Build-A-Bear Fun

For Athena, Samantha, and Nathan's birthdays last year Grandma Lynda gave each of them a certificate to go to Build-A-Bear. We saved them all up so we could take one big trip all together. Finally we found the time during the Christmas break when we could take all the kids and meet up with Grandma all together. The kids were SO EXCITED. I had fun just watching them buzz around the place knowing they finally got to pick out their special animal.

As soon as we got there, Samantha ran right for the zebra, Nathan ran right for the turtle, and Athena sat there and pondered for a minute. She finally decided on a pink monkey that has velcro on it's paws so it can give you hugs.

Once the animals were all decided upon, we went to fill them up. Here is Samantha filling up her zebra. She is standing on the pedal so it will shoot the stuffing into her zebra.
The worker is holding the zebra up to the tube that has the stuffing coming out. She let the kids determine how much stuffing to put in so their animals are firm, soft, or in between. All of our kids chose to have their animals really soft so they are fun to squeeze.

After Samantha was done it was Nathan's turn to push the pedal for his turtle.

I was especially happy to watch him having fun with this whole process. He usually just goes along for the ride and doesn't take part as much. He really thought the Build-A-Bear thing was neat!

All the kids got to choose a heart to make their animal alive. Then they made a promise to love their animals and to take care of them. Nathan just finished giving the heart a kiss and is putting it in his turtle.

Next was Athena! She is standing on the pedal and watching her monkey get all filled up. Grandma Lynda is standing behind her.

Here is Athena with her fluffed up monkey!

The next step in the process is to clean up the animals. The kids put their animals on this little table and stand on the pedal to make air come out of the blowers. Athena is brushing her monkey off to get any extra filling out of her fur while the air blowers fluff the monkey.

All 3 kids were very proud of their choices!

Last, but not least, we selected a going-home outfit for each little animal.

Nathan named his turtle "Turtle". Super creative, I know! He dressed it with little boxer underwear, jeans, a T-shirt with a pirate ship on it, and little hiking boots.

Samantha named her zebra "Crystal". She dressed it with a beautiful silky wedding gown that came complete with a veil, silky slippers, a bouquet, and a garter!

Athena named her monkey "Lizzie". She dressed it in a silky pink evening gown, silky underwear, and a lovely fur jacket to go on top.

Grandma also brought the kid's cousin, Hunter, with her to take part in the Build-A-Bear fun with all of us. He chose to make this cute Husky dog and he named him "Bolt".

We also took the last step and printed out a birth certificate for each of the animals. This turned out to be a fun experience and I'm happy to see that the kids had so much fun. I realize I don't have very many more "kid" years with Athena because she is getting older, so this was the perfect time to do this activity! I've been surprised how much the kids love their animals since we've been home. Even Nathan carries Turtle around with him wherever he goes. I didn't expect that! Thanks Grandma for the fun and the perfect birthday gifts!

Our Family Christmas

I love Christmas! The most exciting part for me is watching my kids experience all the joy that comes with waking up first think in the morning and finding all these presents and treats that weren't there the day before. It's so fun! This year everything went really well. We didn't have any major meltdowns during gifts and we didn't even have to remove anyone from the room. :) It all just turned out really well.

On Christmas Eve we spent time watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas with the kids and talking about how special Christmas is and why we are celebrating this day. We talked about Jesus and the blessings we have because he was born into our world. Then we went about writing notes, leaving cookies, and getting the kids into bed. Oh, we also tracked Santa online with the Santa tracker throughout the evening.

Here is our Christmas tree the night before with the gifts all ready to go. This is what the kids saw when they woke up.
Each year the kids leave cookies and milk for Santa with a note. They also leave a blank piece of paper for Santa to write back to them. This picture was obviously taken AFTER Santa enjoyed his cookies and responded to the kids.
Athena wrote: Dear Santa Claus, You are the fastest person. What I would like for Christmas is . . . a fur real friends horse & a lava lamp. I love you.

Samantha wrote: You are one of the Best! person in the world to me. I think that you are good at the presents I know that! I like you!


Santa replied: I always look forward to stopping here and to drop off your gifts. Thanks for being good boy and girls and thanks for the oreos and milk. Merry Christmas! I look forward to stopping here next Christmas. Love, Santa Ho Ho Ho!!

