Christmas 2009

Our Christmas this year was VERY relaxed. We stayed here in Utah for a couple reasons, and did Christmas at our house. My family trickled in and out so it was hard to have anything planned. Christmas Eve ended up being just Chris, Cody and I eating a very simple dinner and putting Cody to bed at 8:30 or so. My dad and my sister Abby left Boise after Abby got off work at 11 and got here at 4:15 a.m. Cody woke up at 8 and went downstairs to wake every one else up. This first picture cracks me up. Some one had said, "I don't think Santa came last night." Cody was devastated and dropped straight to his knees. then he saw his stocking. I dont have any pictures of him going through his stocking, but it was the standard stuff. Toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, candy, a couple little toys.

Then, it was off to the presents. Cody was hilarious opening his presents. He takes after his dad in that department. He would open it, say COOL, and then throw it in the pile and look for another one to open. We tried to slow him down and get him to enjoy it a little bit, but he was all about just getting every single gift open as fast as he could.

Daddy opening his favorite present :) Pictures of Mommy and Cody (and Cade) for his new office.

After we opened all the gifts, I worked on breakfast while the boys cleaned up the tree room. I attempted cinnamon rolls for the first time EVER. Definitely risky considering if they didn't turn out we would have a pretty boring Christmas breakfast but they turned out GREAT! only one problem, I let them rise too long while we were opening gifts.

End result was more than I had hoped for though.

and the best part was I only used half the dough making cinnamon rolls and the other half were turned into rolls a couple days later. I think I have a new favorite dough recipe. Its fool proof. and I need that!

After a yummy breakfast, it was time to explore all the toys Cody had received from Santa. Unfortunately he thinks EVERY gift came from Santa so for anyone who gave him something, just know that he loves it even though he doesn't think you gave it to him. Santa is getting ALL the credit this year, no matter how many times we tell him it came from some one else.

Here he is riding his skate board. I realize a lot of people might think a 3 year old is too young for a skate board, but he has been asking for one for almost 5 months. He played on his cousin Kimball's skateboard and was hooked. He doesn't quite have the balance to stand up on it by himself yet. Which is why he is wearing a helmet in the house :)

I love this next picture because you can see how our entire Christmas Day was spent. He is still wearing his helmet from riding his skateboard, but he is playing with his Lightning McQueen race tack, you can see the tip of the skateboard in the bottom and his little tool box from his new tool bench on the right hand side. He rotated between 4 toys all day, NEVER STOPPING!!

He was crushed when I made him go to bed that night.

and these are just precious. Abby got him a Lightning McQueen bath set that included a fake razor and some shaving cream so he can be just like his Daddy. He is very precise, and makes sure he gets every little bit of shaving cream off with the razor, and he is SUPER careful because he knows razors are sharp.

My dad left Christmas Day and then my sister Stacy and her boyfriend came down Saturday. Melissa had work off Saturday and Sunday so we were able to spend some time with her too.

Abby flew out Monday and Stacy and BJ leave today.

We have had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and ate a lot.

Now, its back to reality.

Hope everyone else had a GREAT Christmas!

31 weeks

Tomorrow I will be 31 weeks. Today I had a Dr appt where they did another ultrasound to make sure my placenta had moved. It had. We were also able to get a good profile shot while we were there. Last time his hand was kind of in the way. This little boy looks a lot like another little boy I know. Pretty cute. Everything else looked good. I am measuring right on track. Now, I go in every 2 weeks. I can't believe that!

Reminiscing

At the end of each year I make a goal to go through my portable hard drive and organize all of the photos and videos I have uploaded throughout the year. As I was doing so tonight, I found this video from June of 2008 and since we got to talk to Uncle Mikey who is on his mission in Texas today, it seemed appropriate. And today is exactly 3 months til we get to see Uncle Mikey.

Merry Christmas Eve

This year our Christmas is very casual. I have family members trickling in and out of the weekend so it was hard to make any solid plans.

One thing was for sure though... we had to go see Alvin and the Chipmunks today.

It was really cute, all 3 of us liked it.

After Alvin we came home, had a VERY simple dinner, and Cody and Chris crawled in bed to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer while I started cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning.

Now, Cody is in bed. Wearing his new Spiderman jammies Marissa made for him.

They are so perfect!! and he thinks he is SO cool wearing them.

After Temple Square we decided to stop and grab dinner. Cody and I had never been to the Mayan Adventure, but Chris suggested it so we went. It was similar to the Rainforest Cafe we ate at in Disneyland. The cool part about the Mayan was that they had divers that jumped off the cliffs. Cody thought that was SO COOL!

Temple Square

We finally got to go up to Temple Square to see all the lights. Its been about 4 years since I was there last with the lights up. I have been trying to get us there for a few weeks, but it worked out perfectly last night. Chris left work early at 6 and we headed up, the weather was "nice" so we weren't totally miserable. It wasn't snowing or raining and the wind wasn't blowing. We got great parking under the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Cody thought it was awesome that we got to park in the temple's garage. :)

This was my favorite picture of just the temple. The rest are pictures of us with the lights in the background.

This one makes me sick if I look at it too long, but I still think its a cool picture.

PpRrEeSsCcHhOoOoLl

Wow time is going fast now! I think it helps to have the holidays and lots of things to be doing!

