Christmas 2010!

We had a fun-filled Christmas (well Christmas weekend!) We were able to spend a lot of time seeing family, which is really what makes Christmas awesome. Addie was spoiled by everyone (no surprise there) and she had a wonderful Christmas!

We always spend the evening of Christmas eve up at Jed's parents' house for their family party. We love it. Delicious food, some of our favorite people, and that fun magical Christmas atmosphere :)

 Our soon-to-be family of four

(yes, I look huge and yes I've already had the "you look like you're ready to pop, when are you due?" thing happen. Um, three more months.....)

Addie is in a refusing-to-take-normal pictures stage, so this is the best we got

 We had a very long night that night.....none of us got much sleep, but we were all excited to wake up and see what Santa brought. Well I should clarify....we only gave Santa credit for like one gift and kept the rest of the credit ourselves ;)

Christmas Morning!

Addie was SO excited about her new chalk and letter board she got!

 She probably would have just sat and drawn if we hadn't told her she had other presents....

 What little girl doesn't love getting a new Yoda for Christmas?

 She's giving him loves....and yep she sleeps with that huge Yoda

After she opened her other stuff we took her upstairs to show her her last big thing from mom and dad-

Her new room with a BIG girl bed!!

She LOVES it! When she walked in she said "it's the prettiest thing I've ever seen"

 She immediately tried out the new bed with her quilt and even said "this is what mommy sewed"

Thanks for giving me props, kid :)

She even had to get IN the bed to try it out.

 We had Jed's parents and my mom and Danny and my brother and girlfriend over for brunch. They were all quickly escorted up the stairs as they arrived. She wanted everyone to see her new room.

Grammy Dawn got her an American Girls doll that looks just like her!

 She tells me that it's not "an Addie doll" it's "just Addie"

After some made-to-order omelets for everyone, prepared by Chef Jed, and some baked goods I made we all wrapped up brunch.

Then we headed out to make the rounds of visiting, talking, playing,

present-opening, more eating, and other Christmas goodness. I took a bunch of pictures but they're mostly just chaos :) We went to my mom and Danny's and got to play with cousins and Addie ran wild with them all. She was SO tired, so she was pretty wired. We stopped at Jed's Gram and Gramp's house too. Then on our way north, Addie totally crashed in the car. She refused to wake up when we got to his grandma Margaret's to visit. She slept on Jed for a half hour. Um, that never happens.

 After some more visiting with Jed's parents we headed home.

This is pretty much how Addie spent the evening....

 She pulled her chalk board to her new bed so she could experience it all at once I guess.

She actually does this now almost every morning when she wakes up. It's funny and cute.

The next evening, we had my dad and Tammie and brother Jason and his family over for dinner.

 We were glad we got to spent time with Jason's family.

They live in California now so we haven't seen them since May.

 Addie and Taylor having some soup at the tea party table.

Then the kids opened some presents from their grandparents.

 It was fun to have family over and a great way to wrap up Christmas!

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas holiday weekend.....we missed some of our family and friends who live far away. Good thing for blogging huh?!

Speaking of...quick side note: blogger hasn't been wanting to be my friend and let me upload photos this week very well. Hence a week late Christmas post. So I'm throwing these pictures in this post too, just in case it doesn't cooperate again.

Addie got some super cute, awesome baking and cooking sets from Jed's grandma and aunt Teri for Christmas. She kept asking to use them. So the other day I grabbed some graham crackers and some whipped ganache out of my fridge I happened to have and let her play :)

She'll be using this stuff a lot!

 She LOVES baking with me.

 I told her we can do some real baking this week....I was pretty burnt out on baking this week

(I know....I was surprised myself. Mostly I just didn't want the mess)

Don't worry, when we bake for real, we don't eat frosting right out of the piping bags- but hey this was play time...and who can blame her. It was chocolate ganache, so I sure can't!

Merry Christmas!

Okay, so pretend you're at your mailbox.....oooh a card envelope! Now open it... ta-da!

Okay, I know I'm a weirdo. I do want to wish all our friends, family and loved one a Merry Christmas though! All of you have added something to our lives this year and we're thankful for all of our friendships, whether they're personal or cyber-centric. Merry Christmas, friends!

Christmas checklist: Done

Well, since it's the Christmas season, we've been making sure that we get all of our Christmas-related activities checked off the list :) I'm now ready for the part where I just bake and relax until Christmas. I can't believe that it's only 9 days away! This year has flown by. December itself always goes by so fast to me.

Ogden Christmas Village: Check

 Definitely a success! Addie LOVED it, it was pretty warm outside for December, and we had some family join us to make it even more fun.

 She pulled me from house to house, looking in all the windows.

She liked this one where they were baking treats...hmm wonder why ;)

Standard family snapshot at the Christmas Village

 Showing Ashley and Ian all the things inside the house

Visit Santa: Check

 She was so quiet and shy with him, but she smiled for the picture (not at this camera) and finally told him she wanted a little Ariel. (it's the only little dress up princess she's lacking)

I was informed a few days later, she wants a Yoda instead.

Gingerbread Houses: Check

Due to my obsession/stalking of gingerbread marshmallows, we decided to make them out of gingerbread rice krispy treats. Delicious! I recommend adding twice the normal amount of cereal to the recipe, however, because ours all ended up collapsing.

