Christmas

Merry Christmas!!!

Maelie sooo excited to get her dessert maker from Santa... the kids loving Daddy's new toy

stockings!!!




new PJ's on Christmas eve... Jaxon fell asleep on the way home and was not a happy camper!

temple lights on Christmas eve

The Nativity...




stockings all hung with care, waiting for Santa!!!

Christmas Letter

I actually wrote a Christmas letter this year... amazing!!! (for my blog book, disregard if you've already read it)

Merry Christmas from the Stanford’s 2010

Jonas is still working at Orbital Sciences as a mechanical engineer. He enjoys his work when he gets to program so I think we have found one of his passions and hope to find a way to put it into action. He works with the 12-13 year old scouts, going to mutual on Wednesday, teaching some Sundays, and going on campouts. He is the awesomest husband and father around and we love him so much!

Mistie is still a stay at home mom. I learned 6 years ago when Maelie was a baby and I was introducing myself to my child development class at BYU-I that I should never call myself “just a mom”. I am so happy to be a mom. It is where I want to be and where I need to be. This past year I have been teaching the 5-6 year olds in primary, with Maelie in my class. I love teaching those kids because they love you no matter what. I love my family so much!

Maelie is a first grader and she loves it! She is learning so much this year and even surprises us with how much she knows about the computer. She has been in piano lessons since May and is doing an awesome job learning to play. She has also been taking a tap and jazz dance class since August. She just performed in her Christmas dance show and we enjoyed watching her. Her favorite things to do are anything artsy, singing and dancing, playing with friends and family, and going to the movie theater. Maelie is our big helper and we love her so much!

Kyla is in preschool again this year. We can’t believe she turns 5 next month and will be starting kindergarten next summer! It has been an interesting year this year as she was diagnosed as “at risk for autism”. She is now in speech, occupational, and music therapy and really enjoys them. Kyla has also been taking dance class since August and she did great in her Christmas dance show. She looks so happy up there dancing. Some of her favorite things include dragons, dinosaurs, Scooby Doo, and pretty much any boy toy. Kyla is such a unique little girl and we love her so much!

Jaxon will be turning 3 in March and we can hardly believe it because we think of him as our baby – not so much anymore! He received the same diagnosis as Kyla in November and he will be starting some therapies soon and probably getting into the same preschool that Kyla has been in. I can’t imagine my baby going off to preschool, he’s just too little! Jaxon loves anything with wheels, trucks, cars, trains… give him one and he is in heaven for the rest of the day! We love our boy, he has always been such a little character and we love him so much!

We are so blessed with the gospel in our lives. It is great to think back on the year and think about all that we have. We are so blessed with wonderful families and a ton of love. And mostly, we are grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us. We love you and hope you have a Merry Christmas!!!

4 days and counting :)

Christmas week is upon us!! We had a good week last week, the last week of school, dance, and therapies, my birthday, and the girls' Christmas dance show!

On Thursday Jaxon and I went to Maelie's school picnic. Maelie loved showing Jaxon around on her playground and showing him off to all her friends. It was pretty cute to watch. :)

On Friday, the first day of break, we had the Bonilla kids over to play. Here are the girls with Gavin who is Maelie's age and in my primary class.

On Friday afternoon I put curlers in the girls hair for their Christmas show on Saturday, I think they look so cute in curlers!

Saturday was my 29th birthday. I was spoiled and got a kindle. I love it! We are kinda inseperable. Right now I am reading The Hunger Games. Anyway, we had to get everyone ready early on the morning of my birthday and get the girls to their rehearsal. After rehearsal, the kids stayed with Shannon and Brooke to play for the afternoon while Jonas took me out for my birthday date. We went to see Narnia in 3D and it was awesome! We then went to Applebees for a very yummy lunch. Then we headed over to Shannon's house to get the girls ready for their dance show. It was at the Mesa Arts Center this year and it was pretty awesome! I always love seeing my kids perform anything, such a great birthday present. Yay for Christmas week!!

life in December

Friday night we went on a bus ride to see Christmas lights. We were supposed to get on the Elf Express bus, the short route, but due to miscommunication, a bunch of us who wanted the short bus got on the long route bus - we think it was close to 2 hours. Our kids shut down at about 7:30 every night. We got off the bus at 8:30 so you can imagine how fun it was. We saw some pretty cool houses tho, but in the future, our own car works much better!

Saturday night we had some friends over... we made pizza and the kids decorated sugar cookies. Good times :)

Yesterday Jaxon and Kyla were dressed up as cute little dinosaurs. Jaxon never wants to dress up and he never wants to smile for pictures - so I was pretty excited when he smiled for the camera!



Since we had leftover frosting from the sugar cookies, we decided to make gingerbread cookies to give to some families in our ward and neighborhood. The kids had a blast!

Thursday I took Jaxon to get his bloodwork done. After 2 pokes and not enough blood, I had to run and pick up Kyla from therapy. Not a fun experience but we had to go back. I made an appt for Monday and had Jonas meet me for help. I was prepared for Jaxon to scream when we even saw the building, let alone when he saw the needle. Well, he actually did pretty good until we sat in the chair and it was time but we got it done! The nurse told me that the nurse who did it last week was no longer allowed to draw blood from children, apparently his veins were good and she should have been able to get enough on the first try... anyway, I hope I don't have to do that again for a while. We've had a lot of unfun bloodwork experiences in our family this year...