Our biggest news... drum roll... Cody started preschool on Monday!! He absolutely loves it!

and so do I. I heard about this teacher from some ladies in my ward that take their kids there and love it but said she is hard to get in to. So I called last week and she just had 2 kids move in her M-W-F noon-2:30 class so she had openings. I was thrilled. I had to get it past Chris still but I was so excited! Chris hasn't been a huge fan of Cody going to preschool because he thinks he's too young, but since I am the one that is home all day with him and I see how much he talks to himself in the corner playing with toys, I decided we needed to give it a shot. Especially since we are still fairly new here.

So, Monday we got all ready and headed to school. Cody squeals like a little girl when I ask him if he wants to go to preschool. Monday, they all wore red because they were studying the letter Rr. and they made brown bag hand puppets of Rudolph. Wednesday he had a couple pictures he'd colored and they were working on the letter Dd. but he kept telling me it was an Ee. and the best part... Friday is show and tell. I wanted to cry when I heard that. I have a child in preschool! How did that happen. I can just picture him up there showing all his friends his favorite toy. and then Monday is their Christmas party, and he is supposed to take a small gift for a boy to participate in the gift exchange.

Even Chris is okay with the idea now. He knows Cody needs to be around friends and now he has something of his very own to look forward to every other day. His class only has 11 kids in it and 3 of them are in our ward, so when he starts Primary in a few weeks he will get to see them at church too.

Oh man, he is growing up too fast.

Good news is, we get to start the whole process over in just a couple months.

In other news, we are gearing up for Christmas. After today I will be completely done shopping, and shipping, and I just have a few gifts left to wrap, then I get to sit back and relax and wait for Marissa to have her baby :) Tomorrow night is the first annual EPayPros Christmas party, so I have some dessert I will be making for that today and tomorrow morning. The boys just moved their office from Provo to out by Thanksgiving Point in Lehi so they are still working on getting everything cleaned, organized and decorated. It should turn out great though.

I am still pregnant, and getting bigger everyday. I am just over 29 weeks. I have another Dr. appt on the 28th so I will update again then. As for right now, I am feeling good. I am still able to play volleyball which is nice. I eat anything in front of me, and I don't sleep much at night. Typical pregnancy stuff.

First Snowman of the Winter

I love how excited Cody has been about the snow and building a snowman. He asks Chris every

night if he can make one but it wasn't good snow until today. As soon as we got home from Church they got all their snow gear on and headed out to make a Frosty. It didn't take long since there was SO MUCH snow and Cody was so proud of how he turned out. I think his favorite part was that he got to use a real carrot for his nose.

He would come ring the door bell every couple minutes so I could come look at the progress they were making. In this bottom picture you can barely see the carrot in his left hand. He had just asked for a second carrot for another snowman but he ate it before they got around to making the second snowman

Ward Christmas Party

Last night was our ward Christmas party and dinner. Cody had been looking forward to it ALL week. He knew Santa Claus was going to be there... if he was a good boy :) We used it all week to get him to do stuff.

We ate dinner first and Cody was so excited that all his little friends were there he couldnt sit still long enough to eat his dinner so we told him that as soon as he finished his food he could go run around with his friends. He ate fast and was gone!

Chris and I talked with the other people at our table for a while and then all the sudden they announced that the primary kids were going to put on a small program for us. We started looking around for Cody knowing that most the kids he was playing with were all in primary. Next thing we know... our little nursery boy was coming out as a SHEEP in the primary program! I couldn't stop laughing. He just went with it. He and his friend Ammon were both sheep and they looked so cute! He didn't keep the "cape" on very long but he sat up with the rest of the kids for almost the whole program.

Next, it was time for the main event! SANTA! I was so happy I was able to capture Cody's reaction when he first saw Santa in the same room as him. He has seriously been so excited this year to see him!

waiting in line to talk to Santa

Best Friends :)

The best part about the whole night, was that Santa had asked Cody what he wanted for Christmas and Cody told him a Lightning McQueen car... after Santa gave him a candy cane and let him go, Cody went over to Chris and said, "look Dad, Santa gave me a Candy Cane, but he didn't give me a Lightning McQueen car or Transformers."

How precious. Everyone has been asking him what Santa is going to bring him for Christmas so he just assumed that as soon as he got to see Santa he would give it to him. We had to explain that Santa was still working on the toys at the North Pole.

I had to go get some blood work done the other day and shot... Cody got to tag along for the shot part of it.

You can't tell me your side kick is as cute as mine!And then, he even entertained me as we were waiting for the nurse to come.

He promised to hold my hand and assured me that the shot wouldn't hurt.

He thought it was hilarious that I was getting a shot in my bum... And then his day was complete when Daddy got home and played in the snow with him.

They were only able to shovel the walks and jump in the snow, no snowmen were built that day. and this is my new favorite picture. genuine happiness.

Kangaroo Zoo

I am so glad we found this place!!! My sister in law Marissa told me about it and then I heard from other friends that it was a blast so we decided to try it out. It is a big warehouse full of HUGE bounce houses and slides. Cody was in HEAVEN! He played for 3.5 hours straight. Needless to say he slept great that night!

What do you think?

Is it going to fall off??

Cody shut his finger in a door 2 weeks ago and it is slowly getting worse.

I have never had a fingernail fall off... I don't know that I am prepared for that with a 3 year old.

Fun with our new camera

We may have had too much fun with the different functions on our new camera. Cody LOVES looking at his "silly pictures." His favorite is the lion one. I LOVE the second picture. Look how GREAT his teeth look. :)