Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve and the kids are just a little bit excited.  Just a little bit.  The presents under the tree have been rearranged at least 25 times by Carter and the ornaments have been rearranged at least that many times by Kate today.  Carter has even been heard saying things like, "I just can't take it anymore! Am I on the nice list or the naughty list?"  Well, I can say that he has mostly been on the nice list. Mostly.    Kate has literally been jumping up and down exclaiming, "I love Christmas! Do you love Christmas?" We had a fun day today full of making cut-out cookies, writing notes to Santa, putting reindeer food outside (glitter and oats), and listening to Christmas music.  This evening we had our traditional reading of the nativity while the kids acted it out.  Eli was supposed to be a shepherd but he kept his costume on for about one millisecond.  Also, there are no pictures of him because he is currently going through a phase where he wants to look at the screen on the back of the camera so I really can't get him to stay in front of the camera long enough to get any pictures.  Sigh.

When I tucked the kids into bed, I took their pictures and told them to show me how excited they are for Santa to come. Here's Carter being mature and sedate...

 Kate. Not so much.  As you can see, she really is super excited.

Our 8th Wedding Anniversary

Wendi and I were married in the Logan Temple on December 13, 2003. This little video I made tells the quick story of us starting at that time. It is only about 4 minutes long, but it is full of 8 years worth of memories and has the potential to have eternally more. The only reason why this can be is because of the covenants we have made in the temple. All our experiences and decisions in this life equate to where we end up when our life here ends, the ultimate destination being the Celestial Kingdom where our Father in Heaven resides. The only way to get there is by adhering to the covenants and promises made in the temple. And just like this video, our family begins and, in the end, is always influenced by the covenants made in the temple.

I am so grateful to have you as my wife Wendi. I am grateful for the memories and hope to have eternally more with you.

I love you Wendi!

Chad

Sad Gingerbread House

I always have such visions of what our gingerbread house will look like. This one pretty much failed as usual. Well, I guess it was a success in that it is actually standing. The icing just wasn't holding and so we said, "Ok, we'll quickly take a picture and then we'll just eat it!" But it actually stayed standing so we haven't eaten it yet. We did eat all the cute little Christmas trees and gingerbread people though in the 24 hours that it took to get the house to this point.

We missed having Macey's close by to make our house pieces for us but our version was much yummier I have to say.

Maybe next year the gingerbread house will turn out how I imagine it. Hmmm. We'll have to pray about that one.

School Time

Since there is a serious lack of acceptable preschools here, I am just doing a little preschool at home for Kate. Oh how I miss Teacher Jill...

Since I don't really know what I'm doing, we just pretend. No, really, we are reviewing letters which is pretty easy for Kate and working on writing them correctly. We are also really working on numbers since Kate can count out loud past 20 easily but has a hard time recognizing written numbers greater than 10. Actually, she kind of has an aversion to the number 10 as well. I have a hard time not getting frustrated but I'm trying to keep it fun and low key so she won't hate math for the rest of her life. Then we practice things like rhyming and then just do a craft or color. Eli loves to join in and I teach him a little on the side. He's actually getting pretty good at recognizing colors and counting too. It is a nice time for us to spend together twice a week.

A funny thing Eli did yesterday: He's into having me give him a hand to pull him up so he was laying on the kitchen floor saying, "Hand, mama. Hand." I was pretty much ignoring him though because I was busy so he got up, walked over to me and brought me back to his spot on the floor. Laid back down and put up his hand. "Hand, mama. Hand." What a character.

Eli's Birthday and A Christmas Tree

Happy 2nd birthday to our little Eli!  On Saturday we had a fun-filled day starting with our ward Christmas party brunch.  The ward had a cute nativity video using pictures they took of the primary kids a few weeks ago.  There is a link on youtube if you just type in Hanover Ward Nativity 2011.  It was really cute.  Kate was one of the sheep and Carter was the donkey.

After the ward party I surprised Carter and Kate by taking them to see a shortened version of the Nutcracker ballet.  Kate loved it and clapped vigorously but I think Carter only tolerated it.  It definitely wasn't Ballet West but it was a fun little outing with mom.

When we got home from the ballet, we took off for Vermont to cut our Christmas tree.  It was a lot easier than our usual excursion up a canyon in the snow.  We just had to drive to a Christmas tree farm, walk out in the field and cut it down.  There wasn't even any snow but boy, was it cold!  We had to hurry too because you know, it was 4:00 and bordering on total darkness.  It was actually completely dark by the time we got home.  The tree is different from our usual Idaho, mountain, Charlie Brown-type tree too but maybe in a good way.  It is a tradition Chad doesn't really love but one that I fiercely hang on to....

 After we got the tree we came home to have pizza for Eli's birthday dinner.  He didn't really tell me what he wanted for his birthday dinner so I just guessed and made something I know he likes.  I also made him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting since he LOVES chocolate.  I put some little trucks on top since he also loves trucks.  One of the trucks was a backhoe and another was a dump truck so I dug a little hole in the cake and put the "dirt" cake in the back of the dump truck.  Carter was like, "Wow Mom! How did you do that?"  Whoa, it was so hard and took like two seconds.  I guess the cakes I make fast are just as good or even better than the ones I spend hours on.  I'm just trying not to think of the amazing cake I made for Carter's second birthday.  Poor, third child, Eli.

 He thought the cake was pretty neat and enjoyed all the gifts he got was well.  we gave him a mini bee pillow pet.  Grandma and Papa B gave him Clifford the Big Red Dog with his friend, T-Bone and a book.  Grandma R. gave him four pop-up bug books (you know like, Snow Bugs, Birthday Bugs, Beach Bugs, and Peek-a-Boo Bugs).  He loved all his gifts.  I'm so glad it's so easy to please a two-year-old.

 Here he is enjoying his chocolate cake and "cream creams" (ice cream).

We love you so much little Boolie.