Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a great Christmas this year!! We had a really good one. We spent Christmas Eve up at Adam's parents and then Christmas Day at my parents. I was too nice this year and picked up Christams Eve at work, so I went in at 11 pm after the family party and got home about 7 am on Christmas Day :( Needless to say I was a little tired on Christmas, which explains how I forgot to take the camera to my parents and get any pics :( Adam and I got very spoiled this year, so thanks again to our folks!! We got a new TV and a Playstation 3 which I say is more for adam than me :) He is currently playing Transformers as I'm typing this :) His parents gave him an awesome fishing rod which he is chomping at the bit to go use. Landon got all sorts of toys that I can't even remember what all he got!

Christmas Eve the grandkids all helped decorate Grandma and Grandpas tree so that Santa would come to their house.

Landon opening his Christmas PJs, that he refused to put on :) Crazy kid!

Adam's Grandparents gave all the Grandkids these cute teddy bears. I didn't realize how much Landon liked them until I saw his reaction opening this one :)

Christmas morning we opened gifts when I got home, had some cinnamon rolls and then I was out the second my head hit that pillow :)

*just in case anyone notices the presents in the background (which I'm sure you are going to scroll up and look now) but my hubby has this thing with wrapping. He loves to make presents impossible to open and prides himself on using multiple rolls of tape on one present. Which is why there are presents wrapped in duct tape :)

Adam needed tools, so he had a power tool Christmas from me :)

Adam's parents stopped by Christmas morning to exchange gifts.

AAHH, Young Love!

I think I have mentioned before how much Landon absolutely adores my friend Katie's lil girl Bella. They are so funny together. Bella refers to Landon as "her landon", she will fight with you tooth and nail that, "NO! He's my Landon!" and Landon gets so excited to see her. If you ask him who his girlfriend is, he says "bella". They get into SOOO mush mischief together and are always hiding in closets and under beds together. I know, we're in trouble! It's so funny cuz one minute they are beating each other up and the next they are all protective of one another. It's so cute :)

Winter Wonderland

Landon loves snowmen and ever since the snow stuck to the ground, he has been asking to go outside and build a snowman. So, yesterday afternoon we played in the snow :)

Landon getting ready for our big day out in the cold

Landon helping Daddy build our snowman


Landon was a lot of help. He sure has how to build a snowman down!

The finished product :)

i did help too, I'm just always the one behind the camera :)

Next, we decided to build a snow fort. This thing is decked out! It is equiped with a lookout post, tunnel, slide, and it even has a couch!! :)

It's hard to see due to the white on white, but this is our Fort :)

Landon on his lookout post

The Tunnel

Every fort needs a slide :)

relaxing on the couch

Trying to dodge Daddy's snowballs :)

READY for Christmas!!

So I have to brag for a moment and say that I am DONE with my Christmas shopping! YEAH :) The stores and roads are CRAZY!! I'm so glad I don't have to go out in it again! This week we did a ton of fun stuff with our good friends Mitch and Katie, but stupid me forgot the camera, so sorry... No Pics :( We were supposed to all go down to St. George together for the weekend, but after hearing the weather forecast we decided not to go. So, instead we had a staycation :) Thur we all went to eat at La Ferrovia and then took the kids to see Planet 51. It was really cute! Landon has a crush on katie's lil girl, Bella, and it's so funny to see how he tries to protect her and take care of her one minute and then the next he is pushing her down and stealing her toys. Mitch had to take Bella out of the theater for a minute and Landon kept yelling at him "Put Bella Down!!" Boy are we in trouble already with those 2 :)
Friday night we took the kids to see the lights at Christmas Village and then had dinner at Mitch and Katie's and had a Wii night. I am the worst at Mario cart :( I think I came in 12th place during every race!
Today Adam and I both went out to finish up our Christmas shopping and then we all went to eat at Tepanyaki's. It was Landon's first time there and he loved the FIRE. He kept wanting the chef to do it again. He wouldn't try any of the food, but atleast he learned how to use chopsticks :)
Thanks again Mitch, Katie, Andrew, and Bella! We had a great staycation! Can't wait til spring when we actually go to St. George :)

SuperHero Party

Landon had his 3rd birthday last week! I can't believe my baby boy is already 3! We had a superhero party because Landon is really into spiderman right now. So on the invitations it asked everyone to dress up as their favorite superhero or make up their own. Landon was spiderman, except he wouldn't put on the costume, so technically he was Peter Parker at the party :) I was Jeanaism. My in-laws have given the title of a Jeanaism to anything stupid anyone says (long story :) ) so I turned it into my superhero. Adam was super dad and apparently didn't need a costume to be super dad "cuz he already is". The family got really creative, we had a super drama queen, super soccer fan, super daddy's girl, spider woman, static-cling, super dog woman, super purple princess, captain chaos, scuba steve, optimus prime, super grandma, super stink, super candle-man, and my good friends Katie and Mitch and their kids Andrew and Bella all came as their super selves. Thanks guys for dressing up, Landon had a Blast!!!

