Snow day!!

On Saturday Jared, Sam and I went with the youth in our ward to the Sierras to play in the snow. (Sam looked so cute all bundled up) It was an....interesting day. But we did have a good time in the snow. First, it was a 4 hour drive, but the ride home was even longer because it snowed the whole day which made the roads more treacherous on the way down.
It was beautiful up there--all the pine trees that were both moss covered and snow covered! Sam loved all the room he had to walk around in. He got mad when he would fall down on the hill, so he spent most of the day walking around in the parking lot--leaving cute, little footprints everywhere he went.
Jared only went down the hill twice--once on his own and once with Sam. Sam didn't love it--it was just so cold with the cold wind in their face along with the snow--it wasn't all that fun. It was pretty funny watching the youth going down the hills though--going over jumps and then wiping out at the bottom. I don't think there were any injuries, but some of the wipe outs looked hilarious--I mean painful.
This is father and son at the bottom--it was really easy to get a still shot because they never got going very fast. The girl above Jared (Kate) pretty much had to push them the whole way.
Here is one last shot of Sam in his snow cloths.
So, the ride home was the interesting part. We had to put chains on the van we borrowed on the way up the mountain. We didn't need them on the way up, but thank goodness we had them for the drive down! There was one spot where we fish-tailed a little BUT then, going around one corner we did a complete 360! I was scared, but Jared kept his cool! He started slowing down going into the turn which cause the tires to slip. His first instinct was to push the brakes which is what sent us into the spin, but then he remembered what you actually SHOULD do in this situation which is push the gas. He did that and had control again--PHEW. Sam never knew what was going on because he was watching his movie, but the brother and sister that we were driving back home had opposite reactions. The boy (Greyson) goes "that was Awesome!" While his sister (Reagan) said "I think I'm going to throw up." She didn't and we made it home safely. We were lucky. So, that was our weekend!

Disneyland 2010

Two weeks ago me, Jared, Sam and Jared's mom went to Disneyland! Our season passes expire in February so we wanted to used them again while we could. We were able to go two days in a row and we had such a great time!!! We couldn't have done it without Jared's mom coming along because she was so willing to watch Sam while we went on all the big rides. Sammy only made it through a couple of lines--he hated having to stand in one place. So we spent a lot of time in the several playgrounds around the parks. Sam was wearing his squeeky shoes both days and we got so many comments and amazed looks from people walking by. So many people had never seen (or heard) anything like them. A couple of moms stopped us to ask us where we got them. It was fun to watch peoples faces as we walked by. Oh we had such a good time. I want to go back so bad, but Jared is burned out on Disneyland--sad.

lots of "1st-s" over the holiday

Sammy has a few first-s while we were in Utah for Christmas. His first haircut--this is the before:
And this is the after. My mom cut it and she did such a good job! He looks like such a little boy now. I was a little sad to have his hair cut, but maybe now we'll stop getting comments like "your daughter is so cute."
Also, Sammy played in the snow for the fist time in his life!
Jared took all the kids who wanted to outside and they made a snow pyramid. Sammy has always loved being outside so he loved the snow too.

Here are some more pictures of the hair cut. I just held Sam and gave him juice while my mom cut so that Samuel wouldn't know what she was doing back there. It seemed to work great.

Christmas 2009

Jared, Sam and I spent this Christmas in Utah with my family. We were all together and we had such a GREAT time. We were there for a good 10 days...BUT we had to drive. Luckily Jared's mom gave us an early Christmas present--a portable DVD player! So Sam did great on both drives. We had such fun and we got to see so much family--both mine and Jared's.

Our ward Christmas party

Here are some of Samuel's friends--an angel and three donkeys.
We had to keep Sam's cap on--that was the only way he would keep the donkey ears on. He was in "observation mode." There was so much going on with all the kids getting dressed up that he was content to sit in Audra's arms and watch all the action.
Here is a view of his costume from the back. I loved the little tail!
I know this is a terrible picture, but I had to post one of Sam's stage debut! He was the best donkey up there too, of course.
Sam didn't cry when I put him in Santa's lap...
But he also would not take his eyes off him.

We had such a fun time this year at our ward Christmas party! The primary put together a rough, chaotic but very cute nativity program for us all before we had dinner and then Santa cmae by after dessert. We love our ward so much. We have so many very close friends there so our ward activities are always much like a big family get-together.

bath time!

Samuel LOVES bath time, but I almost HATE giving him one. He makes such a mess and he cries when it's time to get out. PLUS since I only have the kitchen sink to bathe him in, that means the dishes have to be done before he can have a bath! Living in a trailer is so hard sometimes...

I'm always playing catch-up!

It seems like as soon as Thanksgiving is over there is a mad rush to get ready for Christmas. That was the case with me this year. BUT, I am ready now. The tree is up, the lights are hung, cards are sent out and gifts have been bought. SO NOW I can post the pictures I took at Thanksgiving...I know, I'm terrible.

We spent Thanksgiving in Indio, CA--at Jon and Tara's house. We had such a great time too. We got to see a lot of family because 4 out of the 8 brothers were there and Sam had plenty of cousins to play with.
The day after Thanksgiving we all went to a great little park by Allie's school and played around there. There was this great place for the kids to play and then this grassy area were all the adults got in a bunch of games of Kuub--that is what you see us all doing in the pictures.

As you can see, I am not very good at Kuub, but we all love that Scott and Ashlyn introduced us to the game.


And this was all Sam could do after our fun-filled-family-filled Thanksgiving. Thank you so much, Jon and Tara for beeing such good hosts. We loved spending the time in your home.