santa clause comes to preschool

Santa came to Aiden's Christmas party at preschool. How lucky is that?? He was a cute Santa, and sat around for a while just talking to the kids about the North Pole, and the reindeer, and why he had to drive his car to the party because Mrs. Clause only lets his drive it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

He gave each of the kids a candy cane and an autographed photo of himself. The kids were so cute, waiting patiently for their turn to go see Santa, and most gave him a big hug as soon as their turn came.

Each of the kids had to have their turn telling Santa some useless, random information. Most of the time it was how they had seen him (Santa) someplace else, like the mall or another Christmas party.
Then after Santa left, the kids sang the Christmas songs that they had learned for the parents. So cute! I love preschool. I wasn't so sure at first, but it's kind of growing on me.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

In our family, we do all kinds of hunting. Well, Kenny does anyway. The only hunting we do all together, as a complete family, is our annual Christmas tree hunt. It's the best kind of fun. This year, I was anxious about it, because it seems like we didn't really have much time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we picked a day and headed out intending to get a tree that day NO MATTER WHAT. The problem was, we didn't get out there till 3:00 in the afternoon, so we only had a couple of hours of searching time before dark.

Didn't stop us though! We just frantically searched the mountain, almost settled for some rather unfortunate trees, and just as we started to get desperate, I turned to one that looked somewhat promising, and I asked Kenny what he thought of it. As I headed toward it, I caught sight of a tree that was the perfect shape and size, and seemed to have a glow around it. Kenny and I both at the same time, said "hey, what about that one" and "Oh, that's it!" So, we chopped it down with another half hour to spare before we would've been hunting in the dark.

Aiden was a BIG help tying it to the top of our car. (In my head, that sentence was said with some sarcasm.)

This baby was a trooper during our hunt, only losing her cool on the trek back to get the car after we found the tree. She had dropped her pacifier in the snow, but she blamed me. It all turned out ok though, after we got back to the car and found a replacement.

Oh how I love these two kids!I have SO many pictures of Aiden peeing in SO many places. It's probably completely inapropriate that I'm posting this photo...but I've already posted all the other ones, so oh well.

Our beautiful tree after we got it home, stood it up, and decorated it. (It appears to be tipping in the photo. Don't worry, it's been a little on the crooked side from the start. I'm 92% sure it's not going to fall over.) It smells even better than it looks!

sleeping angels

Aiden was given a choice. Go take a nap in your bed, or cuddle up with Capri in our bed and take a nap. It was an easy choice for him. They fell asleep like this, then Daddy had to extricate himself from Aiden's side after they fell asleep.

They slept like this for three hours. It was perfect.

we are thankful for the temple

Saturday, November 20th we took our little family to the temple, and had Capri sealed to us. The actual sealing was short but sweet, my favorite part is where they say that it will be as if she were born to us. She will have the same privileges and rights as a child that was born into the covenant.

And she will be ours for eternity.

My mom made her beautiful dress, and I was so happy with how it turned out. I found a dress I liked on-line, and my mom made up a pattern to make the dress I liked so much. I'm also thankful for my talented mom.

Aiden's new favorite bedtime song is "Families can be together forever" and we are always happy to sing it with him. I don't know what we've done to deserve such beautiful blessings.

we had our day in court

and we came out victorious!

She's ours. Papers are signed, notarized and filed. It is as if she were born to us-legally anyway. We still have to go to the temple to have it written on the records in heaven, but for now, we are pretty happy. Not that there was much worry that it wouldn't go through, but it's nice to have it done and over.

She was so happy today. Aiden was great in court. The lawyer was nice, and the judge made jokes about having no pants under his robe. Overall, a good day in court.

And now she's OURS.

respite

In the true fashion of waiting for a week after events happened to blog about them, here I am posting about our week long vacation in Moab. We went a couple of days after Halloween, and came home the middle of the next week. It was actually a really fun week. Kenny was Elk hunting, and Aiden, Capri and I stayed with my parents and just hung out. For the most part, we played around my parents big yard, climbing trees and jumping on the trampoline, riding the roller racer and swinging in the horse swing.

My mom has taken on the task of creating everything for Capri's sealing and blessing day events, so we had to take a trip to the big city to get fabric for the perfect dress. My mom sewed with mad skillz and got the dress done and ready for us to bring home, and so far I've resisted the temptation to put it on her a thousand times a day. She could ruin it SO FAST!

Kenny and his dad came into town one morning (apparently they only cook breakfast on the mountain in an emergency) and took Aiden back up the mountain with them to hep them find where the elk were hiding. That was the only day they didn't see anything. Poor Aiden. So Capri and I headed up the mountain to their camp to hang out with the boys and then bring the kids home when it got dark and cold.

Aiden roasted marshmallows while he waited for the dinner to be cooked.

And Capri is the queen of relax. She just chilled in Poppa G's arms by the fire.

