Christmas and a little more. . .

Jaren was terrified of Santa this year! It was funny to watch. At our ward Christmas party when Santa came in, Jaren hit the floor and took off in a super fast crawl under the nearest table and into the arms of a stranger, screaming his head off!

Nick and I were preoccupied with other things that we forgot to take pictures of the boys (Owen and Corbin) with Santa. Luckily Sam's Club had a Santa!

Having too much fun in the store! You wanna piece of me?

Nick was able to take two weeks off of work. To celebrate we took the boys to Denny's. When we tell Jaren to smile his new thing is to make his funny face. Owen decided to join in on the fun!

Christmas Eve. . .

This year we weren't able to make it back to be with family. We were able to make our own traditions for the holidays - a mix of both our traditions growing up. We had our big Christmas dinner the night before. It was fun for me to cook all day with Nick around to entertain the kids.

Some friends in the neighborhood invited us to go caroling that evening. It was fun and also wore the kids out!

We decided to take a quick family picture before we left next to our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

Not bad for the first and only take.

After caroling, we allowed the boys to open their gifts that they bought with their own money for each other.

I love their thank you hug!

One of our friends, Jackie Mortenson, made this cute ornament for us. It is the El Morro fort lookout tower that is on everything here and will remind us in years to come where we spent Christmas 2009. I love it.

Christmas Day. . .

Looks like Santa came.

We put a gate at the top of the stairs and made the boys wait till Jaren woke up.

Aren't they cute in their matching pajamas? Thanks Grandma Faler!

It took Jaren awhile to get interested in his stocking and presents. We could have saved some money if we would have only bought him the Fruit Loops!

In our house, Santa likes to hide the stockings. It looks like he got a little to into it when Nick had to open one of our decorations (an empty wrapped box) to find his stocking!

Nick loves cars and the boys really wanted to get him a model car with their hard earned money.

Look closely at Nick's face. . .

The boys each got Jaren a car.

Look closely at Jaren's face. . . look familiar?

Like Father Like Son!

These are just the cars that Jaren got. Can you tell what he loves?

Corbin loved his new bike. Nick thought he looked like he just stepped out of a Dr. Suess book.

Later that day we met some friends at a nearby beach. It was virtually empty, and the waves were great.

Jaren isn't that fond of the water at beach normally he just plays in the sand, but apparently he has gotten worse. The second he saw the water he booked it for the parking lot. The only way we could get him to calm down was if I sat on top of him (At his request). If I even tried to move forward to give him a little more room on the beach chair, he immediately protested and grabbed the back of my swim suit and pulled me back to him. What a goof, doesn't he know he lives on an island!

We of course forgot our camera, but a friend was nice enough to take a picture for us.