December 26th . . .

. . .is the one day of the year that I am okay with my house looking like this:

STUFF everywhere. Brian and I are pretty tidy people, but we let it go on December 26th. Presents, paper, boxes, candy, and clothes litter our family room floor and I kind of like it. I guess I should note that Brian was impatient this year and we had it cleaned up by four o'clock. But still that's almost a whole day of a crazy, Christmas explosion in our house. He even wanted to take down the tree today, but I convinced him that we had plenty of other days to do that. Let Christmas linger a little bit.



On that note here's how our holiday went down:



Sledding at Thanksgiving Point


We were among a select few who got to go sledding in the amphitheatre at Thanksgiving Point on Christmas Eve. While most kids were flying down the hill over and over again, McKay was of course being an animal in between the few runs he took.

I'm thinking he's a snow cow here. After his second time down the hill with Jana, he wandered off in the powder at the bottom on all fours, eating snow. This was when the snow cow was born. And he ate snow for the rest of the afternoon. He still loved the sledding part, but he just found a way to entertain himself while waiting for his next turn. I don't know know what else to say about this, except that this boy is pretending ALL the time. I don't really know what to make of it. We have rules that at dinner time and bedtime we have to be ourselves. I just love him.

After sledding we headed over to Brian's parent's house to spend the evening. The highlight for McKay was riding on Grandad's snow plow four wheeler. I don't know who was happier about this, McKay or Grandad.

After a yummy dinner all the kids acted out the nativity. Acted? I guess not acted since the oldest one was only three. They dressed up and were cute though.

Grandma made all the kids the most adorable matching jammies. Brian's sisters even got matching pajama pants. It was very cute seeing them all run around dressed the same, but it made it seem like there were a lot more of them! They all loved it.

Christmas Morning

McKay got a space train set and I'm wondering why Santa settled on this as his present since it is pretty huge and our house is not. But McKay loves it. And I think Brian loves it too. Ellery loved the puppy that was left for her, but as soon as she saw the m&m filled candy cane in her stocking that's all she cared about. She was ready to eat those m&m's and didn't care about anything else. And we let her.


Christmas Day
Later that day McKay and some of the aunts made a snowman in the backyard at Grandma's. He kind of looks like a snow-mosquito here, but he looked much better once his face was adorned with a nice carrot smile.

We spent the evening at my parent's house and had a fun time with the whole family. We played games, opened presents, and my mom made several soups served in yummy bread bowls. Ellery spent most of the night climbing on boxes and thinking she was amazing for doing so. She also got quite excited when she and Brian tried out the new baby carrier hiker thing my parent's got us. She's very interested in having people acknowledge her and clap when she thinks she's doing something important. McKay had fun playing with his cousins and snitching his fair share of treats all night.

We had a great couple days and I was so glad we didn't have to travel anywhere far to be with the ones we love. Hope everyone else had a merry Christmas as well.

I'm not good at making gingerbread. . .

. . .but I did it anyway for our annual gingerbread house decorating party.

On the 21st we celebrated Brian's sister Lindy's birthday. She just got home from being in Israel for the last three months and we are all so glad to have her home. We waited this year to do gingerbread houses until she could do them with us. This is one of our favorite traditions with Brian's family and we all look forward to it every year.

Party for the Parents

I decided a long time ago that I'd never have a baby in the month of December. Why? My parents both have birthdays in mid December, as well as their anniversary. It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't want to add anymore to the already busy month.

Five years ago, in an effort to simplify while properly celebrating, my sisters and I decided to just throw our parents a big combined party with a different theme each year. The themes are picked from different times in their lives.

The first year was a 50's theme- their teenage years.

After that we did a Florida beach theme- where they met.

The next year we did a hospital theme- mom's a nurse.

And last year we did a Game Show theme- how great it is that my parents were on three different game shows in the eighties? Those are fun tapes to watch.

So what was the big theme this year? FBI versus Criminals- dad's profession (FBI Agent, not criminal).

Here's the group shot. Bad guys on the left, agents on the right. During the party we always have my parents walk in without knowing what the theme is. They come in and we blast a theme song, this year Mission Impossible. Then we all run and dance around to the music, in costume of course, while they think we are hilarious. You can imagine how much McKay loves this.

Please take a closer look at him "acting" like a bad guy for the photo. He's a natural. I want to frame it.

