Leading Up to 2014!

The day after Christmas, Mike had to go back to work, but we still tried to fit in a little fun before the kids had to go back to school. One goal Mike had was to get us all to go see the new "Hobbit" movie in Imax 3D (which he already saw once with work)! He spent days trying to get us to watch the first one again so we'd be ready for the second. Ashton loved it and couldn't wait. Brayden and I weren't as excited, but we did it for the boys. Even though I don't love those movies, it was good and I can appreciate it for what it is. Brayden just giggled a ton every time a bad guy's head was chopped off, so at least she was able to enjoy it for that, as demented as that sounds! Ha ha! Either way, it was a fun night with the family!

We were so sad to have missed Church the Sunday before Christmas, (one of my favorite days to be at Church) due to all of us being sick! Luckily we got it out of our systems in time for Christmas! So here the kids are the next Sunday in their Christmas outfits they had picked out for Christmas Sunday, just one week late!

A couple days later was New Year's Eve! After doing some last minute shopping for our fun party planned for that night, the kids and I decided to grab some Subzero while we waited for Mike to get off of work!

I have always felt like New Year's Eve was a great excuse to wear extra bling and sparkle! Here Brayden and I are with our sequins, bling, and shiny new nails!!

We had fun plans that night for a party at Mike's twin brother Nate's house. We smoked wings again like we did for Christmas, and had all kinds of other great food there too! I'm sad I didn't get pictures! But we had fun playing games and watching movies. We didn't quite make it to midnight there, but we had a quick little countdown at home before putting the kids to bed. It was a fun night, and a great way to start the new year! 

14 has always been my favorite number, so I am CERTAIN this is going to be a great year!!! I think I said this last year, but I don't really do set resolutions anymore. I always have goals for myself all year, and I feel like they are things that are constantly on my mind. I just always want to be working on improving myself in every aspect of my life. I love the feeling that a new year brings, a clean slate to be filled with great accomplishments and fun memories! I am so excited to see what 2014 brings! 

~Christmas Day~

Christmas morning, the first thing the kids have to do is see if Santa and the reindeer ate what they left out for them! And since Ashton left that letter for Santa with a question for him the night before, he was anxious to see if he replied, and he did!! Santa left him this letter and stuck the little Santa Ashton made for his school "puppet show" on top of it!

Ashton was so excited to read the letter!

Here is Santa's answer to the question Ashton had (see previous post).....luckily Ashton didn't notice that Santa spelled his own name wrong! Ha ha!

Then the kids went to check out what was inside their stockings! My kids are funny, they are always very specific with what they'd like in their stockings and add that to their Santa lists! Here they are with their stocking loot.....

 Opening their "it" gift of the year! I love the reactions shown in each picture.

This is the excited and surprised shot....

And this is the "Ashton, you better not break it!" shot!

The kids wanted this thing SO bad, but we've had our share of robot or electronic dogs in the past (since we can't have a real one due to allergies, we've tried as many alternatives as possible!), so I wasn't too excited about the idea of another one! But, Santa was a pushover! I have to say, it is pretty cool, but I don't think they've touched it since Christmas week!

This was Mike's "big" gift, some Skullcandy headphones he had his eyes on! These things are amazing! I just feel a little bad that I've kind of adopted them as my own! The bass is crazy with these, I love them for working out with. In fact, I get so excited to put these on, I actually WANT to work out!

Santa brought me some things of my own too! Lots of chocolate and jewelry, two of my favorite things!!!

Mike actually missed most of the kids opening their presents because he was busy smoking and grilling a giant brisket and chicken wings for Christmas dinner with my family later that afternoon! We were so busy with getting all that ready, along with other food we were in charge of, that we forgot to take pictures! But, everything turned out so good, I think it was worth taking up the day making it! I think Mike's dream would actually be to open up some kind of barbecue restaurant! He really has a knack for it! Anyway, it was so fun spending the rest of our day with my family over at my parents' house. I love having so much family around now. Even my grandparents were able to be there! We ate, played games, and ate some more! It was a great Christmas!!! 