Here are the kids running around in the front room

The Birthday boy opening up all his great gifts

Landon's Oma and Opa couldn't make the party, but they came to the house the day before and brought him an awesome Spiderman cake.

Landon's big surprise this year was a playhouse for the backyard from his Grandma and Grandpa Flynn. We set it up in the playroom for now. It was crazy trying to keep all the kids out of the playroom until it was time for the big reveal, since that's usually the first place they all go and play. Landon loves it! Thanks again grandma :) It keeps him entertained for hours :)

Getting in Shape

So Adam and I have joined a gym. It's not like a regular gym though. It's more like a boot camp were there are set class times and you basically have a personal trainer cuz he likes under 8 people in a class :) It's called Jim's Gym and it's out here in Clinton. It's the best workout I've ever had and Adam and I are both addicted :) With new Year's coming up and resolutions being set I thought I would throw this out there for anyone like us trying to get in shape. Jim is having a Black Friday Special where if you buy one package at normal price you get one FREE!! The most popular is the 3 days a week for 6 weeks which is $175, but you would get 3 months(12 weeks) for the $175, that's roughly $4.80 a session. But you have to pay upfront and by Nov. 30th. If you're interested and want to come be my workout buddy ;) leave me a comment and I'll get you more info or look up Jim's Gym in the phonebook and give Jim a call :)

Halloween

We LOVE Halloween! I just love fall in general. This year we started off the Halloween festivities by making a haunted gingerbread house with Landon. He loved decorating it, but loved ripping off all the candy once it dried even more.

This is him refusing to have his picture taken with his haunted house.
Every year my family gets together to carve pumpkins and we go all out with very detailed designs :) This year we had everyone over to our house for the event. Here is Landon with his pirate pumpkin.

The family's creations :)

The Sawyer's have a Halloween party every year and Grandma makes her famous chili and cheese soup, which I crave all year long! This year we all dressed up as famous couples. Adam and i were Samson and Delilah. I wish I would've taken a side view of Adam's hair! It was down to his butt! The scissors were supposed to be a part of my costume, but Spiderman decided they went better with his costume :)

We had my family over on Halloween night and passed out candy and went Trick or Treating in our neighborhood. My sister's husband Gary gets really in to Halloween, so they came up and helped decorate our front yard. We had a pirate gravetard with fog and everything :) Hope you all had a great and safe Halloween!!! Here our some pics of our house :)

The adorable Trick or Treaters :)

Pirate Party

Landon had a pirate party at his Grandma's house a little while ago. It was so cute! She has been trying to do some activities for Daniel to help him get interaction with other kids since he can't go to public schools anymore, so Landon goes over a lot and they do things together. For the pirate party they dressed up like pirates and played all pirate themed games. First, they made parrots out of toilet paper rolls and filled them with bug graham crackers. Then, we walked the plank and sang a song game off of the Backyardigans. Then we put pirate stickers on a treasure map. The boys had so much fun!!

Pampered Chef

I am having a Pampered Chef party! A lot of you probably got invitations, but if you didn't I am sorry, I most likely didn't have your address. I put a link on the right-hand side to my party if anyone is interested in getting anything. Just order online with Jeana Rasmussen for host and it will be delivered right to your house. Thanks :)

Keeping Busy

We have been keeping busy lately, between trying to take Landon out to do things and with going up to the hospital to see Daniel. We took Landon mini-golfing for the first time last weekend. He had a blast! It was hilarious! He understood the concept of getting the ball in the hole, but not of using the club to get it there. Adam or I would help him with the first swing and then he would run down to his ball and pick it up and throw it in the hole. Hey, he scored 2 on every hole :)

We have been going up to the hospital about every other day to see Daniel. Him and Landon love seeing it each other. It's so cute, Daniel still isn't up to doing a whole lot and gets dizzy and off balance when he tries to walk very far, so they spend most of the time sitting on Daniel's bed watching "the pirates who don't do anything". They also occassionally go to the playroom and play up there together. Daniel had a 2nd surgery yesterday to place a permanent shunt in his head to help drain the fluid that his body hasn't been absorbing, and they also placed the port-a-cath for his chemo treatments. He is doing well and should be able to discharge in the next few days.

We went to the aquarium with Grandma Sawyer, Aunt Beckie, Hannah, Livie, and Boston. Landon was so excited to see his cousins. Him and Boston had a riot with the frog sound board and trying to get a pic of all 4 of them looking and smiling was our greatest challenge for the afternoon :) Thanks again guys for going with us :)

Good News and Bad News

The Good news is that they were able to remove the entire tumor from Daniel's brain. He is in recovery and doing as well as to be expected after brain surgery. The Bad news, is that they think the tumor is a medulloblastoma which is a cancerous tumor. They won't have the final patholgoy report back until Wednesday to know if he needs chemo or radiation. I went up to see him today and the poor lil guy is in so much pain and just isn't himself due to all the medication he is on. THANK YOU all for your kind thoughts and prayers!!

