Merry Christmas!!

Carter came into our room Christmas morning saying, "Santa brought us too many presents!" Umm, why? "Because they don't all fit under the tree!"

Silly boy.

We actually didn't even get up until 7 on Christmas morning, which is fine with me! Although I have to admit, I didn't sleep well that night. It's too much of a habit to wake up through out the night because of the excitement. It's drilled into me from being a kid. :)

Carter was so excited to open presents. Meg was excited, but instead of just wanting to rush through them like her brother, she wanted to play with each and every one.

We open presents one at a time, taking turns. That way we see what everyone got and from whom. Carter was okay with that, but he was NOT okay with waiting for Megan to open her presents, so pretty much he opened up hers with her. Like I mentioned, Megan wanted to play with her toys, not put them away and open more. We seriously had to beg and plead with her to open more presents. Eventually we just decided to ditch her. It was her Christmas morning too, and might as well let her be happy. :) By the time we, meaning Carter, Bo, and I, were done opening our gifts, Meg still had a pile of gifts left to open. haha.

We were really spoiled this year and had a very fun, relaxing day, complete with staying in our pj's the whole day.

Megan and Carter, we love you so much. Thanks for being such wonderful spirits in our lives. Merry Christmas loves.

Thanks Aunt Libby and Uncle David!!!

*side note--A couple of days later, Carter was playing with his medical kit. He put a couple of pieces of candy in it and exclaimed to Bo, "I put candy in it! Now all I need is stickers and I can be a REAL Doctor!!!" :) Doctors to a kid. It makes sense. Everytime he goes to the Dr. he gets a sticker from the nurse and treat from me. :)

Megan got a kitchen which she LOVES. She also got tons of food to go with it, you just can't see them because they are in that basket. And no, the kitchen isn't complete in this picture. Santa wrapped the present and left Bo and me to assemble it that morning. This is pre-stickers and complete assembly.

Carter getting out the batteries for one of his remote control cars. I say one, because he got three this year. One from Bo and me, one from Grandma Sandy, and one from Grandpa Kevin. We raced the cars around all day. Notice the unopened presents on the left? Yeah those would be Meg's.

Megan ditched us opening presents and brought back some of her toys to Carter's room to play. She had gotten these tiny little people from Grandma Sandy, and was anxious to see if they fit in Carter's cars.

Christmas Eve

We had the kids make snowmen on Christmas Eve, using little styrofoam balls, as a way of killing time on Christmas Eve.

What started out as a fun craft activity, quickly turned into an even more fun body art activity. Oh well, as long as they are happy.

That evening, my cousin Jackie and her family, along with Aunt Buffy, Jackie's mom, and the Warrens, came over for dinner, socializing, and Rock Band. haha.

We had fun eating some way good food. This year we found out that a local BBQ place will smoke your turkey for you, so we had them do that and man, I could've just eaten that and been in heaven. So so good. We also had tons of other yummy food and treats. After dinner we chatted for awhile, and then eventually the Rock Band was pulled out, because you just can't have a party at our house without it!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. Sad. We had fun though. Thanks Warrens, Saragers, and Aunt Buffy for coming over!!

Santa!!

Santa came to our ward party the other night!

I thought for sure Meg would be so excited to see him. Every time she sees him in a show or cartoon, she gets sooooo excited. Like jumping around screaming excited.

In real life? Not so much. I love the pictures I caught. You can see in the first one that Meg is first getting a glimpse of him. In the second picture you can see the beginning of her reaction. She was not down with seeing him in real life. He freaked her out. You should have seen Megan scrambling in Bo's arm trying to get away, while clinging for dear life.

Bo had to take her out of the building for a couple of minutes to calm her down. Once outside, she was so excited, but the moment he stepped back in the building, she was crying to leave. hahaa. She wouldn't even come close enough to Santa to get a bag of treats. Nope, not gonna have it.

Carter, on the other hand, was loving it. He was way excited to sit on Santa's lap, although from the picture you can't tell. When asked by Santa what he wanted for Christmas, Carter replied, "Nothing." Honest. He has everyone so fooled that he is this sweet humble boy. He might be sweet, but he is not humble, and trust Bo and me, he definetly had a list of things he wanted!!! Oh, Carter. We love you.

Fire Trucks!

So this actually took place in November, I just forgot to post it. One day for story time at the local library, the firemen came and brought their fire truck!

The kids actually couldn't care less about the story time that day or the firemen talking, but the truck???!! You'd better believe they were excited.

Luckily I had my camera on hand!

Zoo Time!

Bo has had the month of December off from school so that he can go to all his interviews and enjoy the holidays. We have loved having him around!!!

Making sure we got the most of our time with Daddy, we decided to head to the Houston Zoo last week. They had just opened a new section, called the African Safari, or something like that. Meg was happy because we were able to see the giraffes again (they had been out of comission for the last 6 mo. while they were putting together their new "cage").

It was a perfect day for the zoo. The weather was perfect, not hot or cold, and the place wasn't crowded at all. PERFECT. The only downer of the trip was that I almost went into labor at the end. Okay not really, but maybe. I was doing great the whole time, but after two hours my hips, uterus, everything, was killing me. It took like a half hour for my body to calm down and the contractions to go away. Note for next time, make sure I sit down every 15 min. or so. hahaa.

