Christmas Bells Are Ringing!

Holy Crap I need to catch up!  Christmas was jam-packed with lots of fun stuff and dare I say, it was Gloooooorious!!!

I was so excited for Christmas Eve!  I was given these white and red striped baby bottoms a long time ago and I was hoping they would still fit Asher by Christmas and they did.   I wanted to find just a plain red onesie to go with it but happened upon a $3 'My First Christmas' onesie that was actually pretty perfect for it so I snatched it up.  He looked adorable!!!  I was so excited for everyone to see him and they all just ate him up!!  See him in his little baby Santa hat with lipstick marks all over his face?? That's the proof!!  Other happenings for the evening:  my dad and Asher had some good times together.  Asher LOVES being up in the air.  If he's cranky, you can stick him up in the air and he just starts smiling and laughing.  So fun!  Morgan and Gaven had a wrestling match in the middle of Catch Phrase, Paul and Gaven put Aiden and Bronsynn up on their hands (I dare say Gaven had the harder one!!), and Asher being so stinking cute in his Christmas Jammies and, as you can tell, he's so excited in his crib waiting for Santa to come!

Paul and I were sooooo tired by the time we got home from my parents that night.  It felt good to hit the sack.  But Paul was up and at it at 7 am Christmas morning.   I forced myself up and out of bed and helped Paul get our stuff set up....a fire, Christmas music, lights, hot chocolate!  This year Bacardi got a super nice bed along with his bone.  At first he didn't know what to do with it but eventually reached the point where he didn't even have to be told to go to bed.  We'd just start closing up shop and in he'd go.  I think he likes it.   

Our sweet baby in his cute Christmas jammies, playing on his Christmas blanket that Paul's parents bought him.  He played with wrapping paper while Paul and I did our thing.  He received this cute bomber hat for his nugget in stocking and got a super stellar outfit for Christmas from Mom and Dad!

Paul made out like a bandit.  In his stocking, among all the goods, he found coal.  Guess he was a little naughty...ha ha ha.  He got a stellar tie 'from Asher', his yearly BKE's, and then it got a little tricky.  All Paul wanted for Christmas was an Xbox.  He actually wanted it last year and I basically refused it.  We already have the Wii and why do we need two gaming systems?  But the Wii doesn't have Call of Duty, Halo, or the not-stupid versions of Madden Football, Paul cries to me.  So I pretended I was still not going to buy him an Xbox, but in order to fool him I wrapped up two extra 'presents' to throw him off (the idea being that if he had six wrapped presents then there's no possible way an Xbox could be one of them because that would be way over the limit).  It worked!  Ha ha nailed it!!  In one box I put a bunch of stupid stuff from around the house in like a mini flashlight, knee straps, nipple cream (yep!) and then a card where I made up a little Christmas jingle about this stupid musical tie Paul's mom gave him that he would never wear in a million years.  Then he opened his Xbox - lots of smiles!!  Yay!!  And then he opened another empty box.  And then he opened up his Kinect...because c'mon - I can't NOT get a Kinect to go with it!  And then he opened up MW3.  I think I made him pretty happy: 

One of the thousands of reasons I love my husband is that he is so thoughtful with his gifts.  He tries to make things meaningful and he pays attention to the little things and he always ends up happily surprising me!  I got my slippers I wanted (cuz I actually found them, bought them and gave them to Paul and said "Here: wrap these.  These are from you to me."), a 15lb kettlebell (which was too light for me and so we upgraded to a 30), money for me to shop for myself, a killer new pair of running shoes, and Asher 'gave' me some weight lifting gloves!  

