Jack's Preschool Play

On Thursday, Jack had his Christmas program at Preschool. Each preschool class sang a different song and all the children sang a few songs together. Jack's class sang "Go tell it on the mountain". Jack sang loud and did all the hand motions. Callie yelled "there's Jack" and pointed during the song. Afterwards, we went back to Jack's classroom for a Happy Birthday Jesus cake(he attends preschool at a Methodist church) and book exchange.

On Saturday, Jack came with me to a baptism for one of the primary children. Then we packed up the car full of presents and headed over to my Sister's house a little over an hour away and will be here through Tuesday evening. Here is a link to the fabulous video presentation. It is about 8 minutes long: http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=fa4583545fc92aa6416b7d2fa39d5507.1530292

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. Sadly, we are spending it apart. Rob had to be in NYC today for work. He left yesterday and will not get home till after midnight tonight. Hopefully, we will be able to celebrate tomorrow. I tried scanning in some pictures of us but couldn't find very many that were not in our wedding album which was too big for the scanner. This is also my first time using the scanner. So here is a brief look back.

Our first date to the BYU Homecoming dance at the capitol in October 1999



Our engagement picture

December 15, 2000 at the Oakland temple

Callie's Masterpiece

or so she thought but I had a different opinion.

Cypress Gardens- Tons of fun!

Last Saturday, we went to Cypress Gardens Adventure Park with my parents. The park was running a special till the end of the year for pass holders of other theme parks could get in free so we got in free with our Disney passes. The park was about 40 miles away but a very easy drive. We all had soooo much fun. The park was not busy at all and very laid back. Eighty percent of the other people in the park were senior citizens(we are not exactly sure why that was)which made the kids areas uncrowded and we did not have to wait for any rides the whole day. They had great kids rides and most of the rides the kids could go on by themselves. Callie was in heaven because she loves rides and is very independent. Jack did not like to go on rides by himself but finally agreed towards the end of the day. Jack also does not like fast rides or heights so there were a few rides that Callie went on but Jack wouldn't. Callie wanted to go on everything and was mad if she couldn't go because of the height requirements. We also went to a reptile show and water ski show. We did not get to do everything because Rob and I had a Christmas party that night. We really would love to go back if we can squeeze it in while admission is free.

That night, My parents babysat the kids and Rob and I went to a Chrstmas party hosted by some friends in the ward. There were about 14 couples there. We ate appetizers and dessert, chatted, and had a gift exchange. We were each supposed to bring a gift representing something we like under $10. Rob brought a box of 4 different kinds of Oreos and he was determined to leave with it. We did the normal white elephant exchange with everyone drawing numbers and opening or stealing. Rob did finally end up with his Oreos after a lot of steals and opening other presents and he was lucky enough to steal the Oreos back its third time so they were frozen. I left with the Little Women DVD and smore ingredients. Although, Rob was hoping I would leave with the brownie and ice cream gift which was another favorite.
Jack fighting fires. The platform would move up and down while the kids could squirt out the fire.
Jack driving the fire truck
Grandma and Callie on the carriage ride
Grandparents and kids on the car ride
Grandpa and Jack on the hanglider ride
Callie and Jack on the boat ride
Callie and Jack on the swing ride- Callie's favorite
Callie and Grandma on pirate ship ride-Jack's favorite
Grandpa and Callie in front of the seal. They had a whole garden of these huge animals made out of plants and bushes.
Jack watching the waterskiers
Callie watching the water ski show
Rob and Callie in front of the Ferris Wheel which Callie loved
The Fun Slide
Riding the hot air baloon ride
Riding the mini rollercoaster
Jack and Grandpa on the Dizzy Dragons
Callie and Daddy on Dizzy Dragons
Callie checking out the elves at the Christmas display
The sky ride
Park View from the sky ride
Jack touching the lizard
Jack touching the snake
Jack petting the alligator

Christmas Poll

So I could not get pictures to load on the Blog last night and since I was already on Blogger, I decided to post this instead.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?? I like them both! But I look forward to Egg Nog more.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Everything is wrapped.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? We don't have any lights on the house much to Jack's disappointment but those would be white if we did. On the tree, we have colored lights. I grew up with colored lights and so they feel Christmasy to me and they do go along with our unfancy tree of hodge podge ornaments from my and Rob's childhood and the kids ornaments.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? no

5. When do you put your decorations up? The weekend after Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Christmas breakfast.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Our marathon Christmas mornings!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I have no idea!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We opened one present of our choice on Christmas Eve growing up but the tradition has not held up.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Lots of different ornaments from childhood and the kids ornaments.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I like snow if I do not have to drive in it or scrape it off my car or anywhere else.

