Christmas 2010

We went down to Temple Square for Christmas Eve. This is a great tradition! We get together with all the Demings, and go sledding or do something fun together, eat dinner, and then take Trax downtown to see the lights. It is fun to bundle up and go downtown near the temple and just feel the Spirit of Christmas. This year we watched the Nativity, and it was so neat! I got a little emotional picturing Mary giving birth in such humble circumstances, but then to imagine being there or hearing the choir of angles singing as His birth. It really was a cool experience, and I really enjoyed hearing the beautiful music.

After Temple Square we headed to Grandpa and Grandma Deming's to decorate cookies for Santa, and to open a few presents. We were in charge of making the sugar cookies for Santa and providing all the decorations. The cookies did NOT turn out. I swear I am the WORST at making sugar cookies! What is my deal? I don't see how it can be that hard. I follow the recipe exact each time, and it doesn't matter which recipe I follow, they NEVER turn out. So instead of star, Santa, reindeer, snowman, snowflake cookies we had several blobs. The kids didn't know the difference, and had fun loading them with all sorts of colors and frosting.


Here are eight of the nine grandkids (ten now with Aaron & Fitriah's new baby Zach!). Grandpa and Grandma always choose such cute pajama's for the grandkids. Above is Issak, Skyler, Emily, Katie, Avery, Amber, Aubrey and Parker. Brynlee was just three days old, and Zach was just born January 14th.

Christmas morning! The kids slept in until 8:00 AM! I always wake up by 7:00 at least and am counting down the seconds until the kids wake up. The rest of Christmas morning is on video, so we don't have any other pictures. The kids loved all their presents though, and had a great time opening gifts and being able to play with their new toys and books all day long! We were hosting the Morgan party at our house that evening, so we opted to stay home all day so that I could bake and prepare for the evening. All the Demings came here from brunch, and we exchanged gifts. It was so much fun! We loved hosting and really enjoyed having everyone here, and LOVED not having to get ready or drive anywhere all day! It was seriously the most enjoyable Christmas I've ever had.

Steve and Mandy Morgan

My Aunt Janice Morgan. She is the greatest Aunt ever. She supports us all in everything we do, and comes to our crazy, chaotic dinners and parties and bears it all with a smile! We have 25 grandchildren in the Morgans, so it gets a little crazy, and VERY LOUD!!! We love Janice and are so grateful for all she does for us. It was so fun to spend Christmas night with her.

Parker in one of his new costumes.

Aubrey with one of her new dolls. She is such a little Mommy and loves to play and pretend.

Here we are a few days later at the cabin. Carrie and I decided for our brother/sister gifts we'd continue the pie tradition while our parents are on their mission. So we got all the sisters a scarf, all the brothers a tie, and all the grandkids pez dispensers and candy. This is always such a highlight for the kids. We had fun doing it!

Kiley, Carrie, Taten and Jason Knapp

Chad, Joan and Emery Taylor. Chad, Joan and family drove all the way from Pittsburgh to spend all the Christmas holiday in Utah (Chad had three weeks off from school!). It was SO great to have them here. Because we're at Mom and Dad's, there was plenty of room for everyone, so we got to be with them non-stop for 2 1/2 weeks. It was seriously the highlight of Christmas for Amber, Parker, Aubrey and me (and I'm sure Matt too!). I had a sister to be with non-stop, and my kids had cousins to be with non-stop. Every night we'd put the kids down to bed and just party. We'd play games, watch movies, or just chat. It was so much fun. I never wanted the vacation to end. Best of all, Matt had the week after Christmas off, so he was in on the partying too! We spent a couple nights at the cabin as well. It was just a great Christmas memory. As rough as it could have been with out my parents, it ended up being totally fine because I had Joan as a constant play mate! I think being here in their home made it easier too, because it was like they were actually here. It's hard to explain, but it just wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. Plus we got to Skype them, so that makes it seem like they were here.

What a fun, crazy party!

Now back to the cabin, and Aubry with her new Pez. All three Pez packets were gone within a few minutes.

So after a fun day of sledding and playing with cousins at the cabin, the kids are always so tired! I went to check on the kids a while after we had put them to bed, and Amber had fallen off the bed in to this bin! She was totally unaware! How can that be comfortable? That shows how completely exhausted the kids were!

