First Annual Family Nativity

We decided our kids are old enough to participate in the time honored tradition of the family nativity.  I wish there were words to describe how cute this was.  And how strong the spirit was felt.  It may have only lasted about 4 minutes, but it was priceless.  Roxi mostly just followed Noah's lead, but Noah was so precious.  He took his job of Joseph so seriously.  It was amazing.
I love these babies of mine!

 Our sweet Mary.  Love, love, love.  So much.

 Mary and Joseph, getting ready to make their entrance into Jerusalem ~ with Dad playing the part of the donkey.  Oh. My. Gosh.  Have I mentioned how happy this made me?

 Finding their way to the stable, complete with animals and the manger.  Noah set up all the animals before we started.  He took the job very seriously.  I can't even...

 "And Mary brought forth her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes (and handed him to Joseph, because she wasn't quite big enough to actually hold the baby)."  :)

 And, to make sure that Mom could also get in on the fun, an angel appeared proclaiming glad tidings of great joy!

And of course, after every good nativity, there was a little bit of goofing off.  But I tell you... for that 4 minutes of reading, it was spectacular.  

~ 24 December 2014 ~

December Fun 2014

We always try to make December a really special month for the kids.  I like to have the advent calendar, and while I'm not perfect at sticking to it every day, we did fairly well this year.  We also had the chocolate advent calendar for both Roxi and Noah - and we discovered an excellent way to make sure they ate all of their dinner each day.  :)

Here are a few of the fun things we did in December ~

We love to visit the Grand America Hotel at Christmas time!  It is always decorated so beautifully and they have fun little window displays that have a different theme each year.  Santa and Mrs Claus always come for breakfast or afternoon tea, so we figure that someday we'll visit them as well, but for now, we always just watch them come in.  Our kids don't know the difference right now.  And they just love to run from each window display and get the cookies at the end.  Plus, each year they have a giant gingerbread house.  Noah and Roxi can be seen looking into the door of the gingerbread house in this second picture.

 We always try to take some "cool/professional looking" pictures of the kids.  But of course, with kids, that is next to impossible.  Here are the best we got this past year ~

 We also always try to go to Temple Square and see the lights every year.  I don't know what the kids think of it, or if they even care yet, but Steven and I really love it.  This year, we actually timed it right to watch the Nativity, and from what I remember, it wasn't too crowded.  Noah hates having his picture taken, so he refused to look on the family picture, but that's real life, so we'll take it.  :)

I really love this picture, even though Noah isn't looking.  I think it is really great of the rest of us.  :) 

Of course, no month would be complete without some serious Jamberry Nails time!  This was one of my favorites from December.  Makes me want to do some holiday nails again.  :)  Have I mentioned lately how much I love Jamberry?  Haha!  

And below, you'll see some of my favorite pictures of Roxi ~ One of the things we like to do is make garland out of cereal for the Christmas tree.  I walked into the living room one day to see Roxi helping herself to a little snack.  Apparently she was hungry.  Haha!  This baby girl is my favorite.  She cracks me up.

 A few of our other activities included reading new Christmas stories, handing out candy canes in the parking lot of Wal-Mart (and sometimes leaving them on car windows).  That was fun, but it was SO cold, so I'm not sure Noah or I really loved it like we could have.  We also got new Christmas jammies from Grandma and Papa ~ so cute!  And, of course we made a million plates of Christmas cookies!  This is one of our favorite things, but we learned that here in suburbia, we have a lot more neighbors who also give goodies.  So, I'm thinking next year, we'll make smaller plates with less variety, so we can make sure to cover our bases.  :)

We love December and didn't even mind the lack of snow this past year!  It was nice to be able to go out without the worry of snow and ice.  Although, we were wondering if we'd have a white Christmas.  

~ December 2014 ~

Thanksgiving ~ AKA Flu of 2014

We went to Panaca for Thanksgiving this year and had a great time.  Oh wait.  Um... we had a time.  It was mostly not great.  But not terrible, considering...

So, what happened?  Well, as soon as we got to Panaca on Wednesday night, Roxi started throwing up.  We figured she must have just been a little carsick though, from driving all day.  So, we didn't think much of it.  Karyn was coming with her family, and Dave and Jen's kids were coming up from Vegas, so we were excited to see all the family.

