First Time Sledding!

We bought a sled several weeks before Christmas and hadn't had a chance to use it!  While we were at Grandma & Grandpa's we were able to pull them around!  There wasn't a hill that would work around there so Daddy got a work out...oh how they LOVED it!

Notice how The Princess' mouth is WIDE open?!?

BooBear got into leaning during turns to purposefully tip the sled over!

THEY LOVED IT!

We were able to go on some snowmobile rides over the weekend, but unfortunately those pictures are all on Grandma's camera and I didn't put them on a CD to bring home this time! 8-(

But here is a still shot!

*These pictures were taken on BooBear's actual birthday!

BooBears East River Birthday!

With the weather being as such we didn't get to have Aunt Lisa & Uncle Jody and their crew along with Aunt Dawn & Uncle Bob join us!  But we did get a special treat!  Tyrel (Uncle ReeeRe's good friend since elementary school) along with Aunt Christy's parents, brothers, and special friend Lindsey with us for the big event!  Dad cooked a big ham meal and we had birthday cake to celebrate after!  Then came the gifts...my children are SPOILED!

Singing to the Birthday Boy...his shirt says, "I'm kind of a BIG deal!"  Loved it!

Grandpa showing off his new AlanJackson cowboy hat!

Princess enjoying some cake!

A helicopter from Mommy & Daddy!

John.Deere book and Lincoln Logs also from us...

Swirlin' Saw Dust Work Bench from Grandpa & Grandma N!  He LOVES it!

He thinks the drill is pretty cool.  Since we got this home and put it in his room he is always asking if he can play in his room "all by myself!"  Cracks me up!

Ever want to see something funny?  Watch to guys try to play with a 3 year old's computer!  The kids had them figured out in minutes....I will say there was some words coming out of their mouths that I cannot repeat!  It was comical!  ♥ you B&T

Gifts with Grandpa & Grandma!

The kids were majorly spoiled with gifts this year!  Thanks to all the family members that took part in spoiling my children...now do you want to come help with the attitudes that go along with getting EVERYTHING you want for Christmas? Please?!?

This year we kind of splurged on my dad.  He is the person that never 'needs' anything because everyone else always 'needs' something!  That makes a person very VERY difficult to shop for.  This year was going to be one of those box of chocolate covered cherries and share in moms gift kind of years...just because I really had NO idea what to get for him.  But Black.Friday shopping changes all that!  When shopping on Moms side of the state our tradition is to eat lunch at the Cracker.Barrell!  MMMM!  But then we can do some shopping afterwards!  I scored big this year!  They had a line of stuff by Alan.Jackson (who my dad claims to look like...I kind of denied it in my High School years, but am coming around now!)  This picture is the cover of one of his albums that we happen to have, lots of good old hymns on it!  Anyway, when I walked by it the way the picture is taken it really does look like my dad, or AJ, or my dad...hmmm

So that was a no brainer...but when I couldn't say no to the second half the gift got a little pricey...but well worth it!

They had cowboy hats just like AJ wears!  I knew he NEEDED that too!

Think he likes?  He then had to complain about Mom making him get a haircut for Christmas because he looks more like AJ when he has the golden curls!  Gotta ♥ my Daddy!

A pizza for her kitchen!

A 'rolling tape' to help Daddy work!

Mom, Seester, n the ReeRe

Seester thought her husband forgot about her...good thing we made it to town that morning for some brother/sister shopping, huh?

She got Arctic.Cat gloves to match her knew coat!  She really was excited!

Some markers and Princess coloring pages!

A John.Deere plate, cup, & bowl...he was kind of excited!

Thanks Seester!

The cause of the adults staying up until close to 2 AM!  ReeRe got a John.Deere Monopoly game for Christmas from the 'rents and we all decided to play it.  What fun it was...and my husband should thank me for the win because I totally set him up.  Why did I ever break my rule of NEVER playing Monopoly with him again?  Actually Handsome & Dad won, the rest of were totally taken out.  I think Seester was kind of shocked at how serious of a game Monopoly is in this family!  But oh what fun it was...seriously, when are we gonna do it again?

My new pots n pans from Mom & Dad...thanks guys, they work great!

Handsome opening his gift from Mom & Dad...what is it?  What is it?

I think he is excited!  A creeper, floor jack, and heavy duty stands!

After it was all said and done we made a mess all over the floor, but I think it is safe to say that this was one of the most memory making Christmas' ever!  (We missed Aunt Wendy & Uncle Laural though!)

Thankful Thursday

So this last week I have been reminded over and over again what a lucky girl I am to have Handsome as my husband.  This guy is nothing short of amazing...and that isn't even enough of a word!

So I started this Ideal Protein Diet and 2 out of 3 weeks that I have been on it I have lost a good deal of weight (7-8 lbs) and the week in between I lost 2!  So, needless to say while I do have lots more energy...my body is doing lots of adjusting and I am pretty tired at the end of the day.  Not to mention the fact that making supper for the family that looks all yummy and then making supper for myself just isn't all it is cracked up to be!  I LOVE the IDP food, but I also still long for my glass of milk...anything with cheese on it...or cake! 

Anyway, so since I have been on my diet and slacking rather slightly in my duties as a wife and keeping the house my husband has been a gentleman!  He cooks, he cleans, he picks up, he does laundry...he literally keeps the house going!  I simply wake up, take care of the Pumpkins, and that is about it!  But we both know that this diet is much importante to my health and with the $$$ we are investing in it we want it to work, so he is being 100% supportive in any way he can!

