Really Long Christmas Post!

Sorry this post is so long but I haven't had much computer time but I can't use that excuse any more...Nate got me a laptop for Christmas! It was way out of the budget we agreed on but he said it is for my B-day, anniversary and any other holiday that is coming up! I am excited and trying to break it in! (I am kind of computer illiterate so it may take a while!)

So Christmas really started on December 17th! The day it snowed at our house in Henderson! Here are a lot of pictures (I know not exciting for you all who live where it snows but very exciting for us who endured 115 degree heat all summer).

Not too bad a little accumulation!

Even better, we could make a few good snowballs with this stuff!

Holy sweetness! I feel like we are back in Montana now!

This is Matthew's lawn mower, he was pretty upset that it had snow all over it! He cleaned it off multiple times!

Our house!

Sledding at our park and in front of our house. All of the neighbors were out and we had a great time just pulling each other up and down the street.

It was a great day! I couldn't help but smile all day. We put on Christmas music and made Christmas cookies. It was wonderful! Call me crazy but I miss the snow!

Brayden is our cookie dough tester. I go through about 5-6 spatulas for just one batch because every time I turn around Brayden has a spatula in his mouth, one time it only had butter on it. Yuck! Although he thought it was great!

Santa came to our house and both Matthew and Brayden were on his list. Matthew was excited but Brayden was a little scared. The missionaries came too and gave us a little spiritual message too.

These are from Christmas morning. Matthew got a train which he has been attached to ever since. We went over to my cousin's house for Christmas dinner and after about 2 hours or so Matthew came up to Nate and told him that we needed to go home because he missed his train and his train missed him too. Brayden loves his dump truck and drives it all over the house!

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Way behind

Here are some random pictures from Thanksgiving (I know it is almost Christmas but I haven't had a lot of computer time and our computer is being really slow so it is hard to be motivated to sit and wait for pictures to be uploaded, I know I am lazy)

It was my sister's birthday and she got a lamb cake. I know it looks a little funny but my Grandma Gooch used to make these for all of our birthdays so it was fun to have it!


Brayden in my parent's little red wagon. He loved it we could hardly keep him out!



Having fun with cousins.

Having fun with Grandpa and his cool truck!

We also had a wonderful Gooch family reunion. It was way fun! And we haven't had an official Gooch reunion since before I was born! It was fun to see everyone together and let the kids play!

Also, Nate and I ran another 10k. I beat my last time by about 5 minutes or so. So I was happy. Of course I don't have a picture, again. Oh well, I really did run it even if I don't have proof!

Lots of other cool things have happened like; playing in the snow, making cookies and a surprise visit from Santa but I will have to post about that later. I am tired and going to bed!

Twilight, sleeping and Christmas Trees

A little update of what has been going on in our life:

Had a wonderful girls night out to go and see the movie Twilight. It was fun to eat dinner and chat and to be excited like teenagers for a movie :o) Nate was wonderful and didn't complain. The boys were in fed and in bed by the time I got home, it was great.

The movie was ok, the book was much better (as usual). It was still entertaining. And I have found that my criteria for a good movie has changed. If it doesn't have any sex, swearing, and can keep me awake it is classified as a good movie!

Our group!

Lately Matthew has been fighting us on nap time. So on Sunday I didn't make him take one (we have 1pm church and it is hard to get him down at 11am). He seriously fell asleep mid sentence. He was telling me that he wasn't tired :o)

This year we are headed to AZ for Thanksgiving, so we decided to get a head start on our Christmas decorations. So for Family Home Evening we set up the tree. The boys already broke 4 ornaments and I lost count how many times Matthew has rearranged the ornaments!

Life in the Desert

So we went to my parent's house in Arizona last weekend and my dad kindly offered to watch the boys while Nate and I ran a few errands. We came back to find the boys in the pool in November (my parent's pool isn't heated). It was a nice 60 degrees in the pool. Matthew of course thought it was great and Brayden was trying to enjoy it but it was a little cold, not that I blame him.

Shortly after I took these pictures my dad convinced Matthew to jump all the way in the pool. As soon as he came up he looked at us and said, "I'm all wet" and then his teeth started to chatter. My dad then tried to convince him that he needed to stay in and then he would be warm. Matthew looked at him like he was crazy and we to get a towel :o)

Haircut

I cut the boy's hair last night. I almost cried cutting Brayden's. He has the cutest curl in the back of his hair and I love it. I have only cut his hair a couple of times but Nate has been asking me to cut it for a while now as it was getting really long. I kept ignoring his requests until a little boy across the street from us asked me if Brayden was a boy or a girl, that is really when I decided it was time. I am not a good hairstylist so the option is short if it is going to be anywhere close to being even. (it also doesn't help that Brayden cries like he is being abused and shakes his head the whole time, so please don't look too closely as it isn't even!)

I forgot to take a before picture of Brayden, this is the best I could find of his cute hair :o)

Halloween 2008

It was very scary this year!

We started off our celebrations by going to carnival at Thanksgiving Point (I know a little out of the way but we were in Utah for a football game!)


Matthew was a little scared to get on the horse but once he got on he told me that he was a real cowboy!

