't have any kind of medical supplies with me) I stayed until the paramedics arrived and then worked with them for a bit, until I was no longer needed. Then we went on to my mom's. What a sobering experience to have on Christmas Eve.




Christmas Day
We had an awesome christmas. I surprised Kalun with a Wii. The kids are at such a fun age. We had a great time watching them all morning.



The Day after Christmas Kyli flew in. We went straight from the airport to Temple Square. It was so pretty, and also very cold. But we had a blast.



The next day we went swimming


We then had a big Christmas dinner with Kalun's Family where we did the nativity..

Monday Night we went to Jump-on-it



Next was the Dinosaur Museum


Then we went Ice skating. Tate loved it. Kyli took a while to warm up to it, but by the end of her trip she kept saying that was her favorite part.





The last couple days of Kyli's visit we went to my grandparents cabin. We played in the snow a lot, played games, and played wii. It was so much fun. We went with some of our friends who have kids that are the same age as Tate and Haylie, and have girls that have always been really good friends of Kyli's.





Sorry this is the longest post I've ever seen. I took like a hundred more pictures, I tried to narrow it down to only a few. I hope everyone else had a great Holiday Season!!

The Polar Express

There is a place in Lindon that does kind of their own version of the polar express. I don't think me trying to explain it will do it justice, but I'll try anyway. There is a family that owns a ton of land and all built their houses on it. They built a little train track going around all of their properties. Then they built a train that holds around 15-20 people. While you wait for your train you sit in this huge work garage and watch the Polar Express. Then you load on the train and it takes you on a little ride with lots of christmas lights playing music from the polar express. You arrive at Santa's Workshop and get to go in and sit on Santa's lap. He then gives all the kids a bell and you sing a couple carols with him. Then, and this is why I love it so much, Santa talks briefly about the real meaning of Christmas. You then reboard the train and go on a ride to beautiful Christ centered christmas Hymns while passing huge beautiful paintings depicting Christs' birth. It is very touching. This family does this as a service. It is completely free. They usually have some kind of charity at the end if you want to donate. Anyway, the kids loved it and so did Kalun and I. What an awesome thing it is to have santa talk about the real meaning of Christmas. And what truely amazing people to donate all their time to this wonderful thing every Christmas.

Sugar Cookies

I have really wanted to try harder this year, now that Tate is getting bigger, to be better at making holiday memories and traditions. Letting Tate decorate his tree was one of my ideas. Last night we decided to make and frost sugar cookies with our friends and their kids. The whole time I had to keep reminding myself that I'm trying to be a good mom and create memories, because wow was that a messy idea!! The kids however had a blast.

Putting up the Christmas Trees

I love Christmas decorations. It's the only time of year I feel like my house is decorated cute. I also very much love Christmas trees. Since having Tate I have learned that I have to have at least two. One for me, that no is allowed to touch or mess up, and one for the kids that they can put crazy decorations all over. However this year we went above and beyond and did three. My tree is in our living room, then there is a tree up in the playroom, and then Tate really wanted one in his room. Thankfully from Kalun's Target days we have a lot of trees that he would get on clearance. Next year we might have to have four trees because it's my goal to add one to the basement. I know, it's a little much, but what can I say, I love Christmas trees! Tate was so cute, he got really excited this year to put ornaments on the tree.

Family Pictures

So the time has come to take family pictures. I used to be so good about getting our pictures done. I think they are so important for memories and history etc. However, since all the Kyli stuff, I haven't been very good at it. It just feels odd doing pics without her, it feels like we are missing a family member. So, I have slacked on our pictures. But I feel like I am doing Tate and Haylie an injustice by not keeping up with our pictures. Anyway so we finally went and did some. It's funny that we took over 50 pictures and none of them of very good. My kids did not want to smile.

Bed Head

Haylie's hair has kind of been out of control lately. Some days she lets me put elastics in and some days she refuses. But the back of her head is especially of out control. It has a little curl in it, that makes it go kind of frowy. Anyway, she woke up from her nap the other day having a particularly bad hair day.

Disney on Ice

We donated food and got free tickets for disney on ice, talk about a good deal. The kids loved it. Tate was glued. His favorite characters were Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Haylie did good the first half, but the second half she had more fun climbing on the seats and eating popcorn.

Snow Day

I love Snow!!! I was so excited to wake up to snow and then it just kept snowing. Tate also loves the snow, he begged me the second he woke up to go outside and play in it.
Haylie was terrified of the snow. Apparently she doesn't share me and Tate's love for the cold stuff. She didn't want to even put her foot in it.

We built this beauty of a snowman. Tate thought it was so cool. I love that he's still young enough, that simple things like building a snowman makes me the coolest mom in the world.

Of course, Tate being all boy decided that right after we finished frosty that we should knock him down so we could body slam him.

Haylie had the most fun when I shoveled all the snow off the tramp so she could jump without any possibility of the yucky white cold stuff touching her.

Halloween

I love Halloween! Haylie was so funny, after the first couple of houses (which were the grandparent houses) she figured out that all you have to do is knock on people's doors and smile and they give you candy. She thought that was about the coolest thing ever. I also happen to think that my kids were stinkin adorable in their costumes!

Haylie the Ladybug

Tate the Bat

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins as part of family night on Monday. Tate wanted a nice pumpkin this year. Kyli told us last time we talked to her that she wanted a scary pumpkin with fangs so in her honor Kalun carved one for her. And of course Haylie's had a bow carved in hers to make it a girl pumpkin.