Lunch Date

On Saturday, we were all just hanging out and having kind of a lazy morning. Rylee went up to Darren and said, "Daddy, I need money to go to lunch with my friends at Cafe Rio." What??? I asked her who her friends were and she said "Ummm...Kio...and Dio..." and I think she listed a few others that also rhymed with -io. (That is what she does with her dolls, too. She will come up with one name, like "Jaja" and then rhyme all their other names. So funny!) It cracked us up! She left for a minute and came back still in her Pjs, but with socks and sandals and said she was ready to go, and when Darren tried to "pretend" to give her some money, she would have nothing to do with it and told him she needed REAL money! She is only 2 and we are already planning lunch dates! She also loves to pretend to talk on the phone, go shopping, carry a purse, flip her hair and bat her eyes, pull some attitude with hands on her hips, stomp and slam her door and she asked for CLOTHES for Christmas! If I didn't know better, I would think I have a teenager already!!! She seems to have outgrown everything but diapers and a binky...

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a BUSY day for us with lots of traveling but we had a great time and were able to see most of our family that day. That was great for us because then we got to stay home in our PJs all day on Christmas Day! The kids were super excited for the day. Logan woke up and announced to all of us that is was "The Biggest night of the year! The night I get my Darth Maul double "lightsaver"! He has complete faith in Santa!
When Logan was about 18 months old, our neighbor in Vegas gave him one of these cheap little advent calendars with the chocolates in it. Logan loved it and even though he was so tiny, he would go straight to it every morning and say "chocolate". It was the cutest thing, and ever since these have become a tradition in our family to help count down the days to Christmas and the kids love getting their treat every morning. Rylee wasn't as patient, and tore into several of hers a little early.
Logan also made this cute Santa at preschool and gluing the cotton ball each morning became another of our little morning routines. He was even nice enough to let Rylee have turns with it. They were so excited when it was finished and they realized Santa was coming that night! We started our day pretty early and made the 2 hour drive to Darren's parent's house for brunch at 11 with the Webber clan. Here are some pictures of the kids all dressed up in their cute Christmas outfits.
Sweet Avery at 3 months old!

Our sweet and sassy Rylee - Love her with her hands on her hips!

Logan hates getting his pictures taken but he cooperates pretty well for Mom.

We had a good time hanging out with Darren's fam and having some brunch. Here are the kiddies with cousin Raegan. They had so much fun with her and we were so glad they were able to come from North Carolina.

Not the greatest picture of all 3 kids, but you gotta love Rylee's face!

Oh I love these 3! They had a great Christmas!

A family photo in front of the Christmas tree. If you think it is hard to get 3 kids looking at the camera, add 2 more adults and it is next to impossible, but this is a pretty good result!

Next, we were off to my family's for dinner and to exchange sibling gifts. Here is Avery playing pat-a-cake with my dad. We have discovered she LOVES that game and always smiles big and even laughs when you play with her!

That is such a big grin that it is almost scary! We call it her Grandpa Boman smile - If you have seen my dad grin for his grandkids, you will know why.

We always like to get pictures of the cute babies, but they don't seem to enjoy it as much as we do!

Here are all 4 cute grandkids!

We had a delicious Cordon Bleu dinner (or Corn Dog Blue as Logan calls it!) and then opened sibling gifts. This is the first year that we have drawn names in my family and it was kind of different but fun to get better gifts for the person you drew. It was hard to not shop for everyone though. Can you tell that my 2 nerdy brothers are pretty excited?

Another attempt at a family picture.

Brad got this soft blanket from Vanessa and I don't think he has taken it off since. He should probably have it made into a snuggie so he doesn't have to take it off ever. He loved it

We weren't going to see Dean and Laura and Heather and Jay on Christmas Day so they gave presents to the kids that night. Avery got this little set of balls from Ethan and the cute rattle from Dean and Laura. My kids gave Ethan a Ball Popper Choo-Choo train and some way cute shoes.

