Christmas Eve-Eve

My family got together on the 23rd for a scrumptious meal... Ham, mashed potatoes, shrimp, cheese fondue, and more. We stuffed ourselves silly and then watched the kids open one present each. Chico and his three cousins each got legos.  Nelmo got a cool baby toy. He didn't seem to like it much though... ;)

After the kids opened their presents we did our sibling gift exchange, sat around and chatted and talked. Then we sang Christmas Songs for a good long time.  I really enjoyed that part... we were all harmonizing really well.  I didn't get to sing in ward choir this year so it was nice to have a time to get to sing.

After we sang we acted out the nativity.  It wasn't really a reverent activity at first.  The costumes were shabby and thrown together.  But it works and it was fun. :)

Cutest little angel

Sweet little Shepard

I'm not sure if he was a Shepard or a ninja.

Brent and I were Mary and Joseph.  We weren't trying to steal the limelight or anything, I just didn't trust any of the kids to hold Nelmo.  He was the obvious choice to play Baby Jesus, so Brent and I got to be Mary and Joseph.

Chico was originally an angel.

But then we think he decided to change roles and be John the Baptist instead. :)

My parents were holding Nelmo and getting great smiles from him. So I went behind the couch and caught this picture right before he stopped smiling for them.  He's good at getting people to fall in love with him.

Our Weekend with the Rebel

It wasn't a weekend with a rebellious person (unless you count Chico when he's throwing a temper tantrum). No, I'm talking about the Canon Rebel.  Our other camera.  You see, we have two DSLR cameras.  The rebel was our first one, and then we got the 5D. So we hardly ever shoot with the rebel anymore.  I mean, why would you when you have a 5D??  Well, we were off to go to IKEA and the BYU art exhibit and I grabbed the Rebel because I just didn't feel like luggin around the big old heavy 5D.  You know, we really need to give the Rebel a little more credit, it takes pretty good pictures still, it's just not quite as good in low light and the quality isn't quite as good.  But I think we still got some nice pictures from this weekend:

On with the story!

Sweden has a special place in our hearts.  Brent served an LDS mission in Sweden for two years and then on our honeymoon we spent 10 days in Sweden.  Well, IKEA makes Swedish meatballs just like Brent remembers them.  They also serve Princess Cake, which is a fond memory for me from Sweden.

We let Chico get an adult serving of meatballs.  Yes, he ate all of them.  It's safe to bet that besides candy, meatballs are Chico's favorite food.

He even saved a little room for a slice of Princess Cake. :)

After chowing down we went downstairs and bought some food from their Swedish Market... I can't spell it all in Swedish so I'll say it in English. Lingonberry Jam, Cracker Bread, Malibou Chocolate, and Rye Bread. Then we hopped back in the car and continued our voyage to Provo. We shouldn't have taken Chico to the exhibit at BYU, we'll have to go back alone to truly enjoy it. Besides the fact that he doesn't know how to whisper, he was crawling around with his boots on his hands like Curious George does in an episode we've seen way too many times, oh and the place echoes. Yeah, it was embarrassing.

On the way back Nelmo was very mad to be in his carseat and was screaming so we got off the freeway so I could feed him. After I was done we were waiting at a light to turn and a lady behind us rear ended us. It felt like she hit us HARD but she was going under 5 mph and no damage was done... kinda weird that it would feel like that. We got back on the road and visited Brent's sister Heidi. As always Chico had fun terrorizing her condo. He was really cute though when she was showing him the nativity. I'm so glad Brent got this picture it is one of my new favorites:

 

Next morning was a Sunday so I made waffles! I'm so glad oranges are a good price right now because we get to eat waffles our favorite way! You first put butter, then powdered sugar, and then you squeeze an orange over the powdered sugar. Yum! I's the best!



the rest of these are just random ones from my lazy Sunday:


 

 Somebody call the fashion police!

 

(Chico had been grumpy off and on that day. They were going to a primary activity that night and we didn't feel like fighting him about what he wore. That's what he wanted to wear so, so be it! (I didn't get to go because I'm still sick) 

Even though his fashion sense is a bit off, he's still one of the cutest kids around.
The other cutest kid around is our long and chubby Nelmo. See how much he loves me? He was looking at me in all those pics.:) Last night for FHE Brent taught an awesome lesson about Christmas after he finished he said, "and now Mommy will be in charge of the game." I was put on the spot but I must have been inspired because I had the idea to play "Pictionary" for the game. It was so much fun to see Charlie guessing the things we were drawing. We were amazed at the things he was able to identify.
After a couple minutes he stole the pen and started drawing things for us.  