I am blessed with a great husband and sweet children. Seriously. Maelie has been learning about letter writing and she came home with a letter today that said "Dear Mom, I miss you when I am at school. I love you Mom. Remember the toy that I always wanted. It's ok if you get me a different toy. Love, Maelie" She is getting that toy for Christmas but it just made me so happy, she is such a sweetie. Kyla's little personality really makes me laugh. She told me today that she wanted a black house and a black car because she loves Toothless (the dragon from How to Train your Dragon). She also told me that she only wants to invite boys to her birthday party until I reminded her of some of her girl friends. She is seriously a cutie pie. I heard the 2 of them talking this morning about how the next baby that comes into our family needs to have the middle name Shaye since Kyla is the only one who doesn't share a middle name with someone. I just live for my family, for watching them, listening to them, and being with them. I need to remember this always especially when they are being little pills!!!

Christmas Traditions

Our family Christmas traditions are a combination of my family, Jonas' family, and stuff we made up on our own. I think we are still in the process of making some so hopefully we get a new one each year...

FHE - we have a special FHE the Monday before Christmas that I got from an FHE lesson exchange. The kids get to decorate a little Christmas tree with different ornaments that all have meaning for the real reason for Christmas.

sugarcube houses - we have done gingerbread before but growing up we did sugarcube houses. That's what we are going to do this year, probably next Monday for FHE.

Christmas cookies - this year we are making Christmas cookies with some friends on Saturday.

Candy Cane popcorn - got this one from my sister in law, and we love it. Last year we ate it all instead of giving it out to people but this year we are giving it to people hopefully. :)

Christmas Eve - Mexican dinner and Christmas lights at the temple with all the fam, I don't think I have ever not gone to the temple on Christmas eve!

Christmas morning - growing up we all met in my parents room for prayer and then went to see the tree in a line youngest to oldest. We did presents and then stockings after breakfast. Jonas' fam had stockings first and then presents and then breakfast. For our family... we wake the kids up because we, meaning I, are too excited to wait until they wake up. We have prayer and we watch Luke 2. Then we open our stockings. Then instead of passing out presents, we give each other the present that we got for someone, hoping to make the kids more excited about giving. :)

Christmas breakfast - biscuits and gravy, egg nog!!!

Christmas dinner - ham and potatoes

12 days of Christmas - I really really want to start this tradition, it sounds like so much fun!!! I hope to get it going this year.

Christmas PJ's - this is from Jonas' fam, they get PJ's on Christmas eve. My family also got to open one present on Christmas eve, so we do PJ's, they usually aren't Christmas PJ's just fun PJ's. :)

stockings - Jonas always had an orange in the toe and "little cheese" in his stocking so we do that. The "little cheese", I am having a hard time describing, but it's that round cheese ... hmmmm..... anyway, then other stocking stuffers and candy of course.

decor and lights - we have almost always had a real tree. In Idaho we went and cut one down the day after thanksgiving. We haven't been very good about doing that in AZ but we have been getting a real tree. I love the smell!!! We always decorate the day after thanksgiving. I hope to get better about decorations and lights on the house because we really don't have that much. The kids love to drive around and look at lights, we have done it for the past 2 FHE's and we have some pretty good lights in our neighborhood.

nativity - Jonas grew up acting out the nativity on Christmas eve. Jonas and I were Mary and Joseph the first time I went there for Christmas. We tried to do it with our small fam in PA and last year my fam did it and it's a fun part of Christmas!

toys - this year, I am making/encouraging the kids give some toys to needy kids, I think we will do this next week. We are also going to get one of those tags off the tree at Walmart and buy a new toy for someone.

Anyway, I am always looking for more traditions - they make Christmas awesome!!!

I might be missing a few like ward Christmas parties and hot cocoa, but that's a pretty good chunk. I love Christmas!

busy season

What a busy week! For me anyway. I like downtime and I like my kids to have downtime. And lately I've been wondering if they have too much going on. The girls have a Christmas dance show coming up at the Mesa Arts Center and they have to go to extra classes for it. So we get to drive an hour round trip for an hour worth of dance 3 times a week instead of the usual one. It's fun. :) Kyla went to her first speech therapy this week. I really like the new clinic she's going to now, especially since it's close to home. She has been to her occupational twice and her speech once and both seem really good. This week she is starting her music therapy and I'm hoping that will be good as well. So we go there for 2 hours on Wednesday and one hour on Thursday. Luckily there is a train table for Jaxon in the waiting room, now I just need a kindle or something. :) Jaxon had his home meeting for early intervention on Thursday so I think he will get some services going soon as well. I think next year, Kyla will just do kindergarten and therapies. I think it's good for kids to have plenty of time to just be kids.

Travis and Kristin and fam were still in town this week from thanksgiving and it was so great having them around. We had their cute kids over to play on Wednesday. Friday we had a family get together and said bye to them until next time. Saturday I took the girls to the Nutcracker. Last year I only took Maelie. This year I decided to try and let Kyla have a chance to come. I told her that there were boring parts and she could only go if she could sit and be quiet for a long time. She really wanted to come and she did fantastic. She had tons of questions during the first 1/2 and wanted to know what was next the entire time. But I am glad I brought both girls, it was fun for them, especially because cousin Kailin was a cute little angel! Saturday night we had our ward party. We met at the church and took a hay ride singing Christmas carols through the neighborhood and to a ward member's barn for a Christmas program. I had to take Jaxon out to see their trucks because he was being so loud. That kid has been yelling a lot lately. In fact, yesterday in church I had him in my primary class with me because he wasn't being nice in nursery. He is fine as long as he has his own space, but that's not gonna happen all the time! Anyway... back to the ward party - after the program there was donuts and cocoa and a hay ride back to the church. I am wishing time would slow down a little - my 29th birthday is approaching!!!