Our Christmas

I know it's New Years Eve and I am a little late on this, but I thought I should share a little bit of our Christmas happenings. I picked up Noah around noon on Christmas Eve and we drove down to Utah to see some of my family. We got to my parents' place around 5:30 and broke tradition a bit to have Christmas eve dinner out. After a very yummy dinner at Texas Roadhouse we got back and let Savannah and Jaxon open their new pjs. We got some for my parents too. Noah read the Christmas Story and after watching a movie we all went to bed.

The mess we made... oops! This is only about half of it. There were Disney Potato head parts and random toys scattered all over.

We got up around 8 and Savannah was very excited! Jaxon didn't care much until he met his new Buzz Lightyear toy. Noah and I didn't get anything for each other this year and mainly focused on the kids. It was so fun to watch them so happy.

I LOVE Jaxon'x Woody pjs!

Savannah went to see Yogi Bear with my dad (which he said was awful). My mom put together a great meal and my sister Erin's family came over for dinner. We had a very nice Christmas. I wish I could have spent more time there, but after a busy day with church, short friend visits, cousin time for Savannah and packing up, we had to head home early Monday morning to drop Noah back off at work.

I am so grateful for my family. My kids are great, my husband is amazing, I have wonderful siblings, nieces, nephews, parents, etc. The list goes on and on, and I love them all. I am grateful for this time of year and the opportunity to teach my kids more about the Savior. I can't believe Savannah will be a Sunbeam (3 yr old Sunday School class) on Sunday.

My favorite Chritsmas memories

Many of you know I have been blessed with a great memory (which you may or may not agree with it's accuracy) and some pretty amazing life experiences. This time of year has always been a favorite of mine and many of my favorite memories gather around this time of year.

I loved living in Germany and seeing the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt on field trips and finding prune people, eating the most amazing bratwurst on brotchen and finding little gifts for my family.

I loved our Christmas Eve tradition of eating Lasagna, reading the Christmas story from the Bible and opening the presents from my siblings

I remember Christmas Day movie theater outings and my two favorite years 1-when we saw Star Trek 6 and I threw up in my sister's popcorn 2- When my mom, dad and I wanted to see Catch me if You can, but due to it being sold out, we saw Drumline. My dad referred to it as a "cultural experience."

I miss seeing the Candlelight Processional and the amazing light displays around Disney World. (Snow just doesn't make up for it)

I remember the year we moved to Florida and went to see the live filming of the Disney Christmas Parade. It took FOREVER and was not as exciting as we thought because they stop the floats over and over. The only exciting place was on Main Street where the filming took place. We were by the castle.

1997 I went with friends to see the Backstreet Boys film their segment of the parade and got to talk with AJ. I remember being so smitten and after I took the Mickey Santa hat I was supposed to return, I kept it near my bed.

I will never forget when we lived in North Dakota and the year I got a pair of double blade ice skates to use on the frozen fireman made pond behind our house.

2005-the year I told Noah I loved him, went home for Christmas break after being told he didn't "do long distance," then he called me and told me he realized he loved me too.

Savannah's first Christmas in Colorado with my sister Kara's family and my parents. It was my first Christmas getting to hold a baby in my arms.

There are many more great memories and I know there will be more to come. I am very excited for this Christmas. We will be going down to Provo to spend it with my family and Savannah is so excited. Merry Christmas Everyone!!

You've got a friend in me

Jaxon loves his mom, dad and sister, but the thing he loves most is Toy Story. Through almost our entire Disneyland trip he held onto his Woody doll and recently he has been holding onto a small Buzz toy. This is Jaxon having a snack after church... notice his hand.

This is Jaxon on Monday. He is holding his Buzz and his favorite shirt. He is leaning over because I am blocking Toy Story 2 while trying to take a picture and he wants to see the screen.

This is the front and back of his favorite shirt. We got it at Disneyland and when he saw it in the store, he lit up. He hugs it and trys to put it on all the time.

Noah and I are very excited to see Jaxon's reaction to a big Buzz he is getting for Christmas.

Getting Ready

For the past few weeks we have been getting more and more ready for Christmas. Coloring pages, crafts and movies have helped, but these are my favorite adventures from this week.

