What a Difference a Year Makes

Landon in December 2007Landon in December 2008
Tori in January 2008
Tori in December 2008
Ella in January 2008
Ella in December 2008

As you can see we have had a lot of change in our home over the past year (I think Landon has changed the most j/k ). We have been very blessed in 2008 and we look forward to what 2009 will hold for our family. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! We had a great Christmas this year and we hope you all had a great one to. Last night we were able to spend the evening with some of our great friends. My friend, Lillian, made a delicious meal and we had a lot of fun chatting while our kids played. When we got home we opened out traditional Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas. I love the kid's PJs I think they look so cute! Today we have had a lot of fun. The kids made out like bandits as far as presents go and they have been having so much fun playing with all their new toys. I want to give a big thanks to all our family who sent gifts. We love everything! This evening we watched Wall-E (thanks Grammy!) and we played Cootie (thanks Ariane!).Here are some pictures from today

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Landon's School Christmas Party

Today was Landon's Christmas party at school. All the kids parents were invited and it was so much fun! Landon has a great teacher and I was impressed with all that she did to pull off a cool part for the kids.

The party started off with stations .

First we decorated a Christmas TreeThen we played with the blocks for a little whileAfter that we made an ornament

Next we made a candy cane out of beads. We also made a necklace for Tori and played with floam but I didn't get any pictures of those activities. After we went around to all the stations it was time for a snack. We enjoyed a delicious sugar cookie and some fruit punch.

After our Snack the kids sang some Christmas songs. This was super cute and luckily for you all I got some of the singing on video.

While the kids were singing Santa made his grand appearance. Most of the kids were so excited to see Santa but one little boy FREAKED out. It was funny and sad at the same time. I was super impressed with all the kids patience in waiting for Santa to call their name. Santa gave each child a book.

The party ended with all the kids giving their Mom's a gift (delicious cookie mix) and their teacher, Miss Debbie, giving the kids each a Christmas gift. The party was so fun and I am glad I could be a part of it.

Letters from Santa

I was surprised this afternoon to receive a message in my inbox from Kris Kringle. Thinking it was Holiday spam I was about to delete it, but then I noticed the subject, it said "c/o Parents of Mr. Landon P." The Email read

"Please relay the following message to your boy Landon.
Thank you.
S. Claus
Landon,
Phew! It's cold up here at the North Pole. As I have been checking my list the second time I have noticed that you are on the Nice List. (Fine work young lad!) As a reward for your good deeds this year you will NOT be receiving coal in your stocking; you, my boy, will receive presents.
Feel free to write again anytime.
Merry Christmas!
Love,Santa"

I read the email to Landon and he was so excited to get a letter from Santa and he wanted to write him back. I helped Landon type the following message back to Santa

"Dear Santa,

I am glad I am on the nice list. I have tried to be a good boy. I would really like a Mack truck and Wall-e for Christmas. Thanks a million.

Love,
Landon"

I was shocked when later that night we got a reply from Santa. Here is the rest of our correspondence :

"For Landon,
Fine choices my boy. I know a couple wise elves that I am sure I can recruit to get you those gifts.
The Eve of Christmas is almost upon us! So much still to get done.
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Santa"

"Dear Santa,

Thank you for your reply. I was wondering if my sisters are on the naughty or nice list? If they are on your nice list they would probably like some babies and princesses. They would write to you themselves but they don't talk very well yet. Thanks.

Love,

Landon"

"For Landon,
What a playful young chap you are! Worry not my boy, I have not forgotten your sisters. My list is quite long these days and I simply have not reached the point where their names appear. I will note your suggestions though. Once I find their names on The List I will send them my greetings.
Thank you for your help tiny lad.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Santa"

So Santa if you by chance read our blog, Thank you for not only making my three year old's night, but also for making this Christmas season a little more merry for me.

Last years Santa Picture

Ward Christmas Party

Tonight we had our ward Christmas party. It was a packed house but it was a lot of fun. When we first got there Landon was pretty grouchy. We had to wake him up from a nap right before we left and he was not happy. I was worried that we would be in for a long night but his mood got a lot better as the night went on.
Tori was happy to eat the delicious dinner the ward provided and she looked cute in her festive Christmas outfit.
Here is Ella at the party. A family in our ward took and entertained Ella for the majority night. It was really nice to only have to look after 2 kids.
For this years Christmas program our ward decided to have the Primary kids reenact the Nativity. It was so cute! The Nursery kids were assigned to be animals. We have a cow costume that fit Tori but I was stressed about what Landon would be. I finally decided today to put together a sheep costume for him. Now don't laugh at my handy work, I am not a seamstress (in fact I hot glued his costume together because my sewing machine is out of commission), but it worked.

