A little more Christmas

All right. Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for.  The rest of Christmas with our fancy schmancy new camera.  I don't know if the picture quality is THAT much better (it will be once we learn to use it) but to actually take a picture the moment you want to take it?  It's amazing.  So needlesstosay, we went a little picture crazy and are having a lot of fun with out new camera.  So here we go!  Here's a few more shots of Christmas morning....

 One of Rachel's favorite gifts was a Checkers set from Josh.  She challenged everyone that came to visit that day and is actually quite good.

 Mr. Handsome

 Rach also got an "American Girl doll" (or a knockoff....we won't say which)  She was happy about that!

Don't you dare mess with this girl!

 Then with all of the new snow it was outside to shovel....

 New toys just wear you out sometimes...

 One of Trav's gifts was Lego Lord of the Rings Wii game.  I like this picture because Josh and Trav look so bored and Rachel is on the edge of her seat.  Kate has no clue what's going on except with her treats.  Truth is, I can't get those boys to stop playing that game now.

 More shoveling.....

 Playing our new game "Headbands" which is quite fun.

 Someone got sick of shoveling....I don't blame her.

 But daddy did find a way to make little snow caves for everyone.

 And there's always swinging in the snow...

 We had to go sledding too.  This picture is a total "winter baywatch' picture.  Mr. Maughan, you are handsome!

 I couldn't help taking a lot of pictures of this.  Too funny.  Especially Trav's face.

 After  a while the hill got too slippery and they couldn't walk back up it.  Josh will tell you how much fun that is.

 And the 3 monkey in their snow caves.

It was an awesome Christmas break.  Lots of food, family time, and snow.  Coughing couldn't even keep us down.  Happy 2013!

Christmas!!

Well, I've been a slacker and now I have to pay the price of sorting through all these pictures.  So, hold onto your hats and mittens and here we go!  The season doesn't officially start until you take a train ride to Temple Square to see the lights.  This is a tradition we started since we moved to Kaysville. The kids love it and every year I question why we do this to ourselves.  You'll find out why later....

 

We were happily waiting for the train to come......

 We had a blast zooming past all the cars and the best part is no seatbelts!

 We made it to Temple Square.  The lights were amazing as always.

 Josh wanted a green Hulk face.....

 We even headed over to city creek which was fun.  Especially the candy windows.

 Now this is where the story takes a turn for the worse.  We barely missed the trax train to go back to the station and we thought "Well, there will be another one in a few minutes.  We'll be okay."  The other train didn't come for like 20 minutes.  But we still thought "I'm sure they time it so the trax makes it on time to catch frontrunner.  We'll be okay."  Well, they don't time it.  We missed the frontrunner train by about 2 mintues which means we had to wait in the freezing cold for 53 mintues until the next train came. Yep, we had to wait until the 9:55 train and the kids had school in the morning.  And to make matters better....as soon as we got there, a lady was puking on the tracks.  That should have been an omen.  So the kids were staring at her, then Kate needed to go potty and experience the Grayhound station.  The only thing that kept us going was watching "kid history" on daddy's phone.  It was a long night......

 Onto happier things......we decorated the tree.....

 Our elf, Dasher, had a few games of his own.....

 And someone was caught on camera!  Rachel requested a picture of Santa for Christmas.  Boy was she surprised when he was caught in the act!

 Then we had a magical Christmas morning!  My kids are at the perfect ages for Christmas!  I wish it could always be like it was this year.

 As soon as Kate opened her stocking and saw a fruit by the foot she got to work....

 20 minutes later......The rest of us were opening presents and she was still going, foot by foot.....

 She finally decided to open a present but she's still looking longingly at the foot that's left.......

 Josh got his Hulk punching fists which came in handy to flatten those little bubble things that come in packages....

 Gross, I know but I had to prove I was there on Christmas too.

 The best gift Trav and I got for Christmas was a new fancy camera!!!!  So the rest of the Christmas pictures were taken with that beautiful little baby.  We've had the camera over a week and still haven't had to change the batteries.  That, in and of itself, is a Christmas miracle.  So now I have to figure out how to get those pictures on the computer and then you're in for a real treat.  A visual Christmas treat.  Oh the anticipation!!

But here's a couple others from the *blank* camera that I thought were cute. 

 And who says you can't shovel snow indoors?

Merry Christmas!!!

Just a little announcement........

 

The teams are now even, but we are SO excited for April. 

This boy really loves hot chocolate. I can tell already.

Kate-isms

To say the very least...there is never a dull moment when Kate is around.  She is a little firecracker that knows how to take charge and is way too smart for anyone's good.  But man, she is the cutest little thing you'll ever lay eyes on when she's in a good mood.  This little girl finally got her "big girl bed."  She is very proud of it and now everything has to be big (forks, drinks, car seats, whatever...) because she's not a baby anymore.

 

After her first night of being in the big girl bed she tip-toed into out bedroom the next morning and said "Surprise!"  She was so pleased.  Typically in the mornings she would yell as loud as she could from her crib "I want to get out!  Hurry Mom!"  over and over until I came.  It's a nice change.

 Problem is, it gets a little full when everyone's in it.  This girl has always been a little obsessed with books.  Okay, when I say a little I actually mean a lot.  Last week she was supposed to be napping and I kept hearing "bang bang bang!" coming from her room like something was hitting the wall.  Rach and I went in to investigate to find about 40 books piled high on her bed, falling over and hitting the wall.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  Some kids have blankets, or stuffed animals they can't sleep without.  She has to have a pile of books.

 We were happy for the big snow storm that came.  I guess we can finally admit that winter is coming.  I guess there are some good things about winter, they're just hard to find sometimes.  We spent the morning sledding.

 My favorite was when they decided to go down "penguin style" with no sled.  It looked so funny.  Rach would shoot down a hundred miles an hour. 

 I remember hearing when I was pregnant with Rachel that you should have a place to write down all of the funny things your kids say because you won't want to forget them.  So I've been doing that and keeping journals for all my kids.  Well, with Kate I'm having a hard time because pretty much everything that comes out of her mouth should be written in that book.  When the vocabulary of a grown up comes out of a 2 year old bodies mouth, of course it sounds funny.  And she's so reasonable too.  She uses big words (like "actually") correctly.

Yesterday we had the kids SEP's at the school to meet with their teachers and have them tell me how awesome they are.  I already knew all that.  When we were talking to Josh's teacher, Mrs. Perry, Kate interrupts and says, "Mrs. Perry!  Guess what?  I know how to spell muffin.  A-O-J-S."  Mrs.Perry was impressed and asked how old she was.  "I'm 2 but my birthday is in February.  I'm going to have a birthday cake.  Right now it's my dad's birthday but I'll be in February.  I know how to spell 'covered' too!  S-A-J-O."  This continued on throughout the whole meeting and Mrs. Perry thought Kate should jump right in to 5th grade.  She'd show those 5th graders a thing or two.  Then as were were walking out the door she said, "Mrs. Perry, the other day I said "Gosh!"" (but imagine it Napoleon Dynamite style)  Well, we were all laughing so hard, including the people next in line.

But what can you do when all that comes out of this little face?  Oh how I love that girl!

 Even though she's silly you'd better watch out.  Because nobody messes with this boy's little sister!