Sprinkles, Frosting, & Borrowed Cookie Cutters

When I was little I would decorate sugar cookies every year with my cousins. That's another tradition we've tried to carry on with our own kids. I made the mistake of packing all of my cookie cutters and so did Arline. So I asked Jenn if I could borrow hers. We both totally spaced to get them when we were together so instead of driving all the way up North we ended up calling a few neighbors. Thankfully we were able to round up enough, but that meant that I didn't start baking till the day off. So on Tuesday the 21st I spent the whole morning and afternoon in the kitchen mixing up the dough, making breakfast, rolling out the dough, cutting out reindeer, snowmen and trees, fixing lunch, rolling out more dough and cutting out gingerbread men and stars, and making frosting.

Emily spent some time helping me with the cookies, some time running around the house playing, a lot of time asking when everyone was coming over, and the last half hour in the front room like this peering out the window:

Finally everyone arrived and the cookie decorating began. We had lots of cookies, tons of sprinkles and plenty of sugar-high kids. Thank you to Jenn, Lisa, & Stacy for all your help - especially with the clean up.

Sara refused to decorate any of her cookies - she just wanted to eat all the chocolate chips and marshmallows.

As soon as things were cleaned up we all headed over to my mom's for the Snow Christmas party. We had dinner and visited and went home early because we were all exhausted from the day's work (well, I was exhausted from the day's work).

Party # ... I think I Lost Count

This time of year is always pretty hectic with all the ward parties, friend parties, extended family and immediate family parties, not to mention all the birthday parties. It just never ends. Saturday we had the Holbrook Christmas party - sorry no pics taken. Then Sunday we had the Newman Christmas party. There was of course good food - and plenty of it, gifts, and the annual pinata.

Spencer loving all the neices and nephews - and they sure love him. Well, maybe not Cameron so much...

Opening presents from Great Gma & Gpa Newman THE PINATA!

This is a Newman family tradition since as long as I can remember. It always starts with the youngest and works it's way up from there. Jacob got to start this year and absoluetly loved it. He was so mad when he had to give the stick up. It was one tough guitar - it got all the way up to Matthew this year. He hasn't had a chance to hit it in years. And he smashed it to pieces. I was in the direct line of fire and was pelted with candy and coins and totally screamed. I have great video of it but I can't get any videos to upload on anything right now. Maybe I'll have to make a video post of all our December activities sometime because I have some great ones.

That night we had Sara come home with us for a sleepover. The girls were pretty good about going to bed but were unfortunately up by 7am. They played all day and fought just like sisters. When I met Jenn to drop Sara off they both started complaining that they didn't want Sara to go home. ??? I don't understand those two.

Date Night

Since Spencer and Lisa were in town we decided to cram in as much time together as possible. So on Friday night (the 17th) we all got together at my uncle's clubhouse. We played several games of wally ball, ate a yummy dinner, played another couple of games, then gathered together again for a bit of Charoodles and some root beer floats. It was so fun to all be together and to play. We definitely need to do that more often.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Santa decided to make a stop at Jeff's work on the 15th. So we packed up in the car and went out to visit daddy and sit on Santa's lap. It was great - free, no lines, and we could take as many pictures as we wanted. Emily was excited to see Santa and tell him what she wants - a dog for her polly pockets. Jacob was more timid, but at least didn't scream and try to get away. I think my favorite pictures are the ones with the kids and Santa each looking at each other. I can't believe Christmas is almost here again.

Snow

We had a big snow storm on the 15th and I decided to take the kids out to play. Jacob had never played in the snow before and didn't quite know what to think of it. He fussed and cried for the first half of the time and then sat there unsmiling for the rest. Hopefully next time will be more enjoyable for him.

Emily tried sharing her love of eating snow and Jacob really didn't care for the mitten full of snow in his face.

Emily on the other hand absolutely loved it. She built a snowman family with Gpa, made snow angels, went sledding, and ate to her hearts content.

