Happy New Year!

We celebrated! (at 9:00pm :D) 2010 was good to us...




Our hometeacher came while we were living it up and eating our Grand Panda and brought us a Martinelli and poppers! :) He made our kids night with those poppers! SO FUN!!! Jake thought it was a firework so he lit the string and then it went out so he lit another one and it went out...what?! Then he read the directions, just pull the string...ha ha!!!!


Happy New Year! Here's to a great 2011!

What a clever boy...

has learned to master legos mostly on his own and mommy is so happy! :)

plans changed

last night at 3am I was awoken to my little boy throwing up...I got him cleaned up and then seconds later Sierra yells "mommy!" I run to her and she is in the hallway and said "I feel like I'm going to throw up!" I rushed her to the toilet and held her hair as she threw up in the toilet. She got all cleaned up, teeth brushed and back to bed. The rest of the night I was up twice an hour with Ashton cleaning him up because he can not make it to the toilet and he kept missing the bowl. I was up with Sierra just twice, she was not as bad as Ashton, she actually got a little bit of sleep.
This morning Jake and I had plans to attend the temple with his family. Plans changed. I stayed home and washed lots of blankets and jammies. Jake got to go with his family. It's okay, the kids and I just get to lay around and watch a lot of movies and take naps.
I feel like we did this last year after Christmas...

Checklist

wrap presents...check
make rolls for dinner...check
make bread for Jacque...check
Sierra helps make cookies for Santa...check
bath...check
open Christmas Eve present...check
put on new jammies...check

sprinkle reindeer food...check

daddy makes warm fire...check
put out Santa's cookies and milk...check

get snug in our sleeping bags...CHECK
Mom reads "The Night Before Christmas"...check

we're ready Santa!

Christmas Eve

Tonight we went to mom's for Christmas Eve.
Warms my heart...to see my children love each other!

me, mom, sis-in-law Brenna

My mom asked Sierra if she and I could be in charge of the program. Sierra told me that and I told her to go for it...she put the whole program together and even typed up a program. Aunt Brenna lead the opening song, Jingle Bells, while Sierra played the piano. We had an opening prayer and then...
Traditional Nativity scene
what a cute shepard

Brenna's brother, Duran and girlfriend Brittany were good sports and agreed to be Mary and Joseph. Sierra, the star! (she made those star decorations too with the boys, she taught them how to draw stars) Chris was reading the story from the bible and at the part when the angel speaks to the shepards Sierra took over and quoted it from memory...so cute!


Ashton read "I Believe in Santa Claus", Sierra read her poem, sang a few songs and closed with a prayer by Grannie
Great job Sierra!

Merry Christmas!
btw...Sierra got a phone call tonight from Santa on Grammy's cell phone and he said that he was in North Dakota and we were going to be his first stop in California! :)

Christmas with Nana and Papa

Nana and Papa are leaving for Utah tomorrow so we got to have Christmas early with them...
Nana made them new blankies...Ashton a baseball, PERFECT!

Sierra so bright and cheery and girly...they both LOVE their new blankies! :)

Christmas bells ring
I love to hear them DING!
And when I hear this I think of our King.
Our King was born with a cow, sheep, duck, 1 big pig
and 2 nasty rats that love to dig.
But he was born in peace, love and joy.
So, when you get your Christmas toy,
think of that very special little boy.
Which is our Savior and King.
So, when you hear those bells ring...
Think about the birth of our King!
By: Sierra Young

Parties at school and a Piano Recital

Needed to bring a treat to school for both of the kids parties so thanks to Heather Keil we made snowmen...

YAY, no school for 3 weeks!!!!

This afternoon Sierra had her piano recital...so fun that Aunt Miriam is her teacher. She played Scarf Dance and Jingle Bells. She did a great job, I just love my girl!

Merry Farm

My mom is awesome!!! She heard that we could get discount tickets at Knott's for $15 each and they donate the money to Toys for Tots. She wanted to take all of us. So Monday, off we went!


Sierra made this shirt special for our trip. Isn't it so cute!!! :)

Aunt Sophi won this giant Frosty, the game was tricky too and she DID it!!!









The boys played a game and each won a tiger and then Sierra played a different game and won these 3 bears, she was pretty happy and Grammy is so nice!





We stayed till the bitter end and then we went to IHOP down the street where the kids eat free. Then we headed home. Thanks mom!!! Such a FUN FUN day!

the Temple and a party

This afternoon Dad, Tori, Sophi and myself got in Dad's car and started making our way south. We ate lunch at Junior's and then we went to the temple. My dad was sealed to his mom and dad and sisters. His mom and dad have passed on, beautiful work that was done today!
Tonight was our Ward Christmas Party.

Last Day!

Today was my last day babysitting and oh how thrilled I am. I love the kids, don't get me wrong! But, I feel like I'm getting my life back. My kids are excited too that I'm not babysitting, that says something. Here's to new adventures! :)

Christmas Cheer!

Tonight me and the kids went with Jake and the cubscout pack to sing Christmas Carols to some elderly people. I had a really stinky attitude and didn't want to go, Jake wanted us to so I was going for him and I'm so glad we did. What a great way to bring the spirit of Christmas to your heart. The scouts and Jake did a skit, that was put together by Kirby and was so cute. So fun singing carols with Kirby's guitar. Seeing the smiles on all the faces made it all worth it to me and I just love my husband, he was great in the skit and he is so much fun, he was yelling out the fun words when we were singing Rudolph. :)

Church News

In Bible Camp over the summer Sister April Lawler had the kids write letters to different leaders in the church...well, Ashton got a letter back from Elder Holland!

and I have sent in about 3 or 4 pictures that Sierra has drawn to the Friend and she was looking through the Friend last night and her first picture that we sent in 2 years ago was published!!! :) YAY!!!

Preparations...

We got our tree today...I was putting on the lights and Sierra says "OHHH, I'm just so excited!!! Oh, how they love to decorate the tree.


Kitty, she just likes to be close to us and sleep...

This is a taste of what it looks like near the end...Ashton has tired and is sitting on the couch admiring the tree...daddy enjoying a slice of pizza and Sierra still decorating! :)


Grannie brought over a Gingerbread kit for Ashton so we decorated that too!

Grannie brought Sierra a sewing machine and she sewed a stocking for her AG dolls.

Sierra and I watched "Evan Almighty", Daddy was watching the big game USC vs. UCLA and USC won and Ashton cuddled in his bed and watched his fav "How to Train Your Dragon."

A GREAT DAY!