Christmas 2010

Santa arrived one day early at our house since we were heading to SLC on Christmas Eve. The kids were so excited to see what Santa left under the tree. It was fun to see their exciting faces. Sadly, it takes you months to get everything together and organized and the presents were opened in about 20 minutes. The funny thing is we let the kids open their gifts and then while we were finishing up packing they opened our gifts for us. Isaac made out with more Star Wars legos and a new pirate cove to go with his pirate ship that Santa brought last year. The fun toy was a remote control car that flips over and can drive on both sides.

Little Miss Sarah received a shopping cart and play food and plates. She LOVES pushing her baby doll around in the cart. She is going to be a good mommy one day! They both received several books as we do a lot of reading time at our house.

Gary and I purchased a shiatsu massage chair and it has been wonderful!!! It feels so nice to just sit and relax.

After breakfast we packed everyone up and headed to Pasco. The kids did great on the airplane and Grandpa Oaks was able to pick us up just in time for the Oaks Christmas Eve celebration. It was so nice to see everyone and Isaac was so happy to see his cousins. After fun games and opening gifts we headed to my parents house. Once again Isaac was so happy to see Clara. I love how they are such good buddies.

Christmas day was filled with more family time between Gary's family and mine. It was nice and relaxing.
We had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone and I hate that our vacations go by so quickly. It was fun to see my cousins, Kristin and Laurie. We enjoyed one day at the indoor water park and loved every minute of it. I love seeing Isaac enjoy the water.
My best friend from college, Janel, got married on New Years Eve at the Stein Erickson Lodge in Deer Valley.
She had been planning this occasion for a long time. Everything was absolutely beautiful!!! The one part of the whole day that we will never forget is that the ceremony was held OUTDOORS!!! The temperature was -12! I am so thankful for the faux fur shawl that we had to wrap around our arms. Sadly our toes all froze. Once we all thawed out we had a wonderful night full of amazing food, fun dancing and wonderful fireworks at midnight. Congratulations Janel and Cameron! We had a great time.

Out of order

I am so thankful to have heat again!!! Yesterday morning the furnace stopped working and it slowly got colder and colder in our house. I called Gary at lunch and let him know of the good news and he said he would look at it when he came home. So by the time he was home from work it was a nice 60 degrees inside and the kids and I were cuddled up under the electric blanket watching a movie. He worked on it till 11 pm and I ended up calling the repair person at 8 am when it was 48 inside the house. They had initially told me it would be Thursday or Friday till they could get someone out and after some begging she said she would send someone out right away. He was here by 8:45 and by 10:45 we finally had heat again!!! So thankful for modern conveniences!

I will post Christmas updates soon.

Santa Visit

So last night we went to an outdoor shopping center to see Santa. They had so many fun things for the kids to do while waiting till he arrived. The kids got to make a bookmark, decorate yummy gingerbread men, listen and dance to music and enjoy free hot cocoa from Starbucks. They had a great time UNTIL Santa came.


We watched him come in on the Coca-Cola truck that was completely decked out in lights . The kids were amazed at the 3 trucks they had decorated. Then when the time had come to get our pictures taken with Santa, Isaac refused to look at the camera and Sarah just stared at him. Needless to say, we don't have a decent picture of the kids with Santa this year!

Let the Christmas countdown begin!

One of his many turkeys they made at preschool.
So today was Isaac's last day of preschool till the New Year and I am excited to have him home in the mornings for a few days. I love morning school to get us up and out of the house and to make me get out of my pj's and the day started. This next week I have a goal to be at the gym everyday at 9am. I have a few more pounds to attempt to lose before Janel's wedding on New Years Eve!
I have the kids Christmas shopping done and several family members but it is really hard buying everything in WA to pack it in our carry-on's to get it to UT for Christmas. See I just need to move back and that would make life so much easier!



