It was a very, Merry Christmas at our house!

We had SUCH a wonderful Christmas! Both of my sib's were in town and we did so many fun things! The festivities started last Wednesday night when we all went out to eat at Tepanyaki. The kids LOVE going there because they like to watch the "show" and the fire. Those cooks are pretty entertaining!

Thursday was Christmas Eve and we went to my parents house. There were a lot of people and a lot of fun was had by all! There was my parents, Dane, Kelly, Roger, Aunt Deb, Uncle Wayne, Katie, Jessie, Cory and their 5 kids. Jessie (my cousin) has a girl 6 months older than Caleb, a girl born within a few days of Brynley and a girl born within a few days of Aubrey. My kids are in friend heaven when we are with them! They love hanging out with the "second cousins" (yes, that's what they call them). We had a nice dinner:

The traditional program (I played a duet with Rog and Jess and Caleb and accompanied Kelly - I didn't really mean for it to be the Lindsey show - oops)




A gift exchange (ok, this was way fun. We all brought under $3 gifts. We sat in a circle and someone read the story "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and everytime they read the word 'and' you pass your gift around in the circle. When the story is over you get to keep your gift. Everytime 'and' was said everyone screamed and threw their gift. It was really funny.)

And we used the nativity puppets Angie (my sis in law) gave me for the Nativity story. These puppets are amazing. Nice and easy. No dress up involved. The kids all start sitting and when they come into the story they stand up and hold up their puppet. The kids actually LISTEN to the story to see when they stand. They're awesome.

After dessert and lots of playing:




we came home to wait for Santa! Here's what he brought:





My kids slept in until 7:30am! Amazing!

My family came over around 10:30 and we had breakfast and played all day.



In the afternoon we went sledding up Hobble Creek Canyon.




I LOVE Christmas and this year did not dissapoint! I hope you all had a fabulous holiday and thank you all for the Christmas cards. I'm going to do them next year. Here's your promise. To make up for it I'll share some Christmas cheer (ha, ha):



Am I the only one who thinks their baby is so cute when they cry? Poor baby. She has such a mean mom.

Change of subject...

Now, I feel like I have SO much to do in the next 10 days! We are leaving for our Southern Caribbean cruise on Jan 10. In that time I have to get Christmas decorations put away and do a ton of work for my online clients (I've got over 50 next month!), in addition to packing and getting everything ready for us to be gone. It's going to be a crazy week but we are SO excited for our trip!

Caleb's First Piano Recital

Check out Caleb's first piano recital. This video doesn't quite capture the frustration demonstrated when he threw his music on the floor and stormed off. We're going to have to work on how to handle messing up.

Back by popular demand...

Here are some more videos back by popular demand!

This is Caleb's Christmas concert on the piano


This is Aubrey walking, all of the good stuff is in the first half so you don't have to keep watching after she starts looking at the book

Bye, bye baby tooth!

A couple weeks ago we noticed that Caleb had a tooth growing in behind his bottom middle two baby teeth. The tooth in front of it was barely loose so we called the dentist and they said to just work on trying to get it wiggly and eventually pull it out. I called yesterday because it wasn't even close to coming out but his phantom tooth was really coming in! It was almost as big as his front baby teeth!

The dentist said to come in and he was going to pull it. Caleb was so scared and it took us a good while to even get him to come into the room with the chair. The dentist didn't even need to give him a shot. He just put the topical numbing stuff around the tooth and wiggled it pretty hard and pulled it right out! He was tense but I think just because he was nervous. He said he didn't even feel a thing!

He has been so proud of himself! He said, "I feel like such an adult! Well, at least an 8th grader..." He loves the fact that he lost a tooth. He was a little concerned though because he didn't know where the permanent tooth would go since there is already a tooth in there. He was REALLY excited when I told him that WAS his permanent tooth!

The tooth fairy came to our house for the first time last night. It won't be the last either! These kiddos are growing up!

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Ok, one more funny Caleb quote. This happened the other day when they were playing with the doctor kit. He was filling out a patient information sheet about her that came with the set.

Caleb: Mom, what does sex mean?
Me: What?!
Caleb: On this paper, what does sex mean?
Me: (phew) It means gender, like if the patient is a boy or a girl.
Caleb: Oh, ok. (A minute later) I don't know what blood type means so I'll just put 'red'.

Ha, ha.

All Aboard!

We went with my parents and Jeremy and Angie and their kids on the Polar Express last week. It was a lot of fun! Very possibly overpriced, but still fun.

We went up to Heber to catch the train. Unfortunately there was no snow in the North Pole yet this year. Aboard the train we were served hot cocoa and cookies, sang Christmas carols and read from the Polar Express book. When we got to the North Pole, Mrs Claus and Santa got on! They walked up and down the aisles talking to all the kids and giving everyone "the first gift of Christmas", a bell.



Caleb and Brynley loved it. Aubrey, not so much. Being cooped up in a bench seat for an hour and a half is not a 14 month old's idea of fun apparently.

(And yes, I'm wearing my jammies. We all are. I wear my jammies every chance I can get!)