...before Christmas

The first of November I made the decision to get all my Christmas shopping done before December. I'll admit it was a crazy November but I did it and by December 1st I had all my presents wrapped, neighbor gifts ready, decorations and Christmas Tree up! You're probably wondering, why the hurry?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I constantly stress about how fast life is going. I feel like just yesterday it was Christmas (oh wait, it really was LOL). But you know what I mean, life is going soooo fast, my kids are growing up way too fast and I feel like I hardly have time to breath and take it all in. I decided and was determined that I would not let this happen this year, I was going to do everything I could to help my family and I feel the magic of Christmas the entire month of December not just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I ended up putting together a calendar for my kids which I filled everyday with a Christmas activity. (My parents did this for my sisters and I when we were young) They were simple things like... seeing the lights, buying a Christmas ornament, decorating cookies, visiting Santa, watching a Christmas movie etc.. Everyday when Jake woke up he would run down stairs and see what we were going to do that day. It was sooo much fun!

The best part is... I feel like I really accomplished what I set out to do. I definitely will make this a goal every year. I loved worrying about something fun to do with my kids rather than worrying about what to buy for my kids. The entire month of December was so fun, so amazing, so not stressful and honestly it was magic!!

As you can tell from the pictures below, we did a lot of fun things and of course I took a lot of pictures doing those fun things. Here are just a few of the highlights of the month. I apologize that some of the pictures are so small, I figured this was the best way to show a lot of pictures without making my post the longest post in the world.

Enjoy!!

My Mom planned a trip to see the lights at Temple Square, at the last minute we decided to leave the kids at home (Jake & Coco had a fun night with their Grandma & Grandpa). It was fun hanging out with just the adults without having the crazy kids around. Definitely need to do this more often.



Here we are at the Woolf's annual Christmas Caroling Party. The kids got really into it this year, Jake and Logan loved greeting the people at the door & wishing them a Merry Christmas, Courtney loved watching everyone sing and would join in on Jingle Bells and Lydia sat in her stroller swaying and waving.


Some people laugh when they hear we Carol every year but to all of you non Carolers, you can't mock it until you have done it. There is just something special about singing Christmas songs at night in the cold to the elderly! And the funny thing is, this is coming from me who is a non singer.

Of course Christmas isn't complete without seeing the lights in Ogden. Sooo cold but still fun!

My sisters took my kids to Weber State to see Santa's reindeer. The picture of the kids with Santa was at the Ogden Festival of Trees (Jake is very proud that he saw Santa 4 times this year and swears that one of them was the REAL Santa). The pictures of Jake and Coco by the Christmas tree is the night that Laura & Lydia slept over.

We had a Christmas family home evening where the kids reenacted the Christmas Nativity. The other pictures are us at the lights at Willard. It was our first year seeing these lights and they too were amazing lights. Definitely a new tradition.

So again, these are just a few highlights. I would share more but I don't want to bore you to death if I haven't all ready :)

Merry Christmas!!!

Courtney & Lydia

My sister Laura, her husband Tyson and their daughter Lydia have been visiting us since the first of December. We've had (and still having) so much fun with them especially with Lydia who is now 15 months old. She's a sweet heart who is full of energy,smiles, some mischief and lots of kisses. Courtney & Lydia are 8 months apart but because Court is small for her age and Lydia is big for her age, it makes them almost the same height & weight.

These two little girls are so cute together and are having so much fun playing with each other. Courtney absolutely loves her little cousin whom she still calls "baby".

Jake and Logan are also enjoying their youngest cousin Lydia. We've had many fights over who gets to sit by Lydia. Here are the grand kids eating dinner at our house.

Courtney and Lydia singing together. Most of the time they get along but like most kids they some times have a hard time sharing (mostly Court) but thankfully Lydia is at the age where you can easily distract her.


Eating lunch at our house. Lydia has slept over at our house two times now and both times we've had a blast.

We saw the lights in Ogden and Courtney insisted on pushing the "baby". LOL!!

Courtney & Lydia's favorite game is "Ring around the Rosy".

I can't even count the times our two little munchkins have had baths together???

I love this pictures. BFF's !!!

Laura & I took the little girls to the Tree House.

Our two little girls!!

We still have 11 more days with Laura & Lydia but I am already getting sad thinking of them leaving. I'm worried it's going to be even harder to say good bye to them this time as we have all grown so close to Lydia. But I will worry about that then..... Right now we will continue to enjoy every day we have with Laura, Tyson & Lydia. We sure love you guys! XOXO

FAMILY PICTURE NIGHTMARE !!

This is really sad and embarrasing, but we haven't had a family picture taken with Courtney, and yes, she is 2 years old. AND, to make matters worse, we haven't had a family picture taken since Jake was 2 years old. Add it up and we haven't had a family picture in 4 years. Pathetic and so sad.


My sister Laura is in town and she is really talented at taking pictures so I figured there was no better time than now. To sum up this awesome experience (I am being extremely sarcastic) it took me two hours to get my family dressed and beautified and literally 5 minutes of taking the actual pictures. Once we found the perfect spot.... Jake started to whine about the sun in his eyes, Court became an ornery little thing, Scott was impatient and also whiny (not joking) and myself, impatient with everyone!!!



This stressful experience answered my question why we haven't taken a family picture in 4 years. It will probably be another 4 possibly 5 years until we take another one (again, not joking).


Laura has been teaching me some really fun photo editing tricks. This is one of Scott's favorite quotes, he is totally going to kill me when he sees this. LOL!!

As you can see by these pictures, at least one of us in each picture has their eyes squinting or not smiling, but knowing this was a 5 minute photo shoot, hopefully you can appreciate them more.


Laura said we were the fastest photo shoot she has ever done. Not sure this is a compliment?


