Date Night: Christmas Eve

Our Twelfth Date

December 24, 2010

Dustin was in charge

This wasn't an exact date.  It was Christmas Eve and with the next day being Christmas there was no real date this week.  We spent time with our family.  We went to the Christmas Eve service at Dustin's parent's church.  I loved the music that was played.  I also learned something about myself at that service....I learned that Silent Night is one of my favorite Christmas songs because of the Spirit.  No matter where I am I always feel an outpouring of the Spirit when that song is played.

After the service we had a nice dinner together as a family minus Dustin's sister, Drew.   After dinner Dustin and I got the boys ready for bed.  We all put on our special Christmas pajamas.  We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  It was such a nice evening.

I am so glad that we had this family date, while this wasn't a traditional couple date, it was the perfect way to spend Christmas Eve and to honor Christmas.  Together as a family.

Date Night: The Deathly Hallows

Our Eleventh Date

December 18, 2010

Dustin was in Charge

I know we watched a movie the previous week, but this time we had a babysitter and actually went to a theater.  We haven't been to the movie theater in a very long time so this was a real treat for us.  We were able to go out and leave the children behind.  We got to see a movie that we were excited to see in the theater.

It was a great movie!  We can't wait for the next one to come out in the summer.

Issaquah Reindeer Festival

In preparation for Christmas we went to visit the reindeer and Santa at the Cougar Mountain Zoo.

               Santa's Sentinels = Lemurs     South American Reindeer = Llamas

This Wallabe has a little 7-8 month old baby in her pouch!

 Before we came to Washington David wrote a letter to Santa.  This is the letter he wrote:

Matthew's Habit

This is what Matthew does while eating every time we set him in his chair for a meal.

While we have been in Washington Matthew has sat in a different seat and cannot hook his legs on the edge of his tray.  Instead Matthew has taken to swinging his legs; he kicks pretty good now.

Dustin's Work

This is a little of what Dustin has been working on in his studio.

These pictures were based on pictures he took while on his backpacking trip this past summer.

Zion National Park

We spent Thanksgiving down in St. George, UT with my family and grandparents.  The day after Thanksgiving we went hiking over at Zion National Park.  We did the Emerald Pools trail.  Here are some of the pictures.

We had a really good time.  There was some snow and ice on trail but we all made it through okay.  The weather was really nice and we enjoyed the beautiful sites.

Family Tradition

When Dustin & I were engage we decided that we would get family pictures done every year.  So far we have been successful.  This year was no exception, plus we had 2 awesome photographers - both were good friends of mine.  All of our pictures were done on the ISU campus.

Kelly Spence took these pictures for us (these are our top 6 pictures):

Megan Poulton took these pictures for us (these are out top 6 pictures):

  

Aren't these pictures great!
Megan moved away recently but Kelly will still be around for a while and we will have her do pictures for us in the years to come before she and her family move away too.

Snow + Uncle + Aunt = FUN!

The week before Thanksgiving we got TONS of snow!  David wanted to go play in it that first day.  We got him all bundled up in his snow gear.  I wanted to make sure he stayed warm & dry.

As soon as David got outside he walked around a little bit looking at the ground.  When he was satisfied he fell on his back and proceeded to make a snow angel.  It was great I loved it!

He played outside for about an hour before he decided to come in.  Once inside he was in for the rest of the day - he had, had his fill.

As soon as his snow clothes came off he arranged them on the towels I had layed out for walking.  I thought it was pretty clever.

Now since it had snowed the week before Thanksgiving, I kept an eye on the weather since I would have to drive up to Rexburg to pick up Brian and Cassie so they could drive with us to St. George for Thanksgiving.  As the weekend passed and the snow came and the weatherman promised more snow I picked them up early on Sunday.  It's a good thing I went when I did because it took me about 2 hours to get up to Rexburg.  Then the snow continued on through Monday and more on Tuesday.  I was originally supposed to pick them up on Tuesday night - oh, well.

Since Monday was so snowy and the wind hadn't blown it all away Uncle Brian and Aunt Cassie took David sledding on the big hills while I cleaned, packed & Matthew napped.  I sent the camera with Cassie.  These are a few of the videos that came back.

 

Cookie Monster Matthew

Yep.

Matthew likes cookies.

He thinks they are super yummy.

He will growl at you if you don't share the cookie in your hand.

Matthew really likes oreos.

Just like his mommy.

Look at that face.

Who wouldn't give that kid a cookie?

Date Night: Eclipse

Our Tenth Date

December 10, 2010

Dustin was in charge

Wow!  We've made it 10 weeks, with out any problems.  Neither of us has forgotten about date night, we have been consistent even if the dates weren't always what was originally planned.  I'm really proud of us!

Two weeks ago Dustin has casually mentioned that if I wanted to pick up a Red Box that night that Eclipse had just come out and he would watch it with me.  I hadn't realized that he had originally planned to watch for date night; we ended up dancing instead.

