Christmas Tradition #8 Handmade Christmas cards

(this years card and pics)

This is something I have done since Mathias was born. They are nothing fancy and I am still slowly learning about the world of scrapbooking, but it is a start. I am not sure how long I will keep this tradition up since it is pretty time consuming . Maybe I will just start making them in the summer or something.We also have been including a family picture, as well as one of Mathias. If you did not get one this year, I am sorry. Let me know if you would like one next year and I will put you on the list.

Christmas traditions #7 Christmas ornaments

When I was growing up, my mom would get us a new Christmas ornament every year. They could be things that you were into that year or things that you like or just things that you want to collect. I love this tradition for the fact that when we moved out of the house, we got all of our ornaments to put on our own tree. It also makes decorating the tree more special to me since every ornament has some kind of meaning or memory behind it. This is another tradition that I am continuing with my family.

Dev is slowly getting his ornament collection going. His ornaments are very him. He has a couple hockey ones and he has also been collecting scenes from his favorite Christmas movie, "Christmas Story." His ornaments from this year are the leg lamp (it also says quotes from that scene in the movie) and his initial.

Mathias has been getting two a year (one from mom and one from mema). From top left to bottom are the ones he got from his first Christmas to this one. Oh, and nope, I have yet to put his picture in his first ornament. These are so much fun because they are exactly what he is or was into that year. Last year he was way into "Thomas" and "Cars" and this year it is all about "Little Einsteins" (this ornament also plays their theme song).

(this is not how they were on the tree but I clumped them all together for easier picture taking purposes)

I have a lot of random ornaments from growing up of things that I liked at the time. However, since I have been married I have been collecting certain ornaments. For instance, the first couple of years were snowflakes and some snowmen and the last couple of years have been these beautiful cracked glass ball ornaments from Target. The first few are really heavy and hard to hang and I think Target has caught on to that because they are making them a lot lighter this year. The ornaments I got this year are the ball with the design on it and my initial (we all got our initials this year).

Tradition #6 Christmas books

Growing up we did 12 Days of Christmas stories, we had them in a binder. I don't have that binder of stories, and a bunch of them would be a little too old for Mathias anyways, so we read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve. We have done this for the past couple of years and I think Mathias is starting to get the whole Santa Clause thing this year, even if it's just a little bit.

Tradition #5 Christmas Eve Jammies

We always did this growing up and I love doing it with our own little family now. Every year on Christmas Eve we got to open one present, and it was always a pair of jammies and occasionally some slippers. When Mathias opened his jammies, I think he was kind of disappointed they were not toys, he just kind of looked at them and then handed them to me and ran off. It was kind of funny. I love getting new comfy jammies and just lounging around the whole next day in them.

Tradition #4 Cookies for Santa

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It was so much fun to make cookies for Santa this year. Mathias actually had a pretty good attention span this time around. He was really excited to leave carrots for the reindeer as well. He thought that it was pretty cool that they were all gone the next morning and that Santa and the reindeer really liked them (he told mommy and daddy). Santa thought that this was so nice he left an extra present or two for Mathias.

Tradition #3 Temple Square

We always went to Temple Square growing up to see the lights and watch and listen to the Nativity scene. The past couple of years, we have added to the tradition by riding up on the trax and walking to Gateway and eating dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Mathias absolutely loves riding "the train" and looking at all of the "pretty Christmas lights." He loves the ones on the trees, he says that the Christmas lights are making trees. It was pretty cold this year but not near as bad as it was last year. As always, the Temple is just stunning!

Tradition #2 Gingerbread houses

I don't really remember doing this as a kid, however we started doing this last year with Mathias and will do it every year from now on.

It was so much fun building a gingerbread house with Mathias this year. He was so excited to build it, he could hardly contain himself. Last year he lasted a couple of minutes before losing interest, and this year he decorated most of it by himself. He also did not eat much of the candy, to our surprise. As always we take too many pictures and I can never decide which ones to post, so here are a bunch. I also added some with me in it, just for you, mom.

Tradition #1 Taking a picture with Santa

Since Christmas is so close, I thought I would post some traditions (thanks for the idea Jeri). Some are traditions from my childhood, and a few are new ones. When I was little, I remember my brother and I getting pictures taken with Santa. Now, while I hate to stand in the crazy lines, I love to see what Mathias' reaction will be and I love having the pictures to compare year after year. It is also fun to see how much he can grow up and change in just a year.

(10 months old)
This was Mathias' first Christmas, and as such, this was obviously his first time seeing Santa. He absolutely loved him. He loved to feel his soft Santa suit and I think was memorized by his beard. This visit went a lot better than I thought it would.

(22 months old)
Mathias' second year of visiting Santa. Since he was a bit older, I was curious to see his reaction. He was terrified and clung to me for dear life. So we ended up having a family picture taken. I love the look and body language on Mathias. "Get me out of here! I am not even coming close to touching this guy!"

