Christmas 2013!

I love Christmas!  It's amazing how much more exciting it is when you have kids.  I love the excitement and anticipation of their little faces before and especially Christmas morning.  Christmas Eve we usually have the kids open books or pajamas or both.  I love the idea of increasing my children's library.  

Ragen has always told me I need to calm down when it comes to gift buying... you can blame my father for this, he is the same way. I can't help it, I get all these great ideas and combined with the excitement of Christmas, I can't help myself.  I love seeing the boys faces Christmas morning, even Ragen gets excited even though he tries to act tough and like Christmas isn't his favorite holiday, he really does love Christmas!  Ragen of course always spoils me. This year he got me a new iPhone and a bigger lense for my camera plus plenty more.  Ragen got plenty of new clothes to add to his golf wardrobe and the kids probably got everything they asked for.

That afternoon we headed over to my parents for Christmas with them as we will probably do as long as we live in I.F.  I love it!  I love that we are able to visit both families around the holidays.

Merry Christmas Everyone! From the Darrington's

Darrington Christmas Fun!

So we had our Annual get together with the Darrington's before Christmas.  Verla had planned for us all to go bowling and have pizza.  These kids love to be together and have so much fun.  Later we had our gift exchange back at the house. The kids loved their presents of course and all they wanted to do is play with them as fast as they can.  We had Ragen's brother Ryn and his family this year and we gave them a rock with their name on it like we have done for Brant and Mark and Verla in years past.  They loved it!  Now Brogan and Brit are going to expect one when it's their turn.  It's always a good time and Grandma and Grandpa Darrington's house especially around Christmas.

Preschool Christmas Program

I love seeing my boys grow up.  Kree has been loving his preschool class at the Apple.  They put together a cute little Christmas program for families.  Kree was so cute! It took him a little while to get into it but then he really started getting excited.  He had a lot of people to show off to, his Grandma/Grandpa Hunter, Darrington and Wrigley were all there as well as his Mommy and Daddy and Treker.  We were all so proud of him!

Christmas Traditions!

So I love Christmas time, mainly for all the Christmas Traditions.  As a young family I want to start some traditions of our own.  I love decorating the tree and the kids are starting to love it too and want to help, sometimes too much but I love that they want to. Especially now that we are in our own home, I want those traditions and hopefully they will want to pass them down to their kids or create their own.  We started doing the Elf on the Shelf.  It's amazing how the kids have reacted to it and want to try and be "good" all the time. Oh they still have their moments but they are more aware of trying to be good.  We have had fun trying to come up with some fun things to do with our Elf and sometimes it is frustrating trying to figure out something as well.  The kids named our Elf ... Scout and they love searching for him every morning. Another one we like to do is visit Santa.  The kids still get a little shy and hesitant but they love the idea of it all.

Halloween 2013

So we always try to carve pumpkins every year for Halloween.  We are not the best carvers but we have fun!  Kree is always a little nervous to reach inside and pull the guts out and Treker wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I think we did a pretty good job!

We also tried to make it to Declo so that Grandma/Grandpa Darrington can see the boys costumes.  Since we live 2 hours away is not always the easiest but who can pass up some yummy treats from Grandma.

We were able to attend our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  The kids were so excited for their costumes this year and I have to say so myself... they are pretty darn stinkin cute!

State Volleyball always runs around Halloween time... this year it was in Couer D'Alene.  Since I help out some with the program and my mom travels with the team... I talked my dad into driving with me and the boys up North to watch.  They brought their costumes but I forgot to take a picture.  All the volleyball girls had treats at their rooms so the boys went around and trick-or-treated at each door. The girls adore the boys and vise-versa.  It was pretty cute!  I did however get a picture of the boys with Grandma Hunter and her Halloween mask.