Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year's

Just a warning...this post has a lot of pictures. Some of the pictures were out of order but I'm too tired to try and figure out how to fix them. We has so much fun this holiday season and although I was very glad to get the house back to order we sure had a wonderful time with our families. So here goes...

CHRISTMAS DAY

Braden got a magnifying glass in his stocking that he thought was funny. I would put it up to my face and it would make my eye look big which he got a big kick out of. Then he would put it up to his own face and smash his nose up against it and say his nose was big. What a silly kid.

At first the boys only noticed the kitchen Santa brought them and totally disregarded their stockings. After playing for a while Braden noticed his stocking and asked "what's this?" I told him it was his stocking from Santa and that he could look at if he wanted to. Then Dalin figured it out and they got really excited. This picture is them looking through all the stuff. This is right when Braden noticed his stocking. He had the biggest smile on his face. It was like seeing magic take hold.

When the boys woke up Dalin came running through the kitchen and said "Santa really came!" They were soooo excited about this kitchen and played with it for a good half hour before they realized they had more stuff.

Dalin loves marbles, but we've never had any of our own because they've always been too young to not put them in their mouths. (yes, we have a baby coming so we have to be extra careful when this is brought out.) But this year Dan and I decided to give him this marble maze thing for Christmas. He and Braden love it. You can build it a million different ways so they had a lot of fun putting it together. Again, every time we opened something they could play with we had to stop and let them play with it for a while until they made a request to open another gift.

Dan helping the boys put it together.

This is Dalin opening the marbles. His face just lit up when he saw the picture on the box and could not wait to open it and get it out.

I know these are so out of order, but here are the boys with some of their stocking stuff. I tried to get them to pose for a good picture with their loot, but couldn't get them to settle down long enough. I should've tried the day after Christmas after we'd settled down a bit, but oh well. Dalin was very excited about these bath crayons and all day kept making a request to get in the bath so he could use them.

Dan and I also got them some big Thomas Train floor puzzles since they both love puzzles so much. They were a big hit and again we had to stop everything so we could do the puzzles right then and there. So cute. Here' Dan and Braden with their finished product...Percy.

Here's Dalin with James. He can do the puzzle all by himself.

And here's Braden opening some gifts. Above he is opening a Little People garage. He loves cars and roads and driving so we thought this would be good. He does love to play with it.

After we opening presents and our house we went over to the Rounds' house. Here the boys are playing with Hungary, Hungary, Hippos that my mom gave to all the grandkids to play with at her house. My boys loved it. Dalin now likes to pretend he's a hippo when he's eating mini marshmallows.

Here is Braden with his cousin Kyla who gave him this doctor's kit. They boys have had a lot of fun with it, especially since we just went to the doctor a couple of days ago.

Here's Dalin and Braden with cousins Bailey and Kyla waiting oh so patiently to open all those presents stacked behind them. BOXING DAY

In England they celebrate boxing day (the day after Christmas) so it's kind of become kind of a tradition to go to Dan's mom and Ron's house on that day and spend the whole day with them. We always had a great big Christmas dinner that's oh so good and the boys love going to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

One of the gifts the boys got were these tool boxes with screw drivers and hammers that they love to play with. This was a big hit with them. For some reason the other pictures I put on here of boxing day didn't show up and I can't figure it out so I guess you only get to see a couple of them. (I get very frustrated when technology gets the better of me!) NEW YEAR'S DAY

For New Year's we went up to Malad to see Grandma and Grandpa Roper. It's hard to get around to see everyone during the holidays so we often have to spread it out. But the boys love having multiple Christmases. This year they got these motorized trucks. Dalin got a crane and Braden got a fork lift, both of which drive and move and play music and move their cranes and lifts by the push of a lever. They LOVE these. What a fun toy for little boys.

Here is Grandma Roper helping Braden get his fork lift out of the box.

And here they boys are with their trucks. I think grandpa liked to play with them almost as much as boys did. A couple of times Dalin had to remind grandpa that it was his truck.

Christmas Projects

Well, this year I've been really busy with several self inflicted projects, although I can't complain because it's been a lot of fun. This first one is making felt food for my boys. I've seen this around at stores and really thought it would be fun, but they're way too expensive to justify my buying them. Then I was reading my November issue of Family Fun (I get a lot of good ideas out of this magazine) and they had a cornucopia of felt food. So I jumped online and looked up the patterns and viola - felt food. I've been working almost every night since Thanksgiving on these when I didn't have anything else more important to do, while watching Jazz games or movies. As you can see it's slow going, but I'm impressed with what I've come up with so far. I have six more days to get a few more done.

My next project was to make a tree skirt for our Christmas tree. Dan and I have been married 8 1/2 years and we've never had a tree skirt, so once again I got this idea out of Family Fun and got to work. Every year we will add another had print from each of the boys and write their name and year on it. It will be a tradition to set up the tree and then add our hand print. I thought it sounded like a great idea and I'm excited to do this every year. I'm also proud of my handiwork since I've never sewed much of anything or made anything quite so crafty. Here's the boys looking at the lights after we attached the hand prints to the skirt. They really thought it was a lot of fun to put their hands on the skirt - they were such good helpers ;). Then of course there's the wrapping of presents and doing the shopping for Santa. I have really enjoyed getting ready for Christmas this year and finding things that the boys will enjoy. They love to look at all the presents under the tree and look for the ones that have their names written on them.

