Christmas Morning

Both Ella and Kash started getting a little sick Christmas Eve, so Christmas Day we got a slow start. We actually had to force Kash out of bed, telling him that he needed to get up so he could open presents. He said, "ok...then I go back to bed?" The poor little guy! So he was a bit out of it for a while but once they got going they were fine.
We started by opening stockings....

I love how excited Kash is to get toothpaste:)

And then there was a note left from Santa that Nana read to the kids, telling them that He had left a special present for them in the backyard, because he could not fit it down the chimney...

Here is Ella's reaction to what she saw:

And Kash taking it in slowly...

A trampoline! They both would not stop talking about how they wanted a trampoline, especially Ella who really talked about it non stop and would matter of factly tell everyone that yes, Santa was bringing her a trampoline. I'm glad Santa delivered, because this was one present they would have noticed if they didn't receive! It was freezing and the tramp was covered in ice so they decided to wait and come back out when it was warmer.

Then we headed back inside and everyone opened their presents. I love Mandy's face in this one.

Grandpa and Grandma Tilton

Grandpa and Grandma Craft, aka Bob and Bo.

Nikki and Kar-Nikki opened a special book about her Homecoming.

This tramp has already paid for itself! Even in the cold weather they have to go jump for a little while. I love that they love it, and that it wears them out!

Matt and I agreed to not give each other gifts this year. Well much to my surprise he did not hold up his part of the agreement. He was very sneaky and had my sisters pick me out clothes, and had my mom pick me out this beautiful full length mirror for my bedroom. I should have known better! It was such a great Christmas and we were so grateful to have everyone at our home this year.

Ella and Ella

I am so grateful that we live right across the street from the Harris Family. My Ella Grace and their Ella Kate are the best of friends, and it is so great that they can just run back and forth to each others houses, without having to take the time to plan a play date. If they lived one street over I know we wouldn't see them nearly as much, so it is really meant to be that we live where we do! They are really so cute together, they play dress up for hours and hours. Kristen made the comment that they fight like sisters, which is so true! They are around one another so much that they do act like sisters, playing a lot and fighting a lot! haha I am so excited for them to grow up together. In primary they are now in the same class and they were ecstatic about it. You could see them walking down the hall holding hands. :)

Christmas Eve 2010

Christmas Eve was held at my house this year. We were lucky enough to have my family, including both sets of my grandparents. It is tradition for us for dinner to have real handmade Mexican tamales, chili, and clam chowder. We also always act out the nativity. You can see Ella was Mary, tenderly holding baby Jesus. Typical Kash did not want to be Joseph so my cousin Braden stepped up to the plate. Also my cute sister Nikki played the angel. We don't have enough kids yet to do much more than that! Another tradition we have is that my parents give their presents on Christmas Eve. We sisters all got matching silky pajamas, Kash got a car that you can put together and take a part with a drill, and Ella got the sweetest book called, "My Wedding Day." My mom insisted that Matt read it to her, and I think everyone got a little teary-eyed! It talks about a little girl growing up and getting married in the temple. Ella has been obsessed with this ever since Whitney and Ryan got married.
There are also pictures of my cute grandpa, always taking time to hold and play with the kids. And my grandma who is the best baker ever, making cinnamon rolls with Karlee. And the very last picture of Kash, who fell asleep right on the kitchen table!


Whenever my sisters and I get together we start acting like little girls, it is quite embarrassing. We got in our new pjs and had a total fashion show, taking the cheesiest pictures possible. We were so sad to not have Whitney with us this year!:( However she is probably relieved to not be in any of these:

Winter Recital

Ella had her winter dance recital and it was pretty much hilarious. She came running out onto the stage with her hands on her eyes, making "binoculars" trying to find us in the darkened crowd. She finally spotted us and started waving like crazy and giving us the "thumbs up" sign. Everyone in the audience was cracking up at her. Not to mention Kash, who immediately started screaming, "Ella! Ella! Hi Ella!" I don't know if there was much dancing going on, she was just up there having a good time, sometimes a solid 8 counts behind everyone else, and watching the girl next to her, who was the only girl in the class who sort of knew what she was doing! She sure was cute though!

