Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We traveled up to Los Alamos, NM (where it is SOOOO cold). We had such a good time, and Kyra loved all the attention from Grandma and Grandpa.

As we were packing to go, I looked over and Kyra was lightly, using her hands to drum on Kyles head. I asked her what she was doing and she said "I'm giving Kyle a blessing!" She then said "Amen". So we had a very quick discussion about blessings. I thought she understood what I was explaining, but for the rest of the night she gave a blessing to anything she saw....her shoes, the dog...etc. So I guess we will be working on that one for FHE.

We left at four in the morning, hoping to avoid a winter storm that was supposed to hit. The storm ended up not being as bad as was predicted, but it actually worked out great because the kids slept quite a bit on the way.

On Christmas Eve we visited with Karls greandparents, and an aunt and uncle, and lots of cousins, and second cousins. Kyra loved her cousins! They were two little girls, a little older than Kyra, that were willing to play ring around the rosies a million times.

Kyle also liked playing (aka stealing and drooling on his cousins toys) with everyone as well.



On Christmas Eve we made cookies to leave for Santa, and also made reindeer food and sprinkled it outside. The next morning Kyra went out to see if the reindeer had eaten the food, and she found a bell, that they reindeer must of dropped! She was really excited about that.


Christmas morning was so much fun. Kyra got a tricycle, and a princess tent. Kyle got a tickle me Cookie Monster. I got a new printer (If you can imagine, the one we bought 6 years ago for $20 wasn't really cutting it anymore) and Karl got a Wii (as a graduation and Christmas present).


While we were in New Mexico, we were able to go to the Albuquerque temple, and Karl did the work for his grandfather. The temple was beautiful.

Kyra wasn't really sure what to think of the snow. She would want to hold it, so we would let her hold some, and then she would cry because it was cold. So we would take it away, and she would cry because we would take it away. When we left to come
home, our car's temperature said three degrees!


This is Karl's sister, Pamela, with her husband Matt, and their adorable baby Ethan.


The one thing that you will never see in Tucson, but I guess is pretty normal in Los Alamos, is the amount of wildlife. This is a video, right out side Karl's grandmothers apartment, of ten deer just playing.


It was a really fun week. At night we either played Wii or watched Lost until midnight. Karl, Karl's sister and brother in law, and myself looked pretty pathetic after the first night of playing the Wii..we were so sore. It was great to just be able to relax and not worry abour school or work for a while.

We are very blessed to be able to see both sets of grandparents for Christmas each year. So we had Christmas, the sequel with my parents this morning. We had our traditional strawberry, ice cream and waffles for breakfast. They were so good. Kyle I think liked the wrapping paper as much as anything!

Kyle got a little baby push/ride car to go with Kyra's tricyle. I think a good business idea would be to open a neighborhood parking garage for all of your kids little ride on toys!


We hope all of you had a special Christmas!

43 days...

I am so excited!

GRADUATION!

This past weekend we traveled back to Las Cruces for Karl's graduation! It was so cold. I'm not just being a pansy because I have been in Tucson for too long. One woman standing in line waiting for graduation had to be taken care of by paremedics for hypothermia!
On Friday night we went and saw the new movie "Enchanted" with Bobby and Sharon. It was a great movie. We laughed alot. Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to babysit. Saturday was graduation. I am so proud of Karl for the hard work that he put into this degree! I don't think he quite knows what to do with himself now.





We leave on Friday to go to Los Alamos, to be with Karl's parents for Christmas. Then we will head back home, to have Christmas the Sequel with my parents on the
29th! Kyra is loving that idea. Karl has a total of 18 days off. We are really excited to have him home.

I love my husband.

I really do love my husband. He isn't the handiest guy in the world but he really does try. Yesterday I noticed the the hose that goes from the dryer and connects to the wall had come off at the wall. So Karl got out his tools and reattached it within a couple minutes. So I put in a load of laundry into the dryer and noticed that it was a little louder then it use to be. I mentioned it to Karl, and he said "I'll see what I can do." He got up and closed the laundry room door. I really love my husband.

Kyra's version

We have a Little People nativity which looks like this:


After we set it up, Kyra was playing with it, and added a couple of her own special touches.



Maybe we should go over the nativity story again. Karl particularly likes the catapult.

Catching Up...

I didn't do very well about keeping up with the blog over the last month. So...here is the run down.
We discovered that Kyle loves corn!

Kyle is old enought to sit on his own in the bathtub, which makes it so much more fun!


Thanksgiving was great. One of our friends gave us the great idea of a "Thankful Tom" box. Everyday we would add more thingst to the box, that we were thankful for Kyra loved it. She loved looking for pictures in the Friend. Then on Thanksgiving we shared everything that was added to the box. This was our "Thankful Tom". That night after we finished our Thankful Tom, I was holding Kyle in the recliner, and he accidentally fell over the side of the chair. It was only a foot, maybe a two foot drop, but he landed directly on top of his head, and appeared to jam his neck. He acted like he couldn't take a breath, and became completely stiff throughout his entire body. We immediately called 911. After what felt like an eternity, he took a breath and started to cry a little, but stopped very quickly. The ambulance showed up, and checked him out completely. They said that he probably got the wind knocked out of him, causing him not to be able to take that initial breath in. Of course I feel horrible. A friend was coming over to take Karl to a priesthood session, and arrived right after the ambulance. So he was able to help give Kyle a blessing. It does amaze me how much little children are aware of what is going on. Since then, every time Kyra says a prayer, she says "Please bless baby brother because he bonked his head. But he got a blessing and is all better." Also, whenever he falls now, which is quite a bit since he is trying to walk, she runs over and asks me "Is Kyle okay?". I say yes, he just fell down. She gives him a kiss to make it all better, and asks if he needs a blessing. If only we could make our faith that simple.

The day after Thanksgiving we headed up to Phoenix. For Karl's birthday he got tickets to go see the Suns play. We drove up Friday, went to Si Senors (our favorite Mexican food place) and went to Ikea. That night we went to the game. The kids did great. Everytime someone would miss a basket, Kyra would yell "Almost, good try though!" She really got into it when the crowed would chant.



The next day we went to the Phoenix Zoo. It was so cold (well for Arizona)! But the kids loved it. They had a children section, wih a "cow swing", and tractors to crawl on, a little barn to run in and out of, and a cave to explore. It was a great weekend.

Our attemt at putting Kyra and Kyle on the cow swing at the same time.




Kyle is such a boy. His favorite things to play with are cars, tractors or trucks.