The days following Christmas!

The last few days I have had a helicopter whizzing past my head.



We have painted finger nails....alot.

Can you tell they are dogs? My artistic skills are not the best.

And we went to another reception in Logan for Jordan and Kolay. I forgot to take my camera so no pictures. It was a really nice reception with the most delicious food and amazing desserts. And because Jordan is so awesome it was all paid for by the owner of Real Salt Lake. How cool is that?

And now my Christmas vacation is over and I am back at work wishing I was still home with my kids. It will be easier next week when they are back in school so for now I am just going to dream about home and hope that gets me through.

Christmas Morning

Christmas was so much fun again this year. I love how the kids get so excited. This year seemed a little less crazy then last year. The kids (and Shane) each took turns opening their gifts so we were able to see everything that everybody got.

Everyone got so super spoiled again this year. Usually I lay out all of the gifts the kids got and take a picture of it. I didn't do it this year. There was just so much and I was more excited to play with the kids and visit with family then organize Christmas gifts. The kids got everything they wanted and more.

Hilda even got spoiled, she was such a good cat and just sat there watching everybody open their gifts. She even got some gifts of her own!

I have to just brag for a minute and say how spoiled I am. Santa is the most amazing guy ever. My Parents rate right up there with him. Thank you for everything Mom and Dad. I love you both very much! We appreciate everything you do for our kids, you really are the BEST!!!

P.S. I got a Nook Color for Christmas so if anyone else has one lets swap books....WAHOO!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day was busy, busy, busy at our house. We spent the afternoon preparing for our traditional Christmas Eve party. We made sugar cookies, Britton made Santa a Valentine cookie to see if he would eat it. The next morning Santa ate all of the cookies we left for him and only took a bite out of the Valentine cookie. I guess it just didn't taste right to him.


We also made caramel apples, I wish I would have gotten a picture of them because they turned out really nice this time. We made frog eye salad and rice krispy treats and white chocolate dipped oreo cookies and little thank you for coming gifts. We finished just in time to get in the shower and have people start arriving.







A huge thank you to everyone who was able to make it. It means a lot to us and as usual, we had a blast!

Once our company left it was time to open our Christmas Eve Jammies and get in bed so Santa could come!


I thought it was important to get a picture of the four generations.

This is what the basement looked like after Santa came but before the kids woke up.

Can you say SPOILED!!

Homemade Glider

Shayna came up with the idea of making a glider out of paper and tape. She was determined to make it fly so she asked Britton to help her out. Between the two of them they made a pretty amazing glider. The only rules are no gliding down the stairs and no gliding off of furniture....so far so good!

Lunch with Friends

Last week I got to go to lunch with my Friends. It was a great way to start out my Holiday season. I always enjoy getting together with them. I had to leave early so I could get home in time for Tyler to make it to his soccer game. We were not quite done visiting so we all ended up at my house to visit for a couple more hours. Thank you girls. I had a blast!



Thank you Amy for posting this picture so I could steal it off your blog :)

Teacher Gifts

The kids wanted to do a gift for their Teachers this year. I was trying to come up with something cheap but cute. I came across this idea. I can't remember where I saw it but I thought it was really cute and the kids approved. They are hot cocoa stir sticks. I bought some food coloring markers and drew on the marshmellows. Then we packaged them with a couple packets of hot cocoa.

To bad I'm not a very good artist. But I tried. Britton and Shay took the gifts to their teachers today so I guess we will see how well they were liked.

Written by Britton!

I broke the third grade sign language record. My class has been learning sign language for the past few months and today I was the president of the class which means I get in front of the class room and sign words. I signed words and the rest of the class has to figure out what I signed. The class has to say the word out loud and I line them up. No president has ever got the hole class lined up until today!

Visiting with Santa

UPDATE: Here are the professional pictures that were taken with santa....




We got to visit with Santa again this year. It was really cute this year too! My Mom and Shane were in Moab so they missed it but my Dad came along. Shayna wanted to give Santa a Christmas book, a picture that she drew and her wish list. Britton just gave him his wish list.

Santa was really fun this year. He liked Shayna's sweater and asked her if it was the one he made. He even looked at the tag to see if it was his work. When Shay handed him the book he told her how perfect it was. He said that he was going to the Hospital to visit the kids that have cancer and he was very excited to read the story to them. He told her she just made some kids very happy! And of course Santa loved Shay's picture and their wish lists.


Neither one of these pictures are very good quality. I took them with my phone. I'm excited to get the professional ones. I should be getting it any day now.