Having fun with the African Masks.

Baby elephants!!!! There are two, right the the left of that pole right in the middle of the picture. They were sooooo cute.

My family of monkeys in front of some monkeys. You can see a black monkey, I can't be bothered with trying to remember the name of the monkey, in the background up high on a rope.

Festival of Lights 2010

We made our annual trip to the Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens here on the island. This year we went with our friends, the Smiths and Timmermans. We had tons of fun looking at the lights, as always!!

Meg for some reason sat curled up in the stroller most of the night. I guess she was a little scared?? At the end she warmed up and would get excited and point out all the lights. Milo and Carter were the typical 4/5 year old boys. Crazy. They are only about a month and a half apart, so they play together well.

Anyways, it was fun, not cold, and the lights were pretty.

Happy Holidays!

This was how Meg was most of the night....and Carter. haha
Meg, Carter, and Milo

Can you find Megan?

There she is!!! The whole group of kids: Ollie Smith, Carter, Megan, Milo Smith, and little Max Timmerman.

Two wannabe pirates with their boat, excuse me, ship.

Where is Megan again???

Proof she got out of her stroller.... eventually.

Carter wishfully taking a ride on the Polar Express.

32 weeks

So here's a picture of me at 32 weeks. Okay, it was actually taken like four days ago, but close enough. Don't be decieved by this picture. I'm only dressed in nice clothes because I'm heading to my Dr.'s appt. If its almost any other day, you will find me lounging around in stretchy work out pants and Bo's t-shirts, and I wear them because it's comfortable, they fit, and because I can. ;) Bo assures me that he still finds me attractive. haha.

The rest of the pictures are just fun photos we've been taken lately. Enjoy!

I love this picture, and no, I did not tell Carter to kiss my belly. He is SO EXCITED for his baby brother.

Think he could be one of the GAP models??

Shortly after this picture Carter went and put his Spiderman mask on too. Why didn't I get a picture of that??

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Tennessee

Our trip to Tennessee was great!! We were there for a looooooooong time though, sorry Syd and Dave!!
We left on Wednesday, Nov. 17th and stayed until the Sunday after Thanksgiving, after which we took off to South Carolina, where I took absolutely no pictures. My bad. Sorry Jana! We did have tons of fun there though!!
So the trip... The kids did surprisingly well on the drive. Meg watched Little Einsteins like crazy while Carter drew. He's in this big time drawing stage. All he needed was a big fat notebook and one of those pens that has different colors that you can choose and he was in heaven.
Sydney and Dave Heslop have two boys, Sam and Logan, who are close in age to Carter and Meg, so the kids had fun playing and hanging out. I think my kids favorite part of the trip was playing outside with the Heslops in their huge yard, and playing Legos. Thanksgiving was great there too, with yummy food and good company. No pictures though. I can't remember much these days.
Our South Carolina trip was short. We were tired and worn out from being away from home for so long that poor Ben and Jana kind of got the shaft. We arrived Sunday night, hung around and talked, went to the park and Chic Fil A, interviewed and drove around Columbia, SC, and then took off early Tuesday morning. No pictures. In my defense, I did try taking some at the park, but it was getting dark and they didn't turn out. We love the Katz family and had fun seeing them. Their two girls, Ava and Ellie, who are also Carter's and Meg's age, were lots of fun to see too. We love you guys!
Anyways, it was a fun trip, and what better way to sum it up, than with pictures??

The drive
Dave has a kayak that ends up being a great toy for the kids

Legos!!

More Legos!!! They seriously played legos everyday.

Chuck E Cheese!!!! Above is Megan and Sam.

Megan and Logan. No, I did not tell them to do this for the camera, it's a roller coaster ride and that is really how much they got into it.

Bo apparently had a great time at Chuck E Cheese too!

Carter would just sit and play this game over and OVER. He liked it because it gave him, in his opinion, lots of tickets.

The Casey Jones Museum. Well actually its the gift shop. Who needs to tour the museum, that costs money, when the gift shop has these wonderful train toys to play with for free???? hahahaa. Yeah, we're that cheap, and lets be honest, this is what the kids would rather do. ;)

These kids were hilarious

Me and Sydney on Black Friday at Walmart!!! It was like 1 in the morning. After that we were too tired to go shopping anymore, and decided to hit Target up at like 8 am, instead of the 4 am that we were originally hoping to do. We got all our awesome deals anyways, so we were happy!

Making gingerbread men, or more importantly, eating them!!

While we were there, we went to Red Robin to celebrate Sam and Logan's birthdays that were the next part. No, they are not twins, their birthdays just happen to be 2 days apart. Happy Birthday boys!

Saying goodbye! I love Syd. She has been one of my best friends since High School, and conveniently she is also Bo's cousin. I married Bo just so I could be related to her. haha. Okay not really, but I do like how it turned out.

I love how Syd has to be hunched over to hug me over my tummy. I also love how Logan snuck into the picture. I also think it's hilarious how I didn't get one shot of Dave while we were there. He was there, playing games with us everynight. I should've gotten a picture of that too. We play card games like crazy when we're together.

Good times guys!!!!!! Thanks for the letting us come visit!!