One of the first things the girls did on Christmas morning is to run in and see if Santa got their message and ate the cookies. They were not disappointed. :)

These are the stockings all filled and ready to be delved into.

As soon as the kids saw the stockings, they delved right in to find their treasures. Samantha is oohing and aahing over this glittery body spray that smells like bubble gum.

Alexandra discovered quickly how to get out all the treats.

Athena got the musical toothbrush she had been longing for. :) It plays music while she brushes.

Nathan was a little timid this year going through his stocking. I finally had to show him to just dump it and he would find surprises.

One more picture of Alexandra in the excitement. This is her first year to really know what's going on. I had so much fun watching her! She was amazed at all the candy she received and quickly had several pieces of chocolate stuffed in her little tiny mouth.

After stockings it was on to the presents. In our house we open them one at a time. This gives the fun going a little longer and everyone gets a chance to see what everyone else got. They were all so anxious to start that our little circle around the tree kept getting smaller and smaller. Jeremy and I had to keep telling them to scoot back so they wouldn't sit on the presents.

FINALLY! We got to rip into the paper!!! Nathan is opening a DVD as Samantha looks on with curiousity.

I'm pretty sure Jeremy is holding Nathan to keep him from crawling on everyone else. He was all over the place.
Alexandra understood opening gifts, too. Once she got going on the paper no one was allowed to touch it. She made sure of that.

This doll was Alexandra's most treasured gift. She LOVES it and I'm so happy that she is happy with her new doll. As soon as she opened it, she wanted the doll out of the box. She spent the rest of the day holding it, loving it, pushing it around in the stroller, and covering it with blankets.

Athena and Samantha's prized gifts were their lava lamps and scooters. They also played with their new Polly Pocket sets. Nathan also got a scooter, which he loves, and a big remote control truck. :) I'm anxious for the weather to be warm enough for him to use his truck outside. He bangs it into the walls and the furniture for now, but at least he is getting some use out of it.

I gave Jeremy some money to go get new church shoes, some Victoria Secret cologne, and a few other things. He gave me curlers, money for clothes, truffles, and a few other things too.

So here is the first of 3 pictures of our Christmas stash.

More Christmas stuff. Notice the Wii in the picture? It's funny, Jeremy got this from work for free on Christmas Eve. His work did a sales auction and he bid with points that he had accumulated the past couple of months with his stats at work. He ended up winning this Wii system! Not too shabby.

The last of our stuff . . .

Overall we had a wonderful, happy Christmas. All of the kids were very happy with what they received. After opening gifts I made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast while the kids played with all their new things. Then we got ready and went to Jeremy's parents house for the afternoon to hang out and be with family. After staying there awhile we headed to my parent's house for the evening and played a few games.

I'm grateful for my family and for the blessings we have been given. I'm grateful we were all able to enjoy this day together. I'm grateful to have the blessing of the gospel in my life and for the joy it brings to me by living the teachings of Jesus Christ.

OUCH!

I just got back from my first REAL workout for the new year. OUCH! Has it been that long for me? NO, IT HASN'T! What is my problem? My arms feel like they are going to fall off because I did various arm exercises for 30 minutes straight! I don't think I will be lifting poor little Alexandra tomorrow. Maybe I'll just strap her to my back and walk around.

My Family Christmas Party

Our extended family party was hosted by Shauna this year, so she chose to hold the party at her church. She did a great job with planning the food and activities. :) For dinner we had a delicious potato bar with chili. I didn't get any pictures of the food because I forgot to take out my camera. After dinner we started into our first activity. Shauna had us all decorate little ornaments for our Christmas trees. On the ornament somewhere we were to write what our gift to Christ is this year. Here is everyone getting ready to begin.
Alexandra mostly just wandered around the whole time being social.

I needed to get proof that Jeremy and Robert actually worked on a crafty project, so here they are!

I sat at the little kid table and made my ornaments while assisting some of the others.

Ashley and Paige seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Nathan has learned to make silly faces for the camera instead of normal faces. Fun phase. He too was decorating ornaments.

In her wanderings, Alexandra found a little pile of shoes and decided to try them out. She is wearing Katelyn's boots!

When we all finished our ornaments, a few people took turns sharing their talents. I like to see what the nieces and nephews come up with because they are all so individual. This picture is of Samantha, Hazel, Athena, and Amanda singing Silent Night.

