Christmas 2010

WOW! Can you believe that 2010 is almost over?! This month has been SUPER busy for us (like always). My sister and her family visited from Wyoming, we celebrated 3 family birthdays, did LOTS of holiday baking, made crafts, made Christmas gifts, went to 6 parties, and I made LOTS of cakes, seen HERE and HERE. I hope everyone had a wonderful, spiritual, and lovely Christmas too! Here are a few of our highlights:

Tyler had the opportunity to go on the Polar Express with Deke. Believe it or not this is the only decent picture Deke took of the entire event. If I were there I would of taken a picture of their faces for sure!

We went to our ward Christmas party and Tyler got to see Santa Clause!

In Orangeville there is a culdesac called Dove Court and its well known for its outlandish display of lights. We went with my girlfriend Tiana and her daughter Hailey. I've taken Tyler to this spot every year since birth but it was a first for Hailey. They loved it!

We celebrate 3 birthdays the week of Christmas. My dad turned the BIG 6-0 on December 21st.

My niece Jenna turned 3 on December 22nd...

And my nephew Travis turned 5 on December 23rd.

The kids celebrated their birthdays on the same day with a Star Wars / Hello Kitty theme. My sister Cynthia made Travis's Death Star cake and I made Jenna's Hello Kitty cake.

Here is my parents 13 foot tree they got from the Dold's Christmas tree farm for only $36 bucks! Its probably the prettiest looking tree they've ever gotten... and you can't beat the price!

PS... this picture was taken BEFORE Santa came. When you have a big family Christmas just looks ridiculous.

Here's Tyler and his cousins anxiously awaiting the arrival of their next girl cousin (no-name yet) due February 28th!

The kids loved the pillows I made them!

Here is our Christmas Eve MAYHEM!

The kids ready for bed and can't wait for Santa to come!

I read them "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and a few other Christmas books before the lights went out.

Christmas morning! The kids look tired but they were very excited!

Santa brought Tyler another bike! Hopefully no cars run over this one!

Tyler thought it was funny that he got a few lumps of coal in his stocking. I told him Santa must of thought he was a little bit naughty but not enough to get a stocking full of coal. Don't worry, he got plenty of goodies in his stocking as well...

Tyler picked up this new habit from Grandpa Hyde: Trying to guess his presents by placing them against his forehead. Grrrrrreat.

Since we travel a lot I got Tyler this new suit case. Its a Pottery Barn suit case originally $130.00 that I only paid $12 bucks for! Impressed? I sure was! The reason I got it so cheap was because it was pre-embroidered with the name "Josh", so I just placed an American flag patch over it and VOILA!

I think Jenna liked her new chap-stick lol

Look HERE to see Tyler's Christmas list and then you'll understand this shirt.

Boys and their toys!

Tyler and Travis were seriously jealous of Jenna's "girl" toys.

'Till next year! ♥

Birthday / Christmas cake order

Here is the cake I made on Christmas Eve for a Christmas birthday. Two-tiered yellow cake with chocolate frosting covered with marshmallow fondant. I didn't want the cake to be too Christmasy or too birthday so I settled for something that was a little of both.

A Homemade Christmas

This year Deke and I decided to try making some Christmas gifts. Not only did we think it would be cost effective but also more meaningful to the receiver to get something from the heart.

Deke made our niece Jenna (age 3) this cute sun dress made from an adult size t-shirt. That's right folks, Deke made this all by himself! Pretty impressive eh? We got the idea from this blog.

I made a few Infinity scarves. Idea from this blog.

I also made my two nephews and niece travel pillows with some of their favorite characters on them. Travis really wanted Star Wars but I looked in 3 states and couldn't find that fabric anywhere!!!! I put pockets of the front to hide goodies or teeth for the tooth fairy.....

And left them plain on the back with the character fabric.

My mom even got onto the sewing machine this year and made all her grand kids these Christmas pillow cases, just like when I was a kid!

More cakes!

I've had a few days off from work and it seems like all I've done is make cakes! Which I love doing so its a perfect way to spend my mini vacation. First I made a cake for my co-worker Holli for her birthday (rose cake below). Today I made my niece a Hello Kitty cake for her 3rd birthday and I have to say, I'm VERY proud of that one! I've made fondant cakes before but this was the first time I made the fondant myself. I used a marshmallow fondant recipe so it actually taste as good as it looks! Then I got an order for another birthday cake to be delivered on Christmas so I will probably start on that one tonight. And all this on top of normal holiday baking and the 3 family birthdays this week. I guess you can just call me a baking fool!

Jenna is SUPER proud of her cake. I'm keeping it in the fridge so the bow doesn't collapse and we've lost count of how many times she's opened the fridge to look at her cake. I think she'll be heart broken when we cut into it tonight!

That's me, super proud!

Snowman POOP!

"You've been naughty this year so here's the scoop, all you get for Christmas is this snowman Poop!"