At first we were guessing what he was drawing and he'd agree that indeed, that WAS what he had been drawing, lol. But then he started telling us what he was drawing. I think he drew every member of our extended family, and mickey mouse and all the clubhouse characters. It was so funny. We took a picture of his drawings, they're so adorable! (he didn't draw the lion and sun, that was Brent. Each little squiggle on the page represents a different person or character. How funny and cute is that!?) 

After FHE we watch "It's A Wonderful Life".  That was my first time seeing it all the way through. I LOVED it! It was such a good message!

shoveling

For some shoveling snow is work. For others it is sheer joy. And one doesn't only need to use a shovel. An excavator can work just fine... Such beautiful faces my boys have. I love how Brent captured these pictures. Oh, did you think I had taken those pictures? No way, I was staying where it was warm with Nelmo.

remember this guy?

Pictures of Chico have been missing from this blog a bit lately. He's still around and cute as ever. Here's some proof:

Funny story: Randomly one day Chico walked up to one of the ornaments on the tree and was looking at his reflection and he said in his most adorable voice, "Hello." 

Wish I could have caught it on video. Maybe I can get him to do it again... he's seen me re-enact it for people enough that he's jokingly done it a few times since then.

"Mitey Mouse" as Chico says it. He loves going upstairs and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Seeing Mickey at stores... on sweaters... on his nightlight... it just brings him joy.

We've been doing some fun things this season but my list and plan I had is getting thwarted by sickness! We all (yes, all four of us) have a nasty cold. Last weekend's plans had to be changed and if we're not better by Friday I'll be very put out. Anyway, we're still having fun though. We're reading this book: The Christmas Chronicles by Tim Slover. They played it on Classical 89 last year and they are doing it again this year. We listened to it last year and loved it so much that we decided to buy our own copy. It's kinda like the biography of Santa Claus. It's fun to read.  You can listen to the episodes here.  I kinda wish we had bought the audio version, he reads it much better than me and my voice is getting tired.

I don't have a picture of our Christmas tree in it's entirety yet, still have to make a popcorn chain with Brent and then it will be done. We were given this tree when my grandparent's moved into a retirement center. It's big and beautiful.  Maybe someday we'll buy real trees, but for now this is fun.

The other day Brent's co-worker let him borrow his macro lens. He brought it home and we had fun playing with it. I gotta get me one of those! They're fun! With it I took pictures of our special ornaments that Brent's mom gives to the kids on their first Christmas. 

Nelmo's:  

Chico's:

 

And she gave us ours on our first Christmas:

Blessing Pictures

Occasionaly Nelmo likes to break out his white tuxedo, you know, for special events. He does look rather dashing in it. I do believe his bow tie is almost as cute as he is. Almost.

Is it just me, or do these pictures just show what a sweet, patient, angel we have living in our home right now?  We are so grateful for the blessing that he is to our family.

while I'm thinking of it

So I have tons of pictures to post from the last few weeks but tonight we had a primary class party and I wanted to write about it.
We had Brent's eleven year old primary class over tonight for a party.  They are such good kids, we love them so much.  We fed them Corn Dogs and Doritos and I threw a bag of baby carrots on the table for some nutrition. :)  Then we threw on our coats and walked around to some of our neighbor's houses and caroled to them.  I've always wanted to go caroling and this was our perfect opportunity because kids make it so much fun.  Our neighbors seemed to really love it.  This one couple invited us into their home and fed us homemade mint truffles and showed us their awesome 100 year old home.  They had beautiful Christmas Decorations and they turned off the lights at one point to show them off better and all the kids in unison went, "oooooohhh!".  Us adults really got a kick out of it. 
We're gonna have to go again this December.  It was awesome!  Another fun part of entertaining kids as guests is for some reason y ou don't feel as worried about having the house spotless and looking your best and stuff.  Why is that?  Not sure, but it's nice.  I miss Primary, I can't wait until they call me in there  again someday. :)

So our tree is up, our house is decorated, and we've gone caroling.  Doing pretty good on our list so far! (see post below).  I've planned and helped plan and attended FIVE parties in the last five days.  Ward party, Nelmo's "blessing-fest Sunday", Brent's class party, and two family parties that I attended but thankfully didn't have to plan.  I'm pooped!

Thanksgiving 2010

Brent was in love with this Turkey. The flavor was so good you didn't even need gravy, and was sliced really thick. Apparently the reason it was sliced so thick was because the electric slicer thingy broke so Nate had to use a knife. Brent feels like that was a happy accident that should be repeated in the future. These sweet potatoes don't look so sweet, but they tasted really good! Brent and I peeled 15 pounds of potatoes. I don't know why we thought 18 people (6 of which were kids) would eat that many potatoes... oh well! We had tons of leftovers!

My awesome sister in laws...

Chico's best friend happens to be his cousin. It's so fun. His cousin called has called Chico a few times to see if he can play. They're only 2! How cute and funny is that!? Brent went outside and took these awesome photos from his Dad's house up by the "B".