Santa's Visit!

A visit from Santa on Christmas Eve. My sister-in-law's mother-in-law (got that!) arranged for Santa to come visit us and bring a goody bag. It was fun and the kids LOVED it. He even told my niece to pull his beard to prove it was real.

Preston playing with presents from Santa.

Kate checking out her new kitchen from Santa. And if you ask her what she got from Santa she will tell you candy. What about the kitchen??!

Kate was carrying her "heavy" present to me to open and this picture was too funny. I loved that she was wearing fairy wings- from Marci- while doing it and making such a cute face.

Jared, Marci, Sara and I did this a lot this last week. We were "laptopping" as we call it in my family. We usually were playing games, facebooking, blogging or if you were Marci playing random trivia games. ha! We were gone for a long time to the wedding and for the holidays so our suburban was packed to the top- even with the 3rd seat down- on our way home. We got home to LOTS of slush and snow in our development. It was interesting moving our Honda from our driveway to a parking spot. It got stuck and so we had to dig it out and then another neighbor was stuck so Kyle helped him too. Good thing the snow is melting.

Jeff's Wedding

Jeff and Sadie are married! COLD weather, but beautiful day with blue skies.

The family
The luncheon at Sadie's parents' sales arena/barn.

The siblings with the handsome groom at the reception.
L-R: Jared, Sara, Jeff, Heidi, Jeni and Marci (youngest to oldest)
Our eyes look weird b/c we all had red eyes and I went to fix them and they turned out even weirder!

The grandkids in matching reds. Sadie's colors were red, gold and brown. My Mom made the girls' dresses- so cute!
L-R: Carter, Paige, Aubree holding Preston and Kate

She got Jeff good with the cake! The reception was at Sadie's parents house.

Wedding over, Christmas to go

We are back (well back to my parents house). Jeff and Sadie's wedding was very nice. It was sunny and blue skies the morning of their wedding. The reception was the same night as their wedding. They both were beautiful and SO in love. :) I will post pictures of the wedding and reception when we get home. The roads were okay. The worst roads were from Bellevue to Idaho. Once we reached Idaho the roads were bare. It was so much fun to see all our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who came to the wedding. We all stayed in the same hotel and that made it even more fun. We made late night shopping trips and had fun chatting sessions. Good times.

We went tubing today behind the four-wheeler (it was tons of fun!), played games, read books and hung out at my parent's house. It was nice not to be traveling in the car. :) Now onto Christmas. We are spending Christmas eve and Christmas morning with Kyle's family. Then we'll come back to my parent's house Christmas afternoon and leave to go back home on Saturday.

A little of this and a little of that

We have been busy getting ready to leave soon for Jeff's wedding this weekend in Idaho Falls and getting everything done for Christmas since we aren't coming back here until after Christmas. This weekend should be interesting for traveling- lots of snow. We are just hoping there aren't too many road closures.

I've been making Almond Roca (yummy recipe from my co-worker, she's the dentist's wife) and lots of candy coated popcorn (coated with almond bark) for various friends and people at church.

I've been trying to convince a 3 1/2 year old that we can't leave tonight for Jeff and Sadie's wedding because Daddy has to work tomorrow before we can leave. She was NOT happy with that answer and I was tired of hearing her whine and cry about it all night tonight.

After Kyle got home from work today, he helped Kate build a snowman and an igloo- her request, random I know. We got a couple inches of snow this afternoon and tonight. We may get more so we'll see. Having a 3 yr old SO excited about the snow makes it so much more fun.

Preston is a book worm. He loves to look at books. Preston will even bring a book to you so you can read it to him. Kate loves books too so we read lots of them at our house.

Preston checking out this man called Santa. He wouldn't stop staring at him. It was hilarious! I was amazed he was fine with him. Kate screamed with her first Santa visit.

Kate not scared anymore of Santa. :) She was excited to get a candy cane and still talks about how Santa came to her Church. She thinks he is still there. I have to remind her that he flew back to the North Pole to get ready for Christmas. wink, wink.

We attempted to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers for Family Night. This is our little pathetic house. :) I needed stronger "glue". It kept collapsing, oh well.

