Christmas in Cedar

We were so excited to go to our parents house for Christmas this year. It had been a year since we have seen our families so we flew home to spend a litttle less than 2 weeks at both families.

We arrived at my parents and stayed one night. We heard there might be a winter storm coming so we packed up and took my mom's car down to Cedar the very next morning. It was hard to leave my family after only seeing them one day but we were excited to get to Cedar.

We stayed at Jay's brother's Mitch and Julie's for most of the time and this picture was taken the first night. It was pretty funny that the boys actually liked wearing the antlers and Ace's face is perfect. They had so much fun playing with him.

Main Street light parade

Some of our family.

Lennix and Ace. Ahhhh...

Julie and Lennix making cookies for her neighbors

We had to take a drive up Cedar Canyon.

This pull off looks down onto the tips of Zion National park. It is so beautiful.

The sun was right in our eyes so we actually took about 6 pictures to get this one. We wanted to show how much snow was up there. We are actually standing on top of about 2 feet of snow.

Whenever we went to Jay's parents the boys would go directly down stairs and play with the train and ride on the spring horse they have down stairs. The literally would stay down there for hours and maybe come up a couple of times for a drink or a treat.

Art was so good to go set up the train for the boys and he stayed and played with them for a long time. I had to document it. This will be one of those things that my boys will remember about their grandpa.

He had to touch it every time it passed.

funny picture of Jensen on the horse. He is in the funnies stage. He sings all of the time. He loves all of the regular songs like Twinkle Twinkle and ABC's but his favorite is Bob the Builder and as he was riding his horse he would sing it over and over. It was quite funny.

Jay was going hunting with his brother Mitch and Lennix heard that they were going shooting. He begged me to go so when Jay said that he could come he was so excited. We packed him a lunch and put him in some warm clothes. This is him in the truck having the time of his life.

This is the greatest picture. Although it looks like he is shooting the AR 15 they didn't really let him :) I think it would have pushed him to the back of the truck. Make for a good pic though. When Lennix came home all he could talk about was going shooting again. He did get to go one more time before we left. When we got home to Ohio after the holidays Lennix finished his potty chart and got to go to the dollar store. All he wanted was a gun to go shooting with.

After Julie had worked so hard on her cookies for her neighbors we were talking and noticed that Jensen had got into the plate of cookies and not only ate one . . .

but you can tell he was having a hay day in the sugar.

This was Christmas Eve. We started the night at Jay's Sister's house. I love all the good food during the holidays. This is Jaxon and Jensen playing trains.

After dinner our nephew's Zack and Tyler showed us their volcano experiment.

Then we all went over to Mitch and Julie's for the rest of the party. Mitch had just got traded to the Cleveland Indian's (We will have family in Ohio!!!) so Julie and I thought it would be fun to break a Rays pinata (his old team) and as it broke little indians would fall out with the candy. Julie and I did the mold and Lennix helped me paint it. It was a lot of fun.

going with the theme, we had each of the kids wear an indian hat as the broke the pinata.

Lennix was down to business.

This was the perfect picture of Tyler breaking open the pinata. Zack was not too happy about that since he is the oldest and we were going in order of age. He was a good sport and Tyler made him feel better with a lot of candy.

As if they were not already on a sugar high :)

These are a few of the pictures my Sis-in-law Meg took. I loved that she captured Art reading the Night Before Christmas to all of us after the kids put on their Jammies.

Me and my two boys listening to the story

Almost the whole Talbot family. We missed you Ken, Shari and kids!

Christmas morning. Yup, there's those antlers again.

Jensen was playing in all the boxes and this was his expression right after he fell through one.

We took Mary on a Treasure hunt for her present. It was really cute how she was such a good sport about it.

Our Family Christmas Eve

Each year we find a night right before we fly out to our families for the Holidays to have our own family Christmas Eve. This is a picture of our Christmas Dinner. Cordon Bleu -YUM.

Each year my family breaks a Pinata on Christmas Eve so naturally we have taken on that tradition. It was only natural to sport a Ohio State College of Dentistry logo. Okay, so it was supposed to look like a tooth but this was as close as I could get. Jay and I had a good laugh.

