Happy #6 Ethan!

I can't believe my little man is 6 already! I know I say that every year but man he is getting so old! Here's some pictures of him opening his birthday presents.

His story book from Grandma and Carol (the kids are still reading stories out of it almost every night)

 Lite Brite from Grandma Terrie and Grandpa Glen

Scooby Doo game for his Leapster Explorer

Monster Jam truck from Olivia

Giving his sister a big hug! 

 Probably his favorite present of the night. An imaginext dragon castle.

 They played with it all night until I finally made the kids go to bed.

Once There Was A Snowman

We haven't had a lot of snow this year (really only two good storms) but what we've had we have definitely taken advantage of. Since we moved here I have learned that the snow doesn't stick around long so as soon as there is enough snow to play in the snow clothes go on, and we head outside.

This is from our first real snow of the year. Olivia loved walking around in the snow and then stopping to sit down and eat it. Luckily our dog hadn't been out yet, or I might have been a little more worried.

 Ethan of course wanted to build a snowman and he rolled this ball all over the yard until he decided it was big enough for the bottom.

 The final product! Ethan was so excited to have enough snow to make a decent sized snowman and also glad to have grass so that it was mostly a snowman and not a mud man like it has been in past years. The kids even wandered around the edges of the yard trying to find any rocks/pebbles they could use for the face and buttons.

 A week or so later it snowed again so of course we had to play in it while it lasted. As you can see from the pictures, the sun was out and shining bright so we knew the snow wouldn't stick around. Olivia was loving the snow under the warm sunshine!

 We have a small dirt pile on the side of our house that is maybe four feet tall and Ethan used our toboggan to go down it until Jake got home to take him for a real ride behind the 4-wheeler.

Ethan built this little guy all by himself and was so proud of it. We made another one together, about the same size as this one, on the other side of the yard and it fell over long before this one he made alone. He thought that was pretty great.

Christmas Eve

Every year the town of Panaca does a little Christmas program. There is always some sort of entertainment and usually Christmas carol singing, culminating in the visit from Santa. Every 10 minutes or so one of "Santa's elves" runs in to give the audience an update on Santa's whereabouts. This year they said that Santa's sleigh had crashed just outside of Panaca and the search and rescue had to go find him so they sent everyone outside to watch for the fire truck to go by. As soon as everyone got outside the fire truck came cruising down the street with lights and sirens blaring and Santa hanging out the window waving. The elves said he had to go out to the Service station to get his sleigh. We all went back inside to await Santa and suddenly heard hooves on the roof. And then Santa came in and all the kids went crazy. It is so fun to live in a small town where they can do these kinds of things!

 Ethan of course waited patiently in line and went straight up to Santa to tell him what he wanted. Cars and bugs.

Olivia, again had absolutely no interest in Santa. Our old babysitter even tried to take her up and sit on Santa's lap with her and as you can see by the picture she is giving Chelsey the death grip because she really really does not like Santa at all.

When we got home from seeing Santa we let the kids set up their toys they got in Ephraim. Ethan was so excited that he brought down buckets of hot wheels so he and Jake could test them out to see which ones zoomed best on the track. 

Olivia set up her castle and kept having the prince and princess eat dinner and go for walks with the pony.

Chelsey (our old babysitter) gave Olivia a baby Cinderella doll and she wanted to sleep with it but she usually sleeps with her other two babies and couldn't decided which one to choose so she just slept with all of them. What a little goofball.

Christmas in Ephraim

Since we had a few days off before Christmas we decided to head up to Ephraim to spend a few days with my family. The kids got to spend a few days playing with the Hirschi kids and Jake and I got to spend a few days just relaxing.

One afternoon Jake put Olivia down for a nap and about 10 minutes later I asked him if he had checked on her yet. He said no because he just assumed that she had gone right to sleep. Yeah right. So I walked down to her room to check on her and she was sitting in the rocking chair singing Twinkle Twinkle, and Rock a Bye Baby to the cat. Oh yeah, she went right to sleep Jake, keep dreamin!

We had planned on leaving during the afternoon of Christmas Eve so everyone came over to open presents that morning. Olivia loves her little "cycle" that she got from Grandma and Carol and drives it all over the house.

Ethan got a hot wheels criss cross crash set from Grandma and Grandpa and of course loves it.

Some of the chaos that ensued when all the grandkids started getting their presents opened.

 Olivia and Morgan got Little People dance and twirl castles and Olivia loves to make her princess dance and ride on her pony.

Now this is a rarity. A picture of my brother Matthew. For some reason Olivia has kind of latched on to him and was sitting by him to open her presents so I actually got a picture of him!

It was nice to have some time to just relax and do nothing. Plus the weather was good on the way up and the way home which was definitely a bonus!

Christmas in SLC

This year for Christmas with the Lester family we went to SLC. The first night we were there we took Trax to Temple Square to see the lights. Ethan thought it was awesome to ride around town on a train. Yes, it probably took us two or three times longer to get there than if we had driven but we didn't have to drive in the traffic, or find a place to park.

Our kids had never been to temple square at Christmas time so they thought the lights were pretty amazing.

Ethan and his cousin Q

Olivia cheesing it in front of the nativity that was set up in the reflecting pool.

Of course there was also presents to open. Olivia and her cousin K both got shopping carts from Grandma and Grandpa which was perfect for Olivia because she loves to play grocery store with all her play food stuff she got for her birthday.

 Ethan got a rescue helicopter that has flashing lights, a real moving propeller, and rescue boats. He loves to fly it around the house and rescue things in the little boats.

Ethan also loves his cousin baby C. He was always giving him toys, or making faces at him, and he kept asking me if he could hold me. He wanted to take him home to our house but C's mom said no.

We had a great time at Grandpa and Grandma's new house in SLC and the only problem was we wished we could stay longer! Maybe next time!

A Kershaw-Ryan Christmas

At Christmas time one of our state parks, Kershaw-Ryan State Park, does a little Santa Christmas village. They have Santa, hot cocoa, decorations, and treats for the kids. This is the first year we have been up there and the kids loved it.

Ethan fell asleep on the way over but perked right up once we got up there.

Olivia was so excited to go and see Santa. Although once we got there she wouldn't even get near him.

 We got there about an hour after it started and by that time there was no line to see Santa. Ethan walked right up to him and told him he wanted hot wheels and bugs for Christmas.

 They had these cute little houses sitting all around the main park area so we of course took some pictures. I think this was supposed to be the reindeer stable.

And this one was supposed to be The Claus' house.

The kids had a ton of fun wandering around and looking at everything. At one point Ethan was sure he had seen a reindeer hiding behind one of the trees up the mountain. It was free, they were only asking for donations to toys for tot, and it was a lot of fun. We will definitely be doing this again next year!

Decorating the Tree

To me, decorating the Christmas tree has always been about the kids. I know some people like to have their fancy, color coordinated, beautiful tree, but I would rather watch my kids decorate it with whatever they want and put the ornaments wherever they want.

We let the kids hang up most of the ornaments themselves. Jake and I hang the glass/sentimental ornaments up at the top so that they don't get broken. Granted this means the majority of the ornaments end up around four feet or lower, often with most of them in about a two foot by two foot area (as evidenced by the right side of the above picture). 

Olivia had a hard time getting some of them to stay on the tree so she made Jake come help her. She loved running around hanging them up anyway.

 Our tree gets redecorated almost every day and one day Ethan decided to decorate himself as the tree.

For some reason Olivia loves to lay by and under the tree. Quite often I would walk out and find her just laying there staring at the ornaments and lights.