Sleeping Beauty

Kyla and Johnny spent an entire morning drawing pictures on the white board...

Kyla told me the story that goes along with the pictures they drew.

Sleeping Beauty had a friend dragon named Toothless. She went to find her dragon. She went to the kingdom and found the kingdom rejoicing because it was the Prince's birthday. The Prince's name was John. They rejoiced for about 50 days. When it was time for the party the prince opened a present, it was a dog. He always wanted a dog.



The Dragon was really surprised that the princess and the prince were dancing. Doggie was dressed up like a bee, he always wore funny costumes. When the sun came up they all rejoiced for the princess and the prince and they lived happily ever after.

As of January I now have TWO kids in primary! I was nervous about Johnny leaving nursery, he LOVES it and I didn't think he would like primary as well, sitting still isn't really his thing... He has done great though, the first day he just walked right in sat on the front row and has never looked back. I think the front row actually helps, he says he is winning the race because he is in the front... :)

Last Sunday I asked him about his sunbeam lesson, the conversation went something like this...

"Johnny what was your lesson about today?" -mom

"It was about the lion's den and... who was that guy?" -Johnny

"Daniel?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Daniel. I was Daniel and the lions were roaring and then at the end the angel laughed."

"Oh, really? Cool. Who was the angel?"

"Um, the girl that I like that is in my class."

WHAT? Johnny is so used to being the little brother and playing with girls it is weird to think he has picked one out that he "likes" more than another...

There are three little girls in his class and we asked all three names but after Steve's teasing he wouldn't admit to liking any of them...

We even had one of them over for dinner that same day and Steve had to ask again if it was her but Johnny hid and wouldn't say anything until the subject had been changed.

It was really cute.

Johnny, our lady killer.

CHEESE!!

Johnny asked to take a picture yesterday, I said he could take three... I guess I'm glad he kept going... besides the 10 pics of my glue gun he took some funny ones of Leo. Leo is on a "cheese" kick again, whenever the camera comes out, he smiles like this and says "CHEESE!" It is one of his clearest words... to bad it doesn't mean he is hungry... it is purely for pictures.

Can't you just hear him saying it... "CHEESE!"

Ballet Ballet

Kyla started her ballet class this week! She has been so excited! She has been wearing a leotard, EVERYDAY for two weeks straight. We made a deal, she could wear it whenever she wanted if she would change when we left the house... she has kept her side of the deal. One morning I told her we were going out so she should get dressed in regular clothes, she thought about it a minute and came back with, "Can I wear it to breakfast and then I'll get dressed?" Great negotiating skills little miss!

On our way to ballet! It was everything she hoped for, she LOVED it!

When she was telling Steve about her class, she couldn't remember her teacher's name "It is like feather or something..." It is Heather... :)

This morning when she woke up, she told me she had been dreaming about ballet... I am happy she is so happy!

Grand Canyon

We made a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon. We haven't been for a couple years, it is one of those places that make parents of toddlers a little nervous...

Steve's sister Amy just moved to Flagstaff and we went with her and her family. It was a fun day, Ky asked if we could go back tomorrow...

Amy, Ian, Brad, Johnny, and Steve.

Johnny, Kyla and Ellie.





My BOYS!





This little guy was in one of the displays, not sure if he was meant to be there or not but all the kids thought it was COOL!




The Fam.

Our favorite, the desert view tower!

Phone Booth

The kids all love to talk to Steve on the phone, Leo even gets in on the action. The other day he brought me the phone and said, DA! We called Steve but he wasn't there so I let Leo talk for a minute, leaving a message. When I said it was time to hang up, Leo ran... This is him in his phone booth leaving an hour long message for Steve.

I bet it was an awesome message!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA SEAMONS!!! WE LOVE AND MISS YOU! HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME DAY!

Christmas Morning!

Johnny got a racing game for the Wii that is LIGHTING!!

Leo Monkey with is monkey pillow pet!




Kyla couldn't wait to use her sewing kit, we had to talk hard to get her to stop for breakfast.



We had a fun morning. We took a long time opening gifts because we had to play with everything for awhile before we could move on.

Kyla is writing a letter to Santa to tell him thank you for the scooter... what a sweet girl!

Nativity

We stayed home this year for Christmas, the first time EVER for Steve and I. Even when we lived 15 minutes from my parents we stayed at their house. I wasn't sure what we would do with ourselves but it was a really wonderful time. We missed being with out family but loved the special time with just our little bunch.

Our Christmas Eve Nativity. Mary and Joseph.

Leo was our happy Shepard.

We did something new this year, we made a bed for the baby Jesus. When we did nice things for each other we put a piece of "straw" in the manger. (I went with paper, a little less messy...) The kids really liked it. When our neighbor shoveled our driveway for us they got all excited and said "Jeff needs to put a straw in the manger, he did something nice for us!"

Mesa Temple Lights

We went down to Mesa to see the lights. It was raining but warm still!

Johnny decided this was his favorite tree.

Ky and her best bud, Jade. She sure misses her! We used to be able to tell them apart because Jade always had long brown hair and Ky started out with short blonde hair. Ky has opted for the long brown look too, so now it is a little harder...

