Happy 2014

We spent the new year by starting off practicing wearing our party clothes..

We spent the morning at the zoo, checking out the animals and waiting for the beach ball drop after we counter down until 12:00 noon.

After a quiet ringing in of the new year we spent several days just hanging out at home relaxing, playing and staying warm.

It even snowed here a little and Parker helped with his own shovel clear the driveway. He was so happy to get to help. In about 2 years he'll make a fortune scooping sidewalks around ehre.

We even celebrated a family birthday and the kids sat at the kids table without me. Big step! A little cake goes a long ways too :)

Here's hoping you all have had a good start to 2014, and that the coming year is full of all the things you love and provides the chance for you to find some new ones. Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas

We've been wrapping up some Christmas festivities lately. We played Santa and dropped off some gifts to our cousins and friends....

We waited to watch Santa land in a helicopter...

And we went and saw the amazing tree at the Western Heritage Museum, which is beautiful...

All the running around has left us feeling pretty...

Whatever your next few days involves, from one crazy set of twins...Merry Christmas!

Gingerbreads and parties

Last weekend the cold came. Serious make-sure-you-know-it's-winter kind of cold. So to get us out of the house for a while, we decided to check out the other gingerbread house exhibit in town and go to the Mormon Winter Quarter House. There were so many really neat ones. Although, it's probably a bad sign when Parker (the man with the sweet tooth) is really excited to see how many kinds of candy he can name off on each house. Local peeps...this is definitely something to check out.

We also made it through the snow to our party with Respite Care and all our friends. We had giant cookies, did crafts and got penguin tattoos.

They also got their face painted. Payton decided to go with a gingerbread man on her cheek. Parker (who has never let anyone do face paint before) let them do a big snowflake on his cheek. You could tell he wasn't really sure about it, but he hung in there and let them finish. The lady that did it was great and talked to him about what she was doing the whole time which is such a huge help with him getting through stuff. He was pretty proud once he was all done. Huge milestone! Who knew face paint could be so important?!

We finally made it around to see Santa. They let each family go in a room with Santa and have a couple quiet minutes with him without all the noise of a big crowd. We finally got our turn.

A little more than a month ago I told them that their elf, Gary, might not come back if they didn't sleep in their beds. He left them a note after Christmas last year saying they needed to do that. They were so excited for Gary to return and we had a couple days to talk about it, that they started to sleep in their beds all night. Desperate times people. And it worked ;)

At their party, we finally went in to talk to Santa. He asked what they wanted for Christmas. Parker looked at him, pointed at him and said "hey, I sleep in my bed". Payton made sure to throw in there "yep, and Gary came back to our house because we sleep there all night now". Poor Santa had no clue but played along.

They got gifts from Santa - Parker got Captain America and Payton got a Barbie. More importantly they stood right next to Santa and let me take their picture with them. Another year, another great party for us.

Blessed <3 p="">

It's Christmas Time

After a busy Thanksgiving, it was time to get the Christmas decorating started. The tree and lights went up while the duo was at school. Also while they were at school, the one they'd been waiting for came back and was waiting for them...Gary Snowball.

They were totally into putting ornaments on the tree. They loved it. Needless to say, the bottom third of the tree looks amazing and extra sparkly ;)

We added to our holiday weekend by using pipecleaners and beads to make some candy canes to hang on the tree. Payton did a few, but Parker was hooked on it and worked over an hour using up all the beads and then putting them on the tree.

We also made a stop at the Kanesville Tabernacle to check out the gingerbread house display. It is so cool. It was busy so I"m hoping to make another stop back there before they're gone. Its definitely worth the stop!