Christmas Break & New Year

Went to the Zoo with my friend, Courtney, and her daughter Camryn. Tyson got to go in and feed the giraffes with them! : ) He made the cutest face, but was actually quite brave about it all.

We had a play date with Tiffany, Chloe & Zora. It'd been a couple months since we've seen them. Way too long, in my opinion. We miss living so close! It's way too long, too, for these little friends who used to see each other every day. They had fun playing in the sand in the back yard and with toys in the house. Chloe is such a beautiful girl & a sweetheart.

We took the kids hiking on Heber's birthday...Hahahahaha...what were we thinking? Tyson, even at only 2 1/2 years old, understood that we didn't actually go ALL the way to the top of the mountain, and he whined the ENTIRE way down--gave Mitch a headache, too. He was extremely upset that we didn't go to the top of the mountain. Someday when he has a 2 year old and an infant, and tries to haul his own kids up the mountain, he'll finally understand why our group didn't make it to the top.

We went to Build-a-Bear. Tyson keeps calling his new bear, "My Building Bear". "My building bear laughs, Emmett's plays a song." He's been hauling his bear around the house everywhere he goes. That bear will watch TV with us, sleep with us at naptime, bedtime, and Tyson makes sure to give Emmett his own building bear so he doesn't feel left out. In the shop, we were trying to find clothes for the bears, and Tyson was set on this High School Musical jacket. That's all he wanted...the tag said $12.99. I was GROANING! Who the heck wants to pay that much for a stupid jacket when you can get a WHOLE outfit complete with shoes and shorts and hats, for a dollar or two more. I DID NOT want to pay that much for one jacket simply because it was a High School Musical jacket. For the life of me I couldn't convince Tyson to get anything else--not even a Batman outfit for his bear. At the register the jacket rung up for like $4! WHOO HOO! I was so excited! I totally got off the hook because the only thing Tyson cared about was actually on CLEARANCE! I love it! We both left the store VERY satisfied! Then we bought Emmett's bear a baby outfit, because Emmett was a baby when we made his bear. We also gave him a lullaby song to go inside.

Our cousin Caden came with us to Build a Bear. We had a GREAT time at the mall on New Year's Day! Danielle came shopping with us, too, as well as Tina & Myrna.

My sons love their Aunt Tina. She is so good to my babies--she spoils them, actually. : ) I'm talking at 2 months old, Emmett had his first taste of ice cream, thanks to Tina. She spoils them in fun ways, too, like giving them slippers and carting them around for me. I can't wait for her to be able to have another baby of her own! She's such a great mom & aunt (then it'll be my turn to spoil her babies).

Okay, so I made Emmett's first Build-a-Bear, and had fun stuffing it, but he "kissed" the heart that went inside it. : ) We named his bear, "Buster" because that's what we call Emmett all the time, and Tyson's bear is "Haddex". Who knows where he came up with that name. Haha

Tyson was amazed by the whole bear stuffing process. It was so worth the money!

New Year's Eve we went to James and Carly's house. Erin, Carly, & I stayed up until like 4am talking while our husbands played video games. It was really fun.

These boys are nothing but trouble. Mitch, Adam, & Mike had fun New Year's Eve "ringing in" the New Year.

Me & My Hunny--starting off 2010 with hopes of a better year!

Erin & I using the Smile feature on my camera. It's so cool! As soon as it detects that you're smiling, the camera snaps the picture for you. TOTALLY HIGH TECH! Oh, yeah!

Tyson stayed up until 11:40pm on New Year's Eve. I would have let him stay up until midnight, but all the other people put their kids down, so I gave in to peer pressure since Mia and Sophie were asleep. Tyson was going to be bored.

