Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

We had such a wonderful Christmas. I wish I would have posted a little sooner though. So, Christmas Eve we went and spent with Morgan's parents and family in Sandy. It was definitely a full house, but it was fun. The boys had a blast seeing all their cousins and getting to play. Grandma and Papa got them some fun books to look at and some pajamas that they are so excited to wear every time they come out of the washer. :)Logan got a new dress shirt in his stocking and wore it Christmas Day, he was very handsome. Damon got him a Spiderman watch that he sported more of the day too, it's a little bit too big on his wrist and he just can't help himself when it comes to pushing the buttons, so the time on his watch isn't always terribly accurate.
Damon got a new pair of shoes (killer deal at Kohl's for about $3.00) in his stocking and they matched his Sunday outfit, so he got to wear his tennis shoes to church, but no more since they have now been in the dirt pile by our house. :)
Tragon got some socks in his stockings. I hadn't realized how much his feet had grown until I noticed that his heel on his sock was closer to the toe than the heel. :) And I was really surprised when the bigger size of jammies fit him. Damon is now passing clothes basically straight to Tragon instead of having to skip a size and wait a little longer. He sure has grown up fast. I guess I'm ready now for another baby to snuggle.
Damon, Daddy, and Logan were having fun with the Christmas Stockings. Logan used his like a hat and Damon and Morgan walked around the house for a while with them as booties.
We were all going to have a "sleepover" in the boys room Christmas Eve, but about the middle of the night it just wasn't working out, so I went back to my chair, Morgan took Tragon up to bed, and he did too. Still though, we were pretty wiped out the next day, as you can see by Morgan little cat nap before church.
Damon actually took the picture of me and Buddy. It was after several attempts though to get him not to put his thumb over the lens or the flash or something.
The boys love to help me make breakfast and most of the time they are pretty good with it. I think this was closer to New Years than Christmas. We were making some french puff pastry things for breakfast. They turned out pretty good, but I put a little too much cinnamon and sugar, so next time we'll know better.
They love to pull the chairs over and help me measure and dump and stir.
And like I said, most of the time they are pretty good, except for the time a few days ago when we were making apple/pear pie filling and Logan was taste testing the chopped apples and pears and came to a pear he didn't like and he spit it out in the pan with all the good apples and pears....I think I was able to get it all out, suffice it to say we didn't share those with the neighbors. :)
Logan is getting too old for me too fast. He wants to do everything on his own and can't understand why he just can't yet. I know I need to let go of some things, but sometimes I just want to do it all.
Logan and Damon are the best of buds even though they sometimes fight like cats and dogs. In the end they would be very bored if they didn't have each other. Most of the time Damon is willing to go along with Logan's scheme's but I've seen Damon really put his foot down too, or maybe I should say "sink his teeth in" when he disagrees or feels picked on. :)
Logan at the end of the New Year: 4 years old going on at least 7. His smiles and "good" manners are enough to allow him to do basically anything....if only he knew that. :) Most of the time he is a super helper and is very willing to help me around the house. He has a sneaky side to him and knows how to make mischief, but is still pretty sensitive to everything around him.
Damon: 3 years old going on....5. He thinks he needs to be in school with Buddy too. Good thing this new year we'll be doing "home preschool" He loves to play and still loves Thomas the Tank Engine. He's a great helper when he wants to be, but just as stubborn too. Again, when he uses his "good" manners and "nice" voice he could probably weasel anything out of me, but he's still perfecting that talent.
And Tragon at the end of the year is 17 1/2 months and ready to nursery, that's for sure. He's been going in with me on occasion when I do music time in there and has been really good. He'as a climber and jumper and follower of his big brothers. His vocabulary is exploding right now and he can communicate with us pretty well. He loves do be getting into things and mischief and has a sly little grin and glint in his eye when he does. He loves to be chased around, but is also a very independent person and is fine playing alone.

I love my family so much and this year has definitely been filled with it's challenges. We ended the year by watching "17 Miracles" and boy does that change your perspective and outlook for the next year. We are so grateful for what we have been blessed with and hope that we can continue to earn those blessings. Our goals for the new year center mainly on those things that are going to bring our family closer to our Savior and closer as a family.

We are excited for the New Year and all that it will bring along with it...especially our new baby boy who will hopefully make his appearance sooner rather than later. :) So, until next time....

