Christmas 2010

What makes Christmas fun?

Kids...




My personal favorite Christmas memories of 2010

Ryder on Christmas morning amidst the presents and dazzle made a beeline straight for his bottle of milk. He wasn't interested in a thing till he had his fair share of milk. He was so happy with a new ball and a new car--He loved the simple things and didn't care for the excess. (So I might have gone a bit overboard this year with the kids and I've already boxed up half of his gifts). A good lesson learned for this Mama.

Pulling out the Christmas tree without Jon nearly giving myself a hernia in my pregnant state and then being thanked profusely by Lola for giving her "Christmas." And then upon Lola's insistence we never turned the lights off our tree.

Going shopping with Jon late at night while his parents babysat our sleeping babes. Searching all over and eating In and Out at 11:30 at night and making the car reek like onions for days afterwards.

What ever makes your Christmas Merry and Bright I hope you had in abundance.

Santa Clause-it vs Jesus

A family friend knowing we have small children showed up as a surprise Christmas Eve dressed like Santa. I think the surprise was on him.

Why?



Because Santa freaked out the kiddos. This year Jesus wins.


Looks like Santa is getting an extra nice thank you letter this year.

Macaroni Comas

So Lola spontaneously fell asleep during lunch. She was eating mac 'n cheese (or as I like to call it yellow death), which does happen to be her very favorite.



I would normally take this opportunity and blame it on the nasty mac 'n cheese that she was eating, but Ryder seems to have the same problem. Going, going...



and he is gone.



Seriously does anyone else have kids that fall asleep mid-meal? On different days?

9:00 Church

Alright 9 am church is brutal. We live ridiculously close to the church (like under 5 minutes close) and yet we can't seem to get early. I blame it on the morning (because that seems better to blame it on then my lack of being prepared). But seriously look at my kids.



You might think that isn't so bad (and your right) and I would now like to introduce you to the Lola monster. This is her in our bed waking up for the 2nd time.



Bless the new year and bless the new 11 time slot for church!

Lola, Lola, Lola

I was peeling a mandarin orange to share with Lola and when I offered her a piece she said "I can't want to eat it Mommy, I'm just a kid."

Lola and Ryder love dancing to Christmas music. It is darling and has the ability to melt any cold black heart (said the totally biased Mommy). After a ridiculous long nap Lola was sporting a t-shirt and a rather soggy diaper and while wearing such elegant attire the kids began Christmas dancing. Lola stood up on the ottoman and started shaking her soggy bottom and said "I'm shaking my bum-bum." Later we were telling her grandparents about the incident (while listening to Christmas music) I asked her to show them her dance. Lola replied "my bum-bum isn't working."



This is the G-rated Christmas dancing video, which means no bums were videotaped shaking during this performance.

...Stupid Cat

Another cat rant... of sorts. I seem to find myself muttering the phrase "stupid cat" more often then I'd like to admit. Didn't realize how much I was actually saying it until I heard my little Lola say "stupid cat" under her breath like I do. Oops. Well to make myself feel better I've told myself I'm just saving her from a cat filled adult life.

And for good measure I've stopped cursing the cat under my breath. Good thing she can't read yet.

...Stupid Cat

Cats and Poop, Cats are Poop

Reasons to never own a cat. Reason #1 Experience! I happen to know a very nice cat named Socks and I live with him. Reason #2 He woke me up at 3 am by licking my bare feet. Luckily in my anger when I tried to kick him into an early death I was half asleep and clumsly and he survived (I completely missed). Reason #3 I have small children, which means unless they are both sleeping I never get to go to the bathroom by myself. Tonight Socks head butted the door and interrupted my glorious alone time by general purring and rubbing on my leg. There are probably 400 other reasons I could list why not to own a cat (like the time my son sampled a cat turd), but this week those are the top 3 reasons.

And speaking of eating cat turds Lola tried her own poop.

Halloween Lunch

On Sunday I made a Halloween themed lunch. Mummy dogs, apple spiders, and scary snails.


Lola has an unnatural love of hot dogs, but was really skeptical about Mummy dogs. It was fun regardless.