One Year Old!

Wow where does the time go? I can't believe Jacob is already a year old. He has grown up so much. He's now saying mama, dada, baba and lots and lots of eh! He's walking everywhere, climbing all over the place, and wants to copy everything his big sister does. He likes playing with cars and will push them around on the floor making noises. I'm SO in love with it. He loves books but is constantly on the go. Fortunately he's still pretty cuddly and I can get him to snuggle with me and read quite a bit. He is a very sweet boy and will give anyone and everything hugs - he's stingy with his kisses though and will usually only give them to mom, dad and sister. Which is as it should be, right? :) Oh, and on the 17th he finally cut his first tooth!

opening his birthday presents from mom & dad and Emily - I think she's played with all the new toys more than Jacob has.

A few of the party goers that night.

Opening presents from cousins and grandparents

The cake and cupcakes - he really didn't care for them that much. He's not that into sweets plus he wasn't feeling all that well.

Piano Master

Lisa (my little sister) has been working on getting her Masters in Piano Performance at the U. In May Lisa and her husband Spencer moved to New Hampshire for Spencer to complete his orthopaedic surgery residency at Dartmouth. Lisa was unable to wrap everything up before moving, so she joined us back home for the month of September to continue having lessons and flew back home again Nov 4th for even more lessons. After months and months (I guess I should say years and years) of hard work, she had her last performance on Saturday December 11th. She performed beautifully and looked gorgeous as always. She asked me to again to a bouquet for the stage (thanks again Mal for the use of the table). Kinda sad that this is the last one I'll do for her. I was happy she chose red roses though. Saturday was my anniversary so it was at least a bit of a flash back being up on Campus with red roses that night. :) Thankfully Spencer was able to leave the hospital and fly in for her recital. It was SO good to see him again. I really didn't realize how much I'd missed him till I saw him walk in that night. And fortunately he was able to swing things to be able to stay an extra week and they'll both be here for Christmas!

Lisa with some of the fam and also her piano teacher
After the performance the family went to Olive Garden for dinner and to celebrate.

A VERY small taste of what we heard that night. It's not the best recording or even the best part, but I was too enthralled with listening I guess to record anything else.

Disneyland!!!

The morning after Thanksgiving we packed our van as full as we could and headed for the Golden State. Jenn and her family left that morning as well and we met up on I-15 at the same time - pretty remarkable considering they were coming from Kaysville. We decided to break up the drive and we spent that first night in Las Vegas. After checking into our hotel we went to dinner at Applebee's and then took the kids to the strip to see M&M World. After brief tours of all 4 levels and numerous comments from the girls about how immodestly people were dressed, we (the 4 adults) carried two sleeping babies, pushed a wheelchair, and tag teamed 3 little girls back to our room to all collapse in our beds. The next morning we got packed up again and finished our drive to Anaheim. We pretty much went straight to Downtown Disney to have lunch at ESPN Zone ... and watch the BYU/UTAH game. It wasn't the most enjoyable game we've seen - one, neither team played well, and two, we watched it with a bunch of Y fans. But hallelejuh! The U won. I know Ryan and Sam would have loved to have the Cougars win, but I sure would have had one grumpy husband if the U hadn't blocked that field goal.
After the game was over we walked over to World of Disney to check out all the fun toys. Emily and Sara played with everything in sight, Grace found all the Minnie Mouse's, and Jacob loved everything we'd let him get into.

We stayed in a 3 bedroom Worldmark condo - very nice and so the way to travel. The kids had a blast together. Jacob and Emily both loved having other kids around to play with. And of course Sara & Emily were thrilled to have so many 'sleepovers'.

Hanging out at the condo

Sunday we had a lazy day and then went over to Balboa Pier and met up with one of Jeff's friends from Pi. We had shakes at Ruby's Diner and watched the sunset. It was freezing cold and really windy so we were grateful we could sit indoors.

