Christmas EVE and DAY!

So, I can't even believe that Christmas has been here and has already left us. So crazy! I wasn't very picture happy this year for some reason, DANG IT!!! So, sorry that there isn't many, and the ones I got really aren't all that good either. Oh well, it was still fun!

CHRISTMAS EVE!
We always spend Christmas eve with Aaron's side of the family. We went to his oldest half brothers house. There was TONS and TONS of people there, so it was kinda crazy and nuts. (of course no pictures..sorry.) We ate so much food, I could be good for the rest of the year! REALLY! Then we just sat around and chatted with everyone. The kids loved running around and playing with all of their cousins. Tate LOVES to play the drums when we go there.

Tony (Aaron's oldest brother) plays the drums for the NASHVILLE TRIBUTE BAND. I am sure most of you have heard their songs on "The sounds for Sunday" or been to their concerts...*"Nashville tribute to the Prophet" (Joseph Smith), The TREK, or the Missionaries! All which are very spiritual and good!

ANY WHO...Tate loves to hear him play and/or HELP him play! Super cute pictures!!
He could have played all night!
After we got home from our fabulous evening..Tate was being so strange! (I think due to Santa Claus coming in the morn!!!) Ha Ha, silly little dude. Sure love him!
In the middle of the night...Santa did come and pay us a visit! He dropped his load! SO EXCITING!
CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!!!!!!

Since I am the only child in town for my parents and no siblings coming home for the holiday. I invited my parents to come and watch the kids open their presents. (of course no picture of them...SHOOT! Sorry Mom and Dad.) But, they enjoyed themselves and we enjoyed them with us.

Tate had been up for a bit, but we woke up Davin! SuPeR DoOpEr ExCiTiNg!!!
Davin Loved opening his presents! Daddy was a great helper too.
Tate got a SWEET remote control TRUCK and CAR from grandma. Daddy is showing him how to do it! (and videoing him at the same time..ha ha!)
After a GRAND Christmas breakfast, the kids got some treats! Davin is enjoying it so much he can't even smile. Silly Nilly! (Love how it is all over him? kids!)

Tate poses for a lovely Christmas shot of our families loot! I would say these kids had a fun morn! I know I did!
CHRISTMAS NIGHT!!!

My mom hosted a LOVELY Christmas evening party. (My older two sisters came up for it. Wish the brothers could have...sniff) We ate a YUMMY ham dinner with all the fixin's and had a very nice program after words. Yes tears were involved and it was a great way to end the day! We then sang, danced (yes, a very fun tradition) and played a candy white elephant rendition of the game. The kids got to "fish" in a Christmas "fish pond" and then of course exchanged our family gifts. LOVED every second of it!

Me and the hubs relaxing together on Christmas....awww!
Sweet little Davin is checking out his fish pond goods!

Some of the kids enjoying the fish pond prizes!
Christmas is such a fun holiday! We loved being with our families and friends through out it all. Hope yours was great as well. Only a few more days...and we can say HAPPY NEW YEAR!! LOVE YOU ALL FOLKS!

Christmas Time is in the air!

The Christmas season this year has seemed pretty mellow for us. But all the same, it is a fun time of year. (You noticed I said FUN, not BEST right? Summer is MY season for sure...BUT we still enjoy all the seasons for the most part! Baa humbug...yeah yeah, I know.)

Some of our favorite things, that have made our season BRIGHT...


We LOVE all of the neighbor treats and gifts. We have the BEST neighborhood friends EVER!! (even though my diet has gone down the drain with all of the thousands of plates of goodies. YUM!! Thank you ALL!)

I just had to take a picture of this particular plate. Could these cookies get any cuter???

My hubby and I did the 12 days of Christmas for each other. We have done this in years past with dollar gifts. This year was a little different for us. The rules were to not buy anything. We JUST could write a simple note of past memories of and for each other. We had a BLAST reading each others memories from over the past 10 1/2 years. The funny thing was, our minds must think alike. We did a lot of the same ones. SUPER FUN!!!


Of course we made our yearly ginger bread houses. The boys loved to lick all of the frosting and put all of the candy on our simple but most AMAZING house. Haa Haa! Always a fun tradition.
We have been to a few super fun parties..but never got pictures. Sheesh....what is up with that? I know. We did take some at our party though.

This year with Aaron being in the Elders Quorum Presidency. We thought it would be fun to have a little UGLY Christmas Sweater/turtle neck party with the presidency and wives. NO kids invited!! **What a splendid idea!!* We then figured with no kids coming we could invite some of our close neighbors that live on our street and around us too! What a fun time! Wish we had a big enough home to invite you all!! Next time for sure. Such a BLAST!!!

