Christmas Time 2010

This year Hayden and  I were in the Treasure Valley Night Light Parade. We were part of a float for a new charter school we are trying to get in to. Hayden thought it was pretty cool that he got to be a part of it. We had fun, but we were freezing at the end.  

We had an early Christmas at Gary and Vanessa's, like we usually do. This is McKall who was really enjoying chocolate of some sort, obviously!





On Christmas Eve we made sugar cookies for Santa, and the kids both heard Santa's sleigh bells outside of the house! Hayden could would not fall asleep as he was a little bit excited! Hayden wrote a letter to Santa this year and asked him to bring each of us 100 presents. This is the kids in their new Christmas Eve jammies.

Opening presents on Christmas morning.... they were still calm.

I gave up trying to take pictures of them because they would not sit still with all of the new toys around. This is the quality of pictures the kids were giving me. New toys more important that mom trying to get pictures on Christmas morning? Just a few of our favorite gifts this year... Mike got me an Escali Pana kitchen food scale- yay! I made the most delicious rolls and I am excited to play with it! Hayden got criss cross crash from Santa, and McKall got a ton of baby doll stuff. Mike wanted a good one one this this year. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to fulfill his request, but he did end up getting his $8.00 stapler that he wanted so badly! Later that day we went to Grandma and Grandpa Barbour's. Amanda and Jeremy were here for Christmas.

For New Year's Eve we are off to spend it with some friends. This year went by very quickly! Here is to a great 2011!

Why do Policemen have guns?

Yesterday we were at Walmart grabbing a few things. On one of the isles Hayden picked up a bottle of cupcake sprinkles, accidentally dropped it, and broke it. I picked it up, kicked the sprinkles over and told him not to touch stuff in the store. I also told him that he could get in trouble if anyone saw him do that (gotta scare the kid- right). We moved on, paid, and went on our merry way.

A bit later, in the car, Hayden said, "Why do policemen have guns?" We explained why they have guns. He thought a bit and said, "Do policemen come for falling food?" At this point we weren't sure where he was going with this, so we told him that if the falling food was hurting someone the police may come. About 30 seconds passed and he said, "will they come if the falling food happens just once?" 

I looked to the back seat and he had a really worried look on his face. Mike and I then both realized he was scared about a policeman coming to get him in trouble for the sprinkles. It was one of those moments that we were trying not to bust out laughing and trying to comfort him at the same time. It was so sad and funny at the same time. I felt so bad for him, my sweet little boy.

First Big Snow Day!

We got a ton of snow, so the kids and I headed outside to build a snowman! The roads were crazy, and it took poor Mike 2 hours to get to work! I don't really like the snow and cold, but there is something about the first good snow fall of the year!

Princess McKall turns TWO!

This year for McKall's 2nd birthday we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Barbour at Idaho Pizza and then we all headed over to Chuck E. Cheese! One of the kids' favorite places. Hayden wanted to invite all of his friends to CEC for her "party" and we explained to him that they are his friends and that she could just have a party with her family. A little while later he had a solution... we had to invite his friends' younger siblings. One was little tiny Lucy McDonald who was like 10 days old!! He was so cute being concerned about his little sis' birthday and he wanted to make sure she was going to have fun!

We headed home for some cake and presents.

Yummy!

We are so grateful to have our little princess! She is the sweetest little thing. She is starting to say lots of new words and sentences and is keeping up with Hayden running all over the house to do what ever he is doing. She can also be a little trouble maker- one day the kids were having apples for a snack. I left the room for a minute to find that McKall had gotten a hold of the ranch dressing. She was eating it with her hands. On another day I was getting my wallet out of my purse for something and she walked over and held out her tiny had and said "money." She looks adorable in pig-tails! She still has curls in her hair, but the top part is starting to go straight. She doesn't eat much dairy because she doesn't do very well with it- but she loves it. She is very sensitive and dramatic. She loves her baby dolls, and tells us to be quiet when they are sleeping. About 1000 times a day she says "mommy, mere," "daddy, mere" (mommy, daddy come here). We tell her we are right there and she says "k," really loud.

Nice outfit! She loves to "dress up," and this particular day she had on pj pants, a striped shirt, silver shoes, and goggles. Love her!

This is my life...

...and I love it. Enough said :)

Cousin Lilly

We took a short trip to Salt Lake to visit Amanda, Jeremy, and Lilly because they were being sealed in the Temple. Mike and Jeremy went to the Jazz game one of the nights, so the kids and Amanda and I hung out in the hotel room. Hayden and McKall had Lilly laughing so hard. The funny thing was they weren't really doing anything- just jumping around and being crazy- pretty much being their normal selves! While we were visiting Lilly got her first taste of meat. Amanda made us dinner and she left to get Jeremy from work, so we were waiting to eat. Lilly climbed up on a chair and started picking food off of the table... Meat. So, we decided to feed the kids before they got back. I gave Lilly a serving of meat. Amanda informed us after she returned that she doesn't eat meat because she is a vegetarian. Whoops. (P.S. Lillian- it was good huh!)

Family Pics

We finally had our family pictures done. We haven't had any since McKall was born. Hayden is impossible to take pictures of, at least for me, because he can't sit still for two seconds, so I was a little worried about him. It turned out being Mckall who was the cranky one. She is getting her back molars, and it was a little chilly, and she fell on some gravel right as we were starting, and some lady she didn't know wanted to take her picture - so she was just plain in a bad mood. We did have some moments where she was cooperative, so I was pretty happy with how the pics turned out considering the situation.

