Christmas morning

Dustin flew in on Christmas Eve. Emory was very excited to see Uncle Primmy. 

The night before Christmas, most of the presents were already wrapped so we watched a Star Wars movie on Christmas Eve.

 

The kids Christmas morning waiting to go downstairs! 

McKelle thinks the scooter is pretty cool but isn't quite big enough to really enjoy it yet. 

She does, however, love her big, fluffy dog and will wrestle and lay all over it. 

Santa also gave McKelle a shopping cart which she loves and she loved to give her big dog (or anything she could find) a ride. 

Emory has been talking for weeks about the backhoe Santa was going to bring him. He could not wait to run down the stair and find his backhoe. He was in heaven! 

Mom & Dennis flew in on Christmas morning. We opened a few Santa presents and then picked them up from the airport before opening the rest of the gifts. It was fun to have them there and was a great way to start the Christmas holiday. 

Emory enjoyed the mints he found in his stocking. 

The aftermath. 

Me loving on my brother! 

After naps and presents, we went to Kayla and Dave's house for Christmas dinner. 

Jessica and her family were there from Delta, Utah as well as Jordan. It was great to have both families there. 

Walmart with my ducklings

I've finally discovered how to make it through grocery shopping with two little kids without going crazy! The other day we were in the toy section of Walmart, like we do every Monday, picking out a toy or two for each kid to play with while I do my shopping. Well, Emory picked out a tricycle and I helped McKelle notice a baby stroller and a baby doll. These simple discoveries changed my grocery shopping experience. I now walk up and down the aisles with my two little ducklings peddling or pushing behind me.  It does take a little bit longer to redirect traffic every once in a while but the other shoppers don't seem to mind gawking over the two cute kiddos. In the end, it's a win, win and everyone is happy.

Gingerbread houses

We made gingerbread houses this morning before church. It was nothing fancy but it sure was fun. To begin, I had Emory pass out some candy and once he finished, he grabbed one more mint M&M and said, "and this one is for hiding." He thought he was pretty sneaky eating candy throughout the whole experience. In fact, I'm pretty sure he did more eating than creating. Oh well. It was a fun memory and Mommy and Daddy got to have fun too. 

Emory licking his frosting covered fingers. 

Emory and Dad made a train 

McKelle cheesing it up. She sure enjoyed eating the candy too and would let us know by constantly saying, "mmmm!"

McKelle helped by putting maybe three M&Ms on the house :) 

"Choo Choo"

Me and McKelle made a house with a Christmas tree and a snowman in front. 

She pooped

About a week in a half ago, McKelle pooped on the potty! I could tell she was pushing a little and asked her if she wanted to go poop poo on the potty. She immediately started walking over to the bathroom. Pretty quickly after I sat her down, it came! She was so proud of herself. She didn't want to get off the potty for a while afterwards too. I think she loves being one of the big kids :)

She has also been talking soo much more lately. She'll even say two words together like, "bye momma" or her new favorite saying, "where'd i' go?" with her hand turned up and shrugging her shoulders. 

(blurry picture but she was just too cute!)

(blurry again but two cuties ready for church) 

Baking Christmas cookies

I needed to bring some Christmas cookies to mutual the other day and decided I'd make the traditional sugar cookies. I've never made these before and have always wanted to so this was a good excuse. In fact, I've had the Christmas cut outs for a long time and never used them till now. Of course, Emory was ready to help. He loved being a "roller" truck and helped me roll out the dough. 

His favorite cookie to cut out was the candy cane. 

McKelle enlisted in the "look out" duty. 

Icing the cookies was probably their favorite part and they did a pretty good job too. 

I always ask the kids, "where's my nose?" to get them to look up at the camera. I guess McKelle misunderstood :)

Can you do me a favor mom?

This was a conversation I had with Emory on the drive home from church.

Emory: mom?
Mom: what?
Emory: mom?
Mom: what?  I said what.
Emory : mom you listening to me?
M: yes
Emory : mom, can you do me a favor?
M : sure
Emory : can you make me a car?
M: make you a car?  I don't have the tools or knowledge to make a car.
Emory : that's okay. You can use daddy's tools.
M: I still wouldn't know how to do that but how about I draw you a car?  Would that work?
Emory : yeah, that'll work. You promise mom?

This same pattern continued with a request for a pencil and something to do with a hot air balloon which we were watching four of out our window at the time.

Adventures in Prescott

Derek & Trish spent a few days with us for Thanksgiving break. We drove up to Prescott for a day to visit some of Trish's friends. She owns a gymnastics gym and lives on a farm. It was kind of a perfect day. The kids loved the gym. They had a big bouncy house set up like an obstacle course with a big slide at the end. I'm pretty sure that was McKelle's first time on a bouncy house. 

This girl can climb, anything! She was not at all scared to go all the way up these stairs and climbed them like a pro. 

The foam blocks were a hit. McKelle needed some help but Emory thought they were pretty fun. 

(blurry) 

Star was showing us her big muscles. 

After the gym we went to Summer's house on a farm. They had the biggest pig I have ever seen. That is Summer, probably 5"6', standing right next to it. It was like a small horse. 

Summer has four girls so there was always a babysitter for McKelle. 

All those girls! Yes, that is Emory off to the left playing in the dirt with his truck :) The farm was basically heaven for Emory. He got to ride on a go cart, climb on top of a huge pile of tree logs and had dirt to play in as far as the eye could see. It made me want to live on a farm too. I could just imagine how easy it would be to get Emory's energy out with all that land. 

After all the fun, these two cuties enjoyed a little break together on the hammock (and some Cheetos too).