Christmas Day 2012

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  The kids woke up Christmas morning to big red santa bags.  Inside they found Wii games and baby dolls!  This is exactly what they had asked for and they were all thrilled that Santa listened!  They found Mario Kart and Outdoor Adventure and UDraw and a couple others.  Kaylee found a baby doll that came with clothes.  She fell in love with it and named it Baby Lauren.   She is such a little mother.  Dawson found a nice Baby Gap winter coat.  It fit him perfect! The kids also got Christmas Eve jammies that they are all wearing: Cooper got batman, Jaxton got star wars, and Kaylee got penguin ones, and Dawson got firetruck jammies.  

Cooper's favorite present from Mom & Dad was his Spiderman web shooter.  It came with real web fluid (similar to silly string) and also a water container that can be reused and shoot water from his wrist.  Its a fun contraption!  

Kaylee's favorite toy from Mom & Dad was her phone.  She loves to play with daddy's and mommy's phones.  So now she has her own.  And she loves it!  Some days she will look around and ask us (just the same way that we do ) "Where's Kaylee's phone?"  I ask that about my own phone at least 3 or 4 times a day.  Its cute that she treats her phone with just as much ownership as we do with ours.

Jaxton's favorite toy from Mom & Dad was his new lego set.  He will never tire of getting lego sets.  So after presents and breakfast he disappeared upstairs in the toy room till he had finished yet another untouchable masterpiece.  Once those lego sets are built, he says they are off limits.  No one can touch them or play with them.  He puts them on display for everyone to see.  He is always so proud of what he builds!

It was a nice relaxing Christmas Day, enjoying our presents.  That evening, we began something that I hope will remain a tradition for future Christmases.  We had a Christmas CD and printed off lyrics to the songs on the CD. Then, we gathered with 2 other families at a retirement home and sang Christmas carols in the hallways and at residents' doors.  It was a lot of fun and I know we brought Christmas cheer to individuals that were alone on the evening of Christmas Day.  Even the kids enjoyed it and sang along.  What a great tradition!

Christmas Eve in Lafayette

We spent Christmas Eve in Lafayette at Nate brother's house.  The whole family was there (including Nick & Carissa via Skype :-)  We drove down on Christmas Eve Eve and stayed the night till Christmas Eve Day.  It was great fun for all the kids.  They really had a blast.  Christmas Eve we had a big dinner at noon with all the family.  After dinner, we held a family testimony meeting, where even the kids were able to share their simple testimonies.  Jaxton's hand went up right away.  He had something to share.  His simple testimony spoke of choosing the right and being honest.  It must be something on his mind, something he knows to be true.  What a treasure!  After our testimony meeting was presents time.  The cousins each got to pick a cousin's name from a hat a while back and went shopping for that cousin.  It was always fun to find out who got you a present, and to find the cousin that you got a present for.  Kaylee got her first dress up Princess dress from Cousin Jared.  

Cooper got a Thor Avengers costume from Jordan

Jaxton got a lego set from Jack

All the Routsong couples pitched in to get Bill & Linda a beautiful painting of the Washington D.C. Temple where they were sealed.  It was personalized with their name, their sealing date, and the name of the temple.  They loved it!  

After presents, we had a fun white elephant gift exchange amongst the adults using "our favorite things."  Everyone brought wrapped up their favorite thing to give.  Nick and Carissa joined the exchanged via Skype!  That was pretty fun.  We will mail their gifts to them!  We had a great Christmas Eve with family!

The Minivan Express

Have you heard of the Polar Express?  Our kids love that movie!  We watch it all year round!  Well, thanks to Pinterest, I found an awesome idea!!  

THE MINIVAN EXPRESS!!

One Friday evening, we got the kids ready for bed (a little bit earlier than usual.  Since it was dark, they had no idea it was only 6:30 when they were climbing in their beds).  As they climbed in bed, they found a golden ticket on their pillow!  Cooper found one in Dawson's bed, when I was getting him in bed.  Then, he found one on his pillow.  Jaxton checked his pillow and there was one there too!  They ran to Kaylee's room and found that she had a golden ticket too!!!  What did it mean?  Jaxton read the words Minivan Express, and I helped them wonder whether they needed to go check out the minivan in the garage.  Jaxton immediately realized this was like the Polar Express.  The kids in the movie got on the train in the night time.  They were thrilled!!  They brought their tickets, grabbed their coats, and went out to the garage.  Going out there, they were greeted by this:

The Minivan Express Conductor.  He demanded to see their golden tickets so he could hole punch them (with a 3 hole punch LOL).  As each child got their ticket punched, they climbed into the Minivan Express.  Inside the "train" they found hot chocolate and popcorn in their cupholders!! We were off!

