Early Christmas

Since we were making the "dreaded drive" home for Christmas in our gigantic car, we let the kids open some Christmas presents at home before we left. They opened their goods from Grandma & Grandpa Haynes. Let me back up a bit to about mid-November. KynnLee starts saying she wants a LaLaLoopsy doll for Christmas. Seriously, never heard of or seen them. I loved the fact that she found something all on her own with no outside influence. To be honest, when I saw the commercial for them I thought they were a bit weird. They have buttons for eyes, kind of like the girl on the movie Coraline, but not that creepy. But after I checked into them a bit they are actually really cool. Each doll is made of something recycled. KynnLee got the Bea Spells-a-lot doll and the Dot Starlight doll. Bea Spells-a-lot is made from a school girl's uniform, she is a smartypants who always follows the rules and loves to talk... a LOT! Dot Starlight is made from a real astronaut's space suit, she's a dreamer who loves science and she always has her head in the clouds. KynnLee about jumped out of her pants and said, "It's Lalaloopsy!!" when she opened it! It was to die for! She was so cute!

Jaden-boy got "golfing clubs". He's very excited for this summer. We will have to bring them with us when we make "the dreaded drive" again in July.

I'm glad my cute little stinker-pots got spoiled by G&G Haynes. And yes, KynnLee did actually fall asleep like that, I didn't pose her!

Breakfast with Rudolph

Jaden got to have breakfast with Rudolph at his school and KynnLee and I joined him.

KynnLee sat by my friend Kim to eat breakfast, I have never seen that girl behave so perfectly!!! She's pretty good buddies with Kim and Mia. :)

They had this cute little picture corner for the kiddos as well as a little activity table with beads and pipe cleaners to make a bracelet. Rudolph was just a teacher with some antlers on his head, we didn't track him down for a picture.

Mr. Daniel the principle (who is fabulous, by the way) was helping serve breakfast. Jaden snuck around by him for a quick pic.

Breakfast with Rudolph was a definite success, the kids loved it!

Post-Thanksgiving festivities!

I'm not going to lie, my favorite holiday is Black Friday. Not just for all the crazy shopping, but mostly because, to me, it is the green light to officially start the Christmas Season. All this craziness with the stores putting out Christmas decor before Halloween is even over... it should be illegal!

We saved the wish bone from our Thanksgiving turkey and Jaden thought it was so cool! He had a really hard time waiting the few days for it to dry out. KynnLee didn't really understand, she thought it was cool and was a good sport about it, but was over it before we got to actually break it. Ha ha, so mom ended up breaking it with Jaden.

I started the tradition of watching The Nutcracker or listening to the music while we put up all the Christmas decor. These kids are HUGE fans of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker music! They listen to it year-round, mostly when going to bed, but I do get requests for it in the car. Jaden's favorite piece is the march at the beginning in the party scene, and KynnLee's favorite is the Waltz of the Sugar Plum Fairy. I LOVE that they love this music, and I LOVE that they picked out their own little favorite song.

It didn't take this little girly long to find her stocking....

Jaden loves the Christmas Village and did a great job setting it up. KynnLee's favorite was the little clay nativity scene that Grandma Sara made. She wouldn't leave it alone!

My girly did a fantastic job decorating her section of the tree...

We got a super fun package in the mail from the Vallace's. It was a Christmas Village to count down to Christmas. Every day we had an ornament to put on the little mini Christmas tree, a theme, a scripture, and either a present to open or an activity to do. It was perfect, the kids absolutely loved it! Thank you Vallace's!

Thanksgiving

(Ok, I'm really not one for New Year's Resolutions. Why should I be better just because it's a new year? President Hinckley always said, "Be a little better", so that's what I try to do... all the time. HOWEVER, after going through my lame, no-good group of pictures from Thanksgiving, I vow to be better at taking pictures this year...)

Just the usual Thanksgiving with friends this year. The only new thing was that I was in charge of the turkey! I've never done a turkey before, so it was a learning experience.

Jaden thought it was the coolest thing ever that we had to gut the turkey! It was dad's idea to use gloves, otherwise I'm sure he would have just dug in! I don't like touching raw meat, so it was gloves for me no matter what.


