Santa Claus came to town!

We've had a busy week, obviously, and so I haven't had time to post since the big guy came to visit. So much has happened! Let's start with Christmas Eve. This was actually a pretty mellow day. We didn't have much going on, so we decided to do what we do every year and go see a movie. First we had to visit Urgent Care for Jacob. He had a bad cough that had started on Sunday and it wasn't getting better so I went to see if they could give him something to help. After a visit and a few prescriptions, we were off. We thought we'd go see Four Christmases. Um, BIG mistake! Don't take kids to see that movie. Yes it looks funny, but it's not for kids, we walked out and instead went and saw the Tale of Desperaux. The boys liked the movie, but Nick and I, not so much. Then we went home to enjoy our Christmas Eve dinner, pizza! YUM! We ate and watched the Luke 2 DVD and then read a couple of stories. It's nice to take time to talk about the true meaning of Christmas. Then the boys got to open up one present, like always on Christmas Eve, they got new jammies! Star Wars ones that even light up. Yes, I did good this year and I was told so, haha!

This is on Christmas Eve. They were getting ready to open their present.

Here they are posing with their new jammies on. Jacob was pretty excited about them! :)

Here is Nick on Christmas Eve. He wanted to open this present from me so bad. It was killing him to not know what it was. He really thought it was an empty box. I fooled him good. I made him wait until Christmas to open it. He was trying hard though to make it "pop" open by throwing it around. It wound up being two Suns tickets for the game this coming Friday. One for him and one for Cole. A birthday present for Cole. Neither of them had any idea and they were so excited! HAHA! An empty box...like I'd do that, hmmm or would I? ;)

Christmas day was so FUN! We spent the morning opening and playing with presents. They got some nice gifts from Santa this year, lucky dogs. Our big family gift was a Wii, and that has been the funnest present! I LOVE it! We got lots of fun games with it and we have really enjoyed playing that all weekend. It is the reason I'm so delayed on updating this blog. I've been addicted to Guitar Hero, haha. We even got a Wii Fit with it, and I LOVE that! It's awesome. I tried it out and I'm excited to get going on a work out program with it. Once the boys are back in school I will be using that regularly. I also got the book, The Host, and I'm excited to sit down and read that, also when the boys go back to school. I got a sweet back massager too. It's a Shiatsu one with heat that I sit in a chair and can use anytime I want. Nick also got a new iPod and he has had fun playing with that new toy. Cole got a new bike and Jacob got rollerblades. Jacob has been practicing riding those around the house and is now pretty good on them. He can ride around the block on them and he doesn't even fall down. They also got a few Star Wars toys and Legos. Star Wars and Legos are pretty popular at our house. :)

Here's a video of them when they first walked into the room. All the presents were under the tree except for the bike and rollerblades. They just stood there for a minute looking at them. Cole kept thinking I was going to snap a picture, so he stood there smiling at me until I told him that I wasn't taking a picture. They were so funny. :)

Here they are with their loot on Christmas morning.

Here they are getting ready to open the box with the Wii in it. Santa put all the Wii stuff together in one big box and wrapped it up. Inside the box everything was also wrapped individually so it looked like a big box of presents! They had a lot of fun with that. Cole even yelled out at one point that he loves Santa!

Here is video of them opening the box with the Wii in it. You can hear what they are saying. Nick was getting in on it by helping them open everything and being excited too. I was cracking up! Listen and you can hear Cole yell out how he loves Santa! :)

Here they are going through their stockings. Santa brought them candy, books, a Star Wars DS game, Legos and even a watch in their stocking this year. Good, now they won't be late coming home when they are out riding their bikes. :)

Here are my little Clone Troopers, haha. Nick and I got them the helmets and Santa brought them the guns to go with it. Aren't they funny?

Here they are trying out Guitar Hero. That game is so addicting!

That afternoon we headed to Mesa to my parents house. We always have a mexican food potluck, so yummy! We have a gift exchange with the cousins and that was a lot of fun. It gets wild sometimes, but we all love it. The kids have a blast! Loads of fun with family, good food, good times, GREAT Christmas!

Here they are with their cousins getting ready for their gift exchange with each other.

They each got an electronic lightsaber from Grandma and Grandpa. That was the best ending to a day filled with some other awesome Star Wars toys!

Thanks everyone for a great Christmas! Happy New Year!

Early Christmas!

On Saturday, Nick's dad and stepmom came to visit us from Tucson. We opened up presents from them and that made the boys day! Christmas came a bit early for us, and that's never a bad thing! :)

Here they are showing off their goods. They got giftcards so now they can go buy anything they want the next time we are in town! They were sooo excited! Yippee! :)

Here they are with their Papa and grandma Esther. Thanks guys for coming to visit us! :)

Christmas Concert!