One of the last days, after Kenny was tired of hunting, we spent the day wandering Main street playing "tourist". It was a fun, happy day spent as a family, and in it's own dorky way, it was special for us.

I had Karrina (who stalked us and found us in a store) take a picture of us on Main street. Weird as it is, I love this hippie town. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've been in any of those stores in my lifetime, but it's the streets and the feel of the town that I love. It's my home.

I forced Aiden to sit down by this Kokopelli dude for a picture, but I did not ask him to talk to the statue, nor did I mention trying to play his flute.

And here are the bunnies Aiden was smitten with all week. I wasn't supposed to let the cat out of the bag that these bunnies even existed, but these pictures were to cute not to post. Sorry Dad.

And Aiden went with my dad to work for the day, and he got his own tape measure to wear on his pants. He looked so cute with it on his hip.

If only we could have stayed longer...

pretty in pink

football or kung fu?

Aiden just finished up his last football practice for this year. We had signed him up for the Start Smart football program, and they had a group for 3-5 year old kids. He wasn't very good, but neither were any of the other kids. Probably just a way for the city to make some easy money.

They actually taught them some of the basic fundamentals of football, like how to hold the ball, how to throw and catch, and kicking and punting. It was way too cute watching him try to kick it, and catch it.

Though he rarely actually caught it.

This is coach Carlos teaching him how to punt. This was the best one to watch. If the grass hadn't been wet, I would have rolled around in the grass laughing.

In stead of dropping the ball, and then kicking it, he tried to lift his leg up to meet the ball, and practically tried to kick it out of his hands.

Which resulted in what I like to call, the kung-fu punt.

Hole in the Rock

After our family had finished passing around and reading "The Undaunted", a historical fiction book telling the story of the Hole in the Rock pioneers, and their journey from the Cedar City/ St. George area to the Bluff/Montezuma Creek area, we wanted to go see it for ourselves. Again. We've been down through that area a couple of times, both times I was a teenager. Once for Youth Conference, we went on a pioneer trek. And instead of going to Wyoming, like everyone else in the world, we stayed in our own neck of the woods and did part of the Hole in the Rock trail. Later, we went as a family with a bunch of other families on a jeeping, four-wheel expedition to see the Hole in the Rock. I remember parts of that trip, but in planning this trip, I was so excited to get to done it again, now that I understand a little better what they did and went through, and hopefully remember it better.

The old train has been washed out in some places, and the road that was, no longer exists. We has to take a completely different route to get there, and those roads are not for the timid, or the faint of heart. This was the "bad spot" that after we had gone down, we were afraid for when we would have to come back up it the next day. The difficult terrain and crazy obstacles we saw after this though, made it funny when we got back here and remember how worried we had been about it.

There were hard spots all along the trail, places on the "road" where I grabbed my two kids and jumped out of the car to walk those tricky places rather than ride in the car, just in case it tipped over or rolled. All of my fears were unfounded of course, but it was that scary of a road.

The whole time I was thinking of those pioneers, who had wagons with mules and horses and oxen and no four-wheel drive.

These next few pictures were taken by my sister, Kimbrey because after a couple of hours into the first day, I abandoned my camera and concentrated on hauling my kids in and out of the car. She's better with a camera than I am anyway.

I actually took this one of my little trooper pioneer baby. She did so good on the trip, and even seemed to like the "extreme rock-a-bye" the went on in the car, often falling asleep when the bumping and rocking was the worst.

Shade was few and far between, and here I was thinking it was going to be cold, so I packed only warm clothing for myself and my kids. Oops again. I can't win.

Kimbrey took this picture, and I edited out the boogers.

And she took this one too. So beautiful, even after two days of camping.

And when we saw my child with doughnut in one hand, and a sucker in the other, for breakfast, Kimbrey was the one who had the foresight to take a picture. Aiden did pretty well on the trip too. The biggest challenge for him, pooping in the wilderness, was averted and it apparently could wait for a toilet. So there were no big catastrophes.

Our Hole in the Rock clan. We never made it to the actual Hole in the Rock, because the road had gotten pretty bad, and we didn't have the time to get all the way before we had to be back. But it was a fun family trip, we got to see some things that very few people in the world have seen, and beautiful scenery. Someday I hope to go back, and see some of those places again, like San Juan Hill, The Chute and Slickrock Hill. I would also like to go on the other side and see the Hole in the Rock right up close. Since we got back, I have read "The Undaunted" again, and I am in awe at the faith and "stickity-tooty" that those saints had. They came across that country, even though it was impossible. A journey that was supposed to take them six weeks, took them six months. They were called to a mission, and they did not stop until they had completed what they had been asked to do. I am just so grateful that there were such strong people that were able to pave the way, and in many ways made our lives what they are today.

catching up

A day at the park, that happened a little while ago.

So sweet!

I'm going to be so sad when she grows out of these boots!

Right after I took this picture, he showed me how he spits. He made a face, then spit just flew out of his mouth. I couldn't have been more proud!

Oh how I love my family!