christmas cheer.

Cute Grandma Jones and Mataya! Look how she is holding her skirt on one side...so dainty.
We love our South Dakota cousins Raylee and Tucker!

The two things that make Christmas bright are fudge and Snuggies. Here is Parker rockin' the kids Snuggie. Mataya was overwhelmed with all her gifts:) Santa just wrapped the boys presents, but some of them looked like they were wrapped by a lil' tardy elf. These two planned their outfits.
Mataya had her own little seat. I think it was just a decoration, but she fit in it perfectly. Raylee and Spencer playing Connect 4. It was funny they just took turns putting their checkers in and made a nice pattern:) They didn't really "get" how to play. Merry Christmas!

tis the season.

Mataya got this cute onesie from Santa that says: "What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's!" I sure wish that was true for me. After our 5 night stay at the "Jones Bed and Breakfast" and being spoiled with amazing food I'm sorry to report that I came home 5 pounds heavier....sure wish that could have stayed at Grandma's!

Tis the season.....for New Year's resolutions....

say cheese.

We had a fantastic time celebrating Christmas in South Dakota. We are glad to be back home. I will post more about our adventure. We stopped to see Cory's cute grandma on our way to church on Sunday. Mataya is a doll...and Parker has issues taking normal smiling pics...we need to work on it I guess:)
Mataya started doing this cheesy smiling while closing her eyes, it is so cute. She started doing it when we got to SD. I think she was showing off for all the fam:)

chocolate.

You gotta love a morning that starts out with a little boy wearing incredible hulk pj's with a ring around his mouth from a See's Candies chocolate sucker.

santa.

Parker was anxious to tell Santa what he wanted. Spencer was actually excited to see Santa this year. He is showing him on his list what he wants. The boys had cut out pictures from ads and catalogs to show Santa. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't any confusion as to what to bring this year. Mataya's body language says it all. She is looking at me wondering why this old man is holding her.Whenever something is too loud or she is scared her arms go up by her hear ears. It's quite cute:)

a burger, the book of mormon, and good times

Spencer was just like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz who needed courage and had to find it somewhere. He found his in a little place called Kangaroo Zoo. We had the boys birthday party there in March and Spencer was so afraid to go on anything. He would've just sat there if it weren't for his best buddy/cousin Marley. But this time we went back and it was a success. I ran around with him for the first 30 minutes and helped him climb up and slide down things. I could not contain my excitement as you can see it on my face. Parker is Mr. Fearless.
The boys wore their Kangaroo Zoo t-shirts from the party so they each got a free slush puppy. It was perfect for our little red-faced, sweaty boys. After we took a little break and re-hydrated, Spencer and Parker were off again and I stayed with Cory. Spencer had no trouble going on everything. It was awesome to see him not be afraid and just do it. It was great that I could go on the bouncy things. It says you can't weigh more that 150 pounds, and last time we were there I was 7 months prego and weighed just over that so let's be honest I was a little excited to play with the boys this time around.

The little girl hung out with Daddy and had a great time.

So the whole reason behind the trip to Kangaroo Zoo was it was our reward as a family for finishing the Book of Mormon. We started out last year and slowly, but surely we finished on November 22, 2009. It has been a great experience for us and we have grown as a family and have had a stronger spirit in our home. So we finished it one day and then started over the next. It's a pretty good book I don't think you could ever read it too many times:)

I remember after we had Mataya and we got home and were all together again and we sat down to read and it was a challenge to suddenly have another person to manage and still read. It was a struggle, but we read every night and I'm so grateful for an awesome husband that is right there by my side as we try to teach our children what we know to be true.

So our reward would not be complete without a stop at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. Mmmmm, so good! Sometimes you just need a big ol' burger.

embarrassed....to say the least

Friday night was Cory's work Christmas party. It was at Rodizio Grill. We had a big room and we ate, and had a comedian/magician, which was pretty entertaining. Then some ladies from his office were passing out little gifts to everyone. Then suddenly this guy shows up:

Mr. Santa Claus. What a pleasant surprise.....but look closely at him.

It's Cory!

So this had been in the works for a few weeks and it was supposed to be a surprise, but a few people found out beforehand. (because of me, I didn't know it was supposed to be a surprise, Cory forgets to tell me things sometimes:)

He did an awesome job. He was so funny! I think he was funnier than the comedian. He was giving gag gifts to the CEO, CFO, the president, and some other people in the office. He joked that he hoped he would still have a job by Monday.

So I was standing by the side during his little act because I wanted to get some pictures of him. We told Parker and Spencer about it and they really wanted to see pictures. We had to tell them that Daddy was just pretending to be Santa to be funny and give gifts to people. So he is finishing up and he starts to leave and I see him walking towards me and at first I think 'okay, maybe he will give me a little kiss', but little did I know he was coming at me with crazy, Santa eyes! He grabs me, dips me down and is kissing me. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then slaps me on the butt so hard that it really hurt. So he walks away and leaves me standing there with 50 people looking at me turn bright red!

I later asked him why he slapped me so hard on the butt and he said, "I wanted people to hear it!" I told him thanks for the red cheeks you gave me. I only have 4 and 3 of them were as red as the Santa suit!

I always took pride in the fact that I don't get embarrassed, but then I married Cory and it all went downhill from there. I need a little revenge for this one!

Someone came up to him afterward and said, "I'm glad my kids weren't here to see this, it would've been hard to explain Santa kissing some other lady!" Cory said, "It's an adult party I figured I would kick it up to a PG-13 party."