As tradition serves we gathered up presents and headed back out to my mom's where hot Sticky Buns welcomed us.  My nephews were so excited for their new Wii and Balance Board.  They also received dart gear, as you can see on Paul and Aiden below.  They have shirts and goggles and the two of them had a war all morning.  Paul and I received a stellar tent to add to our camping gear!  In the last few Christmas' we've collected some nice stuff from them for Christmas and we are so excited for the summer!  Asher got a suuuuper cute pair of overalls from Grandma and Grandpa along with that really cute stuffed dragon that matches his room (it's actually an alligator but I saw it and had to have it and I say it's a dragon so there).  Exchanging presents with sibs and fam was full of laughs and great fun.  We hung out all day and watched new movies and then headed over to Paul's parents: 

Paul and I had a great time at his parents as well.  We ate a great dinner and visited with some family we haven't seen in awhile.  Trudi and Mike had also given Asher a Christmas outfit that I changed him into.  It was pretty dang cute on him!   Asher the Elf visited with Santa Matt, drooled all over Grandma Budd's pants, and was given some toys, books, a Champion tracksuit, and jammies.  His Uncle Beej and Aunt Hilary also gave him some great books! In the middle picture with me and Matt in the background...I promise Matt isn't really picking his nose.  That was just for the camera's benefit.  Also, BJ had me for Christmas this year and when he asked what I wanted I jokingly told him I wanted sand from a beach in Costa Rica.  They were married back in August but had just left a week before Christmas for their honeymoon and guess where they went??  Well, those gift cards down in that there picture box would be sitting on top of a bunch of sand.  That's right --- I have sand from Costa Rica!  I laughed so hard when I picked up the present and felt something slosh to the side.  So cool!: 

We had such a great couple days and felt so blessed.  I love being with family more than anything and Christmas makes it super special!  But that wasn't all the Christmas fun - my dad's side of the family got together a few days after Christmas.  We had a Cafe Rio style nacho/taco/salad bar (which was absolutely tremendous!), the kids smacked the pinata and it only took 2 rounds to bust it this year, my cousin Nicole got a Sundae in her mouth, Paul visited with my tiny cousin, Ella, and my Grandma is sitting there in the corner with her 13 great grandchildren!!  Holy Cow!!  There were three great grandkids born this past summer.  Oh, and that middle bottom picture is Asher pushing himself up onto his knees!  That was a first! 

Look At The Pretty Lights!!

Paul and I had the pleasure of going up to see the Temple Lights again and this time with our good friends, The Edmunds and their fantasticly funny kid, Jensen as well as Stephanie (Teresa's super cool sis from outta town), her husband and her husband's brother.  It was real cold but real pretty.  I don't know how I never ended up walking down the row of pink lights but it's now my favorite part tied with the ginormous trees near the temple done all up in white.  Afterwards, we headed to Gourmandise for some hot chocolate and the mouthwatering French desserts where I wish that I could take one of each every time I go there.

Ouch.

Bacardi is one lucky dog.  And we are two very lucky dog owners!

Thursday I decided to take Bacardi with me when I went out to my parents house to watch my nephew.  It had been awhile since he had been out there to play with his pal, Jimmer.  

Bacardi and Jimmer have always stayed in the yard, on the canal or out with the horses.  But, they have never gone past the horses in the back or past the horse pasture in the front...except for the last few times Bacardi was out there they went for a little visit to the Mastif who belongs to our backyard neighbors.  That is part of the reason why I stopped taking Bacardi out to my parents because those two dogs are trouble and Bacardi was 'misbehaving'.  

Well I checked on them before I sat down to feed Asher and try to put him to sleep.  A little while later the doorbell rang and Dallin ran off to get the door.  I stopped him because I wasn't expecting people and I didn't want him opening the door for strangers.  So I hurry up with baby in tow to get the door and I find a young lady holding Jimmer by his collar and Bacardi is laying on the grass. 

My first thought was that they did something to her and I was in big trouble.  Turns out that she hit my dog with her car.  She was pretty upset and I felt super bad for her, especially when I found out that she was wearing a heart monitor because of her heart surgery she had had.  Yikes!!!  

