It's all a little blurry......

and not just the pics that Cowen and Madilyn took of each other, but the WHOLE Christmas weekend!

See little man oven there? I love the pics that Madilyn and Cowen capture when they get ahold of the camera. (Okay, so there is one positive to having a point and shoot inexpensive camera, I will admit---can't wait to have the Canon that I have been dreaming about....Santa listened, and we will be getting it this winter !! WHEEEEEE!) Anyway, This was before my fam arrived for our 2nd annual Christmas Eve party. Good pic Madilyn!

Aunt Jessie and Uncle (almost) Alex got Cowen a baby 4-wheeler. Here they are assembling it.

yep, pretty sure that he loved it.

but I am also sure that this Cat digger was his favorite gift. He loves this thing and plays with it all the time. Great job Grandma Penny and Pop Dan...he LOVES this thing.

Christmas Eve was a blast and soon the kiddos were worn out. Grandma Penny read them books while the guys assembled the big train table for the kiddos.

they were exhausted, but found a little more energy to play with the train set. They both love it.

We had a fun Christmas eve....watching the kiddos play with gifts from their aunties and my parents, we set out goodies for Santa, ate great food, and talked, oh yeah, and played Santa for the next morning.

All too soon (for Paul and I anyway) Christmas morning was here!

we opened gifts and then had our traditional beignets made by Paul. This year, I made the dough (instead of ordering the mix from Cafe du Monde) and we thought that it was even better than last year. Yummy!

Then we were off to spend Christmas day and night with Grandma Joan and Grandpa Larry, Uncle Brian and Wendy.

We had a great day opening gifts and playing. Paul and I visited our friends from L.A. who were in town visiting their parents, we had wonderful dinner and then the kiddos were off to bed.

Thank you everyone for an amazing Christmas 2010 :)

Madilyn the Baker

The weekend before Christmas we spent the day at my parents house. The men were busy mounting my parent's new TV and the ladies put our aprons on and got to work on making cookies and a gingerbread house.

Madilyn absolutely LOVES baking. She rolled out the dough and cut out shapes like a pro. I couldn't believe how she took over the project and got it done. Maybe it was the motivation of getting to eat yummy cookies, or the fact that the dough was so good to snack on? Either way, she is loves baking.

hard at work :)

Looking at the Lights

The Saturday before Christmas, my parents took us out to dinner here,

as they have a new location up here by us and we used to go and get pizza there as a family while I was growing up. It was fun!After dinner we drove through Layton Park to see the awesome light display. It was a lot of fun. They have tons of animals and fun things to see.

my favorite was this aqua blue elephant. We drove through 3 times to see it all. It is free and so much fun.

Can't wait to do it again next year.

Santa!!!

One of the coolest things about the Air Force is during Christmas time. Santa arrives in an F-16 and spends some great time with the kiddos in Paul's unit. Here he is!

The "magic" on Madilyn's face was amazing and priceless. She was so into Christmas this year and it was so much fun!

Cowen was pretty into it as well. He was so excited to see Santa!

He didn't want to sit on his lap though!

Santa gave them each a train and a car. They were thrilled!

they loved when Santa sat down and played with them! They are lucky ducks! Madilyn also got her picture on Hill AFB's website for Paul's unit. Check it out :)

Santa was pretty funny and had us cracking up the whole time :)

We know that we are pretty spoiled :)

We have another beautiful angel watching over us.....

Great Grandma Dorothy Lyons passed away early this morning. She is finally at peace and it makes our hearts happy to know that she is not in any pain anymore.
We will miss her, but know that we now have another angel watching over us.
We love you GG!

3 more days.......

We are busy little elves around here today :)

I have 2 little baking partners and on the agenda today is sugar cookies. And the stakes are high, as they are Paul's favorites (and mine too!) so they have to be good.

Madilyn wants pink frosting and I just want them to turn out soft and chewy and delicious.

Paul and I have a lot of building and assembling to do in the next few days.

tick tock tick tock.....

Christmas Village

Yesterday evening, Paul and I loaded up the kiddos and headed out to downtown Ogden to see the Christmas Village. It was fun to see all the displays and the lights. We love the lights...especially Cowen. He was content to just ride around in the stoller (which doesn't happen too often anymore)
We had to cut our visit a little short because of the rain, but it was so much fun!

I LOVED the stars in the trees. Reminds me of starfish and the coast :)

We weren't ready for our Christmas light fun to be over when we left so we drove around our neighborhood for a bit and looked at even more lights. This house has a light show to music, so we sat and enjoyed it for awhile. Madilyn and Cowen loved it. We will probably have to do it again before the season is over.
Tomorrow, Santa comes to Hill AFB and arrives in an F-16. We can't wait.
Friday, we are having dinner and seeing more lights with my parents.
Saturday is Paul's work Christmas party.

It is a pretty packed week with lot's of fun Christmas stuff going on!