December 23rd and 24th.... Christmas Eve!

On Sunday, December 23, around 5 pm, Cory, Adaline and I got on Skype with Vonda and Mischa, while we waited for the family in Arizona to get on and join us. During the wait Adaline opened Mischa's gift that she sent from New Zealand. Here you can see her holding her new gift. It is a really cute bee that gets pulled along and it wings move. Once Adaline starts walking it will be really cute to see her playing with it.

 

 She keeps trying to pull off the antenna as you can see here she has got a hold of it again!

Cory and I...so happy!

 Adaline playing with the left over Christmas Tree limbs that did not make it into the tree.

On Christmas Eve, Adaline, Cory, and I went over to Grandma and Grandpa Kellersberger's in American Fork. We ate a really yummy dinner of Chinese food. Then we had a little program were Haley played the music for us to sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem", then Cory read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then we all expressed our feelings about the season and the true meaning of Christmas.

Haley playing the piano

 

 Then is was time for family picture before Cory, Adaline, and I headed home for Christmas Eve

Smile Everyone!

Writing Santa

Adaline wrote a Christmas wish list letter to Santa Claus and then we headed over to Salt Lake City to deliver it to the Believe in Santa Mail station in Macy's.

Here is Adaline dropping her letter into the mail box

Mommy and Adaline

Daddy and Little Girl

In getting into the Christmas spirit Cory and I have been reading a Christmas scripture, story, and sing at Christmas song each night with Adaline from an advent book I purchased at a Relief Society Charity Auction. It has been really fun to get into the Christmas spirit going and looking at lights, eating Christmas goodies, and each night reading these stories really help us to keep the true meaning of Christmas in our hearts and minds.

Here is Daddy reading to us a Christmas Story

Adaline, Cory, Haley, Randy, Colby, and I went up to SLC to the City Creek Mall to get pictures with Santa. Adaline was so cute getting her picture with Santa for the first time. She never cried and we got a really big smile out of her for her picture. Mrs. Santa Clause was there and she gave Adaline a "Twas the Night Before Christmas" Book to place her picture in.

 So Cute!

 

 Then we all got into the picture with Santa

 

Here is our family Christmas Card 2012

Getting Ready for Christmas

Getting the house ready for Christmas has been really fun. I found these chair covers at the Dollar Tree store for a buck each. They really make the kitchen festive and my table finished. Cory and I had Kelsie and Jonny over for a Christmas dinner and reading of "The Mansion" story.

It is really fun to dress up the table and see all the decorations out.

We then decorated the Christmas tree and made sure it was up an off the ground so Adaline could not get to it. She really loves to look at the lights and see all the ornaments but she is unable to reach them to play with any of them.

Grandma and Grandpa Kellersberger came over while we were decorating and they each helped Adaline place an ornament on the tree.

Cory, Adaline, and I - Christmas Season 2012

 

The next day was Saturday and we got to work decorating the outside of the house. Cory is a great decorator and he got right to work getting everything hung just right.

Adaline was in charge of Supervising. She did a great job of yelling at dad when he did it wrong.

Here she is all decked out for the cold, even in a little pink beanie. Of course she needed a toy to suck on and spit bath, this time it was Mini Mouse as a mermaid, one of her bath toys.

Mr. C and Mrs. C were set out to grace the door way.

Here is our finished house. Not much but a good start for a small family.

Spending time with Haley and Colby at City Creek, waiting to go meet Santa Claus. All three were in great spirits waiting to see the big guy. Mommy will post the picture with Santa in another post.

One night helping Grandma and Grandpa Kellersberger decorate their Christmas tree, Adaline found this cute bow, and of course it had to go on top of her head. This is the cutest present for Christmas.

Then it was time to decorate goods to take to the neighbors. Adaline was really interested in eating.... ummmm.... helping out with the decorating.

Daddy helped Adaline with decorating

Here is Adaline picking up the little white balls to place on the pink cupcakes. We made chocolate brownie cupcakes and topped them with mint and almond flavored icing. Then we decked them out with yummies.

Christmas Gift - Fun Idea to Make

Black berries were on sale at Sprouts for $0.88 and so I made some home-made jelly and used some of Adaline's baby jars. Then I covered them with black felt.

