Christmas Recap

I love the Christmas season and this Christmas was full of family, parties and baking! The boys and I made a quick trip up to Utah, when they got out of school, to visit family and also to pick up my Mom to come back with us for the holidays. We were excited to have her come out and spend Christmas with us! In Utah we gathered with family and I especially enjoyed playing with the new little additions!

They are so cute...I just love babies! These are my, I guess you would call them my Great Neice and Great Nephew! Whatever, all I know is that I am their Great Aunt and I think that they are just adorable! It is hard to believe that my Mom and Dad have 17 great grandchildren now! Wow! While in Utah we also visited my Dad's grave, the holidays are much different without him here.

He will forever be in our thoughts and our hearts. What an amazing man!

Then back home we traveled to spend the holidays with Mom at our home. We had such a great time having her here and were able to go and do alot. My sister and her husband also joined us on Christmas day. No better way to spend Christmas than to be with family:)

The boys were spoiled, again this year.Matthew with his new bass

Zack with his IPod Touch

After Christmas my brother and his family came for a day which was fun, for the cousins love being together. We went ice skating and they all enjoyed the time that they had with Grandma while she was here. Then Zack and I took my Mom back home to Utah and returned in the same day so that we would be back for New Years Eve. And we partied the New Year in with friends and hope that 2010 is a great year! It was a great holiday season!!

Mess!

And this is why I have not scrapbook'ed for a long time! I am a very messy scrapbooker and I believe that I have lost any bit of creativity that I had ever had! My dining room table has looked like this for over a week now (except for the one night the missionaries came to dinner, then the mess was moved to the laundry room temporarily) and all that I am working on is scrapbooking our Alaska vacation that we took in 2008! I am happy to say that I am finally finished with it but I was hoping to get much more done than just that weeks worth of pictures. Oh well!! Note to self: In order to get caught up with my scrapbooking I must have a scrapbook room...that is all there is to it:)

Thanksgiving

I have so much catch up to do but I will do what I can. We were able to go on an 8 day Mexican Cruise over the Thanksgiving holiday and it was wonderful! We missed being with extended family but it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving. Maybe next year we can get our extended family to come with us??

Sounds of Christmas

One thing, out of the long list of things, that I love about Christmas, is the music. Christmas music is the best!! I have my car radio set on the Christmas station and I just sing along all day (my boys love it;) This year both Zack and Matthew performed their own Christmas music.

Zack had a concert at school and he is our own 'lil drummer boy. They sounded awesome!

Matthew and his group K.O.N. performed at the Ward Christmas Party and they did really well. We have video of it but I didn't post it because the video was not very good quality so here is a picture of the band with Santa.

I love Christmas time! It is the BEST!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Tree Trimming

Once upon a time I had a dream that I would have the most perfect Christmas tree in my home with beautiful, shiny bulbs on it, all matching in color with beautiful ribbon wrapped all around. It would be my own personal Macy's tree and it would be stunning! Well our first few years of Christmases my tree was very color coordinated and it was lovely (unfortunately I do not have pictures) but since having kids my tree has taken on a different kind of look.

Now my tree is filled with ornaments of Pikachu, SpongeBob, Batman, Darth Vader and many other colorful characters.

It is filled with ornaments from all over the world, places we have traveled to, where we have vacationed and things that we have done. It is filled with ornaments of Baby's First Christmas, Our New Home and our first Christmas together.

It is filled with homemade ornaments that my boys have made us over the years, adorning pictures of them from the past.

Every time it is time to trim the tree a rush of memories and good times come back to us as we take each ornament out of the box. It is truly a walk down memory lane and brings us to laughter every time.

My tree might not be the perfect "Macy's" tree but it is one of love and memories of a family that loves one another. To me that is the most perfect tree ever!

Finally 12!

My baby is 12! Wow! When I look at old pictures it really just seems like yesterday when my boys were small. I remember cuddling with Zack and his sweet chubby cheeks and roly-poly body. Now I hug him and he is a lean, rock hard, muscular young man! They change so much but he is still my sweet, kind, hard-working, considerate and loving kid! I am sure those are adjectives he would not want me to use to describe him but instead use words such as tough, strong, cool, handsome, awesome and studly (which he are these also). He will always be my baby though:) Just look at that face.....love it!

Zack celebrated his birthday by having a party and it got me thinking how different birthday parties are at this age. Gone are the days of the "theme" parties that took alot of creativity and prep time. I use to have so much fun planning those kind of parties and would start months earlier in planning and now we plan parties at the last minute! I fondly remember the Blues Clues party where all the kids were Blue searching after the clues to find a prize, each having their own Handy Dandy notebook and taking turns sitting in the 'thinking' chair. Come on...how cute are those hats that I made?
There was also the pirate party that was so much fun and the invitations were a treasure map. The kids had fun dressing up as a pirate and going on a treasure hunt, walking the plank and eating sailboat hot dogs. And look at that cake I made. Wow, what happened to that Mom from the past that actually took more than a day to make a cake!


Well those days are in the past. Now this is what we get - a bunch of friends coming over, playing ping-pong and pool, jamming on guitars and drums, jumping on the trampoline and eating, eating, eating! Pretty much just going wild but having a great time together! You gotta love boys....I wonder if next year I can talk one of them into a Spa birthday party??? I think not.

Halloween

Well Halloween has come and gone and it is becoming the holiday that does not need much prep time. My boys were very easy this year when it came to dressing up and they figured out what they wanted to be on their own. I did not give them any of my creative ideas, not that they would have listened anyways. Zack decided on his own that he wanted to dress up as a nerd. OK, thats easy and then he went one step further and thought it would be 'cool' to be a beat up nerd. Yeah...thats cool!! lol I told him that he should prepare himself for people saying "Zack, why did you not dress up?" and of course their were some that did not disappoint but most people, to be funny, said instead "That's a great costume! You dressed up as your brother!" Ha Ha (Poor Matthew) It is a good thing that Matthew has a high self esteem and a good sense of humor!

And we are not sure what Matthew was suppose to be so we just called him "purple haired boy". That was his costume....he dyed his hair purple! What?? I think he was dressing up as one of the band members from Blink 182 but I am not sure on that. Oh well they both had a great Halloween and enjoyed themselves...Matthew going to Fright Fest at Magic Mountain and Zack trick or treating with friends. They might have not won any costume contests but they did have a great time!!