The Passing of Christmas

The lack of available candy for the boys is really getting to them, but man when I cave and give them a snack I always regret it! They make HUGE messes with tiny bits of candy! I look forward to the New Years diet that puts us all back on the strait and narrow.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

LOVED Christmas this year! I unfortunately reverted back to old Christmas habits and stayed awake most of Christmas eve night- NOT because I was playing Santa, but because I was so excited for the next day! All month long we have been preparing for Christmas with projects, music, scriptures and stories and I had worked myself up into such a state of excitement that it took me hours to fall asleep! The kids were excited too, but mostly didn't understand what to be excited about but it was hard to resist my enthusiasm :) We took Michaels family traditions and started Christmas on Christmas eve. We had a big dinner with some wonderful friends of ours and finished our "On the way to Christmas" activities. Michael read the Book of Mormon account of what was going on during Christs birth and then we each opened one gift. (Well two for the boys- our friends brought them a present so we let them open it early)
These cars were perfect for our boys! Thanks so much Dave and Linda, you are such wonderful friends to our family! That night we let the boys stay up as long as they wanted (MD finally conked out around 11) and they watched "The Muppet Christmas Carol" while sipping on Hot chocolate and Michael and I played cards and finished watching Jimmy Stewart's "It's a wonderful Life". Finally most of us went to sleep while I layed awake excitedly planning the next days activities!

Christmas morning found us around 7 with the boys crawling into our beds and snuggling with us-it was such a treat! Michael the softy that he is let the boys start out their morning with Luke-warm hot chocolate (Nothing like liquid sugar soaring through a kids veins for them to get into the Christmas mood) After they finished their drinks and were bouncing off the walls we brought out the stockings! The big excitement was NOT the bubbles, or the books but the 25 cent balls we bought them at Walmart!

Modeling the balls:
My mom sent this fun vacuumed sealed bag full of goodies for each kid-Hyrum opened his to find a bunch of candy!
Michael made me model my stocking stuffers-yeah he got a big kick out of putting some Ramen noodles into my stocking
But he made it up by getting me this old box! Inside I found a food processor! yippee!!!
And a new year means a new gun for Michael. Never knew I would marry such a gun lover :)
The wonderful mess that is Christmas!

We let the kids play around for awhile and we heated up leftovers for our lunch. Around 12 we loaded up the car and we headed up to Michael's parents home to finish our Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas Dinner then we exchanged gifts, visited for awhile and ended with a fun White Elephant gift exchangeFun shot! MD was in heaven having so many Aunts and Uncles to play around with!


I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. For us it was a wonderful day filled with family, fun and sharing!

What happens when you leave your newly finished -made from scratch- Ginger Bread house unsupervised at our house?? Well I'll show ya!
Before Hansel 1 and 2 approached:
Now I am no architect or designer but my house looked better BEFORE the renovations!

But these two candy addicts had a good time-and I guess that is more important then the TWO HOURS I put into building it!

Temple Square

Last night our family went to Temple Square so we could see all the lights and and other things the church puts on/up. IT WAS SO CROWDED! Maybe it was flawed planning on my part since we went the Saturday before Christmas but we overheard one person say "Man this is worse the Disneyland!" I've actually never been there but apparently Disneyland is crowded too :) It was also FREEZING but we all had bundled up well enough that the only parts of us that were cold were our faces and my toes. I am so glad we went though. The boys saw the Christus Statue and kept pointing at it and saying "It Jesus" and we listened to the nativity program they had on and the boys were in awe with all the gorgeous lights. We ended up at the Temple and let the boys run and touch it. They immediately found a place where I think the heaters were and stayed in that area (It was towards the end of the night and I think they were just starting to feel the cold) My mom came with us and it was wonderful to have her walk around holding the boys hand and take them to look at all the fountains (MD's favorite.) and I am so sad that she is leaving tomorrow! We also went with some friends who have kids around the same age as our boys and it was nice to have them take us around and show us where the best place was to park and just to visit with.

Starting out

It was so crowded that there were times when we had to have two people holding on to MD because he liked to squirm and try to break away from us
Us and some other random kid that just happened to be in our shot :)
Finding the perfect spot
Sweet Grandma

MD really loved walking buy this particular part of the fountain-He LOVES water

The Temple as we were leaving. It was so beautiful!

Choo Choo!

MD and Hyrum found some boxes and proceeded to scoot around all over the kitchen pretending they were trains. I love how boyish they are- It amazes me that boys just gravitate to cars, trains, dinosaurs, ect.

