Texas Weather

We had our first brush with severe Texas weather a couple of weeks ago. I was a cloudy day but nothing really notable...no strong wind, no pounding rain (maybe some drizzle every now and again), no extreme temperatures. I had just broken my broom in half trying to bend it back into shape after getting it stuck under the fridge (yes...i buy high quality brooms...lol) and thought I might go to Wal-Mart to get another. My mom called all frantic about torando watches and severe weather warnings in our area. I looked outside and not seeing a lot thought "yeah, ok ...another sure disaster that we won't see a drop from". I loaded the kids into the car and sat for a moment. Now it was raining and the sky was gray but it wasn't anything terrible and I REALLY needed that broom (my children had eaten? since the other had broken). My mom called again panicking about the weather warnings and such (4 in hail at the mall 20 min away...ummm...sure mom....I though). Again, I looked around (it had stopped raining) and pondered...should I go and get the broom anyways? Probably Nothing will happen. It never does. The weather didn't look that bad...just a little thunder storm. No one will know. Christopher even called and told me to stay home (yes...mom had called him too...she is like the early warning system since none of us have tv or anything lol) I was set to go and then I had "the feeling"...the one that sets off every alarm in your body. I felt like an idiot because the weather was fine..no rain, no black clouds...nada but there I was rousing my sleeping children from the car and frantically running them into the house then I started chucking things around the garage and made just enough room to SQUEEZE our little Dodge Neon inside. I ran upstairs grabbed a flashlight and a blanket and before I had made it all the way down the stairs again I heard it.....TEXAS SEVERE WEATHER!!!
Thunder and lightening and rain, but most notably the hail started coming down (not just here and there), pelting the windows and the house. It looked like popcorn popping on the lawn. It kept getting bigger and it was hitting the windows so hard I thought they would break. I gathered my drowsy babies off of the couch (by the window) into the middle of the room. By now, the hail was quarter size and some golf balls in there. The noise was deafening and I was amazed that the windows didn't just shatter. I finally took my kiddos into our little emergency bathroom just in case and just as we entered it...it stopped. Just as suddenly as it had begun it was over and the sun came out. The yard was completely COVERED in hail stones. It looked like we had a snow storm--you'll have to look closely at the picture above to see it...I took it through the window since I was too scared to go out just yet). (Dallin thought it was a snowstorm!...poor kid) and he ran out and grabbed some to eat(after I was less scared). I took some pictures of what was left by the door(in my hand at the top), but it was nothing compared to what had been coming down. This happened about 2 weeks ago and now all of the roofs in our neighborhood are peeling off and blowing around. LOL It is kind of funny because Dallin thinks they are treasures and keeps making pathways to our house with the shingles that blow into the yard. I don't have the heart to throw them away.
I learned a lot from this experience
1) It is JUST A BROOM!! No one will notice a dirty floor when you have no roof!
2) Children can sleep through ANYTHING (except my am alarm)
3) Listen to your Mother!
4) The weather here really can change COMPLETELY in 5 minutes...again and again.
5) and most importanty...listen to the Spirit I am very thankful that I listened at that last moment (and grateful that the Spirit kept on) and kept myself and my children safe from harm. Hopefully, I can learn to listen earlier in the future!

Shall We Dance?

I previously posted about the kids pretending that they are dancing together at the ball. Usually, Dallin will yell "Princess Kate! I need to dance with you at the ball" This time, both kids were getting ready for church and one at a time they started swaying in front of the TV and then they started dancing together. It was really cute. Normally, they don't fall down quite so much though. Kate was really being a stink and kept making Dallin drag her around the floor. LOL

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Yesterday was Christopher's real birthday. We did most of the celebrating last Sunday, but we still did some fun things as a family on the "real" day. We bummed around, took a walk, and enjoyed pizza and ice cream sundaes (Christopher's had sparkler candles that his mom sent). He even received several birthday calls and a gift from his parents on his special day!
Happy Birthday, Christopher! You are a great gift to our family-a supportive husband and a hands on dad. We love you!

