.: February 2010

These pictures were taken on the 23rd of December on one of our many walks around our neighborhood. We had a very nice Valentine's Day weekend. Poor Jeremiah came down with a horrible case of strep throat last Wednesday morning, but he felt much better by Saturday. I've never seen him that sick our whole married life. I'm so glad to see him not suffering any more. I've never had strep throat and thank goodness the kids and I didn't get it. The doctor told Jeremiah to stay away from us until the antibiotics kicked in because strep is extremely contagious.
On Saturday while Jeremiah worked on the houses he's flipping, I felt courageous and I let the kids help me make Valentine sugar cookies for daddy. They loved stirring the dough and putting the heart shaped cookie cutters in the dough. It was a little crazy, but we did it and the cookies turned out yummy. I let the kids put sprinkles on one frosted cookie each. Their favorite part was of course eating the cookies. Afterward the kids had fun coloring on the Valentine's I made for them to give to Daddy.
Jeremiah's sweet parents watched the kids for us while Jeremiah and I enjoyed a delicious Italian dinner at a restaurant that I'd never been to--Anzio's Landing. It's a restaurant next to a little landing strip. I was so impressed with Jeremiah for picking out such a romantic and unique place to eat for Valentine's Day. It was beautiful to watch the little planes taking off and landing while enjoying the sunset as we ate and visited. I love you hon and I'm so glad that you're my Valentine for life.

Here are some pictures of our month of December and all the fun Christmas memories we made this last year:

The kids had a great time "helping" daddy put the Christmas lights on our house this year.

The kids were very interested in the whole process of picking out our Christmas tree.

After decorating our Christmas tree, the kids were no longer happy campers. Doesn't this picture show "Love at Home"?:)

This is a picture of our decorated Christmas tree--it never looked that good again even though we put our corral up around it. The kids were just too tempted by it to stay away from all of those ornaments.

Weston loved helping with the ornaments

Daddy was in charge of giving the kids the ornaments and the kids handed the ornaments to me to put on our tree. It's fun that they're getting older and that they can help more with things.

I had to get some pictures of the kiddos after church in their Christmas outfits. They are just such cute kids!!

I love this picture of Brynlee and Addison hugging.

So sweet--the brothers hugging each other!

Addison, Brynlee, Cambria and Weston with their handsome daddy

Cambria with her daddy

Sweet Cambria

Handsome little Weston

Adorable Addison--look at that awful bruise on his forehead. Poor kid!

Cute Brynlee with her mommy

Here's Jeremiah and me before attending our ward Christmas party. It's so rare to have a picture of just the two of us together.

Every year Jeremiah's parents host a Christmas party at their home where Santa comes and all the kids get to sit on his lap to tell him what they want for Christmas. Santa brought each of the kids a fun present that night. The girls got dolls and boys got cars at the party.

Here's our family with Santa

Here's Cambria on Santa's lap. She cried the whole time and didn't want to have anything to do with Santa.

We couldn't even get Addison to sit down on Santa's lap. He just kept standing up on Santa's lap and pushing away. I guess they're just too young to appreciate Santa.
(Refer to the picture at the top of this post)

Weston just sat there, but never looked at Santa. He was more interested in the yummy cookies that grandma had made.

Brynlee was absolutely horrified by Santa and did not want to let go of her cookie.

One night we went to see the lights at the Mesa Temple with my sister Jeannine and her family. It was beautiful and the kids absolutely loved all the lights.

I love this picture of my kids with their cousins.

Our little family

On Christmas Eve we had Jeremiah's parents over for dinner and we read the nativity story from the Bible together. I borrowed some cute puppets from my sister to share the story with the kids. As you can tell, it was pretty much chaos, but we're trying to teach them from a young age about the most important things in life.

I love this picture of Jeremiah and his dad with puppets on their hands.

After we read the nativity story together we gave the kids their Christmas pajamas to put on. Here are some pictures of them in their cute new pjs.

Cambria

Brynlee

Weston

Addison-what a sweet smile he has!

I love that smile! Cutie-pie Weston

The kids enjoyed climbing on the big box we received from aunt Cheri with our Christmas present in it.

Christmas morning after Santa came to our home

Christmas evening after the kids had fun with their toys

The day after Christmas Maria came to help us with the kids while Jeremiah and I packed to travel to California. The girls wanted to put their stockings on their feet like socks. I just love this picture of them!

Our Christmas tree on the morning of Christmas

Our Christmas tree in the evening on Christmas day after the kids had a blast putting the pom pom strings from the pom poms they got from Santa all over the ground and all over in the tree. Too funny!

The gifts that Santa brought the girls

The gifts that Santa brought the boys

The day after Christmas we got all packed up and drove out to my parents house in California. It's always a highlight of our year to spend the week at my parents house with my 9 brothers and sisters and their wives and children. My parents now have 41 grandchildren and it's always so much fun to be together for the week after Christmas and to have all the grandkids to have time with their cousins. My kids had such a great time with all of their cousins, aunts and uncles and with grandma and grandpa West.

Addison loved snuggling with his cousin Alex

Brynlee loved being the center of attention with all of the older cousins

I love this action photo of Weston and Brynlee being thrown in the air by their older cousins. They had the time of their lives with all of those big kids.