CHRISTMAS!

Christmas morning started at about 8 o'clock. Trevin woke up and all we had to say to start the stampede was "Santa came." Trevin looked at us and said "Santa, presents, come on Dad" pulling Dad's hand and everyone was downstairs in seconds.

Cheyenne's stocking was stuffed full of candy, fruit, bubble bath, and small toys. Dad dumped it out and Trevin's eyes got huge. He knew exactly how to get everything out of his now. He was so excited for the cow in his stocking and the candy. We played with the stockings for a few minutes, I enjoyed the relaxed feeling of Christmas morning, while we ate muffins.

Then the presents were too much for Trevin to resist...

We let Trevin go first. Gage and I took turns taking pictures. Trevin made sure Cheyenne always had help opening presents. Gage is such a great Dad... he willingly put together every gift that needed assembly...Trevin was right there to help, handing dad the screwdriver and trying to put the pieces in by himself. It was fun to open an present then have the kids be so excited about it that they wanted to play with it right away. It spread out opening presents too, which I didn't mind at all. I thought it was great that it took us all morning to clear out the bottom of the tree.

As soon as Dad had it all put together Trevin was showing Cheyenne how to play with it.

After a few minutes he decided sharing isn't as fun playing by himself, so we distracted him with presents so Cheyenne had a chance to play. I was excited about this present Gage didn't know what it was so I let him and Trevin open it together...Trevin was so excited to pull it out of the box... when I asked him what it was he yelled "A BIKE!"It was the last present we opened, so Gage told Trevin "Lets go get pants on and eat breakfast so we can go ride it." Trevin was quick to tell Dad "No Breakfast, outside." So they hurried and got jeans, shoes and a coat, then they were off to the back yard for some bike riding!Trevin hasn't quite figured out the peddling yet, but give him a few weeks.

While Trevin and Dad were outside, I let Cheyenne ride her new bike too! We finally convinced Trevin to come in and eat breakfast. Then it was off to Sugar and Chief's.

Santa brought a Merry-Go-Round and other backyard toys for all the grand kids. They had so much fun. I'm sure Sugar will be thrilled when they all get moved outside and she can have her family room back. We spent a few hours there. Enjoying the company and opening presents. We had the traditional Treasure hunts one for Nate and one for our parents, which is always fun to watch.

Next it was off to Grandma and Papa's for more Christmas fun.

Grandma spent a lot of time making these cute hats for all the Grandkids. Trevin loves his. He wears it around the house all the time. Cheyenne hates hats, so she pulls hers off at the first opportunity. We had lots of fun, we opened presents, then played games and did a puzzle!

We had a great Christmas! I love this last picture but I wasn't sure where to put it. This is the morning after Christmas... Trevin got a RC HUMMER from the Hamblin family. He loved it even with out the battery in. Gage and I were so excited to show him how it worked. We let the battery charge over night and showed Trevin right after breakfast. His face lit up when I made it move. I must not have been doing right... He took the remote from me and said "Dad Drive!" and took it to Gage. I love all the excitement in Trevin's expression!

WE HOPE YOU ALL HAD A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

CHRISTMAS EVE!

Christmas Eve morning we woke up and decided that we were going to brave the mall so that our kids could sit on Santa's lap. Trevin is just catching on to who Santa is, we have been reading The Night Before Christmas and every time he sees Santa Trevin says "HO HO HO." I was so excited to take Trevin so he could see that Santa is a real person and get to talk to him. We got to the mall just after 10 am expecting to wait in a line... NO LINE we walked right up to Santa. Which is good and bad, we thought Trevin would get to see other kids do it first, and that we would have time to explain that he would sit on his knee, and Santa would ask if he had been good, etc. Nope, Trevin had no idea what he was doing and didn't say anything! He just kept looking at Gage, NO smiling, NO crying, just sat there! Cheyenne was pretty indiffernt too, so no screaming pictures with Santa for her, she is such a great baby! Sure enough after Trevin got off Santa's lap and was walking away. He got a big smile on his face and pointing said "Santa, HO HO HO!" We watched other kids sit on Santa's lap for a few minutes, then spent a little time window shopping.

