Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Frosting cookies on Christmas Eve.

 This year Santa gave the kids a trampoline. He wrapped our sliding glass door like a present to hide it from the kids. At about midnight Hailey woke up because she needed some cough medicine. She saw the wrapped window and was curious. I told her to go to bed and we'd find out in the morning. She went upstairs and peeked out her window (sneaky little girl) and saw something in the shadows. She came out of her room wide-eyed and found her dad who was also upstairs. She said, "Dad, I think Santa brought us a trampoline." She told him to go look out the window.

Fast forward 3 hours.

Hailey came down stairs and started peeking at the presents. I got out of bed to see what she was doing and she told me she hadn't been to sleep since midnight. I told her to go to bed and that she was not to come down stairs until at least 6am or I'd take all of her presents. She didn't come back down stairs.

At 7:30am the kids woke up. They came downstairs and saw all the presents. 

 Nathan and I gave each kid a Pillow Pet.

Hailey got a horse necklace from Grandma Erickson.

My parents came over to see the kids and Matt was able to convince Grandma to get on the trampoline. Kade is laying on the trampoline crying because he thought Grandma would put a hole in it. Earlier he cried when I got on for the same reason. No need to worry, though. Now the kids want grownups on the trampoline because we stretch it out and make them go higher.

Grandpa enjoying watching the kids play (or maybe he was watching Grandma getting off the trampoline).

One other gift that the kids were given this year came from a wonderful friend of the family. She decided that the kids would get better use of her wii that she did so she gave us her wii! We are so excited about it. When Hailey and Kade opened it, Kade jumped up and yelled "Our very own wii?!?" The kids love playing the games and it has been a lot of fun to have these past couple of days. Thank you!

(I don't have any pictures of them opening it because I only took video. I'd post the video but for some reason Blogger doesn't like the videos my new camera takes. Maybe I'll figure it out one day.)

Rachel Turned TWO!

Rachel is now a two year old.

We celebrated her birthday at Grandma and Grandpa Erickson's house because we were there anxiously awaiting the arrival of Uncle Loren, Aunt Tracy and their kids.

We ate lasagna and homemade French bread for dinner and then had cake and ice cream. I made a 6-layer rainbow cake with white chocolate buttercream frosting. It was good and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Nevermind that she has bread in her mouth...she didn't actually blow on the candles.

The 6-layer rainbow cake I made.

All She Wants For Christmas...

Hailey lost her top right front tooth on the 18th. Actually, it was so loose her dad begged her to let him pull it. The tooth fairy came and brought her a pack of gum and $1.00.

Then, today while eating her chips at lunch her top left front tooth came out.

***Side note: Earlier today I was talking to Tiffin and she suggested a contest between Hailey and Amberly to get their top left teeth out. The girls have been very excited since Preston's birthday when they discovered that they had the same loose teeth. Amberly lost the right one first. This morning I told Hailey about the contest and after her tooth came out she started dancing and singing, "I won the contest! Oh yeah, I won the contest!"

Wilkins Family Christmas Party

Last night we all went to Scott and Katie's house for the Wilkins Family Christmas Party. We watched a movie about the birth of Christ and the cousins exchanged gifts. We ate and played and visited. It was a lot of fun.

Seth got a ball bath set from Coleton.

Joss got a tiara and some hot wheels from Rachel.

Rachel got a baby stroller (which she LOVES) from Gage.

Emmalin got an Elmo phone from Grace.

Matt got a remote control dump truck from Amberly.

Coleton got Memory and Chutes and Ladders from Raef.

Kade got a Hero Factory from Carrigan (when he was finally able to get to the gift--she wrapped it in 90 ft of wrapping paper!).

Preston got UNO and some cars from Kade.

Carrigan got a modeling clay jewelry kit from Joshua.

Ashlynn got a Belle CD and something else that I can't remember from Seth.

Raef got a Transformer from Matt.

Hailey got a Zhu Zhu pet and car from Preston. She wasn't sure if she'd like it at first, but now that she has played with it she loves it.

Amberly was too fast for me to get a picture, but she got Littlest Pet Shops from Hailey.

