Christmas of 2010 (and lots more)!!!

December was awesome! The girls and I spent almost a month in Utah with Andrew joining us for a couple of weeks. It was great and even Angela did amazing at sleeping and adjusting to a different life for a month. The biggest reason we were out there for a month was to see these two get married: (The amazing photo is by my dad - he took some great engagement pics). They were married on December 18th - I thought everything turned out so perfectly! My camera has some major issues so I left the picture taking to Andrea's wedding photographer. She won't get her wedding pictures until March so pics of her looking SO beautiful in her dress (and me looking extremely pregnant...I know you're so disappointed) will not get posted til Spring. But, like I said- it was all so beautiful and just perfect. I did take a few pics of the girls on the big day...





For a couple of weeks, I had so much fun spending time at my family's house....Carolyn got in a lot of Jaxon time (and I got in a lot of Michelle-time (my sister) - which is always needed :)


A couple nights in Utah were spent at This is the Place. It's so fun to be there at Christmas time. There is a live nativity scene.....
Some of Santa's reindeer...
A train ride and much more....

One of the nights we were at This is the Place was for my sister's reception and the other night was for my dad's extended family Christmas party. For the Ashton Party, my girls got to play an angel and Mary in the nativity scene...(I just love Angela's big, blue eyes)...

Carolyn sure made a beautiful Mary :)


Christmas was wonderful! On Christmas Eve, we baked a lot of goodies to enjoy (Andrew's family is made up of some amazing cooks), sang Christmas songs around the piano, ate a delicious meal, acted out the story of baby Jesus, looked at some amazing Christmas lights, and gave a Christmas gift to our Savior. Christmas was so wonderful and spent at both family's houses. The girls got showered with gifts by grandparents and family (Thank you!)...


I love Angela's facial expression here..."Oooo!"
Carolyn has been loving working on her baseball skills since Christmas...
Angela got a few more babies that have been keeping her busy...so many for this little mama to care for...and she gets to them all :)
Angela loves, loves, loves to sing!
Carolyn was a happy girl on Christmas :) I was up Christmas morning at like 3 AM dying for the girls to wake up and see what Santa brought them :)....Christmas just keeps getting better and better.
Singing around the piano :)

Christmas Eve - acting out the story of Baby Jesus...



Andrew was the brains behind the girls' costumes :) It was fun to watch...
Making some sugar cookies...

We also went to a few games while out in Utah. One of them I got to go kid-less. I sure love those girls but it was fun to be able to actually sit there and watch and cheer for the cougs for one of the game. The girls loved the game they got to go to...
Sitting with Grandpa for the big game....we sure love Grandpa!

We did see Santa while out there...unfortunately, we couldn't take a picture of the girls with him. Here are the girls with Dad, Nana, and Ponka after seeing Santa...
I love this sweet girl
We had so much fun while out there...a few times I'd find Angela asleep on the couch at Ponka and Nana's house....which is so not like her...so much fun that she wore herself completely out at times. One of my favorite things about the whole trip was being able to snuggle this little sweety while she napped. Life is so good.
When Carolyn would tell people about going to Grandma's house, she'd usually mention three things. First, the movies Grandma has.... second, the chocolate there and...third, her grandparents (of course). I took this picture of Angela to show how much she loved the hot chocolate there, but it just turned out to be a funny pic....I promise that she was loving it.
I didn't get any pictures of my mom with the girls, but they just love their Grandma. I think one of Carolyn's favorite things about Grandma is the stories she tells. She tells Carolyn and Angela such elaborate stories before the girls go to bed :) We sure love Grandma.

We had fun playing out in the snow...
Snow Angels...
Uncles are the best! Whenever Richard is brought up in discussion, Angela will start to laugh and go on about how funny Richy is. Here are Uncle Johnny, Richy, and the girls are having a snowball fight.
Chasing Richy around...Uncles are the best. For the girls...and me (I get to be lazy and just watch them play while I sit inside the warm house).
Building a snowman...
On New Year's Eve, Chantal and Dave surprised everyone with some fun fireworks and sparklers...here we are at 8pm welcoming the "new year"...



While at Nana and Ponka's house, Nana helped the girls with this beautiful creation...
We were so happy to be able to see so many people while out in Utah. It was esp. fun having great grandma and grandpa at the Kims...we haven't been able to spend a lot of time with them since we moved to Colorado- so it was great to see so much of them. (Carolyn was way too busy admiring the masterpiece to look up for a photo)


Nana was so much fun to be around...the two Carolyns spent over an hour one night where they would read books to eachother. Carolyn loves being named after her Nana :)

Chantal and Dave were also there for the holidays...it was fun to see them...although I feel bad for Dave. The girls are just inlove with him and often express that love by jumping on him, slapping him in the face, tickling him...basically non-stop. They just loved having Chantal and Dave around. Here Chantal is helping the girls with the house.
We loved spending so much time with this guy...


Carolyn just couldn't get enough of the books Grandpa would read to her... (Pictures say a million words in these photos....just look at how Carolyn feels about spending time with her Grandpa....)



