Snow Angel and Christmas Cuties

Christmas 2009

Every December, the weekend before Christmas, my family has our traditional get-together at my parents house. We always have a yummy candlelit dinner and then the kids dress up as the Nativity and my dad reads the Christmas story from the Bible. It is a special tradition we look forward to every year.

Allie the shepherd.

My mom ended the evening by reading the kids a special book she wrote and had printed for each of the kids. It was so fun.

This is as much participation we could get from Drew for the nativity- he insisted on being a "Christms bear." We endulged him. We know we must pick our battles.

We had a great Christmas this year. It felt much simpler to me because we are still staying at my parents house for a few more weeks, and so it seemed like there was a lot less on my "to do" list. I loved it! We had lots of food, family, and fun, and a few less presents this year, which I actually quite liked.

Drew got a few more Transformers (just what he needed...sigh.) The boy loves those Autobots!

This was, of course, from Marshall. What can he say? We love those Cougs!!!

Allie got a cute little doll and some doll furniture.

Eat, breathe, SLEEP BYU!!! I guess it is our prerogative to brainwash them...

Allie also got some cute princess dress-ups. Drew enjoys trying to force her to put stuff on.

Trying to figure out the Transformers.

We had a great Christmas day!

Potty Training

We potty trained Allie this last week and it was such a breeze! She is two and a half now, and she seemed ready, so we went for it! She caught on really quickly, and only had very few accidents. She is loving her new Tinkerbell and princess panties. We are so proud of her for doing so well. (I don't want to name names or anything, but this was definitely a lot easier than the last kid I potty trained.) Way to go, Tiny!

Drew Turns 5!!

I can't believe my little boy is now 5 years old. It seems like only yesterday he was born, but then again, I can't remember life without him! He is such a joy to our family, and says some of the funniest things you can imagine. He is very bright, and very artistic and creative. He loves to build and design things. He is friendly to all, but can be very shy when put in the spotlight. (He has major stage fright, even if the "stage" is in front of just a few people.) He loves to watch movies and play computer games (not my favorite thing in the world, but we try to keep them educational.) He loves his "Nana School"-since we have moved to Cedar my mom has been teaching him preschool lessons. She is a retired schoolteacher and is so wonderfully patient with him. He looks forward to school every day. He is learning to read and knows quite a few sight words, and can count to 100 and beyond. He is a pretty good writer, and if he doesn't know how to spell something, he writes it out phonetically, which is so cute and can be really funny sometimes. He can ride his little red two-wheel bike really well. He is great at doing jigsaw puzzles, and has the most incredible attention span of any kid I have ever seen. He will sit at his little table and color and draw for hours and hours on end. Each piece of art is drawn especially for someone else, and our house is wallpapered with taped-up Bubba masterpieces drawn with love for someone special. His signature is "I (heart) U mom/dad/Allie/Nana, etc. and it will never end." The other day at church, he said something so funny-we were all dying. He had a major case of the wiggles, and so Marshall was holding him on his lap trying to help him have some "reverence practice." It wasn't going so well, and Drew kept resisting him. The ever-patient Marshall then says to him "Bubba, even though you are having such a hard time, I still love you, and it will never end." Drew's reply was (dead seriously) "Dad- if you don't stop being mean to me, it WILL end." The kid kills me! One of his favorite snacks is carrots (trust me- he gets his good eating habits from his dad, not me. It's awesome.) He claims that if he keeps eating lots of carrots, his hair will stay red. I sure hope it works. He has the best hair ever. His latest thing is Transformers. He has lots of fun figuring out how to transform them, and then repeatedly dismembers them until eventually parts get lost and they get cast aside...I am hoping the Transformers phase will end soon.

We had a fun party for him at my brother's house with spaghetti, (his favorite) a pinata, a cake, a few presents, and lots of cousins. We are so grateful to have such a special boy in our family, and it was so much fun celebrating the 5 wonderful years that we have had him with us!

This was the cake that I made for him. In case you can't tell, that is an Autobot symbol. (Man, I am such a nerd!) He loved it though. But not as much as he loved the R/C Viper he got...

The garage pinata.

Unfortunately we didn't get many more pictures than this, we have some video, but still have to figure out how to upload it. It was a great day!

Christmas Traditions

This last Saturday we went on our annual 'Good Old-Fashioned, Dial Family Christmas' excursion up near Brian Head to search for the perfect Christmas trees. (And yes, we remembered the saw...!) This is the 3rd year in a row for us, which is about as traditional as we get! We packed up our hot chocolate and donuts and all the kids, big and little, and headed up for a freezing and fun day in the mountains and snow. Again, this year we couldn't make it all the way up, and nearly slid off the mountain trying to all get turned around, but we made it out okay and all had a fun time.

Cravings...

First, it was a huge green salad with a ton of ranch (for breakfast.)

Then, it was York Peppermint Patties.

Then, Lemonheads (an entire huge box in one sitting.)

Whopper Jr.'s from BK.

Subway Sandwiches (NOT the Jared-approved ones, either. I knew this was a craving for sure because I normally hate Subway.)

Key Lime Pie.

Then, feeling guilty about eating all the junk food, I made myself eat an apple- it gave me indigestion. Figures!

You guessed it- Baby Chamberlain #3 will be joining us by next June. We are excited!