Code Adam

This morning we went to Walmart to get some things. Kate wanted to walk so I let her only if she stayed with me. Well, we were looking at toys and Kate was at an end cap looking at books. I was just around the corner from her and I thought she knew where I was and I was fine with her looking at the books. A couple minutes later, I walked around the corner to get her and she was GONE. I called her name and started looking up and down other aisles and couldn't find her anywhere. When this has happened before I quickly find her, but this time all the aisles were empty!!! I went in panic mode. Luckily there were two Walmart people nearby (I think one was an asst. manager) and I quickly asked for their help in finding my daughter. I immediately thought the worst thinking someone had kidnapped her. I yelled Kate's name and the man told me he needed a description. I quickly gave it to him, but kept yelling Kate's name. And I mean yelling it. The man kept saying "ma'am, we will help you", but I really think he wanted me to stop yelling. :) At this point, I didn't care what he said because I was so scared she was gone! Everyone was looking at me, but I didn't care. (It's funny what you'll do in situations like these and you don't care what others think!) Anyway, I overheard on the intercom "code Adam cancelled" and then I knew she was found b/c I knew what code Adam meant (it means that a child is lost). Phew! I walked with the worker up to the front to get Kate and on the way this mom with two kids in her cart asked if that was my girl and I said "yes". She said she found her running down an aisle crying so she took her up front and she knew how I felt. I gave her a hug for helping me. When I got to Kate I gave her a hug and told her I was glad they found her. In the car on the way home Kate told me she was running trying to find me and the lady helped her. She said she was nice and gave her a small chair to sit in. On the way home, we stopped at Panda Express to get "chicken and noodles" for lunch because Kate has been wanting them and today she can have them or whatever else she wants! I'm glad she is safe.

"Bless your beautiful hide"

Us girls (my Mom and sisters) met up in Bellevue on Friday night for our Girls Night Out tradition (we try to do something every year). We spent some time shopping, eating at Z-tayas and then went to Seattle's 5th Ave Theater to watch the musical 7 Brides for 7 Brothers! It was fun and I got in trouble for taking these pictures inside the theater (oops!). We all liked it, Sara fell asleep for the last 10 minutes, but overall we thought it was funny and good. Marci LOVES this movie so she was the most excited. My Mom, Sara and Jeni drove back to Mattawa that night so they didn't get home until 2 am! For once, I had the short drive home (20 min). :)

Welcome Home Car

Our Honda is finally home safe and sound. :) It's been in the transmission shop for over 2 weeks (granted one week was half gone with the holidays) but we are so glad to have it back. For a pretty penny we got a rebuilt transmission. We went to pick it up Monday night, but on their test drive they heard a clunking noise so they kept it to find the problem. So finally last night we went to pick it up and it was done. No more waking kids up and putting them in a cold car to take Kyle to work if I wanted the car. No more being stranded at home if I really want to leave. Yipee!

We bought out christmas tree last night from Top Foods of all places. It's beautiful if I must say so myself. :) It's on the bushy side, but that's okay. Kate helped me decorate it while Kyle was at mutual. Our house is filled with the lovely pine tree scent and it's wonderful. Mmmmmm....

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend at my parents house. We ate lots of yummy food for turkey day, we helped Jeff and Sadie with wedding stuff, us girls went shopping on Black Friday, I got sick, Preston got sicker, my brother-in-law got strep throat, 8 family members ran in a 5k race on thanksgiving morning (including me- it was cold!), saw both sides of grandparents, went to a bridal shower, played the Wii (a lot) and loved hanging out with family.

Kate washing Jeff's feet :)

Grandpa Craig with Preston

Kate helping my Mom make chocolate chip cookies and they were wearing matching farm aprons (that's what Kate called them- they both had barns on the front).

Marci and Sara trying desperately to get the kids to smile while taking the grandkid picture. It was funny watching them!

The grandkids laughing at Marci and Sara.

Sadie modeling the t-shirts we got for running in the Finish then Feast 5k race.

Kyle and Kevin playing tennis on the Wii. My parents bought it and had all of us open it for an early christmas eve gift for everyone because christmas is with the in-laws this year so we won't be there for the christmas eve tradition which is opening a gift (which is usually a game that we can all play that night). We had so much fun playing it. We had a few injuries, ie: hitting one another with the rackets (good thing they are nerf!).

I loved this picture of everyone else taking pictures of random people in the room. Jared, Jeni and my Mom were taking pictures of different people.