Monday morning we headed over for our first day of Disneyland. Right off the bat we ran into Bert & Mary Poppins. Then we rode the carosel, gave a good tug on the sword in the stone, saw the castle, met Ariel (definitely the highlight for Sara & Emily), I rode Dumbo for the first time (and so did the kids), met Buzz Lightyear and a whole bunch of other things. Dinner back at the condo was very welcome - for our sore feet, cranky kids who just needed to freely run around, and our wallets.

Emily (and especially Sara) had to play with the toys whenever we stepped into a shop - above you can see they lined up all the Jesse and Woody dolls.

Jacob just wanted to run!

Grace LOVED Minnie Mouse

Messing around in Toon Town. Jacob loved pushing all the buttons in the post office.

We saw the Christmas Parade that first night and thanks to Jeff's quick thinking we had great seats. While we were waiting for the parade to start they lit up Small World. It was beautiful and so fun to see it as it turned on. In the parade we saw Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Chip & Dale, Tigger & Pooh, the 7 Dwarfs, Buzz & Woody, all the princes and princesses, and of course Santa. The kids all loved it. Disney sure knows how to put on a show.

Tuesday morning Jenn, Sara, Ally, Jeff, Emily, Jacob, and I all went to Ariel's Grotto for Breakfast with the Princesses. It was very pricey, but great food and Emily loved seeing all the princesses. We saw Ariel, Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, and Mulan.

We then met up with Ryan, Sam, Grace and my parents and brothers who had just flown in. We spent the day in California Adventure seeing Pluto, Donald, Mickey, Chip & Dale, Jesse, Woody, and of course riding rides.

Wednesday the rest of my family went to Knott's Berry Farm, but we opted for the extra day of Disneyland. It was fun to go at our own pace and to have Emily's full attention that day. Her and Sara are inseparable. We got to see Tigger and Pooh, wait in line forever to see Jasmine, Tiana, and Snow White, ride Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, and Splash Mountain.

The kids loved playing with all the 'treasure'. Jacob loved the sword, but didn't like being Jack Sparrow with dad.

Jacob really didn't care about standing in line so Jeff took him off to play while we waited for all the princesses. But he did seem to enjoy actually meeting them. Snow White and Cinderella seemed to be his favorite.

More hanging around the condo - dressing up, playing in the pool, etc.

Within two minutes of sitting in the hot tub Jacob passed out on me. After snuggling for a few minutes we went up and got ready for bed.

Thursday we met up with Lighting and Mater, then went over to Disneyland for some more characters and rides.

After standing in lines forever, we finally saw Tinkerbell and Rapunzel.

Thursday night we stayed late to see World of Color. SOOOO worth it. As Jeff said after, it's amazing what you can do with lights, water... and a few million dollars. All the little kids passed out at the end (or during). Because we didn't want to wake them up to load on the shuttle, Jeff and I just walked back to the condo, quickly changed into PJ's and slipped the kids in bed. It was the fastest and easiest bedtime we had.

Friday we all kind of did our own thing and everyone tried to hit all the last things they hadn't yet done or wanted to do again. We went on the Nemo ride (really fun and I would say worth the wait - both kids enjoyed it), Buzz Lightyear again, drove the cars a few times, and due to a cranky 1 year old (and his exhausted and emotional mother) we called it an early night, went home and ordered pizza.

The next morning we packed everything up and loaded the cars and were on the road by 9am. Jenn and Ryan decided to brave the long trek in one day and took off. We made decent time, but still decided to stop in St. George. After dinner at IHOP we crashed and got up the next morning to finish our drive home.

Jacob & Grace had so much fun climbing around on the luggage carts... until he got stuck.

It was a very fun, very expensive, very exhausting trip. But we are so glad we did it. I love all the magic of Disney and having Emily experience that for the first time was memorable. Thanks mom & dad for coming and for the use of the condo. Thanks Jenn for sharing in all the planning. And thanks Jeff for all your help during that l-o-n-g week. And yes, I agree - we need a vacation.