Christmas Day

This is the 2nd Christmas post. I split Christmas and Christmas Eve into 2 posts, I love pictures what can I say!!!

6:30 am I'm up in bed with P. Jared is tossing and turning saying "when is she going to wake up?"! Finally he starts calling out her name then started saying "ho ho ho". Soon after R walked into our room still half asleep, but excited to see if Santa came. Another tradition are Santa Sacks. Jared had these growing up, but you would leave it at the end of your bed, and Santa would leave prezzies in it. I liked and disliked this idea. I'm a little selfish and would like to see the reactions on my kids faces. So we compromised and have Santa Sacks, but they are left out in the front room. We found these REALLY cute Santa sacks. Most people just use a pillow case, but these actually cinch together like Santa's sack!!

This is R getting into hers P and his. It looks like he got a lot, but its a big box of diapers and new bottles!! LOL!!!!

Prezzie time-

R loved trying to help P, but getting to open all of his!!

75% of the prezzies under the tree were R's, 15% P's, and 10% me and Jared's.

P was pretty good just chillin' while we watched. R thought that his new Santa bear needed to be right next to him!!

The aftermath!!

Breakfast. I saw this on a blog, and loved the idea. We had Christmas Tree french toast. If you look closely there are even stars on the top of the trees. R didn't want fruit(as ornaments) on hers so she had syrup and powdered sugar(as snow).

After we ate breakfast we got ready and headed down to Woollongong for lunch with family! We got there and had more prezzies to open. We were really blessed this year!

Auntie Carolyn holding off opening her presents to hold Mr. P!!!

More presents!

R with her cousins ready for lunch! See the things on their place mats, some Americans don't know what they are so here is the explanation: They are Christmas Crackers. You pull them on either side and they pop. Inside are crowns(see photos below) and a little gift. Fun times!!

I don't know what happened to Ella, but the girls with their crowns

Auntie Carolyn and Uncle Jim

Cousins Donna and Sandy

Jared and I

After lunch we went outside to play with the bubbles that the girls got!

What a nice sunny Christmas Day!!

Then the dads took over, and had bubble time. LOL

With such nice weather we went for a walk to a park and to the beach.

I love that Jared gets in on the action at the playground! LOVE this picture!!!

Our family, and yes P is really under that blanket!! :)

My handsome husband

Swimming on Christmas Day!!!

These last few pictures are for the McSweeney family. But they are still funny! Auntie Carolyn got this beach dome for Christmas. Looks great, huh?

Until its time to put it back together. We had to have her try it by herself to figure out how to do it. So this is attempt one:

Attempt two

Attempt three-LOL

Jared ended up getting it together just to get it back to her flat, where they opened it back up on the grass and practiced until she figured it out herself. What a funny time!!!

It still crazy to me that Christmas is over. Even though we did the Christmas things, it still doesn't feel like Christmas. As much as I hate the snow, I really miss it for Christmas. Christmas was GREAT, and besides the snow I couldn't ask for much more! Jared and I combined our presents together and getting a new camera. YEAH!!! I am sure I will post about it because I am so excited. My camera has been touched by R one to many times. It is going to be hers when ours comes!!! I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas. I can't wait to read about them on your blogs!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Eve

I've decided that I would break Christmas and Christmas Eve into 2 different posts. I love pictures, what can I say!!!

Our little family has a few Christmas traditions. Our first tradition are Christmas Candles. We bought mine and Jared's for our first Christmas. Then each kid has got one for their first Christmas. Here is R with hers Yet another screaming picture. P with his candle!!

We light the candles and read the Christmas story from the Bible! We then leave them while we sing a few Christmas songs. We keep the same candle every year.

Another tradition is from my family. On Christmas Eve the kids get to open one present. It is always from Grandma Trease and always new p.j.

Of course princesses

Helping P with his Christmas Eve present!

LOVE this outfit. He didn't sleep in it, because I wanted him to wear it on Christmas Day! But "Santa's Reindeer" is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute!!

In their new jammies! Because we live in an apartment, we don't have a chimney for Santa to come down. So we got a "Santa Key". We put it on the outside of the door so Santa could get in, then he left it on the tree when he left!

And we couldn't forget the cookies and milk.

I have to say that this has been such a fun Christmas. Christmas is SOOO much more fun when you have kids, and they understand what is going on. R was SOOOOO excited about EVERYTHING. The jammies, the candles, the key, the milk and cookies, and the whole idea of Santa. It made me have a perma-grin on my face all night! I even had butterflies in my stomach for her! :)

Temple Lights

Baby P is sleeping, so I am rushing to put this post up.