Christmas Eve {the Christmas part}

Ever since I can remember, we had the tradition to celebrate my birthday all day on Christmas Eve until after cake, then we switched over to Christmas Eve traditions. My parents joke that my birthday ends at 7 p.m. I was always okay with that, because more fun was about to begin! My parents, sister Adrianne and her family, and brother Cameron and his wife Aubrey came over to join us for birthday cake, and then the Christmas fun started! Usually we read the Nativity story and use my parents' old Nativity set to act it out. This year, the kids wanted to be in charge of it and act it out themselves. Since there are only 5 grandkids, the kids had to use some adults too. Mike and I were chosen by them to be Mary and Joseph, lucky us! :) Anyway, my dad read out of the scriptures, and pretty much chaos happened after that. It ended up being more of a comedy. I'm thinking next year we might want to just stick to the old way with the Nativity set! Ha ha! At least it was entertaining. You can get a little bit of an idea of how things went by these pictures.....

Kind of a freaky angel.....

and a CRAZY shepherd.....

After that craziness was over, the girls recited "Twas the night Before Christmas"

and Ashton performed the song he did for the school Christmas sing-a-round, "The Merry Hula", and also his Christmas "puppet show" he had done spur of the moment for the 2nd grade talent show! I forgot to get pictures of the puppet show though! (It was so spur of the moment at the school that I couldn't make it, but I so wish I had! I heard it was pretty entertaining! Ha ha!)

Then all of the kids got to open their traditional new pajamas! It's funny how excited they get for that! It was IMPOSSIBLE to get a normal picture of all of the cousins in their new pj's. They were all just too hyped!! This is the best I could do!

Here are just my kids in theirs! They got new slippers too!

The kids opening presents from Uncle Cameron and Aunt Aubrey!

Hugs to them!!

Then the kids opened their presents from Grandma and Grandpa! Brayden got a mall shopping spree from them!

And Ashton got what he wanted more than anything, Skylanders for the Xbox! He was just a little excited!

After everyone left, it was time to put some things out for Santa! The kids left out some toffee and eggnog for Santa, and some oats and water for the reindeer!

Ashton had disappeared for a while and came back with this note he wrote (on a paper towel for some reason?) with a question for Santa. We thought it was pretty cute.....I love how his little brain works!

I was able to sneak a picture after Santa came!

Between my birthday celebrations and our Christmas traditions that night, Christmas Eve always feels like 2 days in one, which makes it even more fun! It's definitely my favorite day of the year, and I love that it's one of my kids' favorites too! How many kids get to say that they get presents too on their mom's birthday?! :)

Christmas Eve {my birthday part}

Last year I kind of wasn't loving my birthday, but usually I do love that it is on Christmas Eve. To me, the positives outweigh the negatives. It really is a special day, and I love getting to celebrate MY special day on an already special day! This year, I just really wanted to do things for my birthday that the kids would enjoy. I chose one of our family's favorite restaurants, Chuck-a-Rama, for lunch! Seriously, as many restaurants as we've tried, this is a place we can all agree on, and on my birthday it wasn't crowded at all, we almost had the place to ourselves! I think we might have to make it a tradition every Christmas Eve! And, I would seriously pay full price there even if it was just to eat these.....

After lunch, we surprised the kids with a day at Boondocks, their favorite arcade! And as the birthday girl, I got a free day pass and tokens, which was a bonus! Ha ha! We all had a great time, and it wasn't crowded there at all either!

 We came home and I got to open my presents from Mike and the kids, then my parents and siblings came over for cake and to start our Christmas Eve traditions (which I will post about later!).

Mike always makes me my favorite German Chocolate cake! I always tell him he can make it easier on himself and use a cake mix, but he always insists on making it from scratch (which of course tastes better!!)!

Mike is always so thoughtful with gifts too! He knows how cold I always am, so he got me all things to keep me warm!!

And a portable phone charger, since he knows I'm bad at keeping my phone charged and it always dies at the worst times! I seriously love this thing!!!

Every year Mike has to cut out a slice of my cake to put aside for Ashton with no coconut on it, so my cake always has a little missing piece. It cracks me up, it's kind of like tradition now! :)

The next weekend, after the Christmas craziness was over, Mike took me out to a nice birthday dinner at a place called Mandarin in Bountiful. I loved that they had a mixture of different types of Asian dishes, and even some delicious curry dishes to satisfy my constant Indian craving! It was really really good and a fun way to top off my birthday celebrations! (I always forget to take pics at restaurants, I must be too into the food or something to think about it! Ha ha!)