Trick or Treat

Saturday it rained, I mean really rained right during the perfect trick or treating time. Luckily the clouds parted and we were able to scramble out and not get rained on. Lola loved it. We went to the first door and they gave her a huge handful of candy (a perk of being little and cute). Her response was "Next House Mommy!" She had a surprising amount of endurance and could have gone longer than we did. She paid a hefty snicker tax this year, but she didn't seem to mind. Ryder was pretty much just along for the ride. He did enjoy when people allowed him to put his hand in their bowl and take what he wanted.

That night Lola asked if she could sleep with her treats (the answer was no) and then the next morning sheasked to bring them to church (again the answer was no). The kids (and parents) had a great time and were totally wore out. The next morning after church on the ridiculously short trip home they both passed out in the car before we even made it home. I took a nap too and I'm pretty sure I looked like Ryder.

I Over Use the Word Adorable

Does everybody think there family is as adorable as I think mine is? Ryder upside or snorting still adorable... Lola, despite lack of photographic evidence (too engrossed in pumpkin selection to look up) adorable. I love these guys and my big handsome hubby. We were having such a good time and are a bit of suckers and ended up buying almost 50lbs of pumpkins at the local patch. It was worth it.

An Unnatural Love Between The Benson's and Cafe Rio

Seriously we love this place, Lola even requests to eat there. Now we are not a big going out to eat people, but if we are doing a fun family outing we try and work it in. Look how happy Ryder is to eat their food.


Apparently even the plates taste good.

An Unfortunate Incident with Spray Paint

Last night I was spraying pumpkins with spray paint. They turned out pretty cool even though the spray paint was an accidental idea. I desperately want to carve pumpkins (its just so festive!), but last year in my over eagerness we carved early and they rotted (serious rot) and we had to throw them away before Halloween (which is definitely not festive). I was planning on spray painting them and then carving them the Monday before Halloween, but it looked like poo so the whole thing got sprayed. I love how the gold turned out and the black is super creepy and masculine.

The unfortunate incident was me holding the paper template and spraying black spray paint directly on my hand from 5 inches away. Just so you know its a bugger to get off. I'm still trying to get it off...

The Baby Color is...

BLUE! Due Date March 4th 2011.

Gardner Village 2010

There is the sweetest little place called Gardner Village in West Jordan, UT. Its a collection of unique shops and they have the greatest Holiday decorations. Halloween is especially great. The whole place is filled with fantastic witches in action. There are witches playing baseball, doing cannonballs into water, hula-hooping, etc... There is a list of witches if you find you can get 25 cent chocolate chip cookies for the kiddos (Ryder's absolute FAVORITE part).

Lola-ism

Lola was going potty in the upstairs bathroom without the comfort of her toddler seat. Her bum was hanging quite low in the pot and she says to me. "Mommy I need to touch the water." I informed her that it was totally unnecessary for her to touch the water with her bum. She responded "but my bum-bum is so hot!"

We were at church yesterday and I told Lola I loved her she responded by saying she loved me too. I told her to tell her Daddy that she loves him. She said, "Daddy listen to me, I need to look pretty." …and then proceeded to apply lip gloss.

Homemade Christmas, The Play Kitchen

For Christmas I decided that I wanted to do it homemade. I want to give my kids not just a gift but something me and my hubby loving worked on. And I'm happy to say my first project is complete! I made a play kitchen for Lola out of a $5 yard sale TV stand.



This is the before picture, or at least this is when I remembered to take a picture minus the doors and a few new holes cut in the top.



Here is the after. I'm overly proud of it. My hubby did most (by most I mean all) of the hard parts.



Here is the inside shot of the oven, the fridge looks the same but is white.

And thanks to the blog that posted the how-to! Here's the link if anyone is interested http://outofthecrayonbox.blogspot.com/2009/11/build-with-me-lesson-1-supplies.html

Happy Birthday Ryder

Ryder is now the big 1 and Lola especially enjoys him as he gets bigger and is able to play with her more and more. I love that they are friends and partners and crimes. Lola loved all his toys he got for his birthday and he was happy to let her play with them because he had a balloon. Ryder is my sweet and happy boy and is the best addition to our family.

St. George Trip 2010

How young is too young to take your kid hiking in Zion National Park?



Apparently Lola's age is the answer. Note the missing shoe. Jon was able to retrieve the other from the mud. That was just one mishap of many. Here was another caught on video.



Good thing we were able to squish both kids in the hiking backpack and that Jon had the muscles to carry them. We had a great time despite all incidents. Till next year St George!