Dreyson's Newborn pics

We absolutely love our little guy. My friend Kacy took these adorable pics-thanks Kacy (www.photosbykacy.blogspot.com). Enjoy the pics!

Christmas

Christmas was so nice this year. It was our first time actually having Christmas at our home. I really love being around lots of family at this time of year, but it was nice to do our own thing and just be able to relax a little. Christmas Eve we always let the kids open one present, and it is always pj's. This is a tradition my family did-so we are keeping it going with our family. Jaxon and Kenli really loved their new spiderman and princess jammies. We also always watch Joy to the World. I love this dvd-it really depicts the true meaning of Christmas and brings the spirit into our home.
Christmas day was so fun. I actually woke up first and had to wake the kiddos and Chris up-I was excited--ok. Jaxon's reaction was priceless. He walked up the stairs and just stood there looking at everything. At first I thought he was sad about something or that maybe it wasn't what he expected, but then he said WOW (a little smile comes to his face) that's a lot of stuff. It made me laugh. For Kenli her big gift was a kitchen-she ran right past it. So I thought, ok well I didn't see that happening-I guess she doesn't like kitchen's as much as I thought. Then Chris pointed out to her that the kitchen was hers-instantly her little face lit up-she loved it. YAY! We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and having fun. What a perfect Christmas.
That Sunday after Christmas we had little Dreyson blessed. Lucky for us my parents and Chris' family were able to come. Thanks everyone for making the trip-we really loved having all of you here.
Chris' family was able to stay a few days. We had fun going to the temple lights, bowling, the ghost town, baseball fields, and just hanging out. It was so nice to see some family. I know we enjoyed having everyone here.
Well all in all I would have to say we had a pretty perfect holiday.

Pre-Christmas

We made gingerbread houses (well graham cracker houses) this year. When my Grandma Howse was alive we would make houses every year. I know a lot of my family who live in Utah still do this tradition, but since we live in AZ I thought we would start our own tradition of making gingerbread houses. Maybe next year we will actually use gingerbread. The kids loved making (eating) them and we loved wathching them.






This year we went to the boat parade out at Tempe Town Lakes. I thought it was wonderful-how often to you get to see a boat parade-and in the winter even? Our pictures don't really do the boats justice-but we took some anyway. We also got to visit with Santa at the park. I think he must have been getting tired-because he forgot his smile.

Here is a picture of Jaxon's christmas projects from pre-school. He loved his reindeer horns and wore it straight for the next few days.





The kids had a blast decorating the tree this year. The kids did a great job-although the tree was a little heavily decorated on the bottom half. Every once in a while I would nonchalantly replace a bulb, but Jaxon was quick to notice and say, "Mom why did you move that - I wanted that there. In the end the tree looked great if you looked at it straight on. If you happened to look at it from a side angle you would notice there were no ornaments there or on the back of our tree. O-well I thought it looked beautiful anyway.