Ushering in December

What better way to start off the Christmas Season than with a Nativity Exhibit? 

When my friend told me about this big Nativity set up her stake was doing, I knew I HAD to go. Even if it was gonna be a bit crazy with the littlest one (Carter). 

Paul met us there after work, so thankfully I had help wrangling the kids. 

The exhibit was amazing. SO much work had gone into preparing the cultural hall for this event. There were musical performances in the background, a kid craft room, a nativity scavenger hunt for the kids (which my girls LOVED), a LIVE nativity with REAL animals (I was amazed), and over 350 nativity scenes set up. 

It was so much fun to walk around while listening to music and look at all the beautiful nativities. I sure hope they do this again next year. What a fun new family tradition.

There were so many unique nativities, all donated by people in the Burbank Stake. My friend told me they've been on 24 hour security since being set up a few days ago. I can understand why. Some of these nativities are probably very special to their owners, not to mention most were probably expensive.

This one was probably my most favorite of all of them.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but this one was no bigger than the size of a nickel.

Can you tell I like the circular nativities? I love how it all goes inward toward the baby Jesus.

No, I take it back. I think this had to be my favorite.

OH, but I really loved this one too. I can't decide!

This is my friend Jackie's nativity.

This one was made inside the shell of a coconut.

Oh, this one is so beautiful too!

And this one was hand sculpted by a friend of Paul's. They went to BYU together and then started their careers here in CA at the same job. They went to separate companies for a while. Now they both work at Dreamworks (in different departments, but still). 

This one is to prove I was there. Although I think next time I'll get a taller lady to take the picture. Don't care for the upshot so much.

Oh this was another favorite, although not at the very top of my list.

And seriously, that is a live donkey. TOO cool!

More live animals including a cute little pig.

The live nativity was so well done. I was amazed. And the baby that played Baby Jesus was the sweetest cutest little baby. He was looking all around and being so good. None of my babies would have been able to tolerate those conditions so well.

The coolest thing about the nativity was that as the wise men and shepherds came into the scene to see the Baby Jesus, I noticed they backed out of the stable instead of turning around and walking away. As if they didn't want to turn their back on Him. It was so neat. I could have stood their half the night if it wasn't for my restless boys.

Merry Christmas everyone! Let the festivities begin.

Blast from the Past

I came across this photo this morning while cleaning up a bit. I couldn't resist posting it, even at the expense of severely dating myself. This picture was from Paul's older brother's wedding day at the Mt. Timpanogas Temple (where Paul and I were also sealed). We weren't engaged yet, but we pretty much knew we were going to. We thought it would be "nice" of us to wait until after his parents got done with one wedding before stressing them with another. I think we told them at dinner the next night. HAHAHA..... 

We weren't officially engaged for a couple more months, but it's still a fun memory. 

Isn't he so cute!? I love this guy. Boy did I get lucky! 

Thanksgiving Week

Pop came in town. Hooray. He came in Monday night and headed to my brothers house. Tuesday morning I came to pick him up and we hung out for the day. Dad took me and the boys to IHOP, while the girls were in school. Then we went to the park and back home to hang out for a while. Wednesday I did a little Thanksgiving cooking in the morning and then went and picked up my Dad again to go shopping with the kids. My Dad totally spoiled the kids at Toys R Us. It was like a mini Christmas around here. The kids were elated though of course.

Ty with Kylan and Khloe.

Leah drew this picture of our family with Pop in it. I love that she included my Dad's mustache and his earring. That girl doesn't miss a thing.

We were planning on spending Thanksgiving Day with my Dad and my brother and his family, but Wednesday night my Dad got really sick (as was half of Tyler's house), so plans got changed and we ended staying at home for our big dinner. Heather and I still made all the same things we were planning on fixing, and then just split them up and ate at our own houses. It was like dividing up left overs before the meal started. It was sad to not all be together on Thanksgiving Day, but we made the best of it and still had a really fun day.

Dinner at home. We ate while Carter was napping and I must admit, it made it quite relaxing for me.

Leah has fallen in love with pumpkin pie. She had some at school last week and was begging me to make one for Thanksgiving. She couldn't wait until dinner was over to dive in. 

One of Carter's gifts from Pop. "Hulk Smash" hands.