Family Update

Dallin

• Dallin continues to amaze us and horrify us simultaneously every day. He is such a funny character and he is developing more and more.
• Dallin KEEPS GROWING!!! I joke that I am going to bring the Jolly Green Giant to kindergarten. People typically think he is 6 years old. He will be 3 1/2 at the end of this month. He wears a 5-6 shirt and 4-5 pants. He has outgrown his underwear (now in a 7) and his shoes (now in a 10). He weighs about 50 pounds and is about 4 feet tall. His size is probably one of his greatest blessings and his greatest trials. He is able to physically do things most kids his age can't. He is VERY good at gymnastics and sports. He is agile and strong. However, he can't really be picked up and tossed around like other kiddos his age (or his little sister) and that is hard for him. He is also able to actually DO many of the things other 3 year olds can only dream of because he has the body of an older child. This has caused MANY problems since he is quite imaginative and intelligent. He can also really hurt someone just by throwing a tantrum or hitting/kicking like 3 year olds can. It is tough sometimes but we are trying to explain to him that he is bigger so he has to be more careful than other kids his age. On the plus side....he will be the best kid on the field when he starts soccer next year!
  
• Goodbye Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and SuperWhy.....HELLO HANDY MANNY! While Dallin still likes the others, his new obsession is Handy Manny. He sings the little jingles from the show, says the catch phrases, and is constantly stealing tools from the garage and "fixing" things around the house. He puts on his belt and pretends it is a tool belt. He really wants a Handy Manny doll with the tools, but I think he will be moved on to another phase by birthday time. The other day I came downstairs to find him with a screwdriver by the lightswitch. When he turned around, I saw that he had actually unscrewed four of the screws (it had 6) and he told me he was "fixing" it. I wasn't sure if I should be horrifed because of how dangerous that was or amazed at the dexterity of my little man. Thanks so much, Manny! We have let him help daddy fix things around the house so he can do it with supervision and keep putting the pilfered tools back in the triple dead bolt locked garage (yes....he CAN open it). He DID help install our Texas license plates last week. He was very excited!
  
• "Ave uhhhhh! Ave uhhhhh! Ava!" Dallin has a new little friend in one of the playgroups we have joined named Ava. He sounds like Wall-E running around yelling out her name all the time. He wants to be with her every single second. He can be really pushy but I have seen him play what she wants just to be with her. The big problem is that he fixates so much on her that he doesn't really want to play with the other kids and he doesn't want them to play with her either....hmmmm. I don't think he is old enough for me to be worried about this yet, but still we are trying to promote being EVERYONE'S friend and not controlling anyone else.
• "I'm Prince Eric! Where are my glass slippers? I am going to dance with princess kate at the ball!" Ok....yes, I have subjected my son to the princess movies (cause I like them so much MORE...and let's face it there is a limited amount of time that he will be into it anyways) He has phased out of it a little bit, but every once in a while he will still pretend to be Prince Eric and he'll want you to check his foot for a heartbeat. Then he will slow dance with his sister in the living room pretending that he is prince eric and she is a princess. All in all, not too bad since he is at least pretending to be the GUY...LOL umm...except the glass slipper part...apparently, he wants to be "the man" and STILL get to wear the glass slippers....LOL oh well...let him have his cake and eat it too! You go Dallin! (Yes, the shoes in the picture ARE nana's high heels!)
  
• "Knock Knock? Who's there? Boo. Boo hoo? Don't cry...it's only a knock knock joke!" Ahhhh...the classics. Dallin is developing a sense of humor and he thinks knock knock jokes are the funniest thing ever. This is the only one he really knows. He has made up some....but "Knock knock? Who's there? Pants. Pants who? An apple!" isn't quite as funny to the untrained ear. Dallin, on the other hand, thinks it is HILARIOUS! Unfortunately, he has also started in with body part/potty humor and any mention of a bum or any other body part is sure to elicit a giggle from him. He has tried to make me laugh with his "mom...smell by bum!" but it usually ends up with his nose in the corner. What can I say?....I guess I am just not a good patron of the comedic arts.
• "I am the dad to Kate" Dallin loves to take care of babies. He is always asking to hold Maddie and feed her a bottle. He tries really hard to make sure she is taken care of and is very responsive when she cries. I have caught him trying to play house with Kate. He is the daddy, she is the mommy, and they have a doll, but I guess that Kate doesn't play as the mommy right so Dallin is now the daddy to Kate and if she is whiny he will practically hog tie her to "feed her" her sippy.
  