12. Can you ice skate? NO!!!!!!!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I have liked most of my gifts but the most memorable is when we all got Cabbage Patch dolls as children when they were the HOT toy to get.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Spending time with my family

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Right now it is Pepperidge Farm gingerbread cookies.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We open our presents on Christmas very slowly! First, we start with stockings and each take turns opening our stockings and showing everyone else all of the contents. After everyone has one by one opened their stockings, we take turns opening gifts(none of the gifts are opened simultaneously)and talk about/open each gift before someone else opens the next gift. We usually will still be opening gifts well into the afternoon. It has become more challenging as we have had young kids in the damily who have a hard time waiting but we still keep up that tradition and now take breaks for the kids.

17. What tops your tree? An angel that we received as a wedding gift and never replaced.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Both!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I love the whole Carpenter's Christmas CD

20. Candy Canes! yuck or yummy? Yuck, I am not a fan.

21. Favorite Christmas Movie? It's a Wonderful Life, Christmas Story, and Family Man

Advent Calendars

I loved advent calendars growing up and had one every year. The week after Thanksgiving, I found the chocolate advent calendars at Target for $.98 cents so I got one for Jack and Callie. They love opening up their advent calendars and getting a chocolate treat each night. They especially love when we all forget one night and they get more then one treat. Last night we had to open three doors because we forgot all weekend and they were in heaven eating three pieces of chocolate. Jack also made a advent calendar at school of the nativity and puts a star sticker in the sky each night till Christmas and then puts Baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve. Here are the pictures of the kids and their advent calendars on December 1st.

Daddy's shirts

Rob had a stake general priesthood meeting a few Saturdays ago and Callie found two of Rob's shirts on the floor of our bedroom. She insisted on wearing them and wore both of them the whole morning. They were huge on her but she loved wearing them and it was so funny watching her play when you couldn't even see her hands or feet. When Rob got home, Callie was still wearing the shirts but did lend one to Jack so he would not be left out when I took pictures.

Unfun Fun

Not every time we take the kids out to have a "fun" time does it end up fun. With two toddlers, there are sometimes tantrums and crying. Usually, it will be one child at a time and the tantrums and crying usually are short lived and we still end up having a great time overall. Then there are the rare times that both kids are grumpy and the tantrums and crying are not passing and no one has very much fun. Sadly, this is how our Saturday night turned out. We wanted to go see the Christmas Lights at MGM Studios and decided it would be "fun" to go and walk through the lights and ride a ride or two. Both kids were well and had great naps so it seemed like a great night to go out. The park was pretty crowded but as soon as we get into the park the crying from both children begin. When we get over to the lights, it only gets worse. We couldn't bring the stroller because there were too many people in the lights area. Jack is screaming because he does not want to walk and he is too heavy to hold for a long time and when we did pick him up he didn't stop crying because he was too worked up. Callie was screaming because she wanted to walk but every time we put her down she would dart between the crowds legs and would easily become lost because we could not keep up with her in the crowds. So if you had seen us, we were basically forcing two screaming kids down the street at Disney to look at the Christmas lights. We gave up pretty fast and decided that since we were already at the park to maybe try a ride and see if that would MAKE the kids have fun. So we went to the Little Mermaid show which did go smoother than the lights but still not great. Jack did not want to sit in his own seat but Callie did. The seats are the theater style where you have to be sitting in them for the seat to be down otherwise they fold up. Well Callie was not quite heavy enough to keep the seat down so I had to keep holding it down or else Callie would get folded up in the seat. After the lights and show, Rob and I decided it was time to leave. We went to Chevys to have dinner and the kids were actually ok at dinner even though they had been snacking the whole time at the park. So besides dinner, I do not think anyone had very much fun. I am very glad that these times so far are rare.
Our unhappy campers