I am thankful for the wonderful husband God has blessed me with, I really do not deserve him!  Love you Handsome!

Waiting for Gifts on Christmas Eve

This Christmas was different in so many ways!  We were able to spend almost a week {Tuesday ~ Monday} at my parents house!  Originally it was only going to be Thursday ~ Monday, but with the impending weather we decided to head out early!  It was a GOOD thing we did!  Most of the state was DUMPED on and if we would have waited to leave until Thursday we wouldn't have been going anywhere!  Another different part of this year was that my brother and his wife who actually only live 15 miles away, stayed at my parents house for a couple of night (due to same storm) and so we were all snowed it together.  We played games, laughed, and laughed some more!  It was great!

But probably the most different part of the year was that we didn't go to church on Christmas Eve like we normally do.  Don't get me wrong, Christmas is all about the celebration of Christ's birth...but there was something amazing about being able to reflect on The Savior in our own special way instead of being in church around many people that you do not know and listening to a Pastors view of Christmas.  It was nice, it was also nice to not have the hustle and bustle of getting 8 people ready for the service to which there is usually lots of bumping into each other because we are LATE!  Service start at 5:30 right mom?!?!?  hehee

Since we couldn't safely make it to and from church that night we decided to stay put.  There was some snowmobiling going on, but we bumped supper up to a nice time so as to be able to not have such a late night for Princess and Boo!  (The adults stayed up WAAAAYYYY later than normal!) 

Okay, Okay...enough with the babbling...one with the Pictures.  Today will only be the WAITING to open gifts...Friday will be the actual gift opening fun!

Have you ever tried to get a NICE picture of two three year olds?  It turned out to be a PERSONALITY picture!

A Daddy Picture ↑ and a Mommy Picture ↓

And a family picture!

My brother and his AWESOME wife!

My Parents!

Tomorrow will be a Thankful Thursday post and then Friday will be a post full of Christmas Eve gift opening pictures!  Stay tuned!

Thankful Thursday

Beings that it has been three weeks since I had a Thankful Thursday, I appologize!  It wasn't that there was nothing to be thankful for, because that wouldn't be the case! 

Though in light of the recent weather we have been having, my post today is going to be about nice temps/living in the Hills!

You see when we returned home from Christmas on the Eastern side of the state we found three feet of snow keeping us from our home {pictures to come sometime next week}...my wonderful husband shoveled a path while I took pictures and the kids waiting in the warm suburban...I also chatted with the neighbor a little bit.  After getting the path we went into the house to check everything over.  Praise the Lord!  The furnace was still running & no frozen pipes!  We unloaded the Christmas haul (and boy did we have a haul this year) and then went to pick up a friends snowblower so my husband didn't have to shovel the three feet of snow every where!  Blowing it still took three hours, but it would have been way longer if he had to shovel it!  Thanks to M.G. for the use of your snowblower!  But along with the snow came bitterly cold temps...actual temps here were only in the -20 to -30 (F) degree range, but the wind chills were in the -40s!  BRRRRRRR!  But the last two days, despite still have most of that snow on the ground, we managed to get up to +60 on Tuesday and +50 yesterday!  We are looking at +45-50 today as well!  What a blessing, along with those temps came the bright sunshine...things are a melting now!  There is something about working in your home and not getting to go outside for days that can get you a little down...especially if you do not have sunshine streaming through the windows!  Yesterday I opened every blind in the house (8) of them and it was almost as good as being right out in the sun! 

I am thankful for the little blessing God send our way, even when it is a sneeky 60 degree day in the middle of January or the sunshine that with all the white on the ground seems so much brighter!

What are you thankful for?

*Picture from the May 2008 3 foot snow storm!

Our 'little' family Christmas

We had a family Christmas for the first time since before we had children this year.  It was fun, Handsome wanted to do it so that A)our gifts to the kids could be appreciated ~because lets face it, we cannot top Grandpa & Grandma~ B)But mostly we want to start family traditions of our own...our family Christmas was mostly centered around what Christmas is all about, Christ's Birth! 

We started the evening out with a full blown ham supper with gravy and everything!  Then we read the Christmas Story from the Bible and it was fun to see the kids really get into it and ask questions!

We then moved on to opening of gifts.  We opened each gift one by one so that we could be happy for one another and the blessings we received.  Princess went first then BooBear and we alternated like that (Mommy & Daddy each already had our gifts!)

*They were so excited about these cameras, (and so was I) but we ended up returning them because Princess' went on the blink almost right away and so we return them both and got them each a new pair of N.ike tennis shoes instead!  They still ask where their cwamwas are!

Then we moved on to stockings~

They each received panties/underwear and BooBear was sooo excited...you see he didn't GET to go potty in the potty chair until his third birthday, a week after he opened these T.homas the T.rain & T.oy S.tory big boy underwear!  That plan didn't work!  We will try again in March!

B.alderdash was in my stocking! 

Handsome had lounge pants & a memory card for his B.lackberry!

We ended the night with some family time & a yummy ice cream dessert that Handsome made...his Mom always makes it at Christmas time and since we were not able to be with them to celebrate their family Christmas he wanted to make sure that we had it!  The kids thought it was num NUMS!

This is what I found when I returned to the living room after getting the Princess ready for bed!  If that doesn't just about add up to the best way to end an evening of family celebration of our Saviors Birth!  So precious!