Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday. It was so much fun to see Stockton experience Christmas at this age . He doesn't quite understand what is going on yet, but he loves it anyway! We spent Christmas Eve with my family. We had wonderful food, a "concert", and exchanged gifts.

Stockton was fascinated, but slightly frightened, by Grandpa's choo choo train.


Stockton got a toy helecopter, or "hele-ca-ca" as he says it. He LOVES that thing. He pulled it all around the house.


Then he discovered there are balls that you can push down into it, and that occupied him for a while.


Stock and Brock... two handsome boys! (Can you tell which one has a father that is 6' 3" and which one has a father that is 5' 8"?)


Alex got a Beatles poster. He was so amazed by it, he just sat and stared at it all night. He is a HUGE Beatles fan if you couldn't tell!


It was such a fun night with my family.


We then headed to the Haiders' house, where the kids opened their Christmas pajamas.


Jordan holding brand new Baby Carsten, who was dressed for the occasion.

We all then headed over to our house to open our big gift from Brady's parents. A new BBQ!! And Stockton got one of his own, too! This gift was sitting in a box in our garage for a few weeks, with a blanket covering it and instructions not to peek. We guessed it was everything BUT a BBQ! Brady's Dad and brother set it up while we were at my family's house on C-mas Eve. What a great surprise!

Then it was off to bed. Reading "Night Before Christmas." Or as Stockton calls it "anta book." That's right... anta, with no S. So we tried to get him to say "Sssssanta." He thought we were telling him to say it quietly, so now he says "Shhhhh .... anta" in a whisper. So cute!

Well Santa did not disappoint this year! Stockton got spoiled rotten! He got a toy cleaning kit with a toy broom, dust pan, and dust buster. He vacuumed Grandma's carpet for a good hour!

He got a plush Buzz. He got tons of Toy Story things, include the movie, clothes, and underwear. He also got a lot of Cars things, including clothes, vitamins, and a sippy cup.

He got a Tickle me Elmo, and loves it! He also got Elmo books, stickers, and potty training chart.

This was just a sampling of what Stockton got. Some of his other favorites are his "apples" (play food), toy fishing kit (homemade by RoShawn and darling!), his "Anna Book" (a photo book with tons of pictures of him and Anellina) and a basket ball hoop from Uncle Jordan!

Grandma Haider's special gift was copies of Stockton and Anellina's scrapbooks. RoShawn and I have been working on them digitally and finally got them printed. They turned out so cute!

Later that night we talked to some of Brady's family in CA on the iPhone. Brady's Uncle asked Stockton what he got for Christmas. Stockton knew exactly what he had asked and rattled off, "Buzz and Woo-ya (Woody), Cars, Elmo." So cute!

Stockton had such a fun day. And was worn out from it all, but still was so excited to play with all his new toys.

We put him to bed, but at two in the morning he woke up asking for his toys. He would not settle down until he got to play. So, Brady took him out to the family room and turned on Toy Story and Stockton played with his "cooker." I guess he likes his gifts!

It was such a fun Christmas and we did get spoiled rotten. But, the best part was being with family and reflecting upon the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It makes me so happy that Stockton can recognize the baby Jesus just as much as he can recognize Santa.

Let it Snow!

Last week Anellina stayed with Grandma Haider for a few days after her baby brother Carsten was born. One night she came over to play with Stockton. It had just snowed a few inches so we decided to go out and play!

Brady took them for a ride on the four wheeler.

Then he pulled us on the sled behind the four wheeler.

Then we decided to build a snowman! Here's the bottom layer of the snowman.

The snow was so wet and heavy that Brady collapsed after lifting the second snowball up unto the base of the snowman.

Anellina helping to roll the snowman's head.

The finished product! That's one tall snowman! We didn't get a chance to put a face on him or anything because of a much needed potty break. But, we had snow much fun!

Food, Friends, Fun!

We got together for a much needed group date with my high school friends. We met at Texas Roadhouse and had a blast. I don't think we've all gotten together with our spouses for about 3 years. We were only missing Julie and Joe, but I guess we'll give them a break, since they live in Florida. It was a lot of fun to catch up. Loff you guys!

P.S. Yes I am standing up in this picture... stop laughing.

David Archuleta / Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert

I tried so hard to get tickets the the MoTab Christmas concert this year. Why? Well, not because they are the best choir in the world, not because they put on one heck of a good Christmas concert... but because the guest singer this year was a someone that maybe you've heard of...his name is DAVID ARCHULETA!!!!!!! To say the least I'm a huge David Archuleta fan. (See past post.) So I was utterly disappointed when I wasn't able to get tickets. I was considering buying them, or freezing my nose hairs off in the standby line to try to get in. But, then a Christmas miracle happened. My sweet co-worker, Chuck, who knows what a Archie fan I am offered me two tickets. I have bowed to him every time I've seen him since. How can you possible thank a person enough for such a kind deed?