Who won the UGLY sweater contest??? Drum roll please....

3rd Place........... Landon Wiley! (pretty darn ugly!)

2nd Place...................Chris Holton! (Freakin' UGLY! and even uglier the dickey collar and parted hair!! Ha ha!)
Had to get a closer look at the parted hair, but heck it doesn't even do justice. What a HOOT! LOVE LOVE LOVE this guy! Haa haa haa SOOOOO FUNNY!
And LAST but not LEAST! The WINNER of the evening....SEXY REXY!!!
(He wore the teeniest, tiniest, and shortest sweater EVER....courtesy of his mother in law! haa haa.) Wish I could say it was UGLY, but really it was so CUTE on him! Don't you think??
The WINNERS! They all got presents and official awards. (Wish we had lots more awards, cuz..sheesh...there was some pretty UGLY sweaters there. Dang UG-LY!)
We ate lots of appetizers. YUM! Then played some Christmas relays and a pound/white elephant exchange game. The twist was the gift had to be a pound. Made it a little more tricky. There was a leeway of a couple ounces each way. If their gift was too high or too low, they would have to sing a song...do a dance, or recite a Christmas sonnet. I loved that everyone really got into this part! Super funny. If their gift was a pound, they got a treat. Then we just played the white elephant game after. I still can't stop laughing about some of the gifts. Especially this one.....

This was the best white elephant EVER by Matt Barney! Look closely at the picture. He taped his face all funny and in distorted ways. I was the lucky winner of it too. Come on over, it is on display FOREVER!! It brings me happiness and joy! Thanks Matt!!!
Some action pictures around the room.



Now that Aaron is on a Hockey league, he is a little obsessed with ice skating. For FHE he wanted to set up a ice skating night at the rink! What a great time we had! We pushed the kids around in the strollers and went round and round and round. We asked Tate if he would want to skate and he said YES! Holy heck, that kid is GOOD! He was a little slow getting started, but then got really good. Aaron is super excited to now have an ice skating buddy.

What a cutie! Just getting started.

Lovely friends that joined.

A born PRO! He didn't want help at all...and just kept going and enjoyed himself so much. He talks about it often. Love it!
The kids watching out the window at the Zamboni. (oh and my hottie too!!)
Some of the lovely peeps that joined us!


After words we all went and out to eat. Such great and fun times. Join us next time all!

More updates to come soon.........

FUNNY Christmas Story!

Once there was a very religious older lady who had four grown children, two sons and two daughters, all of whom had become very successful in their careers. Every year they gave their mother a gift for the holy holidays. This year they were chatting with each other about the gifts they had bestowed upon their aging mom.

The first daughter said, "I had a huge house built for Mom, with twenty rooms, air conditioning and a pool. She doesn't have to live in a small Cottage anymore."

The oldest son said, "I know how much Mom loves to go to the movies, so I added a CinemaScope theater to the house so she can watch all her favorite movies."

The next daughter said, "I know how much Mom loves to go shopping, so I bought her a deluxe Mercedes and hired a chauffeur to drive her anyplace she wants to go shopping."

The youngest son said, "These are all such superficial, material gifts. I know that Mom enjoys reading her spiritual verses and sutras, and reciting her prayers more than anything. But I foresaw that when she got old she wouldn't be able to read, so ten years ago I hired a man to train a parrot to recite all her spiritual verses and prayers by heart. It cost me $100,000 a year and I had to donate ten times that to the temple, but it was worth it knowing Mom can hear her spiritual verses and prayers now that she is old.

The other brothers and sisters were impressed with the youngest son's thoughtfulness and ingenuity. After the holidays Mom sent out Thank you notes to her children. She wrote: "To my eldest daughter, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway."

"To my eldest son, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound, it could hold 50 people, but all my friends are dead, I've lost my hearing and I'm nearly blind. I'll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same."

"To my next daughter, I am too old to go shopping and I have everything I need anyway. I stay home and have the groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks."

"To my last son, you were the only child to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. How did you know what your mother loves best? The chicken was delicious! Thank you so much!"

Firsts!

This last week consisted of some firsts! I will let you in on some...

Out of ALL of Aaron's Hockey games. I have never been to one, just his practice's. SAD :( His games are usually pretty late, but this week he had a semi-early one. I packed the kids up, and joined some of Aaron's family to watch the VERY FIRST nice game of hockey. Aaron's little brother Cody even got to play as a sub for a bit. He LOVED IT! Looks like they will be getting a new player. Ha Ha

The McClellan bro's.

