Christmas 2013

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was fun, relaxing and rewarding. The boys loved their gifts and we spent the whole day opening presents. We like to spread the opening out as much as possible. In fact, Seth would shake his head if we tried to hand him a new present because he was so excited to play with the present he already had opened. So here are a few pictures of our Christmas. We hope yours was as pleasant as ours.

See the vacuum....that is by far the most played with toy in our family now.
Seth got these pans in hopes that he would stop strewing our pans all over the kitchen-- No luck!

They were so excited for the candy!

Dax added to his garbage truck collection.

Mark got a new bike and really wanted to try it out.
The boys spent two days shoveling the street so they could ride.

More garbage trucks...he has a whole fleet now.

This is Seth's favorite gift.

This picture is a few days after Christmas, but the Christmas photos are individual.
This one is blurry, but they love Grandpa Ockey!

Merry Christmas.

Pre Christmas

We had a lot of fun things going on a few days before Christmas. So this post is just my way of sharing lots of photos! :)

December 21: My parents came down and showered my boys with gifts. We like letting them open these gifts a few days before or after Christmas because then they can enjoy the holiday just a little bit more. While they were here, we had a family dinner because my sister was also visiting from Las Vegas. It was fun to visit with slightly more than half of the Daniels Clan.

Mark is getting so old...he has to get big boy gifts now.

Seth loved all the cars he got.

Everyone loved their Snoopys!

Grandma and Grandpa Daniels

The Daniels cousins minus Abby and Raymond. :(

December 22: Ockey family Christmas party. We had fun hanging out with all the Ockey clan making gingerbread houses, exchanging gifts, eating yummy dinner, seeing Santa (Seth does not like Santa), and eating egg nog shakes.

So handsome for church!

Gingerbread houses at Aunt Sandy's

Waiting for Santa to arrive

Seth would not sit on Santa's lap, but Dax and Mark did,
even though Dax just licked his candy cane and wouldn't talk to Santa.

Seth loved this reindeer. He laid on it for most
of the Ockey Christmas Party.

December 23: This was the day we built our snowman and played in the snow. You can check out that post if you didn't see it a little while ago!

December 24: Christmas Eve! We built a gingerbread manor that my parents gave us, we had a delicious ham dinner, and we got new pajamas to wear to bed.

I liked the car they made.

We LOVED our Christmas Eve dinner.

Love my daddy!

Christmas Eve....so excited for Christmas!

The next post will be about Christmas!!

HO HO HO?

Did you know Santa has a cough? Well, apparently that is what Seth thinks. We tried and tried to get him to say Ho Ho Ho, but it always came out like Santa was coughing or choking. It is hilarious! Enjoy.

Christmas Programs

Both Mark and Dax had Christmas Programs this year--similar to last year. Mark's elementary school has a Christmas Sing and each grade sings two songs. He sang a song titled, "Where Did They Hide My Presents?" that he just loved and it was very cute with the actions.

Dax had a Christmas program with his preschool again. Since he is with his same teacher, they did a lot of the same songs, but it was so fun to watch Dax sing his heart out. He had also decided at the last second that he wasn't going to say his part, but when it came down to it, with a little prompting and a bribe from dad, Dax walked to the microphone and said his line. Yea!

Let it Snow!

We finally got some good snow! Toward the end of December it warmed up so we could enjoy playing in the snow. I was starting to hate the single digit temperatures. One day we had lots of the cousins over and we had some good snowball fights. Even Grandpa Daniels chased the kids around. A few days later, we had snowman building snow... our boys were ecstatic! They have been waiting and waiting to build a snowman. Here are just a few pictures to show the fun we have had in the snow.

Dax taught Seth to eat snow.

Mark is always covered in snow.

Some of the Daniels cousins playing in the snow!

Seth helping to build the snowman--he was so excited.

Great snowman!

Seth kept giving him kisses. It was so cute.

Randy usually takes the brunt of the snowballs.

O Christmas Tree

Every year we head down to Ephraim Canyon with Randy's family to cut our own Christmas tree. WE LOVE IT! It is one of our favorite traditions. The boys get so excited because even though there is no snow down here in Lehi, they know there will be snow up on the mountains and then they can go sledding.

We were a little worried because it had been such a nice fall that there might not be snow up on the mountain. I prepped the children that we might not be able to sled and we might get muddy. Boy, was I wrong. As soon as we got a little way up, we realized we might not even make it up to our normal meeting place in the van. We did, thank goodness. And there was plenty of snow.

We had such a fun time. We love spending time chatting with family, eating a yummy breakfast, sledding, and tromping all over the mountain looking for Christmas trees. I was exhausted from carrying Seth because he did not want to walk, and probably couldn't walk, in the deep snow--I understand. But my arms were seriously sore the next day. And we got two amazing trees! What a fun day.

Seth's first sled ride.

Dax LOVES sledding!

Mark kept crashing and thought it was awesome!

I love how he is sticking his tongue out!

Sledding down the road.

Seth wasn't a big fan of sledding.

But he did LOVE the 4-wheeler.
I think he went on 4 rides.

I love these boys so much!

I feel like this movie is mostly bloopers, but I laughed when I watched it, so I hope you enjoy it too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our traditional Thanksgiving picture in front of my mom's fireplace.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Every year we drive to Idaho to have Thanksgiving with my mom and dad and whichever sisters can make it that year. We actually stayed with my sister Stephanie this year. She lives about 30 minutes from my mom so we were close enough to spend lots of time with grandma, but we were able to spend more time with her family. She has a daughter who is turning five soon (more about that later), and my boys love playing with Abby. They also have this cute little baby named Raymond who is 7 months old.

Randy and I both ended up sick the days before Thanksgiving, so we weren't very good guests. But thankfully we were well enough to eat Thanksgiving dinner.... I was a little stressed about it. Mmmm! It was so good!

Cute boys!

The following day we celebrated Abby's birthday. Her birthday isn't for another 10 days or so, but she just wanted to party with her cousins and since most of us were there, my sister threw her a huge superhero bash. Mark and Dax thought it was amazing. They played lots of fun games and they became full fledged superheroes after all the training activities! We were so glad that we could celebrate with Abby. Here are a few fun pictures from the party.

Seth got his own Batman costume!

The superheroes!

Mark loves his shield!

Dax was very strong!

Seth really wanted to smash the building like Hulk!

They loved spraying the bad guys with silly string.

What a cutie! We wish we saw them more often!