So knowing that Brady would probably rather get a root canal than go to a David Archuleta concert, I invited my sweet mom. We had a blast! We got uptown way early and ate a lovely dinner at Little America. Then we took TRAX up to Temple Square and enjoyed the lights. We then got to our seats a full hour and a half early. (Which it was a good thing because thousands of people didn't make it in the doors and were turned away. I had no idea that any of that was going on outside.) But, the time went by fast because the choir and dancers were still practicing because we went for their dress rehearsal performance.

David Archuleta was AMAZING! His voice is like buttah! I could have listened to Silent Night 100 times. Of course by then I wouldn't have had any more tears left. It was simply incredible. After it was all over I just wanted to sit down and watch it all over again.

My mom and I took our time getting out of there. We didn't want to fight the crowds. We meandered through Temple Square and saw the gorgeous lights. Then once we got back to Little America we were so freezing so we stopped in for some hot chocolate... and had to sneak in a slice of cheesecake, too!

It was such a wonderful night and I will never forget it! The music was amazing, the lights were so beautiful, and most of all I loved sharing the whole experience with my wonderful mom.

San Francisco

Brady had a work conference in California last week, so we made a fun little trip out of it. We left Stockton home with grandparents for three days (the longest we've ever been away from him! It was hard, but a much needed break.) We spent two days in San Francisco. The first day we took a city tour and got to see a lot of the main sites.


Golden Gate Bridge was awesome! Can't believe they built it in 1937! How did they do it?


We took a fairy over to Sausalito and had lunch. Such a quaint little town, wish we could've had more time to spend there!


The Painted Ladies. This was one of the highlights for Brady because these houses are in the opening shots of Full House. He was so stoked that Bob Saggett had stood in this very spot! So when we got back to the hotel we had to watch all the many versions of the opening song of Full House several times on YouTube. Brady thought the painted ladies were famous because of Full House. I probably just should've let him believe that, because he was very disappointed when I said they were famous before that show and they filmed the picnic scene there because the houses are a San Francisco icon.


Stockton Street.


Lombard street. Yes we are standing in the middle of the road and that car is about to hit us. But, hey we're all tourists, so they were understanding.


Chinatown. A lot of people say they love Chinatown. I was a nervous wreck there. (Of course I'm a nervous wreck anywhere in public after a certain incident that most of you already know about. ) I think it would've been different if it weren't starting to get dark at that time. I wanted to go in some of the shops, but I was so scared for my safety I just wanted to get out of there more than anything.

We had a very romantic dinner at Scott's Seafood Grill.

The next day Brady's uncle and his family met up with us. They live about an hour and a half away from San Fran. They took us around to more sites. First we went to Muir Woods. (How does Brady have only a T-shirt on and I have two awkward jackets on?)

The Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park.

The Conservatory was GORGEOUS! So many exotic and beautiful flowers. I love orchids and there were hundreds of them in there!

Japanese Tea Gardens with Brady's uncle and cousins.

The view of the city from the top of Telegraph Hill at sunset. It was BEAUTIFUL!

Coit Tower. Too bad it was closed for renovations :(

We ended our night eating at Bubba Gumps Shrimp company (sooo yummy) and topped it off with a ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli Square.

We spend that night at Brady's Uncle's house and went to church with them the next day. I flew out Monday morning and Brady stayed for his conference for a couple of days.

It was such a fun trip! And I definitely want to go back!

Halloween Festivities

The Friday before Halloween we went to Gardner Village. Stockton loved just running around and seeing all the witches.

He was facinated with the witch flying on a bike.

We celebrated Halloween on Saturday like most Utahns. During the day we went to Haiders and picked out pumpkins from their garden to carve.

The Haiders had a HUGE pumpkin they had grown in their garden, it weighed 86.2 lbs. Check out the size of that "plug" compared to a normal pumpkin!

Stockton loved the big Jack-o-Lantern! It was bigger than him!

Brady carved a scary pumpkin and I carved one that looked like Elmo for Stockton. (On a side note: Yes, that is my mom in the background. Why is she at my in-laws house you ask? Well, it's because they were on their way to my sister's house and wanted to stop and see Stockton in his costume, so they came over to the Haiders since we were over there.)

Stockton loved his Elmo pumpkin. Turned out pretty good.

And Brady's was scary! It looked great!

It was such a cold, rainy night. We only took Stockton trick-or-treating to two houses. Then we snuggled in and had "Dinner in a pumpkin."

It's basically ground beef, rice, mushrooms seasoned with Worcestershire sauce (or soy sauce, either one) and brown sugar baked in a pumpkin. My friend Eli first made it for us a couple of years ago and it's kinda become a Halloween tradition. It's so yummy!

We only had a few trick-or-treaters. I had enough candy to give each of them a whole bag... but I didn't... so we now have a life time supply of peanut butter cups.

After Stockton went to bed, Brady and I watched a scary movie called "Stevie." Why is it that we love to scare ourselves out of our whits? I don't know exactly, but it's tradition.