This is what I gave my sunbeams today after class, snowman poop. Idea from this site. I tried to find a more friendly poem but snowman poop is simply classified as something nicer than coal on the Internet. So I just added the disclaimer before handing them out that they are NOT naughty, I just made them for fun. They are a great bunch of kids and today was our second to last Sunday with them! :( We have 13 sunbeams but rarely ever have 100% attendance. Since we've been given the calling the only time we've had all the kids was for the primary program. Of course I forgot my camera THAT day! So today, being Christmas Sunday, I was hoping everyone would attend primary so I could catch a few pictures of our darling bunch. Unfortunately, we were still missing a few kids but I figured as time is running short I should capture the moment regardless. So here are the cute kids I'm always talking about!

Left to right: Tyler, Daniel, Jonah, Noah, Eli, Shannon, Spencer, Sana, and Lucy. (and Deke's hand)

Gotta have a silly picture!

This little jumping bean is known to us as Lucy-Goosey. She is quite the wiggle worm and loves to hang ALL over Deke every Sunday. I just keep telling him its preparing him for when he has daughters of his own. lol

Warning to my sunbeam mothers

Made these bad boys today, reindeer cupcakes for my little sunbeams! I only have 3 more Sundays before they move onto CTR5 and I get a new bunch of cuties. Sorry moms but I'm going to spoil them this month because I love them so much and will miss them terribly after they advance! Just a forewarn...

Deke gets what he wants.

Last week Deke said he wanted to get a little tree for our room so he could put my gifts under it. I told him that we didn't have enough space for a tree in our room and I really didn't want to spend the money (trees are expensive!). Well, that didn't stop him from getting what he wanted. He ended up making this cute little tree out of foam paper and started putting my presents under it. He is so dang crafty. :0)

Tyler's Christmas Craft

Tyler and I went to the Dollar Store tonight and I had him pick out items to make a Christmas craft, he decided he wanted to make a wreath for his bedroom door. He picked out all the decorations and then glued them on with a hot glue gun. I think it turned out pretty dang cute! Not to mention he was quite proud of it :)

Thanksgiving in Idaho!

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to make the trek up to Idaho to visit both sets of Deke's grandparents. We were up there for a week and spent the first half with the Madsen grandparents in Firth, Idaho and the second half with Grandpa Hill in Malad, Idaho. Luckily they were only about 2 hours apart. I took LOTS of pictures but here are some of the highlights from our trip. I know, its still a ton of pictures...

Here is a pretty view of Nevada on our way up. It took us about 16 hours to get there and not because of bad weather. We unfortunately had a tire blowout and spent 4 hours in a tire shop :(

We also had to stop a TON because these two have the tiniest bladders. Here they are making "yellow snow"....

and wet dirt.

I noticed along the way up that Tyler's tooth would flop in and out of his mouth while he was talking. It was so loose but he wouldn't let me pull it out.

Here is the Madsen's cute house in Firth!

So what do you do for fun while in a small town in Idaho???

You go to the nearest temple (Idaho Falls)....

chase birds....

hit snow off of trees with a stick.....

throw snowballs at cows using their you-know-what as a target.....

(Nice aim!)....

make snow angels.....

and then go inside the warm house to make popcorn balls!

Yummmmmm......

Tyler's tooth finally came out while in Firth and ya know what, the tooth fairy does come in below freezing temperatures while its a blizzard outside! We were worried about that...

Grandpa Madsen took us to the dairy farm next door and gave us a grand tour.

We even got to milk the cows by hand!

This was #14 on my bucket list, I was so excited to check it off!

Tyler was terrified at first but once he got in there he thought it was a blast!

Here is grandpa Madsen showing us his WWII uniform. He served in Japan.

Too big for Tyler....

and too small for Deke. Oh well...

We departed from Firth a day late due to a nasty blizzard but it was fun getting to know the Madsen grandparents!

On the way out I took some shots of the town. I just loved this barn!

I liked this one because I thought the snow looked like frosting...mmmm....

And now we are in Malad, Idaho. This little town was so breathtaking!

This is grandpa Hill's beautiful home.

Views from his home that left me in "awe"

Here I am feeding his horse Rock. He is 36 years old!

Gorgeous Malad sunset.

Every evening the setting sun would turn the surrounding mountains pink. The beauty was beyond words.

Tyler feeding Rock

Farmer Deke!

The Logan Temple

Deke and I had the opportunity to do a session in the Logan temple. It was a special experience because we were able to attend with grandpa Hill who works there twice a week.

Grandpa Hill, Deke's mom Cathy, and us.

Grandpa, Cathy, Larry, Deke, Kim, and Tyler.

Visiting Idaho was such a fun experience. Not only did I get to meet all of Deke's grandparents but also got to enjoy a beautiful state and have wonderful experiences. We want to plan a trip to go back sometime in the summer... Idaho was gorgeous covered in snow but I can't wait to see it all thawed out too!