Lots of pictures and such...
First, a couple from Maliya's first day of school. Cutie.
Second, a couple more form her Christmas program.Mega cutie.
Third, one from our super fun gingerbread-house-making-party.
We had the Jacksons and the Merrell kids over the Friday before we left town (as in the night before - a little crazy!) and the kids went to town loading their pre-glued (I love hot glue guns) houses up with mostly-leftover-Halloween-and-a-few-new-bags of candy.
And finally, our vacation!
We left for St. George on Saturday the 20th (just hours after Nick got home from a late night movie -The Hobbit) and were blessed w/ a worry-free drive (no snowy ditches for us this time). We then spent the next week and 2 days in wonderland. Seriously, that's what it felt like. We'd been so busy up to that point that leaving our daily worries behind and going anywhere would have been divine...but send us to Grandpa and Grandma's house, with family, fun, and some warm weather, and we're in heaven. And we were. Here's how it went down ...
Saturday night I was sick and we were tired (well, Nick and I were), so we stayed in and played, let the kids run wild with Grandpa and Grandma and Cocoa and Mandi, relaxed to a movie, and called it a night fairly early.
On Sunday we woke up early and got all pretty for 9 am church.
The kiddos looked quite adorable in their matching Christmas outfits
(which I spent too much time trying to find and then almost left home!)
(He posed like this on his own, completely unprompted. I think he felt pretty snazzy.)
{He chose this vest so he could look like Joseph Smith:)}
Oh my cuteness.
Almost too cute to handle.
Wow. Can you say big bow?
Cole had a great time in class!
As you can read all about in my previous post, Sunday afternoon/evening was spent celebrating miss Maliya's 3rd birthday!
Monday morning was another lazy morning, which is how vacation should be, right? We played w/ Mandi while both Grandpa and Grandma worked.
Right after lunch Nick and I left for a much needed DATE!
We saw the latest Hunger Games movie (Part I of Book 3), which was fantastic!
We browsed Deseret Book
We got Nick food (I was having stomach issues and couldn't eat much because of my lame-o diet anyway)
We bought groceries (fun, I know!)
AND ... Best part ... we got couples massages! Oh and they were wonderful, so so wonderful.
Thanks a ton to my family for watching our kids all afternoon and evening. Nick and I had a marvelous time together.
On Tuesday morning, after another gloriously relaxing morning, Mandi and the kids and I left Nick (the sicko, poor guy) at home and met up with Grandma at the children's museum. Oh my gosh was that the coolest place ever. And it was busy at all, which was completely awesome. The kids had so much fun and we literally had to tear them away after a couple of hours so we could buy groceries and make it home for dinner at a decent hour.
We will definitely be returning to the museum, quite possibly every time we visit SG. It really was that great. The kids loved playing in the kitchen, the post office, the bank, the entire third floor which was FROZEN themed (giant brick walls and fake snowballs made for lots of fun), the climbing areas and science room, the fake castle, the virtual volleyball room, and, of course of course of course, the grocery store where they were able to fill mini carts and pay for them using mini cash registers.
On Wednesday, since Nick was feeling a little better, Maliya took advantage of his free time and got in a lot of cuddling and reading time.
After lunch on Wednesday we left Nick with the girls and the rest of the fam went on a day date to the {cheap} movie theater! We were going to see Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but when I showed cole the trailer, he said 'why do you want me to see that?' So instead, we went to see the only animated film playing (besides Polar Express,which I sadly just don't really love), the Book of Life. The trailer left a lot to be desired, in my opinion, but Cole thought it looked good. Much to my surprise, it was actually a really cute movie with a lot of great life lessons, which Grandpa made sure we discussed at dinner that night:)
Christmas eve was really nice and, you guessed it, relaxing. We grilled steaks for dinner (easy but delicious!) and then had a short program. We sang a couple of Christmas hymns, my dad read the Christmas story from the bible, the kids played a few songs on the piano (rock n' roll, according to Cole ... it warmed my heart seeing their love for music), and we opened our Christmas jammies from Grandma (which are SO cute and comfy!). We took a few picture and then sent the kids to bed so Santa could come. Quite amazingly, they were asleep within about 15 minutes.
Once the kids were asleep, Nick and I went to work on our first ever Christmas eve assembly project - Cole's bike. Well, Nick did while I got everything else ready. Things went really well until Nick got to the brakes. It was then that we realized we should have put the bike together sooner so that we could call upon the help of a bike shop if needed ... which it was! We could not get the brakes to work! Nick tried forever and probably swore a few times in his head, then I tried to help interpret the instructions, which stunk, then my dad tried to help, then me made a desperate run to Walmart in hopes of just buying a new bike, all the while praying frantically in our heads that something would work out. Walmart was closed, so we ran home and I put together a note from Santa telling Cole that the bike had fallen off of his sleigh (oh no!), so it wasn't working quite right, but that he could ride it around the house and then buy a new one the next day. I had the note all ready to go and had pulled out a giant race track that we'd originally planned to save for Cole's birthday when, miracle of miracles, Nick got the brakes on. Hallelujah praise the Lord (and props to Nick for his persistence). I was so grateful that we wouldn't have to worry about dashing our boy's dreams to pieces the next day.
{Funny side note - Cole's favorite present ended up being the race track. Whenever someone asks him what he got for Christmas, he excitedly tells them FIRST about the 'giant race car track' and THEN about the bike.}
Christmas morning was, well, just as it should be. Magical. Kids make it that way and I absolutely love it.
