Tyler's First Edible Creation!

Thanks to Auntie Jodi and Uncle David - Tyler's most recent creation turned out Fabulous! Auntie Jodi and Uncle David bought Tyler a Sesame Street Cookbook for Christmas and he has been itching to try it out! SO for FHE tonight, Tyler, Carter and I made the treat! They were yummy white cupcakes with real strawberry icing! Mmmm!

He just wanted to eat it and not pose for the picture!

Here is the book we used! There are tons of yummy kid friendly recipes in here!

It was a lot of fun! Thanks again Jodi and David!

Oh, how we love TYLER!

This is for all of you who are so grossed out by TYLER'S crazy eating habits. The other day, Tyler and I met Lindsey at Wendy's for lunch. I had a frosty with my lunch and wouldn't you know it, Tyler wanted to see what fries tasted like dipped in frosty! SO, he had a taste, and decided that it was pretty darn good and ate several more fries dipped in frosty (YUCK). After a while, he moved on to his root beer - this is one he has done many times - fries and root berry as he calls it! What a kid! One of my boys said to me the other day, "Mom, I think it is very appropriate that Tyler was born on Arpril FOOLS." No kidding~

Christmas Day

Christmas morning TRADITION! That's right! Line up from youngest to oldest to go and get the first glimpse of Christmas surprises!


All four little dudes checking out what the man in red brought them in their stockings.




It takes all three to open this one!



Kayden, all smiles, playing a new Wii game with Daddio...

Building one of the MANY legos sets that were received this Christmas (I have never built SO much lego in my entire life).

Jaren watching Dad and Kayden play some Wii game - probably Madden 09 - it was a real hit!

Opening a star wars transformer... We love star wars at our house!

Carter loving his new lego set. Thanks for your help building it DAD!

Checking out the goods!

I loved Tyler's many expressions on Christmas morning (or anytime, for that matter)...

See what I mean!

It was a fabulous day. Everyone loved giving and receiving their gifts. I loved it when Carter pointed out how he knew that everyone took special care to pick out their gifts. I love my sweet little boys!!

After opening all our gifts, we had a yummy Christmas breakfast, built a ton of lego, played outside and then ate a delicious Christmas dinner.

Boxing day, we had our usual fondue night. It is a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun too! My favorite is the cheese fondue. Just give me the pot with the cheese fondue in it and a bowl of bread and I'm good to go! The boys had a hoot with the chocolate fountain that Val got for Christmas! I'm sure Tyler had more chocolate on his face than he did in his mouth!

Finally, our last tradition, is the seafood night on the 27th. Grampa always treats us to crab and other seafood fare on this night. Most of the adults, like the crab, while the kids (and me) go for the shrimp - raw - or cold, I guess for Jaren and cooked for the rest of us!

I love having all these family traditions! It makes the holidays so much fun and they don't seem to fly by as fast!

Christmas Eve (Home Night)

As some of you know, on the Rice side of the family (Lindsey's mom's side), there is much tradtion when it comes to Christmas! I love being a part of this celebrating.

Every Christmas Eve, there is a special dinner which has been the same for generations, followed by the Nativity, which is so wonderfully acted out by as many kids (and sometimes grown ups) that are in attendance. This year, the numbers were few, but I think we still did okay. We didn't have a Mary though. The only "little" girl is Mady and she isn't even one yet. She did make a cute little angel - along with the "King Angel" aka Tyler.


The boys, just chilling out in their costumes and listening to the Christmas story...

After the Nativity, which includes reading and singing (much to Carter's delight - he loves to sing), there is a part on the program where the kids are able to share talents with everyone. This is Carter's first year in piano, so he was so excited to be able to play a Christmas song for everyone. He did very well and wasn't even shy - well, that's not true. His original plan was to play and sing the song, but he was too shy to sing by himself, so he just played. It was really cute and of course, we could all hear grama cheering the loudest in the background (thanks grama)!!

It was a great night, even if it is a whirwind trip (we arrived in Magrath at 5:30 pm and left at 9pm).

Christmas Concerts

It's already a week into January and I am just posting our Christmas concert stuff - YIKES! That's what happens when you go away at Christmas, I guess!

Well, we were lucky that Jaren and Carter's concerts were on the same night. At their school (the same school as Kayden too), different grades have concerts on different nights. I guess there are just soooo many fans coming to watch these little shining stars!! Jaren's class sang a song called "Snowflakes Falling," and Jaren also got to tell a little joke with another classmate. It was really cute to see them all handsome and so grown up looking holding a little microphone.


Carter's class had the boys dress up as Santas and the girls had PJs on while they sang, "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus." The boys did all sorts of "Santa type actions" and it was really fun. For the finale they sang, Felize Navidad, which was so funny because I don't think Jaren really knew the words. Well, he thought he did, but I don't think what he was saying was what he was supposed to be saying!

My Basketball Player

It's been another season of basketball for Kayden. It was a good year too! He played his little heart out and ended up getting the "Hustle Award." It's funny that the night they presented the awards was actually the night of Kayden's Christmas concert at school - and he chose to go to b-ball instead! We were very glad that we were there to see him get his award!




I am impressed by how much he has learned this past year. He is really improving his skills (even though he often tells me he would rather be playing hockey or football) and is trying to be a team player.

Always chasing the girls, ha ha!