We got the turkey gutted, cleaned, the neck on the back of the neighbor's car, (Ha ha, just kidding!) and ready to marinate! Lucky for me I have older sisters and a mom who have done lots of turkeys, and I made lots of phone calls to them. They got their hot little hands on the Emeril Lagasse recipe for a turkey marinade, so that's what I did. I had a 23lb turkey, so it required a 5-gallon bucket from Home Depot, and removing a shelf in the fridge. I had 2 sleepless nights over this thing. The first night I was worried it wasn't going to be defrosted in time to put it in the marinade. Then the next night I was afraid it was going to break the shelves in the fridge! It was heavy!



But, everything went well. I'm glad I had a good little helper with the turkey. If a 6yr old can handle a raw turkey, then so can I! I'm not going to lie, the turkey turned out fabulous! Very moist, very flavorful. :)

Random blog-worthy stuff

So, I mentioned that KynnLee got a big bed. Well, she no longer sleeps in the closet or foot of the bed. No, she moved on to BIGGER things... like BIG messes! Yes, my cute little innocent girl (who's halo sometimes grows horns) destroys her bedroom before she falls asleep. I'm talkin' completely empties any bin, drawer, or shelf. She even climbs on top of her dresser and gets the stuff on the top of the hutch! I was tired of her wasting wipes, so I stashed the wipes box way on top... oh no, that didn't stop her! Sometimes she even pulls down all the clothes off the bottom rack in her closet. Oh my word, what am I going to do with her????



My friend Lacey had a birthday a while ago, so we thought it was the perfect excuse for a girl's spa night and movie! Lacey, Cindy, Lindsey and I had a nice relaxing night while pampering our feet and watching Eclipse. Trevor had a softball game, so he took Jaden with him and I put KynnLee to bed... but of course she found out what we were doing and just HAD to get in on the action!

KynnLee knew she could talk Lindsey into painting her piggies. :)

You all know how I am with pictures, I got lots of good feet pics, but that's about it! :)
Can you tell who is who's? We all have pretty cute feet!


I let Jaden and KynnLee have a "slumber party" in the living room. I couldn't resist taking pics of them while they looked so innocent...

KynnLee has always slept like that! I LOVE it! She sticks her little bum in the air and crosses her feet. This is when her halo returns to it's original shape, but it just starts all over again in the morning. :) I love that I can cuddle and smooch on Jaden when he's asleep and he doesn't wake up. I usually resist any kind of disturbance with KynnLee.

Jaden-boy got invited to a super fun birthday party for his friend Gunnar! It was Halloween themed and he got to wear his Jango Fett costume. It was funny when we got there and saw a few other boys in Star Wars costumes too! They immediately started a battle and played their characters well!!

I like the little men sitting around the table drinking their root beer! It was too cute!

Of course Jaden was first in line to dip a pretzel in chocolate, I've never met a boy who likes chocolate more than this one!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween! Our family is a big fan of Halloween and everything that comes with it!

We carved our pumpkin, and oh my word I promise to start being a better photographer... I didn't get a pic of the finished masterpiece!! Ah well, the kids were much cuter and more fun to take pics of.

It is just downright funny to me to watch these two little munchkins and their different personalities. As you can tell, KynnLee thought the pumpkin guts were totally gross...


... and Jaden thought it was the coolest thing ever! Trevor suggested gloves, otherwise Jaden would have just dug in. He IS a little weird about the cleanliness of his hands though. :)


And of course Jaden just wouldn't be a real brother if he didn't tease his sister!





We have some plywood and other stuff sitting in our garage and I had the wild idea to make a haunted house out of it. I bought a bunch of little wooden Halloween nick-nacks a couple years ago and haven't done anything with them, so a Haunted House it is!

We started with the big piece of plywood and painted it all black. Yes KynnLee's jammies are too small, but they were the first ones I came across that I didn't care if they got paint on them.



And here is the finished (scary voice) Haunted House! We had a lot of fun doing it! The best part was that we already had all the supplies lying around the house!

We all had fun Trick-or-Treating. We let the kids go in the Viper, although I'm thinking a wagon would be ideal for Trick-or-Treating. You just can't trust a 6yr old to park a car in a good spot and be quick about it (it was cold doggonnit!). Ha ha, no Jaden did ok driving and parking. :)

Oh my word, this was hysterical! There's a house down the street that always goes all-out for Halloween with all kinds of monsters and such in their yard. Well, as I send the kids up to the door, I'm on the sidewalk by the guy you see below and he starts moving toward me!!! Scared the bajeebers out of me! He didn't move fast, or even say anything. So I motion for him to go after Jaden as he comes back... didn't even phase him! I'm such a sucker!

This random pic was on with my Halloween pics.... yes he was actually stuck.