Bear Lake

Since Justin, Lori and Grandma Lomax are here for a visit we decided that we should go to Bear Lake for the day. We headed out earl in the morning and got there a little before lunch time. The kids were very excited to go swimming and play in the sand. We had to go to Randevou beach since that was pretty much the only beach left because of the very high water. We found a nice spot by the jet ski rentals and we set up the beach umbrellas and the blankets. Shane pumped up the tubes and we put the life jackets on the kids and set them loose.

Mase and Morgie loved having daddy tow them around in the tube. The tube has a bottom in it so the kids could set in it. It was even pretty nice for the adults to use too.
Morgie loved to play in the sand. She kept filling up here bucket and was trying to find sea shells but there really weren't any since the water was so high.

We all decided to chip in and rent a jet ski for a few hours. It was so much fun and we are contemplating buying one in the future! We each took turns and I went with Shane a few times but not before I threatened him with sever punishment if he dumped me off!

Mason loved the jet ski. He went out with daddy and Justin a few time. Little did we know that uncle Justin taught Mason how to drive the jet ski! So Mason and daddy took Grandma Lomax out for a spin and Mason reached up to squeezed the gas really hard and made the jet ski get up and go really fast and almost dumped grandma Lomax off the back. Needless to say that didn't help with grandmas huge fear of the water - sorry grandma!

Here Mason and Morgie are trying to fill up the bucket with water and sand. It didn't work very well since the buck had a huge crack in the bottom. The buck was left in the Bear Lake dumpster.

Mason thought it was hillarious to be burried in the sand. Him and grandma spent a lot of the afternoon playing in the sand. We had a great time at Bear Lake. It is one of our favorite places to go. Hopefully next year the water will have receaded some and there will be more of a beach. The water was so high the the bushes that are usuall up on the beach were covered and felt like sea weeds when you walked on the and that totally grosses me out. Anyway...we had an awsome time with the family and we are glad they came to visit us.

Mason's New Bunk Bed

Mason has been in a toddler bed a little over a year and a half now. He has loved having his McQueen bed but daddy has decided Mason needs a bunk bed. So we had grandma Crook watch Morgie so we could take Mase to look at bunk beds. He had lots of fun climbing up and down on all the beds at the furniture stores. After going to 3 stores and after much discussion on mommy and daddy's opinions we finally settled on a bunk bed. It was the most expensive and it requires a twin mattress and a full sized mattress but I think it will hold up to anything Mase can put it through.

Here is the old room with the toddler bed

Cute little Morgie loves being is big brothers room playing with him.

Here is Mase in his old room right before I have to take it all apart to make room for the new bed

Here is the final product! It took daddy and Richard a while to put it together and I didn't even hear any bad words (but I wasn't in the room the whole time :)

Christmas Mornin

The kids were so excited for Christmas morning. We had Mason sleep in our bed so he wouldn't be able to sneak out early. After Morgie woke up were all went downstairs to see if Santa stopped by our house.

Here is daddy and Morgie coming down the stairs to see the presents!

Mason and Morgie were excited to see all the presents Santa left for them. The both got a kitchen a play tent and tunnel to share. Morgie got clothes, a rocking chair, a kitty coloring books, a few books and several other things. Mason got an easle, puzzels, coloring books, books, clothes and lots of other things. I guess these two were pretty good this year.

The kids loved the kitchen

Mommy and Mason trying to take presents out of the boxes.

Mason got some cool Car's sunglasses in his stocking.

After playing with the presents Santa left we headed to the Christmas tree to open presents from eachother. Morgie's favorite way to open presents was with her mouth.

Aunt Shalese came over for breakfast and presents. After breakfast and cleaning up we all went to visit great-grandma Jones in the assisted living home. The kids got grandpa Don to get them cookies and goldfish crackers from the snack cart so they were happy. Later that evening we had Shalese, Don, Grandma Crook and Great-grandma Hilton over for Christmas dinner. We all had a very nice Christmas.

Christmas Eve

We always have Christmas eve dinner at grandma Crook's house and everyone is usually able to make it. This year Hadley, Joanna , Evan and Chuck were up from Kansas to celebrate with us. Shalese was also able to come for the festivities. We had our normal dinner which was so good - the only down fall of dinner was a puking incident by one of my nephews (Evan) on my shoe! After that I didn't have much of an appetite.

Grandma Crook always has to have a picture of all the grandkids at every holiday - not an easy task by any means! We decided to get the pictures done with before presents so we wouldn't have too many problems getting the kids all together. This was about the best one we could get.

The kids enjoyed finally being able to open some presents. We just exchanged the presents from cousins and they all had lots of fun. Can't wait until tomorrow morning!

Can't Hardly Wait!

Not sure how much longer this little girl can wait until Christmas morning arrives and she is able to open the presents under the tree. Also every day she gets into the tree and brings me a half opened present. Some of the wrapping looks pretty terrible but what can you do with this little cutie around. Morgie also loves to take the decorations off the tree. Luckily the ball are supposed to be shatter proof. I got the baby gate out and gated up the room the tree was in but big brother is an expert at knocking it down so she can get in.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

We put up the Christmas tree this past weekend. The kids were really excited and wanted to "help" daddy put up the tree. This time of year daddy usually gets pretty upset because our tree is so big and then it takes a while to get it up and get all the lights on the tree working. I was excited because we bought new Christmas decorations this year and I was anxious to see how they looked on the tree.

Mason is always ready to dive right in to decorating.

Morgie was more interested in taking the decorations off the tree than contributing to the decorating.

This is our big bucket of Christmas decorations.

Richard's job was to put the hooks on the balls and hand them to the kids.

We had lots of fun decorating the tree, listening to Christmas songs and drinking hot chocolate and I hope I can keep the presents under the tree wrapped this year.

Temple Square

Last night we went to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. This was the first time for Mase and Morgie and also for Richard and Shalese. It was pretty busy but we actually were able to find a close parking space which was good since it was pretty cold out. Mason and Morgan loved all the lights. Shane had to keep a hold of Mason's hand most of the time cause Mase wanted to get right in the flower beds of climb the trees to look at the lights.

Richard always wears something with the Oregon Ducks on it. While walking around temple square there were TONS of people (guys) that would come up to Richard and say something about how good the Oregon Ducks are doing. It was pretty funny. Anyway...we all had a great time and it was nice to see all the Christmas lights and enjoy eachothers company.