Santa 2010

We were lucky this year to visit Santa at Photo By Emilie's studio! He was there on a Saturday and we had our own 15 minutes with him while Emilie snapped some pictures. One week later we had a DVD of our pictures for $25 and some excitement for Santa's upcoming visit.

Christmas Activities

My Dad works part time for Heber Valley Railroad, so were were able to ride the Polar Express Train this year during the dress rehearsal night before they open to the public. I bought the girls cute Christmas PJ's and we were off! Unfortunately it was about 45 minutes before the train left for the North Pole and Maddie was over the train seats in about 15 minutes. Even being able to walk around was not enough. We finally pulled out and they immediately brought out cookies and cocoa...a welcome distraction. A few minutes later Santa and Mrs. Claus appeared as we passes the North Pole..another welcome distraction. We stopped to tun the train around and it was downhill from there. Maddie was SO tired and cranky, I was coming down with a fever and a cold, and the train was so hot we had to pull the windows open. We left the train station to go get hamburgers for dinner then loaded everyone up and headed home. Maybe next year will be better:)
Ashley had her 1st preschool singing program. It was only 30 minutes long, but she participated really well and sang loudly...maybe Mom's passion for Drama is in her blood:)
We had a girls afternoon with Nana and Grandma Gertrude and frosted cookies for Santa right before Christmas. Maddie was more interested in eating the frosting by the handful than decorating. We had some great looking cookies that Santa ate right up Christmas Eve...way to go girls!

Thanksgiving

We had a fun weekend with Mike and Katie and Baby Taylor coming up to visit for the long weekend. We ate dinner with Deb's family,then headed to Dave's family. Deb did a little Black Friday shopping, then we met friends for dinner at Cafe Trio without the kiddos. We put the tree up Sunday and, then the weekend was over.

Mickey's Halloween Party

Ashley and I were lucky enough to fly down in October and go to the party at Disneyland. We stayed with Aunt Cathy (Dave's sister)and she joined us for the fun. When you buy the $50 event ticket it allows you enter Disneyland 3 hours before the event starts so you can have a little more fun for the price. The party went from 7pm to 12am, so we entered at 4pm. We rode a few rides, had dinner at the Golden Horseshoe, then headed over to Critter Country to get in line for the treats. Right at 7pm the candy lines open and you just wind you way between the candy stations and they give you huge handfuls at every stop. Not crap candy either...snickers, skittles, M&M's,twix...good brand name stuff....by the handful! We watched the special parade, visited with the princesses, then got in line for Mickey and Minnie. Then the fireworks started and so did Ashley's screaming. She has had a fear of fireworks all of her 4 short years, and tonight was no different. I immediate picked her and carried her over to a bench while Cathy waited in line to hold our spot. After 5 minutes of hysterical crying and screaming Ash looks at me and says, "Mom look how beautiful they are...they're not scary." And BAM, we are over our fear of fireworks. She watched the last 10 minutes, then we had our picture with Mickey and Minnie. Ash stayed awake until we left at midnight and fell asleep on the way home, what a trooper! Such a fun Halloween tradition, I hope we can go every year!

Halloween 2010

We had lots of fun over the 2 day Halloween weekend. We went to Dave's work to trick or treat on Friday. Then we headed over to Atria to visit Grandma Gertrude and Grandpa Bill to trick-or-treat and parade in front of the residents. On Halloween day we made Dave's famous chili and had the grandparents and cousins over for dinner and trick-or-treating. As usual in Utah, it rained Halloween night and was about 42 degrees. We were chilled to the bone by the end of the night, but we had lots of great treats!

Fall Activities

We did lots of fun things this Fall...my FAVORITE time of year! We saw the leaves in the mountains and hiked. We like to go to Silverlake right next to Brighton Ski Resort. It is beautiful lake with a neat wooden boardwalk that circles it. Makes for easy hiking with little ones who stumble easily. We went to Gardner Village to visit the witches,we also went to Little Haunts a kid friendly Halloween festival at This Is The Place Park. We went through a kids haunted house, heard a story read by a witch, petted baby farm animals, had our faces painted and trick or treated at each of the old historic buildings.

Ashley's 4th birthday

This year I decided to downsize Ashley's birthday and only invite 3 other kids and their Mom's. It worked really well and it was nice to chat with everyone and not feel totally crazy with chaos. We had the party at Boondocks and we had a blast! We had Ashley's family party at home like we always do. This year she chose a Disney Princess theme...big surprise!
The big hit this year was the kid size jeep Dave bought for Ashley. He always wanted one when he was little and now that our red jeep is gone he has a chance to at least make the kids happy:)

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