Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas



Oooh I LOVE Christmas!  It makes my heart happy, and we had such an awesome holiday (full disclosure:  I’m writing this entry on February 17th and backdating it so it shows up as part of the 2012 blog year.)!


I left off the last entry just as I was getting ready to head over to the traditional Christmas Eve dinner over at Aunt Janet’s and Uncle Russ’ house.  Tons of fun, as per use, but the highlight came during our annual after dinner program.  Evie sang “Jingle Bells.”  And when I say she sang it, I mean she sang it!  No fear.  Out loud and proud.  And it was without a doubt the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!  Everyone loved it!  I was so excited and proud that she sang it as loud/cute/clearly as she did.  The only downside?  Brant and I were so busy watching her beaming with pride that we didn’t get a video of it.




After dinner, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Ruesch’s house to open Christmas Eve jammies and spend the night.  Brant probably wasn’t super excited to sleep in the guest room (since our own beds were mere miles away), but he was a good sport about it.  Garrett was staying at the house too, and I thought it would be fun to wake up all together and have the entire Christmas morning together in one house without having to wake the kiddos and load them in the car.



Evie was pretty hysterical to watch open gifts.  She tore into them like crazy then immediately moved on to the next one.  The best was watching her open clothes.  She literally threw them out of the box before she looked at them and then moved on.  She had us all laughing pretty hard.  Except for Cohen.  He didn’t find her shenanigans amusing.  Truth be told, I felt bad waking Cohen up so early (the rest of us got up around 8 a.m.) that I let him miss the very first part of the morning.



Around 11, Holly and her entourage came over and we opened more presents and enjoyed our traditional Christmas morning breakfast (egg casserole and cinnamon rolls).


We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Boyer’s a bit later and spent the afternoon with them.  We opened more presents and had a Christmas lunch/dinner with them.  Our kids were both so spoiled by all their grandparents this year, and to be honest, so were Brant and I.  Our parents were CRAZY generous this year, and gave us some much appreciated gifts.





Around 6 p.m. we went back to my parents place to hang out with everyone a bit more.  We laughed, ate, played games, ate, had a great time, and ate.  Pretty much a typical day holiday for our family.


It really was such an awesome day.  I’m a total sucker for Christmas and this one did not disappoint.  It’s such a blessing to live near so much family and to love spending time together the way we do.  I love them all too much!

 
Merry Christmas!


Monday, December 24, 2012

A Holiday Trifecta

As you may note from the post date/time it is officially time for me to start gettin' my Christmas Eve hustle on.  We've got dinner at Aunt Janet's in just over an hour, and I'm not even kind of close to ready, but I wanted to quickly post (pictures, mostly) about a few festive holiday things we've done as a family the last week or so.

 First up:  Pictures with Santa.


Boulevard Home Furnishings offered free pictures with Santa Claus not to mention, free cookies, so we hit it up.  Truthfully I wasn't as interested in getting a free picture as I was just getting one at all.  We had planned to see Santa at my parent's ward Christmas party the week before, but it ended up being one of my least favorite days as a mom so far, and by the time for the party rolled around I wasn't feeling my most festive.  AKA, the party (and picture) was a no go.

Fortunately my mom told me about the Blvd. and was willing to come to the store with me so I could get the picture I so badly wanted for my kiddos. 

Sidenote:  Evie had much more fun than the above picture would indicate.  And the girl LOVES Santa.  She ran up to the big guy and gave him a great big hug.  So cute.

Cohen drooled on him.



Next up:  Gingerbread houses at Grandma and Grandpa's house.






We whipped these bad boys up last Sunday night courtesy of Mama Ruesch and the milk cartons she stole from Red Mountain. Elementary.



Evie loves all things candy, cousins, and cheesin' up for the camera.  So, she had a blast!



And finally:  The Temple Lights.

Little explanation is needed for this little family excursion, so I'll leave it up to the blurry pictures





Happy Holidays!




Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Boy







My boy is officially as of last Sunday 2/3 year old.  Yep, that’s a real age.




Definitely time to share a bit of what’s going on with him, and what makes him the best boy in the history of the world!

