Good-Bye Peach Fuzz

McKay's first shave. McKay has been reluctant to let his peach fuzz mustache go--he has been quite proud of it. Tonight, much to our delight, McKay finally consented to shaving it off.

Once There Was A Snowman

Kayden kept waiting for it to snow so that we could build a snowman. Finally we had some snow so we were able to go outside one day to build our snowman. He wanted to name the snowman Buddy Link after our Christmas Elf so that the snowman could "watch Josh to make sure he is being nice".
While we were making the snowman, Kayden kept talking about all the things he was going to do when it got warm like have a picnic, play in the water, play soccer and so on. Man, for how long he had to wait for snow this year, he sure was wishing it away pretty fast!

Christmas Medley

Christmas 2011 was wonderful. We had all sorts of family visiting from Texas, California and Idaho. It was nice to be with family and celebrate the Christmas season together. We celebrated Christmas Eve at the White House (Jeremy's parents). The boys all got new matching pajamas courtesy of Grandma White and her sewing machine. Once they dawned their new jammies, we had a family talent show.

Jaxon and Kayden enjoying the night's entertainment.

Josh decided to tell everyone a story. He is one animated kid.

Kayden decided to reenact his favorite Wii game Zelda as the character Link. He is putting on his shield and preparing his sword.

Jaxon did a magic trick during the talent show. He threw a penny through a wall and it landed on the other side.

Josh then favored us with a few Christmas songs that he learned at school.

Kayden then read to us (in his own cute way) and showed us pictures of the Zelda walk through book. He carries it everywhere at Grandma White's house.

Finally Christmas morning arrived! Christmas landed on a Sunday this year so we decided to see what Santa brought us before church and then open presents after church. We told our boys we would be awake at 7:00. When 7:00 rolled around Christmas morning, our kids were all still snoozing away down in the basement. So Jeremy and I took showers and began getting ready for church. We finally had to go down and wake up the boys so they could see some Christmas before church. They are all set to go check out what Santa brought us in the above picture.

They had fun emptying their stockings and checking out the goods. Santa brought us a basketball hoop to put down in the basement.

Here are my handsome boys all decked out for church in their matching ties.

After church we opened presents. Josh thought for sure this present was a lump of coal. He was so funny about it--he was almost insulted. Instead it was a jar of bubblegum for his bubblegum machine that he had gotten for Christmas last year.

Jaxon opening presents.

McKay taking a peek at what is inside one of his presents. He got a cold weather sleeping bag for Christmas for his future scout camps.

Kayden was excited to get his own "iPod". (Really it is a LeapPad explorer.)

Kayden opening presents.

Jaxon so badly wanted to get the new Zelda Wii game this year. He was excited to get it. His little brothers were pretty excited too.

Kayden LOVED his new sword and shield (the cheapest present seems to be the present they love most).

Josh was decked out with BYU gear for Christmas this year. He got a new BYU basketball and some BYU basketball shorts. That boys loves those Cougars!

Josh opening a nice surprise. His gift was a new bike, put we couldn't fit it under the tree. So we wrapped up a box of fruit snacks with a note on it to go and look in the laundry room.

He was so excited about his bike. He was very specific about what kind of bike he wanted. He wanted one that had shocks on it just like his friend's and he was glad to see that it did.

Josh out taking his bike for a spin. (Note here that we have had ZERO snow this year. As much as I don't like to drive in the white stuff, it has been hard to have a cold winter with the snow lacking.)

They day after Christmas we went up to Soldier Hallow to do some snow tubing. The snow was lacking there as well, but they had plenty of the man made snow so we could still enjoy the tubing hill. In the above picture is Kellie and Brady (Jeremy's brother and his wife) along with Jaxon and his cousin Lachlan.

McKay and his cousin Marissa getting ready to take a ride down the hill.

Kayden and Jeremy taking a nice relaxing ride up the hill.

Josh playing in what little snow there was on the way up the hill. (See the mountain behind him has absolutely no snow.)

After tubing and lunch, we went back to Grandma Haacke's house to open more presents. I couldn't help but snap this picture. Kayden received a game for his LeapPad from his cousin Camron and therefore gave him a huge hug. Pretty darn cute.

I hope your holiday season was just as wonderful and memorable as ours. Merry Christmas! (Just a couple of weeks late.)

Skiing

We hit the slopes yesterday and enjoyed some skiing. It was the first time Josh had tried skiing and he liked it. (He liked ski school much better than going down the "big long mountain" with dad.) Jaxon usually is a snowboarder, but yesterday wanted to try skiing and he enjoyed it just as much as the snowboard. Here we are all together at the top of the slopes. It is one of the few times where one of us isn't on the ground.

Class Christmas Party

I was able to go and help Josh's class with their first grade Christmas class party. It was fun to watch him interact with the kids in his class and to watch him having fun doing all the Christmas activities.

Here he is frosting Christmas cookies with one of his friends in his class. Her name is Ella and she has a major crush on Josh. Josh is always telling me stories of how Ella is trying to kiss him.

This is the station that I helped with. It was a fun Christmas craft. Josh was way into it. You can tell he is really concentrating because his tongue is is sticking out ever so slightly. It was fun to be with Josh celebrating Christmas with his class.

Surprise!

Jeremy came home from work a few nights ago and told me he needed to talk to me but that I needed to sit down first. I was thinking something bad must have happened. Instead he told me, "I didn't mean to, but I bought a car today." I was totally shocked. He had wanted it to be a surprise but the anxiety of not telling me got the best of him and he let his surprise out. An hour later a new van was delivered to our door. The boys had no idea and boy were they excited.....that is until I told them that we would have to trade our old van for the new one. Josh jumped out of the new van and got in the old one and refused to get out:

He was crying saying how he like our old van and that he wouldn't remember our old house if we didn't have our old van. (I see no connection here, but that is what he said.) I explained to him that our old van was getting old and that there were some things that weren't working anymore and that it was time to trade it in for a new one.

Once he realized this and understood that there really were things that weren't working, he wanted to make sure that we could take all of the things out of the old van and put them in the new van. He gathered everything up (above) and joyfully put it all in the new van.

Here are the boys (old and young) in the new van. As you can see they were excited. Kayden especially wanted nothing more than to trade in the old for the new. It was such a funny night that I had to capture the moment.

School Sing-In

With the boys being at a new school this year, we have been able to enjoy the school's traditions. At Christmas time they invite the parents to school and the kids sing Christmas songs.

The first grade went first. Josh is slightly left of the center wearing a red and blue shirt. They sang "Up on the Housetop" and "Oh I Love Mrs. Santa Claus". Josh has been singing his songs all season long.

The 6th grade was next. They sang "Where Did They Hide my Presents?" and "Snowball Fight" both from a book of silly Christmas songs. McKay is smack in the middle upper right next to a really tall kid. (And I thought McKay was tall!)

The fourth grade went last and most of the parents had left so I moved up to the front. I kept trying to get Jaxon (top middle) to smile at me, but he wouldn't. So I started pulling faces at him. He then started to sing with his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to look at me. Stinker. They sang "Chocolate in my Stocking" and "Christmas Alphabet".

Kayden and I enjoyed all the Christmas music and Kayden especially enjoyed seeing his brothers at school.