Some Catching up!

Well I feel like I am a little behind giving myself a week to go private-but this is the holidays and so many things are happening!
Some important notes :
*MD has reverted back to a state of childhood dependency (We watched elf today :) In other words-He doesn't want to go use the toilet very often anymore :( Oh well....
*Hyrum is getting back teeth!!! Yay for not having to cut up all his food!
*My mom is in town and I LOVE IT!
*I have Christmas pretty much all taken care of. THANK GOODNESS! I am hoping not to have to hit a store until sometime AFTER Christmas!

And because we have continuously been doing "On the way to Christmas" I have pictures to post of some of the fun crafts we have done!

The Snowman and the stars the boys made (with help)
For one activity we let the kids decorate cookies. Needless to say they had a BLAST-they ate mostly icing but hey-it's the Holidays right?!


Michael Dunns cookie. Or at least one of them
We made big snowman Magnets! This was one of my favorite activities so far! We used buttons for the eyes, nose, and the lumps of coal on the body (Not sure why you put it there exactly!)
And tonight we let the boys decorate Graham cracker houses! They LOVED it! Hyrum ate mostly the candy but he helped put on a couple of pieces, but mom and I did most of his decorating and MD got very into it. I had pixie Styx's and he enjoyed pouring it on!

MD's House
Here you can see some of MD's artistics
Hyrums house
WA-LA!

Private

After thinking it over for a LONG time I finally have decided that I am going to go private. You can email me or send me a message for an invite to the blog.
Thanks
lauriehilton@gmail.com

Mommy vs Wife

This morning MD crawled onto my back and started having and argument with his daddy which goes as follows

MD: My mommy!
Daddy: Your mommy but my wife!
MD: No MY MOMMY!
(Repeat a couple of times)
Daddy: She's your mommy but shes my wife
MD: My mommy! MY WIFE!!!

MD is having possession issues :)

Mother and Son

My husband snapped this photo a couple of days ago and I just thought it was so sweet. Please ignore my face (Not sure why I look like I am smelling something stinky-my husband informed me that I often look like that when I am sleeping. I guess the term sleeping beauty does NOT apply to me) instead concentrate on the cutie with his arms wrapped around me. Hyrum had had a hard time taking a nap a couple of days ago and after being placed multiple times in his bed he was crying hysterically and walking around his room holding his full bottle. I decided that this was a time when he just needed to be held. So we laid dawn and he immediately wrapped his arms around me and sobbed into my shoulder. After I sang some songs he calmed down and fell asleep but had a death grip on my sweater and would wake up and start whimpering every time I moved. I decided to lay there for awhile and NOT fall asleep. Next thing I know there is a flash in my face and I wake up to Michael smiling down at me with the camera.

On the way to Christmas

My mom made us this wonderful book! She gave it to us as a Christmas present a couple of years ago. I completly forgot about it and it got packed away with all the other seldom used things that only re-surface when I go looking for something else. But I found it a couple of days ago just in time to start it! It goes through everyday of December until the 25th and it is filled with Christmas stories, Songs and Scriptures for you to read every day. I have really LOVED it! It has been so nice to really get into the holiday mood and do something as a family everyday that reminds of us Christs birth. Afterwards we do some kind of activity so the boys can wiggle around and have some fun :) Yesterday we made a tree ornament using cut outs of the shape of their hands and today we made Christmas Rice Crispy Treats!
I had the boys up next to me sorting through some of the rice crispies.
They helped pick out and put in the food coloring
As you can tell they chose Burgandy (It was the closest color I had to red)
And wa-lah! They had a blast!
And the treats tasted good too!

Guess who's Potty trained!

Well mostly :) MD has succesfully transitioned to "go pee-pee in da toy-lat!" YAY Michael Dunn!!! I had NOTHING to do with it-he was trained by his daddy (Thank you Michael!) He still needs a diaper though because he wont go poo in the toilet though he informs us everytime he goes in his diaper that he should have gone in the toilet :)

This is what the floor in front of the bathroom looks like-both are dry diapers!

He is well trained :) Here he is cleaning the urine out of his potty
And this grimacing little boy is showing us his happy face because he was so excited!

And I snapped some pics of the boys today per request from my mother.

The boys are helping daddy take out the trash-a job the LOVE because they get to go outside.
My handsome boys! Cute cute Cute!
Haha-don't look too closely at his nose-the cold makes his nose run like crazy!