 

  • He’s not overly choosy with which thumb it is, but he’s a total thumb sucker.  Takes after his mama.  Hopefully he’ll give it up before he hits the 3rd grade, though.  Not that I’m admitting anything here.
  • Best.  Baby.  Ever.  Hands down.  I’m sure there are a few other moms out there who would try to argue with me on that point, but that’s not even me talking.  That’s science. 

          What’s that you say?  You’d like some proof.  Done and done.

 a.       He rarely cries.  And it’s really only when he’s tired.  Not only is he a non-crier, though, he’s SO happy.  He’s one of those kids who lights up any time someone looks/acknowledges/talks to/plays with him.  He’s always got a smile ready to go even for strangers who talk to him.  And I have to admit that I sort of well up with a sense of pride when he acts so cute for everyone.  Not sure it’s really anything to be proud of per say.  But what can I say?  I’m a bit of a weirdo.


b.      He sleeps unlike any child I’ve ever heard of.  He goes down at 8:00 p.m. and doesn’t wake up until 11-11:30 a.m.  True story.  Now, before anybody panics and says that’s entirely too much for a baby to be sleeping, let me lay it out for you.  He doesn’t actually sleep the whole time.  I’ve heard him many a night talking in his crib during the wee hours of the morning.  So, my conclusion is this:  my boy sleeps so late because he actually wakes up a lot in the night.  He’s just so ridiculously rad that he puts himself back to sleep, and patiently waits until I get him the next day.



  • He LOVES me!  Total mama’s boy, and I love it!  There’s something awesome about knowing you’re someone’s absolute favorite person in the entire world.  Maybe I have some sick need for people to like me (a la Michael Scott), but I think it just makes me feel good knowing how much he loves me.


  • He’s sitting up on his own. (Not a very wordy bullet point, but a valid one nonetheless.)

  • He has looked like he’s twelve seconds away from crawling for about six weeks.  He gets up on his knees and scoots, but he hasn’t figured out how to lift his knees to move forward yet.  Someone even without crawling, though, Cohen gets around.  That kid can travel.
  • The boy is absolutely OBSESSED with his socks.  I can't keep them on him for more than about 3.7 seconds.  The moment I put them on his feet, her puts them in his mouth.  I'm not sure we've been on a single car ride in the last three months in which both socks have remained on his little piggies.  And inevitably when I go to put them back on him cause, you know, it's winter I realize they're completely soaked in drool.  So he ends up sockless, and I look like mother of the year.

 

  • He’s been eating baby food for about a week.  And not surprisingly cause he’s been the easiest baby in the world, so far he’s a total champ with it.  He’s loved everything I’ve given him.  He’s been great at figuring out how to eat the new food too.


So, that’s pretty much what’s currently going on in Senor Elway’s life right now.  Did I brag enough?  Hope so.  Because I’m completely head over heels for this boy.

 
 


 











Thursday, December 13, 2012

A Jubilee

It appears that although I uploaded our pictures of this year’s Jubilee of Trees excursion, my blog failed to write an entry about said pictures.  Or maybe it was me who forgot to do it.  I’m not sure.  Anyway, let’s not get bogged down with details about who forgot to write what, and just say it must have been my computer’s fault.  Rude.

There’s not a ton to say about our little adventure there, but I do want the record to show that we did, in fact, take the kiddos to the Jubilee of Trees on Monday, Nov. 19th 2012, and we all had a fabulous time.


As you can see from Cohen's face.




I love, love, LOVE going to the Jubilee.  My love of Christmas and the entire Christmas season has become borderline obsessive the last few years.  I think it stems from having kids.  Even though my two are still pretty little and, thus, have a limited concept of what Christmas is, the entire season has become so magical to me with them around.  So, the Jubilee sort of kicks off the holiday festivities for me every year.





We had a great time walking around together, and Evie loved it.  She is SUCH a girly girl which extends to loving all things pretty.  Including Christmas trees.  Of course, as I stated before, she doesn’t really “get” the holiday so whenever she’s sees the trees (or gifts, decorations, etc.) she says, “Ooh!  Christmas.”  Which I actually sort of love.