Christmas Eve/Jon's Birthday

Every year on Christmas Eve we attend Jon's aunts little Christmas get-together. She reads Twas the Night Before Christmas, while we all pass presents on the word and. Whatever you end up with at the end is yours. This year there was a mix up with the time and we missed it. We were pretty bummed, but we still had a birthday dinner for Jon at his parent's house. We ate cheesy spaghetti casserole, in honor of my family, and had some coconut creme pie. The boys tortured Trevor and vice versa. Addison played with her new best friend, Aunt Jenifer.
Happy Birthday, Stud!

Jace and his best buddy

Then we headed home to hit the hay so Santa could come see us. The boys put out cookies for Santa and oats and carrots for the reindeer. Last year when we got home there was a bag on our door with sparkling cider and goblets so we started a new tradition of making some Christmas toasts. I look like I have had a few too many toasts, but don't worry it was just grape juice.

Then we put the kids to bed and wrapped presents and put together toys until 3:30am, when I went to bed. I think Jon was up until after 4am. *Note to self-I will NEVER again wait until Christmas Eve to wrap every single present!!*

Jarvis Family Christmas Party

We always look forward to partying down with the Jarvis family. It always means yummy food, good company, and plenty of entertainment. We had our Christmas party at Jim and Sandra's house this year. Jon's mom planned the menu. We had Cafe Rio's pork salads, well we used their recipe and made them ourselves, and they were DELICIOUS! I wish I had one right now. This year Grandma started a new tradition. She brought chimes and we all joined in playing some Christmas carols. It was fun and the kids loved it. Kayla, Jereme, and Aubree shared their musical talents with us and played the piano and saxophone. Then we had our annual present exchange-game. Grandma and Grandpa provide all the presents and we draw numbers and pick, switch, and fight over the goods. We are lucky kids.

Jim and his crew set up their train table for Jace and Addison to play with. It was so thoughtful and they loved playing with it. They also loved climbing on it and destroying the track.

Addison is becoming more and more social. She is beginning to love to play with her cousins. It is so nice to have only one screaming, petrified child at family functions. Hopefully Jace will overcome his fear one day.

Holidays 2008-FINALLY!!

Okay, this is for journaling purposes only! You can have your blog turned into a book and WaLa! Family Journal. I remember right after Halloween all the stores starting hauling out all the Christmas goodies. Everyone was saying it was too early...blah..blah..blah. I was excited, because I thought awesome now maybe I can actually get everything done that I want to. Christmas pictures, sending cards, baking goodies, starting new traditions, hanging lights, decorating, etc. etc. etc. I am not sure why we try to squeeze all that into one month anyway. So I honestly tried to utilize time, shop early, plan, organize-all that. If we had time to do something like drink some hot chocolate and build a fire in the fire pit we did it. But guess what about two weeks before Christmas I had not gotten our pictures taken-I had all the clothes(which is the hardest part) which means I had not sent Christmas cards, I had no ornaments on my tree-I do have a 1 yr. old, I had only baked half the stuff I wanted to, etc. etc. etc. WHERE DID THE TIME GO??? I pulled together what I could and then anxiously waited for it to be OVER! The same as every other year. Maybe next year the stores will start in September?! These are some of our Holiday season festivities

This year our stake held a live Nativity program. It was really cold the night we went. This is a horrible picture, but you get the idea. It was a nice reminder of the true "reason for the season."

We took along our friends and neighbors, Casey and Joshua, they also went to a Primary activity right before this where they watched a Christmas movie, made some ornaments, and ate red and green popcorn balls.

We made the trek to the Temple to see the Christmas lights. Tate is taking this picture. Addison and Jace enjoyed the lights. Jace spent the rest of the month pointing and saying "look" everytime he saw some lights. Afterwards we hit Dairy Queen for some ice cream and then went to Chik-fil-a for some fries. Every family outing MUST include junk food for it to be a success. This was our trip to the mall to see Santa. Jace HATES to ride in a stroller. He wants to be out running around and trying to get as far away as possible from where he is supposed to be. So I thought maybe if we rented one of these strollers he might not scream the whole time. Of course Addison insisted upon not being left out of the fun. They did have fun driving and playing bumper cars, while we waited in line for Santa. Addison was very excited for Christmas this year. She understood a little and loved to see all the pretty decorations. It was fun to have a little one who just enjoyed the spirit of things rather than just worrying about how much she was going to get. We had some fun times and hopefully made a few memories along the way.

2009 Here We Come...

My goal was to have my blog all caught up before the end of the year, but obviously that didn't happen. For some reason we are having trouble transferring our pictures from the camera to the computer, so I still have most of Nov. and all of Dec. to blog. UGH! That is going to take me forever!

We are excited for the new year! Jon will finish school in May-WOOHOO! He finished up block 3 and will be starting his very last block in a few weeks. He is enjoying his vacation, and is very anxious to finish up. Tate and Bradan are in KY visiting their dad, Nathan has been at his mom's since Christmas day, Jon, the babies, and I have been spending lots of time with Jon's family. Addison has finally become sociable and loves her Aunt Jenifer! We are going to work on our goals for the new year and I will post them so I am accountable. There are lots of things that we want to work on in the upcoming year. Here are some Kodak moments of 2008...