Here's the birthday pair with the FBI's most wanted poster. Click to enlarge the picture to see these rough criminals- that Elle Capone's pretty cute. If it doesn't enlarge I don't know what to tell you. Why do some enlarge and others don't? Anybody?

Agent Mark detaining the Uni Bomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Lisa and Trevor always kindly host this party, and somehow Trevor became the official refreshment shop owner. He's had a crab shack, a hospital snack bar, an ice cream parlor and this year a coffee shop, complete with donuts and something hot to drink.

The kids always act out stories from mom and dad's life, the more funny and embarrassing the better. This year's plays were particularly funny. Favorite play this year would have to be when an unidentified package was sent to dad at work and the bomb squad was called because they thought it was from a disgruntled informant. The bomb squad called my dad in as they opened it, as well as everyone else in the office to see, and they revealed a cake of a bikini sent from mom (pre Mormon days) to celebrate their anniversary. Poor dad. He said they didn't let him live that one down for years.

I kind of have a thing for that Uni Bomber. He's one handsome guy. . . and I had two of his babies, so what can I say?

Our cute FBI man with some pretty adorable girls. It's so fun to celebrate and honor our parents in this fun way and we all look forward to it every year. Happy Birthdays Mom and Dad!

. . .what we've been up to. . .

It's December alright, and we've been busy! I feel like I have so many things to blog about, and every night I say, "I'll do it tomorrow." If I didn't have so many pictures to deal with I would have done it by now. We have had lots of things going on and I've decided to just do them in one major post. Prepare yourself. Get a drink. Use the bathroom. Whatever you need to do. Okay, here we go!

Festival of Trees Substitute

Every year we go to the Festival of Trees. We usually try to go during the afternoon when it's not so busy. This year, we couldn't go until Friday evening and as we were driving up we decided to stop for dinner. It was on the drive that we noticed Ellery coughing/breathing kind of weird. My kids both have asthma so we're kind of paranoid when it comes to their breathing. Going to the crowded expo center, parking far away and fighting our way down each isle didn't sound like the environment for a quick escape if Elle got really bad, so we decided to forgo our plans. We stopped at the South Towne mall to ride the carousel instead. McKay kept asking if that was where all the Christmas trees were and we told him it was. He wasn't very impressed, but he did love riding the carousel.

Elf on the Shelf Party

A newer tradition that my mom started was her Elf on the Shelf party for all the grandkids.

She read the book and then talked about the elfs. Is it elfs or elves? Elfs looks better so I'll go with that.

McKay, of course, was completely enthralled. My mom gave each family the job of naming the elfs she had given them. Later, McKay chose "Grover" and "Olive" for our elfs.

Ellery was also very curious.




Afterwards Grammy handed out treats to all the kids. I don't know if you all know, but Brian is a pretty strict parent. While all these kids were eating all the candy they wanted, Brian allowed McKay only three pieces. My poor child.


Thanks Grammy, for such a fun party.

Baking Day

We did it again! We had our second annual Christmas Baking Day! It was so fun and I've eaten about six cookies today. And four yesterday. And tomorrow I'm sure I'll eat at least three. Shoot. I love Baking Day, but it's not easy on the waistline.

This year we did sugar cookies, oreos, cornflake wreaths, date balls, mint cookies, candied pecans, and toffee. We are still learning the ins and outs of our baking day and maybe we'll have to practice making toffee because while one batch turned out great, two did not. (Becky- we used your recipe!)

Christmas Light Drive

Another tradition we have is driving around looking at Christmas lights. Before we had kids Brian and I would rate houses based on their outside holiday lights decor. Now, we just look for the most brightly lit homes and are intensely looking for blow-up Santas and snowmen. I would never put a blow up item in my yard, but I sure do appreciate those who do, on account of my children thoroughly enjoying them. Thank you blow up decorators.

When we saw anything neat Ellery would say, "Woa" over and over and point. It was pretty much precious.

We had the kids already in their jammies for the drive since it would be past bedtime when we were done. Here's Brian wrestling them to bed.

It Snowed!

It was ten-thirty yesterday morning before I even looked outside. We had no idea it had snowed overnight. As soon as I showed McKay he was pulling on his snow pants and heading for the door.

McKay was the first one to walk through the snow on the grass and he had so much fun making tracks and going down the snowy slide.