So seeing all the pictures of people's post of Temple Square REALLY made me wish that we were in Utah for the holidays. Luckily "our" temple has lights, and a sing-a-long concert thing for 3 nights(but the lights are up for the season). It was rained out last year, but we made it this year. We went on the first night, and it happened to be the dress rehearsal but it was still fun!

Sitting on the lawn outside of the temple wait to sing Christmas Carols!!

This is such a cute picture, especially for Emma. Look how cute he is when he isn't crying!

Wish this was a better picture, but you get what you get when a stranger takes your picture!

It is nice to be able to look at the lights when its not FREEZING!!

The lights

R has issues and yet another picture of P screaming, but Jared and I look alright! :D

I am having blogging withdrawals so hopefully we can figure out baby P, so I can actually find time to do something for me! Can't wait for Christmas even if it is hot outside!

Grandma and Bobby's Visit

***NOTE- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, THERE ARE A LOT OF PICTURES!!!***



For those of you who don't know my family. My dad's name is nothing close to Bobby. My sister's kids call him Papa and R couldn't say that so she said Bob, but has some how turned into Bobby. So now he is stuck with Bobby.



Bobby and Grandma Trease flew in for 10 days of fun in the sun. Little did they know that it would rain 90% of the time they were here, and that R wouldn't let either of them rest especially Bobby. Their flight came in at 6am and we dragged them to our beach that afternoon(one of the sunny days). They were drained of any energy, but enjoyed sitting on the sand while watching the airplanes fly in!

Jumping some waves! Chilling on the beach

The next day we travelled to the Central Coast, where we lived before for R's friend's birthday party. My dad was so brave, he drove on the "wrong side" of the road!

Beautiful Norah Head, on the Central Coast. If you are a follower of my blog, this is where we would go crab hunting!!!

Beautiful!

You can't come to Australia without petting a koala and feeding a kangaroo, so we took my parents to Featherdale Wildlife Park! Check out P's little hat, got to love it!

Yes it is real!

P was hungry. Not such a good pic of P and the koala!

Love this picture, but you could look at it and think that my mom is trying to feed P to the kangaroo! LOL

Loves how brave R is, except around Emus. There were 2 in the same area of the kangaroos and they wanted the food just as much as the kangaroos. SCARED R, but thinking of the height difference that would be pretty scary!

Had to throw this cute picture in. Love this little man!

We attempted to do Circular Quay, but like I said before it rained almost the whole time they were here. They still enjoyed it. Bobby and R with the Harbour Bridge!

Grandma and R at the Opera House (which for a side note it being called the Oprah House this week because her and her audience just flew in this morning and going to have 2 taping of her show from inside!)

We took my parents to our favorite place in the Royal National Park-Wottomalla. And guess what............ the sun decided to come out for us!! We even got a little sun burn on our skin! :)

P and I decided to hang out on these rocks while the others played in the water!

This is such a cute picture of Bobby and R. She was glued to his side while my parents were here!After the National Park the sun was still out, so we went to the beach. It was really windy, but NOT raining!!!

Playing in the sand with Bobby!

My beach babe! She is doing SO much better at the beach!

While my parents were here we decided to set up our Christmas tree. R was a big help!

Jared would walk around the tree while R would wrap the lights around. What a good way of getting the lights on!

R decorating the tree. I thought she was going to fall on the tree and tip it over, but she didn't!

Enjoying decorating.....

...... not enjoying it!!!!

My dad got a kick out of the Christmas trees with palm trees or the beach behind them!!!!

Look....... we made it to Circular Quay with the sun out!!!!!

The next day Jared took my parents and R to the Blue Mts, to see the 3 Sisters. R kept calling them the "3 ladies" or "3 girls". P and I stayed home, out of the rain!

On the train that takes people down to the bottom of the mts, and back. It is a VERY steep train.

The last day Sunday we were able to bless Payton with my dad here! Our little family.

The guys: Uncle Jim, P, Jared, and my dad-Don aka Bobby

Proud Grandparents!

The little man in his blessing outfit!

He is so cute! If you look closely his outfit has a little white tie... love it!

So my parents weren't suppose to leave until Monday afternoon, but because they are flying stand-by and ALL the flights around the date of when they were to leave were full. We were stressing because they needed to get back. So we changed their date to Sunday to give them another day to try to get on. To their luck and to my disappointment, they made it on. They weren't able to sit together, but they made it back to the states!

The highlights from their trip:

*R ALWAYS saying "Bobby do you want to play with me?"

*P being attached to my mom, except for feeding time

*Having family around for 9 days-even Jared said "that went by so fast"

*Being able to show my family around the place that we live!!

*Many other things that I can't think of

We are all dealing with the withdrawals of not having them around, but are very happy that they came!