Christmas 2010!!

We had a fun Christmas this year. Not very many pictures but lots of fun!

We started off Christmas Eve making sugar cookies to take to Grandma and Grandpa's to decorate. After watching "A Christmas Story" and making and eating our yummy individual pizzas.

The kids were very happy to help cut out the cookies

Emma is a very smart girl and can figure almost anything out on her own. (she put a bakugon togeter all by herself at church today!)

Here she is looking through the star cookie cutter!
I was very excited for Christmas this year. More so than other years. I think it's because my kids are getting older, at least Ethan is, and he understands more about Santa and presents.
It was fun to see thier faces Christmas morning when they opened their gifts.
Here's our tree post-Santa!
(can you say spoiled?!?)
Ethan left Santa some of the cookies we made and a note.

(who knows why this picture is sideways? sorry)

For Patty

Mike's mom sent Emma an apron to wear while she helps me cook...or bake which I do more of :)

Here she is the first time I put it on her when we made our Christmas cookies.

Not so sure she liked it

She did warm up to it though!
Ethan and Emma also got really cute outfits for church and here they are...

My favorite shot of them!

Goofing off

Being SUPER silly

Emma

Ethan

As a side note--Emma gets to go to NURSERY next week!

Hooray!

For Sarah

Mike's sister, Sarah, had our family in the Herrington family rotations for gifts this year. She got some way cool stuff for Ethan and Emma.

Ethan loves the color changing cars that he got!

He can't wait to use them with his color changing track! (again)
Emma got the Fisher Price Zoo and can't get enough of it. It was the last present she opened and she hasn't stopped playing with it since!

Thanks Sarah!!

Look what I got!

This week we celebrated our 7 year anniversary! As an early Christmas present, Mike gave me a day at the spa! I got a facial, pediucure, ate lunch while getting my pedicure, and a manicure! After being pampered for over 3 hours, Mike took me to dinner at Los Hermanos, my favorite, and to see the new Narnia movie (very good by the way)! All while our kids were playing with Grandma and Grandpa and their cousins!

Here are my toes!

I love the sparklieness of my them!

I told Mike I will need to get a pedicure every other month, at least, from now on.

This is what he got me for my anniversary present.

I love it!

And this is where it hangs in our home!

Cheap entertainment

I'm done with my Christmas shopping and wrapping, but after last night and this morning, I'm not sure what I got the kids will be as cool as these...

They played last night and this morning in these boxes pretending they were cars! All those toys maybe a waste.

Here they are honking at eachother.

Our FHE this week!

After Mike made yummy empanadas and a short fhe, we headed to the Riverwoods to go on a FREE wagon ride through the shops.

The kids were excited to go and Emma even wanted to put her mittens on, she pulled them off the last time we put them on her.

Aren't they cute?

I think so!

We saw where Santa would be but Ruldoph wasn't feeling well so Santa was taking care of him.

Mike and the kids posed in front of the tree.

I wanted my turn too.
We ran into Zoltar and he gave Mike a fabulous fortune.

(I'm pretty sure it will come true this next year!)

We just had to stop by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for our FHE treat.

This is what Ethan got

3 marshmallows stacked and dipped in chocolate.

This is what Emma thought of it

Ethan was kind enough to share with her.

He's a GREAT big brother.

Growing too fast

Last year we had Ethan's picture taken and I love it!

Don't you?

So cute, sweet, and just a titch shy.

Last month Ethan went on a field trip to the photographer's studio and had his picture taken. I was sad to replace the above picture but when I held this one up next to it, I just had to replace his picture because he's grown so much in just a year.

He's older and bigger (lost all that baby look about him) and is toothless and you can tell from his expressions that he has come out of his shell, I credit that all to preschool!

I now love this picture as much as last year's and can't wait to see what next year's will look like!

Day 30

Yesterday the kids and I decorated for Christmas

tada.....

the stockings

Ethan and Emma got in on the action of decorating the tree
...wow...they both look goofy! :)
(don't anyone take this the wrong way)
I'm very grateful that I get to spend this Christmas with these guys
just the 4 of us in our home on Christmas day...
I can't wait!
Merry Christmas season!!

Day 29

The Friend

we use it every Monday for FHE!

Day 28

Books

Books
And more books

I love children's books and I have them everywhere in my house.

I love getting more and when I am stumpped about what to get my kids for their birthday or Christmas, I get them a book!

Day 27

I went Christmas shopping today to

and I used this
(not really my card)
but in doing so, I got all my shopping done, all but a few things that I need to get next week and order online on my next credit card cycle, and because I used my credit card, I got 8 points for every dollar I spent in rewards!
I also had a few coupons to save me some moola and I will get 10% back in rewards to Toys R Us after Christmas!
It was a great shopping day!

Day 26

Emma's new footie jammies*

And that the footies don't bother her as much as I thought they would. (She hates socks and pulls them off as soon as she can-that's why she's barefoot most of the time!)

*She picked the pattern our herself. I picked one that was brown and pink with flowers and she insisted on the monkeys. They fit her personality better than the flowers, we think.

Day 25

(No picture here)

But I have a lot of memoires of my childhood Thanksgivings that have come back to me this week. I've been trying to share them with Ethan and tell him what I did when I was his age. I'm very grateful for the fun memories that I have from those years and here are a few:

*driving in the suburban to Howe, ID

*staying at my grandparents' house

*the smell of the farm

*the cold air in Howe

*seeing Julie

*playing "Stacey and Kristen"

*the homemade candy-carmels (I still make them every year for my own benefit), pinoch ("poo candy"), divinity, Grandma's suckers

*super Jell-o

*playing trick-or-treat up and down the stairs at Grandma's

*riding the calves after Thanksgiving dinner

*dipping the homemade carmels, and the other fillings that I didn't eat and when the carmels were gone but there was still more chocolate, we'd dump in nuts and marshmallows from the kitchen

*reading Archies and watching TV after dinner in the living room

*puttin gon all the clothes I packed, almost, piling in the truck beds with the hay and Grandma's blankets, and heading up the mountain for our Christmas tree hunt

*eating vanilla wafers and drinking hot chocolate around the fire on the hunt

*piling back in the truck to head home!

*telling ghost stories with Zane

*playing "I've never" with David

*having a lot of fun with my cousins

*one time, I actually cried leaving Howe!

*having so much fun and getting to make all these memories!!

Day 24

Ethan took part in the reading program at the Orem library this summer and one of his "prizes" was half off admission to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Mike took this week off so we went.

I'm grateful that my kids enjoy reading as much as they do so we could have fun together as a family doing all these things!

Climbing through the tunnel

posing with Utahraptor
exploring all by herself

dressing up like dinosaurs

sitting on a dino

being fed to the shark

digging for dinosaur bones

more digging

still more digging and discovering what is used to dig

posing with the BYU dino

GO COUGARS!!

Day 23

Ethan's preschool teacher He comes home with fun, cute stuff like this!

Doesn't he look awesome?