Christmas

Christmas morning!

{what a cozy little setting! By the way, have I mentioned that I love this tree?)

Christmas was fun and a little different this year. I guess you could say it was more about quality and now so much about quantity. It was a little hard not being able to get what I wanted for K.C. but it was also fun trying to find the perfect gift for my budget. I ended up getting him an Under Aurmor hat that he's been asking about forever. I think he liked it.

Craig's Stocking: He insisted on using the one we got as a temporary stocking for Savannah this year. Silly boy.

 

Savannah's Stocking: Craig also decided that she got my stocking this year.

K.C.'s Stocking: (He was the only one who got the right one :)

My Stocking: (Yes it's really Craig's that I got to use :)

We all got little tiny oranges in our stockings but Savannah LOVED hers. She was so busy holding one in each hand that she was just not interested in wrapping paper (which I thought she would have loved) Silly girl. She was making us all laugh.

Craig liked his dinosaur train.

 But I got the best gift of all. K.C. Wrote me the nicest poem and then framed it all pretty. With a matching frame and necklace in it. I have a sweet husband.

We had to get up extra early because we had to go out to my parents in Hurricane by 10:00am for the missionary phone call from Jacob in Mexico. So we made history by going and waking our kids up on Christmas morning at 7:00. When we were all done with our festivities we packed up some games and headed to Hurricane.

It was fun to spend the day playing and having a good time with family. Merry Christmas everyone.

The Ultimate Big Mack!

My sister Wanda had a great idea to use craigs top bunk bed and make a fort out of it. After drawing up lots of different ideas K.C. and her finally decided on a Mack Truck! And what better for A Craig than a Mack truck! I mean really.

So we went out to Grandma and Grandpa's the Monday before Christmas and Dad and K.C. cut it all out. Then we spent the next three days there just painting and building.

Pretty Good if I do say so myself! K.C. did most of the front and I did most of the side. Annie and Elle basically painted all the red and all the white on the inside and they helped with several of the details too. (The different pieces are just leaning against each other here. It's not actually put together yet)

 

We took it out to our house to complete construction because once it was built it wouldn't have fit through the doors. We had to distract Craig in the living room while we finished. 

My try at a simplified Rust-eze logo. :)

 

K.C. and my dad putting it all together!

It was a perfect fit.

 We through a blanket over it...

 We all gathered around with the cameras to see the unveiling...

 Here he comes....

 Even with the blanket on he could see a corner of the front of him and he was, well the picture describes it very well. He was so excited!

 Pulling the blanket off...

Happy happy boy!

The rest of the story:

He immediately got all of his cars and hauled them up into the fort. He put his rug that has roads on it up there too.

Lunch time came... Craig was still in mack and insisted on eating in there. On his Lightning McQueen plate, with is Lightning McQueen glass. He had a string Cheese and when he was done with it he ran into the bathroom, got his garbage can that has lightning McQueen on it and hauled it into his bed room so we could put it into Mack too.

He has it all very organized it there!

Night Came: Must sleep in Mack. So K.C. put a camping pad in there and for the first time in a long time, Craig stayed in his room ALL night!

Next Day: Just about every moment was spent in mack again, including nap time, meal time and bed time.

Long story short... Craig LOVES his Mack!
What a great Christmas present, thanks for all the good ideas and everyone's help!

Creative Craig

Never fear, Craig will ALWAYS have some creative idea!

This is one of his new favorite games to play.

yes he's being crazy on the couch but look at the blinds....

Cars! Cars everywhere! He'll spend hours and hours just lining them up and then taking them down, or having races to the other side. Watching his creative and fun in everything approach to life helps me remember to stop and have fun. He's such a delight to me!

He's also been having lots of fun playing with his new friend! They are both avid Cars fans and so they have LOTS to talk about!

They're watching Cars Toons! A series about Mater and his tall tales. Fun fun.

Christmas Tree Fun

This year my sister came down for Thanksgiving and had the fabulous idea of cutting a Christmas tree on Cedar Mnt. We wanted a big tree this year but we wanted a fir so it would be tall and skinny. AND we didn't want to have to pay very much for it. So this was the perfect option because you could get upto a 10 foot three for only ten bucks! Perfect.

So the day after Thanksgiving... we were off!

 Since Craig didn't have real snow gloves we put little knit gloves on him and then put his work gloves over them. It worked pretty good till one fell off!

