Breakfast of Champions

every morning sam and lex have hot chocolate and either a waffle, pop tart, bowl of dry cereal... 

they both sleep in their underwear and wake up freezing so they snuggle up to watch shows!!!

Derek and Angie

The Dad

 The Pregnant Mom...  33 weeks.

i guess the parents of this family should be documented once in awhile... even though i'm making the dumbest face ever!!!

Samantha and her Puzzles

samantha is a very smart, intense little girl.  she got a bunch of puzzles for Christmas that are pretty difficult, and if uninterrupted (by little sister) she will sit for as long as it takes to figure them out.  the problem is... once she does a puzzle a couple times she has it memorized and then it doesn't entertain her as long!!  

Welcome to the family lil' Clayne Jeffery!!

yesterday at 9:17am Kristina gave birth to Clayne Jeffery!  he is the cutest little thing! 

to make a short story even shorter... she got to the hospital at 6:15am, the doc broke her water a few minutes before 8am, at 8:45-ish she was 7.5 cent dialated, 25 minutes later she was at a 8+, literally 3 minutes later i was running down the hall screaming for a nurse to come because she was pushing, 1 minute later a nurse caught clayne with one gloved hand, and the doc completely missed out!!!  it was INSANE!! i've been able to be there for elea and clayne's births.  i love being able to support kristina and jeff and wittness the miracle of a new baby coming into the world.  (plus, clayne might have just plopped onto the bed with jeff watching,  frozen in fear if i hadn't been there!!  hahaha) if i could go back in time i would have definitely gone to nursing school and been a labor and delivery nurse.  

(i took lots of pics, but with kristina's camera.  i will add them once i get them from her!!)

December

Once the girls were on Christmas break we didn't stay home for longer than 3 days at a time!  luckily i had all of the Christmas shopping done about 2-3 weeks before Christmas.
on the 17th we went to st. george.  the 18th was derek's dad's and our neice, brooklynn's birthday, and we wanted to be able to give our gifts to derek's parents and jeff and kristina.
on the 20-21st we went up to cedar city to go to derek's "high school friend party".  they've been having it every year and we haven't been able to go for a couple years so we decided to go this year. it was fun... getting there wasn't the best!!  the weather was insane and it added about an hour to our trip.  plus, lexi is potty trained, but she is also very manipulative with the whole situation.  when she's in her car seat she knows we'll get her out if she says she has to go.  we had been in the car for about 5 minutes and she started saying she needed to go.  (she had went right before we left, so i knew it was just part of her little plan.)  well, about 2 hours later she started up again and i ignored her.  well, that time she wasn't lying and it was a mess.  to make it worse we didn't have wet wipes so i had to soak napkins in iced down coke.  ya, it was good times!  but it was worth it once we got up there.
we actually were home the 22nd-25th (Christmas will get it's own post!)
on the 26th we packed up and headed to salt lake city.  we stopped in hurrican to meet up with derek's parents so we could pick up his grandma.  when we got up to salt lake we went straight to italian village.  there are a few places derek HAS to go when we're up north and #1 on his list is italian village!!!  on the 27th we met up with the Evers and the Goates at Classic.  we always have a great time hanging out there!

later that night we all went to professor mangrum's Christmas alumni dinner.  he introduces everyone who is there that has graduated and is working.  derek pretty much came away from the dinner looking like a total stud!  :)  after the dinner the Goates had to head home to Heber, but derek and i hung out with the Evers a little longer.  they gave us the best dessert in the entire world.  it is the raspberry almond tort from market street grill.  it was so good we had to go buy a whole cake to bring home with us!!
on the 28th we packed up the van, went back to the Evers for a bit, went to Hires for lunch (another must on derek's list), went to derek's uncle brent's to pick up 25 lbs of meat, and then we headed home.
it was a really quick trip, but we had a good time.

the plan for new year's was for jeff and kristina to come here.  but of course last second we decided to go to st. george.  one reason we wanted to leave we ended up going out with jen, spencer, jeff, kristina, melanie, silas, suelyn, and todd.  (melanie, silas, suelyn and todd are our cousins).  we went to milt's and had a fabulous dinner and a good time.  most of the night was spent teasing derek... i'm not sure why, but it was hilarious!!!  our kids stayed home with jordyn and i think they had a really fun new year's eve. 

it's amazing how much we packed into 2 weeks.

Trip to Omaha

Derek's friend/old boss from Omaha called him up and asked if he wanted to go to the BYU v Creighton basketball game.  well, obviously the answer was yes.  so derek and i planned a little trip to omaha.  it was good timing because my parents were out for thanksgiving, so they stayed a week longer and took care of our girls.  (thanks a ton!!)  it was so weird being back in omaha.  i love that city!!  it is a great place, and it will always have a place in my heart!  law school was stressful, but such a good time in our lives.  i have very fond memories of that time and place.  it was perfect timing for us to go visit too... allie and mitch were getting ready to move to utah so shauna was there to help with the packing.  anyway, here are a few highlights of our trip.

