Winter Wonderland?

We cut our Christmas vaction short just a bit due to the weather. We decided to get back to Utah while there was a break between storms. The roads were good in Idaho but to our surprise it was snowing in Utah. More snow to add to the dump they got the day before! So when we arrived home we couldn't even get in the driveway because there was already several feet of snow there! Ryan worked hard to get a pathway shoveled so Jaden and I could get in and get warm and fed, then he continued to shovel so the poor car could get nestled into the garage. He finished the next day and that's when we took these pictures. This was Saturday the 27th.

Yup those shelves are flat so you get a good side view of just how much snow we got!
That's Ryan up to his knees. He shoveled a path to the rabbit pen for me. Bless him!!

Yup, that's a snowpile about as big as Ryan! That just happened from him shoveling out the driveway! Lots of snow!

At least the mountains don't mind the snow. They're so pretty!

Christmas!

Christmas was soo much fun!! We are so blessed to have both Ryan's and my family so close that we can spend Christmas with both!! We spent Christmas morning opening presents at my parents with the elders and my grandparents.
Oh Christmas tree! Oh Christmas Tree!Jaden was so happy to see the car garage that he wasn't interested in opening any of his presents!

Didn't take him long to figure out the blocks.

Jaden loves the bows! They love him too and kept getting stuck on his Christmas Jammers that were a bit too big for him.
He wasn't sure what to think about Grandpa burrying him in the wrapping paper.

On Christmas Eve Santa came to the Yancey party. Despite all our efforts getting him used to the idea of Santa, he was still afraid. Though as soon as I had him back he pointed at santa and said "ho ho ho". Figures.

Christmas Card

For those who's e-mail I don't have or just didn't get it, here's our Christmas Card.

15 months

Can you believe he's 15 months?!? WOW! Time flies when your having fun! And boy are we having fun! Here's his new stats.

weight: 18 lbs 9 oz
height: 31 in.

He's still below the chart on weight despite how much he eats! His doctor suspects it's just cause he's so active but to be safe she is having us go to primary childrens hospital for some tests to make sure he doesn't have an actual condition that is making it difficult for him to put the weight on. We're also going to see a hand doctor while we are there to check out his weird pinky. We'll be doing this all in January.

Jaden can say lots of new words and will mimic about anything that comes out of your mouth so be careful what you say!

He can go up and down the stairs with ease so long as he doesn't get distracted in the process.

He thinks all stuffed animals a bears and he loves to growl at them while he snuggles them.

He prefers to be naked. The other day he unzipped his jammers and took off his diaper and peed all over his crib. Great!

He's fascinated with plugs and tries to pull them out all the time. (This is a no no but he seems to manage it a lot regardless)

He knows what he's not allowed to get into but will watch to see if I'm looking and smile and do it anyway. Or will keep pointing and asking if he can even if the answer is no every time.

He says Ho Ho Ho! Though it sounds more like Oh! Oh! Oh!

He thinks he should play on the computer and I should not. This is probably my biggest battle with him and has severly cut down my computer time.

Basically he's a happy healthy little boy and we love him tons!!!

Anniversary

Yesterday was Ryan and my 4th year anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long already! We took Jaden over to Jeremy and Jessica's for them to play with while we went on one of our oh so rare dates.

We started out with dinner at Jonny Corino's. That was so good! I even got italian sodas, they were free refills so I had 3. The waiter just kept bringing them out to me in different flavors for me to try. He was so great! Dinner was so good my tummy is rumbling now just thinking about it. Mmmm

After dinner we went to the Capitol Theatre where we saw the Nutcracker! The theatre was so lovely. Very fancy. The ballet was amazing. What talented people! They made it looks so effortless! I took ballet for a semester and it was anything BUT effortless! Those ballarinas were sooo pretty! The dancing and the set work was all top notch! Ryan even enjoyed some of it!

What has been effortless is my marriage with Ryan. I've heard how marriage is hard work and there's a lot of give and take, but Ryan and I seem to have such similar views that we just glide along with ease. I love just sitting with him and holding his hand. I love how he still looks at me with that spark in his eye just like he did when we were dating. I love how he loves me completely and unconditionally! I love him more everyday and couldn't imagine life without him. He's the greatest husband and father that anyone could ever want. I don't know how I got so lucky, but I'll take it. . . and keep it forever!!!

Vacuum helper

Jaden saw me vacuuming and went and got his to help. We never showed associated it with our vaccuum, but her figured it out anyway. It was so cute. He was doing it a lot more before we got the camera out, as always

Dancing

This is an old video of Jaden dancing and we just got around to compressing it. It's not very good since he gets distracted by the camera, but you get the idea. He loves to dance whenever he hears music.

Snow Day

Yay! We got some real snow!

What is this cold white stuff?

Okay. . . now what do I do?Whoa! This slide goes faster with snow on it!
Umm mom, I'm getting cold.

Wait, we're done already?

Decorating for Christmas

We finally got around to decorating for Christmas on Wednesday. It was a little different this year having a toddler in the house. Such as we had to put the tree in front of the railing instead of the window cause Jaden likes to climb up on the back of the couch so if we moved it over by the railing that would be trecherous. Other changes in decorating took place as well, like I only got to put up about half my decorations.

Here's Jaden helping daddy put up the tree.
Here's our tree. yup its only decorated from the middle up.

Heres the majority of my decorating. I had to cram as much as I could on these three shelves that Jaden can't reach.

At least our computer monitors are festive!

Ward Party - The good and the bad

So as you may or may not know, I am the Activity Chairman in our ward. This means I have to do an activity every month for up 75 to 200 people! this is exhausting! The most challenging activity is the ward Christmas party because we're almost guaranteed every one of those 200 people will be there! This year I planned a Christmas Breakfast for dinner.

The Bad:
~The stake scheduled us and I didn't know it, so we had to have our Christmas party the next week after Thanksgiving!
~We could only fit two griddles in the kitchen without blowing a circut.
~One of my major committee helpers had a concert so she couldn't be there. I never heard back from another of my committee, and the couple on my committee never showed even though they said they would. Ahhh! I only had 1 commitee member to help.
~The lights we were suppose to use to decorate got left in someones car and they would not be back in time for the party at all.
~The paper for the table that I thought we had in the closet. . . wasn't there.
~I was stuck cooking pancakes in the kitchen the whole night.

The Good!:
~It's now all over!!! I can get on with getting my own home ready for Christmas!
~We found pre-cooked bacon Yay! That was going to be the hardest part!
~Anticipating the need for help, I asked Brother and Sister Nielsen. She then asked the Stoddards and Sister Smedly. I had a wonderful team for set up, and running the kitchen!
~Brother Hansen brought some lights we could use.
~The Heidenthallers had several rolls of printing paper in the basement they let us use! (He works for the churches printing company)
~The Stake had a bunch of new bowls and a heated server! Perfect!
~The Nielson's watched Jaden the whole evening and fed him. AND he was good the whole time!
~We had a really good turn-out!
~We had the perfect amount of food!
~I got to stay in the kitchen the whole time. So at first I thought that was a bad thing, but when I went in to check on the food, I remembered I hate crowds! I hate Noise! I hate screaming children running at top speed and getting into things they shouldn't be getting into. The kitchen was a plesent place to be after all.
~Everyone helped clean up and we were walking out the door at 8. (it started at 6. Perfect!)

As you can see we had more good then bad thanks to the wonderful, helpful people in our ward. It turned out to be a success I would say and hopefully I will NOT be doing it again next year!

Hope you all have great non-stressful ward parties!