So this was our last time at the cabin. It is now officially sold to my Aunt and Uncle. I can't believe it to be honest. I've already posted a lengthy post about it before, so there's no sense hashing it all out again, but to sum it up, I'm totally bummed. This cabin holds about 50% of my memories from my childhood vacations (the other 50%, Arizona!). We went there several times a summer, and enjoyed all sorts of memories and festivities. My Aunt Janice is compiling a history of the cabin filled with memories and pictures from all of us. I will cherish that once it's complete. I honestly love every moment I've ever spent up there and am so sad my kids have only had a short time period to experience up there. I hope we can find a way to share or summers together as cousins/aunts/uncles so our children will know and love their family as I did!

Happy Birthday Dad and Parker

Matt and Parker both had birthday's this week. The energy that goes in to two birthdays back to back is tough! There is a lot to do, a lot of pre-planning that needs to happen, and a lot of shopping! Matt took the day off, and spent it up in the mountains snowshoeing with Molly. I had a big Relief Society function that night, so he then took the kids out to his parents for a birthday dinner. Who better to spoil him on his birthday than his own Mom when I couldn't? I was glad he had somewhere to go and yummy food to eat.

All Parker wanted for his birthday this year was a motorcycle and another garbage truck. He got the motorcycle, but we went a different route and got him this "Rescue Hero" set that is so great! It's this huge package that comes with a fire trick, boat, helicopter, motorcycle and tons of rescue hero's (fire-fighters). It was perfect for him. He was in heaven when he opened it, and has played non-stop with it.

Parker doesn't eat much of anything. His favorite meals are mac & cheese, peanut butter and jelly, occasionally ramen, and cereal. He'd eat fruit snacks all day long if I'd let him! I seriously don't know how he survives half the time. So for his birthday I had been asking him for days what he wanted. I thought we had it figured out, he said "meatballs and noodles" so I was going for that. He changed his mind and wouldn't agree to anything! I finally showed him one of my cookbooks, and he looked at the pictures until he found "Hallowieners." It is a hot dog, with a "snake" around it. I am not a crafty mom, so this was the best I could do to replicate it. He loved it, that's all that matters! He also wanted green Jell-O and an Iron Man cake.

Here are just of the few things I LOVE about my Parkie!

• The way he talks (talks with his hands, scrunches his noes, and speaks with a "Boston" accent, no joke)
• He loves to snuggle
• He prefers me to Matt (a REAL Mommy's boy)
• Says "of course" when I ask him to do something for me
• Is super shy around people he doesn't know well, and tries not to smile in front of them (which means he'll bury his head in to me with a huge grin on his face)
• Parker has such a sweet disposition, and will typically share without being asked to (he is famous for saying daily, "Here you can have it."
• His missing tooth!
• His skinny little legs
• His love for books and a good story
• His excitement for school days!
• The way he pretends (making motorcycle noises, explosion noises, crashing noises, etc.)

Christmas Tree 2010

We had such a great Thanksgiving at Steve and Mandy's this year. We enjoyed being together and eating the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, yams, corn, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, lemon pie and rainbow jell-o. It was a little strange not having Grammy and Grandpa here, but it was nice to spend time with Steve and Mandy and their family, Eric and Katie and their family, and Trent, Janice and our family. I don't have any pictures of the day, how sad! It was really tasty though!

The next morning (after an-alnighter of shopping at Toys-R-Us, Target, Kmart, Toys-R-Us again) we headed off to the mountains to chop down our tree. This year we packed for the cold. We had everything we'd need for sub zero temperatures. It actually turned out to be really nice! The temp was in the mid 30's (at home it was around 19). In all our winter packing we forgot to bring the back pack for Aubrey, so I spent the time sledding with kids while Matt kept on treking through the forest to find the perfect tree! He picked a great one!

Here is our cute little tree. This is 24 hours after it was decorated and already looks like the kids have "re-decorated" it. The point is they had fun, and they love to help decorate the tree.

Girls Weekend

Happy Birthday to Joan-e-joan! Joan came in from Pittsburgh just to celebrate with us (sorry Chad, either you have to send her to us or we come to you, you never get her to yourself on her birthday!). This is a cute flower cake Chad sent her on her birthday. It was such a cute and fun surprise. My kids were obsessed with it and wondered if we could eat it (it even had candles in it).

We of course had to go get pedicures!



We went shopping, ate at cheesecake factory, ate TONS of candy, watched girl movies, and enjoyed a great weekend without kids! And yes I did eat my entire dinner there.



We ended the weekend at the cemetery to visit Joyce. Joan bought her this cute bouquet of birthday balloons. We stayed there for a while and had a few more laughs and tears. Their birthday will always be a favorite of mine! I get to spend it with my best friends, and I know Joyce is there too! There's no way she'd miss out on a fun sister's party. I always feel like where ever Joan is, Joyce is there too!