I love the look of excitement on Logan's face when he opened the Toy Story Legos from Dean and Laura. Dean is always a great shopper and gets things that my kids love! Logan also got a set of stuff for his Mr Potato Head from Ethan.

Rylee was also very excited by her gifts if you can't tell. She got a Mrs Potato Head set from Ethan (and Heather and Jay) and a Belle set from Laura and Dean!

We had Heather and Jay's name and gave them some towels for their new salon in their basement, a Skookie and some movie tickets. Kyle had us. We opened the box and it had a Martinelli's and some chocolates and a sock. Inside the sock was a piece of paper that said to look on my mom's laptop and that had a letter that told us we had a one night hotel stay and our kids would be taken care of. It said something about Relax and Enjoy! It was signed Kyle J Boman. So funny and official! It was a very thoughtful gift for a 10 year old! We were excited to be able to celebrate our anniversary!

We were hoping to be home by 6 or 7, but of course, everything took longer than planned and it was already past 7 by the time we were ready to leave and it was an hour drive home, so we had the kids open their PJs there, just in case they fell asleep on the way home. (They didn't...) I bought these pjs last year when I knew I was prego, but didn't know what I was having, so I got the baby ones in boy and girl, so Ethan actually had twinner pjs, too, but he didn't have them on. We will have to get a twinner picture of the babies sometime.

Logan couldn't stop talking about his Toy Story legos the whole way home so we told him he could put them together once we got home. He didn't waste any time and wouldn't do anything until he had it done, so we figured we might as well get it done.

Rylee was loving her Belle Princess set and dressed and redressed her over and over again.

Next, we frosted some sugar cookies we made the night before for Santa. Rylee especially loved adding sprinkles. Then we wrote a letter to Santa and put out the carrots for the reindeer and the kids each chose their favorite cookie for Santa and a glass of milk.

Avery hanging out while we frosted cookies. She is such a chiller! I have to take pictures of her so we remember she was there since she will just hang out.

I wanted one more PJ photo by the tree.... This is how Rylee wanted to pose.

One more PJ picture and this one actually turned out OK! Yeah! We read the Christmas story and then put the kids to bed. Next year, I hope we will have more time to focus on that and spend more time doing some things at home and not get home so late. It is hard to fit everything in! I was worried the kids wouldn't go to sleep because they were so excited but they were pretty tired (it was almsot 10 by then) and we told them if they got out of bed, the elves would give Santa the "figgy pudding" signal and wouldn't stop (its from the movie Prep and Landing) and they were terrified about that and went right to sleep! I, on the other hand, was MUCH too excited! I love Christmas morning!!!

Dressed up

Here are a few cute pictures of my kids all dressed up in their Sunday best for church the Sunday before Christmas. Oh how I love these sweeties!!!
A pretty decent picture of all 3 - a Christmas miracle!

Rylee insists on doing that with her hands lately. I have no idea where it came from.

Our cute little Avery. Does it get any sweeter than this? This little dress is the one that Rylee wore to my sister Heather's wedding when she was about 5 months old. Her wedding was in August so it is sleeveless, so I bought Avery a little sweater to go with it and it was cheaper than a whole new Christmas dress.
Cute girls!

Oh, she is so sweet when she wants to be! Rylee's dress is the one she wore to Dean and Laura's wedding. She has so many dresses right now, she didn't need another one and it went with the whole red and black thing, so I just got her a Christmas-y bow and she was set!

Handsome Logan in his new Christmas sweater.

SANTA!!!

I was going to try and combine all our parties into one post, but there were too many pictures! On December 18th we had a party with Darren's family. We alternate every other year between having an adults only party and having a party with all the kids where SANTA comes to visit. This was a year for the Santa party and was SO much fun! It is always a little chaotic when we get together with the Webber's since there are so many of us, but we had a good time. It is great to have Santa give you your own personal visit! Beats standing in line at the mall!
Here are Logan and Rylee when Santa showed up! They lost interest in their food pretty quickly.

