Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We hope you all have a splendid Christmas filled with lots of family, love and fun filled times as you remember our Savior at this wonderful time of the year!

Visitors from Tennessee!!

One week after Thanksgiving my parents came to visit! They stayed for 5 of the most frigid days we've this Winter and it was fabulous to have them here! My kids thought so too!

Playing games with Gramps.

  

The day after they arrived we decorated the tree! Nina quickly strung the lights and then we got to decorating!

Jack just chilled why we decorated. Sweet boy!

After we finished decorating we got to have Christmas! Nina and Gramps sent packages before they came, we wrapped them and then got to enjoy opening them! It was fun and they were so generous! Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts!

My cute dad

Nina and Loreli.

haha she is totally Shea's girl.

That night Shea and I went to a company Christmas party! Hooray for dates!

Loreli before church. She's so sweet.

We did lots of other fun things while Nina and Gramps were here! We went to the doughnut shop, strolled around Lander, got some steals at the local thrift store, played toys, sewed stockings (my mom cut and sewed 12!), watched new shows, ate yummy popcorn, made cinnamon ornaments and painted them! It was such great fun and we hope they will come for another visit soon!

Look who redid the stockings...

It was Shea. Seriously that boy is compulsive when it comes to sewing and craftiness. Let me tell you he's got problems. Of course I lie and the above description really defines me, Katy. I am guilty of constant craftiness and I love it. So I made stockings last year that I decided I didn't love this year. I am not sure I love these new ones, but this is it. These are the ones we will use forever. Maybe.

I made the tags by printing on some fabric cut out the shape I wanted, added an eyelet and viola. Done. I cannot promise that I won't change those since it was a quick solution to the no name problem. Here's to vowing to not change the stockings for at least...another year.

Thanksgiving Fun

Thanksgiving was spent in Star Valley this year.  Much fun was had by all, except those few who got the 24 hour flu and had to miss from the middle of thanksgiving dinner till about that time the next day.  Seriously this is like the worst 24 period of the year to be fluish.  Thanksgiving and no pie???!!! Seriously?! It is difficult for me to adequately express my.... gaaaahhhrg!  So let's move on.

The morning of, we went into the wild in hunt for the elusive Christmas tree. 

We were better prepared with Jack than we were the first time we took Loreli tree hunting.  No mitten boots for this guy.  You know the hardest part about finding the perfect Christmas tree??

They are always hiding on top of another tree.  There are a couple more 18 foot stumps in the South Pass this year because of our ventures. 

And lets not forget that favorite Thanksgiving tradition, the pinata.  Right...

Then there was an exchange of personalized white elephant gifts. 

The Arm Chairs

Pinnacle Back End Party, December 2008 with Carl and Tracey

Years ago when we were living in Rexburg our amazing friends Carl and Tracey knew some people who were getting rid of an icky old couch and two wooden arm chairs. We were but poor college students and literally had no furniture so we were up for some free furniture! Remember the fort bed? Yeah. We were broke. The couch as before mentioned was icky. The fixed cushions were no longer attached to the back of the couch and I used to jokingly say we could use it for storage which we could have used in our teeny tiny apartment. Before we left Rexburg we gave the couch away for free and kept the arm chairs. They moved with us to North Dakota where after a year of staring at them I finally recovered them and just this week finished them with a third coat of minwax poly shades.

Here's a throwback with Loreli and one of the hideous chairs. Ahh...the mullet days. 

Here's a peek at the chair 8 months after I recovered them.

The very first coat on a chair.

And after 3 sanding sessions, 3 coats and a little bit of furniture polish...

Tada! And hooray for being done with a project that I've talked about doing for 5 years now. Thanks again Carl and Tracey for the chairs! I bet you're surprised we still have them. :)

Loreli is Three!

Loreli is three! She has been anxiously awaiting her birthday for some time now and telling people "my birthday coming soon!" And that it did! Monday night we decorated the house (aka stayed up too late and blew out a lung) and it was well worth the time to see her excitement in the morning! 

Such and happy and surprised little girl

This one is for you Mysha! I love the double circle garland! Go make some!

As requested we ate sprinkle doughnut holes, strawberries and strawberry milk for breakfast. She was in heaven and of course little Jack was pleased with her requests. Shea had one doughnut hole and began to regret his choice and had a low-fat yogurt instead. Lame.

Playing with party blowers

Since Shea was off on her big day we didn't make her wait all day to party. One of these days when He gets a job with normal hours she will have to wait all day long and it will be pure agony. Believe me. I know. 

Hoarding the toy nativity from Grandma and Big Jack so little Jack couldn't get it.

Princess polly pockets!

She was so excited to see all of the princess accessories and clothes organized. Thanks Ellie and Elizabeth for the awesome hand-me-down! It's perfect for her.

She got some awesome letters from Ella and Rivy.

She loved them so much she hugged them! Cousin love.

Loreli has been eyeing this little balloon at Smith's for the last 3 months. So I took a little mental note and picked it up for her and this nice little potted gerbera daisy.

She got a birthday mani-pedi...in glitter, of course.

Loving the cake from Nina and Gramps! She sang "Happy Birthday to You" about a million times.

She spent all day playing with all of the awesome toys and watched one of her new Angelina Ballerina shows. She was so entertained and played by herself all day! It was perfect! After dinner that night we had "baby and big cupcakes with purple frosting" per her request. 

Somewhere in the whole thing one of her candles went out and she only blew out two. Shea says she'll be short changed her entire life so she should just get used to it.

We sang happy birthday to Jack too, but he didn't wait for us to finish he just went to town on that mini thing! 

Pizza and frosting face. Mmmmm.

Happy Birthday Loreli!