Friday I opted out of Black Friday shopping and instead spent the day relaxing and getting my Christmas decorations up. I loved it. Paul took Brandon and Leah to see "Wreck it Ralph" (Ashlyn had already seen it) while me and Ashlyn (and Carter after he woke up from his nap) worked on getting the house in the holiday spirit. We of course saved plenty of ornaments for the other two to put on the tree once they got home. Later that night, I went out with my SIL Heather and her two boys to go see "Rise of the Guardians" (great movie btw). 

 And finally, after almost 12 years of marriage, I have a nice Christmas Tree. One that I really truly love. Our previous one was a $17.00 tree from Target we got when we were newly married. 

So you can guess how excited I am to have this one!

The last few days

This months theme was "Christmas Tags" and since I can't count, I ended up with enough for my group, but none for me. At least I can make myself more if I want to.

There has been a NASTY flu bug going around and this little guy has caught it. He woke up Wednesday (middle of night) having thrown up in bed. I changed him and his sheets and rocked him. He went back to bed. All day Wednesday he clung to me and we mostly sat on the couch snuggling and watching cartoons. He threw up a few more times that day and I was hoping that was the worst of it.

Thursday he seemed to be doing better, so I headed out with my plans to meet Paul for lunch. He was cranky most of the time there. We came home, I put him down for a nap and he woke up with a fever. Then he threw up...again....when we were almost out of the "24 hours since last throw up" stage. So the clock started over.  That night he woke up at least 4-5 times and threw up in bed around 11:30pm. Finally calmed down around 2 am and I got a few hours of sleep (missing my Friday morning spin class to get them). 

Friday. He seemed pretty good in the morning. Even helped me make pancakes for the kids (see picture below). But then he got real cranky and sensitive about everything and insisted on me sitting by him all morning, so I know we aren't completely out of the woods yet. Currently he is napping and hasn't thrown up since last night. So I'm crossing my fingers that it's finally coming to an end. 

Sad little picture huh!

I thought a few m&m's would cheer him up. He didn't even want them. That's how you know he's STILL not feeling well.

But he's still pretty cute helping me flip pancakes. Even though it makes me a nervous mess having him that close to a hot stove. Don't worry, I monitor him very closely.

Today the girls were out of school for Parent/Teacher conferences. And lest you think they are always happy and playing nicely and doing fun things together, they're not. They are playing nicely here because both are grounded all day for not picking up their room after the 100th time of me asking them to. So they have no access to electronics all day.

But on the plus side of it, it has caused them get their ponies out that they haven't played with in quite some time. 

And maybe they didn't deserve to get to do a craft, but it kept them happy for a while this morning while I attended to their cranky baby brother.

(SIDE NOTE: I think my grounding them has done wonders today. As I'm typing this, I hear Leah say to Ashlyn, "What a fun day we are having. I mean, we got grounded, but we're still having lots of fun. Mom: zero, Kids: one)

I Love Disneyland

A couple of months ago my friend Becky texted me and said, "Hey wanna go to Disney"? Well DUH....of course I want to go to Disney. They have Silver Passes since Hyrum works for Disney, so they were able to get us in free. It took a bit of planning, finding a date we could both go and sitters that could watch our kids that long, but it all worked out in the end and we had an AMAZING time. 

It was great day at the park. The lines were a bit long, but not terrible and really WHO CARED? We didn't have our kids. It was a piece of cake standing in line. In fact, it was even fun. We were in line at Space Mountain for a solid hour, but we got to talking about our most embarrassing moments and we were dying laughing. I think Becky ended up on the floor a few times from hysterics and I was in tears at one point. Funny enough, they all had great stories to tell and I couldn't think of a single one. Lame huh! I'm quite sure I have some, I just couldn't think of any. Or maybe I'm just not too good at telling stories so even if I had any, they wouldn't have made anyone laugh.

We spent a little bit of time at California Adventure and went on an Aviator ride. Then, of course we had to walk through Cars Land and Radiator Springs. Then we got some dinner at Disney and hit up Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, Star Tours, and Captain EO.

On the way out we stopped at a yummy ice cream shop that we've always wanted to try out but never have because honestly by the time you are walking out of the park with kids, they are on meltdown mode.

We had to stop and give respect to Hyrum's latest movie "Wreck it Ralph". 

This was right before we left while we were waiting for the guys. Christmas at Disney is so fun. Thanks Osmond's for the awesome day. We had such a wonderful time.