Gingerbread Houses With Our Cousins

This was a whole lot of work but it sure was fun. Instead of doing presents for my niece and nephew, my sister-in-law Jammie and I decided to do a fun day together. Last year we did ornaments and sugar cookies. This year we did gingerbread houses. The kids had so much fun decorating their own houses.

I had never made homemade gingerbread before, I had only made the graham cracker kind before, but they turned out pretty good.

Avery, and her cousins Jordan and Brenden.

Hayden was having the time of her life eating all of the candy she could get her hands on. (She is wearing yet another one of her fabulous outfits)

I thought this picture was so cute of Avery whispering a secret to Jordan.

The finished products. They look great! The kids are already begging me to let them take them apart and eat them. I told them that I need to admire my hard work a little longer!

We Are All Ready!!

I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. We are all ready for Christmas! Last night we delivered our treats to our friends and neighbors.

Hayden was thoroughly enjoying it as you can see. She just did not understand why we didn't want her to put her fingers in everything.

Jaxton thought it all looked pretty yummy!

The smile on my face is one of relief. I spent way too much time doing the treats this year. I don't know what I was thinking.

I made peppermint bark, homemade caramels, Nat's caramel and chocolate covered pretzels, oatmeal caramelitas, chocolate filled bars, spritz cookies, and lemon cookies. Everything was delicious if I do say so myself. I have eaten way to much as I was "testing" them all to make sure they were okay.

And finally, all of our presents are wrapped. I was waiting to wrap them because I knew they would be too tempting. Hayden has done surprisingly well with them though. She has picked them up and carried them around, but she hasn't attempted to open any of them. Sometimes she surprises me in the good way! Most of her surprises are not the good kind. Hallie and Avery have had so much fun shaking all of the presents and trying to figure out what they are!

Now all that is left is to make gingerbread houses with the cousin's on Saturday then down to Nick's mom's for Christmas celebration on Sunday. Should be a pretty fun weekend! Merry Christmas everyone!

Haircut Day!

Yesterday was haircut day at the Morton house.

Hayden all ready for her cut. (Ignore the huge piles of laundry and dishes behind her, I certainly was able to, they are all gone now.)

Hallie post cut pulling a funny face. Honestly it is getting harder to take a picture of her with all of her posing. Half of them come out blurry because she is moving from pose to pose so quickly.
She was pretty excited about her new do. She already has gotten a couple of complements on it. She was walking around shaking her head to show off her hair. She is such a funny girl.

Yes she dressed herself once again, that is the tag of the shirt you see there. Inside out AND backwards, at least she got the shirt on top this time! I think this was outfit number 2 of 4 yesterday.
Hayden now has slightly less of a mullet. I swear the top of her hair is not growing at all. I just keep cutting the bottom and the top is just not growing to catch up.

Nick and Sadie got new cuts too! Nick is so funny with his dog. He doesn't look like the kind of guy who would have a poodle, but he loves this dog.

You can't tell in these pictures but Nick trimmed her way too short. I call her the rat dog, because her legs are so skinny and then her belly is so big. It is much worse when she doesn't have hair to cover it all up. She kind of looks like the dog on How the Grinch stole Christmas.

At least she has plenty of volume in the ears!

Avery just got a little trim. She is still trying to grow her hair out from Hallie cutting it back in March. She was all upset about getting a trim because she wants to have long hair again.

Update On Our Little Man

Jaxton saw the cardiologist today. He had an echo cardiogram and also an EKG. The echo cardiogram took over an hour. That is such a long time for a five month old to have to hold still. Luckily he slept for the first half an hour because after he woke up he wanted to chew on all of the wires and roll all over and he kept arching his back trying to get away.

After a very long 3 hour doctor appointment, he had enough of sitting still. But all of the news was very good. On his last echo, he had a hole in his heart that has totally closed up. Also on his last echo his heart functionality was borderline, today it was 100% normal. The doctor wants to see him again in three months and as long as he hasn't had anymore episodes of the SVT, he will let him start outgrowing his medicine. If all goes well with that, he should be off of the medicine when he is one year and 3 weeks old. Hooray!

We are so grateful that everything is going so well. The inconveniences that we face with his medication and doctor's appointments are so minor. We are so grateful to all of you who have fasted and prayed for him. We know your prayers have been heard and answered. We just love our Jaxton and can't imagine our family without him.

Thanks Honey!

This is just a shout out to my awesome husband. He finished his job early last week and so he has been home helping me today and all weekend. Saturday he cleaned all day. He did laundry, cleaned the bathrooms and vacuumed. He even got the kids to the Ward Christmas party by himself. I had to be there early for choir practice.

Sunday I had a full day of giving the lesson in Relief Society, 2 choir practices and a choir concert. Nick got all 4 kids to church by himself, and then was home for a large part of the day by himself keeping the house clean and making dinner to top it all off.

Today he stayed home with Hayden, Avery and Jaxton while I got to spend the whole day with Hallie, volunteering in her classroom. It was a great day and it was great to do something different today and it was so fun to see Hallie in action in her class. The house was even still clean when I got home! Thanks Nick for such a great couple of days.

Doesn't She Look Pretty?

Someone took advantage of the fact that mom was feeding Jaxton and decided to do her own makeup. At least she managed to not get any on her clothes.

Our Little White Trash "Seerella"

Hallie was given this Cinderella dress about four years ago, and she really liked it and wore it quite a bit. Avery also liked it when she was about three. Hayden has taken it to a new level. She is OBSESSED with this dress and insists on wearing it everyday, from the moment she wakes up until she goes to bed.

She is brokenhearted everyday when I make her take it off when we have to run errands. Last week I had to sneak it away from her while she was sleeping to wash it. It wreaked from being worn every day for a week. I kept meaning to get it washed, but it just didn't happen. Every morning she was so disappointed, she would wake up come straight to my room and ask "Where my Seerella?"

I did laundry last night and it was finally clean. I left it out for her on the couch last night. 6:30 this morning she came running in my room, so excited "my Seerella dress is clean." She has been wearing it ever since.

As you can see, there are holes all over the dress, the top layer of fabric is mostly missing, and a couple of weeks ago, we had to finally rip off the sleeves, as they were barely hanging on by a thread.

It is pretty trashy looking, but she loves it. Grandma even got her a new Cinderella dress for her birthday and she liked it for a little while, but she remains obsessed with this dress. What a cute little white trash Seerella

Hometown Buffet

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Ours was good but busy. It started Saturday morning with a special treat and an all around wonderful experience of going to Hometown Buffet for breakfast. I hate Hometown Buffet, but breakfast isn't too bad. The kids love it, you would think we told them we were going to Disneyland, they get so excited. I think it is the combination of being able to serve yourself up, and the dessert bar, which , if you were wondering, is open for breakfast.

The trip is always made really special by the assortment of very interesting people who are there. Saturday was extra special because of one very special lady. She and her entire party, probably about eight people, moved tables three times. They would all get seated and then one member of their party thought they were too close to a window, or walkway or vent, so they would all move. Well somewhere in the chaos, she lost her bib. Yes you read that right, her bib. Not to worry though , she soon found it. Of course it was a homemade bib, I'm not sure you can buy them anywhere. It was a nice Christmas print, about two and a half feet long and it tied with a nice big bow in the back.

Nick and I were trying so hard to keep our composure as the family searched for her bib. Both of us were like, "did she say bib?" as she kept saying rather loudly, "I've lost my bib, where did my bib go?" Sorry to make fun of people, I know it isn't very nice, but I thought it was so funny and I just keep thinking about it and laughing.