First time going on a play date right before a BLIZZARD was about to start. Kinda nutty and daring...but fun.

My friend Emilee lives in SLC, so when she comes up she gives a few of us a call..and we play! (Chat really, while the kids play.) Kristy lives in town, but heck...if it wasn't for Emilee we would never play. Thanks Emilee.

(NO, I didn't do my hair that day. It was going to be a blizzard!!!)

Very FIRST Thanksgiving at my sisters house in West Point. She did a great job with what she had. (kinda thrown together) but it worked out great! It was quite quaint without all of my other siblings and dad having to stay home after surgery. BUT, it was still very nice and memorable. Grandpa Vandersteen even joined us. He is a crack up!
I loved to see my hubby enjoying his very FIRST turkey leg bone of the evening!
The fam ready to chow!

After dinner, we wrote on strips of paper what we were thankful for. We went around the room naming them off one by one. We stapled them into a chain. Our chain got pretty darn long of thanks. It was a fun tradition that we are going to keep doing....because this year...it was our FIRST!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST. This year was a FIRST to go BLACK FRIDAY shopping. I usually go on Friday morning around 9 or 10am and think that is nuts. WELL, this year was different. There was some choice items at WAL*MART that Julie K. and I wanted. The sale started at 12:01am. Not bad. That in my book is not near as nuts as 3am. To tell you the truth, I LOVED IT! I am kinda strange, but I love crowds. I really do. They pump me up and get me excited! It was nuts, but so much fun AND we got all the goods that we had wanted! YIPEE!!!


Time: 11:36pm! Walking around the store with a map to stake out our goods.


Time: 12:01am NO PICTURE!! We were getting our goods.




(Imagine throwing elbows, and stealing stuff out of peoples carts.....


......NOT!)




Time: 12:15am! Got in the HUMONGOUS line to check out. These lovely ladies were behind us. (Aaron's chums growing up!) They were dressed to kill, while I was dressed and ready to get in bed! Ugh, sorry!
Time: 12:36am! Still in line.....so why not...let's take another picture of us! Getting closer to the check out. (Ha Ha, I look like a DORK!)

Time: 12:50am! Daydreaming about all of our goods. And wondering if they are going to make us put any of it back. (This was just HER cart...haa haa!)
Time: 1:20am! After eating a complimentary donut....(handed out in the middle of the night)....we made it out to our car. Sheesh...barely fitting it all in too. We made it!!!! HECK, one last photo op for the record in front of the Walmart sign. AHHH precious!
Oh my goodness, this was a BLAST! Julie cracks me up, and is soo much fun. I may have to start rethinking this Black Friday stuff. Haa Haa LOVED IT!


TIME: 1:59am! Rolling into bed to put my freezing feet on my sweetie. GOODNIGHT!

Poor Zippers!

We got some sad news the other day. We took "Zip" our dog to the vet and they said he has CANCER!!! BOO. I HATE CANCER. I know he is just a dog, but not just any dog. He has been in our family since before we even got married 9 years ago. He is like our child...more-so...he was. He did get a bit replaced since we had REAL kids. BUT, we still LOVE him!!!

He has the cancer (tumor) by his eye. They think that it hasn't spread much yet, and he should be fine after surgery. YAY!! He goes in for the surgery in the morning. At his age, things get a little more tricky and scary. We will be praying for him that is for sure.

He really is such a good dog and we love him so. He has LOVED it since he has free rain of the back yard (now that we have our beautiful fence.) He LOVES it, the kids love looking out the window at him, or going out and running around with him. The only issue now...is you have to keep an eye out for ***POOP***. Ugh. His happiness makes it all worth it though.


A man's best friend! (ZIP LOVES going on rides in the back of the truck.)
Nothing is as cute as a WET dog!!! HAA HAA I still think he is. Look at that face.

He LOVES to go swimming in the canals and anywhere there is water.
He LOVES snacking on little treats Aaron brings home for him. (more like HUGE BONES!)

This is his favorite canal to go swim! We visit it quite regularly. WATER!!!!

Such a great swimmer. (He still have to keep him on his leash, due to the animal control said that he is "at large" even if swimming. sheeesh! He wouldn't even hurt a fly!)


These ducks are always just down stream from him...and he doesn't even care. He is sooo good and sweet.
Good luck ZIPPER SNIPPER!