We spent the rest of the morning relaxing and wrapping presents. Then it was off to the Traditional Crabtree Christmas Eve Party...
The night started out with a great dinner. Soups, bread sticks, veggie trays, and dessert. Then on to the activities. The grand kids are all getting old enough that this year they got to act out the Nativity seen. Trevin was Joseph and he did a great job. He had so much energy that day, but he sat next to Mary and Baby Jesus the whole time... he did take apart the manger a couple times.
Cheyenne was a wiseman. Here are a couple of pictures of the pre show. Savana is helping Cheyenne get her crown on. Sierra is the angel. Gage a shepherd. Aanika played Mary.
The performance... You can even see Alexa the lamb and Xander the donkey from this angle. A close up of Joseph and a wiseman!
The kids had a lot of fun and I had a lot of fun watching!
The Crabtree singing came next, Crabtree's aren't the best singers... I fit in perfectly. They have a Crabtree 12 days of Christmas that is so much fun to sing and gets modified at the singers discretion. It is really funny. I actually took video of this so that I could share it with you.. but it was so bad, I can't let it leak out to the public!

Next up... drum roll please... the COCONUT AWARD! For all of you that aren't familiar with this wonderful Crabtree Tradition, I will explain... The Crabtree Coconut Award is simply an award that goes to the person that did the dumbest/silliest thing that year. It all starts with nominations, I nominated Gage for Backing into 2 poles in parking lots this year, and getting his finger stuck in the sprinkling system; Bubba was nominated for breaking multiple bones and accidentally buying a beat up 1981 Chevy Truck from the auction while filling in for Gage (Colin was at the auction and thought who in the world would buy that thing, he later found out he was the winning bidder; Shad introduced his wife Hillary as Tiffany; Colin (bishop) fell asleep in a meeting; Mikie's home improvements caused apartment building evacuation; Sherry test messaging home phone numbers... doesn't understand why no one is responding; Miles thinks there's lots of first aid stations at Swiss Days; Roland sneaks cars to the back of the property... hoping no one(his wife) notices; Stacy forgets to put her car in park, while talking on the phone and goes inside, local preschool parent comes to tell Stacy her car, just rolled down the street and hit a car; Darrin broke the garbage can, the garbage man wouldn't dump it; Trevin blew raspberries on the Canova family dog; Chan went to church in her slip... twice; ETC. I didn't get them all.. you get the picture! Next comes time to vote. It was so hard this year. I couldn't even vote for the ones I nominated. After a few rounds of voting the winners are....
TREVIN for blowing Raspberries on the Canova's Beagle, RYAN for buying the old truck and breaking bones, and COLIN ( a special coconut from his councilors) for falling asleep in a meeting.
Next up coconut pie nominations... this year it was switched to coconut snowballs, instead of pies. This is a chance to brag about the members of your family, their accomplishments for the year, why you love them etc. These aren't voted on, but are picked by a random drawing. The winners are....Stacy, Hillary, Shad, McKenna, Savana, and Chan. There are a couple of extra people in the picture!Last everyone gets to give Grandma her presents! We love having Grandma at the party!

After the party ended we headed over to Sugar and Chief's to enjoy the atmosphere of the candle light dinner even though we were too stuffed to eat. I enjoyed getting to see Biker and Nuny, we don't see them that often since they live in St. George. It's great to have them here for the holidays. After an hour or so Trevin and Cheyenne were ready to go home and go to bed. Trevin was so cute. We would tell him he had to get in bed so Santa could bring him presents. He would get the biggest smile on his face and say "Santa, presents, sleep, OK mom." and then lay down and squinch his eyes closed.We finally all fell asleep and waited for Christmas to get here!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVIN

Trevin's birthday started bright and early.. when he decided to wake up at 6:30! He usually sleeps until about 8:00. Since he was awake and Gage hadn't left for work yet we let him open one of his birthday presents. He was so excited as soon as he heard the word "present" he grabbed Gage's hand and pulled him down stairs to the Kitchen table. This paper is kind of thick but once he got one of the edges torn he was pretty quick.

He is so cute! As he opens his presents he says.. "Wow" and "No way!"