• "This is the best lunch you ever made!" Dallin says this to me a lot when I cook something he likes (not necesarily something that is actually an amazing meal...one time I got this comment over kraft mac n cheese).
  
• "It's from my dad!" A question Dallin gets ALL THE TIME since I have dark hair is "where did you get that RED HAIR!" He is so used to it that he will answer it himself now...but don't think of touching it! That is forbidden "Don't touch it!" often follows this phrase.
  
• "Yellow is my favorite color! It means happy!" Dallin LOVES yellow and always has. It was the first color he recognized. He will pick the yellow one no matter what!
• "Let's hang out!" I've noticed Dallin says this a lot when he needs a break because he is tired and wants someone to sit with him. He will plop down on the couch and say it. It is really cute.
  
• "You're the best mom ever!" Dallin says this when I do something nice for him or he gets his way. A couple of times, it has been unanticipated and that is a sweetness I love to savor.
• "Katie bug" Dallin loves his sister and STILL calls her Katie Bug (not just Kate). He picks on her but NO ONE else better try it!!
• "the present ripped itself" Dallin has been telling little lies lately. Nothing major, but I do let him know that he is lying and ask him to tell me the truth (which he usually does). The one was after he helped me wrap a gift for his friend's birthday party, when I came downstairs he told me the present was ripped. When asked if he ripped the present, this was his reply...ummm...yea.
  
• "I want a job to buy a house, and a car, and some food and some air, and a patch, and maybe a tree" This was Dallin's reply when he was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted a job and when he was asked what he wanted to buy with the money from his job. This was his list. It was pretty well thought out I thought. I mean, everyone needs some air to breathe. Oh...and Patch is the cat..lol
  
• Mom: Dallin, mommy is going potty before we leave. Do you want to go potty? Dallin: (looking annoyed) Moooomm. I'm not touching myself! I'm just touching my leg! Ok...so since Dallin has potty trained, he became enamored with a certain part of his anatomy so we broke him of it by making him go potty every time he touched himself because that MUST be the reason he was holding himself, right? (wink wink) Well, I guess it kind of back fired here. LOL
  
• Mom: Dallin, I love you so much. You are growing up so fast! What am I going to do when you are not my little boy? Just stay little, ok?

Dallin: I can't do that, mom. I have to grow up and drive the car.
Mom: But I will miss you being my little boy. What will I do?
Dallin: It's ok mom, you can come with me.
Conversations like this one....priceless.

Kate

• Kate has really sprouted and is definitely in the terrible 2s. She is soooo funny. So much spunk in such a tiny little package. She speaks in full thoughts all the time and it has been quite enlightening to hear what is on her mind.
• Kate is still at the other end of the spectrum...our pint sized princess. She is about 24 pounds and only 2 1/2 feet tall. She wears a 2 shirt and 18 mo -2t pants. She is STILL in a size 3 diaper. She recently outgrew her shoes and is now in a size 6. Her eye teeth are coming in but there is no sign of her 2 year molars yet.
  
• "Pincess! Pincess!" Kate loves the Disney princesses and anything that looks "princessy". When she wears her big puffy dresses, she'll twirl and play with the skirt saying this over and over. She love to wear tiaras and love ANYTHING with Disney princesses on it!
• "Pink Pink Pink!" In traditional girly girl style, Kate is obssessed with the color pink (any shade really) and will point it out loudly to me over and over wherever she can find it. She also associates pink with being a princess. She is learning her colors and can often name the basic colors all correctly (pink, purple, blue, yellow, red, green) with only an occasional mistake.
  
• "Madison so cute!" Kate LOVES Maddie too! In fact, every baby is now Madison. Everytime Kate sees Madison she has to say "Hi Madison! Madison so cute!" It is funny! The girls really like each other, but occasionally there is a flare up of jealousy especially over nana!
  
