Idaho 2015

At the end of May 2015, we decided to take a trip to Idaho to meet up with our friends, the Adams family, and go to Bear World! We had so much fun! We got to drive through Yellowstone on the way there and back, which is always wonderful. We saw license plates from every state except two!

Mason petting the buffalo:

 We went to Idaho Falls and saw the Falls and went to the zoo. The kids had a great time.

We stayed at a hotel in Rexburg and swam in their pool.  (The side story with that: They had waaaaaaay too much chlorine in that pool. We all got out with stinging eyes and burning skin! And I'm pretty sure I ruined my hair - like fried it!)

Bear World was AWESOME! There were tons of bears, of course! Wolves, elk, and deer also. We fed the ducks, and they had a petting zoo that the kids loved. There was a little amusement park with rides for the kids. They went on several of them over and over again. I even got to feed the bear cubs...that was the highlight for me! They were adorable!

The best picture of the trip was caught by Alexis of herself on her mom's iPad. The bears were getting really close to the vehicles. She was trying to take a picture of the bears and took a picture of her face instead! Lol! Priceless!!

Not Buyin' It!

Look at this little girl. She is hanging out with Santa!! Or is she??

Well, according to her, that is not Santa Clause. And neither was the guy at our church Christmas party.

She is not impressed or fooled by these imposters. At all. I'm not sure what gave it away. The obvious lack of interest in what she wanted for Christmas? Maybe. The string holding his fake beard on his face? Possibly.

The point is, this is a very observant 5 year old we have here. She doesn't know who those guys were. She just knows that they were not the real deal.

We have decided that Santa is extremely busy this time of year and simply cannot be everywhere at once. He must have some helpers. Some very poor excuses for helpers. But when you're desperate and up against the most important deadline of the year, well, I guess you can't be too picky. :)

The Elf on the Shelf named Trick - now that's a different story. We will talk about him later....

Merry, Merry, Merry Chirstmas to you!

The Runner Up

This is the runner up for our Christmas cards this year. Even though it didn't make the cut - I love it!!!! Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

A Blast From The Past Part III: Christmas!

We had a great Christmas Season! It started off with a visit from Aunt Chelsea mid-December. She only got to stay for a couple days, but we sure enjoyed her!!

 We attempted a family photo for Christmas cards. It was soooo cold outside, and not a single member of the family was in the mood for picture taking. Not even myself. But I was not about to let another year pass by without a dang card. I got my tripod and camera all set up, got everybody situated, realized the sun was in everybody's eyes, set the timer, ran to position, the camera captured what you see here, and everyone was DONE. Nobody wanted to cooperate with me. Nobody wanted to move to a different spot. Nobody wanted me to try again. It made me grumpy. I think a few unkind words were said and we packed it in. Needless to say, it was another Christmas-cardless year. 

I give up.

The girls dictated their letters to Santa to me. I wrote them in pencil and then had them trace the letters with their markers. They had writer's cramp by the time they were done, but they were pretty proud!

This one is Matty's:

 And this one is Anastyn's:

We had lots of fun decorating for the holidays this year. We have an artificial tree, but we did make a trip up the Wood River to the mountains and cut a fresh one for the girls to decorate downstairs. They loved decorating their own tree!! We had fun wrapping presents for each other and we even made snowflakes to decorate the windows with! There were Christmas parties and programs. We listened to a LOT of Christmas music. I finally had to hide all the Christmas cd's downstairs just this month because the girls were still asking to listen to them!

We spent Christmas Eve here at home in Meeteetse with my mom and dad. We had a very delicious prime rib dinner, which will definitely have to become a tradition! It was so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa here Christmas morning to witness Santa's sleigh wreck! The kids enjoyed every second of discovering their treasures and unwrapping all their gifts. Mason had a blast tearing the paper off his packages! We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (Pilsbury, of course. No over-achieving here!) Then in was off to church. I actually love it when Christmas falls on a Sunday. After all, Jesus really is the reason for the season!! After church, we drove to Lovell for more present opening at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Whew...who knew opening gift after gift could be so exhausting!! :) Next stop: Grandpa Leithead's! We had a yummy dinner and the highlight of our Christmas this year was talking to Kaleb (a.k.a. Elder Leithead) via skype! We got to listen to all of his amazing missionary experiences and his strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ! What a blessing to be able to see him and talk to him! We are so proud of what he is doing!