Matthew got to spend time with his 2 favorite Aunts! And I don't know why we bother trying to get a family picture any more. I guess I really need to learn photoshop :o)

Much to his father's dismay Matthew had a great time making himself a Halloween bracelet..it was very manly.

With the help of our neighbors we carved pumpkins (ok the boys got distracted and had fun sawing off the stem of the pumpkin, little boys and knifes what can I say?) Matthew and I also made Halloween spiders to hang in our spiderweb by the front door.

We got to go trick-or-treating twice! Once at our ward trunk-or-treat and then around our neighborhood. The boys did great and loved every minute of it. Brayden walked up and down our street just saying "tank-too!" (thank you). By the way can you tell what Brayden is? I had a few people ask me and I thought his costume was quite obvious!

Checking out their loot! After we were done Matthew told me, "I love Halloween, lets do it again" In fact on Sat night he came to me with his Thomas costume telling me it was time to go trick-or-treating, he wasn't real happy when I explained that Halloween was all over. Actually today he has been throwing up. Too much Halloween candy + Daylight savings time = bad news for little kids.

PS. I really will post some more pictures from Aruba soon. I keep forgetting to go and get our underwater camera developed, digital has made me lazy!

Happy Halloween!

Good Read

I just finished this book and it was wonderful and I am ready for Christmas! It is about the Jensen family who get 12 letters from Santa, who helps the family remember the true meaning of Christmas. My favorite gift/lesson he teaches is the gift of family. Here is a quote from the book,

"What would this world be without family? Where would you be without family? And what truly is a family?

A family is more than just a group of people living in the same household. It is more than people who share a common ancestor or relative. It is much more than a string of people on a pedigree chart. These are people who have been tied at the heart throughout generations of time and space...

The Savior referred to each and every one of us as his brother or sister, knowing that we share the same parentage-- a perfect Father in Heaven. What better ties could you have than that? You are literally the offspring of God! Despite what you face here on earth, how could you deny your potential when you come from such a royal lineage and such a perfect parentage?"

I think my favorite thing about Christmastime is being with family. Last year I got a little stressed trying to have the "perfect" Christmas, with cookies, candies, decorations, treats for the neighbors and all of the little things and to be honest it didn't make Christmas that fun. My husband lovingly helped me remember that isn't what Christmas is all about. Christmas is about celebrating the Savior's birth and the blessings he has bestowed upon us. What I loved about this book is that it helped me remember that our focus should be on the true miracle of this time of year and the real gifts of Christmas.

This is a great, fast read! I laughed, cried(often :), and had warm fuzzies. It is a great book to start off the Christmas season! Enjoy!

Love-ruba

A picture is worth a thousand words...



We had a great time!

More pictures to come :o)

Quote of the Day

Matthew: "Brayden, you a trouble-maker!"

Reminds me of another saying, "the pot calling the kettle black"

Aruba, Bahama, come on pretty mama...

Well, I am not sure why I haven't blogged about this yet (maybe because I couldn't believe the day would come!) On Thursday, Nate and I are leaving for Aruba, without our kids! Nate won an outstanding sales award last year, actually he found out he won the night I went into labor with Brayden. So we were supposed to go last October but we had just moved and I was still nursing so we decided to put it off for one year. And here we are, hooray! Our wonderful neighbors are going to take care of the boys while we are gone for 4 days (technically we will be gone 6 but with travel we will only be in Aruba for 4). Our neighbors have 3 boys, so I know that our boys will be all set playing! Also, as of right now there are no hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic, yea! Right now it looks like we will have some showers but hey at least no hurricanes! Needless to say we are a little excited for this weekend!

What we have been up to!

People keep asking me what I have been up to lately and it just seem like the same ol stuff but yet I seem to be really busy. So here is what we have been doing recently:


Canning! Lots of it! We have canned about 35 quarts of peaches and 20 of pears. Also some pear jam and some peach jam. I also froze a bunch of peaches too for ice cream, yum! The peach jam didn't really turn out it was odd, oh well!


Brayden helped me make brownies!


I ran into the office real quick to pay bills and I came out to see that the boys unloaded all of the silverware unto the floor. Brayden then decided to lick every piece. It was time for me to clean out that drawer anyway. Also, you can't tell but Matthew also got out the chocolate syrup and spilled some all over and then dumped the rest down the sink. So was chocolate syrup on the few pieces of silverware that Brayden didn't get to!



The ward campout! It was pretty fun and cold! We went up to Mt. Charleston which is only about an hour from our house and it was about 30 degrees colder. The boys loved the dirt, rocks and fires. Brayden ate a few too many marshmellows and woke up in the middle of the night moaning, poor guy. And Matthew woke up cause I think that he was cold. Our air mattress really isn't made for 4 people. So we all had naps when we got home!


This was actually Brayden's favorite part of camping, the water spout! What is it about little kids and water?

2 Minutes

Yesterday morning I was cleaning the kitchen and the boys were outside playing. I checked on them and then ran to the bathroom. When I came back this is what I found them doing:



Seriously 2 minutes and Brayden was completely soaking wet (and loving every minute of it). I just laughed, closed the door and went to get my camera! They are starting to play together really well and Matthew even shared the hose with Brayden. As you can see Brayden thought that was great! I guess it was time for our patio to get a bath (it has been a while since we vacuumed out there!)