Christmas Crafting/Baking Fun

There are so many cute and fun Christmas crafts out there, especially on Pinterest.  I was dying to give a few a try.

One day, Madi and I made cinnamon ornaments for our little Christmas tree. They smelled so yummy! 

I made these cute little snowmen for Madi's Christmas party at preschool. 

And these cute reindeer cookies for my primary class.

For FHE one night we made gingerbread houses. Madi had a lot of fun. Especially eating the candy instead of putting it on the house. 

Now Madi is obsessed with building houses.  She stacks her books on top of each other and says, "Mom, house. House. Mom, house. I build a house." Then she stacks her sippy cup on top of her plate and says "Mom, house. House. Mom, house. I build a house."  Every time she sees the gingerbread house sitting on the counter she points it out.  It's pretty cute how much she loves that we built a house together and that it's made of candy. 

Christmas Day

I'm 24 and I still get giddy and excited for Christmas. Will that ever go away? I hope not.  

Luckily Madi is still young and doesn't understand that if she gets up earlier we will open presents sooner.  So we got to sleep in until 8am Christmas day! Score! First thing we did when everyone woke up was open our gifts from Santa. 

Here is a video of Madi opening her favorite present. I love her facial expression.  So cute! (Sorry for the shakiness. I was trying to make sure I got her face.)

Madi also got some horsies from Santa.  She was putting them in between her legs and trying to ride them.  

After we opened Santa gifts we had a yummy breakfast of sausage and gravy.

  

This is the learning tower that Bruce built for Madi.  For all of us really.  Madi is always asking to "help" or "watch" when we are doing anything at the counter.  This way she can be up there with us and I don't have to worry about her falling or the chair sliding out from under her.  We love it!!

Helping daddy make sweet potato casserole.

I have had several people ask me if Madi is always so quiet. The answer is no.  Here is the proof.

After breakfast we headed to Church.  I LOVED being able to go to church on Christmas day.  What better way to celebrate Christ's birth than to go to church?  Church that day was amazing. There were several talks and musical numbers all centered on Christ's birth.  The spirit was so strong during the closing song, I don't think there was a dry eye in the congregation.  I love my church. 

Our little family on Christmas Day. 

The "kids"

Whole fam.

No words.

After church and a nap we opened the rest of our Christmas presents.  It was a lot of fun watching Madi this year. Crazy how much she has changed since last Christmas.

Posing with the cute TOMS that my mom got Madi for Christmas.  She is too spoiled.  We need some more grandkids to share the love with.

I just love Christmas.  I love the spirit that it brings and I love the reason we celebrate it. I love my Savior. I love my family.  I am so blessed.  So very blessed. 

Christmas Eve

Off to Grandma's house we go for a little Christmas Eve celebration.  I have so many good memories of Christmas Eve's and Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Eating a scrumptious meal at the "kids" table, having to wait forever for the grown ups to clean up dinner so we could start all the fun stuff, dressing up and acting out the manger scene, listening to Grandpa read Luke 2, trying to recite Twas The Night Before Christmas with Grandma as she read it, snowball competitions, and of course, opening presents. 

Now that we are all grown and most of our cousins have moved away...nothing has changed. :)  Here are some pictures from the night. And because I'm too lazy to group them together in the editor, you get to scroll down to Africa to see all of them.  Sorry. 

Me and the hubs.

Zack and Allie being cute with Madi.                          

Father.                            

Mom and Pops.

Bruce and Madi post opening her Christmas PJ's.

Sibs. 

Our normal faces. 

Madi with Uncle "ess en" (Weston)

Snowball time! Everyone gets a scoop of ice cream (snowball) with a candle in it.
 We light the candles and the person to eat their ice cream and keep the candle burning the longest wins. 

Bruce was the wiiiiiner this year!

Gma.

We also like to have sleepovers on Christmas Eve.  This is the whole clan ready for bed in our newly finished room. 

This is us being excited for Santa come.  

Now it's off to dreamland as we wait for Santa to come and fill our stockings. Yes, Santa still fills our stockings and brings us presents even though we are "old". He's so magical. :)

Thanksgiving

Yay Thanksgiving! For Thanksgiving we got to fly out to Utah. Woot Woot! As always, I freaked out a little bit when I thought about flying with Madi. I'm always scared she will have a melt down or be cranky on the plane.  And as always, she was an angel.  Seriously, she did amazing.  When I told her it was time to take a nap, she grabbed her dog and her blanket, laid back, closed her eyes, and went to sleep (true story).  And when I said jump, she said how high. Ok not really. But she was that good.

