The Walkers

And back for Part II! We had two family Christmas parties back-to-back on the same weekend which made it CRAZY but so much fun too! The first one was the Martindale/Oldroyd Christmas party at my Dad's. This year was a pajama party which was such a cute idea! I also decided to do a gingerbread house this year (like I mentioned in my last post) and I ended up taking 2nd place to the Frozen themed one (the one on the left with the green glass looking candy). It was hard work but it was fun :)

We played BINGO this year so that the kids could participate in the game. Anytime someone won a BINGO they got to choose a gift to open.

The kids were excited to open their stockings from Gma and Gpa Martindale!

Christmas Party #2: Nunes/Martindale's

This year the party was at Ben & April's house. We did a baked potato bar and it was very yummy! Every year for my mom does a 12 Days of Christmas for everyone. They are super generous and I'm always amazed at how much work goes in to it! I had to get a pic of all the gifts lined up for everyone, it was nuts!

Fun times with family!

The cousins all do a gift exchange so here's some pics of the everyone opening their gifts:

The Christmas party also happened to be the same day as my mom's birthday so we had birthday cake as well :)

After the party the kids opened the first 12 Days of Christmas gift :)

Malea got to go on a field trip with all the 1st graders see the play "The Nutcracker" at BYU. All the kids were asked to be in Best Dress for the play. She was SO excited to go and was all up and ready to go before I was even up that morning!

The dental office my mom works for, Smile Center, has Santa come every year. Patients can bring their kids and they have donuts and hot chocolate. The kids happened to have cleanings right before anyway so we stuck around and saw Santa!

There is this guy they know who makes amazing balloon animal formations and he made this awesome Grinch! He was also there to do balloon animals for the kids. Malea got a Panda Bear and Isaac got a Spider Man.

It was cute because Isaac originally said he wasn't going to sit on Santa's lap but then he gradually started moving closer and closer to him and then eventually sat on his lap. He told Santa he wants a Captain America shield and Spider Man shoes :)

My cute little lunch date when we went to the mall one day to do some Christmas shopping.....this kid is so picky about food but he loves Pad Thai! Go figure!

On December 18th, Keith and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary!!! I can't believe it's been 10 years! I gave him this framed picture of us.

I woke up to a dozen roses and my gift wrapped in tin foil (since the 10 year anniversary is tin, isn't that so sweet?!?). He gave me a beautiful necklace. It was so thoughtful!

Out to eat for our anniversary at Cheesecake Factory! Yum!

We spent a night away at the Little America in SLC which is where we spent our honeymoon. It was so romantic and relaxing! AND my favorite part was that Keith even booked the SAME ROOM we spent our honeymoon!! It was so thoughtful that he went through the trouble to research it and everything! Good job honey!

Had to take a picture of a cute little Christmas card Malea made for us :)

Malea in her Christmas jammies for Pajama/Crazy Hair day at school. I did her hair crazy and then she didn't like it so I took it out and she just wore it like this. Funny girl :)

Isaac brought this darling hand print ornament from Pre-K!! I will cherish it forever!

Malea brought this one home from school, it's hard to tell but it's her hand print in white paint and then they made little snowmen :) So cute!

Making cookies! Yum!

In light of all that has been going on in the news in Ferguson and the two police officers that were killed in NYC, I decided our family would make some Christmas cards for our local police department and take them some Christmas treats. I wanted them to know how much we appreciate their sacrifice and hard work and that there are still lots of people who are grateful for their service. Here was Malea's letter:

We took our letters/cards and some treats and delivered them to the police department.

They were very appreciative and gave the kids a special activity book and some badge stickers!

I had to post a picture of my cookie fail....I used a pre-made dough to make some cookies and this is how they came out of the oven. I started laughing so hard when I pulled them out. They looked like really thin pancakes! I also think they kind of resemble Mickey Mouse ears, lol.

The 2nd batch turned out better :) Look at my pretty girl in the background!

Christmas Eve Party!

Every year we eat a big dinner with all our extended family at my Grandma & Grandpa Young's condo clubhouse. We ate lots of yummy food and had so much fun catching up! Love these pictures of Keith with the kids.

Grandma & Grandpa are always so generous each year and get all their "greats" a gift.

Christmas jammies!!

One of our Christmas traditions is for the kids to each open one gift on Christmas Eve. We decided to let them open the gifts they got for each other.

Love this picture of them hugging!

Cookies and milk for Santa!

Our Elf left us a letter!

I decided to open the pantry door in the hallway and put this note so the kids wouldn't go out in to the living room until mom and dad woke up.

Keith set up a cute play house we got the kids for a smokin' deal on Black Friday so I put wrapping paper up on the window so that they wouldn't be able to see it!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!

So the Christmas Eve night Malea ended up with a croupy cough that kept her and us (but mostly Keith) up a lot in the night. Isaac slept great but thankfully he slept in a little bit. So we didn't start opening presents until probably 8am which was the latest we've ever done it! We ended up taking much needed naps later that day.

