Christmas 2013

I'm finally getting my Christmas post done. For some reason I couldn't get blogger to upload my photos so it took me a while to figure out what was wrong. 

Christmas was wonderful this year. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but for some reason I always forget until it's over and then I kick myself. 

Christmas Eve playing with daddy. I LOVE it when they play together like this. The kids are happy and dad is having fun with the them and that makes for one happy mamma. Sorry don't mind the laundry in the background. I hate folding laundry, to me it's the worst household chore. 

Christmas Eve seemed like it was really busy, but now as I write this I can't for the life of me think of what we did. I know we started the day off making cookies for Santa and did a lot of other stuff too.

 The kids were so excited this year to leave cookies for Santa. Clay is awesome and even helped them sprinkle some oats and carrots on the front lawn for the reindeer. Carter was not really old enough to know what was going on but the girls excitement rubbed off on him.

                                      
I love the magic of Christmas eve when all the presents are laid out and the tree is lit and everything is ready for Christmas. The air feels heavy with the spirit.

And then of course the fun begins on Christmas morning. Luckily all the kids slept in until almost 8 so we got to sleep in too!

I took each of the kids on a special date with mom to pick out their Christmas gifts for their siblings. They loved it and so did I. It was special and they were so excited to exchange their gifts they had gotten for each other.

Christmas night playing with their gifts. 

Clay got me this Shark Sonic Duo Floor Cleaning System. That baby is going to save me a lot of time bending over to scrub the floor. It will also clean carpets and does a pretty good job. 

Merry Christmas

This year's Christmas was a very busy one, full of fun and family. My little sister and her cute little family came from Maryland, and it has been so fun to see them and spend time together! Her little baby Kamden is 3 months old but we had never meet him befor so I have tried to spend as much time with them as possible. We spent Christmas morning home opening presents and getting ready for church. Grandma and Grandpa Oler came to watch the girls open presents and then they got to come to church with us.

Then after church we hurried up and got things ready to head to Grandma and Grandpa Olers for more presents and dinner. Every year we get spoiled at Grandma and Grandpas house but this year was one of the best. We got more presents then we could count, but most of all we had so much fun spending time with all the family.

Then after lunch we loaded up our tahoe to the brim with presents and headed back home to see grandma Julie and grandpa Steve, they came and stayed the night with us. After getting more presents and playing their little hearts out Mea and Kait crashed for the night! Whew! What a busy but wonderful day!  *Keep going, to see Mea's dance recital*

The Merriest Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas with loved ones and friends! Our Christmas was wonderful, one of the best! We got to stay home this year which meant we got to watch Maleah and Kaitlyn open their presents here at our own home. It was so much fun, Maleah didn't get the whole Santa thing, until she saw all the presents. As soon as she saw the tree she said "Santa really did bring me presents" haha it was so cute! Her and Kaitlyn both had a blast opening their Santa presents. My mom and dad came down to watch and then we had a Christmas breakfast.
 
After was hurried and got ready and then headed down to my mom and dad's house. We had a huge yummy dinner and then opened more presents. We were spoiled, thank you mom and dad! This Christmas was so nice and warm and peaceful. It was so nice to be able to remember Christ and his birth, his life, and the sacrifices he made for us. I love that everyone is trying to be more like Jesus this time of the year!

Kaitlyn and her toy from Santa.

The girls and all their presents from Santa: they got mostly clothes this year.

Maleah got a baby alive from Santa, she loves it and couldn't put it down all day. It eats bananas and drinks from it's sippy cup and then it talks as well.

Her new doggie form daddy!

Grandma Oler got them a cute doll house, Kaitlyn loved it!

Look at this face, it is the cutest! She always has a comb over now, haha, I don't know how else to do it.

Kaitlyn enjoying opening her presents!

Mea was so funny, we would tell her to smile for the camera and she would smile as big as she possibly could, it was so cute!

Family picture: I don't know what Mea is doing?



Also Kaitlyn is walking, yeah! Check out the video.

OUR VISIT TO THE TRUJILLO'S HOME!

One of the members from Clay's mission was able to come to Logan on a student visa.  Because of new government rules in Venezuela she has to go home next week. So we made the trip to Logan on Thursday to visit her before she leaves. She has been staying with one of Clays companions from his mission. We got to visit with them and we had a really good time at their home. Anna Trujillo and Dulce Gutierrez (the member girl from clay's mission) made us a traditional Venezuelan Christmas dinner. The food was great, they were all speaking Spanish the whole time which was overwhelming for me, but it was fun to listen to Clay talk to them. It was fun to meet some of the people that knew Clay during his mission. They were so warm and inviting to our family. We had a wonderful time with them, I am sad that Dulce has to leave, and we can't visit her again.

Clay and Juan Trujillo, Clay was Elder Trujillo's trainer when they were companions.

Dulce Gutierrez, was a member is Clay's last area

Clay and Dulce

Ana Trujillo, cooking up so great Venezuelan food!

Maleah and her new friends, Santiago and Claudia!

A VERY Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  Thanks to both our families for making it so special.  We celebrated Christmas with my family the Monday before.  We had a delicious Christmas dinner that my mom made for us, then had family home evening, read the christmas story, and watched the nativity. Then we got to open presents.  Mea had so much fun, she loved all her presents and kept running around the room not knowing what to play with next.  Every time she would get something new she would smile so big, laugh, and dance around the room. 

Mea's favorite present a singing cow from Grandpa Oler

Then we headed down to Springville to spend Christmas with Clay's family. It was great, we had so much fun. On Christmas eve the Olsen's came down and we had Christmas dinner and opened presents. Then we got to talk to Clay's brother Scott who is on his mission in Korea. 

All the girls.

Then on Christmas morning Mea got all her santa presents. She had fun and loved all her presents but I think it was still to early for her.

Mea and all of her Santa presents, she loves all of her new toys!

Merry Christmas

This has been a wonderful christmas, this year we had christmas with my family in Idaho. On Christmas eve we got to talk to Clay's brother who is on a mission in Korea. It was so cool, we talked to him through Skype using video chat so we got to see him as well. Scott, Clays brother, hasn't got to see Maleah since she was born so we were pretty excited. Then on Christmas morning it was storming so bad, and there was a blizzard warning out for southeast Idaho. My parents don't live in town, so the road that they live on has a lot of fields and when the wind blows the snow accross the road from the fields it creates HUGE snow drifts on our road. In front of my mom and dad's house there were three cars that had gotten stuck in the snow drifts and nobody could pull them out, and the road from there into town was closed off, so the cars have sat there all day and all night. We left our house in Pocatello and when we got to Blackfoot my dad met us and we took the back roads to mom and dad's. Dad has a snow plow on one of his trucks and so he lead the way through the snow drifts and we followed. Luckily we had the truck but even in the truck we would have gotten stuck if dad hadn't went first. On Christmas day my dad and brother plowed our road for people to get through probably ten times and each time the drifts were just as high as before. Crazy! We decided not to try to make it back home so we stayed the night, it was fun! We didn't have anything we needed with us, but luckily everything we needed we got for christmas (PJ's, toothburshes, ect.). Maleah got a lot of cute things, and everyone had so much fun with her. Now we are heading to Springville for Christmas with Clay's family. We are so lucky to get to have Christmas twice.