christmas

the kids had a great christmas this year. it was the first time they had christmas twice. they spent the day at their dad's and santa came the next night at mommy's house. about a month before christmas i started asking the kids what they wanted. their answers pretty much stayed the same until santa came. what was i to do??? johnny wanted the easter bunny and kate wanted poop.
kate helped make cookies for santa. johnny was too busy.waiting for santa


after santa came


hmmm, what else is in here

christmas sweater party

this year for christmas eve we decided to have a christmas sweater themed party. i have known a lot of people to go to christmas sweater parties, but i have never been to one, and it was so much fun! my parents made great food and we had a white elephant gift exchage also. i missed the kids that night but they had fun with their dad.

we took a couple of pictures in front of the christmas tree before church on the sunday before christmas. i tried to teach them a little about the true meaning of christmas.

gingerbread house

this year was the first year i have ever made a gingerbread house. the kids have gotten a little bigger so i thought it would be fun. it looked easy enough. but actually it was a little challenging. in fact, the roof came very close to collapsing. so i let the kids take over while i baked cupcakes. we had a fun time in the kitchen that day.

kate eating the candy off the roof

the kids did most of the work

our lousy excuse for a gingerbread house

christmas cupcakes

johnny being a big helper

SNOW DAY!!!

monday morning i woke up to the sound of what i thought was light rain outside my window. i got out of bed to look outside and was so shocked when i saw it was SNOW! it snowed all day long and we got to play around and make a snowman. johnny, being the boy that he is, threw it at us as much as he could. but i couldn't get mad because hey, i was so happy that it was snowing, who cares? right? we made hot chocolate, listened to christmas music, and had a fire going in the fireplace. a perfect winter day. it was sad to see the day end because who knows when that kind of a day will happen here again...

the snowman we built on our backyard... just ignore the fact that johnny isn't wearing shoes. lol. he had already gone inside to warm up and i dragged him back out for a picture.


at the little park across the street from our house

this post is dedicated to angie...

THE ANGIE FACE


back in august angie came to visit, and we went to the paul mitchell hair show together. we attended an eighties party that weekend, so after we got ready we took a few pictures and posed kind of silly. the face angie made has made an impact in our lives, and pictures will never be the same.........

johnny calls it the angie face.
(and he started doing this pose in almost every picture completely on his own)







..... and then he got KATE doing the face

happy thanksgiving

the past few years my parents have had thanksgiving dinner early because my dad works on thanksgiving, so we had it the saturday before. my parents always make great food and we had a good time with everybody.


my little pilgrim and indian!
we went over to helen and kevin's house a few weeks ago and she made us these adorable hats
on thanksgiving day we were invited to eat over a t the flynn's house. so we went over with nicole and baby kennedy and had a good time. that was really nice of patrick's mom becky to invite us!

halloween

we had a fun halloween this year. johnny was mr. incredible, and kate was a bumble bee. we went to the ward trunk or treat the night before halloween, and the kids met up with alexis, the scary witch.
tommy took the kids trick or treating on halloween night. they got lots of candy, that i threw out the next day because it was a big, fat MESS!

then the kids came over to my parents house and sophie came over too. they did a little trick or treating with her.

disneyland trip

the first thing i did as a single mom was take the kids on a trip to disneyland. this was their third time there. my nanny christine was nice enough to go with us, and we had a great time with the kids. it was a little hard, but worth it. we love christine.



she got the kids new jammies and gave them to the kids right before we left so they could be excited the whole way there.

johnny was afraid of pirates of the caribbean again, so we decided to have him meet captain jack sparrow himself to show that pirates are nice. kate carried around a bag of fruit loops for half the day. it was so funny because she just held on to it no matter where we went. jack sparrow wanted her to share, but that didn't fly with her.

johnny carried around these pamphlets of disneyland that had goofy on the cover. he called it his goofy book, and he managed to hold on to two of them for two days. he wanted to show the pirate his goofy book.


we got tickets to mickey's trick or treat party. they hold it at california adventure at night and kids dress up in their costumes and can ride the rides and they have candy stations where the kids can trick or treat.

kate was the cutest little bumble bee ever. she wore herself out by the end of the night.

i wasn't sure if i loved johnny's costume... until we saw all the characters from the incredibles. they were so cute with him. there was a big party and a dj playing fun music for everybody to dance to




we met up with angie for lunch and shopping on saturday. christine was nice enough to take the kids on the carousel while angie and i tried on clothes.
kate's new face