I took about a million pictures but here are a few of my favorites :)

No peaking! ;)

The kids were so excited that Santa ate our cookies!

Santa filled their stockings and left them each something new! An art kit for both and then Malea got a calendar she had been wanting and Isaac got his Spider Man shoes!

They got lots of cool stuff in their stockings!

So excited to open presents!

A new board game!

Loved her expression in this one....each of them got a new umbrella and some snow stuff.

Isaac giving loves!

He got his Captain America shield!

And she got the doll she really wanted!

Then for the finale.....

I wish I had caught a picture of their expressions on the other side of the glass!

Yay for a new play house! They're going to have so much fun with that this summer.

And now mommy and daddy get to open their presents :) I got Keith a gun and he got me some perfume and a cute keepsake box that had our family picture on it (it didn't get there in time for Christmas but I got it a couple of days later).

Christmas morning breakfast, yum!

Grandma & Grandpa Martindale stopped by to see what the kids got and to give the kids their presents! They each got $20 that they got to use to pick out something they wanted.

Trying out their new umbrellas and hats/ear muffs and gloves! We got some snow that night but got dumped on non-stop all day!

This picture was a taken a couple of days after Christmas.....like I said, we got TONS of snow!

After we opened our presents and had breakfast, we stopped by to see Grandma & Grandpa Nunes and to give them their presents!

After we left my mom's we pretty much just hung out at home playing with all our new stuff and watching movies. It was glorious! It was such a great day, I didn't want it to end! It always seems to go by so fast every year! It's fun to think that we'll have a new addition to the family next Christmas! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We had a GREAT Christmas season this year! I am actually splitting this post in to two parts because I took so many pictures. :)

The kids were pretty excited when I pulled out the Christmas bins!

Decorating their individual trees :)

(Ever since Halloween, Malea would wake up every morning and put on her Elsa dress. Most mornings she would have it on by the time I saw her for the first time every day. It is so cute :))

The kids helped me decorate our family tree, they did a pretty good job! As you can see most of the ornaments were on the lower half so I just evened it out and it looked great!

One of my favorite Christmas decorations :)

Took a break from decorating to take a little family selfie!

Here's a cute pic of the kids playing in the first big snowfall this winter! It is so nice having stairs to our deck so the kids can play in the back yard!

We decided it would be fun to announce the pregnancy to our families with a little photo ornament. We put our most recent family picture on one side and then a picture of the ultrasound on the other. We gave one to each of my parents and Keith's parents (and kept one for ourselves of course :)). We mailed the ornament to Keith's parents but didn't tell them anything, we wanted to see how fast they figured it out. Turns out they didn't even pull it out of the package until a few hours later! It was kind of funny.

Our Elf on the shelf "Max" was so silly this year! Here's just a few pics of some of the crazy things he did:

This isn't really Christmas related, but I'll share anyway that Malea lost her first tooth! It's been loose for a while and finally one day it was hanging on by a thread so I took a tissue and pulled it out. She was so excited to put it in her little tooth holder and wait for the tooth fairy!

The tooth fairy came and even left Malea a note! It said "Congrats on losing your first tooth Malea! Be sure and take really good care of your permanent tooth coming in! Love, The Tooth Fairy"

We also took the kids to see Santa at the Riverwoods Mall! They were both SO excited to see him but when it was their turn in line they both got super shy! Neither one cried though, that was a first ;)

Christmas jammies!

Malea in her cute new Christmas outfit. I didn't buy Isaac a new shirt this year because his shirt from last year still fit (he tends to fit in his clothes forever)

Malea decided she wanted to do Christmas cards for all her classmates :) It was so cute. She worked on them for a long time. In her class each student takes a turn being the "special helper" and it was her turn the next day so she really wanted to hand them out that day (she also wanted to pick out a cute outfit....it was so cute!!!). So she and I stayed up late the night before and finished them. She is a very sweet and thoughtful girl!

This year for neighbor gifts I saw this cute idea on Pinterest where you give each person a roll of wrapping paper and some tape with this little poem:

"All November you've been shopping,

Barely sleeping, hardly stopping,

Now it's late, you're in a scrape,

Out of paper, out of tape,

Hope this wrap helps save the day!

Have a Happy Holiday!"

(I did not make up this poem :))

Isaac came Christmas shopping with me one day while Malea was at school and we just had to stop at Kneaders to get a festive sugar cookie!

We had two Christmas parties back to back one weekend, one for the Martindale/Oldroyd side and one for the Nunes/Martindale side. I will post pics of those parties in Part II but here were some cute gift baskets I put together for my siblings and their spouses (it had a $5 movie, some popcorn, soda and treats).

For the Martindale/Oldroyd Christmas party they have a gingerbread house contest every year. I decided to enter this year. I have never built a gingerbread house from anything but a kit so it was harder than I expected but I was up for the challenge! The kids also got to make little ones that night too.