I tried to take some pictures of the kids for Christmas cards, but they all turned out a lot like this, so I gave up.

Savannah and I made a gingerbread house. I put on the icing and she put on the candy. I think we did pretty well. She was very proud.

Yesterday we went to see Santa at the mall in Boise. He was the nicest Santa and loved sitting with Savannah and looking at her letter to him. She is asking for a robot, unicorn pillow pet, Mrs potato head, "girl ballerina monkey sock" and Despicable Me. The list hasn't changed much over the past month.

It wasn't a dream

Let's start by saying Savannah's potty training has been doing great! She had no accidents the entire time at Disneyland (including the long drives). She only woke up with a wet pull up once on our trip and once since.
So two nights ago I was having a really tough time getting Jaxon to sleep because of his horrible diaper rash and when I woke up I remembered a strange dream. I thought I had dreamed that Savannah came to me in the middle of the night and woke me up to wipe her bum so I did. With all the poo I have been dealing with from Jaxon, it didn't seem that far off. I got up for the day and Savannah was still sleeping. I checked on her and she had no pants or underwear/pull-up on, then I found a used pull up on the bathroom floor and #2 in the potty. Oops... guess I'm not winning mother of the year.

Disneyland!

Last week the kids and I had an amazing time at Disneyland! We drove to my parent's home on Thanksgiving and arrived just in time for dinner. Black Friday was spent doing a little shopping, went to see Tangled (LOVED IT) and got to see my awesome friend Amy. Saturday we were off! My two sisters, my sister in law, my mom, all 7 grand kids and myself in a 15 passenger van. After a stop for sleep in Mesquite Saturday night and lots of traffic to Anaheim, we finally arrived at Disney's Paradise Pier hotel. We were greeted by an amazing gift basket in the hotel room with enough goodies for all the grand kids. Savannah was so excited to get an autograph book and new Minnie Mouse.

Monday we played at Disneyland and my kids had so much fun.

One of our main reasons for tagging along on this trip was to finally see the Haunted Mansion Nightmare before Christmas transformation. My kids and I love that movie and we were so excited to find Jack and Sally. Savannah was SO excited and you can tell from her face. No princesses got smiles like this one.

We rode lots of rides, watched the parade and the fireworks and had a great time. Savannah loved the thrill rides and was so excited to ride the Matterhorn and Space Mountain. Jaxon held onto his Woody doll almost the whole day and loved Small World.

Tuesday we all went to California Adventure. I finally rode Toy Story Mania for the first time and loved it. I took the little ones to see Woody across from California Screaming and with only two people in front of us Jesse came and Woody left for a break. Funny thing is Savannah stopped Jesse and the Army Man while they walked through the line to get to the front. They got a good laugh about that. Savannah has the asking for autographs thing down!

All the kids loved the ferris wheel and I got a good shot of the three older cousins in front of our hotel.

Jaxon enjoyed the occasional out of stroller moments. This is outside the Tower of Terror.

The Pixar parade was a big hit and Savannah even decided to join another family while watching it. She sat in between a mother and daughter.

After World of Color. A great show!! The kids were very ready to get some sleep after.

Wednesday we all went to a character breakfast at the hotel. There were hardly any people so the kids got lots of running around and dancing time with Pluto, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Stitch. It was a very fun little birthday party for my nephew Ty who turned 3.

After breakfast I took the kids back to Disneyland. It was just my little Jaxon, Savannah and I. We met lots of characters and had a very slow paced and happy day. There are a lot more character pictures, but here is a sample. My favorite moment was when Savannah was the last to visit the princesses before they took a break. Each princess took their time to visit with her and Snow White actually asked Savannah to walk out with her.

Jaxon liked my stop for popcorn. I couldn't pass up a Nightmare Before Christmas bucket.

Thursday I drove my sisters and their kids to Legoland and then took the kids down to La Mesa to visit Noah's parents, Grandparents and his brother. We had a lot of fun and Savannah still talks about playing with her uncle Spencer. I wish I had taken pictures, but for some reason I completely forgot to get out my camera (I was chatting too much).

Friday was another day at Disneyland and we had some time all together and split up. Jaxon showed off his "cheese" face for some pictures while I waited to meet up for lunch. He is a smile pro now and I love that he says "cheese."

Exploring at Toon Town.

