Simon was following me in the hallway one minute, and within seconds of not being in my sight I hear a splash and a laugh. That monkey party-crashed Addie’s bath!
Then here is just a random smattering of fun pics from this month. Moral to the story, I triple puffy heart my crazy kids.
Just two weeks ago I started pouting because we weren't going to have any snow this year. Little did I know that a fabulous amount of snow was in our very near future. It started snowing on Sunday, fluffed a bit more on monday, didn’t do much of anything on tuesday so it got slushy on the roads, then wednesday came and we ended up with over 6 inches.
We had an absolute blast playing in the snow. Addie played outside for nearly 6 hours straight on wednesday, then was forced to come inside to eat and warm up a bit for an hour, then she went back out and played until sunset. She was far more excited about the snow than she was about Christmas morning. Simon quite enjoyed the snow as well, but got frustrated when he’d fall on the uneven, powdery terrain. I was quite giddy too, I always feel like a kid when I see those flakes start to fall.
![image_thumb[44]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/-01WGCgpl0Xo/TxoaftyjX1I/AAAAAAAAJug/F9nH994w6Uo/s1600-h/image_thumb444.png "image_thumb[44]")
There are a ton more pics of the kids and also the ICE that followed over on my photography blog!
One of my all time favorite things to do as a parent is to peek in on my kids before I go to bed each night, which is usually about 4 hours after they fell asleep. They are either in hilarious positions or are tucked in and look all angelic. On nights of exceptional cuteness, I sneak a picture if I can.
Addie and Simon both got these great ladybug/turtle nightlights for christmas and they LOVE them! I think this pic gets Addie’s sentiment toward her new nightlight across quite nicely (it has a hard shell, btw): 
She was so cute that I went over to Simon’s room to see how he was doing too. Addie sleeps with her lamp on, so she’s easier to photograph. Simon’s room is crazy dark though, so I just went in there, pointed my flash at the ceiling, pointed down into his crib, and clicked the shutter. This is what I saw in my viewfinder when I was done and I just laughed: 
Then this one was just last night. She looked so peaceful and beautiful. A mom’s heart swells when she looks at her sleeping children! 
I can’t help but include these hilarious pics of how Addie slept when she was a baby. I mean really, how could this even possibly be comfortable?! 
We really had an amazing holiday season this year. I can only see Christmas time getting better and better from here on out as my kids get more into it and as our family continues to grow. Addie enjoyed christmas last year and kinda got the santa thing and all of that, but this year was her first year of really being able to anticipate it and getting super excited and involved. We had such a fun time as parents choosing gifts and watching christmas movies together as a family. It just makes you all warm and squishy inside and know that this is exactly the life I want to live.
I didn’t take hardly any pictures Christmas morning, it was too fun to just watch and enjoy the morning without dinking around with a camera. I did video tape her opening her big presents and also her face as she saw our front room on Christmas morning, so I at least have that for the record books… if I ever take the time do download it off my camcorder :)
Addie LOVED our christmas decorations, as most children do. Her very favorite this year was probably a set of puzzle reindeer cutouts that we got from sam’s parents. My family had similar ones growing up and I was so excited to see that Sam’s parents had some that they wanted to go to grandkids. It brought back tons of memories watching her take the reindeer apart and build them back up again. Here she had turned them into a sleigh by using a stool and a line of gold tinsel pearls. 
Here’s how the front room looked all ready for Christmas morning:
Then here is after the chaos of unwrapping. The big winning presents of the day were by far Addie’s new dollhouse, keyboard and Sesame Street kinect game, and Simon’s new trampoline and car ramp thinger.
We really didn’t have too much time to play during the morning since we had to be at church by 11am, our kids didn’t wake up until we got them up at 9:15, and Sam and I both sang for the Christmas program that day and we really couldn’t afford to be late at all. Singing was super fun, by the way. I am rusty for sure and I know that my voice is far from where it was back when I sang in high school or in BYU’s choir, but I really miss singing and performing and even if it’s just for sacrament, I was happy to take the opportunity. I did a duet arrangement of “What Child is This?” with my friend Marcie (who has a lovely voice) and Sam and I sang in the small 4-part group. And can I just include how much I swoon when I hear Sam sing? He has such a great bass voice and I think I might tell the new music leader at church to call on him to do solos often just so I can listen to him sing :)
Here are the kids in their cute Christmas day outfits all ready for church. Addie’s in her new sparkly pink dress that instantly became her favorite item of clothing:
Sam took a few weeks off of work for Christmas break and we had TONS of fun just being together. We felt like teenagers and it was delightful. We reconnected with our inner gamer and dove deep into Skyrim for the xbox 360. We brought a second TV into our front room and both played the game side by side on our own 360s every night from about 5pm until 3am. That probably sounds lame to some of you, but for us it was one of the best Christmas breaks ever. When we weren't playing video games, we were doing fun family outings with our kids or taking random naps. I really love vacations with trips and big activities, but sometimes you just need a couple of weeks to relax and enjoy the simple act of being an all day and all night family together. I love that Sam is my best friend and that just hanging out together can be total bliss.