And last, but not least, we mustn't forget the very special and unforgettable visitor we had in our home for the month of December. We heard a knock at the door the first evening of the month and were surprised to find a package had been left on our doorstep! The girls opened it and found this little guy! They named him 'Trick the Elf'. He provided much entertainment for our family while he was here. Some of his shenanigans included helping himself to the candy jar, fishing for "goldfish", making snow angels in the flour, messing around with our camera, toilet papering the girls' bathroom, providing a movie night for our family, fraternizing with the Barbie dolls, leaving notes, painting Rudolph noses on the girls in their sleep, and many, many more silly pranks! The girls looked forward to finding him every morning. He even took a few trips with us! We will miss him terribly until he returns next year!!!

My Family

We had the best week hanging out with my family! We did the whole Mustang Days routine, went to 5 Springs, ate lots of food, visited, played, relaxed, went to Cody, and just enjoyed eachother! I am so glad that Chelsea and Kage got to come home. The kids had a blast bugging them! There is just nothing better than being with family. NOTHING!

New Pics

We were so happy last Saturday when we had company in Meeteetse!! Kristin and her girls, Tyler, Kari and Gracie, Kacee, and Grandpa Leithead! Grandpa and Tyler and Kacee were fishing in the Meeteetse Ice Fishing Derby so the girls got to hang out all day. We had such a good time - and we always feel loved when someone comes all the way over to the edge of the world to visit us! Thanks for coming guys! Also, Kristin was a sweetheart to endure the freezing temperatures to snap a few pictures of us. We really needed an update!

A Merry Little Christmas

We hope you have all enjoyed your Christmas season! As you know, ours was a little crazy. But amid all the stress, chaos, back-and-forth, set-backs, adjustments and discomforts, we did actually manage to celebrate our Savior's birth, spend time with loved ones, and enjoy a little Christmas magic!

My mom let the girls decorate a little tree at her house. They had such a blast doing it. I don't think they could've fit one more thing on that poor little tree. Look at it about to topple over! They were so proud.

 My girls love "The Night Before Christmas". We read that book a lot over the past month. They even have some of it memorized! Here, Matty is trying to teach her little brother some of the verses...

 And as if we didn't have enough going on right now, we had to throw in this little project. :) We have been meaning to build this bunk bed for the girls for two years now. It just never got done. So, Kyle, being the awesome guy that he is, built this baby in a flash! He never ceases to amaze me. No plans or anything...just whipped it up! And I (with a little help from my folks) had the pleasure of painting it. Oh boy. This is how it looks now. I will post when I have added some finishing touches and it is all put together in their room!

 And, of course, there was the photo shoot. It was actually Kristin's photo shoot. She gets the credit for this. I just happened to have my camera along as well. These little kids are always so entertaining when we are trying to get pictures...this time was no exception. A picture is worth a thousand words!!!

I know for a fact I didn't slow down enough to enjoy Christmas time to the fullest this year. But we did have some great moments! We have so many blessings to be thankful for and I am so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ! Happy Holidays to you all!

Christmas 2009

Our Christmas was great this year. Crazy, but great. The Season was filled with decorating, Christmas programs, parties, family and friends. There was a lot of going here, there and everywhere. Very tiring, but so very worth it!

Matty's Elementary Christmas Program was adorable. The music was wonderful and Matty did such a great job! We were very proud.

We had a couple photo shoots. One for our Christmas cards, which were late coming in. So those of you who received one probably got it well after Christmas. Sorry. I actually still have a few sitting around that never got mailed because I ran out of stamps and never remembered to go to the post office to get more. Sorry!! The other shoot was for Leithead family pics which were long over-due for an update. :)
The girls were spoiled by Santa, their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles of course. I'm not so sure this is a good thing. But they had so much fun!!!
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

My Sister

My sister is my best friend! We were so blessed to have her come visit for a week. Unfortunately the relaxing vacation she was counting on turned into Grandma's funeral. But we still had a wonderful time while she was here. We enjoyed spending time reminiscing, taking family pictures, having wonderful conversations, watching movies, eating, and celebrating birthdays. There wasn't much relaxing going on...but our time together was priceless. Chelsea is a beautiful young lady inside and out! My girls couldn't get enough of her and we were all so sad when we had to drop her off at the airport yesterday.

