Christmas recap

I know that Christmas was over a month ago now, but as this blog is for journaling purposes too, I feel its necessary to actually backtrack. We had a fun Christmas eve with my family and our friends the Sabogals. We stayed up till midnight playing games and eating tamales, following the Hispanic tradition and then sent the kids to bed so that Santa could make his appearance. Mind you we went to bed closer to 2 and it was still clear outside. We woke up at 9 and woke up to the surprise of a VERY WHITE christmas day! Josh and Madsen had both been dreaming about a white christmas and I couldn't believe they got their little hearts' desires, especially since everybody told us later that this hadn't happened in 30 years. Madsen was so excited to see that Santa had come and that he had gotten his #1 item for his list, his dolphin pillow pet. Pierson got a penguin one from Santa too per Madsen's request. Later our good friends the Sabogals came over and we enjoyed an amazing afternoon in the snow :)

Our Christmas morning surprise

Pierson and Tio Ervin

Madsen enjoying his stocking stuffers

My happy baby excited to open his presents

The beautiful creche/manger my husband built for our nativity set

The delicious homemade tamales

Josh and Cesar's hawaiian snow woman

She was too pretty to resisit. haha

Who says it doesn't snow in Tennessee?

Madsen and Ilyana our cute little couple :)

Beautiful little Ily

Josh's improvised snowboarding

The Sabogal family: Wilson, Jafeth, Ily and baby in the oven

Madsen and Ily absolutely loved sledding

Those mittens make holding on hard...

obviously. haha

Christmas card 2010

We Heart You Holiday Card

Christmas cards and holiday thank you cards by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I am so excited to send out our Christmas cards this year! We took family pictures this weekend and they turned out fantastic. If you want a receive a christmas card from me make sure you to send me your current address. Merry Christmas everyone!

Disney world

So we went to Disney world at the beginning of the month and it we had an AMAZING time. It was so much fun to have a family vacation and be able to spend time with Mackenzie, Richard, and Spencer. We had an amazing room with a beautiful view in the Animal Kingdom lodge. Madsen was so excited to wake up and say good morning to all the animals on the Savannah. He was also very excited to go to bed every night so that as he said "I can get some rest and wake up and go to the park and see Mickey again tomorrow". Even Pierson loved all there was to see and do. He loved taking pictures with the characters. His little legs wouldn't stop kicking as he got closer and closer to the front of the line. It was a much needed family time and it brought us so much joy to see our boys having so much fun. We got to visit Josh's cousin Cami, Jon, and Ty on the way home. Even though it was a overcast and windy we decided to go walk on the beach. Madsen finally got to go find seashells on a real beach. He had so much fun with Ty, they are best cousins and can't wait to see each other again.

The amazing view from our room.

One of our many daily visitors

Our cute little mickey eared Pierson

Smiley Spencer

Madsen was so excited to see Handy Manny

So excited to drive the car himself

Poor kid didn't understand why the rides had to be over.
This is the way he looked at the end of almost every ride.

Waiting for the parade on our last night

The Wilson family

Windy day at the beach :)
It's great for your hair. Can't you tell?
Two sets of best cousins

Christmas time!

Its time to start celebrating my favorite holiday out of the year. We got an earlier start and put up our Christmas tree a couple days before thanksgiving. I love how excited Madsen is getting for Christmas this year as he's finally old enough to fully understand what's going on. He loved putting up the tree and decorating it. I can't wait until we start putting up the rest of our decorations and especially the Nativity scene. I know that the story of our Saviors birth will mean a lot to him and he is ready to know why this is such a special season. It is a season that is filled with love from family and friends. I love the feeling of closeness between everyone. I especially love sending and receiving Christmas cards. It is so nice to be able to see pictures of everyone and enjoy hearing a little bit of what's been going on in their lives. I love using all the cards I get as Christmas decorations as well. We always make a christmas card tree on our wall and enjoy seeing our friends everyday. So for all of you who love Christmas cards too, you'll be excited to hear that shutterfly has a special going on for bloggers. If you blog about why you love their Christmas cards, and put it on your blog, they will give you 50 cards free!!! They have so many different designs its so hard to choose which one I like the best. But I finally narrowed it down to the Family Wall Red Christmas Card. I love the collage look, since it’s always hard for me to choose just one picture that’s perfect and this way I can include even more pictures of my cute kids. So for all of you who love Christmas cards too take this opportunity to get some really cute cards and don't forget to send me one :) They also have other cards like baby announcements for those of you who are about to have babies. Once again they are super cute designs.

