Christmas at Our House

This year was our turn to go to Elko for Christmas. BJ's family was supposed to be there too so we were all really excited until July hit and mom and dad moved in to a small three bedroom apartment. Then we panicked about where everyone fit for sleeping and eating, and everything else. No decisions were made until about 2 days before Christmas when it was finally official Dad would have enough time off of work to come to Utah. So everyone came here because we have the biggest house at the moment and it was a shorter drive than going to Las Vegas. We had a great time and were really excited to do all of the Christmas traditions in Utah, by the end of the weekend though our house did not feel that big anymore. There was a lot of garbage from so many presents, dishes from all of our meals, and suitcases everywhere. Again though we wouldn't have traded it for the world.  

We picked LaWayne up in Salt Lake on December 23 and started some Christmas celebrating. We took the family to Thanksgiving Point to drive through their lights display. At the end you can stop and get hot chocolate and hang out with the Reindeer. Alden thought they were pretty great.

 Gracie wasn't really interested and spent all of the time with Dad under the heaters. 

Grandma and Grandpa Norton got to our house about lunch time on Christmas Eve. Grandma helped us decorate some cookies for Santa. She is pretty good at this cookie decorating thing :) 

BJ, Shawna, and Hudson arrived about 7 on Christmas Eve and we got things ready for the next day. It looks like a ton of presents and it is, but there were 10 people and my living room is not that big.

We woke up to a white Christmas! Cass got to do this while we waited for everyone else to wake up.

Alden and Gracie played with their gifts from Santa while dad shoveled. Gracie got a Little People Farm and Alden got a huge Playdough playset.

When everyone finally got up we got to open our stockings. This was Alden's favorite thing. It is all of the Scooby Doo characters as Pez dispensers.

Gracie was a little slower than some at opening her presents.

Just showing off one of his gifts. 

Wanted to make sure we have at least one picture of everyone on Christmas morning.

We worked really hard this year on this gift for LaWayne. It is a book of pictures from all of the family reunions for the last 30 years. I think she liked it. 

And one more of this cutie showing off her new hat.

For dinner we had Cass' parents over as well and set up some tables in the front room. Good thing my mom got a huge table cloth for Christmas so it actually looked pretty nice. It was such a blessing for us to be with both of our families on this special day. We are grateful for everything they each do for us and know we wouldn't be as successfully as we are if it wasn't for their help.

The next day we took everyone down to Provo. BYU had a Norman Rockwell exhibit at the art museum, that was amazing. And what is a trip to BYU with out a stop at the Creamery? I got to save a table with these 2 because this place was a mad house!

And this picture is blurry, but it is meant to show Creamery on 9th which turned out ok. We also had a trip to J Dawgs for Shawna to relive her college days (no pictures there, sorry). It was a fun way to spend the day.

 

The house was basically a mess all weekend with so much going on, but we made the best of it, some of us more than others :) Gracie loved being able to get in to whatever she wanted and we often caught her with things like this. Good thing she is cute.

I know this probably won't happen again for a long time and I am so grateful that we were able to have a Christmas at home while our kids were young. I am thankful for the birth of our Savior and the hope that comes to me because of his life. We truly have a God of love and miracles.

New Years Eve

New Year's Eve has definitely taken on a different feeling since we ha children. We spent the day trying to wear them out so they would go to bed and we could get some stuff done around the house. In the morning we met with a realtor, did I mention that in the middle of Christmas we decided to buy a new house? We just felt like we needed to move and then a house in our ward just a few blocks away from our current house went up for sale and we decided to do it. Now we just have to sell our house.  After the realtor left we went to the bounce house with Jason, Laura, and Sam. 

This was Gracie's first time on the inflatable and I think she liked it :)
This is the best you get with three kids involved

And of course you need one picture of going down the giant slide.

And our plans worked, this happened later in the day. The kids went to bed on time, maybe a little early and we started packing away some of the clutter to get our house ready to show.

Happy 2016. It is starting a little different than we expected, but we can't wait to see what another year brings to our family and yours!

10 Months

In the midst of Christmas chaos this little girl turned 10 months old. Gracie started crawling the right way this month which makes her really fast. She also got her first tooth for Christmas. This is a much anticipated event as she does not care for baby food anymore and wants to eat everything that we eat. Obviously Gracie had her first Christmas this month and being the only girl she got spoiled like no other. She is such a bright spot in our lives I can't remember how we lived without her.

