Both our boys made it to midnight this year! I was surprised that Josh made it. I almost didn’t since we had the stomach flu earlier in the week and I was coming down with a cold/cough. We had fun as a family staying up, playing games, watching movies, and eating treats. On New Year’s Day we went to church in our new ward. Jake got to go to Senior Primary. He was excited to go to class first. This will be a fun year for him and he and the other kids in his class turn 8 and are baptized. Josh started out in Sunbeams. He was not happy at first and was crying with several of the other kids. But after about 10 minutes he calmed down. When he got out he said he had fun and he was not going to cry the next week (and he didn’t). Our ward is huge and there were several talks about it splitting soon. We did get to meet the people that live next door to us. It will be nice when things settle down and lots of people move into our neighborhood to meet. Since the ward is so big we are going to focus on those that live close to us.

We had a great Christmas season. With Jake being off track we took advantage of some nights and did some fun things. We made gingerbread houses, went to Temple Square to see the lights, went to Christmas Street, went to Festival of the Trees, made lots of cookies and hot chocolate, Kurt played a Christmas duet of Silent Night in church and at a stake fireside, and most importantly we enjoyed spending time with family.

Christmas Eve my family got together and we had a visit from Santa. Jake was so funny and just talked Santa’s ears off. Josh actually went and sat on his lap. Everyone was so excited to see him. Luckily we didn’t have any lasts minute gift changes. With cousins being in town we did the Nativity Play. It was not the most reverent that we have had but the kids loved acting out their parts. Jake was Joseph and Josh was a wise man. Christmas morning we woke up to see what Santa brought us. Jake got Epic Mickey and a alarm clock radio with iPod dock. Josh got the Bat Cave and a punching bag. They loved seeing what their cousins got from Santa too and everyone played with all the gifts. After church we were able to open our other gifts. We gave the boys some new things for their rooms, books, Legos, and dart guns. kurt got a new sound system for our new house. And Kurt surprised me with an iPad. We were spoiled by all the nice things that were given to us by family this year. I have posted lots of pictures on our flickr page.

For Thanksgiving my whole family headed down to California to have lots of fun. We spent 1 day at LegoLand, 3 days at Disneyland and California Adventure, and 1 day driving the coast and at the beach.

LegoLand was crowded. We waited in ride lines for a long time. We loved seeing all the lego built into people, buildings, animals, and lots of other things. They have a whole Star Wars display that has a scene from each of the 6 movies. Jake was in heaven looking at all the things and pointing out the little details. Jake’s favorite ride was the cars that he and his cousin Sydney got the drive. LegoLand was the coldest day of our week in California. One neat things that they had was while you were waiting in line some of the rides had a lego play area for the kids to pass the time. As a souvenier the boys picked out some mugs with Lego guys on it and Josh got a Cars lego set and Jake got some people to add to his Star Wars and Harry Potter lego bins.

The next day we started our three day stay at Disneyland Resort. We loved being there and seeing all the Christmas things on Main Street. There is a huge tree when you first walk in and the castle has tons of lights on it. It looks spectacular at night. We started early in the morning with our Magic Morning Entrance and got all of Fantasyland done. My favorite ride was It’s A Small World. They change it for Christmas and add all kinds of Christmas decor and scenes. The building has tons of Christmas lights on at night and looks so fun. We spent the rest of the day doing various rides around the park. Josh was exactly 40 inches and got to go on everything but Indiana Jones and California Screamin. And he was braver than Jake on most of the rides and loved all of them. The firework show at night was done to Christmas music and was so fun to watch.

On day 2 we spent the first two hours at Disneyland and then headed over to California Adventure for the rest of the day and evening. Jake got brave and tried Tower of Terror again. He said the ride wasn’t too bad when it dropped but he doesn’t like the beginning when the people disappear. Josh said it wasn’t his favorite. We even made Jake go on the “big roller coaster”. He did not like going upside down. At night we watched the new World of Color show. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I loved the whole thing. The boys were so excited to name all the movies and characters that were show on the water screen.

Day 3 was to just hit everything that we hadn’t done yet. Jake’s favorite ride was Star Tours and Josh’s was Buzz Lightyear. Since this day was Thanksgiving we booked our meal to be at Goofy’s Kitchen. Every minute of dining and seeing the characters is worth the price. We had Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Captain Hook, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Cinderella, and the Fairy Godmother visit our table. The kids were so excited to meet all the characters that it was a little hard to get them to eat. They did have traditional Thanksgiving food that the adults ate. But the kids stuck to hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly pizza, spaghetti and lots of desserts. It was the best Thanksgiving meal because we didn’t have to prepare or clean up anything. After dinner Kurt had to fly home so he could work the busy weekend. He was lucky that his work let him come since this time of the year is so busy and lots of work for him. We went back to Disneyland and walked through ToonTown. It is fun for the kids to see where all the characters live. They get a kick in sitting in their chairs and seeing beds. When my dad and brother got back from dropping Kurt off we did some shopping and watched the firework show again. By the end of day 3 (4 if you count LegoLand) our feet were so tired. Jake was so good to not complain and to walk and stand in all the lines. Josh was so good to sit in the stroller. We had no lost kids this time. It was so fun to be there and see all the Christmas things that Disney does.

Our last day in California we drove to the coast and walked around Newport Beach. We drove up to Huntington Beach too. Then we dropped my sister and her family off at the airport. Then we drove up to Malibu Beach. My dad loves to drive along the coast. It is so fun to drive through all the beach cities. We saw surfers out in the water but we did not go in the water.

It was a fun way to spend the week of Thanksgiving with all my family. We have lots of pictures on our flickr account. To see them click on one of the pictures at the right and then you can see the whole trip.

This year for Halloween Jake was Harry Potter and Josh was Thomas the Train. We had a few fun events to attend where the boys got to dress up. Jake’s school had their Carnival. It turned out to be a great success. It is always a long day for me helping out but the kids love it. Kurt had an orchestra performance. The music they played was from video games. Jake hearing some familiar music. Jake also had his class party that I got to go help with. They made haunted houses. There was enough materials for Josh to make one too. We went trick-or- treating in our old neighborhood. It was fun for me this year because since I didn’t have a house to hand out candy I got to go with the boys. They got lots of candy that was gone within a few days. There is video on YouTube of Kurt playing at his performance and Jake performing Thriller that he learned at school.

I have been taking pictures to document the process and for anyone that is interested in seeing them. They are on our blog. We have and hole and the footings are done. We have picked out everything except for paint colors and granite. It was a long day to get everything picked out. We agreed on everything except the backsplash. The only place we had to go to a second time was the tile to look at other backsplash options and pick one that we both liked. I think it helped that we have been making lists and looking at lots of houses for two years so we knew what we wanted. It is going to go fast now that things are started.