The boys(including my big boy Dan) and I also have made several Christmas treats. Here they are making frosting for our Christmas cookies. You'll notice they are all over the bowl, licking, drooling, and mucking in it. These treats we only for the boys and we did not share them with anyone, so don't panic we didn't share the slobber. They had a lot of fun making it themselves and being my big helpers.

Advent Trees

This year I got an idea from Family Fun to make a forest of Christmas trees and use them as an advent calendar. The boys have absolutely loved it. It's our little countdown to Christmas. Dalin knows that when we get to the tree with the star on top then it's Christmas Eve and Santa will come. I'm not sure Braden fully understands or remembers the whole Santa thing even though he knows who he is, but the trees have been fun for him and he knows that everyday he gets a treat from under that tree. This has turned out to be a good way to show the boys how many days we have left until Christmas, since they ask everyday if it's Christmas yet and if we get to open the presents yet. We count how many trees are left numerous times everyday so they know how many days are left. It gets them very excited. So every day we get to pick one tree (each of them have a number on them from 1-24) and under that tree is some sort of treat. I went to the dollar store and Macey's Christmas isle and got a bunch of little cheap toys or treats to put under the trees and then everyday they get what's there. They get so excited when I say it's time to look under a tree. I've had small wind up trains, little candies, and under some is an activity we get to do that day such as make gingerbread houses or go outside and make a snowman. What a great idea this has been.

Waiting patiently to pick out the first tree.

Checking out the stash. Showing off their treats.

Braden and Dan making a gingerbread house. They LOVED doing this and right after they were done making them they ate them. It was a very fun, but messy evening.

Dalin saw a gingerbread house kit at a store one time and begged me to get it because he HAD to make a house, so this was especially exciting for him. He put the frosting on all by himself and then added his candies, most of which were red - his most favorite color.

Trip to Tucson

FIRST LET ME START OUT BY SAYING DAN RECEIVED AN EMAIL TODAY INVITING HIM TO INTERVIEW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE!!! THIS IS A BIG DEAL TO ME. HE WILL INTERVIEW IN JANUARY SO CLAP YOUR HANDS AND SHOUT FOR JOY, BECAUSE I REALLY WANT HIM GET IN AT THE U.

Recently Dan and I had the chance to go to Arizona for a medical school interview at University of Arizona in Tucson. Since Dan had never been to the Grand Canyon we spent a day there too. It was nice to get away for a couple of days and Dan has fallen in love with road trips. He loved it. I really enjoyed it too, but the whole pregnant thing puts a damper on things. My back and body doesn't handle being in the car that long and that made it hard. We also would have liked to go on a longer hike at the canyon but after 2 1/2 miles I couldn't do much more. By then I was starting to hurt pretty bad so we took the shuttle out further to see more sites.

While in Tucson we got to see my cousin, Erica. That was cool since we don't get to see her very often anymore. Her husband Jason was there too, but couldn't stick around since he had to work. Erica was nice enough to take us all over Tucson and spend almost her whole day off tending us. We went to Jason's restaurant that night and ate an amazing meal, although we felt VERY under dressed. This is the kind of place with crystal glasses and really high prices (well at least high to poor folk like us. I don't think I've ever paid that much to eat out (I guess we didn't really pay, because Jason treated us, so a super big thanks for that)) and a chef that cooked exquisite food. It was soooo yummy. It was fun to see Tucson and spend time with family.

For some reason Dan was obsessed with these cactus. He said he's never seen one in real life. And when I think about it I don't think I've ever really seen one either. You see them in cartoons like the Road Runner and in pictures and stuff but never actually walked up to one and touched it. I was surprised at how extremely tall they were.

Dan's interview went really well and he really likes the U of A. We could hear from them as early as mid-December and as late as end of March so keep your fingers crossed.

Snow

Well, I have been keeping extremely busy the last couple of weeks since Thanksgiving. I just finished downloading my pictures off the camera and realized I hadn't done it since Halloween. Big sigh. I have been crafting a lot lately, in preparation for Christmas, so every free moment is full of something, but I'll post on that later. This post I decided to show some fun pictures of my boys playing in the snow. They LOVE to play in the snow. They threw snow balls and shoveled the grass. Dalin said he wanted to play baseball and I told him there was too much snow on the ground so he decided if he and Braden shoveled off the grass then we could play baseball. After they got into the snow, however, baseball was soon forgotten. I very much enjoy watching them play, but being horribly uncomfortable and not really able to bend down very well, I missed making a snowman with them. I hope I still get to do that before winter is over. But we did have a very fun snowball fight. After we got all cold we got to have hot chocolate and read Snowball Soup. What a fun afternoon. I love these times with my kids.

Monsters

Today Dalin and Braden were running through the house screaming "the monsters are coming". They would run into my bedroom, jump on the bed and hide under the blankets, squealing in delight. Then they would jump down and run through the kitchen, into their own room and scream and squeal the whole time, yelling "watch out! The monster will get you". So as I was getting dinner ready I asked Dalin what the monster looked like and he drew me this picture so I would know what it looked like. I thought it was very creative and now I know what the monster looks like. Braden also drew a monster with a little help from Dalin. Dalin explained that the circles around them are their space helmets, just like Buzz Lightyear.

This is Braden's monster

This is Dalin's monster.

Baby Pictures

Well, we still don't have a name for our baby, in fact not even a possible names list. There's not one name that comes to mind for either Dan or I. I guess it's a work in progress. But we did get our Targeted ultrasound yesturday and so I have a few really good looks at our new little one. Maybe this will help motivate us to pick out a name! He was very cooperative for the ultrasound so maybe he'll be that way when he's born. I can hope anyways.