Christmas Day!

Here I am on New Years Eve, trying to get Christmas in before 2014. 

The kids and Grandma Kay and Grandpa Harvey came in to our bedroom at about 7:30. I guess Maylee woke up fairly early and went in with my parents. We had to wake up Emma and Ty. We read the story of Christs birth in Luke Chapter 2 then said a morning prayer and headed downstairs. I went down beforehand to get a video of Ty. This year was the first that he REALLY got what the big deal was about Christmas, but he isn't super picky about Toys yet so there was really NO disappointing him. 

Ty originally wanted a remote control airlplane that was blue with white stripes. To Santa's good luck he changed his mind to a Transformer car, like the car his friend Dax has. 

As you can tell, Santa nailed it... he was so excited... until it came time to try and transform it. Box said ages 5+.

Maylee wanted and recieved a Sofia the First Backpack for Pre-school next year.

Emma didn't really get what was happening, but opened her gift. It was a magnetic Fishing rod with floating fish for the tub.

She plays with it frequently but more for use in battle than to fish, definitely didn't see THAT coming... Santa needs to think harder next year on appropriate toys for Em.

Emma, again in her dollar store gift headband. She wore it for quite a while on Christmas morning. She is so adorable.

It took Matt over an hour to Transform Bumblebee. He said he's pretty sure he missed the first half of Christmas trying to figure it out. He eventually got it. He showed Ty, who was excited, then asked to put it back as a car. Matt gladly handed it over to my Dad who went and got his glasses and worked on it for about 30+ minutes is my guess and successfully made it back to a car. It has stayed that way and Ty said he'll try it himself once he turns 5. Ha.

Grandpa Harvey helped Em open a few presents. She got a new outfit from cousin Amber, she wore it to church and it was so cute on her!

Maylee got 5 new Princess Barbie Dolls. She LOVES them and plays with them ALL the time, they currently reside in her backpack.

Ty got the classic metal Tonka Dump truck. For every gift, like in the video he would say, "YES! JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!"

Emma thought that was her personal ride, she fell out of that truck numerous times. 

Emma loves her new shoes from Uncle Colton and Aunt Maddy. Now that Colton has hook ups at the Van's store I have a feeling my kids will be sporting Vans and Adidas only (we get a 50 percent off to the Adidas employee store). She pretty much only wears these shoes now. If I tell her to go get shoes, these are the ones she gets and brings to me to put on. 

Matt tackled the Texas sized VooDoo Doughnut mid present unwrapping. He said it was TASTY!

Em and May got Flashlight friends from my parents. They love them. They are so easy for them to use and Emma plays with it at night in her crib all the time.

May with her new Vans.

Matt sporting his Dollar store gift teeth and headband.

Ty, with his Vans.

Maylee was excited to get shoes she could put on herself. She wears them EVERYWHERE.

Ty got a bunch of new ties from Tanner too, he wore the green one (not pictured) to church on Sunday and looked dashing.

Merry Christmas!

It took a while to unwrap everything because the kids would stop and play with everything for quite some time before opening another gift. 

Ty of course had to get in all the train playing he could before my parents left. 

My parents left on Christmas Day because my Dad had to work the following day. Before they left my Mom started blowing bubbles. I think it was Emmas first experience with Bubbles. She loved them!

Whenever we ask Maylee what she learned at church she always says, the bubbles! So needless to say, she loves bubbles too.

We were able to Skype with brothers and sisters and parents that were missed and that was really great too.

Here is our Christmas card, well the one I wanted to send out but was too late to order so Kelly re-made one for me with all the pictures on one side and I printed out a half sheet of paper with the overview on it. 

We hope you you all had a lovely Christmas and have a Happy New Year! Tomorrow we will review our New Years Resolutions and set more. I am excited for the upcoming year and all its possibilities. 

Christmas shopping and Pajama Time

On Christmas Eve Matt had to work, so we did a little shopping in the morning at Target while he was gone. I saw a friend there so I walked over and said "Merry Christmas Nicki!" The gal turned around and it wasn't Nicki, whoops, so I said "Oh you aren't Nicki," she said "No, i'm not :)" then I said "Well Merry Christmas Random lady at Target!" and I gave her a high five. HA it was funny. Anyway so my mom and I scoured the hot wheels section for SPLIT DECISION the only hot wheels car that Ty really REALLY wants. We didn't find it, i still haven't found it... oh well. My Dad bought my Mom and new stereo system to go with the computer and it would work on Bluetooth on her iPad. 

Matt was able to get off a little bit early so we headed out to do our Dollar Store gifts and get our breakfast cereals. Ty hadn't taken a nap in DAYS because of the anticipation of Christmas. He finally took one so Matt went up to wake him up and he was so tired. Eventually he woke up and we headed out.

The way we do it is everyone picks out a gift for the one person who is standing at the front of the store. Nobody knows what they are getting until Christmas morning. Emma was being so cute with these headbands while the family was picking out my gift. 

 Ty was excited to pick out Grandma's present, a Nutcracker.

We picked out our cereals then went home for our Ham dinner. It was SUUUUUPER tasty. I about licked my plate!

 After dinner was time to open the PJ's. The kids were so excited!

 Emma opened hers first, it was good practice for her to learn how to open a present.

 YAY! She got them out!

 Maylee's turn.

 Yay, Pink ones!

 Ty's turn.

 Yay, Green Santa ones!

 My mom even got pj's for the grown ups this year. She said last year would be the last time until 2 days after last Christmas my mom and I found a great deal on pajamas for the ladies and right afterwards found a great deal on the ones for the guys.

