New Year's Eve...

To celebrate New Year's Eve, we had Brian's family over for some games and sushi. But, of course the kids favorite part of the evening was spending some time with Aunt Jenni. Jenni even got all dressed up with them to play "Bella Dancerella!"

Christmas Day

Kairi was so excited to give her daddy the present she had picked for him, she made him go first...

A Utah Jazz Mr. Potato Head...

My kids are possibly the most animated people you will ever see. Everyone comments on it. They get so exicted about the littlest things...

It makes mornings like this super fun...

hahahah... please disregard the sorry, sorry ottoman in the background. My kids ripped the poor thing to shreds. But I am proud to say it has now been given a new lease on life with some new upholstery... will post pics soon!

At Grandma & Grandpa King's. Aunt Lisa & Aunt Jenni gave Rae the one thing she wanted for Christmas....

A DONKEY!!!!

The kids got totally spoiled thanks mostly to some overly generous to some wonderful aunts and uncles and some very special grandparents!! It was a great day!!!

Cookies for Santa...

We spent Christmas Eve getting ready for the arrival of the big guy by... what else? Making him some cookies...

First, we baked some in the Easy Bake Oven...

But those did not turn out so well, so we moved on to Santa's favorite... Peanut Butter Cookies...

Just a picture of Rae being her silly self.

The girls rolled them all into balls by themselves and then they took turns "squishing" the cookies...

Then, the cookies were all done and we were ready to set out all of Santa's treats...

Carrots for Rudolph & the gang...

(There was a big argument as to where we should put the carrots. Kairi said it would be too hard for Santa to come in, get the carrots and take them back out to Rudolph with his bag and all. So we asked her if we should put them outside and she said that was just as hard seeing as we don't have a chimeny for Santa to easily get up on the housetop. So then we asked her if we should throw the carrot on the roof. To this she said, "I think Daddy better get a ladder and put everything on the roof for Santa."

After much debate, luckily, we convinced her this was unnecessary and the cookies AND CARROTS would be fine on the kitchen counter...

Peanut Butter Cookies...

And some Egg Nog... YUMM!!!

And we mustn't forget to be grateful and leave a "thank you" note for Santa.

Kairi was so excited about the arrival of the big man that she didn't even want any nighttime stories or lullabies. She said we were taking too long getting her ready for bed...

Christmas Dresses

So- first of all, I am WAY behind on my blogging. I know I should be taking off my Christmas music and changing my holiday background, but I just cannot bring myself to do it. i haven't even blogged my Christmas pictures yet. So- be prepared for a plethora of Christmas posts... and in the meantime, crank up that Christmas music and enjoy it for one more day!

So- when Kairi was a baby, I had so much fun getting her all dressed up in the prettiest, poofy, princess dresses. She would get a new one for practically every season and holiday. She was always looking like such a pretty princess for church. When Rae was born, it became a little harder to afford these dresses all the time. Until we found my FAVORITE store, "Sweet Susie's," It was next to Big Lots in Layton. Then, darnit, that went out of business!!!

So- long story short, it has been 2 YEARS since I have bought my little princesses a new poofy dress and dog-gone-it! I thought they needed a new one! So- after many hours of shopping with Grandma to try to find 2 dresses that coordinated that I might actually be able to afford... this is what we ended up with...

We got them for a STEAL at Kohl's! Last place I thought to look of course! Kairi especially was so excited to wear her dress. She told everyone at church that she looked like an ornament as she did a little twirl for them! It was so cute!

(PLEASE DISREGARD MY SAD LOOKING TREE IN THE BACKGROUND! This was our "family tree" and the girls had taken everything off and rearranged it about 10 times at that point)

The King Family Christmas Party

This year, with Brian's family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpa) we had a "Christmas Around the World" themed party. It was a lot of fun. Here are the kids learning the hula:

Then we shared Christmas traditions from around the world...
But, the life of the party was definitely my little Raegan...
Here she is trying to steal the spotlight from her Grandpa by telling all the other kdis to smell her feet...

We had lots of fun doing the Chicken Dance with Brian's grandpa. A big tradition in our family... Bri's granpda is 85 or so and actually teaches dance classes!!!
He is one of my favorite people. Anyone who has benefited from one of my quilts has Grandpa King to thank for that. He taught me how to do it and even made me my own quilt frames.

Did a little limbo...

Next, I read a Christmas story from Russia called "A Christmas Bell for Anya." If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. It is a beautiful story with incredible illustrations. My mother-in-law says it's the same author as the "Great and Terrible" series... have not read that yet, but it is on my list.

But the best part was this- my mother-in-law really wanted one spiritual, Christ-centered portion to our party, so I told her I would read this beautiful book. Just as I was getting to the spiritual climax and started tearing up, leave it to Raegan to kill the mood... She blurts out loudly and VERY clearly, "Did my mommy just say dammit?!?!?"

I could not think of anything to say but "NO!!! I definitely did not just say that!" It took me a while to regain my composure after that. I couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation...

The best part is that Bri's family is really quite churchy. Had this happened with my family, it would not have been a big deal at all. My dad probably would have saved me by saying," what the hell did she just say?!?" But alas, no such luck!!! i can always count on Rae for an embarrassing moment!

Here she is being weird again...

She was really quite pleased with her very own Rudolph costume creation...

And what would a "Christmas around the world" party be without a pinata...

All

All in all, it really was a fun evening, pinatas, hulas, embarrassing two-year-olds and all!

Warm Fuzzies

This is Raegan...

Or... as my dad lovingly calls her, "Devil Rae..."
I prefer a kinder description like "my CURIOUS little baby..."

This is a Craft Pom Pom

....Also known around our house as a "warm fuzzy"

This is Raegan's nose...

Apparently, one of these warm fuzzies...

+ one of these cute little noses

= a trip to one of these...

Luckily, the whole ordeal resulted in one of these...

The moral of the story... NOTHING (especially warm fuzzies) belongs up our noses!!!