Showing his present off. He is telling his dad that it's a JEEP in this picture. He couldn't wait for Gage to get it out of the packaging. Trevin was pretty distracted by the JEEP. His breakfast was eatin while he played. Dad showed him how it could crawl up the centerpiece on the table and I had a hard time keeping Trevin in his chair after that! It is pretty cute though Trevin makes the car revving noises and everything! Trevin loved having lots of phone calls through out the day. He was excited to be allowed to have Mom's cell phone!
When Gage got home from work we had Crabtree soup for dinner... the one meal that Trevin always has 2nd's and 3rd's of. Next it was time to open the rest of his presents!

He had been waiting all day for this part! He didn't waste any time tearing into these presents! Can you guess what he got?

I really thought the skateboard would be the hit of the night... but Trevin definitely loves the cars. My two boys had so much fun playing with those cars! It turns out that the skateboard made a perfect ramp for the cars to jump off.... Don't worry though- Gage and Trevin went skateboarding the next day and Trevin loved it, now that he knows what it is. I think I'm gunna be in trouble this summer when he figures out how to push it himself!Later that evening Biker and Nuny (my Grandparents) came over to have cake and ice cream with us. Trevin had fun helping me decorate his baseball cake and was even more excited to blow out the candles!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVIN!

A two year old update: While Trevin was one he had so much energy. Just in the last couple days it has tripled (at least) I can only imagine what 2 is gunna bring! He likes to run around the family room, while yelling "run aroun, run aroun." He loves to play with cars, puzzles, and Keys (he got his own set for his birthday), I think balls are still the favorite. He is getting better at sharing with Cheyenne. He is such a great big brother and always worries when she cries. He tells me " Mom, Cheyenne cryin... wha we gunna do?" with the most worried look on his face. He is getting so good at putting sentences together! And almost always remembers to say "Thank You." I'll admit that he is definitely a bully when it comes to other kids (I think I can blame Gage for rough housing with him all the time), but he always tells the other kids "sorry" after he pushes them over! That counts for something right! He almost knows all of his aunts uncles and cousins by name (sorry sierra- we'll work on you not being JJ!) Trevin is so good at saying prayers. He folds his arms and will tell you to if he catches your arms unfolded (which can be embarrassing at church- when your 2 year old is yelling at the person in the pew behind you to fold their arms in the middle of the prayer!). Trevin loves going to nursery and runs down the hall to get there. He is a handful but so much fun! He says the funniest things and is quite the mimicker. He tries to juggle, like Dad which is pretty cute. He even hums the juggling/circus song, while he throws the balls in the air! Needless to say we are so excited for 2 and all the fun it will bring with it!

SNOW DAY

Last Saturday we had a SNOW DAY. We decide to go sledding. Trevin hadn't been before and I had been dying to take him. He loves to watch it snow and he loves to help shovel the drive way.. I knew he would love sledding.

I WAS RIGHT! After one time down the hill he couldn't wait to go again. This is at the top of the hill for the 2nd time. I had a hard time getting him to smile for me... He was saying "One, for the money...Two, for the show... "

It was so cute. Gage is such a great Dad. I don't know how many times he carried Trevin up that hill. Every time they got to the bottom and came to a stop I could hear Trevin say "Hurry Dad!" I had so much fun watching them. I even went down once with Trevin, but without snow pants on that was plenty for me.

Cheyenne had a lot of fun watching the boys too. She would giggle every time they went down. Pretty soon, Trevin and Gage's spot was overrun by the other little kids sledding. We got there and picked an empty trail.. The first time Trevin and Gage went down they didn't stop until they were in the middle of the field at the bottom, all the kids around us said "Woo", so we weren't to surprised when a line formed.

We picked another spot that was a little less steep and Gage let Cheyenne have a turn too.

I think this picture shows it all! She was so excited, I really thought she would get scared, but not a chance. I think we have a little Dare Devil on our hands!

Trevin was positive it was his turn next, the whole time Gage walked up the hill we heard, "Trevin turn!"One of the last times down the hill Gage just laid in the snow at the bottom, Trevin wanted to go again and worked so hard to get Gage up. Saying "Om on Dad!"

We had so much fun! We hope you've all had a chance to play in the snow too!

We hope you had a great Day...