Tuesday night was the boys school Christmas concert. Depite the rain, mud, tons of people, mud, rain, did I mention mud, they did a really good job! They each sang two songs by grade and then they sang two songs with the whole school. They were kind of hard to see at times, so I won't bore you all with the videos that I took, but I did get some pictures at least. I'm just a bit annoyed at the amount of mud that was tracked in my car from that night!

Here is Jacob with his friends from class.

Here is Cole with his good buddy Dylan!

Here is the last song that they sang all together as a school. Luckily Jacob was in front. Cole was 2 heads behind him also in a Santa hat. You can see him if you look close.

Letters from Santa!

The other day the boys received a letter from Santa in the mail. This made their day, no, their week! They were so excited! The letter said that Santa can't wait to come visit their house on Christmas Eve. It came complete with Magic Reindeer food and some stickers. Yes, a letter really came in the mail, no I didn't put it in there. :)

Okay, so I actually order them a letter every year from here. It costs me $5 a letter and then the looks on their faces when they read them...priceless! That is a secret though...shh!

Santa's Sleigh!

Monday night for family night we finally got around to putting together the gingerbread Santa sleigh kit that I bought awhile back. The sleigh is one that we haven't done before, and we had a lot of fun. We do a gingerbread creation every year. It's sort of become a tradition. Here is the final outcome. Why must my youngest child always make goofy faces when I take a picture?

Christmas Time Happenings!

Christmas is fast approaching and with that comes all the fun activities. Thursday night we took the kids to Rawhide hoping to see Santa. Well Santa must have been busy somewhere else that night cause he wasn't there. Apparently he is only there on the weekends. Well that would have been nice to know before hand, but we still had a good time. There is so much to do at Rawhide. The boys went on a burro ride and they even rode the mechanical bull.

Friday was half day at school, so right after the boys were out of school, we headed to the mall for lunch and to see the movie Bolt. That was a really cute movie. Well of course we had to make a stop to see Santa. Luckily he was there and they finally got to rattle off to him what they want for Christmas. We made them limit it to telling him only the top 3 things that they want. After all, there was a line of kids behind us and they have sent their letters to him already, so we are pretty sure Santa knows what to bring to this house. ;) He was such a cute Santa and we all agreed that he was the REAL Santa! We did some Christmas shopping after and actually finished!

Saturday night was our Ward Christmas party, Luau style. I made a trip to Savers a few days before and bought us all Hawaiian shirts. We had a Hawaiian singer that was singing Christmas songs while we ate and then some ward members participated in Karaoke and a talent show after dinner. It was really a lot of fun. Of course Santa made his appearance towards the end so this time all 4 of us got in the picture with him, Hawaiian shirts and all! Jacob asked me after if he was one of Santa's helpers and I asked him why? He told me that his beard looked fake so there was no way he could be the real one. Haha, very observant indeed. I told him that yes I believe he is a helper cause Santa needs lots of those this time of year. Cole is the older child, but has yet to ask me anything like that. I'm so glad, because I really want him to have that belief for awhile longer.

This coming Tuesday is their music concert for school. They have been busy practicing Christmas songs during music time at school, and I'm excited to hear the final outcome. Cole kept debating last night about whether or not he should get up on stage to do some Karaoke, but he chickened out and decided not to. No big surprise there, he hates getting up in front of others.

I look forward to this time of year, despite how busy it is. We always have so many fun things going on. The boys last day of school is this Friday and they have a party in their classes that day. Nick's last day of work is this coming Wednesday. He will have a total of 17 days off for the holidays. He can't wait, and neither can we! We want to go see the Temple lights, the zoo lights and whatever other lights that we will have time for. We want to go to Tucson to see Nick's dad, and we want to take a trip to the snow to go sledding. Then of course there is Cole's 10th birthday on December 28th. We have agreed to let him have his first slumber party and he has agreed to limit the number of guests to 3 boys. I'm not brave enough for more than that. ;) That is going to be held on New Years Eve, so I have concluded that Christmas break really isn't going to be a break afterall. There is a lot going on, but I'm looking forward to spending time with family! It's going to be a fun one! Can't wait for Christmas!

Pictures from Rawhide:

Here's the boys on an old carriage.

Here they are on the burro rides. Cole looks a little hesitant as he gets ready to take Bert for a ride. Jacob gets to ride Blue. That would have been Jacob's middle name if I would have let Nick use it, but I didn't like that name. Appropriate that Jacob is the one that rode him, haha.

Cole looks a bit happier to be riding him once they got going.

This is where Santa was supposed to be, but he wasn't there that night. Nick decided to take his place. After all he is "St. Nick". HAHA!