 I had a really fun birthday! I can't believe I've had 36 of these! I have always loved having my birthday, but the last several years I haven't loved that I was getting older and never would even post my age anywhere. Now I feel like owning it. I had always heard that you really don't come into your own until your 30's, and I really feel like that is true, at least it is for me. I feel more comfortable with who I am, my faults and all, and  my priorities have shifted - what used to seem important just isn't anymore, and vice versa. I love my life, my family, and all of the hard times and good times that have gotten me to where I am now. Bring on the next 36 years! I can't wait to see what else life has to bring me!

For my birthday, along with a birthday card, my grandma sent me my birth announcement that she had held on to all of these years. I had never seen it before, so I thought it was really neat!

Pre-Christmas Fun!

Our December was jam packed with Christmas traditions and other Christmas fun. Even having sickness in our family off and on all month, we managed to fit in a lot! Get ready for tons of pics.....

The day after Thanksgiving is when we always put up our Christmas tree and all of our decorations!

Showing their "first Christmas" ornaments!

This is my very favorite...my Brayden and Ashton ornament!

All decorated! I love our tree - it's huge and a pain to put up, but always so worth it!!

We also have the tradition to help decorate my parents' tree! It's always so fun because they still use all of the same ornaments I grew up with!

That night we also had my parents open their present from us early so they could enjoy it whenever they wanted in the month.....a gift card to The Garden Cafe at the Grand America. We love the Grand America at Christmas time, and wanted my parents to check it out!

 Of course our elf Sammy came back to visit us for the month! He's a pretty mellow and considerate elf. I am so thankful for that, because I wouldn't love to clean up some of the messes I've seen other elves leave!

 In December we got so much snow and it was record breaking low temperatures, so we made it a habit to have hot chocolate to warm the kids up when they got home from school!

The kids decided one day to have a cheesy photo shoot, somewhat reenacting a photo shoot we did when they were toddlers! Ha ha!

 We visited the neighborhood we always do to see Christmas lights...it was pretty lame this year though, so we're up for suggestions if anyone has some good spots! :)

I got to do a service project at a shelter with the youth in our ward from Church. I know it's good to do service all year, but there's something extra special about getting to do it at Christmas time. It was a fun night!

Some different gifts we gave out.....

Mike had me make 20 small loaves of coconut bread to give out to people at work. This is the first time I've ever done that much baking at once, but luckily everything turned out okay!

Our elf left the kids stuff to make a variety of covered Oreos to hand out to their friends in the neighborhood. They had a lot of fun doing it!

Our gifts to the kids' teachers was personalized stamps. We have given this gift the last couple of years and it seems to be a hit! (Thanks to the idea from a teacher friend I have!)

Every year we usually decorate a big gingerbread house at my parents' house, but since we didn't get a chance this year, our elf left us stuff to make our own mini ones out of graham crackers. This is how we always did them growing up, so since I was a little more experienced, mine was the only one that turned out! Ha ha! 

 Ashton's giant house looked like it might stay together.....

then this happened! Oh well, at least they tasted good!

 We love seeing the spoof shows at The Off Broadway Theater downtown and have made it a tradition to see their Christmas one every year, just the last 2 years bringing the kids along! It's fun that they can enjoy them now too!

We have also made it a tradition to check out The Grand America Hotel at Christmas time. They have beautiful Christmas lights in their courtyard, beautiful trees all throughout the hotel, a giant gingerbread house to see, and a fun scavenger hunt with the decorated windows for the kids. We ended up running into my parents there, they actually almost literally ran into us in the parking garage! They were there to redeem their gift card from us, but had time before their reservations to hang out with us a bit!

Brayden's favorite window was of course the all pink fashion decorated one!

Every year in Brayden's dance class they perform a small in-studio Christmas dance. Here is her class after they did their dance!

I love getting to see the kids sing at school at their annual Christmas sing-a-round, however I didn't get to actually see them because the chorister stood right in front of both of my kids on each turn! I had them reenact it for me when they got home and they did great! Ha ha!

The last day of school before break, Brayden had a poem reading in her class for parents to come see. The whole class performed for us (and later for the school-wide talent show) "Twas the Night Before Christmas" which they had memorized, along with reciting individual poems each student had written.

That same day, we had Mike's company holiday party which was a luncheon at The Marriott downtown where the food is always amazing! Then, that night we had a fun time at an ugly sweater/white elephant party! Here we are in what we came up with!

It was such a fun month!!