Christmas Day 2010

We woke up Christmas morning at the bright and sunny hour of 4:00 AM. Yes, my friends, we are crazy. It is basically tradition to wake up that early at my parents and this year was no different. Ryland was completely confused as to why we were waking him during his beauty rest. Once he realized he could go see what Santa brought, he didn't seem to mind much.
Getting a little excited...

He found a nice spot on the floor in front of his race car track and sat there and watched it for quite some time.

He loved his race car track. Lance and I picked that up from him several months ago and have been waiting for so long to give it to him. We knew he would love it and it didn't disappoint, that was for sure. He had ran the batteries dead on both cars within a couple of hours!

Ryland spent all morning with Lance. He loved sitting on his lap and showing him all his toys. He was a little daddys boy all morning. It was adorable. Looking through his stocking with Dad

He scored some sweedish fish to eat nice and early. Yummy!

Opening presents. He was way more into it on Christmas day then he was on Christmas eve.

Grandma Jo got Ryland his own computer. He was way excited when we opened it. I think he knew exactly what to do with it when we opened it up. You have to check out his hands going to type away on the computer. Pretty funny.

So happy

My parents always do such a great job with Christmas. It is so fun to be over there. A little bird told us about the nice flat screen t.v. my parents got for the kids at home this year. Lance didn't want to miss that big reveal. It was pretty funny actually. Clearly they were all SUPER excited about the new t.v. Good job mom and dad at hiding it so well. They had no idea. The revel went something like this...

After we spent the early morning hours with my family, we went over to Lances dads to spend some time over there. He was spoiled beyond belief over there but loved every minute of it.
Maddie and Ryland watching cars before we opened presents.

Opening presents.

We had breakfast there too so we had a break from opening presents. Ryland sat down on Maddies old chair and watched some of the christmas story.

More Presents, which included matching pjs for Ryland and baby brother.

He loved this little people garage they got for him. He has played with that toy a ton since we brought it home.

And as you can guess by about noon he wanted nothing else to do but sleep. He was so tired. It didn't take long for him to turn into this.

After a much needed nap, we spent the early evening with Lisa, Brian and her dad again. We enjoyed more presents which included another computer that Ryland LOVES! I thought I forgot my camera, come to find out later it was in the bag the whole time, but that is another story. So no pictures. I know lame again. We had a great time with them and then spent the evening playing basketball, watching movies, and hanging out with family. It was a great christmas and I can't believe it is over already. We can't wait for next year! We hope you all enjoyed your holiday season!

Christmas Eve 2010

Wow what a busy holiday season we have had!! I am sad to see it come and go as quick as it did. We first went to breakfast with Lance's sister Lisa, Brian, and her Dad. It was way fun, we had a great time spending time with them. Ryland loved playing in the phone booth while we were waiting to be seated.

I know I am lame because that was the only picture I took at breakfast....oh well. We had a great time with family on Christmas Eve. We started at my moms with a yummy ham dinner complete with all the fixings. It was delicious. Then we had a small christmas eve program. Lance played his christmas song for all of us.

Family picture

Then it was on the the presents from family and my parents. We made out great this year, thanks everyone. Unfortunately Ryland was way more interested in the rock band drums then opening up his presents. Seriously, he couldn't get enough of playing them.

So we saved his presents for later. We also were able to go to Gildas on Christmas Eve and enjoy the amazing gumbo. This year was no exception. It was way good. We always love doing that every year.
See look at that goodness..

Thanks Gilda!

We then went back to my parents for the evening. Ry and Lance spent at least a half hour playing steamroller on the floor. He was loving it and it was a great way to get all of his energy out for the night!


We spent christmas eve night at my parents and decided to wake up and do our christmas morning there. We enjoyed watching elf that night and setting up all of Rys presents for christmas morning.

Sing-a-long

We went to the ESA sing-a-long for Christmas again this year. It was great as always. Ryland was sporting his little elf hat which was too big for him but that didn't stop him from looking adorable!