You might also notice that Gracie's eyes look swollen. She decided Christmas time would be a great time to get an eye infection.  It was so sad to see her swollen eyes and even sadder to hear her cry/scream every time we put drops in her eyes. 

And Alden of course needed his picture taken with his sister. Love these two!

Together eventually turned in to one by himself. Poor kid just wanted to play with the balloons so bad 

And one final one of the little girl!

The Polar Express

We may live in the best city in America. We got told about our rec center Christmas activity and for only $6 we had an great time! The theme was Polar Express this year and Alden loved it as he is in to trains right now. Each child got a ticket they had to present in order to get in to the activity and then we made a few crafts, played some games, jumped on the bounce houses, had hot chocolate, meet Santa and Mrs Clause, and spent the day with friends. The most exciting part of this for mom was that the weather was nice enough we walked to the activity so we didn't have to worry about parking.

This was our first stop, I Spy Ornaments.

 Can you believe that smile!?

Next stop was train gingerbread houses of sorts.

Then we got to catch snowflakes. Alden and Jax loved this, we sat here for 20 minutes. Gracie thought these two were hysterical to watch.

Then it was off to see Mrs. Clause, she read us some stories and we all got to choose a book to take home with us. Alden refused to sit on the rug, but I got a good picture of Jax.

After Mrs. Clause we met Santa. Alden would not go near him so we just grabbed the little treat bag and left. And of course it had a bell from his sleigh in it.

After Santa we made our own hot chocolate. We got to keep the mugs we made it in, so fun.

There was a fun train obstacle course. It took a while for Alden to warm up to this, but once he did we couldn't get him out of it.

And Gracie was a perfect angel through the whole thing. She spent the whole morning like this in the stroller. Definitely a blessing for me so that I could focus most of my attention on the child that can run away :) 

And here is all of the loot we came home with. Can't wait to see what they do next year.

Lights at Temple Square

Still one of our favorite things to do during the holiday season is to go see the lights on Temple Square and the candy windows at Macey's.  Although we are wearing coats it was not terribly cold on the night we went and because we always go early on a week night it was not very crowded either. The candy windows were Peanut's themed and Alden was so excited to see them as he recently discovered the Charlie Brown movies.

 

 

Love this family of mine 

And I love my Savior and am so grateful for a time each year when we get to focus on his birth and life more earnestly that we do at other times of the year.

Like usual we drug LaWayne along with us so she had to make it into a couple of pictures. This was an attempt to get the temple, the lights, and the people all in the same picture. It didn't turn out perfect, but you get the idea.

  LaWayne and the kiddos!

And finally a nativity we don't remember seeing before and we loved the giraffe!

Merry Christmas!

Ginger House

This post is not a misprint. Alden cannot or won't say gingerbread so he always says ginger house or ginger boy.  It is really cute and I want to always remember this. This year Grandpa Norton lives in a small apartment so we were not able to talk him in to making us a real gingerbread house so we made do with graham crackers. Dad was sick this day so it was just mom and the kids. It turns out Gracie just wanted to eat the candy and Alden lost interest about 30 minutes in so the house is not as elaborate as years passed, but it is definitely more fun than previous ones with the new kind of help.

He is such a ham in pictures these days I had to get one where he don't know I was taking it.

Here is the finished project

And like I said he is a ham so here is our selfie with our house.  I hope this kid never grows up!

Santa Claus

We had several experiences with the Big Man this year. Alden and Gracie both took times to be scared and to be excited. We went to the outlet mall to meet Santa and tell him what we wanted. Alden was really excited until we got there and then he was terrified and wouldn't go anywhere near Santa so we sat at a table in the same room and wrote him a letter. 

At the library each December Mrs. Clause comes to read stories to us for story time. Alden loved Mrs. Clause, but he took to long to look at the camera so Gracie decided she did not love Mrs. Clause and this is the awesome picture we got. At least we heard some good stories :) 

Finally, Santa came for a visit the day after Christmas to say hello and make sure we had a good day. Gracie loved Santa and we got so many good pictures of her.  Alden was not here to meet Santa as we didn't want him to recognize a certain someone's voice. Love this tradition.