Carter's Birthday Party

Carter had his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese last night along with his cousins Carter and Carson. We normally throw a family party for all of them at once and celebrate their individual birthdays separately with our individual families and friends since their birthdays all fall within about a week of each other and everyone's got a lot going on with the holidays. We all had a great time. I can't believe Carter will be 8 years old on New Years Eve. Where does the time go? He's growing up to be such a sweet, energetic, charming little boy. Here are some pictures from our night. Thanks for coming everyone and thanks for all your work planning it and picking up the cake and everything Holly! It started with some intense gaming while we waited for our pizza (Carter came straight from his indoor soccer game hence the soccer attire~ they won by the way. Yeah!)...

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Nye for watching Tre while we played with the older boys for a bit. :) Tre was having a great time!

Then it was on to pizza, birthday presents, cake, and a visit from Mr. Chuck E. himself...

Here are all the birthday boys...

We took Tre out on some of the little kiddie rides at the end. He absolutely loved them! I know this is mainly about Carter but I thought these were too cute not to share.

Guess we have to do a return visit now. :)

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas! It all started Christmas morning at home... This is the first Christmas Tre has been old enough to enjoy. Tre liked his stocking quite a bit! But he wasn't very fond of cookie monster. His little couch and the shootcase were quite popular!

Carter mainly asked for football stuff. Cowboys of course...

Kaedan mainly asked for football stuff too. Green Bay and Jets of course. He also likes the Age of Empire computer games. I think he's as addicted to those as I am to blogging. :)

Then we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Nye's for Christmas breakfast and exchanging gifts.

Thanks so much for everything! We had a GREAT Christmas season with you guys!

Then it was off to Papa and Grandma Kim's. It was so nice to have everyone in town this year!Boys will be boys setting up their radio controlled flying planes...

Thanks so much for everything guys! It has been so nice spending time with you. Two years down, one to go! :)

Thank you for the mangers and Jesus babies you made all us kids Bev! Our family loves that activity throughout the month. The kids were so good and couldn't wait to draw new names each Sunday and get a chance to do sweet things for another member of the family. For those of you that haven't read the book 'The Last Straw' I highly recommend it!

And thank you Jillian for the LDS Christmas advent calendar! We loved that as well. These two activities are definitely traditions moving forward. They really help you remember that Jesus is the reason for the season amidst all the hustle and bustle this time of year. :)

We hope you all had a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve nativity, ornament hanging, and PJ opening at Grandma and Grandpa Nye's. It's always so much fun and such a great way to get you in the spirit for Christmas day! Kaedan had the same stomach bug Carter had the Sunday prior so that was a downer but luckily he was feeling better by Christmas morning. Carter took his place as Joseph in the nativity and Tre was a little camel, though he wouldn't have anything to do with the head piece or pictures. Here's our runaway camel...

that would rather be in Grandma's toy room... And here's our little Joseph. Tre will you please get in the nativity picture? This is the best I could get. Kaedan even snuck in for this one. Each year as we're hanging our ornaments on the tree we say something we're thankful for. Carter was thankful for french fries... (our kids were really clever this year) Kaedan was thankful for his muscles (really)... Troy was thankful for his health and his family, I was thankful for our doctors and surgeons this year, and Tre was thankful for a patient mom ( in Troy's words). Thanks honey! Grandma got a cute little Shitzu. Now the boys have a pet they can play with. Just not at our house. :) And since they were so good they each got to open a present on Christmas Eve. Tre, let mom get a picture of us in our new PJ's before bed... Merry Christmas Eve!

Christmas Village

We went through Christmas Village in Ogden with my parents, Amy, Jered, and Mylie on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun but really cold even with our 3 layers of clothes! Tre loved the little booths and lights. The line for Santa was really long and Tre isn't very fond of him so we didn't bother. Sorry ~ no picture with Santa for the blog. We have one from earlier but our scanner isn't working...

Look how much the boys have changed. Here is a picture of our family now and in 2004 and another of Troy and my dad with the boys on their shoulders all at Christmas Village. Wow! Tre's already almost half Carter's age and more than half his size!

2008

2004

2004

2008...

We tried to get a picture with Amy, the new babies and me but I was helping direct the other camera so unfortunately I'm not looking but you get the idea.

I didn't realize I didn't get any pictures of Grandma Kim with our camera. I did with you guys' camera. Will you email some over?

And here's a video of Tre singing and dancing to the 12 days of Christmas on the way home. It turned out really dark and I didn't know you couldn't flip videos so it's sideways but it's still really cute...