Merry Christmas 2011

Our Christmas started out with the ward Christmas party. The girls always enjoy sitting on Santas lap. Sydnie said she would not cry this year, and she didn't but she did look a bit nervous the whole time.

Sydnie:

Brianne:

Kaylee:

One Briannes Birthday we were also in Idaho for Christmas Parties. After Brianne opened her presents the rest of the cousins got to open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins. Grandpa Thornton made some really fun handmade wooden gifts again this year. Brianne got a sewing machine and Sydnie got a mixer.

Christmas eve we were back home and ready for Santa to come. We always let the girls open their p.j.'s they get from Santa the night before. We also watch the church Christmas video and read the Christmas story from the Bible.

The girls all spent the night downstairs, here they are coming up to see what Santa brought them:

Sydnie opening up her stocking, here gifts this year were a singing Rapunzel doll, a princess scooter, a walking puppy and a rapunzel dress.

We played a little trick on the girls they had only asked for one scooter to share, they were excited to get it and posed while I took their picture.

Boy were they surprised when they went into the kitchen and found another scooter waiting for them. Santa brought them each a scooter this year!

Brianne took off full speed on her scooter, without even any instuction on how to stop. We were all a bit worried as she came down the hill. But she managed to stop.

Brianne is usually quite timid with these kind of things but she just took off without even a bit of timidness. If anything I had to tell her to slow down.

Kaylee was a pro in a matter of minutes.

And Sydnie had fun riding her new princess scooter, but was begging for a ride on the moterized scooter any chance she got:

Christmas 2010 finally!

Well it has taken me awhile to recover enough from Christmas to blog about it.

Here is a picture of the Girls in their Christmas Dresses, I can't believe I got one with them all smiling and looking at the camera!

This next photo pretty much sums up our Christmas!

It is blurry and not the greatest. Somehow in the chaos of the morning, my settings got all mixed up, and all of the photos came out blurry. You think I would have noticed when taking them but that is the kind of morning we had. Shaun and I were both exhausted from the hospital experience he had the night before, and then to top things off, the first thing Sydnie did after waking up, was to throw up everywhere. The poor thing was really sick and didn't want to have much to do with opening her presents. But after seeing Kaylee and Brianne open a few she perked up a bit and decided to open some. Luckily one of the first things she opened was her pillow pet, she loved it and immediately laid down on it and started opening the rest of her presents. This picture makes me laugh because like I said it sums up our Christmas pretty well: there is Sydnie laying down opening her presents, the puke bucket in the bottom right corner, and my invalid husband in the background. All things considered we actually had a great Christmas. Believe me things could have been a lot worse and almost was!

We got a lot of snow over the holidays, and we had to deal with it both going to Idaho to see family and coming back. But at least it was good for something: Snowmen and sledding and the girls did plenty of that over the holiday.

Here is a cute photo of the girls making a snowman. I used a new technique I learned called "tilt shift" this really isn't the best photo to use it on but it sort of worked. You blur the top and bottom of the photo to make the things in the middle look miniature. It sort of worked. At least it worked enough to make me want to go out and take a picture that this was meant for and do some more experimenting.

As far as the rest of our holiday we had fun just hanging out around our house and relaxing. Shaun had the whole week off of work and it was nice to have some time together as a family. We also spent a few days in Idaho visiting family. We had a great Christmas party at my parents house. Once again my dad made great handmade items for all of the kids, this year was a fun little jewelry box made out of a single piece of wood. The girls love their boxes and have already put them to good use. The next night was spent at the Huls. We had fun unwrapping our "favorite things" gifts and then had great fun watching everyone dance to our new wii game, Just Dance 2.

P.S. I just updated my photoblog. I have some pretty fun photo's this time that you might want to see.

Happy Holiday's 2009!

I've been trying to think of the best way to do this post, since I can't seem to get myself in the blogging mood, and I was really horrible about taking pictures over the Holidays. So, I decided to just take all the pictures I took over the holidays, even the random ones, and stick them in one big post and get it over with. So here goes......

One of Santa's elves always delivers our girls an early present on Christmas Eve. New Christmas Pajamas! The girls look cute posing in their pajamas. Sydnie has especially taken to the camera lately and any time she sees it, she begs me to take her picture by doing goofy smiles and saying "Cheese". Speaking of, here are a few more of Syndie posing for the camera....

In this one she got so excited she actually fell off the chair immediately after the picture was taken, it still turned out cute.

This one I took just before writing this post. When I got my camera out to upload Christmas pictures she insisted on posing with Brianne. This was one of about 10 shots she insisted I take of her.

Okay, now to Christmas morning. Boy did Santa spoil our girls this year! I don't remember them being that good. Maybe its Santa's way of saying they would be great girls, if they just had better parents. Ha Ha.

Brianne opening a new Christmas blanket. My girls love blankets. I find them everywhere when I am cleaning the house.

