Photo shoot

Mackenzie had fun being a princess and changing outfits for her photo shoot.  

 So cute!

peekaboo I love you!

This kid!!

I am amazed by Cameron every day.  His love for life.  His energy.  His enthusiasm for everything.  His kind heart.  His creativity.   I could go on and on.  He is one special kid and I am so lucky I get to be his mom!

 The things he thinks to do make me laugh.  I love to laugh with him.  It's one of my favorite things to do, when we just act silly and laugh!  He put those little googely eye ball sticker things on his glasses and I think we laughed for 20 minutes straight!

 Cameron made an astronaut suit and had to duct tape his glasses because "astronauts wear space goggle things."  I love his creativity, I am learning to ignore his messes!!  I am constantly picking up pieces of paper, scissors, glue, stickers, markers and everything else all around the house.  I also learned I have to throw anything away at night or when he is occupied.  If he sees me pour the last bit of milk in the glass, he immediately asks for the milk carton.  If he sees an empty egg carton or if a package comes in the mail he asks for the box.  His mind is constantly thinking of something to make with everything he sees!!  Since I am a "throw everything away" person and I hate clutter, this has been something I struggled with.  But I can't stop his creative spirit so my trash continues to become his treasure lol

More stickers on his glasses.  This was hillarious too.

Here he is as a robot

 One day he told me he wanted to sell some of his artwork, toys, and books so he could save money for his mission.  I bought a few things and so did Jeremy.  I had to laugh when some of his friends came over after school with their money to go to Cameron's sale.  I called their mom's to tell them that their kids' were buying stuff with real money and might come home with a picture Cameron drew.  LOL

This is Mojo, Cameron's all time favorite stuffed animal/toy.  He takes him everywhere, and even sleeps with him.  One night he decided that Mojo needed pajamas.  Of course it was as I was tucking him in bed that night.  He made a pretty good case to me, and I couldn't resist....so I helped him make some pajamas for Mojo.  They were front and back.  Super cute!  My favorite part was the shirt and how he drew a polo horse on there :)

A Sumbeam...

,,,A Sunbeam, Jesus wants Mackenzie for a Sunbeam...

No more nursery for this big girl.  She moved to Primary and gets to be in there with her big brother now.  She was so proud to be a Sunbeam.  Her cute teachers came over a few nights before to meet her and give her this Sunbeam necklace.  They told her to wear it to church that day and they would be wearing theirs, that way she would be able to find them and sit with them.  She had a great time in class and of course her teacher just can't get enough of her!   There are only 2 other kids in her class.  There aren't very many kids her age in our neighborhood!!

Happy New Year's Eve Day

 Cameron was off track and I decided it would be a fun day to go to the aquarium.  We have season passes and haven't been in several months.  So we headed there to this big giant mess!!  I almost turned right around and walked out, but then I decided we had nothing else to do.  They were having a new year's eve (day) party for all the kids.  They had a lot of fun activities and prizes etc so i decided to take one for the team :)  and we stayed!  We just avoided this general area where all the "free" stuff was happening.  they dropped balloons and confetti on all those people at noon.  So while they were all waiting there for that to happen, we enjoyed less crowded areas.

 I love the penguins!  I love these pictures of Mackenzie looking at the penguins!

 They had a photo booth that looked fun.  However, we didn't want to wait in the massive lines, so we just borrowed the props and took our own pictures outside of the photo booth :)

We did wait in the face painting line and since it was taking forever (with only one face painter and 100 kids in line) I told Cameron and Mackenzie to go get in the balloon making line.  So we killed two birds with one stone.  They got their balloon swords made and came back over to the line I was in....they sword fought while we waited about 10 more minutes and voila we had a Princess and Spiderman!

Basketball time

This is Cameron's first season playing basketball.....and of course he caught right onto it.  His coach, who happened to be a childhood friend, said 'I love watching Cameron play.  He is a scrapper, and that isn't something you can teach a kid, it's just something he has!'  So by 'scrapper' he means Cameron has hustle and and goes after the ball.  That he just knows what to do.  He would steal the ball like 10 times a game.  He was so fun to watch play.  I can't wait for next season!!

He shoots....he scores....the crowd goes wild!!

example of his quickness....he blocked this shot.  It was all ball, no foul :)

Another basket!  I love his form on this one!

I have some really good videos of him playing, but for some reason they won't load :(

Christmas Day

 Santa made it to our house!  The kids woke up to lots of presents!  And SNOW!  Yay, a white Christmas :)  This year Santa focused on the kids (due to Jeremy losing his job a month prior, as well as, a very expensive trip to Florida planned for February.)  We are so thankful to friends and family who helped Santa out this year!!!

 Grammy and Grampy came over to eat breakfast.  Yes I slaved all day the day before to make the delicious Christmas wreath!!    The kids LOVE having Grammy and Grampy come over to see what Santa brought them and to open more gifts from them!

 Cameron said, "it's perfect it snowed today so I could try out my new sled Santa brought me"!

 They had fun playing in the snow for about an hour.  Then we headed to Margo and Ricks for more presents and more food!!

 We missed Grammy and Grampy there, but understood that with the horrible snow it made for slick roads and more difficult for Grammy to get around on her crutches :(

I think Mackenzie fell asleep about 3 minutes after we left Margo's house.  It was a fun Christmas.  We are grateful to spend it with family and feel each other's love.  We are also grateful for the love of our Savior and are blessed this time of year because of Him!!

Christmas Eve festivities

 Christmas Eve is always so much fun at Grammy and Grampy's house!  We eat a delicious dinner and lots of yummy desserts.  But the best part is the present game Grammy started a few years ago.  Cameron always makes the game fun.  We didn't think it could get any funnier than last year when he stole the present from Spencer, but this year there was no shortage of laughter!!  He stole the present from Lindsie that she really wanted.  Good thing the cousins are such good sports!  

 After dinner all the grandkids went downstairs to the play room and made a "surprise" for Grammy and Grampy.  The best part was when Kenzie ran upstairs and said "don't come downstairs yet we are just wrapping up the tree we made you guys."  LOL

Cameron was so roux of the tree.  He thought it was so awesome to make that for them.  He said "I bet that's the biggest present they have ever gotten".

 Then we all opened our one present.  Cameron opened up his from Aunt Michele.  He was so excited!  He ran over and gave her a big hug!  He loves making stuff and she got him the melty bead things that he wanted so bad!

 Troy and Mackenzie are so cute together.  Troy loves to play with Kenzie and Cameron loves to wrestle with Troy.  He is a great cousin!

 Mackenzie loves Lindsie.  She loves when Lindsie plays with her.  These are such cute pictures.  Mackenzie took this present from Troy.  He kept trying to get Cameron to trade his present and was saying "Cameron, you want this sign so Santa knows to stop at your house.  If you have this sign he will know to stop there first."  Cameron didn't fall for that, but Mackenzie did :)  She made sure I put the sign in her room when she went to bed and said, "the sign needs to go right there, so Santa will come mom."  Then she brought the sign out of her room in the morning too and said, "Santa came because he knew we had this sign!"  

 Right before we left Grammy and Grampy's house Kenzie decided she needed to add a few more things to her Christmas list!  HA HA!

 One last present to open before going to bed.  Of course they have to get Christmas jammies! 

 All ready for bed.  This year we (Cameron) remembered to set out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer (we forgot last year...oops!)  Cameron also thought it would be a good idea to leave one of his Christmas lists by the cookies in case Santa read it and saw something else he wanted to give Cameron.

Oh the magic of Christmas!!  It's so much better with kids :)  Of course we are grateful for the real meaning of Christmas and the birth of our Savior!!