We watched The Polar Express as we headed out for the Festival of Lights.  Fort Wayne puts on a Festival of Lights every year.  You stay in the car and drive through the festival and look at all the light displays.  There are hundreds of displays put out by local businesses and families.  They are so intricate and unique and many of the lights make the display look like its moving.  We saw displays made out of lights that were kids ice skating, kids throwing snowballs, Santa and his reindeer flying through the sky, nativity scenes, and all sorts of other light displays.  What a fun fun evening.  It may also become a tradition every Christmas season!!

Fun in the Snow

It finally snowed!!! The kids had been asking and asking and asking for it to snow!  "When will it snow?  When will it snow?"  I kept telling them that when it was 32 degrees outside and started to rain, then the rain would turn to snow.  So they waited for the temperature to get to below 32 degrees.  And finally, the great awaited day came!  Cooper was so thrilled, so we went out together during Kaylee and Dawson's nap and played and built a mini snowman.  Then the boys went outside to play when Jaxton got home.  There wasn't much on the ground, but it was enough to make 2 little boys ecstatic about snow!  I took Kaylee out without mittens because she refused.  But she lasted about 30 seconds when her overly bundled up little body, in boots and a hat and scarf that covered most of her face, up and fell over!  Suddenly her hands were cold, she couldn't stand up, and she was crying.  I had forgotten how hard it was to take toddlers out in the snow.  The memories of Cooper came flooding back just a couple winters ago when he was so excited to go out in the snow, but was crying after the first minute, frustrated because he wanted to play but couldn't because his hands were frozen and he couldn't move in his big bundled up body.  Funny times!!

Since Kaylee didn't do so good outside in the snow, we brought some snow inside to build our own snowman, just the girls!!

I found a recipe on Pinterest to make ice cream out of snow.  So we tried it!  It took a huge bowl of snow, mixed with 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, and a touch of vanilla.  We mixed it together until it became the consistency of ice cream.  We topped it off with hot fudge and caramel.  What a treat!!

A couple weeks later, it snowed a lot more!!  Nate took the boys out and they built a huge snowman!  It was such a joy to see them out there working hard to roll out those giant balls for the snowman's body.  They gave him a pirate hat, fireplace coal rocks for his eyes and mouth and buttons, a carrot nose, and a blue scarf, complete with Nate's old shoes.  He was a perfect snowman!  One morning a few days later, however, we woke up to find that all was left of him was his shoes, scarf, and hat laying on the ground with a carrot and a bunch of black coal rocks!  He had either come alive and run off without his clothes like Frosty, or he had melted away!  

What a wonderful dad they have.  As I watched them build him through the window with Kaylee and Dawson at my sides, I was filled with joy for my family.   We are so blessed to have one another!  

Indianapolis Children's Museum

Since Grandpa was in Indianapolis, we took a day off of school to go pick him up from his hotel and spend the day at the Indianapolis Childrens' Museum.  This was our second time going and it was a blast.  There is sooo much to see there and so much to do that you can just barely scrape the surface of all there is to offer at one visit.  There is a huge toddler area that was perfect for Kaylee.  She could have spent an entire day, plus more, just at this area.  It is full of tactile hands on displays to explore and play.  Her favorite was the sand table.  She spent a lot of time there with Grandpa.  They also had a life size mini house where she could "play house."  She liked this a lot since it had babies, high chairs, and a kitchen in it with play food that she could feed her dolls.  Fun times!!  

The boys took off with Dad and went to visit the Hot Wheels area.  It was full of life size hot wheels cars and activities, and motorcycles....all kinds of hot wheels everything!  The boys, of course, were in hot wheels heaven!  

The dinosaur area was huge and very interesting.  In one area the kids could dress up in paleontologist outfits and study fossils and dinosaur bones.  

If you look closely, you can see Cooper's head popping up under this big dinosaur!

Jaxton spent a really long time digging up dinosaur bones in the excavation center.  He got really into it.  He had his goggles on and he was brushing the bones and uncovering new ones.  