Cute hug even though their eyes are shut! This was right before we left the park for some shopping, dinner and then back to the hotel.

We were just going to put on warmer clothes and go back to the park, but Savannah really wanted to put on her new Tiana nightgown and watch cartoons in the sandcastle room. This one of my favorite spots in the hotel.

Jaxon randomly fell asleep most every night. This was our final night and I think he looks so precious.

We had a great time and headed back to Utah on Saturday. After some traffic, sickness, late nights lack of sleep we finally made it home. Savannah and Jaxon both have croup and Jaxon's case is pretty bad. We visited the Dr Tuesday morning and he was having trouble breathing in addition to another ear infection. Luckily he waited until after we left Disneyland.

Thanksgiving Tree

As I took down the few Halloween decorations we had, Savannah got very upset. She loves Halloween and even though I told her Christmas decorations were going to be up soon, it didn't seem to click. I told Savannah about Thanksgiving and that it was the next holiday so we could decorate for it. For the last 20 days we have colored turkey pictures, cut out apples, etc. My favorite project was our Thanksgiving tree. I am no artist, but I tried to draw a tree. Savannah helped me color it and then we cut it out and put it on the wall behind the toys. We bought leaves at Jo-anns and Target and stuck them on the tree. Savannah then told me it needed an owl. At some point there was a baby owl and turkey too, but I didn't get a photo of it complete.
As silly as this sounds, every time I looked at this tree I think of things I am thankful for. I have tried to really focus on one thing each day through the month. It has been a couple of hard weeks and healthy children, doctors, modern medicine and insurance are some of the things I am thanking God for every day.
Our tree is down now. We set up Christmas on Thursday night because Noah was heading back to Twin Falls Friday morning and I wanted it up before we come back from our Utah/Disneyland trip. Though our paper tree is down, I am still making sure to take time to think of things I am grateful for. I hope everyone has a fabulous Thanksgiving and remembers all the things to be be thankful for.

My week

I have had a week of pajamas, sweat pants and Dr visits. We venture to the store when we run out of tylenol and motrin (go through a lot when your giving 1 tsp every 3 hours). Went back to the Dr on Tuesday to hear keep giving him meds, but I knew something else was going on. All week I cuddled Jaxon and he never wanted down. Hardly eating, hardly drinking and sleeping a lot still did not bring down his fevers. I kept thinking maybe the antibiotics would start working but decided to call the pediatrician again on Saturday.

I went to the bathroom for maybe a minute and came out to find Jaxon covered with toys thanks to his sister. Poor guy felt so horrible he didn't even fight it.

I was told to watch him over night again and take him the urgent care on Sunday. I hate looking like a high maintenance mommy and I am pretty sure they thought I was paranoid, but when they took his temp of 104.4 they knew I wasn't. All the cool baths, wearing nothing but tee shirts and ice pack compresses weren't working and turns out I was right. Jaxon still was sick. His one ear infection on Monday was now in both ears and pretty bad. He also has Herpangina which causes sores and ulcers all over Jaxon's throat and really high fevers for about a week. He got a shot to help get rid of everything and Jaxon is still on all his same meds as before. We go back to the Dr today at 1. After seeing 4 different doctors in the past week, we will finally meet their new pediatrician. I bet she has a great impression of me so far!

The shot must have really helped. Jaxon was happy to do some coloring last night.

Noah comes home tonight after not seeing him since we got back from the hospital. I am hoping Jaxon will sleep in his bed tonight. He has been sleeping with me so I can monitor his temp through the night and make sure he doesn't have another febrile seizure. Disneyland trip is in less than 2 weeks and I am praying all sickness is done before then!

Thank You Dad

My dad has always been one of my heroes. He is a very strong man and determined. He has been through a lot in his life and still manages to take time to help others. He is hard working and always willing to serve whomever he can. My father served in the United States Air Force and retired in 1996 as a Lt Colonel.

There is no one that loves this country more than my dad. He taught me so much about the importance of service, love for history and patriotism. Not only is he an amazing dad, but a wonderful grandpa. My father is Savannah's favorite person. She always wants to call and visit her "Pampa." Thank you Pampa, Grandpa, Dad... whatever name you prefer. We love you so much. Happy Veteran's Day.