Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We decided to not touch a present until after Church because we did not think McKay would be able to get away from the presents to go off to Chruch. We went to sacrament meeting at 11 a.m. and then came home and opened presents. McKay got the majority of the gifts and good ones this year that will hopefully keep him occupied while I work. He has been playing with all of them that everyone sent and that we and Santa gave him. He just goes back and forth all day from one toy to the next. Thank you to everyone who so kindly sent us gifts, cards, and pictures this year. We went that evening to Jared and Michelle's and had a Roast Dinner (yum, yum) and then watched the movie Valiant. It was a lot of fun.

One of McKay's biggest and most expensive gifts, an Imaginerum Town with train set and tracks. It is as big as his bed.
Kory spent most of the morning putting all of McKay's toys together. He loved it.
Another one of McKay's toys. A Little People car wash/repair shop complete with 2 slides and an elevator.

Christmas Day

Our Christmas Eve

We spent the first part of our morning delivering some goodies and bread to people in our ward and neighbors next door. That was definately the highlight to see their surprised faces and gratitude. It was a great feeling to serve and give this Christmas Eve. We ate lunch at Wendy's and braved the busy Walmart for some grocery shopping. We came home and rested. The rest of the evening will follow with the pictures: We had a very simple Christmas Eve dinner as Kory has been ill the last few days and so we kept things light for his tummy. We had chicken stuffed with stuffing, banana bread, corn, and juice.

After dinner we had a little Family Home Evening where we tried to explain to McKay what tomorrow was and about the birth of Jesus. We showed him pictures of his birth and he made a little ornament for the Christmas Tree. While he was decorating the ornament, I taught Kory and I and McKay a Christmas lesson from the Ensign about the true meaning of Christmas by Pres. Howard (a very good message I recommend all should read).

We opened one present that the picture shows. Kory got a sweater vest to wear to church tomorrow. McKay got some new pajama pants.

Here I am helping McKay with his ornament.

McKay opening his present.

The finished Christmas Ornament depicting the Savior's birth.

Cooking Like Crazy

Now that we have our Christmas shopping completed, for the last two days we have focused on giving to others and making goodies for them. Yesterday we made 7 mini loaves of bananna bread. Today we worked on sugar cookies. McKay has helped me both days and of course makes a mess but has a lot of fun stirring, pouring, sprinkling, and eating. It was fun but a lot of work. Next is the best part, delivering them. We were planning on going sledding tomorrow for Christmas Eve but the temperatures have risen all week and the snow where we were going to sled is gone. We will have to wait for the next storm to come. That is okay, my list of things to do tomorrow will keep us all very busy.

McKay making a mess all over the table and face while he licks the beaters (an Adams' trait).


McKay sprinkling the sugar cookies and having a lot of fun. He was very good at this, a little too good.

Helping roll out the sugar cookie dough.

More beater licking to do.

Our completed project, ready to deliver (ran out of candy canes that is why most of the bread does not have any.

More Snow

We woke up to more snow today. Not quite as much as last time but still we were able to go out and play in it. McKay got to test out his new snow wardrobe that we got over the weekend. It was a good test to see how warm and dry he would stay. The snow was too powdery to make another snowman so we decided to go sledding. Just a little ways down the street is a steep road that goes from the top of the hill where the houses are and goes down to some stores and along the freeway. It is closed off to thru traffic and I thought it might be steep enough to go down with a sled. We drove over there and slid for an hour. It was fun and the more we went down the more packed the snow got and the faster we went and as we would go down everyone from the freeway could see us. It is supposed to be snowing and raining all week so hopefully the snow will stay and lots will collect in the moutains so we can really go sledding on Saturday. Not good traveling weather. Good thing Dad and Mom are not coming up for Christmas. Too dangerous.

Sorry pictures are so dark, flash was not on. McKay is posing his new outfit for the snow.

Off we go to play in the snow.

Christmas Program Over, Time for Fun

Well the stressful Christmas Program I was directing is now over and it went really well. The Lord has been helping me with this calling I have been really struggling with as I have been able to start lining up musical numbers and choir numbers for the next two months of sacrament meeting. I am now really excited about this calling and feel that it will fit me well and make me grow. We had a great and busy weekend. We helped clean the church at 8 a.m. and had a Christmas Program practice right afterwards. We went shopping for a few Christmas presents and to search for choir music I could buy before the year was up (very little luck with that). We also went shopping for snow gear for McKay. We were able to find some great sales at Burlington Coat Factory and Shopko and got him some snow shoes, snow bib, and gloves. We are planning on going sledding in the mountains on Christmas Eve and have invited Jared and Michelle and their family to come along. Hopefully everything will work out and snow will fall and we will be able to get up their okay and have fun. We ate that night and Sizzler and went to Jared and Michelle's house afterwards. We had a fun-filled Saturday (literally).

This is McKay's new friend that we tended. His name is Shawn. His mother is in our ward and is on bedrest due to complications with her pregnancy. She still has a long ways to go (she is due in April, can you imagine how hard this would be) and has to have help with watching her son in the mornings. I think he will be over a lot more within the next four months.

McKay is really into finding little beds for him to sleep in. This is one of is new ones, the top cusions of the couch. He also likes to take a laundry basket and put a pillow and blankets in it. He never stays there long but annonces to us all through the day "tired, sleep" and then crawls under the covers and pretends to be sleeping for a minute then gets up. Very cute.

