Merry Christmas!!

This year we went to Boise to celebrate with the Shields fam.  The kids got their biggest present before we left.  We didn't want to drag the big dollhouse and all of the furniture up to Boise so they opened it at our family party the Saturday before.  It was a total hit!  Mason loves it just as much as Tess does.  (I knew he would) They are continually fighting over the little cat and dog that came with it.  Christmas Eve at the Shields house started out with some fun hats.

Then the kids decided to take the party up a notch and take their clothes off.

Christmas Morning was the best! Mason got a computer from Grandma and Grandpa,

He is showing it off to cousin Parker.

My kids' favorite thing about Grandma's house is playing with Bear.  Mason loves to get kisses.

Mason loved his new dart gun

Tess loved her cousin Claire. And her new dress-up clothes

We had the best Christmas!  Burke even suprised me with diamond earrings.  Can you believe it!! I was so excited!  What a wonderful husband!  Merry Christmas everybody!!

Christmas Parties and snowstorms

The kids have been wanting to play in the snow every day.  Tess is always losing a mitten or a whole boot.  She's just not very coordinated yet.  Plus walking up and down the sledding hill is not the most fun when you are 7 months pregnant and dragging two kids behind you.  But I got the sled out and bundled the kids up and set them loose while I stayed inside and sipped hot chocolate and watched them out the window.  Can I just say I was amazed.  I have the best kids in the world.  Mason would have Tess sit on the sled and pull her up our little hill in the backyard.  Then he would climb on the back and they would slide all the way  across the back of the yard because the snow was so icy and they are so light.  They would laugh uncontrollably and do it all over again.  They are such good friends.  I love it that they love each other.

Cute little snow bunnies.

That night we went to the Postma family Christmas Party.  It was so fun.  Tess got a beautiful new dress from Mike and Steph.  She loved it so much she wouldn't take it off.  She was spinning around saying "I'm so pretty" over and over.  It was hilarious!

Saturday night was the Wright family party.  We are so big this year, and have so many great grandkids, that we had it in a church gym.  It was so fun though.  They even rented a bounce house for the kids.

We had a Christmas Pagent where the kids dressed up.  It was so darling.  Tessa was a sheep.

She liked helping the drummer boy.

And Mason was a king.  He wasn't feeling great that night but did a great job.

We had so much fun.  We have the best families and are so lucky this christmas to be able to see them all.  Boise, here we come!

Makin' cookies on a snowy afternoon.

Today Tess helped me make cookies.  She was really excited.

Especially for the licking the beater part.

Mason will hate me in the future for this picture but I thought it was hilarious.

 

At least he gave the shoes with the feathers to Tess.

Happy Birthday Mason!

Mason's birthday was this weekend and we had his first ever friends' birthday party.

Mason wanted the same dinosaur cake that he got last year so we went with a dinosaur theme.

I found the cutest dino masks from oriental trading, You can kind of see them on the table.

I made little dino bean bags out of felt and we took turns tossing them into the "volcano"  That was probably the biggest hit of the party.  We had a pin the horn on the triceratops which was also fun but most of the boys just peeked out of their blindfold.

We played musical dinosaur extinction.  Each child had to sit on a dinosaur when the music stopped.  Fun but when several of the kids were "extinct" it was hard to keep the game going with the survivors.

Here is most of the gang. Mason (not looking at camera, too excited for presents), Charlie, Tait, Andrew, Lillee (the only girl besides Tess) and Drew.  Front row: Skyler, Tayler, and Carter.  (Tess didn't make it into the picture.)

Opening presents.  Most of the kids wanted to help Mason open the gifts. As long as it was Charlie, Mason didn't care.  I guess he trusts his best friend like that.

Blowing out the candles.  (Notice my prego belly in the pic. nice.)

Hooray!  The pinata! Mason has some mad skills.  Look at that form! Everyone had a turn to wack it 3 times until Mason finally knocked the head clean off,

The loot!
After the party, Tess and I pretty much felt like this....

So we sent Mason and Burke out to a movie and had a girls night on the couch watching Barbie and the Nutcracker.

Happy birthday Mason.  We love you so much!!!

Has it been four years already?

My little Mason boy is turning 4 years old on Saturday.  Holy crap!  I can't believe it's been that long.

 I got a phone call the other day from photogenix. (I love them by the way.) They told me they had a cd of photos that we had taken of Mason when he was two months old and I could come and pick it up if I wanted it, they were just going to throw it out. Check out some of these pictures of my baby boy.

Wow... how times flies. 

and pictures of him today...

What a cutie. We love you Mason! We are so glad you are ours.

Let it snow!

We had the first official snowfall of the year on Tuesday.  The kids were super excited to get out in it.  So... we got out their hats, gloves and boots and let them play.  They loved every second and are as cute as can be all bundled up!

A few new purchases

In the last few weeks we have made a few fun purchases.  Both are from my favorite website, KSL.com classifieds.  The first is.....

Ta Da!!!!  A trampoline.  Just in time for that nice warm October/November weather.

When I was little, every birthday wish, every penny in the fountain wish, every eyelash wish was to get a trampoline.  We finally got one when I was about 12 or 13.  Even though the kids are so little, they love trampolines and I got this one for the bargain price of $75.(including the enclosure that I haven't set up yet) I am very proud of my thriftiness and happy to provide my kids with a little slice of heaven that I didn't get to enjoy when I was little.

I like how in these pictures, Burke swung the pants right off little flat-butt Mason.

Our next purchase was.... 

A trailer!  We have wanted one for awhile and in the fall, the prices tend to drop so we did it! Yay!

I can't wait till we can start using it, just a few.... short...   well maybe like... seven months away.