We have had several good snowstorms the past couple of months and I took Isaac sledding one day. He was so excited to get all in his snow gear and after 6 or 7 times down the hill he was done. Oh well I made him push me down the hill a couple of times to drag it out a little bit longer. He had a fun time though.
Poor Sarah has had a rough go with ear infections lately. We are on our second dose of antibiotics right now and so we will see if she gets better. I knew her ear infections were back when she started waking up in the night again. I am loving that she is sleeping through the night when she feels good! It is amazing how much better mommy feels too when she gets a whole night's sleep.
Last weekend we went to a luminaria at the arboretum and had a nice time. It was a mile walk outside and then the kids were able to go inside and decorate their own bag at the end.

We had enjoyed 2 Christmas parties for the hospitals that Gary works at and I have enjoyed getting dressed up. It is fun to put on nice clothes every now and then.
I am really looking forward to Santa's arrival this year. Isaac is so excited and he has a countdown calendar in his room that he changes every morning. This is such a fun age and the miracle of Christmas.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year at home. We invited some friends, Brian, Dusty and Hadley, over and it was the most relaxing and peaceful dinner I have had in a long time. The company was great too! I am very thankful for my wonderful husband and my sweet children. They are so much fun and I am so lucky to be their mom!

We have put up some of the Christmas decorations and I am not sure how many more I should get out. Sarah has very inquisitive little fingers and likes to play with everything. I made a little video of Santa for Isaac and he absolutely LOVES watching it. He is so excited for Santa this year. He comes and checks under the tree every morning to see if Santa has left him presents. It is going to be a long month for him.

I am really tired of the snow already so this is probably going to be a long winter for me. I can't wait for Christmas this year - I am really looking forward to going home for a week!
I have been working with Isaac and teaching him how to write his letters and asking him to draw me some pictures. Here is his picture of Santa!

Catch up

Seems like I stay on top of the blog for awhile and then have a hiatus from it till I have too many things to post. We had a wonderful Halloween and the kids had trick-or-treating 3 days in a row. They had so much fun and ended up with too much candy (which mom enjoyed the good stuff too) and I have hid the rest of it in the cupboard which I truely should just throw away. Isaac was the most adorable gorilla I have ever seen and Sarah was a cute bumblebee! She really didn't like her costume the first time I put it on her so it only lasted for a couple minutes, but after doing it several times she got the hang of it. She really enjoyed the school carnival we went to and she loved going to the houses in the neighborhood. She wouldn't say anything to the people until they put the candy in her bucket and she would say something to the effect of Thank you. I got a fun book for my birthday on decorating cupcakes so this is my first attempt at replicating one of the designs. It was surprisingly easy and Isaac loved helping out. Sarah enjoyed the frosting too!

Fall Time

Fall has always been my favorite time of year and this year we have enjoyed being together. Yakima has some amazing fruit and we love going to the orchards. There is one orchard just up the hill from us and they have such a cute hay maze just for little kids. We also get to go on a fun hay ride and Isaac's favorite thing to do is make your own fresh pressed apple juice. He thinks it is so neat to pick, wash and then chop and crush your own apples. I have to admit that the juice tastes amazing. There is something about freshly made juice!




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We also carved pumpkins this week. The kids had a blast and Isaac was so proud of himself. Of course he quoted the Charlie Brown movie, "Oh you didn't tell me you were going to kill it!" He is so funny and thought that was hilarious. Gary was wonderful and scraped all the guts out of the pumpkins. Sarah loved the feeling of the insides and enjoyed eating the seeds right out of the pumpkin. Isaac drew his face on his pumpkin first and then we cut the pumpkin together. Sarah just threw a tantrum every time I took the carving knife out of her hands. She wanted to do it all by herself. I think they turned out pretty well!



The kids have really been into music lately and have been dancing around the living room every time Gary turns the music on. Earlier this week Isaac wanted to be in a band so Sarah was on the guitar, I was playing the drums on some buckets and Isaac had the maracas. The kids had so much fun and I enjoyed the entertainment. Sarah couldn't figure out how to hold the guitar and play at the same time so she just had it upside down most of the time.



Bath time is loads of fun in our giant tub and since this picture hides everything I figured it was safe for the blog.