Here is Cole on the Mechanical Bull. They bug us everytime we go to Rawhide to ride on it, so we thought we'd let them try it out. They have to wear that helmet so it was hard to see the looks on their face.

Now it's Jacob's turn. He wore his cowboy hat, boots and gun so he could look like a real cowboy of course!

Pictures from the mall:

Here they are telling Santa at the mall on Friday, what they want for Christmas. He was such a cute Santa! He listened to them and was so patient. He was the real one for sure! ;)

Here is a video of them talking to Santa. He discovered that they sure love Star Wars!

Pictures from the Christmas Luau.

The picture on the left is Jacob being goofy with his Lei that he got. I'm not sure what he was trying to do exactly, silly kid. Nick and Cole posing for a picture on the right.

Here is our family photo with Santa. We concluded that this guy was actually a helper to the "real" Santa. This is the only Christmas family picture that we had time to take this year, so this is what people will be getting when I get around to sending out Christmas cards. Don't you love the Hawaiian shirts that I found at Savers? They will be saved for the next Luau we get invited too. :)

I'm thankful for this time of year because I can reflect on the birth of our Savior and the sacrifices that he made for all of us! Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Oh Christmas Tree...and lights!

We put our tree up on Monday for family night. The boys are too big for me to hold them up high so they can put ornaments up there, so I did the top part, Nick did the Angel at the top and the boys did the rest. This is the first year where I didn't go back once we were done to "rearrange" the ornaments that they did. They actually did a really good job so I'm just leaving it the way it is. Part of me wants to fix it, and I'm a little bugged by it, but I'm ignoring that part and letting it be. Now the inside is done being decorated so all we have left is the outside lights. Nick will do that this week next time he has a day off. He always does a great job so I will post pictures of that later.

Monday was also my birthday so we had a small celebration here at home. Nick brought home a small cake and we ordered pizza so it was our combo birthday/family night/tree decorating party. The boys made me flowers out of paper all on their own, so cute! Nick and the boys gave me a nice watch and then Nick put candles on the cake that they had me blow out. Earlier in the day I treated myself to a pedicure and then my mom and sisters treated me to lunch! I got money from my parents with which I bought Rollerblades for myself. Oh yeah, it will be fun rollerblading around our neighborhood in those! It was really a great day. Decorating the tree that night really topped it off! Here are some pictures of the day.

I just realized that I never published this post and it is now Saturday, 2 days later. I got sidetracked when I went to add pictures, LAME! Now I have more to add so here goes. Today we put up our outside lights. I know we are a little late this year. Nick finally had a day off this week to do it so that is what we did today after Cole's soccer game. Nick always does such a great job. Our house is the prettiest one on the street! Seriously, there are only like two other houses on our actual street that are decorated and they got nothin' on us. While finishing up after it was dark, people would slow down to get a look. That is when you know you've done a good job! :) Great job Nick! Okay, so I helped a bit, literally a bit, he really did 99% of it and it looks fabulous! I took pictures, but to get the full effect you have to come see them in person. For those that live in Maricopa, while you're out driving around looking at lights, come by!

The boys really get into their decorating. :)

Cole is deciding where to hang that ornament.

Jacob is also thinking hard about where to put that ornament.

They were sure interested in watching me open up the new watch I got! :)

This is the cake Nick got me. I thought it was so cute that I had to take a picture. We NEVER get to buy girlie cakes or girlie anything around here, so this will probably be one of the few true girlie things we ever do buy. I don't like the big ole 3 9 candles on display though. The cake is just too cute so how could I not take a picture? Thanks Babe, Love ya! :)

Nick wanted to take a picture of me wearing the new "ring" he got me. HAHA! It was one from the cake. Doesn't it look fabulous next to my diamond wedding ring? I should have snapped a shot of the fancy watch I got, but it was a bit big. I had to go get it sized the next day.

Here are the paper flowers the boys made me. How cute is that? They made them all on their own without Nick's help or without being asked to do it. I have GREAT kids! Love them! :) Cole's is on the left and Jacob's is on the right.

Here are the outside lights. Don't they look fabulous? This is the view looking at the right side of the house. We have 3 deers, a snowman, presents and 2 trees! You can also see the 3 big, round colored balls hanging from our big tree. We have more lights too, but we may be out of room. The big tree may be the only place that actually has space for more lights.

This is the view looking at the left side of the house and the driveway. Nick gets annoyed every year when he can't figure out a way to get lights up on the 2nd story. It's just too scary to stand up there. So we only have the one strand over the garage and then we add a lot of lights to trees and bushes and even the ground! We have some around the front door also. I LOVE this time of year and all things Christmas!