 Frosting makes Addie very happy

 She did a good job of putting spice drops on the house and using her own little frosting bag

 Look how into it she is...such concentration. It was fun to watch her.

 Our little house, made mostly by Addie

Ash and Ian surprised Dawn for her birthday so they were in town and got to join in the fun too

 Their cute little house, complete with chocolate shingles on the roof....which later caved in

Tyson came up to visit and joined in the fun and helped Whit with her house

Temple Square: CHECK

My friend Amanda and I had this grand plan months ago to go see the lights at Temple Square with the kids, and ride the frontrunner downtown. You know, a whole Christmas adventure experience.

So off we went! Max and Addie were wild on the way down and we thought we may be in for it.

After we grabbed some dinner at gateway (which, btw gateway- get some decent places there to eat semi-quickly, okay?) we jumped back on the trax and went up to "see the lights".

Um, what we saw? A MILLION people....and some snow....and yes some lights on trees that the kids didn't really care about. We'd forgotten the whole aspect of going on a weeknight- Mutual.

It was still fun, but we had to rush because we didn't want to miss the 7:57 train back. 

 Baby Connor thought this whole scene was a bit too wild and decided to sleep through it.

He seriously was an angel the whole time! We gave him the gold star of the evening.

I always love to see the beautiful temple, even if it's surrounded by mayhem.

 quick self-snapshot of the family to prove we were there.

The cute VanOrden family

 note Connor is still asleep

Addie loved this part, as did I

 So pretty.

Then....we missed the train....literally watched it pulling away as our trax pulled up.

Uh....now what? Back onto the trax for a hot chocolate run!

We got back on the frontrunner with plenty of time to spare and tucked Addie into bed at 10pm.

So there you have it! Lots of fun Christmas fun, memories and  a few traditions in the making! I really do love Christmas time, especially now that we have a child (children soon). It makes it all that much more magical. I hope that you're all having a wonderful holiday season full of your own traditions.

December, really?

I'm still in awe that it's already December. I feel like it's still like I don't know, April? Technically the weather in April this year was similar to right now, so why not. Anyway, even though this year has flown by, we're ready for the holiday season and we did a lot of Christmasy and Wintery activities this week to ring in December. I still didn't have my camera, so sorry these are all just BB pictures.

Gingerbread cookie-baking

I've been meaning to make these every year for a long time and never have. They're so yummy and made our whole house smell like Christmas.

I gave Addie her own little bag of frosting so she could decorate her own cookie.

Um, she LOVED that idea....

 

 She used every. last. bit. of frosting. I like her....and no we don't always bake in jammies, but we did that day. (mostly due to the fact that it was 9am because I started our dough at 6:30 the night before and realized it had to sit in the fridge for 2 hours and she'd be asleep by then)

 Addie's masterpiece. Don't you love the bite taken out of the top of its head?

 Don't they look almost too happy to eat? Don't worry, I got over that quickly. Addie thought it was fun later to take some to her little friends in the neighborhood too.

So, um.....I had a bunch of Jed's warm clothes in the laundry that he wore while putting up Christmas lights....and silly me, I didn't check the pockets first.

 So that's what I found in my washing machine. See those broken ones? Any idea where the rest of the broken pieces of glass ended up? Yep, my washing machine....whoops. Still finding glass in there.

SNOW-playing!

 Addie has asked me almost every day to play in the snow, but until this week we didn't have any to play in. She was SO excited. She could have played out there all night if we had let her.

 She loves making "Addie angels"

She even convinced me to make a "mommy angel" which I did, because I was trying to be a cool mom.

Then I tried to get up....oh right, I'm pregnant and can't move now ;)

House-Decorating

Jed put lights up on our house, and they look really cute :)

I just don't have a good picture of them yet. Here's the part I did though.

 Targeted ultrasound/Baby boy face-peeking

 I'm 24 weeks along now (it's going by FAST)

We had our big ultrasound on Thursday. I love the big one because I got to see every bit of him and see that all his organs are there, that he's healthy and growing and right on track.

Oh and a couple 3-D pictures too, which is so cool!

Good job, baby boy.

Friday night out with friends

 Addie and Lucy were excited to bowl!

We've never taken Addie bowling, and it was funny to explain it to her beforehand.

She was convinced we needed to bring all the balls in our house haha.

Why didn't they have those cool ball slide things when I was little?

 Or, heck, I'd use it now if it was socially acceptable

Addie loved it! She was cheering for us all too

We're not pro bowlers, but Laura and I could pretend to be pro bowling ball thieves :)

 actually, I think my belly is bigger than that bowling ball.....

note to self: baggy sweaters make me look even more huge.

Gingerbread Marshmallow Hunt 2010

 I kind of became a stalker of these babies when I saw a recipe online for Rice Krispy Treats made with gingerbread marshmallows. I finally found some on Saturday and I was so excited!

I know, it doesn't take much to excite me. They really are delicious treats though.

Like a RKT, but with a little hint of Christmas.

Oh and I also made these this week. I described them as eating Christmas in a cupcake wrapper.

I love this time of year because we always see lots of friends and family. Well, and the baking aspects of course. Addie and I had a fun play date on Friday with some friends and then tonight we had dinner at a friend's house and got to eat good food, talk and play. We have a lot of other get-togethers and parties planned for this month- bring on the Christmas season!