Cole noticed the race track right away and was besides himself with excitement. He then noticed the bike and wanted to try it out. We convinced him to go through his stalking first, which he loved because he got his very own pack of gum! He also got a big pack of play food from Santa (loved), magformers from Nick and I (excited about later on), and a cash register w/ a working scanner and microphone from Grandpa and Grandma (double loved!). He was excited about everything and had fun playing with it all for the rest of the day. Maliya also got a bike and play food (and the race track to share with Cole). She wasn't interested in any of it though - she just wanted the sucker that she discovered right away in the trunk of her bike. It took a good 10-15 minutes of coaxing before she finally opened the rest of her presents. She ended up loving the bike, which became a new tool for her hoarding madness (the trunk was stuffed full of treasures within 2 minutes of noticing the bike), and she had fun w/ the Minnie helmet from Nick and I. The food she got excited about when we got back home to SG. I think her favorite, though, was the gift from Grandma and Grandpa - a stroller, car seat, swing, and high chair for her babies. She loves playing with Madison's car seat and swing and was thrilled to now have her very own!
The rest of Christmas day is a little bit of a blur. I know we made a tasty Cinnabon cake for breakfast, and I think we slept/relaxed to a Christmas movie at some point. Oh, and my mom made a delicious Christmas dinner (ham, rolls, sweet potato sugary pie goodness, the works). Oh, and how could I forget? We got to SKYPE with Sister Kayla! We sat around for an hour and a half waiting for her to call when I finally decided to get in the shower, figuring that would trigger the call. It did. We all gathered around the tv (which we'd hooked up to the computer) and had so much fun talking w/ her. Even though we knew she'd be home in a matter of days, it was still exciting. The rest of our time that day was spent enjoying the kids as they enjoyed their gifts. It was a fantastic day.
On Friday morning my mom and I went out and did some post-Christmas shopping while Nick and my dad had their own post-Christmas fun on the golf course. Auntie Mandi was a gem and stayed w/ my sadly grumpy kids. I got back just in time to try and cheer them up before their cousins came! That's right - the rest of our time in SG was spent not only with Grandma, Grandpa, and Mandi, but also with Meg and Kenny and their families! Cole and Maliya were in Heaven. They had so much fun w/ their cousins and I was so grateful that we were all able to be together for a few days.
On Saturday we went up to Cedar City and played in the snow! I got in one sled ride w/ Cole and one w/ Maliya (she requested it and loved it!) before Madison had had enough. I then spent the rest of the time in the {warm} car feeding her, which, let's be honest, I didn't mind. I love my little nugget and I love being warm. After the snow we hit up a local dive that's well known for it's tasty food. It didn't disappoint.
How cute is this?
Hailey had the magic touch with Madison all weekend! At the restaurant she had Madison asleep within minutes!
On Saturday night we opened up 'cousin' presents. Madison got adorable hats that Megan made, Maliya got a cute bag of goodies that she loved that were hand-picked by Hailey (after she'd asked Cole for advice - too cute!), and Cole got a super cool THK (treasure hunting kit) that Kody put together. It came in a homemade camouflaged box and Kody created his very own treasure hunt to lead Cole to each part of the THK (how adorable is that?).
On Sunday we of course went to church, yay!, had a yummy lunch, took cousin pictures in matching jammies (and matching super super cute hats for the girls, thank you Meg!) at the park (Maliya about died when we told her take her coat off ... but of course didn't want to go home when we were done because of the slide), played, ate treats, played a really fun group round of Heads Up on the IPad ... the usual fun and craziness that occurs when we're all together.
On Monday morning we sadly had to pack up and leave the bunch. They all got to stay and play with each other for the entire week ... AND meet up with Kayla at the airport the VERY next day ... which made it REALLY hard to leave! We had so much fun with everyone and just wanted to stay. But we did have to head out, and so we left sad that our fun was over, but so grateful and happy that it had happened.
We came home from sunny St. George to this:
Well, it snowed the night we got home and we woke up to that beautiful winter wonderland. Funny coincidence - St. George got snow the very next day!
On Tuesday we Instagrammed a picture for Sister Kayla since we couldn't be there in person, and then I watched her 'homecoming' video on Facebook later that night and bawled. It was such a happy video but I was a bit sad not to have been there. (Luckily we had been busy all day w/ long doctor's appointments, which had kept me distracted.)
One of our Tuesday dr. appointments was to pick up this gem:
That's right, our littlest miss is now an official helmet head. She had a week to gradually work into wearing this sucker and she now dons it 23 hours a day. She doesn't love it .. YET. I'm VERY hopeful that she'll get used to it, because for now, she's become much grumpier than she used to be. It makes me so sad for her. I do love how over-the-top giddy she gets during her one free hour each day, but I' hoping and praying that that happiness will start stretching out again. I want my jolly, 'chill', happy-go-lucky baby back!
And one last picture for fun - my little clan all decked out for some fun in the snow. The boys made Maliya sled down our hill once with them. She was then content playing on the patio while they played and made me their traditional giant heart (w/ I LOVE MOM inside) in the snow. They then all enjoyed hot cocoa and cookies/brownies as they warmed up, because what fun is playing in the snow if you can't warm up to treats afterward??
Whew, that was a lot! And I'm done for now ... perhaps I'll go back and edit later, perhaps not. Please forgive my inevitable mistakes!