Enjoying the Fall weather

Fall is beautiful here in the south. I love seeing all the leaves changing colors. It has been so long since I've enjoyed an east coast autumn. We decided to enjoy the last of the warm nights by going camping. We went with our friends the Hamblins and it was so much fun. We borrowed a friend's boat and went out to an island out in the Tennessee River. It was really nice to be out there by ourselves. It was fun cooking smores over the fire and enjoying the stars. Madsen asks to go again all the time.

The beautiful autumn leaves

Bryan cooking our yummy dinner

The morning after.
My little Pierson stayed nice and toasty warm all night

we miss you heiners

Between the wedding and family reunion we were able to visit our forever friends the Heiners who we had dearly missed, unfortunately sans Matt, in Provo right before they moved away. Madsen was so excited to see Max and Sambo again. It's amazing how much they remember. He immediately recognized our old apartment building and new exactly where we were. It was such a fun reunion for the little best friends. They hit it off as if they had never seperated. And the next set of best friends, Sam and Pierson, hit it off as well :)We had a fun two days with them and we were sad to say goodbye again. But we know that we'll always keep in touch and someday visit each other again. :)

Connie told me later that Sam came out of his room
the morning after we left and asked where the baby was. Cute Sambo :)

Best friends reunited

Pierson loved his Aunt Connie

We realized all of the boys had their converses on,
so we had to take a cute picture

Yes we are still alive :)

I know it has been monthS since I last posted. I will just say that this summer was a whirlwind for us. Wedding prep, traveling cross country TWICE, missionary homecoming, actual wedding and family reunion all in the space of two months. And then there was the settling back into our home after. I'm not even sure where to start. We were lucky to be able to visit all our family and friends back out west this summer and we had a blast. We went in June for a good friend's wedding and for me to go wedding dress shopping with Kristi. I'm so glad I was able to be there. I would have been extremely sad to miss it. We went boating with the Harmon fam and had lots of fun even though the water was pretty cold and we had Wyoming's reliable wind to join us. Madsen loved the "beach" as he called it. We came back home for the month of July and blessed Pierson and then went back out to Utah and Wyoming where the boys and I spent almost the entire month of August there. We welcomed Kyler back from his mission to South Carolina and then celebrated Kristi's wedding two days later. She was a beautiful bride and we're so happy for her and her husband Cameron. We had a family party for Madsen's birthday, nothing super elaborate. We followed the Harmon family tradition of a train cake and he loved it. He especially liked that I let him pick all the candy and that it was Thomas the train. I was glad he recognized who it was meant to be. I had planned for a more elaborate cake but ran out of time so I must say it looked good for being baked and decorated all in one day. We later enjoyed a fun Grigg family reunion and were able to spend time with all of Josh aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on his mothers side. We felt that it was pretty important to be there as his Grandpa Grigg's health has been declining and we're not sure how many more opportunities we will have to spend time with him.

PS. Sorry this is such a long post but obviously there was a lot of catching up to do :)

Crazy Jacob who swam out to the deep where it was colder

Poor Madsen was confused as to where all the seashells were :)

Josh bet his dad a one way ticket to Chattanooga to get in the water

So obviously he's coming to visit soon enough :)

Madsen trying to get excited about the cold water

Classic nieces and nephews pic. Madsen running away and Isa crying :)

The cute couple

Madsen's Thomas train cake

My sweet Pierson.

As crazy as this sounds his hair looks short

to me in this picture compared to how long it is now.

He couldn't wait to eat that cake

Mmmm...delicious

Obviously he got quite a few Toy story toys. He was ecstatic.

And to top it all off Papa and Grandma got him a scooter!

He immediately went outside to test drive it :)

Swimming

Madsen loves swimming and has become quite a good swimmer.