At the holidays, they always transform the front entrance rounded stairway into a gigantic slide!  This was super fun!  They had little fabric carpets for the kids to sit on to slide down on.  I got to take Kaylee down.  It was really a thrill!  

Lastly, and most importantly, we got to visit with Santa.  He was a very kind Santa and let us take lots of pictures with him.  The boys each took a turn to talk with him and tell him what they'd like for Christmas.  Jaxton wanted wii games and a "kid vehicle," (one of those life size jeep kids cars that actually run.....hmmm I told him that Santa may not be able to get him everything he wants. :-))  Cooper asked for a Spiderman web shooter and wii games.  It was super cute to see the sparkle in the boys' eyes being around Santa.  Especially Cooper.  They have the magic still!  As we were leaving, Cooper suddenly remembered one other thing he needed to tell Santa.  He wouldn't give up.  He had to go back.  So I took him back over and he went over to tell Santa one more thing.  I'm not entirely sure what he had to tell him, but it was awfully sweet to see how genuinely he had faith in Santa.   :-)  Kaylee would not go near him without me holding her.  So for the second year in a row, we have no pictures of Kaylee on Santa's lap.  Maybe next year!

Cooper's letter: "Please bring a game boy, wiiii

Jaxton's letter: "Kid vehicle, santa suit, wii games"

Fun with Grandpa Hutchinson

Grandpa Hutchinson had a business trip to Cincinnati, Ohio all week.  Since he was so close to Fort Wayne (in comparison to Salt Lake City), he couldn't resist making a trip out the 4 hours to see us.  We made a plan for him to drive to Indianapolis Thursday night and stay in a hotel.  We drove down to Indianapolis on Friday morning, picked him up from his hotel, spend the day at the Indianapolis Childrens' Museum, drove him with us back home, and spent the rest of the weekend with Grandpa!  It was a lot of fun spending time with him and letting the kids and him create memories together.  

Grandpa asked if he could take over the house on Saturday.  I handed the whole house over to him, and he turned it into a giant play house!  Each area of the house was a designated area, like "church," "library," "train station," "hotel," and "game center."  The kids got to go with Grandpa to all these "places" and do activities that related to each place.  At "church" they gave a talk, at the "train station" they took a train to Utah, at the "game center" they played Mouse Trap.  They had a fun filled day with Grandpa.  Kaylee loved for him to read to her and he just loved him to pieces.  For the next week, she would wake up in the morning and ask for Grandpa.  It was sweet for her, as little as she is, to create memories with him.  

Since Grandpa's birthday is next week, we decided to celebrate his birthday just a little early while he was still visiting!  According to Grandma, his favorite dessert is Cherry Pie.  So that's what we got him.  We sang to him and had a mini party to celebrate!  Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Grandpa flew out of Fort Wayne on Sunday morning.  We are so glad that Grandpa could come visit!  We are glad he could make the drive to Indy and arrange his flights so he could come see us.  That means a lot! We are so grateful for him!  We love you Grandpa!

Christmas Fun

The Giraldi family sent us an early Christmas present this year: The Elf on the Shelf.  I had heard of it before, but never knew much about it.  It turned out to be such a fun Christmas tradition that the kids will never forget!  The elf arrives in a box with a book and a movie.  As you read the book, you learn where the elf comes from (the North Pole) and each elf joins a different family.  The family must name the elf to allow his magic to begin.  The kids decided on the name DeeDee.  So then, DeeDee watches the kids every day.  He watches their actions and how they treat one another.  He flies back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa how the kids in "his family" have been.  By the next morning, he appears somewhere else in the house.  The kids would wake up every morning and search the house to find him.  Once he had climbed the Christmas tree and was at the very top.  Another morning he was peeking into the empty stockings.  One morning we caught him right in the act of opening pixie sticks candy out of the candy jar.  He was halfway leaning into the jar with a pixie stick opened and pixie dust candy spilled all over the counter!  One day we found him taking a marshmallow bath!  The one rule is that the kids may not touch him, or his magic might stop working.  The kids were very excited about him and it became such a fun tradition that we will repeat every year!  As long as he returns to our family next Christmas!

Cooper made a fun Gingerbread house at school that was just too cute!

Grandma Great's 90th Birthday

Grandma Great Martha Routsong turned 90 years old today!  She is still going strong, healthy, and happy!  She is an amazing lady with lots of fun stories about her past.  It is a blessing that our kids have had a chance to really get to know their Great Grandma Routsong!