After church and the stressful Christmas Program. I am very happy. McKay has on an angel hat that was given to the primary children for a skit.

Cute daddy and McKay.

Busy Weekend

We have had another busy weekend and have not had time to update our blog. With my new calling, I am directing our choir in a Christmas program being put on next week in sacrament meeting. This has been quite a challenge as I have never done anything like this before. I have had to find 7 narrators, hold practices, make copies, work with the piano player, etc. We practiced on Sunday though and it sounded great. I am very hopeful that everything will turn out. We have a small yet very good choir members who are very willing to help me and give suggestions. I was thrust into this position as being the director kind of late in the program and they have been very understanding.

For the last two years during Christmas I have been in a group where we play this song called Pacabelle's Canon/The First Noel. There are 4 singers, 1 piano player, 1 cello player, and 2 flutes. We played on Sunday in my ward, my old ward, and at a Community Christmas Concert which involved an entire Stake. Each year we get more and more requests to play this song because it is an amazing number. Busy, busy. I was not home very much that day.

I was right in my previous blog. This last Sunday, Kory was set apart as the 2nd Counselor in the Elder's Quorum. He seems quite excited about this calling and I know he will do a great job.

We have been working on finishing our Christmas decor and we finally finished last week. The house looks great. We decided not to put up lights outside because no one can see them from the street and it has been very cold (20s in the day, teens in the night). Oh well. My Christmas Village we put over our fireplace. We have had this collection for 4-5 years and have never put it up because we have never had room in all the places we have lived. It took hours to figure out how to set it up and make room for it on the mantle (especially with McKay helping me it took especially longer).
I finally had time this morning to make a nice breakfast for us. Bisquick waffles (we usually pop the Eggos in the toaster). McKay loves to help make his own waffle. He can almost do it by himself.
McKay loves our Choo-Choo Train under the tree and always wants it on and he just sits and watches it go around, around, and around.

Emergency Room Visit

This last Saturday we had to visit the emergency room for McKay. The morning ran smoothly at first. Kory was at home taking care of McKay and relaxing while I left to go to a baby shower. While I was at the baby shower, Kory had called there wanting to talk to me. When I got on the phone with him, McKay was crying in the background and Kory yelled to me "Get home, McKay cut his eye open!!!" I freaked out and ran out of the baby shower yelling "my little boy got hurt, I've got to go." As you can imaging, the girls at the shower were very concerned. I rushed home not knowing what to expect and when I entered the house I was very grateful to see that it was not his eye that was cut but just above the eyebrown had a huge laceration. Apparently McKay was running around and went to get another bite of cereal when he tripped and fell and hit his head on the edge of our kitchen chair. It was like living the accident Chase had a year ago all over again. It was very deep and we took him to the ER to get it stiched up. The doctor and nurses were very nice and gave him lots of stickers, juice, popcicles, and shows to watch on TV. He was very hard to deal with there and the doctor had to sedate him a bit. They had to put a few stitches inside the cut and more on the outside. He is doing very well now and we are going to get his stitches out tomorrow. What a memory.

I have been very busy this week with my new calling. I am now the Ward Music Chairman and Choir Director. It is very challening and I have been stressed out with our Christmas program we are putting on in 2 weeks which we are far from ready for. I am sad to say good-bye to my old, fun, and very easy calling of Primary Secretary. It always seems that when we go to a new ward we start out with very easy callings that very soon after turn into very hard and stressful callings. It is Kory's turn next. He is the Cub Master right now (very easy, he hardly does anything). I think that will change too very soon.

McKay loves his Elmo bandaids. We have to change his bandage, clean the stitches, and put antibiotic ointment on a couple times a day. He is very good at letting us do this.



That night we babysat his friends. Fun night.

SNOW!!!!!!!

We got dumped on with snow overnight. It started out with just a small amount a couple of days ago and then when we woke up this morning we had 3-4 inches. It was great. Kory slipped a little on the road to work but is fine. I had to go to a primary meeting and drove in it and had a blast in the new SUV. McKay and I played outside in it and made a big snowman (I don't think I have ever made a snowman, it was fun). Hopefully more will come, we love it. McKay digging in the snow with the skooper you use with a broom.
Mommy's snowman
This was the first of it 2 days ago.

THANKSGIVING VACATION

I am a little late getting our recent blog up. We have had Internet problems and have finally gotten them resolved with a new modem. We went back home for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We had a wonderful time working on Mom and Dad's sprinklers (mainly Kory did this). We ate out at all our favorite restaurants that we don't have in Boise (Famous Dave's, Fazoli's, Pizza Factory, Frost Top in St. George, and Cafe Rio). We saw and visited with many family and friends. We went to more movies in a week then we had in a year. We enjoyed 2 Thanksgiving dinners. In all had a wonderful time. Below are some pictures that I took of our vacation:

More pictures:

Relaxing

Watching everyone work from above enjoying breakfast.
The trenches are ready.
This was a rare moment. McKay was tired and wanted to lay on my lap. He never does this, so I wanted a picture to remember the moment forever.

Sunday Dinner
Dad on his tractor as we picked up and hauled big, heavy rocks.
Leif, Kory, and McKay having a chat at the Sunday Dinner.
Kory got to play on a digger getting the dirt ready for the sprinklers and digging up big, heavy rocks.