Merry Christmas

Here in California real snowmen are hard to find. The other day Brycen suggested that we make a "rainman." Zac and Brycen thought it was pretty silly to add a carrot nose and paper eyes and a smile to a bucket of water.

Still, even without having true Christmas weather, our town knows how to have a great Christmas. We have an adorable little skating rink in old town. My sister Ali and her boyfriend and I all took Brycen skating while Grandma watched and took pictures (the other boys were still in school, just one of the perks of half day kindergarten!) Brycen was kind of like a wet noodle in skates, but it was a lot of fun.

A couple weeks before Christmas, Santa rides through town in his sleigh pulled by his reindeer and a firetruck. They are escorted by the other firetrucks, and police cars and motorcycles--all decked on with Christmas lights and sirens blazing. They stop to hand out candy and collect can foods for the needy. Brycen was the only one who wanted to take a picture with Santa.

On Christmas Eve we invited my parents, one of our neighbors and the pair of missionaries from our church over for dinner. The missionaries are young men who leave their families for two years to serve their missions. Without them knowing, I contacted their moms and got their favorite Christmas recipes. They were very excited to have a bit of home away from home.We ate and ate and ate and then we sung Christmas songs around the piano.

We had a very Lego Christmas this year. Lance and I stayed up until 2am putting together a Lego train and helicopter. Now we have police stations, a fire house, lots of Coast Guard stuff and a lego train. The last two days have been spent putting together other Lego sets with the boys. Even my niece got Legos this year. Her brother has lots of Legos and little Hannah was just thrilled that there are finally Legos for girls.Zac got up during the night on Christmas Eve to check for presents. I must say that I'm impressed that he just peek, but did not touch anything. After Zac went back to bed, Lance went and slept on the couch next to the tree to protect the presents.

The stocking were hung by the chimney with care!

Zac and his Dino Robot

Scott got a personalized mirror for his room and a set of drums

Brycen was very excited to see his Lego train

Lance and my brother playing Lance's new wii football game.

Even Shay got a present

Lance got his big present a few days early when I surprised him with a weekend in Las Vegas to watch BYU play in the Vegas Bowl. BYU lost bad, but we kept cheering then on till the end, almost. We spent most of the trip driving, but it was still wonderful to get away together.

I got cute clothes, and tickets to a play in January, and a Mama Mia DVD.

Happy Belated Lump Day!

Yesterday in the car Brycen kept saying "Happy Lump Day, Mommy!" I asked him what Lump Day was. A look of amazement came over his face and he said, "You mean you are as old as you are and you don't know what Lump day is?" (Looking back I should have been astute enough to figure it out, but I wasn't) SO he explained "Okay you know what you get when you add three plus three, then you add one more and you get seven. Well there are three days before Wednesday and three days after Wednesday so Wednesday is LUMP DAY." SO happy-belated Lump day to all!
Today: As I was driving Brycen and his two friends to our house one of his friends said he knew a really funny joke; I thought I would share it with everyone."Why did the train go in the bathroom?"Because he didn't have to go to the bathroom!"The boys just cracked up and I must admit I did too. I will never understand little boys and bathroom language humor--I just hope they will out grow it!

More Christmas Fun and One Crazy Dog

Making a gingerbread train with the kids made me laugh. Here we are having lots of fun, but still saying don't eat all the frosting and stop eating the candy about 100 times. When you think about it; it is a little mean to tempt kids so much. I guess that is why we let them eat about as much as they put on the train. Now that it is done, Zac sneaks candy off of it whenever he can. We will see if it last until Christmas.

Click the below link for a funny Shay video.

My Montage 12/14/08

I'm glad we have a dog that is so easily entertained. Brycen's laugh just cracks me up. And, Zac was quite skillful maneuvering the reflection.

You Light Up My Life!

Lance, Brycen, Zac, and Shay did a beautiful job putting up our lights this weekend.This was my contribution, our light globes hanging from our big pine tree.

If you want a psychedelic Christmas, just have Brycen take a picture for you!

It Wasn't That Big in the Forest!

So we knew we had picked a very tall tree and that we would have to trim it to get it to fit with our 11ft ceiling, but in the forest it didn't look 8ft wide! Brycen says it is the first perfect tree there has ever been, it is growing on me, of course it has also grown on, or taken over, the entire family room.

Scott loves to look at the tree lights.


Zac of course made some new f riends while the rest of us searched for a tree.

Brycen wants this to be our tree in 2018.

The house is now all decked out for Christmas and I am happy--I love the feel of Christmas in our home.

We also had a great Thanksgiving.

We found this bunch of monkeys in a tree--we think they are all cousins!Really this isn't torture--Scott absolutely loved being swung by his Daddy and Uncle Jason.After dinner we started a movie. We all spread out on the couch and Ali ended up with all the kids on a chair with her. What can we do; they all love their Auntie Ali! At least she didn't have to sit at the kids' table this year!

Monterey Bay

We took Brycen and Zac out of school on Friday and went to Monterey Bay. Scottie stayed with Nana and Pappa. He loves being with them and would not have enjoyed much of this adventure. On Friday we went to the aquarium which is just incredible. Zac loved the sea otters. They are so cute and playful you really could just watch them all day. And did you know that they have 100,000 hairs per square inch of their bodies! Brycen loved the tunnel that the wave crashes over. It too is very cool, the water comes pouring out all around you. Outside the wave falls into a tide pool and you can watch all the sea creatures adjust to the influx of water. They have an area where you can touch and hold different creature too. Brycen kept saying "is this real?" Silly boys having too much fun to pause for a decent photo.

It was a little tricky to take pictures of the kids and the fish. Brycen is sitting in a half tunnel with a leopard shark swimming by him.

Zac wasn't quite sure what he thought of the large fish in the left corner with it's mouth open.This is out on a balcony on the second floor of the aquarium.

Monterey has a great park called Dennis the Menace park. It is huge and has new equipment along with the old "dangerous" metal slides and climbing equipment. There are huge slides a real train engine and even a maze. After the park we checked into our hotel. We all had free drinks and snacks during happy hour. The concept of a free drink was amazing to Brycen. We all went swimming in the indoor pool. Zac found other kids to swim with and Brycen loved jumping back and forth between the spa and the pool. They even had a Mario Cart video game, Brycen took second place.

On Saturday morning we took the kids out a three hour whale watching boat. I don't know that I have ever seen them so excited they just loved being out on the bough of the boat and feeling the wind and the ocean spray. The whales themselves were kind of far away. Although we did see them more than what the picture shows. It was hard to take pictures and make sure the kids were seeing the whales. We saw two humpback whales and two blue whales. Blue whales are the largest whales and also Brycen's favorite. They are also one of the most elusive whales, because they stay under the water for long periods of time, are fast swimmers, and like to stay far from the coastline. I kept telling the kids that they were seeing something most people never see. The boys both fell asleep on the way back in.

Hanging out at the Wharf waiting to board our boat.

Brycen fell asleep deep inside his life jacket. Good thing he didn't fall in, I don't think life jackets are suppose to be worn quite that way.

Thanks to Zac we met a lot of our fellow passengers. Including this little girl and her family. Zac just cuddled up next to her a fell right to sleep. It worked out great because they kept each nice and warm.

We finished our trip by splashing in the waves. I just love the ocean--I find myself seeking it out whenever I can. I love the fact that the boys love it too.

The kids went home in pajamas and I went home in wet jeans. Lance somehow managed to stay dry. All and all this was one of our best trips ever! In fact, Monterey might just have to be added to our annual trip list!