Prayers for Daniel

My 5 yr old nephew, Daniel, has been through WAY more in his first 5 little years of life so far than anyone should in their entire life. He and my brother came to live with my Mom 3 years ago while my bro was going through a nasty divorce and med school. Daniel was very malnourished and neglected. He lived with a mother who suffered from munchhausen's by proxy, if you haven't heard of this, it's where someone makes up illnesses they claim their children have to get medical attention. So from being born early and spending months in the NICU and then under going lots of possibly unnecessary medical treatments as an infant. He was gaining weight and developing well after living with my Mom and Lawrence, but over the last 2 months he started throwing up, which should be physically impossible for him because he had Nissen surgery when he was little. We all thought it might be related to the stress he has been under lately because his Dad is remarrying and he will be moving to a new school and new home. They did a barium swallow test to check his Nissen since he shouldn't be able to throw up in the first place. They found he has some diverticulitis (a bulging in the intestinal lining), but they thought that was more likely a side effect of the vomitting and not the cause so they were planning to do more testing. Then, yesterday Daniel just wasn't doing well, he has lost some weight form the vomtting and been really tired and weak, so my bro took him to the ER. They did a MRI and found a brain tumor in the base of his brain that is slightly bulging into the brain stem. They are doing surgery today sometime to try and remove the entire tumor and find out if it's cancerous. So even if you don't know my cute lil nephew, please have a prayer in your heart for him and our family today.

Moved In!!

We finally moved in! It has taken awhile to post because we had a little bit of a internet dilema. After moving in we realized there wasn't a phone jack in the room we wanted to put the computer in. The closest was in the kitchen and I wasn't having a wire running through everywhere. So we finally figured out how to set up wirelessly with just having the modem and router be in the kitchen. I was pretty proud of me being all computer techy and figuring it out, cuz I am horrible with computers. But we are finally in and I will post pics once we are all settled and more out of boxes :)

Harry Potter

I broke my tradition this year and didn't go to the midnight showing :( I thought we would be closing the next day, so didn't want to stay out that late. When I found out we weren't closing, I needed a stress relief and my WONDERUFL friend Katie took Landon for us so we could escape reality for a few hours and go to the movie. It was really good! WARNING for parents though, I don't know if I would take little kids to it, it is a little violent and dark (cuz the book is). I'm weird with movies from books, I never love it the first time, but like it more and more each time I see it, but this one was actually really good for my first time critique :) Thanks again Katie, you're awesome!!

Closing Horror Stories

So, I want to hear if anyone else has had horror stories with closing on their house. I have heard it can be ridiculous, but want to know that we aren't the only ones to have drama with closing :) So my agent calls last night and says that the guy buying our house needs to move closing from wednesday to friday. I guess he forgot to sign one little initial on a paper to get his down payment and so know the under writer needs 2 more days because the source of his down payment has changed or something. So, now instead of getting the keys to the house on thursday we wont get them until MONDAY!!! Because closing on friday, they won't be able to verify funding until the next business day. SERIOUSLY!! We had work taken off and babysitters all lined up to move over the weekend. It's just so frustrating that you find this type of stuff out barely 24 hours before you were supposed to close! I spent like 3 hours on the phone the other day changing our address and getting utilities switched over. I had peeps coming to the house friday to set up internet and cable, so now have to call and reschedule all of that! Sorry, just had to vent, but leave me a comment and let me know if we aren't alone in our frustration!

So Weird

So my house feels so weird right now! I have started packing and pretty much don't have anything on my walls anymore. It's crazy how much decorations can change a room. I'm so excited to decorate the new house. I have all these ideas in my head and can't wait to put them in action. It will be a work in progress for a bit, but will be worth it in the end :) So we are good to go on both selling and buying, YEAH :) Just need to sign now. So I will shortly be posting some before pics of our new house :)

Help?

So I still have all my old prom dresses for some reason and wanted to try and sell them, since they cost a pretty penny when they were new. I put them on KSL, but I was wondering if there are any stores that buy used prom dresses. I know there are websites, but I'd rather just drop them off and get the cash :) So does anyone know of any such place that buys used dresses?

We're NOT HOMELESS!!! YEAH!!

Yeah!! We have a house! We finally came to an agreement! So this is our beautiful house. It was built in 2005. It's a split-level/multi-level/california-split (I've heard em called so many different names I don't know the correct term). It has a living room, family room, kitchen, and dining room on the main level. 3 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs (I love my closet! It's a HUGE walk-in :). The basement is un-finished, but one day (hopefully sooner than later) will have a laundry room, 2 rooms, and half-bath. I'm so excited to have a new house, but I do have to say I'm NOT excited to pack and move :(
We both LOVE the backyard! Our favorite thing to do is sit in the backyard on summer nights. So we can't wait to get some patio furniture and spends evenings sitting back there watching Landon play. The yard seems huge! It's only like .22 of an acre, but it feels massive, this picture doesn't fully capture it :)