• "Weed! I weeding" Kate loves to read (weed) and you can often find her with a book "weeding". It is really cute to hear her tell the stories (some of them she almost has memorized). Her favorite right now is "Bark, George" She hasn't been as careful with books lately so she has been confined to board books unless supervised. :(
• "Eyes! Eyes! Make-up!" Kate loves to watch mommy get ready in the mornings and will stand up on the toilet seat beside my sink while I do whenver I let her. She especially likes it when I clean my contacts. She insists that I put a drop of contact solution on her little index finger and then she will poke it in her eye. She does it on both sides. It really cracks me up and I want to put a video of it on here as soon as I can. She also like it when I put makeup on her AND me (I don't really...by the time I have used it there is no more on the brush and she just gets the sensation...but that is enough for her). She really struts when she thinks she is all primped.
  
• "Date do! Danks!" Kate is very VERY good about saying thank you for EVERYTHING! LOL It is almost overdone, but I would rather that than have her seem rude so I let her go on and on. She gets a lot of compliments on her hairstyles. (The picture is from Valntines day when we did her hair as a heart!) I guess she is used to it because a lot of times when someone tells her they love her hair she will just smile and say "Date do!" without prompting. GOOD GIRL!
• "al wight?" Kate is very cute if someone seems upset or hurt and will always ask them if they are alright....over and over and over again until she receives an answer.
  
• "water! water! water!" This means I want some water...right now!! She will keep saying it until she gets some.
  
• (pulling up her shirt and pointing to her distended belly) "Mommy, my tummy big...I go poop!" This may seem nasty, but I thought it was very funny and was very excited that she actually went upstairs and PRODUCED! This was the first time that she has completely initiated the process! Yippee!! (I thought the picture of the queen on her throne was just too funny to pass up!)
• Kate is a master pixie--delicate and cute and can be sugar sweet, but don't be fooled. She is also a master of the stink eye. I have yet to catch this on film, but it is a look like no other....you know she is giving you "the look" She does it a lot with strangers....."Oh what a cute little girl! ...(stink eye)...."Oh! Oh my!" Yep, that is my girl. She is very shy and for a while she would cry and hide when strangers said hello, now she just gives them a crusty stare and kind of hunkers down a little. It is soooo funny seeing a handful of nothin be so feisty.
  
• Kate has also decided she won't take a decent picture to save her life. It probably started around the time we tried to do family pictures. She screams and cries and throws herself on the ground and arches her back throwing tantrums...won't do anything you ask her to do and makes herself a general nuisance. She will do the occasional snapshot around the house, but heaven forbid you should want something nice...you will be S.O.L. It is a shame because she is sooo beautiful and darling and Dallin has finally started taking WONDERFUL pictures so I was really hoping for some nice ones with BOTH of my children, but alas....maybe when they are grown!
  

OTHER UPDATES

• Christopher now works FT for Sears in their call center handling delivery issues. He also works PT for UPS sorting packages. We are really looking forward to eventually having just one job! His job with Samsung disintigrated a few months after we moved down here and after using up our savings we had to do something else. We are happy for the opportunities and are hoping that he will be able to become a UPS driver in the next couple of years.
  
• Because of Christopher's job disappearing at Samsung, I have had to go back to work FT at Wal-Mart as well (yes, it takes all 3 jobs to make the same amount as we were making working 60-72 hrs at Samsung). I unload the truck, pull pallets, and generally take care of the receiving stuff. It wipes me out, but I have lost 10 pounds so far.
  
• As briefly mentioned before, our family adopted a cat before Christmas. We named her Patch. We had been looking at pets for several months prior. We often checked the local animal shelter to see what they had available for adoption. We first noticed Patch in October on the shelter site and thought she looked really cool because she was white with a little black "soul patch" on her chin. We often checked back and she was still available. She was even pet of the month in Nov. So in December we called our landlord and with his ok, we went down to the shelter and asked to see her. She came home with us and the rest is history. It took her a few weeks to warm up completely after 3 months in the shelter, but she is wonderful! The kids LOVE her and she puts up with more than she should have to (and keeps coming back for more...there may be something wrong with her survival instinct..LOL)
  

Jesus, is that you?