I could see Bacardi try to get up and he would limp very badly and was bleeding.  She said that she saw Jimmer across the street (see....bad dog!!) and she saw Bacardi but didn't think that he was going to dart out into the road.  Bacardi has been trained never to go out on to the street but, as I said, he and Jimmer are trouble and it's bothersome.  Obviously Bacardi did dart out in front of her and she hit him and he rolled a couple times.  I'm thankful that she stopped and came to the door to let me know!

I immediately called my vet...who couldn't see him that day.  So I grabbed Gaven and found out where he had had to take Jimmer so often and they said to bring him in.  They were incredibly nice and fast.  As soon as I got there they took Barcadi to the back and I filled out paperwork.  Then the vet came and got me and explained what he was finding and that he would like to do an X-Ray.  The X-Ray showed a chip fracture at the top of his left back leg, which is way he was limping so bad.  He was also in shock and so they wanted to put him on fluids so they could watch him for the rest of the day and then let me know how things were going.  I was able to pick him up at the end of the day.

By the time we got home, you couldn't even tell he had been in an accident! His pain meds helped with that I'm sure because the next day he was acting mighty sore.  Poor pup!!!  As I said, we are super lucky that it wasn't worse and that he didn't end up dead. 

More Ice Capades??? Sure!!!

We planned to go ice skating again so that more people could make it...and then last minute we were still down four people - oh well!!

This time around, we made sure to bring the stroller so that we could take Asher out on the ice with us!  It was super cute and we could do lots of fun twirls with him.  We even played 'Catch the Stroller!'

Bronsynn was full of poses all night long: 

Disco Ice Skaters: 

Paul apparently felt that he needed some protection for his nugget, too bad that was a kid's helmet: 

Having a good time: 

Temple Lights

Thursday night we went down town with Rachelle and Jesse as we did last year.  

Asher was a ball of warmth!  I didn't know how cold it was going to be and I wanted to be sure this little guy would be sufficiently warm so he had on a long sleeve onesie, some thermal type pants, a long sleeve thermal shirt, sweat pants, THREE pairs of socks, & slippers.  AND THEN! on top of that a pair of pajamas, his romper and a super fuzzy hat!  We wrapped him up in a blanket and wrapped a scarf around the front of his face to keep the wind from making his face cold.  

Mission Accomplished!!  He was so toasty warm he fell asleep on our little adventure!:

Rachelle & Jesse: 

The four...woops, Five!.. of us near in front of the reflection pond: 

I also made sure that I was super warm because I can not enjoy the lights if I am cold: 

Love the colors in this pic!: 

Yay!  Christmas is almost here!  I am always glad to be able to go the temple and have such beautiful reminders of why we celebrate Christmas!

I Want A Pony

...or at least that's what I imagine he'd ask for if he could.  

I am pretty sure that when Santa comes to you and the line is 10 people long that it is WAAAAAY better than finding Santa yourself and standing in a line of 100 people :)  

Our ward Christmas party last night was such a hit and I loved Santa's little room.  Asher was SOOO excited to meet Santa.  ha ha, kidding of course.  If the little tank knew what the hullabaloo was going on, I'm sure he would have been :)

Ice Ice Baby!!

 This year we switched it up and tried out the Olympic Oval for our new annual Ice Skating tradition.  We liked it very much and since we were missing nearly half the family we are going to go again in a couple weeks.  Yay!!  

Paul and Asher:

Awww!!! Family photo!  Asher says: "This is so gay.  These people are lame.  Why do I always have to pose for these things??   WHY???" 

Amanda had quite the night....filled with many of these "Ohhhhhhh Snaaaaaaappp!!"  in slow-mo.  :)  She is currently sporting many MANY bruises!:

Aiden was getting so frustrated because 'he couldn't skate'!  I had to sit down with him and explain why he has to keep his skate flat so his toe pick wouldn't keep tripping him up.  He was convinced that hockey skates would be so much better for him.  We made him master the figure skates first and then he went and switched his skates...and just as we told him...he hated the hockey skates and switched back after one lap!  