Afterwards my Dad took us to breakfast. It was really good and we had a great time just sitting and visiting. Thanks Dad! As soon as we were done eating we had to run home and get Britton ready for his soccer game. Unfortunately they lost.

After Soccer my Dad came over for dinner and we watched the rodeo. Good luck Cody and Jesse Wright.....were cheering for ya! Hopefully we will get to watch you in person next year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Winter

When we got home from Nebraska we had a ton of snow. The kids were too sick after our first snow storm so I wouldn't let them go out. When they saw all the snow from the second snow storm there was no way they were staying inside.


I didn't get that great of pictures. I didn't want to go out so I stood in the doorway, snapped a picture and went back in.

Nebraska

Tylers little brother, Jordan got married in Nebraska over Thanksgiving weekend. We left early Thanksgiving morning for our little adventure. We stayed the first night in Laramie Wyoming. I can't even begin to explain how cold it was. And the wind was INSANE. But the kids had fun swimming in the pool with their Cousins Beckham and Mckye. I took my camera with me and never took one picture. I actually lost my camera while on this trip and didn't find it until we unpacked when we got home. Tyler knew where the camera was the whole time, he just failed to inform me. All of the pictures are off of my Mother-in-Laws camera. Thank you Merilyn for sending them to me.

The next morning (Friday) we woke up bright and early. After breakfast we headed on to Grant Nebraska. Kolay's family are dog breeders so we went to her house to see all of the dogs. I couldn't believe how many they had. And they were all so cute. It was really hard to come home without a puppy.

Mckye, Jonny, Jordan, Kurt (Kolay's Dad) Tyler, Shayna, me, Merilyn (my Mother-in-Law) Britton and Beckham

We left Kolays house and went to the church for the wedding rehearsal and family dinner. Grant Nebraska is such a small town the we had to drive to Ogallala Nebraska for a Hotel. It was only about 20 minutes away. We got back to our Hotel room around 8:45 pm and let the kids go swimming. They were begging us the whole night and we don't get to do it often so we gave in and let them enjoy themselves.

We knew some bad weather was coming in so we wanted to try to leave a day earlier so Saturday morning we had to be checked out of our hotel room by 11:00. Nobody in Tyler's family, including us, thought about where we would get ready for the wedding if we all had to be checked out by 11:00. We didn't have to be to the church until 3:30 for pictures. Jordan and Kolay were nice enough to let us have their honeymoon suite to get ready in. The whole family piled into that room to get ready and let me just say it was CROWDED. Tyler and I were stressing over how dirty the place was getting. It's hard to keep a place clean and organized when there are so many people. Tyler went down to the front desk to ask them if they would clean the room again once we left if we left them a nice tip. Fortunately they would and some family members were able to pool some money together for the tip.

And we're off to the wedding.....

Tylers family. Carey, Kim, Shelley, Josh, Kolay, Jordan, Johnny, Tyler, Kelly, Dad and Mom Carver. Missing is Heidi and Mary. They were not able to make it.

The most handsome Ring Bearer I have ever seen! I just wish the picture didn't turn out so grainy.

The boys

The kiss! WAHOO!! Jordan's married! To a pretty fabulous girl I might add. I really love Kolay and her family are some of the nicest people I have met. I think they are both pretty lucky. Kolay's older sister made the cross that is in the back ground. It's beautiful.

Shayna was busy taking pictures to keep herself entertained while waiting for the wedding to begin.

Family Picture

My beautiful Niece Chamea with her little cousins.

Just a fraction of the kiddos.

We went to a different location for the reception. It was at the Fairgrounds. It was a good time. They had a really nice dinner for all of us and then there was dancing. Shayna was the best dancer out there. She was having so much fun.

I totally missed them cutting the cake. I had to take Shay to the restroom. I didn't know what was going on until Kolay came into the bathroom with cake all over her. ALL.OVER.HER. She had to rinse out her hair and wash her face....good times!

She got him back pretty good. He will be picking frosting out of his nose for days.

We left the reception sometime around 8:30 and headed back to the church to change our clothes. We had to drive back to Laramie, Wyoming for the night. We did it this way so we could have a head start on the weather that was supposed to be coming through. We made it to our room just after midnight and we all crashed.

We were up bright and early the next morning, went to breakfast, let the kids swim for a half hour and got ready for our drive home.

This is what we ran into.

luckily it didn't last that long and we didn't get into bad weather again until we got to Centerville, Utah. We were shocked by all the snow we came home to.

It was a really quick trip and we were all very tired when we got home but we had a great time and we are so glad we got to be a part of Jordan and Kolay's special day.