Roxi had a rough night, and threw up most of the night, but we were still thinking it was probably just her.  We just started her on whole milk and kept trying to feed that to her, which made her totally worse, and by Friday, she was very lethargic and sad.

 But, if our illness had have stopped with Roxi, all would have been okay.  But alas, no such luck.

On Thanksgiving day, everyone still seemed fine and we had a wonderful dinner.  Just writing about it makes me really hungry! (which is good, considering it all came back up later.  ha!)  That evening, I started to not feel so well, but I was really hoping it was just that I ate too much.

We all went off to bed and about 10:30pm, Noah started throwing up.  I was no help, because as soon as I saw him, I knew I actually was sick and I ran off to the bathroom.  Uh-oh!  After what can only be described as the "not-so-best" night of my life, I was feeling slightly better the next day, just really tired.  Noah was in the same boat.

Of course, that still would have been fine, if we were the only ones that got sick.  Karyn was about to head home on Friday, because she figured if her family was going to get sick, they might as well do it at their own home, but we all convinced her to stay.  I'm fairly certain she'll never forgive us.  :)

On Friday, Kyle and Whitney both got sick and were out of commission most of the day.  The rest of us went out to some reservoir just for something to do.  It was fun and everyone was feeling fine... until Friday night.  Uh-oh.  Karyn's girls and Ryan got sick on Friday night (why must throwing up hit in the middle of the night?!).

Needless to say, we all opted to go home on Saturday instead of Sunday.  We left poor Diane to clean her house, which smelled less than awesome by this point in time.  Luckily, she wasn't sick!

But the weekend wasn't over quite yet... all in all, I believe Steven, Kraig and Allie were the only ones who didn't get sick at all.  I'm fairly certain we won't be invited back ~ Or at least not Roxi.  :)  But it was a Thanksgiving to remember! :)

~ 26-29 Novemeber 2014 ~ 

Putting up the Christmas Tree!

We opted to put the Christmas tree up earlier than normal, because we were headed to Panaca for Thanksgiving.  The kids did great and loved helping.  Especially Noah.  

And you'll notice, he had a real eye for ornament placement... so long as you like all of your ornaments in one place.

~ 24 November 2014 ~ 

Roxi's First Birthday ~ Celebrate!

Some people make a really big deal out of first birthdays.  We are not those people.  Sorry kids.

Roxana turned one on a Sunday, so we already had church scheduled (at 1pm... yuck), but to make life really great for her, we opted to also schedule family pictures for that morning.  So you know, win-win.

We do like to open presents first thing in the morning, so that the kids can enjoy them and play all day.  So, before we headed off to pictures, we let Roxi open her presents.  It was just Steven, Noah and I there to help her celebrate, but she seemed to know that something fun was up and she had a good time with her gifts.  You'll notice that we are really good parents, so not only do we give our kids free presents from someone else (thanks Wendy), but we also give them again.  Hey ~ Noah liked it so much on his first birthday, that we figured we might as well pull it back out of storage and give it to Roxi too.  And she loved it.  :)

Grandma and Papa got her this cool ride on toy.  She loves all the noises it makes and like to try to ride it, even though she isn't quite tall enough.  Luckily, she's got a great older brother, who will help push her around (when he's not trying to steal it for himself).

She did well at pictures too, and then we went to church.  Nothing too exciting to report about a one year old at church.

When we came home, we of course had the required "1st birthday cake pictures."  But first I had to put her in this cute "Birthday girl" shirt for a bit.  I think it is the cutest thing, but she really only wore it for about 10 minutes, before we then took it off for the cake.  ha!  She wasn't a giant fan of the cake.  Well, she love it, and especially enjoyed the frosting, but once it was all over her hands, she had had enough.  So, I'm not even sure how much cake she ate... just frosting.  :)
She sure was cute with it though.

A good big brother, helping her blow out the candle.  

Picture overload, but seriously, so cute!  (And makes me want some cake!)

Alright Ma, that's enough.

Happy birthday to our sweet Roxana.  We love you more than words can say.

~ 23 November 2015 ~