More Christmas pictures

Merry Christmas!

Sean and I have agreed that this has been the best Christmas ever! I can't exactly pinpoint why, but we had a wonderful day yesterday. Josh woke us up bright and early (actually it was even close to light yet) at 4:54am. "Santa's been here, Santa's been here!"

He came running into our room and scared us half to death, but we didn't mind, because we were as excited as he was. He woke up Nathan and tried to wake up Isaac, but even after turning on the light and yelling, "Santa's been here," he wasn't budging. I've never seen a kid sleep deeper than he does. He joined us a couple hours later.

And so the festivities began. The boys were so excited to see their gifts from Santa and to look through their stockings. Josh and Nathan got a toy ride-on 4-wheeler, and Isaac got a slide. Sean and I got each other a weight set and running shoes, so that we can continue to exercise together in the mornings and add weight-lifting to our routine. ( I currently lift about a quarter of the amount he lifts, but it would be good for me to actually tone my almost non-existent arm muscles. No body-building here, ha, ha!)

My parents got the boys an arcade style basketball hoop with two rims, which the boys ( and Sean) love! After we opened presents we set to work assembling it and the weight set. Soon we were in business, with a casual tournament going.

We enjoyed breakfast and had fun playing together. It was a great relaxing day. In the evening we had a ham dinner, with pie for dessert.

We hope all our family and friends had a great Christmas!

Enjoying the Snow

We've had snow pretty much every day for the last few days, but just the light dusting variety, and nothing to cause problems with the roads, so we've been loving it! This morning after we got home from shopping, (my friend and I traded watching each others' kids so we could get last minute things) the boys went out to play in it. At first it was trying to catch a snowflake on their tongues and it quickly turned into a snowball fight and evolved into building a tiny snowman. So far we're enjoying the Ohio weather, although that might change in a few months.

North Pole Express

On Saturday we went on the "North Pole Express" up in Lebanon. Sean works with the guy who owns it, and he got us tickets and gave us the VIP treatment. Wow, did we have fun! After boarding the train, we heard Sean's name annouced on the loud speaker that someone was trying to find him. A few minutes later a guy came around and foudn us, and it ended up being the owner's son. When we got to the "North Pole", he took us up to the engine, and we got to climb up, go inside and get a tour. Afterwards we got our picture taken with Santa, got back on the train, and enjoyed some hot cocoa and and cookies, and entertainment from some elves on the way back home. Thank you to the Hamm family! It was a memory we won't soon forget!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Don't you love that you can celebrate Christmas all month long! It finally snowed here and since it's been so cold the last several days I've been trying to find some inside activities for the boys to do so they don't go stir-crazy. Yesterday we made Christmas cookies! It's a great memory that I have, making cookies with my mom every year growing up, and I've done it with the boys almost every year. It always takes the entire afternoon and makes a huge mess, but now that we have a big island in our kitchen, why not? It's great to watch as the boys 'help' roll out the dough, cut out the shapes with cookie cutters, lines and fingerprints and all and to have a yummy treat afterwards. I love how my boys like to dive right in and help. I hope they always stay that way. :)

Hope that everyone's having a great Christmas season and staying warm. It's sounds like our 22 degrees is warm compared to a lot of places where our family and friends are right now. (Except my brothers in Ecuador and Arizona.) Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving in DC

This year for Thanksgiving we celebrated by going to Washington DC. A little untraditional, I know, but since we're 1600+ miles from the closet family, we decided to take our own little family for a vacation to a place that's currently only an eight hour drive away. Sean worked from home on Wednesday, so we could leave around 2:30 and head out. We drove across Ohio, West Virginia, Pennslyvania, and then back into West Virginia, and we stayed in Morgantown for the night, where we finally found a place with a pool. (Go WVU! right? Just kidding! They did have an exciting game last weekend) They were hard to find in the small towns in SW Pennslyvania. We got up the next morning and drove the last three hours to Washington DC. To our pleasant surprise, parking is free on holidays, so we parked close to the White House, bundled up and packed some food in the stroller, and began walking around the monuments. We ended up walking around the ENTIRE National Mall. We walked down to the Lincoln Memorial, back past the Washington monument, to the Capitol Building, and back to our car behind the White House. We found out the next day that it was about four miles. What was amazing was that Isaac, our 21-month-old walked about half of it, while the older two preferred the stoller. Can't say I blame them.