(2 1/2 years old)
This year, Mathias is obviously a bit older and since he can understand more, we tried to talk Santa up. We told him that if you are a good little boy, Santa will bring you toys, however you need to sit on his lap and tell him what kind of toys you want him to bring you. When we walked up he still kinda clung to me like, "I don't think so." When I set him down he just kinda looked at us like "I am really not sure about this but I want new toys." When Santa asked him what he wanted this year, Mathias told him, "I want cars and trucks." So like Mathias! I will be excited to see what next year brings, and if we are lucky, there might be another little one on Santa's lap.

Disclaimer: We are not pregnant.

A visit to Santa

(there was a guy there taking the pictures and then he posted them on a link to walmart and I just copied them off of that page so they are kinda grainy and not the best quality, sorry)
A couple of weeks back, my mom's real estate friend, Kenny Parcel, had a Christmas party for all of his clients. We took Mathias because we heard there were treats, gifts, and best of all, Santa. I was really curious to see how Mathais would react to Santa. Last year he was a little scared of him. So this year we tried to talk him up and tell Mathias that he was really nice and since you have been pretty good this year he is going to bring you toys! But you have to sit on his lap and tell him what kind of toys you want. He seemed all right with this and while we waited in line he told us that he was gonna ask Santa for cars. Once we got up there though, Mathias clung to my neck for dear life. I pried his hands away and set him on Santa's lap and he did not cry or anything, he just kinda sat there with a funny look on his face, as you see in most of the pictures. Then Santa told Mathias that he liked his hair and then took of his hat to show Mathias his hair. Mathias kinda thought that was funny. He was such a good Santa! When Santa asked him what he wanted, Mathias very quietly said "cars" so I had to get him to say it louder. All in all it was a pretty good experience, I think. We are gonna go to the mall Santa next because that is a tradition in my family, we did that as kids growing up. Hopefully we can get a better picture there.

A new house

This past weekend we decided to build a fort for the first time at our place (he did it the day earlier with his mema and had a ton of fun). He took in his Tonka truck full of all his little cars and called his fort his "new house". He would not let daddy go in there, apparently this was a "Mathias only" fort. As you can see, he had just as much fun tearing it down as he had playing in it. Little boys are so much fun!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

This was the first year that Mathias helped us decorate the Christmas tree. We had to show him a few times how to hang the ornaments but once he got the hang of it he had a blast. It was pretty funny though because he tried to hang his second ornament on the first one and then every other ornament that he grabbed all went on one branch. I think he had 5 on one branch before we caught on. So daddy picked him so he could decorate the top of the tree as well. He thought this was pretty cool. Now only if we can keep him(and the cat) away from the tree until we take it down.

Sickie :(

So a couple weeks back, Mathias absolutely refused to eat his dinner. So, for not eating, we put him to bed about an hour early, and surprisingly he did not put up much of a fight. Well, he woke up at about 11:45 screaming and crying "Mama". So I went in to see what the problem was, and he had thrown up red juice (go figure) all over himself, his bed and a little bit on the floor. Poor guy! I felt like the worst mom ever, getting mad at him for not eating hardly even a bite of his dinner. He was not acting sick at all though, I really had no idea he was not feeling good. He is just like my brother when it comes to that. He could not keep any thing down for the rest of the day, not even water till that night. We watched him closely though because we have already dealt with dehydration once and I never want to go through that again. Luckily it only lasted about a day to a day and a half before he was back to normal.

I just thought that this looked funny. He fell asleep with his head buried in his pillow

I just love when little kids sleep. They just look so peaceful and innocent.

I would like to know how this could possibly be comfortable. How can kids sleep in all sorts of weird positions.

Christmas decor

I love this time of year. I get to pull out all of my decorations, maybe even get a few new ones. I love it because it makes my house look less empty:). Here are a few of the decorations that we have out.

Mathias got his first cold of the season this week. I thought we were in for another winter with the nebulizer, but much to my very happy surprise this cold was very short lived and went away with out any breathing problems!! Yippee, this is a first for us. In this picture, I told him that I was going to take his temperature and he ran screaming and crying to hide under the kitchen table. Weird, I have never had him react like that for just a temperature check. He must know that with a temp check usually comes medicine, which he HATES!!

Yummy

As I mentioned in a previous post Mathias is an extremely picky eater. However he thinks that daddy's cereal is the absolute best. What two year old(or adult) in his right mind loves grape nuts?

Poor Kitty!

We have had our kitty since Mathias was about 18 months old. He has never paid her much attention until recently.

Poor Izzie can not even be anywhere near Mathias without him trying to pick her up and give her loves. Sure that is pretty cute unless the kitty does not want to be held which happens more often than not. So if he gets scratched he knows it is his fault because we repeatedly tell him to put her down.


