Merry Merry Christmas!

My brother Casey and his family were able to come up to Idaho and spend Christmas with us. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve Dinner together, then went and doorbell ditched some treats to friends and ended with a bag from Santa on our doorstep with PJ's for all the kids.

This morning we woke up and opened some gifts before heading out to chuch. We had a wonderful sacrament program then were able to come home since church was only an hour today!

Here are a few highlights...


Our Dinner setup



Relaxing after dinner



The cousins playing



Santa left a bag at the door with pjs and a few gifts. Casey and Rachel are helping the kids get their presents.


What Santa left last night


Bailey came running in our room at 5:30 this morning screaming "Santa came and there is a great big bike for me" After an hour we got her back to sleep for a few more hours.


Here is Nick, so happy with all the fun things he got to play with



The cool playhouse that they could color. Bailey loved to color it just as much as Nick liked to hide in it!


The kids enjoying there new rides with their cousin Isaiah


Nick loving his firetruck!


We're so glad to spend Christmas with Casey, Rachel, Isaiah and baby Brooklyn. Now for the next adventure.....we are headed to California TOMORROW! Yeay!

Early Christmas Gift

Ok, so she is not ours. A friend of ours got little Lucy as a early Christmas gift...and we got to watch her one day for a little while. She is just the cutest little thing.

We are now dogless. A few weeks ago our dear sweet Molly (ok more like stubborn noisy Molly) went to Heaven. I got her in High School so she was pretty old. She was a great dog and its just not the same without her! So, I was excited when I got to watch this little cutie and have another little dog around.

I finally got a few pictures of the kids before church that turned out half way decent, so I thought I'd post a few!

An eventful weekend

We have been so busy getting ready for the holidays. A few weeks ago the kids visited Santato get pictures for cards (they didn't turn out very well) Then yesterday we got to see him again, this time in a barn in Emmett. It was a Christmas Party for kids that was completely free. Bailey and Nick loved the small petting zoo, seeing Santa, getting a cute teddy bear and the pony rides. There was a lady taking family pictures and they turned out so cute! Too bad I already sent out the Christmas cards with the Santa pictures...oh well.










Then Bailey and I went to a parade last night (Nick was not feeling well so daddy readily volunteered to stay home)





After my fun date with Bailey, I noticed that Nick's temp. was super high and that he was having trouble breathing. So now what to do? It's late Saturday night... do I wait and see how he does, or take him in and have the Dr. politely say that he just has a cold or flu and there is nothing to do. Well, I couldn't watch him wheeze any longer so I took the poor boy in. On the way to the Urget care about 30 minutes away, HE THREW UP ALL OVER THE CAR! Now he is an awful mess, I didn't bring any extra clothes and it is freezing outside. SO I take him in a complete mess.

It turned out that he did have a viral infection, Bronchialitis, where his lungs were inflamed and he wasn't getting enough oxygen in. We left a little later with an inhaler, some steriods and a strict warning to watch him all night and take him to the ER if it persists. Luckily he went to sleep and even though he is still wheezing, I think he will be ok until his Dr. appointment in the morning.


Here's Nick in the dog's bed all tuckered out from not feeling well. He has NEVER just laid down and fallen asleep...this is a first for him.


Besides all this, Trent has all his finals thsi week starting tomorrow. He didn't have as much time as he would have liked to study, but I guess that is what comes with being a parent.

Night time prayers

Since our bedroom is downstairs and Bailey's room is upstairs, we have a baby monitor that sits next to her bed in case she needs something during the night. Tonight when I was in my room, I heard her in the monitor saying her prayers and it went like this...
"Dear Heavenly Father,
Thanks you for this day, Please help daddy to remember to wear his seatbelt, please help dadddy to be safe and Mommy and Nicholas.And please help that our bums don't hurt. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

It was just about the cutest thing I had ever heard and the first time I heard her say it all by herself!(And she has had a bit of a rash so her bum has been bothering her :)

Nick's new friend

Bailey had another singing performance, but this time it was at a retirement home. While Bailey was busy singing and dancing, Nick made a new friend!


Nick went right up to this man to say "hi" and the man put his arms out, so Nick climbed right up on his lap...I think they both enjoyed it!


Bailey is the 2nd one from the left


Bailey loves her friend Abi, and is constantly hugging her...can you see them between the bigger girls?


On the way home, we had to stop by this amazing Christmas Light show...I'm sure we will be by it a few more times this season! (Remember that these lights dance and change to music!)

The finished product

We finally finished decorating the house for Christmas. This was quite a task for us. Here are a few pictures (especially for my mom) of what we have donE. It really doesn't look like much, but it seemed to take forever getting everything together and cleaning up the mess afterwards!

