My Ring

I guess I was not thinking when I wrote about my ring without posting pictures. Here are some pics that I found on the internet of my exact ring. It is just very hard to take pictures of a ring, who knew?

Christmas Day!

This was our first Christmas at our own house since we have had kids. We just always wanted to open gifts with other family members because Alyssa didn't really understand yet. This year she did and we had our own house and it was way fun! Santa did a great job! Tom did too. This year Tom gave me a new wedding ring! It is beautiful and I love that it is just like my original one, only this one is real. Yes my old ring was CZ and very inexpensive but I loved it. We were very young when we got my original ring and we decided to save our money for other things, so we got inexpensive rings. Well I didn't expect a new ring for at least ten years but Tom decided to be the sweetest husband ever and get me a new ring now, he said I deserve it. I don't even know if I deserve to have such a great husband let alone a nice new ring! Any way it was an amazing gift and I love him! I gave him a knife set for butchering the animals he hunts. Not quite as good as what I got but it will do I guess.

Here is Cody in his jammies.

Cody's gifts from Santa

Alyssa in her jammies

Her gifts from Santa

I have to explain this gift. As it got closer to Christmas people started asking Alyssa what she wants, well Alyssa, being the very hilarious little girl she is, had somehow decided she wanted a yellow worm. I have no idea where she got that from but she honestly wanted it because that is the only thing she ever told anyone. So this lucky little girl got a yellow worm from Santa. It was her favorite gift! How great would it be to be so content with nothing but a yellow worm. I love my kids!

This was Cody's favorite toy

Such a beautiful fairy princess :)

Cody and Alyssa's gifts

This is the Baldwin side of Tom's family. We had dinner on Christmas day with them(amazing food). This picture shows how fast this already huge family is growing. All of these babies were born within five months of eachother. Actually it was one baby each month except Cody and the little girl to the left were born within a week. Don't worry there are still lots of pregnant cousins to add to the fam.

Christmas Parties

We had a great Christmas this year! It was exhausting though. The Saturday before Christmas we started our crazy family parties. We had one party or event every day until Christmas. I think next year we will plan things a little differently so that we don't wear ourselves out. Here are some of the pictures I managed to get. There are a lot though.

GRANDMA MAC's PARTY

We do gag gifts for the adults in Tom's family and here are just a few. Jam and I have a problem keeping our husbands from hunting so these are to help us attract our husbands and keep them home. Layne is quite the slave driver on the farm so Chris got him a "TIME IS MONEY" shirt

Heidi got the perfect man.

GRANDMA MARGO's PARTY

We gave them new phones for Christmas

Alyssa loved her binoculars

She slept in this sleeping bag for the next week

Tom and Cody

Grandma "J" and Dale came too and they gave us great gifts!!

GRANDPA SCOOBY DOO's (My Dad)

Gingerbread houses

This ended up being a leapster 2 and some games

My new boots and hat

Tom got duck decoys and Cody got a double stroller.

SLEDNG AT GRANDMA MAC's

Our next door neighbors, the Blanscets, helped us decorate our tree this year. They are so fun and I love them to death! thanks for all the help!

Alyssa and Jordan

Alyssa and Emma

All done and eating Mack and Cheese

I dont know if you can tell how close they put all the orniments it was so cute!

Our awesome Tree!!!

Every year we go to the McFarland Family Cabin in Bear Lake to cut down Christmas trees, this is an awesome tradition except we are outgrowing the cabin. This year there was actually a little snow so it was a little more fun for the kids. Tom and I left the kids to stay warm in the car while we went on the four wheeler to get our tree. Tom was excited this year to find the perfect tree, and he did! It took a few min and we had to cross a stream but he found it. This tree was hilarious and I decided only Tom could have found it. It was one big tree trunk with three trees growing out the top. NO LIE! I am so mad that I forgot my camera but I think Jam got some pictures; I will have to try to get them. Anyway he cut it down and brought it home. He cut them apart and trimmed them up then wired them together so they look like one giant tree. Guess what, it is our best tree yet! I love my Tom! Oh I can’t forget to write about our lovely car. After we had cut our tree down we were getting ready to leave so Tom started the car to get it warm for us. Now this car is ridiculous because as soon as you start it, the doors lock. We have locked ourselves out of it many times because of this and that day was no different, except Cody was in the car. So we are in the Mountains in Bear Lake and my four month old baby is locked in my running car. Yes he was screaming. So everyone is in a panic trying to figure out a way into my car, well Tom had opened the trunk to load stuff in it so the thought was he could bust the back seat in and get into the car. Well in the process of trying to unroll the window with the car's antenna everyone decides that he should just do it, break the seat. So he does and guess what, about thirty seconds later they got the window down with the antenna through the window. Broken seat for nothin. However baby safe and sound. It was quite crazy. Now we decide to go back to the cabin to play games and eat dinner before we all leave. This was way fun and I finally won Settlers of Catan! When it comes time to leave it had snowed at least a foot and a half and you could not see the front of the car while driving. It was scary but as we got farther and farther away from Bear Lake it got better. We made it safely. Wow what a crazy trip!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was pretty fun. We had dinner with my Dad this year, thanks Dad and Brenda! After dinner the boys went out back and played basketball in the back yard. I guess that was so much fun that they decided that we needed to go to uncle Layne's gym to play. So we went and it was a little crazy but fun. I forgot my camera so sorry no pictures.

The extended McFarland family decided to have a Halloween party this year. It was actually a pre-Halloween party because nobody dressed up and we just went to pick out pumpkins from Grandpa Layne's farm. It was way fun though, we started off with a hay ride to the pumpkin patch. Aunt Marline took charge and started singing songs, which was funny because the words in her songs were just a little different than everyone else. When we got to the patch we wondered around and picked out some pumpkins. Heidi and I hung out because our husbands were working to fix up the house she had just bought. Then they started a fire and set the hay bails around it so we could eat soup and doughnuts. We had a blast, I love family parties!

Halloween was pretty fun. Thanks to the DI, Alyssa had a pretty cute dragon costume. I love the DI! You can’t tell what she is supposed to be in the pictures because she looked up too much so you can’t see the cute head on her costume. I was a black cat because it was easy and cost me a whopping $3 for ears and eye shadow. Oh and yes I did my own makeup. Cody was a cute little frog but he was undressed before I got to take a picture. I had to wait till the night was over for pictures because we had to rush out the door to get to a trunk or treat and then I was having too much fun trick or treating with the kids to take any later. Tom is lame and didn't dress up. He thought of his costume too late so he will just have to do it next year. We went trick or treating with Tom's family and it was way fun! I can’t wait for next year!