Sledding!

The week of Christmas we got a ton of snow!! It was great! Carson and Papa went outside and Papa pulled Carson on the sled. He thought it was awesome, and thought it was hilarious when Papa fell. It lasted about 5 minutes until he face-planted in the snow and then he was done. Brooklyn rode with him a few times, but she didn't find it as fun as he did.

After he was done sledding, he helped Papa shovel the driveway. He sure does love his Papa!

Brooklyn's Tubes

 My poor baby girl has had an ear infection since the beginning of October. She has been on 6 different antibiotics, lots of home remedies, and nothing was helping. She was miserable, and so was I. I finally took her into Dr. Hanks to talk about tubes. He did Carson's and we really liked him. He took one look at Brooklyn's ears and said we needed to get it done. We scheduled it for the day after Christmas. We had to be at the hospital at 5am, but I couldn't feed Brooklyn after midnight. That was so hard! I woke her up at 11:45 to nurse her, thinking she might sleep until we had to leave. Wrong. She woke up at 1:30 and could not understand why I wouldn't feed her. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the night up with her trying to occupy her while we waited.

 When we got there they gave her a tiny yellow hospital gown to change into and put us in a room to wait. I remember Carson being in the same tiny hospital gown, but he was 14 months old when we had his down, so Brooklyn looked itty bitty in hers. We had to wait for another 2 hours before they took her back into surgery. Another miserable 2 hours trying to preoccupy her since I couldn't feed her. They finally took her back and sent us to the waiting room to wait for her.

 We were able to watch the whole process update on a screen in the waiting room, so we knew when she went in for surgery, when it was over, and when she was on her way to post-op. When they called to tell us what room number to go to, I could hear her screaming in the background. Poor thing!

When we got to the room we only had to wait for a few minutes before we heard her coming down the hall. A nurse had picked her up off her bed and was running with her to me. My little girl was not very happy and was VERY hungry. I was able to feed her and she feel asleep in my arms while we waited for the doctor to come in and release us. They brought the bed in a few minutes later. Apparently it had been too slow for Brooklyn. :) Everything went great and she seemed to feel a lot better. She slept most of the day (as did I) and was back to normal that night!

Christmas

 Christmas was so much fun this year! Carson was old enough to understand what was going on and Brooklyn just thought everything was awesome. For Carson's big gift this year, I found a train table at a yard sale this summer and we hid it in the garage for Christmas. He LOVES trains and everytime we go somewhere with a train table he wants to play for hours. My dad and I set it up after the kids were asleep on Christmas Eve and we glued the tracks together so Carson couldn't take them apart. He was so surprised on Christmas morning he didn't even really know what to do! He couldn't quite understand why there was a train table in our living room!

For Brooklyn, I found a Fisher-Price Noah's Ark at a yard sale this summer and I cleaned it up for her. She loves to chew on the animals and thinks they are the coolest. 

The kids also got spoiled with some new clothes, a few other toys, lots of books, and stuff from their grandparents. They had a great Christmas.

I surprised Jason with a shotgun and stuff to go shooting. He was shocked. :) I got some new clothes and shoes and Jason got me 9 (yes, 9) boxes of chocolate covered cherries. I'm not sure what he was thinking.....I like them, but I'm not sure that I like them that much......haha:)

Brooklyn fell asleep on Aunt Haleigh's lap. She NEVER does that!

We spent the morning opening presents with my parents, Zach, Haleigh, Carly, and Will, and then went to Ashley's house in Rexburg for Christmas Dinner.  It was a great Christmas! We did a devotional the night before about Christ and it was a perfect way to start Christmas. I am so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and for the season we get to celebrate His birth.

Gingerbread Houses

On Christmas Eve my family came to our house for a gingerbread making competition. There were some very creative gingerbread houses!! My parents made a Hogan, Zach and Haleigh did a modern house, and Carly and Will did a traditional gingerbread house. We decided to do a double-wide trailer for our gingerbread house, complete with a carport and broken down cars out front. We had searched earlier that day for the mini chocolate donuts to go on the roof (ya know, old tires??) but unfortunately we couldn't find any. Carson thought it was pretty much the coolest thing in the world to be surrounded by so much candy.....and he had his share of it, that's for sure!

Family Christmas Party

 The Sunday before Christmas we had our family "Ugly Sweater" Christmas Party. It was a lot of fun. My parents got to come up for about 2 weeks and Zach and Haleigh came up from Utah and spent Christmas with us. It was great to have the whole family together. We had lots of great food and had fun spending time together.

We played Christmas Minute-to-win-it games which were hilarious to watch. 

Balance the Ornaments

Stack the cups

Roll the Ornament

The Oreo game....

Carson's version of the Oreo game

Championship round! Zach won....

 We also had a photo booth and took some fun pictures. They pretty much speak for themselves....

 We had a great time and we are going to need to make that party an annual tradition!! Who doesn't want to wear ugly sweaters and act like a dork all night?

Donuts, Dates, Bathtime, and Friends

 Jason and Carson have started going to get donuts on Saturday mornings for their "Daddy-Son" date. Carson loves it. He only lets his daddy have 2 donuts and then yells at him if he tries to eat more. Carson really looks forward to it and is always asking if its the day he gets to get donuts.

 

Brooklyn is getting so big and she loves her baths, just like Carson. My mom found a little bathtub at a yard sale and Brooklyn thinks it is the coolest thing ever. She loves to kick her little feet and play and play and play. It's so fun to watch her.

  

The weekend before Christmas, my friend Hannah came to visit us. She and I were roommates in college and I love her to death. She lives in D.C. now and has such an exciting life. I tell her that I live vicariously through her because she gets to go and do so many things that are on my bucket list. It was so good to have her here and to visit with her. It doesn't matter how long it has been since we've seen each other, the instant we are together it's like we were never apart. I realized something as I thought about her visit after she left. Hannah and I get along so well because she is like an extension of me. We have the same goals, the same hopes, the same beliefs, the same core values, the same outlook on life, the same taste, the same political views, the same....everything. It is so nice to be around someone that understands COMPLETELY. I don't feel like I have to explain myself or leave anything out. She gets it. I hope someday we live close to each other again.