2009 Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. Brett and I both loved watching Christmas through Jaxson's eyes. He was so happy with his ball from Santa that could have been Christmas enough for him. Jaxson, Brett and myself received so many nice presents. We were spoiled this year. Jaxson started coughing Christmas Eve afternoon, was up all night long but still managed to enjoy Christmas. We found out on Saturday that he had an ear infection--no fun--he is already feeling better thankfully. We had to talk him into putting his ball next to him and opening presents.

I gave Brett a 32 GB IPOD touch. He was very happy with it and played with it almost non stop Christmas day. I was clueless when I bought it and had no idea all the things it could do. After I found out it made more sense why they cost what they do. =) In October I accidentally washed his MP3 player that he uses daily at work he was a great sport about it and thankfully held off getting something else so I could have a great Christmas gift for him.

Brett completely surprised me with the beautiful Kitchen Aid. My Oprah trip was suppose to be my Christmas and Anniversary gift this year but when I walked into the kitchen this gorgeous Kitchen Aid was waiting for me. I've been using my mom's almost weeklysince Aug. to make things for Jax and our family. I'm so excited to have my very own I'll for sure put it to use. It's a special addition so the bowl is glass and all the attachments are silver. I couldn't have picked a better one myself. I just love it!

We spent the morning opening our presents in our home, then went to my parents for our annual Christmas breakfast my parents cook up a storm. I'm not much of a big breakfast eater but I do love their Christmas breakfast. We then go and see each other's Christmas. Jaxson napped he was so tired and Brett and I prepared our food assignments for his parents Christmas dinner. We went down to his parents home. Brett went sledding and snowboarding on a hill his dad had made for them in their back yard (it was funny seeing Brett turn back into a little kid again) , we ate dinner and opened more fantastic presents. It was a perfect Christmas except Jax-a-roo feeling under the weather. Hope you had a Christmas too!

Christmas Eve

This year we spent Christmas Eve at my parents home. We had a great dinner. My amazing and very thoughtful mom went out of her way to make sure everything but the ham was something Jaxson could eat. That meant a lot to me. My parents always put together a gift exchange of some kind for us to play. It's gets better every year as the nieces and nephews get older and "stealing" a gift is fun. We also played a new gift exchange. Every family thought of a service they would like to give away to another family and we did another kind of gift exchange and each family won a service. Our family won Aunt Elizabeth's famous homemade yummy salsa and chips. Grandpa and Grandma won ours swimming at the rec with Jaxson and treats afterwords. We ended our night with a fun ride on the Naples firetruck thanks to Dave. We sang Christmas songs and watched for Santa the whole ride. Jaxson feel asleep towards the end of the ride. It made for a simple and easy bedtime--loved that!=) I didn't take too many pictures I was having a great time and totally forgot to snap pictures but here are two I did take during the night.

Before the Holidays

Last year I heard of a family that does an annual progressive dinner around Christmas time so they can see each other's home's during the Christmas season. I loved that idea and wanted to copy it. So I mentioned it to both families. Carolee thought it would be fun to do it on a Monday night for family home evening. So the Monday before Christmas we did a Family Home Evening progressive dinner. It was so much fun. We started at Hedi and Jeff's house they did the appetizer and prayer. We then went to Joey and Nick's for veggies and songs. We had dinner at Leif and Roxanna's and they did the scripture. We came to our home for the lesson. We did the birth of Christ. We then went to Brett's mom and dad's for treats and the activity. Carolee made sugar cookie stockings and a yummy bunt cake. For our activity we did a gift exchange. It was such a fun night. I hope it becomes our new family tradition. I loved seeing every ones home all decorated for Christmas and it was also fun to do a big family home evening with everyone. I wouldn't mind doing it a couple of times through out the year.The kids doing songs!
Dinner

We had a December play day with Jaxson's younger cousins. RyLee and Kylen were able to make it. We played toys, ate a Christmas lunch, made a craft, did playdough, bubbles and read stories.
I made Jaxson Christmas cupcakes last year and decided I would do it every year. This year we added Snowmen and Santa's. I thought they turned out so amazing!

Dressed in our Christmas clothes for church. I loved Jaxson's Sunday Christmas outfit this year he looked so adorable.
Our ward had a Christmas party the second week of December. At the end of the party there was a special visitor, Santa. Jaxson loved watching him and was very excited Santa was there. When it was his turn to sit on Santa's lap he wasn't as excited. I thought we were going to get the classic screaming and crying with Santa picture. He didn't cry but I think he was happy and relieved to get off his lap he did love the sack of goodies Santa had brought him.