So...there is actually a very innocent sweet story behind this before everyone gets all up in arms about any kind of irreverence.
My sister-in-law has been coming over about 3 nights a week to watch the kids while I go to work until Christopher gets home. The kids ADORE her and are doing so much better than I ever could have hoped with this transition. It has been fairly smooth, all things considered. She plays games with them, runs around outside, bakes cookies...all of the wonderful fun things that they love.
One day, she decided she wanted to do a Tae Bo workout video. She thought that she might be able to get away with it if the kids were involved and trying to do it too (for "fun"...do you remember when we thought exercise was "fun"?) So to try to explain it to the children before she turned it on, she said
"I am going to put in this video and there will be a man on there and he will be telling us what to do and we will do it!"
Dallin didn't miss a beat
"Is he Jesus?" he asked in a completely innocent and awestruck way.

LOL No, Dallin Billy Blanks is not Jesus.

On the plus side, isn't it wonderful that it is so simple to him that Jesus tells us to do something and we DO it...that's it.

25 Random Things About Me

Yep, this is another random information quest about me. I got tagged and so here is my answer

1. I have only ever kissed 1 man--and I married him
2. I LOVE water. I drink it all the time. I drink at least 12 glasses a day.
3. I do not love milk. It is disgusting. It is only good for cooking and to make the cereal wet (I do NOT drink the milk left in the bowl either---I know it's wasteful, but I just can't do it)
4. My house is almost always in a state of disorder because I am such a perfectionist. I know, it seems like a contradiction, but it is true. I am finding a lot of wisdom in the FLY Lady method.
5. It took 5 years to have my first child. I went to the dr thinking we had fertility problems only to have him tell me that I was already pregnant! Yes...I felt stupid.
6. My 2 children are 19 months apart because we thought it would take a long time to get pregnant again....it didn't.
7. I love to listen to country, soft rock, some alternative, and christian music. I know lots of the lyrics but I can't tell you who sings them.
8. I have only recently(within the past 6 months) begun wearing makeup on a daily basis--before that it was reserved only for Sundays.
9. I tend to be very hard on myself and feel very inadequate in groups of my peers, but apparently I come off as calm, cool, and collected. Maybe I should have been an actor! LOL
10. I eloped with my husband after deciding that we should go ahead and get married "right away" at a Hogi Yogi during lunch. We were married in the courthouse in Park City 4 hours later. I wore a purple dress because it was the only thing clean in the dryer. We will be married for 8 years Feb. 5
11. My husband and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Mt. Timpanogos temple July 2005. I was 7 months pregnant with Dallin. It was the most spiritual experience of my life. The spirit was so strong and I just tried to drink it all in. I really felt the preparation was entirely worth it.
12. Although we lived in Utah where there was a temple every 10 minutes, we did not get back to the temple while we lived there (except for sealings or weddings of friends). Now we live in Texas where the nearest temple is 1 1/2 hours away and I am hoping that we can make it back this year.
13. I have to have my children via c-section because my body does not release the chemical to allow me to actually soften and efface to allow for childbirth, but I don't really know any different so I am not sure if it is harder or not.
14. My favorite job ever was working for Griffith's FoodTown in Coalville, Utah. It was truly like being part of a little family and I loved managing an 8 aisle complete grocery store. It really taught me a lot.
15. My favorite color is purple--I tend to go towards the lighter shades
16. I don't know when the last time was that I actually read an entire book or magazine. It intimidates me because it seems so daunting to finish that I usually don't even begin.
17. I love to dance. I have taken ballet and jazz and have never felt more graceful or free.
18. I can't watch scary movies even if I think I want to. It keeps me awake and scared to death for weeks on end. After I watched The Ring- I wouldn't go to the bathroom by myself because I had to pass the television set.
19. I have discovered that I really enjoy doing my daughter's hair artistically and accesorizing her bows. I am going to try my hand at bow making.
20. I don't have any regular tv stations or cable in my house right now--just movies and netflix. It is not because of a moral highground, it is just because I am unwilling to pay for it.
21. I was a blond when I was little.
22. I love seeing my kids grow and change, but I also pine for the babyhood they are leaving behind.
23. I love being a mom 99. 8% of the time.
24. I once shaved my head completely bald when I was 23ish. We are talking with a BIC razor.
25. I love having highlights in my hair, but I don't love paying for them so mostly I'm all natural!

Our Big Ol Christmas Holiday Post (better late than never)

So I have procrastinated this for so long with everything we have been doing that I realize it is very late. I weighed out whether to post it at all, but for extended family everywhere and for posterity...we did have a WONDERFUL busy Christmas. Here it is for your postponed enjoyment!