For Halloween this year Hayden was Spider Man and McKall was a Black Kitty. Hayden got to go to a Halloween party for preschool. This is his sugar cookie they decorated. Yummy!

We had a trunk or treat in beautiful Curtis Park (even I got excited about it and I usually don't like trunk or treats). And guess who wouldn't get out of the car... Hayden...surprise, surprise.

He was so excited to go and see his friends. When we got there none of his friends were there yet so he waited for them in the car. When they got there they started trick or treating and he wanted to go with just his friends and the moms and have none of the siblings go with them. We told him no, so he pouted the entire time and never left the car. Little Miss had fun! She didn't want to go car to car to go trick or treating because she didn't quite understand it, but she had fun.

Caitlyn came trick or treating through the neighborhood with us. The kids just love her and they had a fun time!

Pumpkin Patch

For one of our preschool field trips we took the kids to a pumpkin patch. I thought Hayden would be looking for the biggest pumpkin he could find, but he found this little one he loved.

Hayden and Mckall dancing in the dirt. They weren't the cleanest kids when we left!

The weather was perfect. I love the fall, so it was fun to be outside on a beautiful day.

Here are the boys again making funny faces! Rockwell is not mad... that is his funny face!

McKall loved the swing in the tree.

Soccer

Hayden played soccer this year again. He really loves it, but we did have a rough start to the season. This was due to the fact that Hayden's uniform color this year was blue, and not red like it was last year. Hayden can have a difficult time with change sometimes! He didn't play his first game because he refused to put the uniform on. We worked on it at home and had him wear it before his next game and he was eventually fine with it. On his team picture day he fell asleep in the car on the way to get the pics done. He was very cranky and refused to be in his team pictures in the process of getting them taken. Both of these things happened in matter of a week. It was one of those times as a mom I was saying "why am I doing this." Well, because he is my beans and I love him even when he is a little turkey embarrassing me.

Hayden loves to go and run with the kids! He just laughs and giggles and has the best time. When he is not playing he likes to cheer from the sidelines.

Turkey Bowl

Once again we attended the annual "Turkey Bowl" with Mike's friends. We had a lot of fun hanging out and this year while the boys played football and the kids played the girls did a snake wreath craft and some flower hair clips.

We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings and Hayden was loving the wings!

Preschool

This year for Hayden's preschool we are doing a co-op with his friends Jack, Rockwell, and Gavin. Hayden is loving it! Nearly every morning he wants to know what day it is to find out if he has preschool. This picture is the boys at our house on "D" day showing the Dinosaurs they made. I can't believe my little boy will be in kindergarten next year!

Washington DC- Just Mike and Maria

Mike and I had an amazing trip to the Washington DC area in September for the BSU vs.Virgina Tech football game. A huge thanks to all who helped us make this trip happen- Mom and Dad Barbour, Amanda, Mom and Dad Wyler, and Kurt and Rainey.

We arrived Wednesday night and stayed with Kurt and Rainey in Virgina and had a great time visiting with them. On Thursday we all drove to Colonial Williamsburg. We were there after hours so we were just walking around on our own looking at all of the neat historical sites. Here is the best part...Mike sees a cute little gate and a walk way into a back yard. Mike, myself and Noah head back there to take a look. Mike goes up to the back porch and discovers the back door of the house is open. He looks at me and says "should we go in?" Mind you, we think these are all "museum" like houses because of where we are at. Mike walks in slowly and I am still in the yard. Then I hear "can I help you?" I was a bad wife and I ran... laughing. Turns out it was a private residence! The guy wasn't mad, he says it happens a lot! It was really odd though because you would never think there would be private residences. It was basically a dirt road, no cars, no lights on in the houses, nothing really to indicate people lived there... until we learned that on the front of some of the houses there is a teeny-tiny plaque that says "private residence." You would think they would make it a little more obvious for Idaho tourists like us! One of my favorite parts of Colonial Williamsburg was walking through the church grounds. There were graves from the 1600's. Amazing. You could barely read the stones. Rainey and Kurt live in Fredericksburg, Va, which has amazing history too. Rainey took us to some civil war sites and showed us around Historical Fredericksburg.

The next day we were headed to Busch Gardens. We woke up to pouring rain, UGH. We still had to go though because we had already purchased the tickets and drove a couple of hours to be there, the night before. We headed to K-Mart for an umbrella to make it a little more bearable. There was no one there. We parked right up front at the amusement park - that never happens! We had a couple of things going for us- the weather, and it was a school and work day. It couldn't have turned out better! The rain cleared up after a few hours and we literally walked on to any ride we wanted all day long. It was so much fun!

Mike and I went to Mt. Vernon - the home of President George Washington. It was really interesting and beautiful. This pic is Mike at the bathrooms, which was a separate little building on the side of the house. We like to get pictures of Mike in front of bathrooms for some reason!

In DC we had to eat at Ben's Chili Bowl. Yummy!!

And of course BSU won! We had a great time at the game.

We took a tour of the Capitol Building. This picture of Mike is in the center of the building where all of the President's stand as they exit out to be sworn in as President.

We visited the Library of Congress, Arlington National Cemetery, The Supreme Court, The National Archives, and The Museum of Natural History. We packed a ton of stuff into this trip and were so exhausted - but we had a great time!

Were gone over a week and ready to be home- and then our flight gets delayed. That caused us to miss our connecting flight, so we were stuck in San Francisco for the night. That may have been fun, but we didn't get to our hotel until around midnight and had to be back at the airport at 5am. I missed my kids, but it was great to have a little break and spend some time with just Mike.