On Monday, December 14 we had a family dinner and FHE at Eric and Elizabeth's. Santa stopped on by to see what the kids were wishing for. This is one of my favorite things we do during the Christmas season as an Olsen family. I remember as a little girl we would have Santa come to our home and I always felt so special that Santa would come to our home. All of Jaxson's cousin went before him so when it was his turn he walked over to Santa all by himself, asked for a ball, admired his bread and loved his sack from Santa filled with goodies and toys.

Santa's coming!
Having a heart to heart with Santa about bring him a ball.

Nicki's Baby Shower

Last weekend we had my sister-in-law Nicki's baby shower. She's due February 28 (the day after Jaxson's birthday) with a boy. They are going to name him Jayden. I'm so excited to have Jayden in our family. Nicki and Joey have been wanting and waiting for a baby for while. Jayden is a big blessing to his mom and dad and our family. I know Aunt MarShel is loven' on him right now but I can't wait to see and hold him soon.
My wonderful hubby came in the morning and let me boss him around. He put up our tables, chairs and snowflakes without complaining. What a man!

Our tables. It looked so beautiful.

Our food table. We had corn chowder, taco soup, breadstick and salad. For dessert we had mini cupcakes, mini peppermint sugar cookies, mini peanut butter hershey kiss cookies, fudge and toffee. YUM!

Our party favors. I made blue and white mother goose popcorn and tied an upside down candy cane ( 'J' for Jayden) and then scrabooked a tag that had Jayden Morton on it. They turned out so cute and I think looked adorable in a red wagon.

Nicki opening presents. She got LOTS of great things. Little tiny baby things are so adorable.

Christmas Trees

Every year we go with my family to the mountain to get our Christmas tree. I love having a real tree in our home. This year was special my brother Greg and his three kids went with us. We cut down trees and had lunch. After getting our trees we then went to my parents home and did our annual gingerbread houses. Bless my mom's heart it's so much prep work to do these she makes one for all the grandkids and then one for all of us momies and herself--that's A LOT of gingerbread houses. Mom you're the best! I didn't get any pictures of us actually doing them. It was a crazy busy, sticky, fun candy time so no pictures. I do have have one of how they turned out.Jaxson ready to find our tree. He loved his boots. While Brett was putting them on he keep saying, "Wow".

cousin Gracie, Brianna and Halle with Jaxson

On their way to find our Christmas tree

I just love this picture. My boys are so good looking!

My hunky husband caring our tree to our truck

Jax loved the snow

Helping dad drag our tree
Hanging out with cousin Brianna and Carston
Jaxson with the two girls he adores--Grandma and Abbie.

Jaxson and my gingerbread houses

Our Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we were with the Erickson family. Brett's grandma Erickson turned 90 in November so the day after Thanksgiving they were having a big birthday party for her so all of Brett's Erickson family was in town. It was a total of around 88 people I believe. We had Thanksgiving dinner all together at Brett's Aunt Anita's church. It was fun to be with such a big group of people. They had went all out and had decorated for the dinner it was beautiful. It was also so nice to have such a big place for the kids to play. I cooked low protein: stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie and banana cream pie for my little guy. Jaxson has become a little basketball star and since there were hoops around he could have cared less what was on his plate he just wanted to shoot hoops. He is taking after his dad and is in love with basketball!

Jaxson and Kylen were watching the older kids shoot hoops. Kylen and Jaxson playing ball.

Playing ball with Grandpa

My little basketball star

A little dodge ball after eating

Watching the game. Darwin (Brett's dad), Heidi (Brett's sister), Jax and myself.

The day after Thanksgiving Brett's whole family did pictures at the Vernal temple grounds. I haven't gotten copies of those pictures but we did some Erickson cousin pictures before we all left. Here are some of the cousins that we LOVE playing with! There is Jaxson, Kylen, Kaysia, Payton and RyLee.
Brett dancing with Grandma Erickson at her 90th birthday party. They had a program and at the end they had all Grandma Erickson's grandson's take turns dancing with grandma. They danced in order of birth it was so adorable. If I live to be 90 and have grandson's I want to do that.=) Brett's grandma Erickson is so special. She is spunky, fun and just an all around sweet and wonderful lady.

"O" I Loved Every Moment!

My trip to Oprah....the BEST ! I have wanted to blog about it but life has been crazy and super busy. Sadly blogging about Oprah had to take a back seat for a while. But I'm now ready to spill the details and pictures about my trip so if you're not an Oprah fan or someone that doesn't like to read long blog post them this one is not for you!=)

So my very lucky sister-in-law Elizabeth (the one who actually won the 4 tickets after 4 years of trying), our friend Cindy and myself flew out of Grand Junction, CO to Denver on a Thursday night. We then flew to Chicago. (on the plane to Chicago!)

We arrived in Chicago around 10:30 pm their time. (We've made it to CHICAGO!)

