Christmas Crafting...

I decided last year after Christmas that this year I'd let the kids have their own tree that they could decorate with their choice of ornaments since I don't let them touch our main tree. I found a cute little tree on clearance at Target and a cute tree skirt and star at TaiPan on clearance. The kids were so excited to be able to have their own tree. 

 Last night for FHE we decided to let the kids make some Christmas ornaments for their tree and put up all the ornaments they had picked out. They really had a lot of fun with this little crafting party...

       Jaedyn enjoyed her Christmas crafting so much that she had to add a little playing with her ornaments. She made a Santa and Mrs. Claus and she made them kiss!! She even made kissing faces and noises to go along with it. It made me laugh!!!       Here's the finished products, the kids all did such a good job! Jaedyn made a Santa and Mrs. Claus, Jantzen made some reindeer, and Jaron made a bell and a tree...      Jaron was in charge of making the tree garland. He decided on a beaded garland that he added ribbons to. He did a really good job!       While Jaron slaved away on the garland, Jantzen and Jaedyn slaved away on his cell phone...playing games!      When Jaron was all done the kids started decorating their tree...               Jaedyn got a little help putting up some of her ornaments. She insisted that Santa and Mrs. Claus go up top...          Look how cute they are together!...       Here's the Christmas tree all done...      I think the kids did a really good job making ornaments and doing all the decorating themselves.    This is a view of all the different sides of the tree...      ...and the kids wanted me to get a close up of some of the ornaments they picked out this year...      I'm really glad I let the kids have their own tree this year. I always remember how much fun it was decorating the Christmas tree when I was little and I wanted my kids to have those same fun memories.

Frosting Gingerbread Houses

Today Jaedyn had a little party at preschool where they got to frost gingerbread houses. Miss Heidi made real gingerbread and put the houses together for the kids, then they got to frost and decorate them. Jaedyn was so excited to frost her own gingerbread house. The kids all got a big shirt on so they didn't get frosting all over their clothes and then they started decorating their houses...

   Jaedyn was loving the frosting bags they got to use. She mostly used purple and pink frosting (her 2 favorite colors). She was actually pretty good at using them...      Jaedyn also loved all the candy that was available for her to put on her house. She had to test some of it out as she was decorating to make sure it tasted okay. Her favorites were the candy cane Hershey kisses and the gummy bears.     She did an awesome job decorating her gingerbread house, it looked so good! I asked her to smile so I could get a picture of her with her house and these are what I got...    (She's eating candy in this picture while she's saying "cheese"...silly girl!)                  She's just too cute for words!!!

Christmas Card 2012...

I had a fun idea for our Christmas card this year and my kids were good sports to go along with it. I tied up my boys with Christmas lights, put red duct tape over their mouths that said "Naughty" on it, and let Jaedyn be Santa's little helper. I titled it, "Santa's Little Helper Rounding Up the Naughty Kids".

Here's some of the photos I took that I liked the most... 

       ...and here's what our Christmas card looked like...      Jaedyn had a lot of fun being "Santa's Helper" and the boys just laughed about being the "Naughty" kids. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Cozy Heads!

Grandma Goddard bought all of the kids one of these hats for an early Christmas present and I think my kids really like them. It doesn't get cold here for very long, but I think they're going to use them as long as they can. 

Josh took these pictures of Jaedyn and Jantzen with his phone. Jaedyn is such a cheesy little girl...

**Please ignore the background mess. I was in the middle of putting together the kids' Christmas tree.**      Jaedyn loves her hat so much that she has to have it on while she's watching TV, because it's freezing in the toy room you know...      These hats really do look cozy, so maybe I should get one for me.    

LOL!!

Jaedyn seriously makes us all LOL!!! She's the funniest little girl I've ever known. We took the kids to dinner last night and instead of using her crayons to color with, she used them as ear decorations...

   Jaron and Jantzen always made us laugh too, but Jaedyn's a lot sillier than they were. Every day she does something new that makes us all laugh and smile. Man, I love this little girl!!!

Potty Talking...

Before we left St. George to go back home we decided to stop at Sportsman's Warehouse to look around. We headed upstairs to where all the tents were and while we were there the kids decided to play around inside them. As we were leaving, we noticed that Jaedyn had disappeared. No worries, we quickly found her right here...

   She had found the "potty tent" and decided that she needed to go potty and talk on her Tinkerbell cell phone at the same time. She told us to "Go Away!" because she was busy talking. We all laughed so hard, it was hilarious!              I love how she was using hand gestures as she was "talking", she cracks me up!    **I think she got this idea from a certain someone in our house, and it's NOT me!**

Thanksgiving...2012

For Thanksgiving this year we headed up to St. George to spend the holiday with Josh's family. We were excited because there was going to be several family members from out of town coming that we don't see very often and the kids were excited to spend time with their cousins. Thanksgiving morning was spent sleeping in, preparing for dinner, and a lot of playing on the iPad and Kindles for the kids...

       Josh even snuck in a nap (snuggling with Jaedyn's blanket) before dinner was ready...      Jaedyn had to sample some graham cracker sticks before dinner...       Then, her and Addison spent some time playing in the backyard. They were having so much fun!   **They had to have matching hair styles...it was cute!**          There was still time to play before dinner was ready, so Chad took the kids on a hike up this mountain. It's across the street from grandma's house and the kids hike up it every time we're there. Can you see them on the very top?       Now can you see them??       Can you see them now???       You better be able to see them now!       They all had a blast hiking this mountain.    Josh woke up from his nap just in time to make the mashed potatoes, something he's really good at. My kids don't like the way I make mashed potatoes. Josh also got to carve/taste test the turkey. I think Carson was trying to sneak in a taste of turkey too...      Jaedyn was loving playing around with cousin Amanda. She made Amanda hold her this way a lot...      Here's Jaedyn with her cousin Caleb. They are the only cousins that are the same age. I think they look a lot alike too...      It finally was time to feed these crazy monkeys their Thanksgiving dinner. We had them eat outside because, 1. the weather was perfect, and 2. they're really noisy!      After dinner I did some snuggling with my favorite little girl...      ...and my favorite guy...      Later on I went with Megan to attempt some "Black Thursday" night shopping. It didn't go as well as I was hoping. Everything I wanted was gone very quickly, but that's okay. While I was gone, Josh took a picture of the kids playing on the trampoline. Yeah, it's not very clear, but I can tell who's who...can you?      Jaedyn was already in her pj's, but she wanted to go outside and play with the big kids, so she put her own shoes on...I thought it was adorable. I see a new fashion craze coming!      Before bedtime Jantzen and grandpa Goddard played a little catch. Can you see where the ball is headed? If you can't, I'll tell you. It's headed right for grandpa's face...both times!           It was a little crazy having this many people in one house for Thanksgiving, but it was also fun. We got to have some fun conversations and a lot of laughs together. I'm so thankful for my family and for all the fun times we get to spend together. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!