December Playtime

Koen all ready for bed. Kael loves to jump and throw. He has to jump over the thresh holds in all the doors he passes and jump from the bottom step to the floor. He also loves to throw balls, especially in Dallin's basketball hoop. Kael also loves to snuggle a lot. He's our little snuggle bug. He's holding his bear that he cuddles with at night that Grandma Nield gave him when he was born.

Koen has his bear and blanket and can't wait to be tucked in.......so he can just get out and dump out all his toy bins and remove all his books from their shelves until his destruction has tuckered him out. THEN he crawls back into bed and goes down for the night.

Kael helping to shovel the driveway.

He does a pretty good job with a little of daddy's help.

Koen waiting his turn to shovel

Kael still at it.

Dressed up again to shovel the driveway with dad. This lately has been quite a regular activity.

Little Koey

Kael has learned to make a snowball and absolutely loves throwing them at whatever they happen to hit.

SANTA!!

Hannah & Aidan patiently waiting for Santa.

Aidan was the first to visit with Santa. He was getting impatient waiting just to clam up when confronted by the jolly icon. After I took this pic I was told we were only allowed to take 2 pics per group. So my other pic was of all the kids even though I wanted to get a shot of all the kids with Santa by themselves.


We did a test try with the twins and they did not like Santa on first impression, so only given one shot we threw the kids together and took it as they were. Aidan always cried in his pictures with Santa growing up until last year when he decided the guy was OK, seeing how he always was giving him presents every year (probably trying to get on Aidan's good side).

We ended up paying them to take a family shot hoping to get the kids all looking and smiling but.........well, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Brody and Klayton also saw Santa as well without a tear shed.

Afterwards we played on the kiddie quarter rides. Koen loved the big yellow bus. He stayed in it most of the time.

A cute close up of Hannah.

Aidan & Hannah heading up the Union Pacific.

Klayton riding the 3 wheeler.

Ground control to Major Kael! All I need now is a space background and lasers being shot past him :)

Brody!

Lights at Temple Square

A beautiful night to enjoy the lights at Temple Square.

Reed and beautiful wife Raquel.

US! The twins seemed to like being downtown. Millions of twinkling lights, crowds of people combined with several small choirs singing Christmas music scattered throughout the grounds and of course the trains and horses! Who wouldn't love downtown Salt Lake during the holidays.

Mike, Kyrsten, Klayton and Brody also enjoying the festive air.

Temple in the background with the manger in the foreground.

Tree Hunting and Stuff

I'm sitting down at Barry's computer working on a few things and happen to look over at Kael who has his headset on and ready for some geek action! He's apparently picking up some of his dad's habits!

Well, my last post was Thanksgiving. I woke up to find the boys sitting on top of the counter, poking their fingers into the carrot cake with BIG happy grins on their faces. We put all the pies and other deserts up on top of cupboards and the fridge, the night before, but this carrot cake, however, was apparently left in the path of our little predators.
Packed up the kids in Chuck (the Excursion) and went looking for a Christmas Tree. We were also watching my little niece for the weekend. Koen is in the corner trying to hide his face in his coat. He just woke up from his nap and we put his coat on him and belted him in. So yes, he was a little moody.
Hannah, Munchy, Dallin and Kael (in the background) looking for a good tree. The girl in the lot also gave the kids candy canes so that made the tree hunt even more fun!

Kael seems to like this tree.

Haileigh doin a little tree browsing herself.

Well we found a tree! The guy at the lot said we could have any 6' tree for $35 which was great because the price tag on this one was $50! So he loaded it up and we packed the kids back in Chuck and headed home.

Hannah is helping dad with stabilizing the tree and making sure it's going straight up and down. Now it kind of got chaotic from here because that's when the decorations broke out and stuff was everywhere I would be surprised if someone did find the camera so no further decorating pics were taken but we'll have the finished product up sometime before Christmas.

A few nights later Kael and Koen doing a little stretching before bed.

They've been trying to do summer salts but only get so far. When I try to help them over they get a little scared of the rolling over part. So they summer but not salt.......yet.

I believe this Yoga pose is called Salutations to the Moon, lol.

My little guys!

Kael just being cute and resting on my tummy.

Kael was having fun climbing all over me and was moving and trying not to touch the ground so I experimented with weird camera angles.

Thanksgiving '08

Thanksgiving, I believe, turned out pretty well. I spent the day in the kitchen since 8 am, making numerous dishes and deserts with the help of Barry, Reed & Raquel cleaning, and helping as well. I cooked my first turkey (21 lbs). When we took it out to baste it, Barry and I couldn't find the pop up thingy and soon discovered that I had put the turkey in upside down. We later found out that it's a better way to cook it because the white meat doesn't dry out. All in all, everything turned out very yummy and we all had a great time!

Kim and Bryan getting ready to eat.

Little Munchy
I absolutely love this little girl!

The twins getting tackled by uncle Bubba.

This is not a tradition, but somehow there was an arm wrestling challenge and next thing you know.......so positioned and ready with their coaches behind them..........

Michael wins!

David, the next contender. After a brief conversation relating to masculinity.....

David wins!

Munchy, Heather and David

Reed & Raquel
Mike and Kyrsten......and Brody

....a few more pics to come....