The holiday season

The Christmas season is by far my favorite time of the year.  I always joke with Dan about it being 'almost Christmas' once Halloween rolls around.  This year was pretty exciting.  We had a small Christmas party with my family at our house with turkey and potatoes and stuffing and all the extras a week or so before Christmas.  We exchanged sibling gifts and watched It's a Wonderful Life.  My sister Katrina crocheted everyone in my family (10 people!) a scarf!  My brother Nathanael drew a picture of Dan and Jade as his gift to me.  

Here is a picture of Jade with her uncle Joshua.  She has so much fun playing with the boys and they have fun teaching her new things.

Jade wanted to help cook the turkey.

Uncle Mike came home from his mission on December 23rd and we got to meet up with him at the Salt Lake airport before he continued his flight to Idaho.  We only got to chat for a little while but it was really fun.
Here we all are at the Pocatello airport.  Mike's flight had been delayed for about an hour so we hung out at the airport with not much to do.  Luckily the girls, (Jade and Rylee) had a lot of family members to entertain them.
Christmas morning at Grandma Lou's and Grandpa Doug's.  
This was Jade's main present this year, an inflatable bus with balls inside.  She really had fun with it, climbing in and out of the windows and windshield.
My dad and step-mom got this princess castle for Jade and she has had so much fun with it.  She loves that she can crawl in and out of there.

For my birthday Dan decided to get me a Wii, even though I insisted we really didn't need one.  He surprised me and I'm so glad that he did.  It's been a lot of fun and he also got me the Wii fit too so I've been working out with that.  It's a lot of fun, the yoga is my favorite.

We had such a wonderful year and we're so glad that we've been so close to friends and family.  It's going to be very hard to say good-bye to our families for two and a half years to go to Minnesota, they've become some of our best friends.  Until then we'll enjoy all the time we have with them.

Playing outside

Jade LOVES to play outside!  Sometimes she'll even just point to the door and do her grunt for something that she wants, meaning that she wants to go outside.

These are pictures of the last time Jade got to crawl around outside since the snow has come.  She was having so much fun, she didn't even seem to mind the cold and cried when I brought her back inside.



She's eating a wood chip here, she seems to seek them out, she always wants to chew on them.

I sure wish she'd start walking so I could take her outside with some snow boots and a snow suit, at least then she'd get to go out.  But I can't just let her crawl around in the snow, she'd be buried in snow!

Jade riding her rocking horse

My dad and step mom got this awesome rocking horse for Jade for Christmas last year and she's finally getting the hang of it.  She thinks it's so much fun.

Jade meets Santa Claus

We took Jade to see Santa at the mall.  She loved the decorations and was even excited when she saw Santa, but as soon as I set her on his lap she lost it.  I was sort of surprised at how fast she started crying.  I thought it would take her a second to realize she was on Santa's lap and maybe look up at him and start crying, but it was pretty much instantaneous.  I'd say she wasn't on his lap for more than 10 seconds.  The people snapping the pictures were really fast.

Happy Thanksgiving

We went to Idaho this year for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. This picture isn't actually of Thanksgiving day, it was just another get together over the weekend to celebrate us all being there.

We went to the light parade, it was very, very cold but fun. You could tell Jade enjoyed it because she would look down the street waiting for the next float to come by. There were several dogs in the parade as well, and if you know Jade, you know she loved that. I kept pulling her hat down so her head would stay covered but she seemed so fussy, then I realized I had pulled her hat over her eyes. :)

Jade and Rylee got matching sweaters for Thanksgiving day. They really had a lot of fun playing together, at one point Jade was riding Rylee like a pony! When Rylee left with Stef and Kevin to go over to her other grandparents house Jade was so sad! We went to the window and watched them drive away, I said 'do you miss rylee?', and Jade answered with a grunt and a sad face.

Grandpa Doug helping feed Jade.

We have so much to be thankful for this year.