Then OF COURSE my sisters and I had to sing. We always do because we enjoy singing together. I thought this picture is funny because Denise and Robert look like they don't quite know what to do with themselves. Is Denise mad at Robert? Or just bored out of her mind? And just what is Robert pondering?

After the talent show wrapped up (which also included Nicholas and Hailey singing and Ashley doing a little dance), we started into the good part - PRESENTS! This year we all brought a little gift for the kids to unwrap. We put all the gifts in the middle of the circle and the kids picked a number. It was in that order that they chose a gift to unwrap and keep.

Athena received a small collection of little dolls and doll furniture.

Samantha received this little teddy bear.

Nathan received a big sticky hand that you throw and it sticks to things. We didn't include Alexandra into the mix this year because she could care less. She did her own thing the whole time anyway!

I also didn't get any pictures of the adult gag gift exchange, but that's always a highlight of our family party. I ended up with this stupid Celestial Heir board game that I plan on secretly giving one of my sisters at a later date. :) Jeremy was actually quite happy with his gift. He got a football shaped crockpot! He is most anxious to use it to make little smokies for his annual superbowl party.

After the gag gifts, we all ate dessert and helped clean up after the party. It turned out to be really fun - thank you Shauna for putting it all together!

Once we left the party we had one more stop to make for the evening - Jeremy's parents. We missed Jeremy's family party this year, so the kids never got a chance to open their gift from Grandma Lynda. We stopped in and they got to open their matching jammies! Grandma gave all the cousins matching PJs and they look so cute in them. :) We put the jammies on the kids and took this picture in front of Grandma's tree.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Kristy also had matching PJs. Here is Grandpa in his PJs and check out what he is showing off! Jenny gave him this for Christmas so he proudly displayed it in the front window! Funny. :) (In case you can't tell, it's a leg lamp, like on The Christmas Story.)

That wraps up our night! Another busy, but fun evening with family.

Our Own Little Party

This year we missed Jeremy's family party. Every year his family plans a sleepover party in a little cabin up the canyon. The weather was stormy that night and Jeremy had to get up and work in the morning. We didn't want to risk getting stuck in the canyon (which wasn't plowed) or getting snowed in so he couldn't get to work in the morning, so we chose to stay home and have our own little party!

For dinner we took the kids to The Pizza Factory. Then we headed over to see the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork. We drive through the lights every year and usually they have music playing outside, so we have to roll down our windows and freeze while we watch the light show. This year was much better! They finally had their Christmas music tuned in to the radio so we just had to turn to that station. We got to enjoy all the lights in the warmth of our car. :) The kids couldn't resist rolling down the windows for part of the ride. I guess they needed a little closer look!
There weren't very many cars going through the lights because of the storm, so we ended up circling the light show 3 times. We would get to the end and Jeremy or I would yell, "WHO WANTS TO GO AGAIN!" Of course it was unanimous every time to take another round through the lights. We finally stopped only because Jeremy needed to go take a pit stop. :)

The next day I planned on continuing the party by taking the kids outside to build a snowman. When we got all bundled up and outside we found the snow was too cold to pack. It was a very nice fluffy powder that is horrible for making snowmen! Grandpa was wanting to come help us build, so I let the kids play on our new snowmounds until he arrived.

This pictures are in front of our house on the driveway. Doesn't it look like fun? With the sun out it actually didn't feel too cold.

The kids played and Alexandra ate as much snow as she could possibly fit in her mouth.

Finally Grandpa arrived and I decided that since we were all bundled up and couldn't make a snowman, we might as well throw the sleds in the car and go find a hill to play on! Here is where we ended up. That is Athena and Samantha at the bottom - those 2 little figures.

Athena and Samantha are getting ready to get pushed down the hill on the toboggan. Grandpa didn't feel like sledding down the hill, but he was really good at giving pushes down the hill.

I'm glad Grandpa came with us. It made it much more fun for me and for the kids.

By the time we were done sledding, Alexandra was getting very worn out from eating snow and tromping around in the snow. She was just sitting on this sled kind of in a daze. We thought she was asleep for a minute but every so often we would see her blink.

We played on the hill for about 45 minutes, then came home and enjoyed some hot chocolate. Even though we missed Jeremy's family party, we still ended up having a lot of fun together and I'm glad that Grandpa could come and join us for the sledding. :)