Christmas Part 1

Here goes another long post with lots of pictures.  Sorry, I just had to throw in this first photo (from the beginning of Decmember) because I forgot to add it to the previous post.  Love these kids!!

Ok, now onto Christmas Vacation!  Because Avery isn't 2 yet, she was able to fly for free.  Even though she is free, she is SUCH a handful.  Jaxson was always squirmy and never wanted to sit still when he was younger.  I am pretty sure she is worse than he was.  In fact, I think our whole ward likes to watch us during Sacrament meeting because our bench much look like a circus show (screaming, loud talking, kicking, biting, punching, throwing, etc.) We have actually looked around and have seen several families laughing at us.

Of course Avery didn't sleep on the plane, but as soon as she hit her car seat in the truck, she was out.  Not complaining, we had a 1.5 hr ride and it was nice that she was quiet :)

Christmas Eve at Ryan's house in South Carolina. One of the activities of the night was painting a wooden nativity set.  We each painted a piece and wrote our names on the bottom - cute idea and it turned out great!

Can you tell they are brothers?  I had another AWESOME photo of them two, but I am pretty sure I would be in big trouble if I posted it.

Christmas eve spread.  YUM!!  I like this Harbor Tradtion.  Christmas Eve dinner is made up of finger foods, appetizers, snacks, etc so you can keep eating all night! :)

Christmas Eve, Grandma Riley (Ryan's maternal grandma) celebrated her 84th birthday!  She is so awesome and we enjoying celebrating with her!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Rhonda got us all cute matching shirts again.  Jaxson is so excited about his!

Our attempt at doing the nativity with Jaxson as Joseph and Avery as Mary.  I think we had 3 different cameras trying to get photos, but I never got a really great one of both kids looking.

Mommy and Mary.

This was my best one of Jaxson and Avery.  I am not quite sure if Avery is kissing or biting Baby Jesus.  Lets hope its the former.

Noah wanted a turn as Baby Jesus.

So did Jaxson.

Avery REALLY loved having Noah there.  She is so sweet and loves babies.  She kept trying to feed Noah his cereal snacks, over and over and over and over ......

Jordan and Christine planned some fun "minute to win it" type games that we all had a blast playing.  Neither Ryan's nor my competitiveness came out. Where's Jaxson?!

The first game was trying to get a red Rudolph nose pom pom ball to stick on your nose while holding a string from your mouth and a dab of Vaseline on your nose.  Guess who got it first try???  Oops, not competitive...

Guess who got it second?? LOL

Next game was a blindfolded marshmallow toss.  Get as many in the bowl as you can in 30 seconds.

Ryan ended up winning with a desperate "throw the entire stash of marshmallows at the end idea."  Well it worked, wish I thought of it!

Who can stack cups into a tower and then back into a single stack the fastest?

Balancing ornaments on a teeter totter.

Riding a donkey.

Opening up Christmas PJ's.

Batman PJ's, cape and all.  Although he doesn't look happy here, he really is.  As soon as he put them on, he WAS batman ... apparently this is one of batman's moves.

Santa came!

Cute tradition!  Ryan's family would always line up in the hallway and snap a photo before they went to go look at the stockings/tree/gifts.  It is so cute looking back on all the years of photos of them doing this. 

Jaxson looking at what Santa brought him.  I was so excited to watch him, but he was actually more interested in the presents under the tree...

until he saw the batman mask....  Now his costume is complete.

2 of Avery's favorite stocking toys.  She kept saying "wow" to the spinning lights

Showing Noah the lights.

Love this picture of her.

Foot eating shark slippers

Pink Lamby slippers

Surprise, more batman things!

Avery liked helping open presents ...

And eating candy from her stocking.

One of Avery's favorites.  Pull back cars!  She loves to chase them

Jaxson got a dr. kit from Guh Goh and Papa.

Cute apron for my lil' sous chef.

This little animal makes a weird giggling/jibbering sound.  Avery thinks its awesome

And a cute apron for Avery too.

Stuffed giraffe and book from Uncle Jordan and Aunt Christine.

Avery is a good hugger, and is so good about making people feel loved!

Avery "cheese" face.  I think I need to find some of Jaxson's cheese face pictures too - this pose looks oddly familiar.

Purse with accessories.

Avery got a super-girl cape from Guh Goh (Rhonda) to match the super-boy cape Jaxson got a couple years ago.  Now they can be partners in crime.

Christmas Day Dinner.... yum yum yum.

More gifts from Papa (Ryan's paternal grandpa). More batman stuff!  Now that Jaxson has 2 pairs of batman undies, he only has to wear them for 3 days each before they go in the laundry. JOKES! He does want to wear a pair everyday, but because he only has 2, he has to choose his 2 days wisely.

This is Papa

Brothers again. *Hopefully* this photo doesn't get me in trouble.

