Christmas Tree Hunting

Before I get to the Christmas farm pictures, I have to say my blog posts are all out of order and it drives me nuts! But at this point I am just trying to get them all on here!

And to start off this post, here is a picture of my little Johnny D:

It drives Daniel CRAZY when Johnny puts on Addie's clothes. The kids change their outfits about 4 times a day in to different play clothes. Addie has more clothes, he gets bored of the ones he has! I think it's funny. He is ALL boy so I am not worried about him. One day these will be great pictures to show his future wife. :)

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On to the Christmas hunting! This year we decided to go to a Christmas tree farm close to our house. We lucked out and went on a dry Saturday. It was super bright though. My poor kids hate the bright sun! When we got there, they handed us a saw and sent us on our way to find a tree! The place was pretty big and we didn't even walk through half of it. I think it was fun, a little bit pricier than I was hoping for but we will probably do it again!

Looking for the perfect one.

I seriously love taking pictures of this face!

Found it! We ended up picking a 9' tall tree! We had the employees cut down the stem a little bit so that it would fit in our house!

Watching Dad cut it down...

I wanted a family picture IN the trees but it's hard to find people to take a picture for you. So here we are in the parking lot!

Dentist and Caroling

This picture is random (I know I have more of her somewhere!). Since we walk to school and the temperature has dropped, I bought her this outfit to wear in the stroller. It's great because it has holes in it so that you can put the car seat or stroller straps through it! So she is warm and  buckled! Genius.

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Johnny D had his first visit to the dentist a couple of weeks ago. He has gone with me and Addie so he knew about sitting in the chair and what they were going to do but this time he got to have his teeth cleaned! He did a lot better than I thought he was going to. He sat there and was very cooperative!

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Daniel works with the young men in our church and I work with the young women. Wednesday night is when they do their activities so we usually have to split up the kids between the two of us so that we can each go to our activities. Once a month the young women and young men do something together. In December it was caroling. We bundled up the kids and took them along! Dia fell asleep in the carrier and Addie and Johnny loved it! They wanted to be up front by the door at every house so they could see! I think they liked the hot chocolate and cookies at the end the best!

Santa Parade and our Christmas tree

One of the yearly events downtown that we go to is the Santa Parade. It's always freezing cold but always a good time. This year Addie's friend Jack came and sat with us while Brody was in the parade!

Jack and Addie

Not a great picture. Addie, Johnny and Daniel.

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This year we went to a U-Cut Christmas tree farm to get our tree. We were hoping that since we were cutting it down ourselves maybe it would be cheaper. Not the case. I was surprised at how much some of them cost! We found a more reasonably priced one (must not be the 'nice' kind of tree). It was 9' tall and very full!

We had to trim the trunk down so that we would be able to get the star on top and we have 9' ceilings!

Randomness and a box

One way that Dia is very different than the other two, is that she will fall asleep anywhere! She has fallen asleep sitting up like this several times.

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I have to wake the two little ones up to from their naps to pick Addie up from school. Sometimes I can transfer both of them in to the stroller without them waking up. If I am lucky, they are still asleep by the time we walk all the way back home! People are always commenting on my awesomely huge stroller and the fact that the kids are usually asleep!

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I know we shouldn't do this, but we eat lunch in the car about once a week. Days when we need to run errands in the morning and we don't have time to go back home before school. I usually bring their lunches if I know we are going to do this. I took this picture one day while they were eating and waiting to drop Addie off!

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We are still unpacking boxes. We have a long way to go still! Addie and Johnny got a hold of this one and wanted to color it. I thought it was a great idea if it would keep them busy for 10 minutes. They played with it for days! I finally had to get rid of it because it was in the way but I loved how creative they were with it!

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My blue eyed baby girl on one of our walks to drop Addie off at school.

Annie

Our kids LOVE the movie Annie. It might not be the best choice for a children's movie but they will actually sit and watch it! We have to start it about 20 minutes in because they don't like Ms. Hannigan. They like to start it from the part where Annie arrives at the Warbucks' residence.

 

We saw Groupon had a deal one day for tickets to see a play version of Annie in Bellevue in Decemeber. We didn't tell the kids where we were going. They didn't know what we were doing until we got to the theater! They did pretty well watching it. Johnny got squirmy at the end and Dia spent most of the second half out in the lobby with Daniel. They really enjoyed it though!

 

When we were waiting for it to start Daniel noticed a family sitting a few rows up from us. Turns out his mission president was there with his family! Such a weird coincidence since he lives in Utah. What are the odds that we would have been in the same place at the same time! 

Santa 2012

These posts are a little out of order. I forgot I had all these pictures on my phone!

 

We go see Santa before Thanksgiving every year so there is no line. This year was no exception, we walked right up. And Santa remembered us! I think this is a great picture, Dia didn't even cry!

 



Wearing the same dress Addie wore for her first Christmas. :)

Candy canes from Santa!

Bye Bye Civic

One thing I fear is getting that phone call saying my husband has been in an accident. I keep my phone next to my bed in the morning just in case some thing happens while Daniel is on his way to work. Maybe it's silly to worry, but that really would be an awful phone call to get!

 

A few days before Thanksgiving Daniel was running late getting home. I had a babysitter over here while I went running and was running late myself getting to a chiropractic appointment. He was supposed to be home to take the sitter home and watch the kids. When he said he was going to be late, I had to load up the kids (and the baby sitter!) in the car and try to get to my appointment on time. Just as I got everyone in the car Daniel called and said he was in an accident. At first I thought "Really?!" Then I realized if he was calling me then it can't be that bad right? At least he was not injured (the other driver was fine too!). It had just happened so he didn't know the extent of the damage to the car yet.

 

I drove the babysitter home then called the chiropractors office and told them I wasn't coming. The kids and I headed to go pick up Daniel. I was so sad when I got there and saw my baby wrecked. She has been such a great car for us! My mom went with me to buy it in 2004. This car got me from Utah to Vegas numerous times. Then from Utah to Idaho while we were engaged. Once we moved to Idaho I drove it 50 miles every day between Rexburg and Idaho Falls. Such a great car! It had 198,000 miles on it, so close to 200k! As she was being loaded on to the tow truck I almost got teary eyed. Funny how you get attached to a car. :/

 

Apparently an 18 year old guy was on his was to school and just wasn't paying attention. When Daniel asked him what happened the guy said, "I don't know. I guess I just swerved." He had no explanation. We are guessing he was on his phone, texting or something.

 



The kids insisted on staying until they got to watch the tow truck load it.

This is all I could see in the dark.

If you look close, you can see that the kid hit the back bumper but then somehow also hit the front wheel.

 

Much worse in the day light. :(

 

A guy we know in our ward owns a body shop so the car was towed there. It was totaled and we received way more for it than we thought we would! Our friend also happened to have a cute little Kia Spectra for sale that was (almost!) in our price range. We decided that instead of trying to shop around for a car, this was a great deal so we bought it! I still don't have any pictures of Daniel with it yet. But it is cute! We are bummed to once again have a car payment but so grateful that Daniel was not injured and we were able to find another car!