New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve at Jeff & Kristen's house. We filled our bellies with delicious food & then played games. Kristen & I did some Just Dance 3 & then all of the kids came in for a while & danced. They were having so much fun & doing a great job. I downloaded a bunch of books onto my Kindle & started reading a new book. We left to come home around 10:30pm.

A Walk In The Park

We went on a walk to the park today. Carter rode his new razor scooter & Claire took her "go go" dog. Kate enjoyed the swing, but she is now at the age where she doesn't want to spend the whole time in the swing. She likes to climb on the play structure, which can be scary. It's more of a chore now to go since I have to keep a very close eye on her. We've been enjoying some mild weather so it's nice to spend a bit of time outside.

Paleontologist Carter

One of the gifts that Carter received for Christmas was a Dinosaur Excavation Kit, which included T-Rex bones encased in an excavation rock & some digging tools. Today he wanted to work on it, so he put on his goggles & got to work. He worked on it for a little while at the kitchen table & then took it to the backyard for a while. He was able to excavate 2 bones today & is excited to work on it again. I'll post pictures once he is finished & has the bones assembled into the T Rex skeleton.

More From Christmas Morning

I forgot that when I was taking pictures Christmas morning that my camera battery died so I switched cameras & had a bunch more pictures!!
Carter got a Lego police boat set from Grandma & Grandpa Wozniak. He said that there were too many steps & he wanted Daddy to come & help him. Cory told him to turn on his ipod (which already had music on it) & go work on it. He came out of his room 20 minutes later & had the whole boat completed!! He must be like Daddy....they both work faster when they listen to music. Carter has been rockin' out to music all day!!!

Christmas Morning

When we arrived home on Christmas Eve night the kids wanted to put cookies & carrots out for Santa & the reindeer. I forgot to grab some cookies from my Mom's house (we were out!) & when I looked in the fridge for some carrots we were out of those as well! So we left 9 little tomatoes (for the reindeer), some peppermint bark & a glass of eggnog. The kids thought all of that sounded good & they headed off to bed. Carter came upstairs a little after 6am on Christmas morning. I asked him if he went to see if Santa had come. He said it was too dark to see anything. He went & sat on the couch in the loft. After a few minutes I went to find him & told him that he could turn the light on in the family room real quick to see if Santa had come. He went downstairs & turned the light on & off really quick. He then came back & told me that all of the tomatoes were gone & 2 little piece of peppermint bark were left. I asked if he saw what Santa had left him & he didn't even look!! He went back down & look for a minute & then came up & was so excited. He started listing off some of the things that he got!

I went & took a shower & we finally decided to wake Kate & Claire up around 7:30am. Carter was having a hard time waiting any longer!! The kids had a fun time looking through their stockings & finding what Santa left them. Then the kids opened all the gifts under the tree. Around 8:20am we decided that we could probably make it to my parent's ward Sacrament Meeting at 9am, so Cory & I left our gifts & we went to get ready for church. Our ward was meeting at 1pm, so we felt that 9am would work better for us. We got to the church & I started getting a headache. By the time we got home it was a full blown migraine & I was in a lot of pain. I went upstairs to lay down while the kids looked through their gifts. Needless to say, the day did not turn out how I had planned. I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I had wanted but there wasn't much I could do about it.

We ended up having a nice Christmas though. The kids received many wonderful gifts from family. This year Carter received:

Lego Star Wars watch, DS case & charger, slippers, razor scooter, ipod shuffle, Cars 2 dvd, book, Lego Pirate Code game, Lego Idea Book, Lego Police Boat, Just Dance 2 for the wii, G Force game for the DS, Tom & Jerry game for the DS, Dinosaur Excavation Kit, Nike jacket, khaki pants.

Claire received:

TAG reading system, princess dominoes, slippers, 4 books for the TAG (Tangled, Scooby Doo, Fairies Puzzle time, Dora Goes to School), Webkinz, Scripture Scouts cd's, Barbie text & learn, Furreal Go Go My Walking Pup.

Kate received:

a scarf (she likes to put any kind of clothes around her neck, so we thought she would like a scarf!), Robeez & Baby Alive Bouncin' Babbles, a baby doll & blanket.

Cory got some new Dominion games, PS3 games, a new bike helmet & gloves & some money.

I got a Kindle Fire, some Clinique make-up, a box of See's Scotchmallows, a silpat, a cookbook, a microplane zester, a 2" hole punch set & some money. I think we were all a little spoiled!!

From Our Home To Yours.....Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed a delicious Christmas Eve dinner at my parents house with all of our extended family. Cousins had fun playing together & some of the adults played games. By the end of the night the kids were tired & ready for bed!

Christmas Eve

Last night Carter & Claire were saying that they wanted to give gifts to each other. Luckily I have a closet filled with extra gifts for birthday parties, etc. I let each of them pick out a gift for each other & then helped them wrap them. Claire also wrapped one of her old play purses to give to Kate & a little gift for Grandma. Carter wrapped a gift for Daddy as well. They have been dying to open a present for so long that Cory & I decided they would each be able to open a gift on Christmas Eve & it would be the gift that they wrapped for each other. Kate loved tearing off the paper; tomorrow morning is going to be fun for her!! Claire got a little Strawberry Shortcake doll & Carter got a Star Wars Lego set. Their new gifts kept them busy for a while this morning!

Merry Christmas To Me!!!

I finished Kate's "first year" scrapbook last week & Fed Ex delivered it to our house this morning!! I wasn't expecting it for another week. I am very happy with the way it turned out. I spent MANY hours working on it. This is the first time that I have used Picaboo to make a book & I was frustrated a few times while using their software, but happy with the end results. The book is 84 pages long & starts from the time we found out we were expecting her all the way to her first birthday.

Sipping Cocoa.......

Carter & Claire were so lucky, they got to have a sleepover at Grandma & Grandpa's last night. When I went to pick them up today, they were playing so nicely with Faith, so I told them that Faith could come to our house & play for a few hours. Carter wanted his hot chocolate that he got in one of his Christmas goodie bags & he really wanted to share with the girls. It was really cute to see them all drinking from straws out of the mug!

FHE: Looking At Christmas Lights

Tonight for Family Home Evening we went to look at Christmas lights. We started out going to Dovewood Court, which was really insane. There were hundreds of people walking down the sidewalks (and the street where we were driving) looking at all of the houses on this court. Every house decorates & they go all out!! It was really pretty, just so crowded. We opted to stay in the car & drive around the court. Next, we went to St. John Way, which just had one house with lights. But they had synchronized the lights with music & they had a sign that told you which station to tune your radio to so that you could listen. We loved this one!! We stayed there & watched for about 10 minutes. After that we drove to the Sacramento Temple to see the little manger scene. Kate was so happy to be out of the car & free to run around. She loved the waterfall & climbing up & down the steps. We ended the night going to Big Spoon for some delicious frozen yogurt.

Making Snow Globes

Carter & Claire wanted to have a play date with Olivia & Logan during Christmas break, so they came over this morning. I had promised my kids that we would make snow globes during break, so we decided to make them with Olivia & Logan too! They were pretty easy to make. We collected some glass jars, little plastic & ceramic figurines, glitter & glycerin (to make the glitter float down slowly). The kids picked which pieces they wanted in their snow globe & then I hot glued them to the lid of the jar. Then we added water, glitter & a little bit of glycerin to their jars. We stirred it up & put the top back on. They are really cute, but next time I think we will use little baby food jars. They will be easier for the kids to hold & you will be able to see their figurines better. They are pretty cute though!