I'm sure had we spent even 15 minutes letting Laura take pictures we would of had a lot more to choose from, and possibly better ones. In this case I will quote Jakes Kindergarten teacher "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit". LOL!!!

Thank you Laura for putting up with my crazy family!


This is the picture we chose for our Christmas card and sad to admit that this will be our 2nd Christmas card we have sent out in 8 years. I always intend to mail out Christmas cards but I never seem to get around to it (procrastination seems to haunt me). My worry now is making sure the Christmas cards actually get in the mail. Wish me luck!

SCARY SANTA & SURPRISE PARTY !!

Scott & I took our kids to The Walmart Santa Clause and yes, we like the Free Santa with the Free pictures !!! We tried to prepare Courtney but as soon as she saw him...well in this case the picture says it all. Soooo funny!

Jake was really excited to see Santa and told Santa in a very clear voice that he wanted a Batman House or Battle Force 5.


Happy Birthday Margaret!!!

Last Friday, Scott's sister Emily planned a surprise party for their Mom who turned 60. We surprised her at the restaurant Maddox Steak House. She was extremely surprised when she walked in and saw us all there. It was a fun evening of yummy food & visits. We sure love you Margaret. Thanks for being an incredible Mom to Scott, an amazing Grandma to our kids and thank you for being such a wonderful Mother in-law to me. We love you so much!!!

Here is Jake with his Grandma. All the kids made a homemade gift for her Birthday. It was really sweet and such a good idea, thanks Emily for putting this all together.


Scott's eldest brother Matt and wife Gidget.




Scott's younger brother Mike and his wife Elise (who is due in less than 2 weeks!!) and their 2 year old daughter Aiva.




Scott's youngest brother Tommy who is also really weird. We call him the "special" brother. (Just kidding Tommy). Also with him is his wife Amber (who is also pregnant) and their 3 year old son Tyler.




Scott's older brother Dave with his wife Jen and youngest daughter Jane.

Mother and daughter (Scott's older sister Emily).

Here is Izzy (Emily's daughter) helping Grandma open presents.

Singing Happy Birthday to the Birthday girl!!

My little daughter who did not nap and was a handful at the restaurant. But still such a cutie.

Coco giving her Dad some love. She is definitely a Daddy's girl.

FIRST WEEK OF DECEMBER

Merry Christmas!!!

This is why you never tell Coco to say 'cheese' before taking a picture. LOL!!

Ok, so funny story. The other day Jake got off the bus and I could tell by his face he was upset. As he got closer to me his eyes started to tear up and by the time he reached me he was sobbing. He held onto my neck and cried for a long time. I was thinking someone had been mean to him, or he was hurt?? When he finally calmed down enough to tell me what was wrong, I had to do my best not to laugh. This is what happened...He had made a magic wand at school and someone told him that it was a REAL magic wand. But his magic wand some how broke on the bus and now he will never know if it was really magic. I asked him what he was going to do with his magic wand (had it worked) and he said "I was going to make a Chicken Garlic Pizza for dinner with it". (his favorite food) Oh the innocence of a child.

Here are my kids helping decorate the tree. Courtney loved every second of it, she kept saying over and over "lights, lights, lights".

It took Courtney 3 days until she would go near this Snowman. She's still a little scared of it but she at least will be in the same room with it. As you can tell she wasn't too happy taking this picture. And yes, I do have fun torturing my child. LOL!!!

I found Courtney like this a few days ago. She put on her dress up clothes all by herself and she was sooo proud of herself. She kept asking me to take more pictures.


This is Jake trying out another smile. I don't know what he is doing but every time I take a picture he is smiling some different kind of goofy smile. Weird and yet funny. I am hoping this is just a short phase.


My two beautiful children. (again, check out Jakes smile, what the?? Lol!)

Thanksgiving

The past few weeks I have not felt well which results in me not updating my blog. (Sorry Aunt Bev!!) But now that Christmas season has arrived and I already have fun stories & pictures I want to record, I figure I better do a quick Thanksgiving update so I don't get too far behind.

I am sad that I didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving day, again I was feeling pretty rotten and didn't even think to get my camera out. We spent most of the day at my Mom's house (Thank you Mom for the delicious meal!!). My parents set up the house with an extra TV for the Wii, football upstairs and ping pong down stairs as well as a fun Thanksgiving Bingo for the kids. It was a picture perfect day (except for me feeling rotten LOL!!). Again, thank you Mom & Dad for a wonderful Thanksgiving. You spoil us as always.

In the evening we headed over to Scott's parents home where we enjoyed more delicious food. I had fun playing games with the girls, Jake & Coco had a blast playing with their cousins and Scott enjoyed hanging out with his brothers. He also had fun playing foot ball with his brothers and friends earlier in the day & thankfully no one was injured just sore. LOL!! A big thank you to Margaret and Larry for a wonderful Thanksgiving at their house.

We are extremely blessed & spoiled to live close to both our families and to be able to share this fun Holiday with all of them. (Except for Laura & Tyson who we missed a lot)

Here are my children dressed up as an Indian & Pilgrim.


Jake's kindergarten class had a fun Thanksgiving day celebration. It was held in the gym where they took turns going from station to station learning all about Thanksgiving. They made Indian hats, sat in a real Tee pee, shot turkeys with a bow & arrow (picture above) learned how to grind corn etc...


Here is Jake with his good friend Tayt.

The day after Thanksgiving my Mom & Dad treated our whole family to Laser Tag. I stayed with Courtney but Jake & Scott had soooo much fun. Thank you Mom & Dad!!


Here is Coco with her Aunt Heather (my sister). They are the best of buddies, Courtney adores her. The other night Court woke up calling out for Heather, how cute is that???


This is what Courtney did while all the big kids played Laser Tag.


Happy Thanksgiving!!!