Christmas Day 2011 - Many reasons to celebrate

Santa truly spoiled us as you can see. The bike is Payson's 1st bike and he was so excited. As you can see from the video below he thought the bike was for Daddy. Todd was not that lucky from Santa!




This video pretty much cracks Todd and I up every time we watch this. Poor Payson he had a horrible cold for Christmas this year, and I just do not think he understood that it was actually going to be Christmas morning when he went to bed on the 24th. Dillon was up around 7:15 and the three of us waited until about 7:45 for Payson to get up. He walked into our room and wanted to know where he was going to find room in our bed to watch cartoons. Todd asked if he wanted to check to see if Santa had come, and it was all we could do to hold him back from running down the stairs.
Dillon hanging out while Todd got a few extra minutes of sleep!

Checking out the loot.



Don't forget to check out what actually was placed in our stockings!




Yes, I now have 6 feet of a 6 lane car race in my family room.

Waiting to open gifts with Nana and Grandad!

Payson loves having his own digital camera - I can not tell you how funny it is to review everything on the camera. Lots of pics of the walls and floor.

Dillon loved the wrapping paper the best!

Owen learned quickly how to open his gifts!

Dinosaurs were the theme of Christmas this year. Dillon spends the majority of his day "roaring" at us.

Think this is one happy boy?

Christmas Eve 2011

Our Christmas eve was so much fun. It actually started on the 23rd with a family tradition. We headed out for donuts for breakfast and then over to the St. Nick's store for the boys to pick out their yearly ornaments. Payson picked out a cowboy ornament and Dillon went with a "Melmo" ornament.

On the 24th we went to a great Kid's program at St. Luke's Methodist Church. This is where Payson goes for Preschool and they did an awesome job with their program. With puppets and dogs, you know Payson and Dillon were interested!

Later that evening Aunt Liz, Uncle Scott, and Owen flew in from Pasadena and along with Nana and Grandad we had a great dinner. The last minute preparations for Santa included setting out the Reindeer food in the snow and cookies for Santa.

Payson checking for Santa before he went to bed.

After carefully reviewing our copy of the book T'was the Night Before Christmas, Payson decided that Santa was NOT feeding the reindeer meat balls, but instead he was feeding them apples. So, as you can see we had some apples on hand for all of the reindeer.

Cookies are ready for Santa.


Sleeping with his Santa hat!

Boys (plus one girl) Gift Exchange

The tradition continues of a gift exchange with Payson's buddies Hudson and Zane. Now, to make it even more fun, we have a second set of buddies with Dillon, Grayson and Reese. With Reese only being 7 months old, the boys still rule the house, but I have a feeling next year will be different. We rotate who's house gets trashed, I mean who gets to host this wonderful party. Luckily we are not up until 2014.
The best group shot we could get. Not good.

These boys are best buddies!


Crazy Boys!


My attempt to not allow the boys to get EVERY toy we own out was to decorate cookies. Decorating cookies always seems like a good idea, but not really with four year old boys. They eat the cookies and the candy before the cookies even get decorated!



The unwrapping is pure chaos!

The boys sporting their Under Armor shirts and spiderman caps.

The oldest boys tried to hide on the stairs.


But, there really is no place to hide in our house.

Holiday Fun with our Fort Collins Family!

We are so glad to have Uncle Jon, Aunt Christina, and baby Mattias back from Peru! We headed up to Fort Collins for a fun 6th Birthday party for Susie and a Christmas gift exchange with the Lands. We started out the day with a awesome visit to see Grandpa Solly.



Before we headed over to the birthday party - we had to treat the boys to a visit to Pickle Barrel. Best sandwiches in Fort Collins. The boys loved it and Todd and I realized that we are not in college anymore! We now have to sit upstairs at the restaurant as high chairs do not fit at the high top tablesin the bar!




Opening presents was crazy, and once Porter opened up his Mack Truck, he was gone. Off to play with his cars.

Everyone loved their special hats brought back from Peru.



You can not tell it from this picture, but everyone loved their new hats, and it is worth trying to get an all cousins picture

A Visit with Santa

It was time to go visit with Santa and let him know exactly what we wanted. We decided to make a trip out to Bass Pro Shop and see all the sites out there. I am so glad that we did go out to this store, they had so many wonderful activities for the boys. All for free - even better of a deal. We rode the carousel, played the games, and walked around the store many times to check out the animals and the fish tank.




SANTA TIME.....Not a favorite time for Dillon - but perfect picture moment.




After scarring Dillon with Santa, we decided to play around on the "toys" in the store.





This is about as close to Santa as Dillon wanted to get. Oh well, can't wait to see how it goes next!