Our Friends Brendon and Denelle had an "Ugly Sweater" party that night so we thought it would be fun to make it part of our Christmas eve and the pinata was a hit -no pun intended :). Jensen got a good hit!

Here are some of our Friends in their Ugly Sweaters. It kind of looks like an 80's Christmas Party.

Jay looking hot in his sweater. Lennix was the oldest there so he got to hit all of the candy out of the pinata.

Oh cute.

Even Cuter!!

We came home and it was time to open the boys Jammies. They were excited about their first gift.

For Preschool, Lennix was able to do some chores around the house and earn nickels to buy some Christmas presents for his friends. His teacher asked him who he wanted to give his presents to and he said he wanted to give all of hem to Jensen. So, he wrapped them up and this is Lennix giving Jensen his Christmas presents. I thought it was really sweet that out of all of his friends, he wanted to give Jensen all of the presents.

Because we were flying home the next day, we decided to not take any of their presents with us. We had them open them this night. Jensen got this Shake and Go race car track and 2 cars and Lennix got his first track and train. To say that they enjoyed their presents was an understatement. It was really fun to see them get so excited about what they got. We read the Christmas story and then let them continue playing. Jay and I finished packing and realized that it was almost midnight. The boys were still going strong playing with their toys and did not want to go to bed. It was a fun Christmas Eve.

Evening in Excellence

I had to put a just a few pictures up of this night. I was really lucky to be in charge of Evening in Excellence this year (with the wonderful help of my friend Brittney). The night was themed "True Beauty" and we had each of our Young Women do a display table on all their accomplishments, hoppies, and talents. Throughout the gym we had mirrors set up with different "True Beauty" quotes on them. Thanks to my Mom's brilliant writing we put on her play "Snow White and the Six Area's of Focus". The girls were really excited about doing the play and I have to admite, so was I. We started by casting and then we started building the sets. We did a good job on our $20.00 scenery budget. The rehersals were a lot of fun an I felt like we had just enough time to pull off the night. After the play Kacey (one of the leaders) made a slide show of all the things we've done as a Young Women's this year (so much work Kacey!) and then we had each of them say their most memorable moment this past year about Young Women's. It was actually my favorite part of the night. I have to say that was one of those rare moments that you get to see that all of OUR (all the leaders) hard works seemed to pay off :). Here are just a few pics of the night.

The Narrarators Korey and Tori

The sets

Hair and Makeup

The show's about to begin!

Art Show and The Polar Express with Lennix

This is me and Korey (she is one of my Laurel's in YW's). I love this girl for the mere fact that she doesn't let just anyone be her friend. You really do have to earn it. She invited me to come to her art show and I was so excited.

Korey had asked if I would help her find some pictures of some hands. That is what she wanted to focus on in her portfolio. I was really excited when she told me she had chosen to paint the one of Lennix when he was just a babe. Yes, this is her painting below. I was blown away. She is going to let me copy it so I can put it in my boys room. So Talented!!

Jay and I went on a date night with Lennix. There was a "Polar Express" night at the Hilliard Library and we knew Lennix would love it. This is him on board the Polar Express. They had a puppet show, crafts, a musician, and refreshments there. They even sent each of the kids home with their own polar express jungle bell. Lennix still plays with it.

These are his crafts. Of course, he couldn't wait to eat the candy that was the base of the Christmas tree.

This was the best part of the night. They had a train set up on two tables and Lennix was mesmerized. He truly stayed there for 40 min. just watching the train go around an around. We had to convince him that the puppet show was worth leaving the train. Of course before we left he had to go see the train one more time.

I just wanted everyone to know that we are now officially down to less than a week until we fly home to see our families!! This has been the longest (other than Jay's mission) that we have gone without seeing family and we FEEL IT!! We can't wait.

Here is this awesome decor site and it's all done on a budget. They are doing a giveaway for the first 7 days of Christmas so that they can get more people to know about their website. Just wanted to pass the word. Click on the "All Things Thrifty" button on the top right corner of the blog and it will take you to their web site. Happy Holidays!

Trinette, I had to steal this photo off your blog. You captured the moment so well and yes, Nate and I ARE real rock stars!! Jay, it scares me that you are making that face and holding Ashton, do you think Tyler and Sunni might worry!!? :) Also, Tyler's pinky finger is so funny!! Fun night!