We flew into Vegas on Monday night and stopped for dinner at Cafe Rio on our way up to St. George. Umm...yum.  I miss that place so much.  Luckily I found a copycat recipe that I can make any time I want. :)

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent preparing the house, grocery shopping, and getting everything ready for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was mostly your typical Thanksgiving day.  Cooking, cooking, cooking, and eating, eating, and eating.

But Thanksgiving would not be complete in the Hymas family without a morning workout.   On the menu that morning was "death by push-ups".  Long story short, Bruce did about 200 push ups and I did about 90.  Crazy workout, but fun.  Especially when everyone is doing it together.

And of course who eats Thanksgiving dinner without making napkin bunnies?  ;)

Also, isn't it just the cutest when the husbands clean up dinner? :) 

After dinner we took the kids to the park to run off some steam.  It is so fun to see Madi running around on the playground.  At one point she was climbing a ladder that was a little scary for her. When she got to the top she raised the roof and said, "woot woot".

On Friday we hiked the Temple Quarry Trail. I really miss living so close to the mountains and being able to go on little hikes like that.  The Temple Quarry was where they mined rocks for the foundation of the St. George Temple. You could still see the holes from where they drilled the blasting mines. Cool dude! ;)

Later that night we grilled out and made smores.

Saturday we took family pictures before everyone left. 

Grammy and Papo with all the grandkids.

 And later that evening we took the girls for a carrousel ride and grabbed some ice cream at Neilsen's Frozen Custard.

We also wanted to be able to visit with family up in Provo so Sunday after church we made the trek.  It was really fun visiting Provo. Driving around brought back a lot of memories from when Bruce and I where dating.  Aw, tender. hehe. ;).  It was also good to visit with family and friends up there too.

Monday was spent running around town doing things that out-of-town-ers do when they visit Utah. Like going to the Distribution Center and Deseret Book. We also went to Temple Square to see all the lights.  My little brother Zacky, who is going to school at BYU, got to come with us!  When I was living in Utah I always wanted to have one of my siblings out there with me.  Then right before Zack decided to go to BYU we moved to NC.  Just my luck!  But it was fun being out there at the same time, even if it was for only a couple of days.

Tuesday was spent visiting old teammates and roommates and getting ready to leave the next day.  By Tuesday I think we were all a little vacationed out and ready to come home and get back into a good routine.

I couldn't have asked for a better trip.  In the words of Simba from the Lion King (the movie we watched several times on our trip) it was "slimy, yet satisfying". Ok, maybe not slimy.  But we were fully satisfied with our trip and all the things we got to do and people we got to see.  I am so grateful that we were able to make it out this year.  I loved spending time with family.  Life doesn't get much better than that.  I am so very very blessed to have such a wonderful family, to have my health, and the gospel in my life. My Heavenly Father is so good to me.  Oh how I love Him so. :)

Some pics of Madi with her cousins.

Halloween Festivities

When we went to the pumpkin patch we let Madi get her own little pumpkin. She got to paint hers and then we carved the big one.

For Halloween Bruce went as Justin Bieber and I was his biggest fan.  Don't ask how we came up with that one. (We may or may not have been watching a Justin Bieber video on Youtube). Madi, obviously, was a ladybug.

Bieber Fever and Brittany and Justin B. FOREVER! <3

At our church's trunk or treat Bruce had a couple of girls come up to him and ask if he was Justin Bieber.  When he said yes they were so excited. Bruce talked to them for a little bit and then I asked if I could take a picture.  They were so excited about that.  They were star struck. Cute!

Here are some pics of Madi trick-or-treating.  She was really unsure at first but eventually got the hang of it. 

Here are some pics of Madi's Hal Pal week at gymnastics.  They get to dress up in their costumes, have fun games, bring a friend, and they even got a visit from the tumble bunny.  It is fun to watch how Madi improves in her class each week.  She is doing forward rolls all over the house now.  She was even doing them at Target the other day while we were trying shoes.

Zzzzzzzzz...

So my favorite part of the day, hands down, is putting Madi to bed.  I know what you are probably thinking.  I love putting Madi to bed because then I get to have some time to relax and some time for myself.  While this may be partly true, it's not really the reason.  

I love putting Madi to bed because it is great quality time for us.  We have so much fun reading books, singing songs, chasing each other around, playing peek-a-boo under the bed, and just laughing and having a good time.  And of course I love having scripture study and prayer together too. Our bedtime routine is probably 45 minutes long because of this, but it's all fun and I love every minute of it.

We have this game we play and it is so adorable.  I will whisper something for Madi to do (i.e. go give daddy kisses, or go tickle daddy's feet), she will go do it, run back and kneel down in front of me and just look up and me waiting for her next "mission" as we call it.  She will even whisper with me.  It is so cute and just makes me so happy.  

Here is a video of us having fun before bedtime.