Dustin made sure that he reserved a copy for us and picked it up along with our Friday night family movie.  Now I need to explain something about me and movies.  First, I don't like to see series movies for the first time in different settings; example - the Twilight series.  I didn't see the Twilight in the theater because I didn't want to waste my money and be disappointed so I waited for the DVD.  Since Twilight was first viewed at home New Moon and Eclipse also had to be viewed at home.  I know I'm silly that way; it helps me to compare the movies better.

Anyway,  back to the date, my wonderful husband understands my movie....problem(?), and makes due. He also knew that I would want to watch it.  And per our Thankfulness date, he chose a movie to watch that he knew I would like.  It was nice to sit down and watch a movie together.  With the busy holiday season and Dustin's school semester coming to an end, we don't see a whole lot of each other.  We were able to sit down together and watch something - no distractions.

Date Night: Dance Competition

Our Ninth Date

December 4, 2010

Dustin was in charge

While there were no actual judges (aside from ourselves), we had a dance competition with each other.  We were playing the demo for Dance Central on the XBOX Kinect.  So really we just competed with two songs, but we did them over and over in an effort to beat each other or at least our own score.  We are getting pretty good! 

It was a fun night to laugh with each other and feel silly dancing the moves we were presented.  We are definitely going to get the game so that we can have more songs to dance to.  It's always nice to be able to spend an evening laughing together - well, at ourselves and at each other.

Who knows, if we have more date nights like this maybe we could be on Dancing with the Stars!  I know what you're thinking....we're not stars.  Well, we can be stars to each other and our friends.  Look out friends near by - you may be challenged to a dance off in the coming months!

Date Night: Travel Recovery

Our Eighth Date
November 27, 2010
I was in charge.

Nothing exciting this week.  We moved our date from Friday night to Saturday night to accomodate our Thanksgiving travel plans.  Little did we know just how exhausted we would be after so much driving.  After dropping my brother & his friend off at BYU-I, Dustin came home and we just sat on the couch to relax and watch the TV shows we had missed during the week.  I did my best to get the living room put back together after unloading the van and getting the kids bathed and put to bed.  All this was done while Dustin returned the rental van and dropped my brother & his friend off in Rexburg.

We enjoyed spending the week with family members.  We enjoyed celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday.  We enjoyed just lounging on the couch for a night, in relative silence.

Date Night: Thankfulness

Our Seventh Date

November 19, 2010

I was in charge

Being that it was the week before Thanksgiving and I had this incredible free download from My Computer is My Canvas, I decided we would take some time to be thankful.  I had originally planned on using the download as a family thing but it just kept getting put off.

Dustin & I each took turns naming things that we were thankful for and we put them on the list.  We then each chose a leaf color and on our leaves we wrote ways that we could express gratitude toward each other.  This was a really great time for us to really sit down and think about all the things we have to be thankful for.  We were able to talk about why we were thankful for the things that we were thankful for.  We were also able to tell each other how thankful we are to be together.  We talked about ways that we can express that gratitude and we are working on being more appreciative toward each other.

Date Night: Time to Kinect

Our Sixth Date

November 12, 2010

I was in charge

This date was and unplanned date.  

I had a date planned but Monday night Dustin was talking with his friend about the Kinect.  Our friends the Pettingill's had gotten an early Christmas present of the XBOX 360 Kinect.  They liked playing and invited us over for dinner and to play games.  We were in charge of bringing dessert.

Dinner was good, dessert was good, games were great!

We rafted down the river together as friends and couples.  We ran obstacle courses against each other as friends and couples.  The next day we were sore, well our calves were sore.  Those games are quite the work out!  We had so much fun playing the games together and spending time with our friends.  Our kids also had fun playing together and even got in on some of the games.

It was lots of fun to be active together inside since it's getting cold outside.  I was fun to work together in a game and also to compete against each other.

Happy Birthday David!

Hard to believe, but this kid turns 5 today!

I can't believe how quickly the time went by.

He is our little Calvin, in every way.

We love him and we don't know what life would be like without him around.

Birthday Party Fun!

This past Saturday, we had David's birthday party.  He helped me with every part of the party that he could.  He decided the theme of the party - Mario Kart; he decided who to invite - and was very firm about his decisions; he decided what kind of cake he wanted; he helped me make the birthday invites and birthday banner.  David had a great time and I think the other kids did too.

Our Party:

Food:  Bagel pizzas, fruit/vegetables trays including red & yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, apples, oranges and grapes.  Ranch and caramel dips.  Fruitables to drink for the kids and V-8 V-fusion for the adults.

Games:  Pin Mario in the Kart, Coloring Mario Kart pages and Mario Kart Balloon obstacle course - I had the kids collect different combinations of balloons in bags instead of trying to pop each others balloons.

Don't they look like they are having fun?

Matthew LOVED his balloon.

After the party was over the kids popped all the balloons, torn down the streamers and ribbons.  They were really good at destroying everything I had spent so much time setting up.  It was helpful in cleaning up though.  For some reason I never did get pictures of the room all set up, sorry.  There are snippets here and there for you though.