We miss you, Chelsea! Thanks for coming to visit!!!

Christmas Cards...

Well, for the second year in a row I am officially NOT sending out Christmas cards. This makes me feel like a total loser. I like to take a family picture (which we did), then find some really cute photo card layout online to put it on. I actually spent quite a bit of time looking at photo card layouts. And I am ashamed that I never decided on one to order. Then I just kept forgetting. And at this point they just wouldn't make it to anyone by Christmas...so I'm not doing it!!! Again.

So, sorry to all of you who were hoping for one. We still really love you all... and maybe...I say maybe...I will send out some Happy New Year Cards or something. Is that lame?? Oh well, but please don't forget that I only said maybe. This being said, here is the picture that would have been on our Christmas Card. We really do wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!

Lots of Love,

The Leithead Family

{Kyle, Catherine, Matalyn, and Anastyn}

Thanksgiving and Family Pictures...

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!! We were so blessed to have all of our family members home at the same time. We had a crazy, whirlwind week that just didn't seem long enough. Chelsea was here for four days - and we enjoyed her so much! We ate (of course), watched movies, visited grandparents and friends, took family pictures, had many deep conversations into the wee hours of the morning and had lots of good laughs! My girls don't get to see their aunt Chelsea enough...but they just ate her up!! They get pretty attached to people and it made me sad when they woke up the morning Chelsea left and they were searching the house for her. "Where Chelsea go??" Heartbreaking...especially when it is unknown how soon they may get to see her again. They had fun playing with BrookLynn and Elle, of course. Their little eyes would light up whenever it was time to go see them. Pure excitement! It made my heart happy.

We were so lucky to have my family invited over to Leithead's for Thanksgiving dinner. It was so nice to only have to eat one meal and not have to race back and forth between families all day. Thank you Marla!!! Dinner was delicious...and as usual, we ate too much. In fact I am still eating too much!

As you can see in our family pics, Kacee made my hair beautiful again. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Matty even got a trim...and Anastyn got her very first hair cut!! She was so excited. She went around for the next two days pointing to her hair and saying "hair!". Pretty cute. Kyle even got a hair cut (unwillingly)...but since it was after family pics you can't see...he has much shorter hair now. (Thank you, babe!! Love it!)

And, as I could have predicted, Kristin and I were only able to get one of our planned projects done. There is never enough time!! We completed the tu-tu's for the girls. That's it. Heaven knows how we are supposed to get 12 months worth of calendar pages for each of our mothers done in...lets see....24 days (we have done that before...but that was when we lived in the same town!!) I think we will have to enroll our moms in the "calendar page-of-the-month club" and just get one to them before its time to flip to the next month! Ha ha!!!

Now December has officially begun and I am in the middle of a Christmas decoration train wreck!! I did get the tree finished today...well, sort of. I usually put a whole bunch of ribbon on the tree, but I searched through all of my totes and boxes...no ribbon. I vaguely remember getting frustrated while removing the ribbon last year and throwing it all away! I must have been mad! Do you know how expensive ribbon is? So...the tree is finished...minus the ribbon.

Oh...and my Willow Tree Nativity (one of my most prized posessions)...well, when I started taking the figurines out of their boxes, I was sickened to find that three of them were broken. I wanted to cry! So I had to get the glue out last night and try to mend them. I hate moving...it is always your favorite things that get broken.

And then....grrrrrrr....ALL of my Christmas candles were melted!! Yeah...last January after I took all the Christmas stuff down, Kyle decided to put some of the totes up in the attic, which seemed like a good enough idea. We just didn't think it through to August in St. George, Utah. Uh-huh...candles don't keep their shape in 110 degree weather.

Anyways...its all good. Hopefully I can finish decorating tonight so that it doesn't look like a bomb went off in the living room anymore. And then I can start making a list of all the other things that need to be done by December 25th...oh boy...it's going to be a long list!!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. I know that I have a lot to be thankful for...and more than anything...I am thankful that I was able to spend the week with all of our loved ones!! Enjoy December...hope it is {mAgiCaL}!!