We met Jared & Jerusha Hess at Disneyland!

For those of you who are NAPOLEON DYNAMITE fans or NACHO LIBRE fans, you'll appreciate this. While we were at Disneyland our 3rd day, I ran into Jared Hess and his wife Jerusha. They wrote and directed Napoleon and they co-wrote and directed Nacho. I recognized him because I'm a nerd and I watch the Special Features on our DVD's. Aside from his look in the picture, he was really sweet and talked to us for awhile. I think his wife was a little shocked that I knew her name, but I'm just really good with names... Anyway, it was pretty cool! Wow, he's really tall, but also I'm really short!

Our Family Disneyland Vacation!

On our way down to So Cal we stopped at our dear old friends' Kris & Elisa Barton's house in Santa Clarita! They recently moved there from the Seattle area and seem much happier with the beautiful SoCal weather.(however it rained while we were there!) We stayed a couple nights and Dave took Logan and Mason to Magic Mountain with Kris and his kids Tagg and Ellie. Dave's bro Mike drove up for the day and went too. Elisa and I opted out to keep our little ones out of the cold rainy weather. They all had a blast despite the rain! A HUGE thanks goes out to the Bartons for putting us up for two days and for the great hospitality! Our kids had a blast with Tagg, Ellie, Carter and Chloe!
We started our Disney vacation on Monday. We expected rain and were pleasantly surprised by the dry skies and scattered sun. We rode so many rides this day! Buzz's AstroBlasters, Space Mountain, the TeaCups, all the Fantasyland rides, Pirates of the Caribbean,...and many more! It was so carefree, especially knowing we still had two more days.

Tuesday we spent mostly at the California Adventure park. Logan's favorite ride was there: The Twilight Zone Hollywood Tower of Terror. This is truly a one-of-a-kind ride, not your typical free fall ride! Logan rode it 4 times! Mason was satisfied with once! We did Soarin' over California, a Bug's Land, California Screamin', Mulholland Maddness, Mike and Sulley to the Rescue, and a few more. We ended the day at Disneyland. Logan finally got to meet his "best friend" Woodey! He was so excited to see him! Wednesday we took a break and returned to Disneyland Thursday with Grandpa and Uncle Mike! We did ToonTown, Casey Jr, Storybookland, Space Mountain another 5 times!, Star Tours,....and Mason got to fight Darth Maul and become a Jedi Padowan! We got that on video! So Cute!
We had so much fun, it was a great 3 days! We'll try it again in 2 more years!

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Here's Daddy and his cute little baby's. Noah turns 3 February 7th and Roman turns 1 on February 10th! They're getting so big!
Here's Logan and Mason saying, "Shake-n-Bake"! It's a silly handshake thing Dad taught them, it's from the movie Talladega Nights- The Legend of Ricky Bobby.

I just had to take a picture of Noah here. I had my back to him while I was feeding Roman and when I turned around he was just casually eating his sandwich here, laying on his back with his feet up in the air. It was just so like Noah to do something so silly!
I was just thrilled because both of my "picky eaters" were doing a great job eating their lunch! This doesn't happen very often! I don't mind a messy face if it means their tummy is full! Noah had peanut butter and jelly and Roman had oatmeal- 2 packs even! Yahoo!

We had a Very, Merry Christmas!

Dave's brother Mike gave him a Naruto headband like the one Naruto wears in one of Dave's favorite shows. He was hilarious in that headband! He literally wore it all day long! Mike liked it so much he went out and bought his own, but his was from the "other tribe".
The boys got matching Lightning McQueen jammies from Grandma and Grandpa! The were so excited to wear them on Christmas night.

This is the boys in their Christmas jammies that they opened on Christmas eve, they were so cute! They couldn't contain their excitement for Christmas morning. It was hard to get them to bed that night!
This is Christmas morning before they went downstairs to see their presents. They are draped in their new blankies that I made for them that they opened on Christmas eve. Logan got a Pokemon blanket, Mason got a Star Wars blanket, and Noah got a Lightning McQueen & Mater blanket. They also each got a pair of slippers; Noah got Lightning McQueen, Mason got Mater, and Logan got Spongebob. They were very happy with them.

It was so fun having Grandma and Grandpa at our house for Christmas! They came two years ago for Noah's first Christmas and now they were able to be here for Roman's first Christmas! We had a great time together!

Uncle Mike came for Christmas too and the boys were so thrilled! He is so wonderful with the kids! They just adore him! Logan and Mason got Gameboy Micros from Santa and Mike got a little addicted to the Pokemon games that they got for their Micros. He helped them learn how to play and played for them a little too!

On Christmas day, my mom, dad, sister Stephanie and brother-in-law Richard and their two kids Sophia and Kian all came over for Christmas dinner. It was fun to see the cousins playing together and they exchanged presents as well. I unfortunately was busy enough getting the dinner ready that I forgot to take pictures, Darn! It was a great time! We had a lovely dinner, even the kids were good! We had turkey and ham, "Funeral potatoes", green bean bake, raspberry jello, mixed veggies, rolls, fruit salad, and a special slushie drink. After dinner we had some of Lorraine's (Dave's mom) amazing banana cream pie!! It was a great Christmas, we felt very blessed to be able to have spent it surrounded by our loved ones!

The company Christmas party....

Every year SMUD (Dave's company) puts on a wonderful children's Christmas party. They have so many fun activites and games for the kids. The kids all have a blast and really look forward to it.
They got to see Santa and tell him what they'd like for Christmas and take pictures with him. They were so excited!
There was this funny game where you go into this "Cash Booth" with fake dollars blowing around like crazy. You have a set time and you have to grab as much "cash" as you can and who ever grabs the most gets a prize. It was so funny watching them do this! Noah mostly just stood there throwing the money up in the air. At first, when Logan went in he started nicely stuffing the cash in his pockets. Once he saw the other kid just grabbing armfuls he quickly changed his game plan. We laughed, it really was hilarious! We walked away with a pretty good prize....a little rubber ducky that Logan gave to Roman! How sweet!
There was a huge Spongebob bounce house that they jumped in. Here's Noah having a great ol' time jumping around in there. This was a long but fun day. We had the company party until 2:30pm then we had our ward Christmas party at 5pm. The boys had a blast there too. We got to socialize with our friends while the boys ran around the halls of the church with all the other kids for 2 hours. They had so much fun!

The Christmas Season

My favorite time of year is when it's time to put up all the Christmas decorations. Exactly when is the right time is up for debate in our house. I wanted to put up the tree before Thanksgiving but Dave thought that was a little weird. I understand his point but when it takes so many hours to get the house decorated, you don't want to take it all down 3 weeks later! I want to enjoy it for a while. So we put up the tree the weekend before Thanksgiving!
I love my Christmas tree, it makes our house feel so magical and festive! It also reminds me of why we celebrate Christmas. We have a set of three beautiful glass angel ornaments that are my favorite. Once angel is blowing a horn to shout glad tidings of great joy to the world that our Savior was born.

One angel is holding a star which was the sign used to announce his birth to the world. The last angel is holding a candle to remind us that He is the light of the world. I hope we can all remember why we celebrate this wonderful season.