This is me trying out all of the different settings on my new camera. I love it--the pictures are so clear. I'm still learning what settings are best for certain kinds of pictures. I vowed that before I used it I would read the entire instruction manual because I didn't think I used the features on my last camera well enough, and then I couldn't see the screen to learn on my old camera because I broke the digital screen. Believe it or not, for the last several months (right after Emmett was born) I was taking pictures with a broken camera. The screen got ruined when I accidentally dropped it one night at my parent's house. It landed on a rock just wrong because I was trying to carry too many things and that happened to be on my lap when I stood up. I was really upset because I didn't want to buy a new camera, and to tell you the truth, I wasn't going to...for a REALLY long time. We'd been budgeting for Christmas and I wanted a video camera. So when my regular camera broke I knew my hopes of getting a video camera were gone, and I didn't think we could even really justify buying a regular camera. Mitch's job has been only about 1/2 time for a couple months, and he hasn't been paid a full check since shortly after I started staying home from my school job. We've been making it, but have had a really tight budget for EVERYTHING. Luckily I'd stocked away some money for the boys for Christmas, and I just decided to keep taking pictures with my broken camera. I was doing okay...out of every 12 pictures or so, I'd get a good one. Haha. Anyway, Lindsay totally surprised me. At midnight on Christmas Even she made me open her gift to me, and lo and behold, it was a camera. I was so stunned, I seriously didn't even know what to say or even how to react. She couldn't "afford" to be making large purchases like that, either...especially for a friend present. She's bought a house and is paying for everything without roommates, and I know enough about her financial situation to know she made a sacrifice to be able to give that to me. I can't even really explain the way I felt. Mix up gratitude with guilt almost with shock with excitement, with wanting to cry but and then linger again on the shock, and that's how I felt. I've never had a friend give me such a present. Not only was it thoughtful, I know she made a sacrifice for me so that she could give me something that would benefit me. It's so much easier now to capture the moments with my baby, because it's not a guessing game any more when I take my pictures, and it means so much to me to be able to document this time in a quality fashion. This time won't come back. I feel so lucky and grateful every time I use my camera. I'm also hyper-sensitive to things that might damage it, because I never want to have to try to make a broken camera work again. We got a protective screen cover. : ) Thanks, Lindsay. You're the best! I still can't really explain what your gift means to me; I just hope you know I love you.

Tyson LOVES cars. He especially loves to CRASH cars...which I heard from Lara is a trait that he's passed on to his cousin Ean since they came to visit. Haha. For Christmas I bought Tyson a 20 pack of hotwheels. He calls them his "special cars". I had to take a picture, because this is EXACTLY what Tyson does with his cars ALL the time. He plays with cars by lining them up. When he had only 5-10 cars, I would find sets of 3 or 4 cars lined up in a row. Then when he'd go to Caden's house, he'd line up all 200 of the cars. He's been doing this since Halloween time. That's when I started to notice it, but it's so cute. It's like organizing his cars is his way of playing with them. So cute. I'm glad he likes his special cars.

This little play mat is essentially the only big thing Emmett got for Christmas. : ) He loves it, too. At this point in time, he was pretty much just staring at things, so we thought a play mat would be good so he could stare at something cute. It worked, too. As soon as we put him on it, he started moving more and getting excited. It definitely stimulated his brain. : )

Christy Hancock came to visit me from Colorado. She was in town with her family and I really appreciated her visit. It was so good to see her and her sister again. Christy and I are both teachers. : ) Who would have thought back when we were 13 in YW, that we would both end up in the same profession and teaching the same grade, even. She teaches 2nd grade & loves it.

Emmett on his bouncer with his Build a Bear.

Emmett wore festive clothes on Christmas. Ho Ho Ho

Tyson & Caden in their new pajamas

Erin was cracking me up on Christmas Eve. We went over there for our annual breakfast. How I'm going to miss their little tradition when they move. I wish they would stay in AZ forever. Anyway, Carly gave everyone flip flop fly swatters that she made with a tag that said, "Keep the Bah Hum Bug out of Christmas". So Erin was playing with Tyson. She had him in stiches as she played with him pretending to swat flies.

Mia & Tyson swinging...is there any cooler place than the park? I think not.

At the ward party, Tyson sat on Santa's lap, got the candy cane, and about a minute later, he insisted that he give the candy cane back. We were cracking up, because it's like he didn't get that he was allowed to keep the candy cane.

This year we had the Mammoth Tree. I kid you not, it was LARGER than my parent's tree, even. My parents ALWAYS have the biggest tree, and somehow this year we ended up with one that had about an 8 foot girth. It took up about a 3rd of our Living Room. Mitch had to balance and use his ginormous barbecue tongs to hang the ornaments in just the right place. That's why we call Mitch McGiver--when the ladder doesn't work anymore, he comes up with creative ways to get the job done anyway. Whatever would I do without the laughter that he brings into my life?