SANTA DEFINITELY CAME!!!

Well Christmas has come and gone but we have been able to make great memories. The kids were so much fun this year and were so excited for all that they received and were fun to see how excited they were over giving the gifts they had gotten for others. Tanner cracked us up every time he opened a gift you would have thought it was the greatest thing he had ever seen the way he would shriek. I hope that as each year passes that we can continue to teach them so that they really understand the importance of this great holiday.

We had a great Christmas and hope that all of you out there also were able to enjoy your loved ones during the holidays.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

'Tis the Season

So we had an eventful week last week with the holidays and being that it is this time of year comes the sicknesses and cold weather as well.

To start off the week the Saturday before Christmas we had poor little Tanner wake us up at 5:30 in the morning to start throwing up. The poor kid did nothing but sleep all the rest of the day and we had a bowl by him in case he couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough and the little guy kept putting his face in the bowl while he was asleep. Thank goodness he never actually had to use it!! And of course we had to get the picture!

With all of the great snow we have gotten over the past week the kids have definitely not wasted any time in getting out in it to play. If only we had a snowblower!!!


And as always come the family Christmas parties. As tradition from Grandma Jolley come the Christmas PJ's. She has always done that for her grandkids and now that she has 20+ and a couple great grandkids that is not an easy task!! Grandma Newman also started doing this for her grandkids a couple of years ago and so the kids for sure will always have their PJ's.

The Newman Clan
The Jolley Clan

(a very small portion!)

Kaya's Dance Recital

The week before Christmas, Kaya had her dance recital. The girls looked so cute and grown up. She did such a good job. It's amazing how much she has grown since she first started taking dance 2 years ago. The recitals are always fun to see what they are learning.

Like Mother Like Daughter??

So I was going through our pictures after I downloaded them and came across this one that Tanner must have taken of Kaya. I don't know, but I think my bad habit may be rubbing off onto my daughter. What do you think?

Scary, Huh?

Temple Lights!!!

Last Saturday we rode the Trax to downtown and went to Temple Square to see the Christmas Lights and then went over to the Gateway for dinner. It was so crazy at the temple that we really couldn't stay there long and enjoy the lights and the spirit. I guess because it was still such great weather that everyone decided to go there too. It was still fun to take the kids there and have them see the giant Christus. You can't help but feel the spirit in there even if there are a bunch of rowdy people.

Tanner loved the train ride and thought he would be a monkey and hang for a while.

Tanner and Austin getting cozy on the train ride down.


Cute Cole Bear eating his favorite thing - GUM!!

Kaya and her daddy - happy as can be!!

The kids had a good time and wore themselves out beacause they all fell asleep on the train ride home. It's always a lot of work to do these things with the kids but well worth it for the memories we are able to create with them.

Gymnastics Christmas Recital

On Saturday the 13th Kaya had her gymnastics recital. It was held at Hillcrest High School in their auditorium. Their class was so cute up there doing their little tricks of front and back walkovers and more. She is getting so good at it and loves to go. She tells me all the time that she wished she could go every day. It is always fun to see what the older girls can do and think about when Kaya is that big if she will stick with it. We love our little gymnast!! Great Job Kaya!!

Family Pictures

So as you can tell by our new blog header that we went and had our pictures done. It was about time that we had some new professional pictures taken. Brooke took our pictures and did such an awesome job. She was so great with capturing the kids expressions. Just thought I would post a few of my favorites. There was way too many to post all of them. Thanks again Brooke for doing such a great job!

Happy Birthday, Dave!!!!

Just wanted to send out a big Birthday wish to my hubby Dave!! Dave is such a great dad to our three kids and I want to just let him know how much I love him and how thankful I am to have him in my life. I look forward to spending many more birthdays together.

I hope you have a great day, babe. I love you!!!

Halloween Fun

So Halloween has come and gone but we had a lot of fun. This year instead of carving pumpkins the kids ended up painting them. I had every intention to carve and thought we still had some stuff left over from last year but I was unable to find them. So on Halloween trying to find anything at the store was impossible but we did come across some paints with stencils so it actually worked out quite nice for me. Here you can see Kaya painted a witch and Tanner painted some bats, I think.