Then with white felt I drew out snowman shape, after cutting them out. I used brown pipe cleaners to give it stability and arms for the snowman. Then I hot glued black eyes and buttons. Then a red nose. Then I cut out of black felt a top hat and place a green sliver of felt and three red balls to the hats and also added a green scarf to complete the snowman before attaching it via hot glue to the felt covered black berry jelly.

 

 Here is the finished gift. Everyone liked them and I was able to make these in one evening. Not a bad idea for a fun and festive gift for Christmas.

White Elephant/Ugly Sweater Party

On December 14, we had a fun little party at our home in Orem. Adaline, Cory, and I all dressed up for our Ugly Sweater Party, unfortunately I could not find any ugly sweaters at the thrift stores so we made do with Cory's ugliest ties pinned all over our clothes and one tied on our head. Then we took a fun family picture with props. I was Rudolf the Crazy, Cory was Shocked Crazy Rudolf, and Adaline could not believe how crazy both of her parents are. We ate soup and rolls for dinner with the Filbrook and Crapo, who attended.

"Lane, I've been going to this high school for seven and a half year. I'm no dummy."

Here is the Filbrook Family - Clint, Krislyn, and Kanyon

One More - without the packie

Crapo Family - Jessica and Scott, little one in the way in April

One more of the Crapos

Then we had a white elephant gift exchanged and played a game once all of the gifts where open. We all were assigned a number 1 - 6 then with a dice we would roll a number and have to exchange our gift with the number we rolled. We would do this for three songs and then at the end of the last song we were stuck with the gifts we got.

Scott and Jessica ended up with the white elephant gifts I had bought. FYI - The pin wheels were the hot ticket item every body wanted them. One pinwheel came with Christmas socks with cats on them and the other with a box of tuna helper.

Clint and Krislyn ended up with their own gifts. Hand cuffs, a princess watch, and a gumbo size of underwear. The underwear was one of the best but worst gift no one wanted to end up with them but some had to and it was funny that the person who brought them ended up taken them home.

Cory, lucky dog, ended up with four mini books on "Hugs for sisters, Hugs for friends, Hugs for mothers, and Hugs for girls", a completely appropriate gift for him if I do say so. Then I got hideous VHS movie called "Visionaries" pretty close to "Heman" in story and cartooning. Cory thinks this is my favorite cartoon, "Heman", but if you watch it now it is pretty B rated. Adaline did not know what to make of the video. We think it would be really fun to get together again after Christmas and watch the movie together as couples. I am not sure that we will make it through the whole movie but it will be a good laugh anyway.

Adaline is Standing!

Well here she is. Adaline has started to climb up anything and everything. She is pulling her self up and standing every chance she gets.

It is fun to watch her crawl over to something and then muster the strengthen to pull herself up. Then when she wants to get down she yells over to me "Ahhh Ahhh Ahh" which means "Mom, come help me down." I help her to the ground and then she pulls herself up all over again and the process is repeated.

Adaline is crawling so much but is not growing very much and she wearing out the toes in her 3 month outfits. She is not yet 15 lbs and she is eight months old. So mommy just keeps sewing the toes up and then they pop threw another outfit.

Adaline thinks it is really funny that her toes are popping out every which way.

Ahh Little Girl and Mommy - Posing for pictures

I caught Adaline digging into her toy box. Now that she can stand up on it she will crawl over to it and then dig through it until she finds the toy she wants to play with. It is really funny to watch her. She will look over the toys on top then she will lift the ones she can pick up and drop them to the floor out of her way. Then she will proceed to dig until she find exactly what she is looking for. All the while she has her packie stuck in her mouth and anytime I catcher she gives me this look that says to me "I didn't do anything".

Adaline is so cute, here she is so sweet with her little hands folded.

Do You Remember This!

Do you remember this toy? My friend, Manda Jumper gave this to Adaline and I we have had a great time with it. There are so many memories running through my head as I look and watch Adaline play with it.

Here is Adaline make the boat dance to and fro.

The next day it was my turn to babysit while the girls went to the gym. Adaline and Easton had a great time playing with the old toy.

Once Adaline starting playing with it then Easton had to come and join her and have a go at it.

Adaline, Easton, and Canyon way there in the back of the picture - "Smile for the Camera"

Amazing how little has changed in entertaining the little ones. This here is a toy that I will not be getting rid of. I would love for all my kids to play with it and for it to be one that we keep for the next generation.