Right when we got there Steve broke Leo... :) They were playing and Leo twisted his leg funny. Leo wouldn't walk on it, he had us all in a panic that he broke his leg a couple days before Christmas! We calmed down and made it through the night, he still wouldn't walk on it the next day so we took him into our pediatrician. They did an X-ray but didn't find any fractures or anything. YEAH! He still wouldn't walk on it though, until FINALLY Christmas Eve when the kids opened their traditional new jamies present Leo was inspired to try and walk again. He was off and running after that. I guess he just had to get over his fear that it might hurt... He is a bit of a chicken, can't imagine where he gets it...

AWESOME! Johnny was pretty excited about his Lightning jams.

The Rain Diet...

After our little snow storm, we had another couple days of rain... Our snowman decided he needed to shed a few inches, the rain helped him out with that.

Funny skinny snowman!

By Definition

"Mom, when Dad gets home... I'm going to tell him you called me a TATTLE TALE!"

Once there was a SNOWMAN!

Some of you may not know Steve is the KING of cheesy jokes... the snowman reminds me of one of my favorites, it goes like this,

What happened when the primary chorister got snow tires?

In the sun they melted, melted, melted!

Good, right?!

Now Kyla has picked up on the jokes and tells them all the time, sometimes they are funny... She told us one recently that was pretty good.

Why do chickens sit on their eggs?

Because they don't have any chairs!

Back to the snow... it snowed yesterday and today the kids and I made a snowman.

For some reason Johnny didn't want to stand next to the snowman... too bad the snowman was facing the wrong direction, the lighting in this pic is awesome!

I have been dreading the cold and snow BUT thanks to our warm snap last week and with it being so close to Christmas, I was actually happy about this storm!

Kyla still says snow means Christmas, when it started yesterday she said, "NOW it is Christmas time!"

LIGHTS!

Little America here in Flagstaff put up a TON of Christmas lights every year. We love to go, this year was the BEST EVER! It was so warm!

Kyla and I love the BIG RED tree. We were sad when we went to Temple Square and saw that they don't do their "red tree" anymore. Good thing we have a back up... :)




Ky, giving her favorite tree some love!!




The kids wouldn't pose by the Ginger Bread house for me, but they would all climb on this rock...

Johnny, Kyla, Zack,

Leo and Max.

It was still cold, just warmer than other years... but I guess the kids have been suffering from some cabin fever with all our sickies and quarantines. They would have stayed at the play ground all night, we had to drag them away with promises of hot chocolate.

Leo LOVED the slide and swing!

John Dude




Proof. Steve always gives me a hard time about all the pictures I take, he says, "if you don't take a picture, it didn't happen..." What? I just like pictures, OK?!




Kyla and one of her best friends, Zack.

They have a big fire, a few Christmas trees and Santa inside to warm up with.

Can you see Leo, he is trying to take off with the HUGE teddy bear!

Saturday at the Seamons'

Our Saturday was pretty low key this week. Kyla and I went to the Lollipop concert at NAU. It is just the Suites from the Nutcracker Ballet. We love it! It is only about an hour long so it is perfect for littler ones, and well, for me too... :) Ky really wants to take ballet, I guess it is time to find some classes... Any ideas Flagstaffers?

Dad and the boys hung out at home and worked a little and PLAYED a little too. One of Johnny's favorite games right now is Mario Cart. He is getting pretty good!

I thought this was funny... Ky and John both "plugged in" playing games...

Can't Catch Me, I'm a Ginger Bread Boy

We made our ginger bread house this week. It happens to be G week so it works well, except that the G in ginger makes a J sound... yeah, thank you English language, way to confuse my preschoolers!!

We didn't get the camera out until we were almost done and I was the only one still interested in working on the house... Kyla had moved on to ballet, Johnny was busy taste testing all the candy, and Leo was loving that he could climb on the table and no one made him get down... :)





See: candy eating and table sitting...

I learned a new trick, you can roll out gum drops... cool!

Kyla did the icicles, pretty cool, eh! She also wanted ginger bread people, we found these ginger bread marshmallows, strange? yes, but they work!

Kyla was begging ALL DAY to do the ginger bread house and "we are waiting for daddy to get home" only works for so long... So one time I suggested she draw a picture of how she wanted to decorate it, this is one of her "ideas." :)

Deck the Halls!!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE Christmas?! I love everything about the season. I will even store boxes and boxes of decorations, which totally goes against my "clean out and throw out" nature.

Steve calls our tree "the bush"... it is kinda short and fat. I say, PERFECT!











My favorite of favorites in the boxes of decorations are our nativities. I have always loved them, I remembered putting out my parent's nativity each year, carefully unwrapping each peace and arranging it just right.

Kind of by accident I started to accumulate nativities and now, I officially collect them. Steve gets me one each year.

These are a few of my favorites.

This is Steve's Grandma Hansen's, she passed away two years ago right before Christmas, it is a special one in the collection.





Steve and I got this one in Scotland.




My parents brought this one home from Mexico. It is made in a little gourd and closes up, super cool!

I LOVE that they can play with this one AND it has 2 shepards... 99.9% of nativities only have 1 or none at all. Shepards people, it says shepardS.

I hope seeing these will help my kids think more about Christ during Christmas time.