Also he thinks it is fun lately to chase her with his jeeps or his huge metal tonka truck. I am really getting tired of repeatedly telling him to leave her alone.

*Update: He has been pretty good at leaving her alone lately. If we are sitting on the couch and she comes up to us instead of trying to hold her I tell him to lay really still and she will lay on him. He thinks this is pretty cool.

fun at Memas

Mema had surgery yesterday and I spent the day and night over at her place taking care of her. Dev and Mathias came over this morning with the black Friday ads and hung out for a bit before we went over to his moms house for Thanksgiving.

Mathias took the lid/hat off of the Big Mr. Potato head and put it on, he then told me to take a picture and even after I did he kept telling me to take more pictures. This is out of the ordinary for him lately so I thought I would post a picture of it because he wanted it and he actually would look at the camera for once.
I was kinda shocked (even though I shouldn't have been) at how fast Mathias trashed the place. This was only after he had been there for maybe a half hour. At least he was entertaining himself and not trying to climb on Mema.

gymnastics

I really think I should get Mathias into gymnastics this coming year. He tries to walk a straight line on the sidewalk curbs, he tries to do the splits and somersaults.
And apparently he likes tumbling and rolling and came up with this all on his own the other day.

He is a pretty creative and active little (not so little) guy! We need to put all that energy into some good use.

Apparently Izzie Kitty has a new hiding place. I can not blame her though since lately Mathias refuses to leave her alone.

Mr. Independent.

Mathias is my Mr. independent. He has to climb into and out of his carseat all by himself. He has to unlock our front door with our keys (and he knows which key it is without me telling him) when we come home. He basically has to do everything himself...except for getting dressed or undressed. That is the one thing he really does not care to do himself.
We usually take off his shirt when we eat as to avoid stains so we can pass down nice clean clothes to the next kid.

The other morning I told him that breakfast was almost ready and he came running into the kitchen, sat right down on the floor and started taking of his jammies. This was the first time he has ever even tried to get undressed so of course I had to document it.
I know that one day we might wish that he never learned how to undress himself but for now this is a pretty big deal.

Fireman

Mathias came running in the living room the other day with the thing that covers plates in the microwave on his had saying "look mom I am a fireman!". I have no idea where he learned that firemen where hats but he sure is cute!

picky eater

Mathias has been the pickiest eater lately! I have been struggling to find things lately that he will eat for a main meal. He is pretty good about eating his fruits and a few veggies but it is that main dish that we struggle with.

However lately a favorite of his is Mickey Mouse pancakes and fresh pears. At least this is semi healthy since we use wheat pancake mix.
Does anyone have any suggestions about what a picky eater might eat that are semi nutritious? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Twilight movie premier

Thanks to my very talented sister-in-law, we were able to attend the Twilight movie premiere at 7:00 P.M. Thursday. She was able to rent out two theaters and even put together prizes that you could win. She even had everyone coming wear either red, black or white.

When you walked into the theaters you were greeted by some cute girlie's handing out lanyards to everyone.

Depending on what was on the back of your lanyard you could win a prize. Here she is giving out Bella's perfume.

If you had a black squiggly you got a bookmark. If you had a red squiggly you got a $5 gift card to Jordan Commons.

If it said Jacob, Bella or Edwards you got a little gift basket.
Bella's-red sparkly blanket, first aid kit because she's always getting hurt
Edwards black sparkly blanket, all that glitters body spray called sexy! and sweet mint gum because his breath is so sweet
Jacobs had abrown fuzzy blanket, rain and meadow scented febreeze for his stank! and kleenex because he's such a cry baby
Here is a list of a few other prizes she had:
ice cold arctic chill gum/fiery red hot cinnamon gum packs
lion and lamb stuffed animals-because as you know the lion fell in love with the lamb.

For the irritable grizzles um I mean guys she passed out a bag of gummy bears. Seriously, doesn't her creativity just drive you crazy? If only I had like 10% of her creativity!

Here is a picture of part of our little group after the movie ended.
I thought it was an alright movie. I thought that it was a bit cheesy and a bit of bad acting but all in all it was very fun to go see. I think that the books are definitely better than the movie, as they usually are.

Carrie Underwood Concert

Mom got us some Carrie Underwood concerts tickets for my birthday. It was such a good concert.

Look how excited we are, aren't we just so cute.

Little Big Town opened for her. They were so good. I decided that I need to get a few new CD's once the whole concert was over.

She had this cool little count down to let us know when she would be on. It was nice to know how much time we had in case we needed a bathroom break or wanted to buy something.

She brought this little 14 year old girl on stage to help her sing All American Girl. It was very cute and fun. I would have died of stage fright but she sang her little heart out.

Here are a few more random pictures from the night. Sorry they are not the best quality, I just had my little ol' point and shoot camera.