Getting Christmas on...

I sold our 12 ft tree and used the money to buy a smaller, prelit, tree. Much easier.

I stuck it on top of a box of blocks to make it appear a little bit taller than it's height of 7.5' 

Silver and Gold this year.

I also took some pictures of the new Santa shelves. New because we inherited a lot of Santa's when Ryan's parents moved out of their house a few months ago. 

We started our Christmas advents, which this year included a lego advent calendar which the boys have really enjoyed.

We're also continuing with the adorable bags. So far we've gotten the candle, made a Christmas count down chain, and had a Christmas movie night with a bag of edible jingle bells and the movie I finally bought, Elf. 

And we're reading one Christmas book a day as our candle burns down the days to Christmas. Usually I have 1 to 2 kids paying attention to that :-/

Our Elf, Zat made his appearance, and the kids are finally behaving like angels (well, except Aliya... I don't think she quite understands the concept yet)

On Monday this last week we had our first blizzard. I think it dropped about 9 inches. Jayden was so excited. He's worn his snowpants every single day since. This is a picture of the kids waking up to all the white stuff. 

Aliya also started level 2 swim lessons on Monday. I didn't want to take her, because apparently I have severe anxiety about driving in the snow. Although, you might too if you lived up a steep hill and had a mini van!! :-D Too many times of pushing the gas to go forwards only to find myself sliding sideways or backwards. 

The most exciting thing that happened this week (to Ryan and I anyway) is that we finally got tile laid in our master bathroom. It looks AMAZING!!! I'm so excited it's finally done. 3 more days and we should have our bathroom! Woohoo!

Look how clean it is!!!!!!

This tile wood stuff is my favorite. It would probably be over our whole house if I could afford it.

Ryan and Kason getting a whole lot out of stake conference :-D They both have grumpy faces when they sleep. 

 I took the boys  (J and A) to see Alice and Wonderland at the children's theater to see if Jayden does indeed want to act. And it did validate his desire to do so. He'll be auditioning for the next show next month. 

Aliya is actually sticking her head under the water now which she was nowhere close to before we started swim lessons. I'm thinking it was related to her near drowning experience last summer. But I'm so excited to see progress..

I'm still in the process of de-cluttering and organizing our basement. I've actually been getting sick a lot. Some sort of "stomach attack" I call it where I throw up and am bent over in pain for about 4-24 hours. It was happening every two weeks to the day, now it's about every 15-20 days. I actually made it 21 days once. I'd see a doctor about it, but all of our care providers are changing next month to a new network. Anyway- this week the symptoms lasted 48 hours. Not the clenched over in pain, but just the general unwellness followed by about 8 hours of clenched over in pain. I wish I knew what was causing it- so I could stop it. It started my last two weeks of pregnancy.

Our whole family is still adjusting to Ryan working so much. I know a lot of women are used to their husbands being gone 60 hours a week, but I am not. Nor is he ;-) Anyway- it's certainly teaching me some patience. And who can't use a little more of that?