gingerbread cookies

My brother Travis and his family are in town for Christmas, it's been great having them around!He just graduated (way to go Trav!) and we sent him and Kristin out for a date while we watched their kids, it was great fun having them over!! We made gingerbread cookies, played and watched a movie. The kids had lots of fun together!

Merry Christmas!!

Life has been busy!!

Grandma Rogers made all the girl grandkids these cute Christmas dresses!!

Maelie and Kyla both had their last day of school parties on Thursday, the day Jonas and I took off for a little getaway. Kyla got to wear her PJ's, eat cookies and hot chocolate, and watch Polar Express with her blanket and pillow. She had a fun day! Kyla and Jaxon are both on antibiotics for ear infections!!! Grandma was able to go to Maelie's party and program and she took some pix and videos from her phone for us to see. She sang songs, made cookies, and had a book gift exchange. She had a great time! When we got home from our trip, I took Maelie to urgent care. She has pink eye and a UTI. Poor girl! So she is also on antibiotics. We also have to give her eye drops 4 times a day for a week and it isn't too much fun for any of us!!! I hope everyone is feeling a little better on Christmas day!

We have been planning to take the kids to Disneyland when a certain child grows out of a few things, we're crossing our fingers it will be soon!! And we also want to go before Jaxon turns 3 so he will be free, so hopefully next fall/winter/spring... well, this year, we wanted to take advantage of the free ticket on your birthday and we just felt the need to get away! My Mom and Shannon were nice enough to watch the kids for 2 nights while we went. Thank you!! It was awesome! We will babysit for you - DO IT!! Anyway, we upgraded my ticket to a park hopper and got Jonas a ticket. We got there right when it opened at 8 and hit all the big Disneyland rides and the lines were 10 min max! My fave is probably Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain. Then we headed over to CA Adventure and hit all the big rides there. Tower of Terror is awesome! We also saw the Aladdin show that we had never seen before and it was pretty cool! I was really excited to go on the free fall and the Mickey coaster (California Screamin') because I really liked those back when I was a teenager. Well, I didn't like either of them! The coaster made me sick! And I could tell Jonas wanted to go again, so we did, I was thinking I might like it better the 2nd time, but I got really sick. I was concentrating the whole time and taking deep breaths trying to keep myself from puking. It was awful! I was so annoyed with myself! I have been wanting to take Jonas to Magic Mountain someday but we have been worried about his vertigo. Well, he was fine with all the rides, but now I am worried about myself, I don't think I could handle Magic Mountain anymore! SAD!!! Oh, it was so funny, when we first went to ride California Screamin' we saw this line right by it and the line was 40 minutes! All the other lines had been 5 minutes. So, we wanted to ride the coaster so we went ahead and got in it. About 1/2 way thru the line, we realized this wasn't the coaster but some silly Toy Story ride we probably wouldn't have gone on if we hadn't accidentally. But we started to wonder why it was 40 minutes... well, it was actually really cool. You get in these little cars and wear 3D glasses and you have a little shooter thing and you play arcade games against the person next to you. Jonas wasted me! It was fun! Well, after the coaster, I was sick for like 2 hours so we kinda took it easy. I finally got over it about the time we got back to Disneyland and it was a whole new place over there - CROWDED!!! I think all the Californians got off school and work and came out for the night to see all the Christmas stuff. Dland looks awesome at Christmastime. The castle and Small World look amazing! The Christmas parade and fireworks show were awesome, too! I really liked the part in the firework show during Silent Night, I think it was the only mention of the Savior at Disneyland and it was an awesome thing. And it snowed down main street! Small World plays Christmas music and it is all decked out Christmassy inside. And the Haunted House is all redone like Nightmare before Christmas, very cool! Anyway - wow - that was a long one. Well, we planned to go see the ocean on Saturday but we had to get home to sick Maelie... and since we have been home it has been a whirlwind of urgent care, primary, and family. And now I need to go clean up the mess it all left behind. Excited for Christmas this week!!! Merry Christmas all!!!

RUDOLPH

I love the blog books I have made for the past 2 years so that is how I think of my blog now - working on my family history. We have been enjoying the christmas season - love looking at lights, blasting the Christmas music, trying to stay away from goodies ;), shopping for presents and wrapping presents, the kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas party last night, and we are going to our ward's party tonight.

While I was cleaning the bathroom this week, Jaxon had some fun with my mascara!! He also got it on the couch - but I got it out. It was really hard to get it off his face, in fact there is still some on his face... why is it that my kids are busy making messes while I am busy cleaning up messes???

Another story for the book... Maelie asked me how to spell Rudolph and I told her R-u-d-o-l-f and she kept telling me, "No, that's not right, Mom. There is another sound for f that is 2 letters but I can't remember." Well, in my defense I was cooking dinner and not completely listening to what she said. I kept telling her I was right and that is how you spell it and even said, "Maelie I am 27, a lot older than you, I think I know how to spell, if you don't believe me go get the Christmas dvd and find Rudolph's name on there." Well, she found it and brought it to me and sure enough I spelled it wrong. She said, "I told you, Mom." She told her teacher, who had told her how to spell Rudolph that day "You are smarter than my mom for spelling Rudolph." :) Maybe I should go back to school!

thanksgiving

We had thanksgiving over at Grandma and Grandpa Rogers' house, the feast was yummy!

Then the kids made graham cracker houses and decorated a paper Christmas tree for Elder Rogers...

Then there was lost of playing outside in the 80* weather! I remember last thanksgiving was also nice, we went to the park in PA because it was above freezing :)

We were all very tired when we left Grandma and Grandpa's house. We saw a tree lot on the way home and really wanted a real tree this year since our fake tree is pathetic. We thought about heading up north to cut our own tree down, but with gas and the fact that you can't get real Christmas trees in AZ, we decided it was worth it to buy a tree from the lot. Maelie was asleep in the car but the rest of us headed in and found the perfect tree! We couldn't resist! We love our tree, it is huge and almost a perfect shape and it smelled so good this morning... and it's from Oregon. I want to plant it in the backyard when Christmas is over. :) It was soooo much work to get that thing upright and straight, wow! We were exhausted when we were done! I am loving the Christmas feeling in our house now. Today's project is more lights for our tree (one strand went around only once at the bottom of that thing) and lights for the outside of our house!

The big surprise is this year Jaxon is leaving the tree alone for the most part and playing with cars and wrenches instead, yay!

pre-turkey day

We had a busy afternoon! Kyla goes to preschool at noon at a different school from Maelie. So I had to drop Kyla off at preschool which took more time that I thought. Luckily my mom came and was in the car with Jaxon. Maelie had a feast and little pilgrim program at her school at noon too. So we rushed over to her school and when we got there they had already sung their songs and Maelie had already shared her picture. I was so sad! Luckily, Maelie has a great teacher and she let Maelie share her pic again at the end so we could see her. I was sad to have missed out on all those kids singing the cute songs. Maelie sang them for us at home, CUTE!!

Then I went back to Kyla's school to her pie party. My mom stayed at home with Maelie and Jaxon - thank you!! I got to eat pie with Kyla and then she showed me her favorite thing to do at school - surprise surprise - play with the dinosaurs!!

such cute little pilgrims!!

On Sunday Jonas told me to come look at Jaxon... he was laying on the ground like this just staring at the Cars DVD. It was so funny! He really loves that movie.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Maelie's field trip

Poor, poor Piglet

It's been a rough almost 2 weeks but I see the end in sight. Hopefully it doesn't come back to our house!!!

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