We all got free cookies at the door and of course our envelope of goodies that included tickets to a jazz game, bees game and a bunch of other free stuff. Ryland loved the cookie best as you can see here.

We had a great time singing christmas carols all night. It is a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

Temple Square

The other night we continued the tradition of going to temple square to see the lights at christmas time. The weather was AMAZING. It was a little cold but by no means was it as cold as it has been in years past. Lance didn't even bring his coat! It was so nice to not be thinking the whole time how freezing it is. We had a great time. Ryland loved looking at all the lights. He is really big into the christmas lights this season. It is so fun.


Ryland was lucky enough to have bubby share his pennies with him to throw in the fountain. He thought that was great.

Family Picture

Last night Lance and I went here

Thats right the Hale Center Theater to see A Christmas Carol. It was amazing. We both had never been but had heard it was something we had to do. I gave Lance tickets for our anniversary and he was way excited to go. It exceeded our expectations besides the fact that we didn't have the greatest seats in the world. We were on the backside of the stage and since we had the "extra leg room seats", our chairs had a nice gap between them. We got over it quick because the play was so good and now we know for next year! :) Yes we do plan on going again. We even saw President Uchtdorf there. We also saw him at the jazz game we went to a couple of weeks ago. He is on our same schedule apparently. You should all go check out A Christmas Carol. It was worth every cent.

5 Years

I am slow at getting this up but Lance and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on the 3rd. Wow, 5 years, it went so fast. Lance planned a wonderful fun filled weekend for us to celebrate. It all started with these beautiful roses. Love them!

We went to Rodizios Thursday night which was amazing as always, especially when you are pregnant. Then we took a carriage ride downtown with some delicious hot chocolate.

Downtown is so beautiful this time of year.

Lance was so sweet and picked me up a ring for our 5 year anniversary. I love it, and what a surprise. Now if I can only decide which way it looks better, what is your vote? I won't tell you what I think as to not sway your vote! :)


My gift was not quite as amazing as his, but I got him tickets to a christmas carol, we will be going to that in a few weeks. He loves theater plays so it should be fun. We got a hotel that night and enjoyed spending the whole night with just us. It was so fun and Lance was so thoughtful about everything.
On Friday, our actual anniversary, we picked up Ryland from my moms and decided to go to the festival of trees. I had never been so it was fun to go and see what it was all about. The trees are amazing and there are TONS of them. Ryland liked looking at all the lights for a while, but it didn't take too long for him to be done. :) His favorite part was watching the entertainment they had going on.


We decided to spend the rest of the night doing something Ry would enjoy. We went to his favorite place the discovery gateway and Santa just happened to be there too. We got lucky because their printer was broken so they couldn't take pictures for you there. We asked if we could use our own camera to take a picture and they agreed since theirs was broken. So we saved 14 dollars and still got pictures! Score! Unfortunately Ryland was completely terrified of him. We convinced him to sit on his lap but this is the best we could do for a picture. You can just see the terror in his face. Poor little guy.


It was great to do the discovery gateway on a friday night because it is basically empty. Ryland loved having most of the place to himself and he could play with whatever toy he wanted. Talk about paradise for Ry!


We ended our weekend with the dreaded haircut. As you can see from pictures Ryland's hair was getting super long. It was in his eyes most of the time and and we decided it was time for a cut. And of course this is how Ryland felt about it.

He did pretty well during the cut and Lance did a great job getting him all cleaned up. Thankfully his hair grows fast because I already miss his long hair. It is great to see his face so much better now though and I probably wont have to wash it so much either. And now he looks like he is 21 months going on 4! :) Heres the finished product!

It is hard to believe 5 years have gone by since we got married. It was the best decision of my life to marry Lance and I couldn't be happier. He is great husband and father and he makes me smile everyday. I am so glad I get to spend eternity with the one I love. Happy anniversary Lance, I love you!