Caleb got a Bionicle from Adam.

Gage got a Hero Factory Villain from Caleb.

The kids also opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa.

Kade's Winter Concert

The Kindergartners had a winter concert this year. They were great. They sang 9 songs about winter and Christmas. Kade sang when he knew the words, but was easily distracted by his surroundings. Matt and Ray and I really enjoyed it.

Preston's Birthday Party

Preston had his birthday party at the park by his house. He had a giant bounce castle. The kids loved it. I even went in a couple of times (to help Matt and Ray, of course). We had pizza and cake, a pinata, and opened presents. The weather was perfect to be outside for the afternoon.

Preston and his cousins and friends and his Spiderman cake.

Kade, Preston and Amberly on the slide of the bounce castle.

Rachel on the park slide. She didn't really like the bounce castle.

Again, Matt was there, just no pictures. He is very good at avoiding the camera.

Caleb's Birthday Party

We went to Caleb's birthday party after the kid's Christmas party at Nathan's work. It was at the ramada at the church. We played flag football, had cake, cracked open a pinata and opened presents. It was a great time.

Caleb with the cakes Ben made.

Nathan and Kade during the flag football game.

Amberly, Emmalin and Rachel cheering at the football game.

Hailey sitting on the wall.

I stole these pictures from Ben. Matthew was there, just no pictures.

KPHO Kids Christmas Party

Every year Nathan's work has a Christmas party for the kids of the employees. Santa comes and brings presents and they usually have a craft or something for the kids to make. The kids love to go. This year, Kade was sick so he and I stayed home and Nathan took the other three.

Hailey got a Crayola Crayon Maker.

Rachel didn't much care to sit on Santa's lap. He gave her a fur-real Kitty.

Matthew REALLY didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. He got a Toy Story 3 Race track.

Matthew's present was the hit of the party.

Kade got a LEGO game called Monster 4. It is a lot like tic-tac-toe.

O Christmas Tree...Hat

A couple of years ago (maybe last year, I'm not sure) Nathan's mom made us a Christmas tree decoration. This year as we were getting Christmas out of storage, Matt found it. He pulled the styrofoam form out and put the crocheted tree on his head. It is now the most coveted hat in our house. :)

November...In a Nut Shell

November 6th--we had a primary activity. One of my responsibilities as the First Counselor is planning our quarterly activities. Going into the 4th quarter I wanted to do something really low key. I mean, you've got Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. Two of those months the ward does a big party already and let's face it...those months are busy. Tiffin told me about an activity her sister-in-law did (or their primary did). It was a box car drive-in. Then, mom told me that her ward did one too and I thought it would be perfect for our last activity. The kids brought their cars, ate popcorn and watched a movie. I think it went really well.

 
This is the only picture I have from Thanksgiving. It is my mom and my cousin Dee. I'm sure they will both be thrilled knowing I put this on here. Last year I volunteered to make Thanksgiving assignments for this year. Don't ask me why, just trust that I will not do that again. It was hard. I was trying to make assignments for food for 100 people, some of whom would be driving into town that day. I was stressing about it for a long time. Then Nathan came up with the brilliant idea to just have each of my mom's brothers and sisters families make a Thanksgiving meal that would feed their family and bring it for a potluck. Clear as mud, right? Yeah, it got lost in translation explaining it to everyone, too. Once I got it all straightened out and everyone understood what was going on it went really well. We had it at the church building since there are so many of us (I think there were 87 people). We had so much food and such a huge variety it was great.

I'm sure we did lots of other fun things in November, I just can't remember. Kade frequently tells me he thinks my brain is on vacation. Maybe he is right.

Happy Halloween!

Nathan made lunch for us today. Jack-O-Lantern pancakes! Yummy!

Halloween Party in Pictures

 Matt and Ray wouldn't put their costumes on this year. Mom's costume was the hit of the night (I loved that she was crying--from laughing--from the minute she put it on). I don't really want to sit here and caption everything, so use your imagination and come up with them yourself.

I think this pretty much sums up how we all felt at the end of the night.