we made it

Phew, we made it through 2011.

I say that for several, big reasons.

I'm  grateful for the tender mercies we've had this year.  

There have been many.

I'm also happy to say, that I made it taking a picture every. single. day.  

Sometimes it was really easy, sometimes it was a lot harder.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do it again for 2012, but it will be something similar (and I know I really need to decide ASAP!).  I'm making a book with our daily adventures, and I'll show it to you as soon as its printed.

Until then, here's a few more of our recent POTD's:

The Sunday paper with all of the Christmas ads:

Sliding down the stairs:

Crashed on the floor:

Kaden helped in Primary:

 Buddy was around again this year...so fun!

A new holiday popcorn recipe I tried:

Kyle went to Ifly:

 We did those chocolate advent calendars:

 I helped with gingerbread houses in Kaden's class:

I don't know what he'd been eating, but it was obviously so good that he had to lick the plate clean:

Happy New Year!  

Things are looking up around here, and we're looking forward to seeing what the new year has in store for our little family!

christmas

Our little alarm clocks came running in our room at 5:30am on Christmas morning.  We had them sit at the top of the stairs when Daddy went downstairs to turn on the lights and make sure that Santa had come.

They were so excited to see that Santa had brought new bikes, especially since they hadn't even asked for them (according to Kaden):

So fun!  

Kaden was dying for an Axis and Allies board game, and literally jumped for joy when he opened it.  

Bosten has been talking about a Cosmo (BYU's mascot) pillow pet.

Daddy got a playstation3, which everyone was excited about.

We opened gifts, made breakfast, and got ready for church (complete with matching ties for all of the boys...and I didn't get a picture!).

We went down to my parent's ward with my entire family, and then back to their house for lunch/dinner and gifts.

In addition to my horrible headache, we noticed that Bosten was starting to fade.  He went from this...

to this...

and so we decided to call it a day...and ended up like this...

...right before he got sick in the car.  I will spare you the details, but it wasn't pretty.  We got him home, gave him a bath, and then he got sick again.  Poor baby.  Poor Mama, because I got it too.  It was a miserable 24-36 hours.

Thankfully, no one else got it and we had a great Christmas!

christmas eve

Kyle happened to have Christmas Eve off, which was really nice.  We went to lunch at Red Robin and then to see the new Chipmonks movie.  I can't say it was my favorite, but the boys loved it (and that's what matters).

Then, it was off to Uncle Ryan's house to hang out with Ryan, Kerry, Tanner, Colby, Sadie, and Grandma.  We had a great time hanging out, having dinner, a Christmas FHE, playing games, etc. 

We came home to open one gift and get ready for bed.  Kaden had made a picture to put with our cookies and milk.  He decided that his room would be a good place to put them (so he'd be the first to know if Santa came or not).  Cute boy.

The gift we opened?  New jammies!

Silly boys!

Then it was off to bed!

merry christmas!

here to there

Kaden's school had a food drive a couple of weeks ago.  He was excited about it, and took a couple of cans every day in his backpack.  He thought it was pretty cool that the winning grade got a donut party, but he also thought it was great that someone wouldn't be hungry for Christmas.  At the last minute, the 3rd grade beat out the Kindergarten for the donut party.  He was a little bummed, but quickly got over it when Kyle told him he'd take him to the food bank and show him where all of the stuff collected from the school ended up.

They got to look around, help one of the workers do a job, and even found one of the cans that we'd taken to school!  He was completely thrilled about the whole thing, and what a great experience for him.  Kyle is a good daddy.

a family tradition

When Kyle and I got married, we decided that we wanted one of our family traditions to be a Christmas ornament every year.  Hopefully, it would represent something that happened during the year or somewhere we'd been, etc.  

Here's ours for this year:

Kaden mastered riding his bike this summer without training wheels:

Kyle decided I needed a tow truck, since I backed into someone in the Costco parking lot:

 Bosten got a chocolate milk cow.  Its funny he doesn't turn into chocolate milk!

 Kyle's ornament was sentimental.  You can't really see what it says, but it means something to us.

After the tree gets set up, the new ornaments are the first ones on the tree for the year.  Its been a fun tradition, especially when we get all the previous ones out and talk about the meaning behind them.

the lights at temple square

We finally made it down to see the lights at Temple Square.  It was even more fun that Aunt Debbie was here to go with us, along with my parents and sister (and her kids).  We thought it would be freezing and packed, but actually, it wasn't too bad.

It was a lot of fun, and the boys (especially Kaden) really loved it.

On the way back to the car, we checked out the giant gingerbread cookie machine inside Deseret Book.  Pretty cool and the cookies were good too!