The Kellogg Family Christmas 2008It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Around Thanksgiving time, Nana and Papa began pulling out all of their wonderful Christmas decorations. They really do an amazing job on their yard so it takes a couple of weeks to get all of the outdoors and indoors holiday ready. The kids and I went over for a walk and Papa and Uncle Michael were decorating the yard. Both kids were in the middle of everything! So very excited to help get ready for Christmas. I'm not sure if Papa and Uncle Michael felt quite as helped as the kids thought they were being. LOL Dallin was bouncing up and down - "look mommy! reindeers! look it's christmas eve!" I help! Let me help" It was magical to them to see it coming together.

Also my parents put up a BIG Santa looking at his list in the entry way. He is about as big as Dallin. First thing, my kids did was to try and pull off his glasses. We quickly explained that Santa couldn't bring toys without his glasses---that put an end to it VERY quickly. My kids kept hugging on and talking to the big Santa all through the holidays. "Are you ok Santa? Hi Santa! I be good Santa", but I have to say that my favorite was on Christmas day when Kate kept quietly going over to Santa in the middle of all the hustle and bustle to put her arms around him and say "Thank you Santa!" and plant a kiss right on his cheek. What a sweetheart!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
It was of the utmost importance to Dallin this year that we have a tree right away. Apparently "Santa can not come without a tree and snow". We were able to con our way out of the snow part, but the tree was VERY important. Dallin was so into it, that we actually went out and got our first REAL Christmas tree. We really enjoyed it. It was sooo beautiful and smelled great the entire holiday. Plus Dallin had watched the Caillou holiday movie and wanted to be able to pick his tree out. Fortunately, we were able to guide him towards the cheapest real tree at Wal-Mart. Then we bought a few red plastic bulbs and some silver jingle bells (aka kid alarms! LOL) and we went home to being our first real tree trimming. The kids were so excited. Dallin insisted that we sing "all together" Jingle Bells and Feliz Navidad over and over. Surprisingly, he knew most of the words! He bounced back and forth decorating the tree with the pure joy and magic of childhood Christmas shining in his eyes. I wanted to hold onto this year's magic forever. Kate helped decorate the tree too, although most of her ornaments were simply shoved between two branches. We got them all up and Dallin put the angel on top. When we turned on the lights, it was truly quite beautiful. The kids DID move some of the ornaments, but we soon enacted the "if you touch the ornaments you are in the corner" law and it soon ceased. Dallin, very protective of his tree, was sure to tell me every time Kate touched the tree. (Although a couple of times, I did catch him coaxing her over to do it....and then he would tell on her...what a turkey!)
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, Lean Your Ear This Way