Sydnie with the hard to find Zhu Zhu pets. Santa looked everywhere and finally managed to find three just in time for Christmas. I was pleasantly surprised that they lived up to all the hype and my girls have had a lot of fun playing with them.

Fast forward to New Years Eve, I will fill in the rest later. We had a quiet new years eve this year. We decided to not make the long drive back to Idaho and just stay home. It was too late to make other plans so we just stayed home rented a movie and played Rock Band. The next day we went sledding with the girls, then today we went ice fishing (pictured above) I have to say we have had funner ice fishing trips than this one. It all started with Sydnie getting car sick on the way, and throwing up all over her clothes, luckily I had packed extras just for this very reason. Then, when we finally got to the ice fishing spot, Sydnie started crying and would not stop for the entire 2 hours we were there. NO not because she was cold but because she wanted to play in the icy water and I would not let her. We finally gave up after a couple hours of only one nibble. On the way back to our car we must have looked like a sorry sight, because a nice couple stopped and gave us a ride on their snow mobiles. Thank goodness!!! Then on the way home literally within eyesight of our house Sydnie carsick once again threw up. Well, that was just about how the day was going. Once we got home, Brianne(she is a die hard fisher woman) and Shaun decided to try the spot on our lake about five minutes from our house and caught a bunch of little fish, so I guess the day wasn't a total loss.

As for the rest of the Holidays.... We had fun doing favorite things theme on both sides of the family. It was fun to see what everybody's favorite things were. And I have had fun this week trying out some of of my brothers and sisters favorite things, as well as trying out some new recipes. So far, we have tried out Nancy's candy syrup recipe (a big hit, and I have had to talk them out of having waffles for dinner almost every night this week.) We also had, Hawaiian Haystacks (from Greg's favorite recipes), and Beef Stroganoff (from Laura's). I tried out a great cleaner for hard water that Laura gave me, and used a lime squeezer (that Natalie gave us), on a new recipe for white chicken chili. I have also enjoyed reading one of my brother Greg's favorite books "Tuesdays with Morrie". So far, so good, I look forward to trying all the rest of the fun things we got.

Of course I can't leave out one of my most favorite things about the family Christmas parties we attend: that is the fun things my Dad always makes for us. He is a very talented wood worker and always makes all the grand kids fun handmade wooden toys. This year Brianne and Kaylee got a barn complete with fence and hay bales. Sydnie got a cute pull toy with two silly looking guys teeter tottering back and forth when you pull it. Then the whole family got a handmade wooden Chinese checker board.

We had a great Holiday season this year. Thanks again for all the fun things we got from everyone. And to Josh and Jenny for letting us stay at their house and rock out to Rock Band till all hours of the night. We went home exhausted.

Christmas 2008

Santa Claus found our house despite all the snow. We came home to 13 inches on top of what was already there before we left. then it snowed another 6 inches once we got home. The girls were happy to find Santa Claus had left them everything on their lists plus a few items. Kaylee had asked for, an MP3 player, Pixos, Littlest Petshop VIP, Barbie rescue pet, a Goldfish Webkinz, and an Easybake oven. Brianne asked for, big surprise, pretty much the same thing that Kaylee had asked for. Sydnie of course was happy with the presents Santa had picked out for her, she got a new baby doll, a keyboard and a ball popper. Shaun put in a special request for Santa to bring his girls Air Hogs helicopters. And spent most of the day terrorizing us with them. I think this is the way Shaun deals with the mountain of girl toys that Santa brings to our house every year. We also had My oldest brother Mike and his family come to dinner later that day. It was good to visit with them one last time before they leave on their mission to Seattle. My Niece Katie had also just come home from her mission in Spain and it was good to see her again. It is always nice to spend Christmas with family so we were glad they could come.

Kaylee reading the letter Santa Clause had left them.

Opening up the presents

Sydnie in a mountain of presents. I included this one because her hair made us laugh in this picture.

Kaylee flying the helicopter, that is, when she could get it away from Shaun.

Thornton Christmas Party

We had so much fun this Christmas break that there is no way I can fit it all into one post. So I thought I would break it down into smaller post. We will see how many I get done before Sydnie wakes up from her nap.

The first Christmas party we went to was at Grandma and Grandpa Thornton's house. My girls are so lucky to have such a talented grandpa. He made all the little kids wooden rocking horses and the older girls got wooden jewelry boxes. Kaylee was excited about her jewelry box but you could tell she was a little sad about being too old to get a wooden horse. However, she has had a lot of fun riding Sydnie around on her horse. The kids figured out how to scoot the horses around on the carpet and we had a regular rodeo going on in grandma and grandpas living room. Who needs biscuit the $200 horse when you have a grandpa who makes homemade ones just as good.

Sydnie on her horse

Kaylee showing off her jewelry box

Brianne, Kaylee, and Sydnie going for a ride

All the grandkids on their horses.