• derek went to the byu game.
• we ate at panera bread (with allie and shauna), star burger, wheatfields (with allie, mitch and shauna), a mexican place i can't remember the name of (with chris and april), and i'm sure there are others i'm forgetting.
• i went to trader joe's with allie and shauna.
• derek and i went to a movie... i think it was "the next three days" (we liked it.)
• when we checked into our hotel room all the regular rooms were taken so we got upgraded to a pent house for the same price as a regular room!!
• bucky's
• we visited derek's old office.
• derek visited his professors and some friends.

it was hilarious... allie and i went to pick up shauna from the airport and the second shauna walked into allie's house she started ripping things off the wall... literally!!!  this was the only pic i took of our whole trip.  oh well!!  it was great spending some alone time together and visiting omaha.  (we missed our girls like crazy though i must admit!!) 

thanksgiving...

 

the weekend of Nov. 19-21st we went to St. George to have a Thanksgiving dinner with the Oliverson clan.  I actually took a bunch of pics (for Christmas presents!)  

The week of Thanksgiving we were all pretty excited because Thomas, Grandma & Grandpa Sullivan, Jeff, Kristina, and Elea were coming to Page for Thanksgiving.  I had all my decor out (it's not all that fantastic, but still...)!  Then on Tuesday Derek and Kristina pretty much decided Page was going to be boring and not as comfortable as St. George.  I had a little break down because I am a control freak and wanted it at my house!!  but really, they were right.  

however, the girls weren't too excited to get right back in the car and go back to st. george!!

 jeff is the PE teacher at santa clara middle school.  So the men took the kids to the school gym to play A LOT.... like 2 times a day for hours!  they kids had fun playing soccer, riding the scooters, and just running around crazy!

 

grandma and girls rocking out!

 

 lex and lea causing trouble!

 lex giving lea the lowdown on how to "go" on the toilet.

 so let's be honest... the men took the kids to the gym so much so they could play  

PICKLE BALL!!!!

 (next year there will be 2 little boys in the mix!!)

we pulled off dinner and it was delish.  somehow we didn't end up getting a pic of the spread.  after dinner we loaded up and went to the movie theater to see Tangled.  (it is the cutest movie EVER!!)
for the first time in a couple years kristina and i didn't have it in us to get up early at hit the black friday sales.  cooking all day and being pregnant is not a good combo and we were tired!  we totally regretted it though and promised never to miss it again no matter how tired we are!!!  (1 sale we missed that i still get sick thinking about... pillow pets:  regularly $20.  they were on sale for $3!!)

Merry Christmas

This Christmas was a HUGE success!  i won't go into how bad derek and i and santa did in the past... let's just say that one of katelyn's famous quotes of 2010 was, "i never even used what i got for christmas last year."  part of the reason is our kids asked for ridiculous things, like laptops and flatscreen tvs.  this year was so much more do-able!!!

 Christmas Eve...  we stayed in Page and spent the night with our friends the Mallavias and the Buntings.  We ate some good food, the guys played ping-pong...

 and the moms helped the kids do some crafts!

 Katelyn Grace

 Alexis Rae

 Samantha Claire

 Annie Helen

We had the kids act out the Nativity.  it was the first time we ever did that on Christmas Eve, and i really liked it.  i think we may have to add that to our lists of traditions.

Trevor and Samantha as Joseph and Mary.

Katelyn and Natalie as the shepards.

 Annie and Alexis were the Wise Men.

 Aftert the Nativity we open Christmas Eve pjs.  sleeping that night was a little insane.  in our house the master bedroom is upstairs and the rest of the rooms are downstairs.  so we put up an airbed and had all the girls sleep in our room so they couldn't sneak and see what Santa brought before waking us up!  it made for a pretty crappy night's sleep honestly!  because of being pregnant i'm up 5 times a night and every time lex would wake up and cry so the other girls would wake up.   she ended up in our bed which is never good!!!  at 5:30am i was done trying to sleep and it was all i could do to just lay there and let the kids (and derek) sleep!! finally around 7 or 7:30 the big girls woke up!

Christmas Morning!!  Katie and Ann were happy to be awake...  Sam and Lex were a little annoyed about the whole situation!!

(sam was NOT excited to be awake, and it took her about 2 hours to really wake up... she was comatose pretty much the whole time she opened her presents too!!!)

 Lexi just asked for candy... so santa brought her something he thought she might like.

 annie asked for a  REAL gumball machine that her sisters would have to pay a quart to get a gumball.  quite the entrepreneur!!

 grandma and grandpa o. gave the girls pillow pets... i'm surprised all the windows didn't shatter from their high pitched screams when they opened them!!

i don't need to explain how happy katie was to get eclipse in her stocking!

another big highlight was the 3 bigger girls all got rollerblades.  now... isn't that the most reasonable thing a kid could ask for?!?!?  they have already put about 200 miles on them!  grandma and grandpa sullivan gave the 2 big girls church clothes which they were ecstatic about (they looked homeless at church up to that point)!  Samantha got a stash of puzzles which have been a lifesaver.

It was a great Christmas.  I love being home and just doing our own thing.  And... most importantly i love remembering the birth of the Savior.  It is a great time of year!