Welcome 2018

This kid is dangerous

 These are Lyza's and Nixon's letters to Santa

 Lyza painted this horse that she got for her birthday

 The mud room project is finally complete!

I got the back wall painted

Some trim installed on the wall

Trim on the shelves and filled all the nail holes and joints

Installed some hooks

Kim found a beautiful mirror (not a clock ;)

And it is all finished!

 Finishing that project didn't all happen so close together in time, but I thought it would be better grouping it all here. 

Here I am at HD with the kids getting the supplies to finish the project. They love these karts

 Watching Mason play independently is so satisfying

This wagon has been getting some use

 I love to take portraits of Nixon because he has a million dollar smile. This is right after a bath 

 Christmas Eve day Sunday we got a few pictures before church 

 A family in our ward invited us for dinner and it was a great time

 The kids got to decorate cookies

 Mason had a huge blow-out and got to show off his belly for the rest of the evening

 Christmas Eve the kids got to open a present each

 Pajamas! What a surprise!

 After Santa visited, but before anything was opened

 The elf on the shelf left the kids a letter

 There was lots of excitement opening stockings (boots)

 Nixon's expression says it all

 Kim looks pretty happy too ;)

 Huckleberry chocolates...mmm...

 Nixon got a set of books that will read to him, they also happen to be Paw Patrol

 Look at this massive gift!

Well, the large box was kind of a tease, but the gift inside is pretty sweet. The kids love the bouncy house

Look at that reaction 

Mason loved watching the fire truck

 We got each of the kids a tablet loaded with educational games. They got to open them at the same time, but Lyza got hers open first. Nixon was so jealous!

Break for some yummy Christmas morning breakfast

 Cool glasses

 The kids were excited to give me some more tools. I was happy to accept them ;)

 Mason slept in until we woke him up for breakfast. After breakfast he needed to catch up on his boot

 Chocolate

 Pretty necklace

 We played this fun Paw Patrol game that the kids got

We got Just Dance for a family gift and have been loving it

All of the kids did some coloring

 On Boxing Day we did some sledding

 The kids have been enjoying these water beads

 It didn't take us long to go to the bouncy house

The kids had some more energy so we did some more dancing

We got a lot of snow the week after Christmas so we shoveled it into a big pile to make a snow cave.

The kids were playing on it and sliding down it to pack the snow but when they weren't watching I cleared some of it back to the edge of the driveway. Nixon didn't see and slid down as if it was still a smooth slope

 Lyza is the king of the hill

 In the cave

 The kids like their tablet time

 On New Year's Eve for church the boys were all matchig 

 We did a fondue and appetizer dinner

 With chocolate fondue for desert

 And then we did some dancing that resembled something from Where the Wild Things Are

The next day we all worked together to get the Christmas decorations put away and Nixon was especially helpful 

 I heard Lyza yelling "you have to see what happened" and this is what I found in the bathroom. She was playing/dancing and her knee hit her mouth and knocked out her tooth. Blood was everywhere but she didn't seem to mind

Mason has been really cute lately while he is playing. His animal noises are fun. Maybe it is the all of the time we have been watching Planet Earth II as a family

Some more dancing. The scoring on this game seems arbitrary (except when I win). Nixon sometimes will totally destroy us, but watch how little he moves at times. No matter the score, this is a fun game

 Lyza and Nixon can best the best of friends, or the worst of enemies. Truth is, they need time apart from each other more often, and that is difficult with a shared room. So we have been slowly working to clear out the craft room so she can have her own room and Nixon can have his own room until Mason is old enough to share with Nixon. Lyza caught wind of this and immediately started claiming the room 

Here she is putting dinosaur stickers up

 She put her things on the bed

 Kim took the kids to the bouncy house again this week and they also had some friends join along 

 Nixon and I had some one-on-one time playing Uno. He won of course!

 Watching Planet Earth and Mason has the best seat in the house

Mason was enjoying blowing on the couch and making farting noises

Mason is perhaps the cutest right before bed, but before he gets overly tired. This evening he had lots of singing to do

That's all for now. Take care!