We got to our hotel, figured out how we would be getting around Chicago and got to bed around 12:30am. We then were up at 4am to get ready for Oprah! We rode the blue line, kind of like a subway (well it's somewhat of a subway it goes underground and above ground), a bus for a few split second and then walked down Michigan Ave to the ever so famous Harpo Studios. (Cindy and I on the blue line)

Elizabeth was the first to see Harpo and I'll never forget her scream and instant sprint. We were all VERY excited. It was so unbelievable to see Harpo studio-got my heart pumping and made it feel very real what we were there to do.

(Harop studios!)

When we got to Harpo we had to show our ID's to 2 different people in 2 different spots before we even stepped foot in the actually building. We were told there would be no pictures and no cell phones so sadly such a memorable event was only captured in my mind. I would have loved to have took some pictures inside the building, all well. Once inside the building we went through metal detectors, checked our coats and had our purses completely looked through. There were four people doing purse checked wearing white gloves and they where digging and going through every inch of the purse. Myself and Cindy got our purses back minus our camera and cell phones Elizabeth and her sister purses where kept because they were too big along with our phones and cameras till the end of the show . The room where all this is going on has big pictures of Oprah giving away the cars. We then went upstairs where you sign a paper giving your rights away to Harpo of anything you might say or shots taken of you. This room was huge with big pictures of Oprah with different guest. There is probably about 8 and each wall. There were 2 big screen tv's playing her 20th anniversary cd's. We waiting in that room for almost an hour. They then started calling people into the audience. Walking into her audience was so super cool. It was so mind blowing to be passing through areas that I've seen before while watching her show and signs that say the Oprah Winfrey Show. You walk through the area where Oprah use to walk out and touch peoples hands (for those of you who are big time Oprah watchers). The studio looked a lot smaller to me then I had imagined it. We get our seats and there are around 20 crew men getting camera and stage stuff ready. One guy is vacuuming the spot where Oprah will stand and after he's done two guys start scrubbing the floor that has absolutely nothing on it. Upbeat music is playing and then a lady comes out to get you all excited and then they play Black Eye Pea's song "I've got a Feeling" talk about getting your adrenaline going. I didn't catch this lady's name but she beautiful and very well spoken. I enjoyed listening to her. When it's almost time she tells us "Ladies you can hold your pee for 1 hour. Enjoy the show because it's going to go by fast" Boy was she right the whole show felt like only 15 min it went by so fast.

About 45 sec to Oprah Live Oprah walks out--AMAZING! I could feel tears starting to come to my eyes (nerdy I know) it was so amazing to be actually seeing her in person. She asks Dean (her stage manager) how much time he tells her like 30 sec. and she makes some comment about her shoes being only 1 hour shoes and that the clock is ticking. She had on HIGH HIGH heels. She didn't look different size wise to me but she was shorter then I thought she would be. Hair and makeup perfect.

Oprah interviews Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight Series. At one point in the interview Oprah mentions giving away 600 box sets of her books to a school and that the audience would not be left out. Everyone jumped out of their seat we were all soooo excited to be leaving the show with something. After Stephanie Meyers they had Robin Givens on she's Mike Tyson's ex wife. They ended the show with announcing the karaoke winner and having the winner sing us out. While he was sing Oprah walked and stood by the side we were sitting on and she was within feet from me. WOW--heart attach!=)

After the show she stood back on her stage and express her application for us all coming to see her. She was so sincere and knew that sacrifices, time, new clothes and babysitters had to planned for us to be there. I loved Oprah before but REALLY loved her after going to her show. Oprah left a few minutes after the tapping and one of her workers told us we get our Twilight box set as we left and we could take it to the Oprah store and Stephanie would sign one book

(Just after the show with our gift! Waiting in line to get it signed by Stephanie Meyer!)

(Robin Givens came to the Oprah store after the taping. She was skinny and so kind!)

The Oprah store was so beautiful.

In front of the famous Harpo Studios sign! People recognize our Oprah green bags and asked us everywhere we went about Oprah and what free thing she had given to us! So fun!

Walking to the Harpo sign we passed the famous paring lot where the new cars were given away sadly no new cars for us that day.=)

Cindy and I in the Taxi. It was both of us first time to ride a taxi, kind of scary. I would not like to drive down town Chicago--crazy.

A worker at the Oprah store told us we had to eat at Giordano's and have their world famous Chicago deep dish pizza.

We then did some shopping at the famous Magnificent Mile. It's a mile of upscale stores. We went to the Hershey store and the The America Girl Place store before time ran out. We then rode the bus and blue line back to our hotel. Wow we were exhausted from such a memorable perfect day!

Saturday morning we're ready to come back to Utah to our loved ones!