Here she is after getting ready, so excited to have make up on.

Not bothering to find her place, she is too busy trying to find her family with those binoculars!

She is front and center.

Taking a bow.

After the show...

With her cute teacher, Mrs. Trista. She was really excited to give her teacher a little Christmas gift.

Christmas Cookies

I have been feeling like a bad mother because I have not been doing many holiday activities with the kids-I think I will use the baby excuse on this one. So I had Gina and her kids come over to decorate sugar cookies so I could at least say I did something. It was fun and crazy and SUPER messy but worth it.

These three could be triplets they are so close in age.

I think more frosting was put in their mouths than on the cookies.

I made a double batch of cookie dough which was way too much, so I gave all the kids their own dough to play with and I found Kash's with frosting and sprinkles on top!

Ella literally spent the entire time frosting ONE cookie. She gets so into these kinds of things, it is so funny. She was pretty proud of her Christmas Tree cookie.

Little Emily.

I am hoping next year these type of activities will happen a lot more frequently! I guess we can add this to the list of new years resolutions.

Happy 31st Matty!

Matt turned 31 on December 11! His birthday is at such a crazy time of year but we managed to have a small get together at our house. Matt said all he wanted to do was invite some friends over and play croquet in the backyard so thats what we did! We ordered pizza and had cake and ice cream and just hung out. Here he is blowing out the candles with the help of Kash and Ella:
It was baby overload at our house with three new babies! Matt's cousin Kurt is married to my dear friend Ashley and she just had her baby, Amelia Marie, exactly one month after I had Evie. They are such cute cousins!
And our friends Nate and Audrey had their baby, Lola, one day before Evie was born. We are going to have some fun play dates with all these girls!
And I might as well throw in these pictures of Evie who is two months old here. She is really getting SO big. I cannot believe how fast she is growing. She is much bigger than Ella was at this time, so she might be taking after Kash!

Heave Ho!

Oh, the giant bear. Some of you might remember him. Well, I heard I giant crash and thought for sure one of the kids had finally fallen all the way down the stairs so I went running. But it was just that dreaded giant bear. Ella and Kash were at the top of the stairs laughing and I knew right away they had thrown him down, sending the basket of toys that stays on the stairs with him. So I insisted that they take him back up to the playroom, and no, mom was NOT going to help them. It took them a good ten minutes to lug that thing up but they finally did it. It was quite the workout. Maybe next time they will think twice before doing that again.

Busy

This past week has been so busy! I cannot believe Christmas is almost here and I am still scrambling to get ready for it. I feel like I have just been going going going and at the end of the day I wonder what I really accomplished. I also feel like Ella and Kash have been acting out lately, fighting and oh the whining (Kash is my whiner for sure). I don't even know how many times I have threatened them that Santa is watching and going to take one of their presents away! By now there are no presents left! But I was looking at these pictures and it made me so grateful for them, even though they really drive me crazy on a daily basis.

My little planner

I remember I used to have my outfits all planned out and have them laid out nicely the night before school. I would even write my whole week out, and keep a record to make sure I didn't wear the same thing too close together. I was always trading shirts with my friends (Kristen!) to switch things up. There was a time when I was super organized with this type of thing, and now I only care if I can zip up my jeans. Anyways I am flashing back to this because Ella reminded me of it. She told me that she had already picked out her outfit for the day. I told her that she was getting her picture taken at school today and we had already picked something out for her to wear. But she said, "oh no mom this is my outfit for AFTER school, silly!" So I went upstairs and found this laid out on her bedroom floor:
Complete with hat, purse, Kash's church belt, butterfly wings, and shoes! I could not believe the detail she put into this! I thought it was the funniest thing and had to have Matt come see it too. Who knows maybe she will follow in her mom's footsteps. And thank goodness she didn't put up a fight about wearing this to school.