The guys pj's were SO funny. They are forever lazys. Basically a onesie complete with bum zipper.

My mom and I were laughing so hard.

The cutey pie kids in their Christmas Eve Pj's.

Matt was fixing a light bulb... nice bum shot huh?

Merry Christmas Eve!

Emma and Maylee wanted to check out Facebook with Grandma just before bed. Preston and Colton were posting funny pictures and videos of themselves in their onesie PJ's.

That evening we wrapped more presents and watched the movie Jeremiah Johnson that my Dad bought for Matt. It's an old movie set in the 1800's about a man (Robert Redford) who decides to be a mountain man. Matt and my Dad enjoyed it, my mom not so much and I was luke warm to it.

Afterwards while the kids were asleep, my mom cleaned the downstairs carpets then we all went to bed too. We LOVE our clean carpets! They look so great!

More tomorrow, Christmas Day!

BYU Game, Church and Dad's Birthday.

On Saturday evening we drove down to Eugene with some friends of ours, the Walkers, to see the BYU vs. Oregon Ducks game. We met my parents there, they left early and saved us a table and bought us some Pizza so we wouldn't be rushed for time. It was good pizza and we headed over to our seats. The arena there is really nice, and the game was REALLY fun! BYU is having a tough season, for some reason they can't finish games. In this particular case a miracle happened when a Duck actually missed 2 free throws to push the game in to overtime but both our starting bigs fowled out. OT with bench bigs wont win a game in overtime. BYU lost by 5, it was upsetting but not devastating. We were winning almost the entire game, the Ducks only led for about 2 1/2 minutes but they came away with the W. I pretty much lost my voice because I was the crazy lady yelling my head off. We loved going down. My parents drove the rest of the way up to our house that evening to be with us for Christmas. 

Sunday was fairly uneventful. We went to church and the Sacrament music planned was quite lovely. So lovely in fact Ty fell asleep! (Can I get a HOORAY for only ONE MORE 1 o'clock start time this year? My kids are so tired!) I am sad I didn't get a picture of all of us in our matching Christmas clothes, maybe another time we'll dress up just to get a picture. Take my word for it, our family was adorable. 

Monday was my Dad's Birthday. We didn't have super solid plans, but the day before we officially decided to go to VooDoo Doughnuts in the morning. It is a famous doughnut shop in Portland known for their interesting named doughnuts, they have about 90 on their menu. We headed to the original location, we found a parking spot and walked down this creepy back alley, with homeless folks all around and police cars and fire trucks everywhere. It was a little nerve wracking. Ty and Maylee were SO excited for doughnuts. We ran to the store front and tried to open the door, it was locked. Their were people inside and someone walked in RIGHT before us. So I tried the door again, it was locked for sure. A girl (whom I will try not to degrade) poked her head out of the door and said "We're CLOSED!" I stepped back and looked on all the windows for the store hours, no where did I see that they would be closed for any reason. By now a few other people were coming and trying the door, the same girl poked her head out and said "We are CLOSED for a meeting, for about an hour." That is when Ty started crying and slammed himself against the window door in tears. He wanted a doughnut! It took us about 40 minutes to drive down there and find the place so you can bet we weren't thrilled that the place that is supposed to be open 24/7 was closed the first time we tried to go. 

Well as we were loading back up to find another doughnut shop to appease our craving, my mom started talking to the couple parked in front of us. They had the signature pink box of doughnuts and they were so nice they offered Ty one since he was so distraught. My mother politely declined on Ty's behalf and they informed my Mom that there was more than one location in Portland. They helped us find an address and we were on our way. We were more pleased with the second location, they had a parking lot and a bigger building, they had a bathroom (which I took three trips to with various ALL of my children individually) and the people that worked there were MUCH nicer. We waited in line, which there usually isn't one but I think we were with the crowd coming from the Original store, for about 15 minutes. We all picked out 2 that we wanted and the rest were all random ones. This store has CRAZY doughnuts. We ended up buying about 2 dozen. 

Growing up in Medford there is a place called Donut Country, with really tasty donuts. Dad and I decided that VooDoo tops Donut Country. They were so good my Dad ate SIX! Not in one sitting it took him two days, but they were all so good! Here is the Happy Birthday boy with his Cream filled bar... Mmmmm. 

Maple glaze with Bavarian cream is a winning combination in my book. It was SO good. 

 All of us enjoying the doughnut fanfare. 

 Emma kept grabbing her blanket with sticky doughnut hands, her blanket smelled of a maple bacon bar the rest of the weekend. 

My parents bought Matt the TEXAS doughnut. It it about the size of 6 doughnuts put together. If one can eat it in 80 seconds or less than the doughnut is free. We took this picture for the family to get a good idea of the size of the doughnut. It is huge, and delicious. Colton, Preston and Kristin are down for the challenge next time they visit. 

 The rest of Dad's Birthday we went shopping for some shoes and went to a BBQ place in Portland. It was an okay joint, a little on the spicy side for my mom and the kids. 

We gave my Dad World War Z on Blu Ray for his birthday present. We were about 40 minutes in when Ty stood up on our stairs and asked why the Zombie bit the Doctor. HE WAS WATCHING THE WHOLE MOVIE FROM THE STAIRS! Ahh! A ZOMBIE MOVIE! Man we need to double and triple check before watching any sort of scary flicks that Ty isn't on the stairs. He wasn't scared, he was very interested in the Zombies. I walked him back to bed and had to lay down with him and answer all of his Zombie questions before he would sleep. The next morning he showed Maylee the movie and told her it was a SCARY Zombie movie. Arg. Parental fail there. I told him he had to wait another 9 years before he could finish that movie. Crazy.