Our cute kids were so excited to get dressed up and go Trick or Treating!! Kaya was an army girl. Tanner was a fire fighter. Cole was a giraffe. They all had a lot of fun throughout the week with different chances to dress up. Kaya was able to dress up for her dance class and Tanner for preschool. We also had a little family get together earlier in the week they were able to wear their costumes for.

Cole and his cousin Eli both ended up being giraffes this year. Go figure!

What a cute army girl!!!

One last shot of our adorable giraffe!! Thanks mom for finding this costume.

New York Pics

Since we were flying all the way back east we decided to make a little vacation out of it. It was so much fun to just have Kaya with us and to take her places. While we were still in Atlantic City most of our days were spent at the pageant but we did make time to go see the boardwalk which was pretty cool and we went and saw a lighthouse that still stands there. When all of the pageant activities were done we drove up to New York for a day. It was such an awful rainy day but we still made our way around to see the things we wanted. The kids were such troopers. Much more than the adults. We made our way past Times Square all the way down to Central Park stopping for some good New York Pizza along the way. Kaya loved seeing the Hello Kitty stores and gift shops along the way. We then went down to the Plaza Hotel to see where Eloise stayed and she loved being able to see the pictures and displays of her things. Then we went to FAO Shwartz and Kaya was in absolute heaven. She loved being able to play on the big giant piano and seeing all of the millions of toys. We took her on the Subway and went to Grand Central Station. She absolutely loved New York and didn't want to leave. We definitely could of spent more time there.
We flew in and out of Philadelphia so we did make a quick stop to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. When we were getting on the plane to come home the flight attendants let the kids go up to see the pilots in the cockpit which you never hear of them letting you do that anymore so that was pretty cool. It was a great time and I look forward to being able to travel more with the kids as they get older.

Way to go Barbara!!

Last week we had the opportunity to go to Atlantic City and watch Barbara (Dave's Mom) compete for the title of Ms. Senior America. She is currently Ms. Utah Sr. America and did awesome back in July when she won this title. So we were excited to be able to travel back with her to see her compete nationally. Again she always wows us with her talent and poise. She did awesome and definitely should have won but thank goodness for us she didn't. Kaya especially loved watching her Grandma be a Queen and was super proud. Way to go Barbara!!! You'll always be the Queen of our family!!!

PICTURE DAY FOR COLE!!

So I decided that since Cole is almost 15 months old, I should probably have his one year old pictures taken. I have a friend that does photography and has a studio in her house. She did awesome!! She was able to get some great shots of Cole as you can tell. These are just a few of what I got and I had the hardest time picking out the ones to post. Cole did pretty good, but when he was done - he was done. I can't believe how big my baby is getting. He is finally a full time walker/runner. It took him a little longer than Kaya and Tanner but now that he's got it he's a pro. He has really got the jabbering down. He can hold full conversations in his own language. Some words that I do know that he says are ball, no, uh-oh, more, mommy, daddy. I will cherish every minute I have left with him not talking more than that because it won't last long, I know.

Thanks so much Brooke for doing such an awesome job on Cole's pictures. You're the best!!

Fun cousin sleepover!!

Last Friday the kids were able to have a sleepover with some of their cousins. They had so much fun playing together. I was a little worried about having that many kids at once overnight but they did awesome!!! I had bought some fake teeth and they went crazy for those. See the cute little monsters!!!

I had crafts for them to do which with girls is definitely the way to go. It keeps them busy for quite a while. They colored little wooden Halloween figures and made Halloween pictures using the foam stickers. They also made necklaces and bracelets with beads and decorated cupcakes. Tanner's attention wasn't quite as long and he would start being a monster and try to scare the girls any chance he got.

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Tanner and Hannah were little buddies the whole time.

Here the kids are all ready to watch their Halloween movie and eat some popcorn before they went to sleep. Tanner couldn't take his eyes off the movie for one second so I could take his picture. Look at him with all those girls.

The next morning we all ate pancakes and bacon and then we did a little face painting and hand painting. Kaya and Tanner were so sad when it was time to take them home. They had such a good time and did so good that I think we may actually do it again sometime.