A NEW HOBBY

About a month ago I decided to take up a new hobby. Something I have enjoyed in the past, but would like to try more... Cake Decorating. Gage bought me a bunch of cool cake decorating tools for my birthday, I was so excited! This past week I finally had a couple chances to try it all out.

So this first one is a cake that I saw a picture of probably a year ago and thought it would be so fun to make. Well I was finally involved with a baby shower and got to try it out.

I was doing great until I went to get the cake out of the bowls I had cooked them in and the first two didn't come out and the third wasn't cooked all the way through... but I managed to fix everything with good old frosting! The next task was the fondant... I absolutely hate the way it tastes, but I still wanted to try using it. More importantly there was no other way to make the cake I wanted to with out it. Here is the finished product...

I think it turned out pretty good. A couple more views...

I know this is far from professional, but it was fun to see every one's reaction at the baby shower.

Cake #2. Originally when I decided to try all this out I decide who better to be my guinea pigs than my family. We have a family birthday party once a month (unless no one has a birthday that month) and I volunteered to make the cake every month. This month was Me, Joni, Trevin and Raigen. Since I am making Trevin a baseball cake next week I decided to let Rai Rai pick the cake... She picked a PURPLE BARNEY CAKE. Her favorite color is purple and she loves Barney, why...because he is purple of course! So Here it is a purple barney cake!

Wow... using the decorating tips is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be... I need a lot of practice. Raigen loved her cake.. I know she isn't smiling in the picture but she was so excited when she saw it and thank goodness little kids don't care how it tasted... We used so much food coloring to get it the right shade of purple that the frosting tasted awful! Another thing to work on.

FAMILY PICTURES

We had our family pictures taken a couple of weekends ago and I think they turned out great. It was snowing and Trevin and Cheyenne were both so tough. Trevin, is kind of smiling in the pictures we ended up picking. He had a few really cute smiles.. but unfortunately in those pictures the rest of us didn't! Oh well...

Trevin was so funny, We tried to put his coat on, he was shivering and his nose was brigth red, but he would just shake and so "No Coat!" He absolutely loves trains rigth now... Joni couldn't have picked a better spot for our pictures!

I can't brag enough about the photographer. She always does such a great job... urbanephotography@blogspot.com Check out some of her other photo shots and then give her a call to schedule yours! She also made the Christmas Card we are sending out, we can't wait for you to see them!

MY FUN WEEKEND

This past Saturday Gage took me out for an early birthday weekend. I had a blast. The day started out with a matinee showing of New Moon. I loved it. I had made Gage watch Twighlight with me on Friday night, and I'm so glad I did. I don't think I would have remembered everything, and I wouldn't have enjoyed New Moon as much. My favorite part... definitely the Wolves. I loved the graphics and when the changed from human to wolf. I've almost convinced Gage to read Eclipse with me, but we'll see.
Next, we headed back home to relieve Cassidy (our favorite baby sitter). Gage headed over to his Dad's to watch the UTAH/BYU game for an hour, while I got the kids ready for the rest of the night.
A trip to Olive Garden for an early dinner. I've learned the trick to get served quickly at a restaurant. Walk in just before the dinner rush is about to start, with two kids under the age of two! Wow we were in and out in 40 minutes... I'm sure that is some kind of record. The food was great as usual. I love their bread sticks and I can never decide on a dinner item, so I always have the "Tour of Italy" that way I get three options and I'm sure to have left overs!
From Olive Garden we headed to Temple Square, SLC to see the Christmas lights. I don't think I went and saw them last year, so this was one of my birthday requests. Parking the truck is a lot harder than parking the Rodeo ever was (still like the truck a hundred times more thou), don't worry we found a spot. Cheyenne was so excited to be out of the truck and in the stroller.
I really liked how the nativity scene was set up on the reflection pond this year. Maybe it has been that way in years past but it's the first time I've noticed. Trevin caught about 20 minutes after we got there and he would get really excited and point at the trees and say "Yaights!"But I think Trevin's favorite part was the nativity scene with the narrator, only the part when the spot light was on the sheep. I think he may have been louder than the narrator at that point. "A SHEEP, BAA BAA, A SHEEP!" It was so much fun to be out all night as a family! Thanks for setting everything up Gage and Thanks for all the birthday presents I can't wait to use them.