They were a little in awe of Santa! It is so fun at this age!Rylee was hilarious! She looked like she might cry from the combination of excitement and a little bit of fear. I don't think she took her eyes off him the whole time.
Logan hung on his every word. I think some of the big kids must have said something though because he kept saying that it was really just "someone in disguise. Not the real Santa." He kept trying to sneak back over to the food or up to the toy room. I don't think he wanted to waste time if it wasn't the REAL Santa, but by the end of the night, I think he was pretty convinced! Santa told them they all on the good list this year, and Logan was pretty relieved to hear that.

Santa always has the kids do little songs with him. Here they are doing the actions. My niece Raegan looks so cute doing them!

Rylee looking up at Santa

I love those big eyes!

Avery got to sit on Santa's lap first! Both my other kids cried when we put them on Santa's lap the first time. I think Logan did Ok for a bit and then cried. Rylee cried as soon as she saw Santa, but then again she cried for everyone! Avery could have sat there all day. She didn't care at all.

Cute Baby Avery and Santa

When the kids went up, they got a candy cane and the girls got some little mittens and the boys got hats. Rylee was so excited for her candy cane!!! She asked Santa for "Princess Stuff". She doesn't have anything specific - just as long as it is Princess associated, I guess.

I wasn't sure if Rylee would go for sitting on Santa's lap. She was excited about him, but still looked kind of nervous. But as soon as he called her name, she popped right up there and posed so cute for her picture. This is her first not crying picture with Santa! Way to go Rylee!!!

Logan knows how the Santa thing works and rattled off his list of 3 items as soon as he got a chance. He wants 1-a boxing set, 2-Hot Wheels BattleForce 5, and 3-a Darth Maul double sided "light saver". He has his list down pat and can list off all the items very quickly. At least they haven't changed!

What a handsome kid! My sister-in-law told him he was handsome over Thanksgiving and he said "Yeah. I have lots of shirts." Apparently he associates being handsome with the shirts he wears. What a funny kid!

At attempt of all 3 kids with Santa. Not such a great picture - I think there was a little too much going on.

One more try - it didn't get any better!

Next, we exchanged cousin presents. Avery got a cute little caterpillar mobile from one of Kim's kids. Here she is pretending to open it. Avery had Raegan and got her a cute doll that Rylee picked out.

Here is Rylee tearing into her present that I think was from Taylor. She gave Liam a football.

Rylee loves her new Fur real puppy!

Here is Logan opening his gift from Madi. He gave Mason some kind of space guy action figure.
Logan LOVED his Star Wars action figures! I think one was an assassin droid and one was Han Solo. Logan knew who they were right away, of course, even though he hadn't seen the movies. I think he played the video game with my brothers a couple times and is now Star Wars obsessed!

Avery and her cute toy!

Avery spent most of the night being passed around, but she didn't mind. She is very easy going and so happy. Darren's cousin, Tom, has 3 girls who are from the ages of around 14-18 and they loved her!

After the party, Darren and some of his brothers decided to make a 10 o'clock run to the new In-N-Out Burger in Draper. I took the kids to his brother's house since we were staying there that night. They were a little crazy from all the excitement. They almost always fall asleep in the car, but instead they were super hyper and Avery and Rylee both cried most of the way. Luckily, it wasn't too far! The next day, we hung out with Brian and Val for awhile and then visited our friend's the Lifferth's at their new house and stopped to see my family and Darren took my brother, Jeff, to lunch at Beto's (GROSS!) for his birthday. We had planned to stop and see the Willard Bay lights on our way home that night, but Rylee was asleep before we hit the freeway, and they were both asleep long before we got to the lights! I tried and tried to wake them up, but no luck! We decided we didn't want to pay to see the lights if they were asleep, so we would try again another day, but we never made it back. I was a little sad about that. Maybe next year.