We celebrated the traditional German St. Nicholas day on December 6 by having the kids put their shoes outside their bedroom doors before bed. Christopher's great grandmother was from Germany so we like to keep some of that tradition going. The kids were very excited. Dallin thought it was Christmas Eve (AGAIN). Even Christopher and I put our shoes out. We told the kids that St. Nicholas was going to come and check on them before Christmas Eve and that if they were good he would leave a treat in their shoes. Dallin thought that was "so silly!". We read the story of St Nicholas, made cookies for him, placed them by the shoes(Dallin wanted to leave him all 24 cookies the kids had decorated and insisted that he WOULD eat them ALL...luckily I convinced him that 3 was enough so we could keep some too) Then they were off to bed. I thought Dallin would NEVER go to sleep! The next morning, they each got a Christmas ornament and a couple of small trinkets. They were soooo very excited.
Feliz Navidad ("Fleece Navi gog")
We also had a lot of fun getting together with my family and doing things like decorating sugar cookies, making snowflakes, driving around to see Christmas lights, and singing Christmas carols. Dallin LOVED singing Christmas carols this year. His Favorites were Jingle Bells and Fleece Navi gog (Feliz Navidad). He actually knew most of the words and would spontaneously break into song and ask everyone to join in. It really kept the Christmas spirit burning bright and brough a lot of joy into the holidays. Dallin would sing and dance (even with baby Maddie..who was very happy to do it with her Daddy's help) Whenever we would all sing together, Dallin just beamed and relaxed so completely. He actually sat there one night and almost fell asleep after singing carols for an hour (and still didn't want to stop) It was fun letting the kids decorate cookies this year. Kate usually ended up more frosted than the cookie and ALWAYS frosted her cookie with the wrong end of the knife and POURED on the sprinkles. Dallin used EVERY color of frosting on every cookie and tons of sprinkles as well. The kids weren't really into the "snowflakes" but enjoyed going after a pieve of paper with safety scissors. The grownups made some cool ones though with Santas and snowmen and candy canes. We even made gingerbread houses together out of graham crackers and candy (which my kids feasted on through the month)
We also got to go to our first Christmas parade in Pflugerville. It was hard to wait for it to get dark enough (it was a light parade), but once the parade started and the candy started flying...my kiddos were mesmerized. Uncle Willie even fought a pack of little girls to get a necklace for Kate. My favorite parts of the parade were when the police escorts came with their sirens to start the parade right in front of the float with Santa on it and Dallin said "Santa is being ARRESTED!!??" LOL and the last float of the parade that said "Keep Christ in Christmas" and then had a big Santa and sleigh theme...hmmm...lol
O Little Town of Bethlehem
We went to Burnet Texas and saw a live nativity (Main Street Bethlehem). They had actually recreated what Bethlehem was like with costumes, buildings, actors, animals, food. It was quite amazing, but WAY crowded. Dallin was a man on a mission. He was there for one purpose and one purpose only...to find Baby Jesus. It was so precious. He kept asking "Where is baby Jesus? Are we almost to baby Jesus? Baby Jesus, where are you?" We followed the star and after some time, found baby Jesus in the stable. After he shouted "There he is!!", Dallin took Kate and they ran over to the stable scene. Then kids both knelt down by the hay bales and looked on silently only occasionally would Dallin look at me and say "look mommy it is baby Jesus...shhh...he's sleeping!". After that, he was satisfied and we went home. I was very impressed by how reverenced my kids were. I half expected Dallin to go crawling over the hay bales and ask Mary to hold Jesus or be jumping up and down yelling, but he was so still. It really touched my heart how much this meant to him.
Silent Night, Holy Night
After much waiting and anticipation, Christmas Eve finally arrived (the REAL Christmas Eve...not the one Dallin thought it was every time we did anything for the holidays). We had our traditional Subway sandwiches and we acted out the Nativity. I read this year. Dallin was a shepherd (with a candy cane), Christopher was a donkey (LOL), my dad was a shepherd, my mom and Michael were wisemen, and Tammy Will and Maddie were Mary Joseph and Jesus. Kate was nothing as she was rolling on the floor throwing a temper tantrum. It was funny (as most family pageants with small children are) but also spiritual and reminded everyone of why we were celebrating to begin with. We all got to open a gift--new pjs for Christmas day! Then we made some cookies for Santa and left them out with some milk (and some carrots for the reindeer by the fireplace) We slept at my parents' home and it took the kids FOREVER to fall asleep. Dallin finally crawled in and fell asleep with Kate...you could almost see the visions of sugarplums.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Christmas morning came early...about 4:45 am. Thanks to Netflix streaming movies, we were able to keep the kids in our room watching Rataouille ("Rata tootie") until 6am when the missionaries arrived and everyone was ready to go out. We ran out and Dallin checked to see the carrots and the cookies...yep...both eaten...amazing! Then on to see what Santa had left. What a HAUL! We were all VERY spoiled and had a great time playing and opening gifts. Dallin got a scooter and the roller skates and Kate got her own (mom powered) bike complete with helmet. They were VERY excited! They rode around and around and around the house all day. Kate and Maddie got long pretend hair and it was funny to see them running around with long pink/purple hair all day. Dallin and Kate also got lots of other fun toys and nice clothes. They were especially excited about their new cooking set from Grandpa and Grandma...yes, we are playing "food" much more often now. We had a beautiful Christmas dinner and then hauled all of our things back over to our house.

It was a wonderful holiday season for us and we hope you all had wonderful holidays too. It was amazing to be with my whole family and see Maddie's first Christmas. You could see the magic and the joy of it all on Dallin's and Kate's faces and it really made me feel the spirit of what Christmas is about even more this year. I look forward to many more years of magical Christmas seasons and memories.