And towards the end of the night, the traffic was much less and so we just hung out at our spot and danced, and pretended to be Pros, and slid around, and Amanda,  aka the Red Polar Bear, constantly took me and Amber down:

People Are Crazy

I found something in the Black Friday ads that I really wanted.  I had no hope of getting it, of course, but who knows? It was worth a shot and Bronsynn came with me for fun. The destinations: Walmart's 10:00 PM Sale.

We left from Thanksgiving dinner separately from Paul and when I saw the parking lot from Bangeter, I nearly kept on driving.  I thought "Well maybe there will be room in the shops at the back."  Ha Ha.  What we noticed was people parking at the Home Depot across the street and running to Walmart.

New Plan:  Drop Bronsynn off nearest the entrance without actually entering the zoo of a parking lot.  Have her run in and scope things out.  Find parking spot and join in.

Ha ha!!!  Parking took a while as it made it's way under the highway and all the way back to the new Riverton Baseball diamonds.  I did find a spot and made it twenty feet from the truck when Bronsynn called at 9:50 and said they started the sale early, it was a mad house, and everything was already gone.

Perfect.  Well that was fun.  I picked her up in the same place (seriously it was C.R.A.Z.Y. there) and she told me how the produce area was literally crammed tight like sardines with people waiting for the deals to open.  She ran through people and ducked and twisted and got back to the DVD's and such and found people swarming it like it was the last morsel of food on earth.  And THEN, she witnessed a man throw his daughter over people into a pile of barbies so that she could nab the one she wanted.

Sometimes I wonder at mankind.

Thanksgiving Festivities

THANKSGIVING:

 the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

The thing I look forward to the most is traditions with family.  I love that every year I get together with my female Madsens and spend an entire evening making and baking pies.  I love that my dad's extended family comes over for a huge feast, usually the week before Thanksgiving.  I love that it starts the Christmas season by name drawing.  I love to have laughs at the dinner table and then spend the rest of the night sprawled over the carpet going through Black Friday ads (and then battling the crazies and early a.m. hours for a couple great deals).  

This Thanksgiving was one of the funnest I've had.  It started out with a little pie baking - Asher tagged along and kept me company while I made an Apple Crumble Pie. 

Dallin helped out Grandma by separating pumpkin seeds so my mom could make Pumpkin Pie straight from the pumpkin!!!:

Then we enjoyed the company of all the Madsen's, which is really quite fun and crazy.  I have a blast.  It started off with some paper airplane making with Uncle Paul: 

And Grandma showed these little whipper snappers how to make a real airplane, not one of those fancy schmancy ones from the airplane book :) 

My camera battery unfortunately died and so I don't have any fun pics of the family.

But come Thanksgiving Day, my battery was fully charged and ready for action.  This year was supposed to be our 'Off' year.  However, for several reasons my family ended up being 'on' again, which ended up being great for us since Paul's family had to cancel due to a sick kid.  

So initially my mom and dad were planning on taking Gaven and Amber out shooting...but then Paul and I had no where else to be so we joined in the fun...and then Amanda and Kenny didn't want to be left out so they came along as well!  Almost a full house.

We headed clear the heck out to the boonies to shoot - and the setting was gorgeous and it was a BLAST! (ha ha pun not intended...or maybe it was)

It was a perfect day for Asher to wear his Carhartt gear!  I was so excited to get a picture of him wearing this with my dad since my dad has Carhartt coming out of his ears! Isn't he CUTE??!  (That was a rhetorical question.  The answer is yes, of course). 

We all got a kick out of Gaven's style for the day: 

My high school sweetheart (literally, they were!) parents: 

       

  

Later at dinner - our first Thanksgiving with Asher Pants:

Asher in a Johnny Jump-up for the first time....he'll work at the jumping part :) 

Gaven took over Samantha's back tickling...with a pen.  Morgan was given a 'Tramp Stramp.' 

The boys played in Grandpa's hunting fort: 

And Asher was victim of Dad! 

That was a lot of photos I know...but I was too lazy to collage them. 

Yay!!!  Now to get busy with Christmas!