The girls reading on their own...us girls just love to read and spend a lot of our days reading together...it was sooo fun to read the books that I grew up with...
One of the days we were out there, we went bowling with Andrew's family. Here is Ponka with his girl. Ponka took each of the girls out seperately on dates while we were out there - they still love talking about those dates with their Ponky. Carolyn always makes it very clear to me that she is "Ponka's Girl."


This is usually how the scoreboard looks in our family when we play....Carolyn and Angela almost beating me in their game and Dad smoking us all :)
We had so much fun out in Utah! A big thank you for everyone for letting us invade your homes, feeding us so much delicious food, and giving us a great time!!! We can't wait to see everyone soon!

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

We had such an awesome Thanksgiving weekend. It was esp. just fun to have Andrew around so much and spend time together. On Thanksgiving, we went to a friends' house for brunch and spent a few hours there. Then (later that day) we ate Thanksgiving dinner just as a family. It was so fun and I loved making the dinner on my own. It was the first time I've done it completely solo and it was so much fun.

Thursday night was insane. Don't get me wrong I LOVE black Friday shopping and love the deals I get, but what is up with the 10 PM/midnight openings??? I miss when all the stores would wait to open at 3 AM so I could get a little sleep in before the shopping. I didn't crawl into bed for the first time until after 7 AM. But, I am so excited about the deals I got and it was fun despite the not-sleeping.

The rest of the weekend, we played together a lot, Andrew and the girls put up the Christmas lights (yay!), and we went and saw the movie Tangled. I was really sceptical of liking the movie because it's rated PG- but I really liked the movie - it was so cute - and the girls just loved, loved, loved it too. I love our Carolyn and her sweet little heart. During a sad scene, Andrew said Carolyn cried. That just makes me smile. And the fact that Andrew and Carolyn sat and watched the movie together while holding hands the whole time.

On Saturday, Chantal and Dave came over for the game. I won't even mention which game it was because it was just a stupid little game :), but after watching the game we went downtown and looked at Christmas lights. We started this tradition last year and it is so much fun. After looking at Christmas lights downtown, we drive around and look at some houses' lights while listening to Christmas music. So fun :)

I'm going to be so busy with the holidays, I won't be able to blog until after Christmas....but here are some updates on the girlies:

Carolyn - I started teaching piano lessons to a girl in my ward a few weeks ago. Carolyn picked up on this and insists on me giving her a piano lesson everyday - which I happily do (I wish I would have learned piano well when I was younger so I hope she continues to love the piano). She loves practicing everyday. All she can do for now is find the notes on the keyboard and play simple songs, but it's fun. She can play Hot Cross Buns really well. She also seems to have Andrew's amazing mathematical brains! She is awesome at simple addition problems - and can figure them out in her all in her head. I was using my fingers to add when I was first learning addition so I don't really get how she just thinks it all up in that brain of hers.

Angela - She is such a little sweetheart. She loves helping everyone and after helping people, she says to herself, "Thank you, me!!" It makes me laugh every time- she's such a little cutie. She also loves to sing, sing, sing. She loves calling people and singing "Happy Birthday" to them. So, if you ever get a message from her singing "Happy Birthday" to you we haven't forgotten what day your bday is, she just loves singing that song.

Chantal and Dave's Wedding

A little flashback since Chantal and Dave were married a few months ago...but here are some moments from the happy day!! We love Dave and Chantal!



I just love this picture of cute Carolyn.

Andrew and his brother singing at the breakfast. They sang "I'm Amazed By You." Awww, I love hearing Andrew sing. When the song was over Carolyn said very loudly to Chantal and Dave, "Did you love it?!" And lots of people laughed :)

Chantal and her mom MADE and DECORATED this cake. AMAZING!!!! I still can't believe it!!




Great Grandma and Carolyn

The First Snowfall of the Season

The girls and I have anxiously waiting for the first snowfall of the season - and it came on Monday! We were so excited to get all our gear on and adventure out there! We also celebrated the first snowfall by putting up all our Christmas decorations...yay! I usually have a rule that Christmas decorations don't go up until after Thanksgiving...but we just couldn't help it - the snow and all the Christmas music got us too anxious to wait.

Halloween!

My little bunny: My little unicorn:
Halloween was a BLAST!!! The day before Halloween, our ward had a Halloween Party - dinner and trunk or treat. So glad my ward does that - it was so much fun.

On Halloween, we got to spend the day with Aunt Chantal and Uncle Dave. They always make everything even more fun. I mean, just take a look at this awesome cake they brought over!!! Not only does it LOOK amazing- it TASTED amazing! Chantal makes the best chocolate cakes!
Just look at the girls' faces here....they were so fascinated by Chantal's great creation.



For dinner, Carolyn helped me make Jack-o-lantern pizza. Carolyn did an awesome job at helping and making the faces on the pizza.




Angela spent a lot of the day running around in circles and being the crazy and cute girl that she is....and this was before the sugar-intake :)
We got to carve another pumpkin!
Cute bunny bum!