Friday, January 8, 2010

Ending a Great Year!

Well, just to have my huband back would have made it an awesome Christmas but things were made sweeter because we had the best of both worlds this year. My side of the family and Andrew's entire family was able to get together for Christmas, with the exception of Andrew's youngest brother, Jason, who is serving his mission. We did get to talk with him for an hour on Christmas morning!! I have to say this will be a memorable one, we packed so many activities and fun into barely 2 weeks. Here's just a few photos of what we did.

First order of business...catch up on some much needed cuddle time with daddy.
and some tickle torture.

Sledding!!!
Amazingly Anaiya was game for sledding. She normally doesn't like the snow so we didn't think she'd be happy but she was all smiles.
Piggy-back rides from daddy coming back up the hill probably helped too.
Cyri on the other hand was sick so she didn't enjoy it at all. She is normally my snow baby but poor thing had an ear infection she was fighting so maybe next time.
I have a husband again. Yay me!
This is our friend all the way from sunny Hawaii visiting us. Funny story: never having seen snow and only heard it rumored that snow is sooooo "soft and fluffy", first thing he did was run out of the car and do a full belly flop into the snow on the front lawn. Little did he know that it hadn't snowed in a few days and the old, packed snow was no longer soft and fluffy but hard as rock. Needless to say, it did knock the wind out of him and we all had a good laugh. It was very fun and refreshing to see his child-like enthusiam for the snow. We even gave him a complimentary "Utah flu" to take back home to Hawaii. He had a really high fever the night before he flew home.
And we finally have a boy! Ok, not quite but we got a little puppy named Jax. Trinity was so happy and surprised she "didn't know what to say." She was so thoughtful to make daddy and I a Christmas Eve present so daddy decided Jax would be her Christmas Eve present from us.
Even with all the chaos and fun Anaiya was still able to find some cuddle time with Uncle Marc and take a nap. Awww.....he is such a good uncle.

Ta-da!!! The traditional Wheeler Family Christmas Eve fondue dinner. Very yummy and a lot easier than I remembered it the first time. I think we will keep the tradition going for years to come!
The cousins at the kiddie table.
Christmas morning!!! What more can I say!
Some Christmas rock band
Cyri joined the jam session too.
Sweet Cyri was feeling under the weather so she didn't get up to open presents until later that morning but she still enjoyed every minute.
"I'm a little pony, clip-a-tee clop, clip-a-tee-clop!" all the day long.
After so many years of moving back and forth too and from Utah we finally made it to see the Temple Square lights. Very beautiful but the sweetest moment was when Anaiya looked up and instead of noticing all the lights and everything else distracting, her eyes got real big and she was most excited to see the temple.
Where's child #3 you ask? Well, it was by coincidence that my family had just finished temple square and saw us unloading the kids in the parking lot as they were walking to their car so they took Cyri home. It was so well timed that one would of thought we planned and called for reinforcements on purpose but no, we are not that bad of parents, it was just plain luck. (Thanks Mom!)

And ofcourse, how else to end a good year but with hot chocolate and a nice long nap.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Trinity, Anaiya and Grandma Wheeler

Little belated posting but on December 27th we had another big bash. Celebrating this day is always special for us because of all the sweet women that this day has brought into our lives. Grandma is 35(indefinitely), Trinity is 10 and Anaiya is 5. We love you Mom, Trinity and Anaiya and look forward to spending many more holidays and birthdays together!
I realize with Christmas just two days ago it was presents over-kill for the girls but then it's famine the rest of the year! PLUS...when Trinity was born my mother-in-law made me promise that we would not let Trinity's birthday become a "by-the-way" birthday. My mother-in-law grew up with everyone just coming over for Christmas and handing her a Christmas present saying "by the way" this is for birthday too or "by the way" happy birthday. She hated that. We've tried to continue to make sure birthday continues to be special since we now have 2 that celebrate this day.
Loves....

and more loves.
And Grandpa's special too!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Ladies night

The girls were so excited to have their cousin "P" sleep over. The girls giggled and played, even though they were suppose to be asleep until who know's when then it's 4 in the morning and we already hear little 5 year old foot steps and giggles sneaking up and down the steps into the kitchen.


Wow-wee presents

Ok, before you gasp in horror thinking I've completely lost the true meaning of Christmas let me just say...I haven't. I wanted to post this picture only because I thought it was so funny how there are so many presents that the tree is leaning and the presents are stacked almost half way up the tree. These actually were not all presents just for our little family of 5. Both sides of the family and all the grand kiddies were meeting at our house to open presents so most EVERYONE'S presents were dropped off or shipped here for safe keeping.

Getting down and snowy!

Trinity was such a great sister and continued to help Cyri as she stumbled around the snow. Anaiya was in her own little world.
Trinity got the ball rolling...and that's it. It was so cold she really did just end at rolling out the bottom of the snow man and quite for fear of becoming an icicle herself.
They were told to gather a little snow ball so they could start rolling for a snow man and this was Anaiya's attempt at collecting snow.
Sweet baby gave up and just watched.

Our Angels

So sweet. Life is good.