Ellery doesn't really have proper snow attire. We did the best we could with what she has, but it didn't really matter too much since all she wanted to do was eat the snow off her mittens.

Brian and McKay stayed outside for over an hour playing in the snow and even making snowmen- one for Elle and one for McKay. I didn't get a picture because by then Ellery and I had gone inside.

But not before she ate some more snow. She even picked it off the ground once the boys came in.

So there it is! Those are some of the things we've been up to, along with the busy hustle bustle that is December. But I'm happy to report that all my shopping is done. Okay. . .not all. . .but almost all. Any ideas for my parents? Those parents are always the hardest to shop for. But after that I'll be done!

*update- spellcheck tells me it's elves, but I'm not buying it.

his DREAM party

McKay was invited to his cousin Ethan's (aka Eto) puppy themed birthday party last week.

All the other kids were totally into it, and having fun.

But my boy. . . my boy. . .

. . .was a real dog. He wore his dog shirt, naturally, but he also was the only boy/dog who kept his collar on. After decorating their own collars with stickers most of the boys took them off to play games. Not this dog. He kept it on nearly the whole time. He was in this position, shoulders hunched up like that, for about a half hour straight trying to keep his collar from falling off. Just frozen that way. It was entertaining for us adults to watch him stay in character the whole time. He really thought he was a dog.

He did take his collar off for the dog show. That there is "Dog" who he sleeps with every night. His name is just Dog, but when all the other boys were naming their dogs Spot, Spotty, Spotto and Spotter McKay decided Dog needed a little name sprucing. So Dog temporarily became "Housey" to be fancy for the party.

You can see these boys all loved the party.

But maybe none as much as my little dog.

i've got a one year old. . .

All the sudden it seems like Ellery is this one year old spaz. I have to watch her every second.

Our toilet paper roll usually looks like this.

She washes her hands in the toilet water.

If there is anything tiny, anything delicate., anything dangerous, you bet this girl has got it in her mouth.

She's starting to climb. She's not very good at it, but that doesn't stop her. The other day I walked into the bathroom and she was frozen on McKay's stool. Just standing there like a statue. She couldn't' get off, and she didn't dare move. But she was sure proud; and relieved that I was there to see/rescue her. Why do all these things happen in the bathroom? It's like we're in there all the time.

I'm pretty much going to be holding her for the next twenty-five days. Because if I'm not, she's having her way with the Christmas tree. If you come over, please don't look at the bottom portion of it.

One year olds are funny. You can say no as many times as you want, as loud as you want, and- no reaction. At least not from my girl. It seems like that's all I'm saying to her these days. And she doesn't even care.

But. I wouldn't trade any of it. I love my one year old. I mean, just look at her!

Brian's favorite picture of her. First thing in the morning.

tree shopping

We put our tree up yesterday. I felt SO behind. Everyone we know had there Christmas trees up and decorated by the time Thanksgiving weekend was over. It was December third and I was panicking. Doesn't it seem like everyone was extra early this year? My mom was always a "it has to be at least December 1st" person. I could go either way. I guess it depends on the year. This year it was a December 3rd year. It works.

McKay was just a blur running through the lot. He was dodging trees. Weaving. Hiding. Running.



Ellery just kept saying, "Woa!" about everything. The trees. The big blow up Santa. The cars whizzing by on State street. "Woa."

We found one. McKay is jumping for joy.

The tree lady gave the kids candy canes. I wouldn't let Ellery eat hers in the car. McKay was tempting her the whole way home. Stinker.


These two monkeys climbed all over Brian while he set the tree up. But he managed. The tree lady told us to give it seven up and asprin- I guess it's supposed to be the best "first drink" for the tree. I guess we believed her because we did it.


McKay was totally into putting the oranments on. He put most of them on the same two branches. We had to disperse when he wasn't looking. But he sure was proud of himself. Ellery was napping, thankfully. I didn't need her seeing us touching the tree and all the fun stuff on it. I think she'd be even worse with it, if that's possible.

The finished product. The last couple years I've gone shopping the day after Christmas too. Mostly for all the discounted Christmas decorations. Brian will die when he reads this, but I think this year we need something BIG for the tree. Really big balls. Or BIG floral bunches or something. We have a lot of little things, but. . .I guess we'll see what I come home with later. You can almost always add to a Christmas tree, right?