Dave Carter and I put together a dinner with a bunch of our friends from high school on the 26th at Los Hermanos. It was super fun to see everyone! I couldn't believe how many people were able to make it this year! Thanks for coming everyone!!! It was great to see you guys!!!
WOW! Christmas came and went so fast! We have so much to be grateful for. It was really nice to have the holidays at home with my family this year to do alot of things that we haven't had time for in the past since I am usually working. I started wrapping some of the kids presents a couple of days before Christmas. They were going crazy wanting to open them...Payton kept asking if he and Parker could go and count them...they did this several times a day, making towers out of some of the presents. A couple of days before Christmas, we had a family Christmas party at Ben's parents home. The little kids from each family performed a song(s) of their choice. Payton and Parker sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and the "Alphabet Song" (Payton decided this one last minute because it is one of his favorite songs from the Learning Dynamics preschool CD). It was pretty funny because Parker would kindof mumble the sounds and then chime in every 4th word or so. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house and like every year, the kids always do the navitity before we leave. Payton was a shepherd and Parker was a sheep.
Every year since Jr. High, Brittany, Shea and I have gotten together before Christmas to have a gift exchange. Since my birthday is right before Christmas as well, we just combine it into one event! I choose Chili's this year because I really wanted their Chocolate Molten Lava Cake for dessert! YUM!
Payton had his pre-school christmas program on Wednesday the 19th with his pre-school at Learning Dynamics. There were several classes together for the program. All of the kids had props to wear and Payton was a cute little christmas elf. It was so cute to watch them sing all of the songs that they learned with the actions to go along with it. Payton had a part that he said in the program. I was so proud of him! He did really good and didn't get nervous! His part was perfect for him since he loves trains! He said, "Here comes the electric train!" Then they sang the song that goes along with it (Choo Choo The Big Train is Coming Down the Track). Payton is loving pre-school and can't wait until he gets to go to the "really big school" next year for kindergarten! 
We decided to make a gingerbread house for FHE on Monday night...needless to say, I definitely shouldn't do this for a living. I don't know if it is because Ben cut the hole in the icing bag too big or what, but I ran out of icing half way through it and it was coming out in huge gobs. I kept thinking...what am I doing wrong? I have seen other peoples gingerbread houses and they are so cute, but mine is a huge mess of icing! Oh well, the kids had a lot of fun putting the candy on and I guess it doesn't matter what it really looks like anyways! Just don't look at the sides or the back of it...they didn't get any icing!
Last weekend it snowed a ton and the boys loved playing in the snow...Parker even helped Ben snowplow the driveway with the 4 wheeler (he reminds me of the little kid on the movie A Christmas Story in his snowsuit). Today Payton decided to go play in the snow again. After a while he came inside and said to Ben, "Dad, my hands are SO SPICY!" Ben said "What do you mean?" Payton said, "Dad, spicy means cold!" Ben said, "No, spicy means hot!" Payton said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot." Kindof funny!
Initially a few friends from work were going to go to dinner as a goodbye to Martie and now I guess it is a goodbye to both of us! I was so stressed out the week that I quit that I got a cold sore! Yikes!
We went on our annual St. George trip to Sommer's house this past weekend! It was so much fun! We went to a day spa and shopped all day in St. George on Friday (this is us at Taipan-don't ask me what I am doing with my hands...I have no idea), and then went to Vegas all day Saturday (we shopped a ton at the outlets but mostly spent our time at one of my favorite stores H&M-it is the best, I wish there was one in Utah!) and came home on Sunday! It was so great! I can't wait to go next year!
Friends since Jr. High! Hanging out at Sommer's house...our friend Lori is living in St. George right now and came over on Friday night to hang out with us! It was a ton of fun! We didn't go to bed until 3:30am! Crazy!
High School Musical 2 was filmed right outside of Sommer's St. George home! This is a picture of her amazing pool...too bad it was too cold to use it this time!
Me, Mandi and Elizabeth all woke up at 4am to go shopping on Black Friday. I usually don't go because it is always so crazy, but this year we thought it would be fun to go together. We started off at ShopKo. It was freezing outside as we waited in line for the store to open. At 5am the store opened and all of these people that weren't in line rushed into the store. Me and Mandi were so mad so we started running too because we wanted to make sure that we got this roboreptile thing that wa
s a door buster. We each went a different direction to try to find it and ended up with like 8 roboreptiles! They were normally $100 and we got them for $30! What a deal! We didn't have any shopping carts though, so we had to guard them while Elizabeth searched the store for carts. We ended up giving a couple of them away to some sad mom's that couldn't find them before they were gone, so that made us feel good! It was a pretty crazy morning! We hit about 7 other stores and then went to breakfas
t/lunch at 11:30 at the Cracker Barrell. It was so hilarious to see Elizabeths van. We could barely fit in there. Mandy couldn't even put her legs on the ground! It was so packed with presents. The funniest part about this is I didn't even realize that I wanted most of the stuff that I bought until I was there-everything was just such a great deal that I couldn't pass it up! No wonder the stores do door busters-they just need to get you there, then you go crazy! 
I just got this picture back of Payton's pre-school class at Learning Dynamics. He LOVES going to pre-school there and there is a cute little girl there named Lacy that has a crush on Payton. Her mom says she talks about him all time and now calls him Patey. It is pretty funny! She is on the front row 2nd in on the right. Payton is on the back row 2nd in on the left. Payton is starting to learn how to read and he loves it! He is so proud of himself when he passes off a book and gets a new one to learn.
My friend Christina Brian (far left) was in town this past weekend from Arizona for Thanksgiving, so a bunch of us got together to catch up! Christina has twin girls that are Parker's age (almost 3) and then she just had triplet boys in June! WOW! 5 kids under age 3! I don't know how she does it! She looks great too!
Family Pictures this year were a bit crazy! Parker was in a rotten mood and didn't want to smile for anybody, and Payton was sad because he had just said goodbye to his ABA tutor of 2 years, Megan Farrelly who was moving to Maryland. We tried bribing them both with candy, but needless to say, it didn't work too good. Oh well, better luck next time!