Here is Tori the cow Landon the sheep

I think they look so cute in this picture.

Landon was so excited to dress up in his costume and be a part of the program. When the primary kids got up on the stage to sing their first song Landon took center stage (I am pretty sure he wasn't supposed to do this)
He started waving to everyone and smiling, it was really cute and really funny. But that wasn't the best part. When the Primary kids started singing their song Landon decided that he would put on a show for everyone and he started bustin a move. I was laughing so hard and I wished that I had a video camera. Then it dawned on me that my regular camera takes video so I was able to catch the end of Landon's dancing on video. I am sure there are many a mom who would be mortified if it were their child dancing at a completely inappropriate time but I think it is pretty awesome.

Apparently Landon takes after his Father

Christmas Cards

I sent out our Christmas cards a week ago, so this may not be anything new to a lot of you, but for those of you who I don't have addresses for here is our Christmas Card for the yearThe picture quality isn't that great on here (I scanned the card in and our scanner is not great) but I think that they turned out super cute!
I hope that you all are enjoying the holiday season. We are, I love the Christmas season and it is so much more fun to spend it with little children who are super excited about everything. That being said I find that I do get a bit of cabin fever with it being so cold and snowy outside and no car to go anywhere. If any of you have any suggestions for fun indoor activities that don't require a lot of money (Christmasy or not) I am all ears.
One of my attempts to change things up was to paint the snow again. I am going to be honest, it didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. Landon seems to enjoy the snow much more this year so I had visions of him running around spraying the snow with his food colored water filled spray bottles and making a beautiful snow painting in our yard. Well that didn't happen but I think Landon and Tori had fun. I just think it was too cold to really spend a lot of time outside. Here are some pictures from our outdoor activity

Look A-likes

It is fun to hear what other people have to say about who they think my kids look like. Ever since I had Ella I have heard a lot of opinions about who she looks like. It is funny because people usually don't give there opinion in reference to Jared or I but instead they reference Landon or Tori. It seems as though 50% of the people I talk to think that Ella looks just like Landon and the other 50% think that Ella looks just like Tori. So today I was a little bored and decided to browse through pictures of Landon and Tori from when they were around Ella's age. Here are some of the pictures I found:

For a reference here is a picture of Ella from last month

Landon at round 6 months

Tori at around 7 months

Now I don't know about the rest of you but I think that Ella looks much more like Landon then she does Tori. I think a big part of this is that they have a lot of the same facial expressions. Also Ella is super bald, just like Landon was when he was her age. It is so fun seeing the similarities and differences in my children as they grow.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Decorating for Christmas

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving this year. We were invited to spend the day with two great families . We started the day off eating the main meal at the Brown's home. The food was delicious and the kids had a lot of fun playing. Another family in our ward was able to be there with us and they have a little boy who is Landon's age named Matthew. Landon and Matthew go to the same preschool so they have become good friends. It was so fun watching Landon and Matthew play together (and to watch Tori follow them around everywhere). I loved spending Thanksgiving with the Browns and we had a wonderful time.

After we ate at the Browns we headed over to the Millers, another family in our ward, for pie. Every Thanksgiving the Millers cook a pie for every adult who is at their home for Thanksgiving. On Wednesday I wet over to their house to help them make pies and we made 17 pies! They turned out delicious! It was great spending time with the Miller's and their guests.

The Browns and the Millers taught me a valuable lesson this year. Despite having plenty of family nearby to fill their homes these two families remembered the members of our ward who are far away from their own extended families and invited us to join theirs for the day. They made us feel completely welcome and wanted. I hope that in the future when we have plenty of family near by to fill our home for the holidays that we remember to include those who may not be so close to their family in our holiday plans. This ward has really taught me a lot about service and what it means to be a ward family. I am really going to miss everyone here when the time comes for us to move.

Here are some Thanksgiving pictures:

This morning I braved the Black Friday sales. I got some good deals but it was CRAZY! I witnessed a fight outside of Target and I learned that Walmart is never a good idea on Black Friday no matter how good the deals seem.

After I got home from shopping I took a nap. Once I woke up Landon really wanted to put up the Christmas tree. So we got out the Christmas decorations and went to work. I don't have a ton of decorations but we have no room in our tiny house for anything but our nativity set and our Christmas tree. I look forward to the day when we have a house big enough for some decent decorations, but I digress. Landon and Tori had so much fun putting up the decorations and I love seeing how excited Landon is for Christmas this year!

In this picture Landon is playing with an AWESOME Nativity Set that Fisher Price makes that my Mom bought for the kids this year. I highly recommend it for all of you with young children.