Christmas Weekend

We have had so much fun having Daddy home for a couple days this holiday break. We've been playing lots of board games.And having lots of fun just being a family.
And enjoying some yummy treats (Nutella toast).
Candyland has been the favorite as of late. Morgan had Thursday and Friday off this week and so on Thursday I didn't have to get a babysitter for my dr. appt. or my dentist appt. and it was so nice. They played lots of fun games during that time.

In between my appointments we took the boys to do their own Christmas shopping at the dollar store. They have been earning money helping me do laundry and unload the dishwasher and they were pretty excited to take their money in. I'm not sure they quite understood the concept of giving their money away and there being less of that, or at least caring what that really meant. But it was really fun to see them pick stuff out for each other. I helped Tragon, but Logan was pretty in tune with what he thought his brothers would like. Damon still needed a few suggestions, but still picked out some awesome stuff and they'll have a couple surprises from each other. They did think it was pretty cool to hand the cashier all their quarters and coins.

We took them out to lunch at Chik-fil-a and they got to play in the little play place area for a while and really enjoyed that, but it was getting pretty crowded, so we came home to let Tragon get a good nap.

Thursday afternoon when Tragon woke up we were looking for something to do and since we have the pass of all passes and it was really windy and cold we decided to check out Trafalga...so was everyone else, there were no parking spots and nobody outside, so we knew it would be too crowded. We opted to go "real" bowling at the new Jack and Jill lanes in Lehi. As a bonus I had a buy one get one free game too. The boys loved it. They had cool little ramps that the boys could put the ball on and then push it off. They were giving Morgan quite a run for his money. :) They only really had the attention span for one game, so we had to get a little creative to keep them into for the second game. We let Tragon play on the second game, the first one he just watch absolutely fascinated. He would give his hand a big kiss and then slap that ball down the ramp, it was hilarious. We got it on video, but it was on my phone and not very good quality so I didn't upload it.

After bowing we went to their arcade place since I had a few dollars in my wallet. We did a big wheel spin for tickets after doing some kiddie ski ball and Logan was only one square away from the 1000 jackpot for tickets, he did end up with 50, so we thought, sweet, let's get some more tickets. Damon ended getting us another 25, and of courser Morgan had to try and show them how it was done and ended up with 15. Haha. They loved it. We let them pick out some little trinkets and treats at the ticket counter and they thought that was pretty cool.

We came home and had some dinner and then we watched a movie together, The Incredible's, which the boys will now watch and request, slowly they are started to watch the movies that they used to love before they got too "scary." It was so nice to just spend the day together and have some fun with Daddy. The boys are going to be sad when he has to go back to work on Tuesday.

On Friday morning we all pitched in and got the house cleaned...thanks to my super scrubber Morgan who did all the tubs, showers, and toilets for me. The weather was beautiful...a little disappointing in the sense that we were really hoping to do some sledding and tubing this break, but alas, you need snow for that. Anyway, there was no wind so we decided to go to the park. I had a few books to get at the library, so the boys dropped me off and I picked up the books and walked up to the park. It was good to get a little fresh air and take a little walk. As I was coming up to the park and I could see my boys (Morgan included) running around on the playground playing tag and hollering and laughing, I just thought to myself how lucky I am to have such a great husband and father who loves his kids and loves to be with them and to play. They were having a blast. We stayed for about 45 minutes before they all started getting a little too cold and were ready for lunch.

Later that afternoon after many rounds of Uno, Memory, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, among others we were starting to get a little bored. So we decided to binge a little again and took them to Del Taco for dinner so they could play in that play place (seriously, this is usually a once a year occasion so they were pretty stoked, but that just happens when I'm exhausted and don't feel like making dinner and it's the holidays:) After that we decided to stop by Costco, mostly just to kill time, but also to check TVs. Eventually we'll get one for the basement, in the meantime we're just keeping an eye on prices, but maybe next Christmas. :) After the boys had played on all the display toys it was time to go, so we loaded up, came home and got the kids to bed. Then we decided to watch King Kong. We are seriously lacking any Christmas specials, so I'll have to look for some good ones during the after Christmas sale time. Anyway, I made it through the first couple hours before I fell asleep, it's a good thing I usually end up sleeping on a chair anyway, so I could just stay there for the night.

I'm really excited for the rest of the holiday, but I'll do that in the next post, this one is getting kind of long, so until next time......Christmas Eve and Christmas Day......