More on Christmas Day.  We were so glad Erika (Ryan's sister) was able to stay and play with us the whole time we were there!

Playing in the backyard.

Love this DARLING SUPER CUTE backpack from Erika.  Did I mention that I love it?!

I think this was boxing day, doing a little shopping before we headed to the "lights at the zoo."

At Ross, somehow Noah found a pink unicorn and was riding it. HAHAHA

Thanks to Christine, Jordan, and Lee for taking turns holding this crazy girl.  Like her mittens?  Didn't have any real mittens so I improvised (that's what a college degree is for right?!).  Avery thought they were cool and kept patting peoples cheeks with them.

Lights at the zoo .... Cow

Bunny.... I love seeing how excited Avery gets where she sees animals

Erika, Jaxson, and Rhonda

In the Koala's house

I eventually just started carrying Avery around in my own little pouch. Personal little heater :)

Avery's yawn  - love it.

cheese

One of my favorite traditions of Ryan's family is playing bingo sometime during the Christmas break.  Grandma Riley has an awesome bingo set and we won some awesome prizes this year.  My favorite being a $10 gift card to panda express.  Jaxson loved the flashlight and duck dynasty band-aids.

snuggle time

super toddlers!

We took Jaxson to see Frozen.  I thought it was adorable.  Jaxson was falling asleep by the end, but also liked the parts he was able to stay awake for.

Trying on Daddy's old motocycle (spelled the way Jaxson says it) helmet

Christmas part 2, to come later. 

December 2013

Is it January 2014 already?! December was absolutely CRAZY for us!  This post will be about all of our pictures BEFORE we left for our South Carolina Christmas vacation.  And (yes, I know you are not supposed to start a sentence with 'and') because there are so many photos, I am not going to write a lot.  Lazy me. So here goes...

We love going to Bass Pro Shop during December!  There is a free merry-go-round, games, and Santa is there.  Unfortunately when we got there at 11am, you could get a wait card to come back and see Santa at 6pm - should have gotten their earlier I guess!  So we snagged a picture of me and Avery in front of the place Santa was sitting instead. 

 Avery and Jaxson both thought the bow and arrow shooting practice was fun.

 And Jaxson loved the guns too ... surprise surprise.

 This is what Avery loved.  She was screaming while we were waiting in line.  I had a lady ask me if Avery was scared to go on the ride, and I replied "No, she really wants to get on it now."

 Avery got to ride two times in a row and screamed her head off (after I pried her hands off the pole) when we had to leave the ride.

 One Sunday afternoon while Avery was sleeping, Ryan took Jaxson to a wooded park and they explored.  Jaxson loved it and I know Ryan enjoyed spending that quality time with Jax.

 One Monday night for FHE, we made Christmas trees from sugar ice cream cones, icing, and candy.  Jaxson and Avery both loved it and made a mess.  I was pleasantly surprised at how yummy the sugar cone covered in icing was :)

 I believe the kids were watching TV one day and I thought it was cute, so I snagged a photo of them.

 Jaxson's December kick was putting all the soft things (blankets, stuffed animals, soft chairs) in his closet so he could have "sleep overs".  Ryan did sleep in there for about 30 minutes one night while Jaxson went to bed in there too.  Too bad Jaxson then woke Ryan (in our bedroom downstairs) at 1:00am saying that he needed Daddy to put him back in his regular bed.

 Decked out for our ward Christmas party.  I couldn't help it, its fun dressing up a little girl!  My favorite was the red and white striped leg warmers with the white fur on the bottom.

 Pre-Christmas morning.  We gave the kids most of the presents we had purchased for them before we left for SC.  Traveling with gifts is just too heavy and annoying. Santa did, however, make an appearance on Christmas Eve night in SC.

 Thought this was so cute.  It still is cute 3 weeks later except that Jaxson pushes her fast down the hallway and into the wall.  We are trying to work that one out.

 Jaxson was stoked to get the batman jail (and cave).  This was definitely a batman Christmas for him.

 Avery loves books and wanted Daddy to read her a story as soon as she opened a book.

 Trying out her new dolly's paci.  Avery calls it a "bobby"

 The batman cave

 Jax also got some awesome dress up clothes

 Later that day we went to the Children s museum - the kids loved it. Avery's favorite was climbing the stairs and playing the piano.

 Pretend airplane

 This ball place was definitely Jaxson's favorite.

 HAHAHAHA

 Family hand prints!  I actually could spend a while playing with this one, I think its fun.

 The night before we left, we went to a friends house for story time and hot chocolate.  The kids also made a fun treat using green chocolate, mini m&m's, and giant pretzels.

 Num Num Num

 Jaxson and his good friend Joshua.

 One of the neighborhoods near our house had this huge Christmas tree ornament - so awesome!! It was about 38 degrees out, so we jumped out of the car, snapped a photo, and then jumped back in.  We left for SC at 5 am the following morning. Next post will have all our Christmas photos.