The Jefferson Memorial

The Capitol

It was neat to see everything, but we were definitely tired and hungry by then, so we got back in the car and went to find our hotel. We got a Marriott Residence Inn right by the Pentagon in Arlington. They're great because they have a kitchen in them, along with a pool and a wonderful breakfast in the morning. I had packed some food for a Thanksgiving dinner, but we also went to a grocery store nearby to pick up some things and went back to the hotel for dinner. It was really nice. :) That night we enjoyed ourselves and went swimming.

The next morning, while everyone else was out in the craziness of Black Friday, we slept in and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in the hotel. We took the subway this time, probably the highlight of the boys trip, and took them to the Smithsonian. We went to the Museum of American History and the Museum of Natural History. I think my favorite part was the exhibit on Abraham Lincoln. There is so much to see there you could spend weeks there.

That aftenoon we went back to the hotel for lunch, and then went to go see the Arlington National Cemetary and drove up to see the Washinton DC temple. It's beautiful! It's much taller that I remember it.

It was a great trip overall. We were very tired by the end, because there was so much walking and carrying our boys, but it was so great to see all those things and to get away together. Maybe we'll do it again in about ten years when the boys can carry us. ;)

Enjoying the pool!

Thanksgiving Dinner

The view of the Pentagon from our hotel.

The White House

The Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Lincoln Memorial

The Metro!

Have you ever wished...

you could take pictures in Sacrament Meeting? I mean, I know it's completely inappropriate and irreverent, but yesterday I definitely took a mental picture I'll never forget. I was in charge of this year's ward Primary Sacrament Meeting program and, wow, I knew a lot of work went into it, but of course I really had no idea. We had three practices, one last Sunday in the primary room, and two on Saturday in the chapel. None of them went well. Boy, were we worried. Our poor music leader felt she had failed because the kids were singing very loud, and the transitions were very rough, partly because we had to keep changing things.

But on Sunday, a miracle occurred! The kids were much more reverent, were watching me and the music leader closely, and didn't miss a beat! They sang loud and with all their hearts, and the transitions were perfect. The other counselor had put together a video slide show with pictures of the kids and their families based on the proclamation and played it during the song, "The Family is of God." It was so beautiful and even caused a few tears. The only part the didn't turn out perfect was during the song "My Eternal Family" we tried to build a temple out of cardboard blocks and it didn't go up quite right. I don't think anyone cared.

It was awesome! After all the hard work, the focus was where it should had been- on the kids and their message. Hooray primary kids! I've really come to love them these past several months and it was so wonderful to see them shine. I'm so blessed that I got to be a part of it.

Decorating the cake with Grandma

We got to celebrate my dad's birthday with him while they were hear. My mom, (always the brave one) had the boys help her decorate the cake. They helped spread the frosting, and put on the candy letters and sprinkles. The boys took it very seriously, but had a lot of fun doing it. That evening we went out to eat at Red Robin and went to our ward Halloween party. Afterwards we came home for presents and cake and ice cream.

Playing with Grandpa

One afternoon when my parents were here my dad took the boys out to the backyard to play on the trampoline. It's currently covered in leaves, so they had a blast building piles and jumping into them! I wish I would of thought of that when I was a kid.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! We had a lot of fun this past week with my parents visiting from Oregon. I'll post more pictures of their visit later.We got to go to a church Halloween party, go on another hayride, celebrate my dad's birthday and show them around where we live. Thanks for coming Mom and Dad!

At the hayride they had an awesome playground for the kids to play on while we waited for our turn. They had all these painted wood houses and play structures for them to play on. They also had some farm animals to see, pumpkins to buy, and a corn maze. Unfortunately, it had been raining for a couple days, and the corn maze was too muddy.

The treat-or-treating was unbelievable! The newspaper announced that it would be from 6-8:00pm in our township, and sure enough, right at 6:00 there were dozens of kids walking all over our neighborhood. Our neighbors were out on their porches, in their driveways or had opened up their garages and had decorated tables to greet the trick-or-treaters. I'd never seen anything like it. People had driven in from other neighborhoods to treat-or-treat here. The boys had a blast of course. :)