Standage Christmas Party

We had our annual Standage Christmas party last night (Clint's mom's family). It is always lots of fun. We have dinner, visit with cousins that we seem to only see once a year, and have some fun kids activities.

Clint's uncle has a major collection of trains and has an enormous track that's set up in a good portion of their yard. The kids absolutely love it! Caden loved following each train around.

After dinner, the kids were visited by a special visitor. Lexi kept trying to look up on the roof for Santa's sleigh. Each of the kids had their turn sitting on Santa's lap and visiting with him.

We finished off the night by decorating some gingerbread men. Lots of fun! We love this merry time of year!

Christmas Outfits

Thanks to Grandma Jensen for making sure the kids had new Christmas outfits! Life is crazy around here and I didn't think I was going worry about Christmas clothes, but Grandma said it's a must!

Love the posing!

(yeah, my kids must think they are little models and have to pose for every shot!)

The ballet...

My wonderful mother in law treated the girls to a fun night out! We went to Mangos for dinner and the Nutcracker at the Mesa Arts Center afterwards. It brought back many memories from the times I got to be in it. It was fun for me to show Lexi the different parts I played when I was younger. Lexi loved it and kept asking when she gets to be in it. Hopefully someday we'll get to go watch her perform in it!

Christmas Cookies

The kids had fun getting their hands messy and baking some holiday cookies with me. I think more green sugar ended up on Caden and the floor than on the cookies.

Lexi was a little more careful than Caden. I guess that's the difference between boys and girls!

Caden loves this cape. He says he's Super Buddy!

If you just BELIEVE...

Lexi has some of the greatest friends and when they found out they had an extra ticket to the Polar Express they invited her along. She was excited for weeks ahead of time so we read and watched the Polar Express because she wanted to know everything about it. Hopefully next year we'll make the trip up to Winslow and all go together as a fam. Thanks to the Revie's for making it such a blast!

Paige, Morgan & Lexi ready in their PJ's

In front of train

Visiting with Mrs. Clause

Singing carols on the train

Looking out at the North Pole

What a fun night! They all zonked as soon as they hit the car.

The fun is just beginning

We started our Christmas fun this weekend by going with my Mom to her ward Christmas party.

Lexi worked on Christmas ornaments...

while Caden watched the Grinch.

The kids were visited by a "special visitor" and had the chance to sing carols with and sit on Santa's lap.

They had a live band and the kids had fun dancing with Dad.

A-Z Program

Caden finished his first session of A-Z and had such a blast! He loves preschool. On Thurs. they had a program and I was surprised at how well Caden knew all the songs they sang. The video I posted I just love because you can hear him singing above everyone else! (pause music on bottom of blog) How cute is that?! He has such a great personality and loves to have fun.

Saying the Pledge of Allegiance

His certificate and cute Turkey hat

Lesson Learned

What's this you may ask? Nothing but my handsome husband and his nicely shaved legs! Yes, that's right! Clint told his accounts receivable department if they met a certain goal he would shave his legs. Well the bet was made a year ago (at the time it was right before his triathlon, so he thought it would be no big deal) and somehow they pulled off the goal right before the year was up. (Who gives someone a whole year to win a bet anyways??? Apparently Clint does!) Luckily the hair is slowly growing back and hopefully he has learned his lesson about making outrageous deals!

Crazy Boy = Crazy Hair

Caden had a crazy hair day at preschool a couple weeks back. I cut his hair a couple days before this, so there wasn't much to do with it except color it. Caden chose green and wanted it only on the top. When we first sprayed it in he didn't like it and wanted it washed out right away. I reassured him that it looked cool and he wouldn't be the only one with crazy hair. After a few minutes his attitude magically transformed and he loved it!

Keeps on going and going and going...

Halloween this year was a never ending party! Lexi had a Fall Festival in school on Friday which she said was such a blast. They made spider hats and pumpkin pillows, played Halloween bingo decorated cookies and did many more Fall activities. She came home with her backpack full of stuff. Caden also had a Halloween Carnival at his school on Friday. Both Clint and I got to go and it was so much fun. They had all sorts of carnival games and Caden was loaded with candy by the time we left.

On Friday night we had our annual ward chili cook-off/Halloween party. I did make chili and I'm happy to say that I got 2nd place. Woohoo! My prize was a wooden spoon painted silver and mounted on a plaque that says "2009 Chiller Award". The bronze was the "Chill" and the gold was the "Chilliest". The kids had fun playing more carnival games and going around from classroom to classroom trick-or-treating. They had all the rooms decorated to the nines. It was a lot of fun! And once again the kids came home with way too much candy!

On Saturday some friends from our ward threw a Monster Party. We went and the kids had fun hanging out with their friends and playing more games! They even had a fishing pond where they were giving away live gold fish. Somehow I convinced the kids that we didn't need one because we don't have a fish tank! Thank goodness for that! =)

That evening we came back to my parents house and let the kids go Trick-Or-Treating (not for lack of candy reasons! That's for sure!) They also love to pass out candy to the kids that come around, so they spent a good amount of time doing that. To finish off the night we stopped by Grandpa and Grandma Albright's to let them see the kids in their costumes. We were all exhausted by the end of the night.

Caden playing alien anatomy

race of the eyeballs

The kids thought this huge spider at the church was awesome!

Lexi eating her caramel apple.

Our Bishopric goes all out. They were the ghost busters.

Lexi, Brylee, Rylee and Morgan

Lexi the fairy princess and Caden the astronaut!

It's a...

Boy!!!

And we're very excited. Caden said, "yes! I knew it was a boy. I don't want another girl, cause girls are not nice." Lexi looked a little bummed and said, "I knew it was going to be a boy, but I really wanted it to be a girl." I'm sure she'll be excited when the baby arrives and just be glad to be a big sister!
As far as names we have a few we really like, so we don't know what his name will be. We're just happy everything is healthy and that we'll be joined by another sweet boy in a few months!

He kept resting his little hand under his chin. So cute!

He must have know his picture was being taken. Look at that grin!

Waving to us all!

Festive Family Fun

We had fun carving pumpkins last night for FHE. We decided that we'd only get two, since Clint and I would be the ones carving anyway. Lexi wanted her Jack O' Lantern to have a cute face and Caden was insistent on having a mean face. For some reason, no one wants to clean on the insides of the pumpkin, so I get stuck cleaning out the seeds and I actually think it's fun (weird I know!). Clint helped Lexi with hers and I helped Caden with his. Once we were done we went on the front porch and lit them. The kids thought it was so much fun!