 Ang and Nates Christmas tree!

 

 I love Kale in this picture! haha. ^

 There he is :)

Cuteness!

{ Cousins }

The attempt at getting a picture of these two ended up in "hey lets touch heads" instead. It was really funny.

 Kason was a snow maniac! While craig cautiously picked a path through the snow and tried to remain warm and dry Kason, well this is what Kason did....

look closely you'll see a snowball rolling down the hill. It's name is Kason.^

 It was fun to have Ang and Nate there to first of all inspire us to go, second of all to play with in the snow (which by the way was hip high!) and third of all to bring our Tree home in their truck! :)

 

 hehe. (need I say more)

We were glad that we didn't have to go far before we found our tree! 

(the arrow is pointing at it.) 

Half of it was under snow but the part we could see seemed great.

 Gosh I love that guy! Look at him. He's so, so... perfect!

And I like the mountain man hat too! 

I love being in love!

 one hip high step at a time we waded through the snow and made it to the tree. If you tread very carefully you could pack the snow down and walk on top (well on top of it meaning about a foot down. But that's still better than 3 feet!)


So much fun! And here's the finished product! My beautiful, Christmas Tree! 10 feet tall and my favorite one yet! 

New Callings

the 2nd counselor in the new bishopric called and talked to K.C. and I could hear them talking for the most part about Cub Scouts and if K.C. had enjoyed it. When K.C. got off the phone he told me that Bro. Hyde was going to come and visit with us that night.

I was happy for K.C. that he was going to get back into scouting and didn't think much else of it. When Bro. Hyde got here he chatted for a while and then turned to me and said "Well K.C. is off the hook, Celeste will you be the Secretary in Primary?" I admit I was a little shocked and not at all prepared.

 I was mostly bummed that I wouldn't be able to get to know people in this ward like I was planning on. But I will just have to be more creative about it I guess. I did find it kind of funny that it was the exact thing that happened to me in the Red Ledge ward.

The Scenario:
Move in, ward dissolved next Sunday, go one Sunday, called to primary pres.
Still here, ward dissolved, go one Sunday, Called to primary pres.

I guess primary is the place for me right now. I have been enjoying it though. Being secretary is right up my alley because I get to organize and make lists!

So a few days later we were out in Hurricane and the Stake called wanting us to come in for a visit with one of the Stake presidency. (Uh that's never happened, SCARY.)

That was on the night that we had a state of emergency in Washington County because of all the flooding. We borrowed my parents van so that it would brave the wet roads better but when we got to our house to change out of our dirty painting clothes we were very dismayed to find that we were locked out of the house because our keys were still in Hurricane. Can I just say ultra embarrassment and panic? They had given us like an hour notice so they said we didn't have to come in Sunday clothes. But still I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting WORK clothes/ Pajamas!

Sigh. But there wasn't much we could do about it so we went and I was very grateful to have my very long coat in the car to cover up all but the ends of my pants and my flip flops. (It was kind of funny though a very nice lady in the foyer that was waiting with us for their turn offered to let me borrow her shoes! When I grow up I want to be nice like that!)

So long story short K.C. is the Second Counselor in the Elders Quorum.

THEN the next day we get a call asking if we could meet with the bishop that night, (again with about an hours notice). My thoughts: This is getting to be a bad habit! What now?

But as it turns out he just wanted to get to know us. It was a very busy week.

From the mouth of Craig: Sweet Sincerity!

We have been trying to teach Craig to thank Heavenly Father for his blessings and then ask him for something that he needs...

Craig's prayer

"Heavenly Father, Thank Thee for the day, Thank Thee for all the stuff we have, (pause)

Jesus, can you please find...(whispers to me) mama, what is that name of one that's missing?"

K.C. realizing that he was talking about one of his cars whispered to me "Nitroade"

So I passed it on to Craig "Nitroade"

Craig "Nitroade! Can you please find him?" Gasps in delight and looks at me exclaiming with excitement. "He's finding him in heaven!"

Folds his arms again bows his head and finishes the prayer.

Oh what a fun memory.

Flexible.

This is the point where I need to stop. Take a deep breath and remember that plans can change. I can be flexible right? Not playing out the way I had in mind isn't necessarily a bad thing right?... RIGHT??!! Sigh.