Thanksgiving 2010 Picture Overload Ahead

We had a busy, fun holiday weekend this thanksgiving. This year we celebrated with my family on Thursday for thanksgiving dinner. The guys enjoyed a few games of basketball for the turkey bowl this year. It was somewhere around 0 degrees thanksgiving morning here. So cold!! The food was yummy as always, it was so good to be with my family for dinner. It had been a while since we had been there.
Ryland and Kira. They are best friends. And yes Kira is 6 months older than Ry, but he is not far from being bigger than her.

My amazing parents who made the feast possible.

Lance cutting the delicious turkey

Ryland enjoying his feast, his favorite part was the pumpkin pie. :)

Family picture

We also went and saw Harry Potter on Thanksgiving day. It was pretty good besides the fact that I was kind of lost through it because I have not kept up on the books....shame I know. I got most of it, I think. :)
We decided to be one of those crazy black friday shoppers this year and got up at 3 in the morning to do some shopping. It was CRAZY. Thankfully we knew what we wanted and were able to score everything we wanted before it was gone. It was so weird to be shopping around at 3 in the morning and see tons of people running around the store like it was 3 in the afternoon. :) We had fun and are glad to be done with a lot of our christmas shopping now.
We headed down to Mesquite at 8 that morning to spend the weekend with Lances family. It was so nice to enjoy some 50 degree weather and sun. We had some awesome homemade Raviolis at Lance's aunts house with his family that night. We all went into some major "pasta shock" but it was so good. It was nice to spend some time with his family for the holiday as well. Ryland was spoiled beyond belief with attention and gifts. He loved it. He also loved being able to go outside and run around without having several layers on him.
Enjoying pasta night

Lance and his mom

Ry with Marie and James

Ry with Lisa and Brian

Ry and Grandma Jo

Ryland also figured out how to say cheese for the camera that night. It was pretty funny. Here he is showing off his cheese and the fish face he can do now.

Ryland loved to play this game with Papa Tom. He would have done it all day if he could.

He loved this christmas bear that Grandma Jo had. He wanted to push the button over and over on it and would watch the whole thing. This was a common sight.

Enjoying being outside.

He loved throwing rocks in the water with his auntie Lisa.

He wanted so bad to push his stroller all the way up the hill on our walk. He couldn't drive it straight and was running everywhere with it. Crazy boy was just so happy to be outside. I got this on movie though because he is showing off his whistling skills. This boy LOVES to whistle. He does it ALL the time, and has been able to for probably a good 6 months or so but has just recently started doing it a lot. It is pretty cool.

We watched the byu vs utah game down there. Too bad byu couldn't pull it off, but it was fun to watch.
Papa Tom picked out this studly suit for Ryland's christmas outfit. How adorable is that?

Ryland and Marie before we left.

Thanks to a lovely snow storm coming in on sunday we decided to take off late saturday night to make it home before the snow. The drive home was one we won't forget. Ryland decided to throw up his entire dinner and chocolate milk just outside of St. George. Yeah, I am talking way too much throw up to come out of ones mouth. We pulled over in the middle of no where and attempted to clean him, the car, and his seat with wet wipes. Unfortunately it didn't work too well but thankfully we had a change of clothes for him. We got what we could, called it good, and went on our way again. Let me tell you how amazing it is to drive 4 more hours in the aroma of throw up. It was pretty gross. He wanted a drink when we stopped to get gas, so we gave him a small amount of juice and 15 minutes before we got home he deiced he would throw that up too. Who knows why, but we decided to just get home as quick as we could and deal with it then. So we got home around 2 in the morning and spent a half hour cleaning everything up. And my car still smells like throw up. Lovely. We still love you Ry, don't worry. And it was a great trip even through all of that. And we were so glad we went home on Saturday night because we woke up Sunday morning to several inches of snow and it snowed the entire day. We were happy we didn't have to sit through that. We hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving. Now let the christmas festivities begin.