The tree


The inside


The stockings


The snowman outside


The outside lights


When I took off Nicks shirt I found this message on his back "dad was here" wonder who wrote that?

Happy Holidays

We have been so busy all week getting ready for the holidays. Trent had the week off of school, and instead of relaxing, he was on the roof putting up Christmas lights, getting a Christmas tree, going under the house to get boxes of Christmas decorations, helped with cooking and cleaning, and on top of it all, he had homework to do. But we managed to do almost everything we had on our "to do list" for the week.

Do you see him up there...pretty steep!


The kids loved getting out all the fun Christmas decorations!



This Thanksgiving was different not having my parents around or going to Utah with Trents family. We had dinner with my brother Matt and his family though so we weren't all alone. Putting my sister in law, Brandy, and my cooking skills together, we made a pretty yummy turkey dinner with all the fixings and of course pumpkin pie.

I only took one picture and that was of the table before we ate. We had paper plates to eliminate some of the clean up...not a fancy table setup, but a very toddler friendly one!



Then I took a small nap so I could stay up all night shopping. My friend Ashleigh and I headed out at 9:30 pm and were part of the black Friday madness...and it was COMPLETE MADNESS. I got a few bargains, but I mostly went to have fun. We started at Walmart, headed to Target (the line was doubled around the store with an hour until open time) so why wait when we'd be so far back anyways? So we headed to ShopKo, then back to Target then Toys R US (And back to Target to get the items we hid when we saw that the line to pay was twice around the store and 2-3 hour wait.) We ended the night with Bath and Body works then Old Navy and got home at 5am.

And of course when I get home, Trent and both kids were awake in my bed. Nick was up most the night wanting me and Bailey just happened to wake up before I got home so there we all were, awake at 5. I think by 6:00 all four of us were asleep in the same bed...good thing we have a king!

Here we are before we took off, ready to shop, shop, shop!



Then today, Bailey had a singing performance at the Boise Festival of Trees. This was her first performance and she was fun to watch. She didn't sing at all during the first song, just bounced along... but did ok singing "Santa Claus is coming to town" Luckily her good friend Abi was also in the group so she followed what Abi was doing. (I will post a video of it soon)

Abi and Bailey getting ready to sing




She is on the very far right



All in all, a wonderful week and a great start to the Holiday Season!

Sunday

ok, It's Sunday night and I can FINALLY let out a sigh of relief. Things have been hectic lately. My parents left on their mission a few weeks ago,so we have been moving furniture and setting up rooms and trying to get the house organized and clean. Then it was Halloween, with sickness following each person in the family. Last Sunday I felt like I finally had things under control when Trent gets a call from the bishopric...that's not good. I knew it was the inevitable call for us giving talks...dang it! We both gave talks today in church on "Hope" and they turned out pretty good. Then when I got home I got a call from mom and dad in LATVIA. They made it safely. It was nice to hear their voice and know that they got there ok...I am now relieved that this Sunday is almost over and hopefully I can have a non stressful coming week.

Happy Halloween!

Bailey had pre school this morning and her teacher asked if a few moms could help with all the fun Halloween activities planned. The kids made a spider bag (Painting their fingers black to make 8 legs) and decorating cupcakes, making a carmel apple and a cute spider book. Then they got to dress up as mummy's!




Bailey and her cupcake that she decorated


My two mummies


She looks a little bit like a nun instead of a mummy...oh well


The preschool group working hard on their projects

Farewell for 18 months!

My parents left this morning to Utah and will report to the MTC on Monday. It was a little sad to see them go since I am so close with my parents. My mom is one of my best friends and we do so much together that it will be an adjustment that they will be on the other side of the world when I need them. Oh well, I know that they will have a blast and be wonderful missionaries!

They also started a blog of their missionary experiences if you want to keep up with them.

http://balticmissionarymemories.blogspot.com

A little early this year

We are starting the holidays a bit early this year. Last weekend we were bored so we headed to the local pumkpin patch/carnival with the kids. We all had a great time riding the hayrides, pony rides, picking pumkpins from the patch, going through the cornmazes and playing in the box full of corn kernals.




We all got to pick our own pumpkin...but the rule was that you could only get one that you could carry yourself...Nick found the perfect size!




After picking pumpkins from the patch, the kids were pretty worn out.


Tonight in Meridian, the police were doing a trunk or treat for the kids. They passing out candy from the trunk of their police cars. Bailey and Nick dressed up and went trick of treating! How fun, being that we still have two weeks before the BIG NIGHT of trick or treating...this was just a trial run !







My pouty little girl, luckily she snapped out of it soon


One of the policemen was giving out a free donut coupon from Krispy Creme...so we had to stop by on the way home...this may have been Nicks favorite part of the night