Skating!!

This past week we stayed mostly at my sister's house, but over the weekend we did make a trip to Price. We played tons of games with Rich's family and even did a little shopping. Kai loved seeing his little cousins again and it was a short trip, but worth every minute. Tonight we went roller skating for my nieces birthday because all the ice skating rinks were closed. Kailer traded off between rollerskates and a scooter that we rented as well. He was a bit high maintenance, needing both hands held while rollerskating and taking them on and off to use the scooter. He loved it though and he was even the last one of our group on the floor! Meili loved the music and rocked out and ate food. It was such a fun evening and all the kids had a great time. Here's some pics :)

It's Xmas Time!!!

We celebrated our own family xmas before we left for UT. Kai woke up at 6 am and saw the living room full of presents and saw that the cookies and milk he had left for santa was deduced to crumbs and he was wired. I'm actually not sure how Rich got him back to sleep with out waking Meili up, but an hour later he did and we did our xmas at 9 when Meili woke up! It was beautiful and so much fun to have our own family time. Kailer's loot consisted of games, which he loves, a transformer, backugans, and a hunting game, which I think was really for Rich :) He was so so happy and he was so cute. He would open a present and then bring one for Meili to open. He would wait for her to finish and then he would open one, without even being prompted! It was so sweet. Meili's loot consisted of a baby and stroller, which she loves, and a backpack and purse so she can stop unloading mine! They also got a mini trampoline and a kitchen, complete with food, for our playroom. Was a wonderful morning and day! They played with toys all day long, going from one thing to the next. It was so fun :)

Before we left we went to a local xmas lights place with a bunch of festive things to do. It was all decked out in lights and decor and it had a train that we absolutely had to ride, per Kailer, and it had this cute little plastic slide that they both loved. They went up and down for probably a half hour. We got hot chocolate and popcorn and enjoyed the xmas spirit! It was so much fun.

Since we are staying at my sister's house for xmas vacation we had to take advantage of being so close to temple square. We went tonight and it was 25 degrees and needless to say my kids are warmblooded pansies and they, well mostly Meili. She started wimpering the minute I put gloves on her. Kai actually did ok, but he wanted to be held and his only request, once we were inside the visitors center, was to see the "big picture of Jesus". So we went upstairs to see the christus statue and he wanted to sit and listen to the presentation. The lights actually weren't as spectacular as in years past, but there were still some beautiful areas. We really missed our Daddy, he flew home to work until he comes back xmas eve! Here's a few pics of the evening :)

Visitors

We got a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Holt this weekend. It was so great to see them and have them stay at our house. We had a buffet dinner on Friday night and spent Saturday checking out the latest progress on the Hoover Dam, which is pretty impressive, and doing some xmas shopping. We got to attend Rich's cousin's wife, Sarah's, baptism. It was such an awesome experience and so neat to be a part of it. Kailer soaked it all in, and has been talking about getting baptized. We loved having them here and can't wait for them to come again. Here's a few pics of the events!

Ps... Meili loves shoes :)

D-Land!!!

My friend Ambrea and I took our kids to D-land for a day last week! She lives about 15 min from the park and takes her kids about once every week. I wanted to go with someone who knew the ropes for my first time there and I'm glad we went, but it was really sad not to have Rich there for our first time. We probably rode about 8 rides and Kailer said his favorite was Monsters Inc ride. We also saw and awesome Christmas parade with all the characters in it. That was probably one of the highlights for him. There were huge nutcrackers, snowmen, snowflake princesses on rollerskates, and all the characters, and it was even complete with Santa and Mrs. Clause. It was so cool! Kai really wanted a picture with a princess so he saw Alice and said "I want a picture with that princess!" I said, that's Alice in Wonderland. He said, "Oh I really need a picture with her!" So, we made it happen, he was the only boy in the crowd of girls around her, but I told him to just go stand by her and he did and we snapped a super cute photo! We stayed all day with 4 kids under the age of 3 and people everywhere were giving us looks like, "oh my gosh, they really are crazy!" Actually, that's not far from the truth. We were a bit crazy, but actually people were nice about helping us out. By the end of the night I was holding 2 sleeping kids, one in each arm, on the train ride home. It was a lot of work, but totally worth it. I would do it again in a minute. I don't have a problem doing fun things with my kids even when it requires work, otherwise, we'd just sit home! We stayed for fireworks at the end of the night and it was the best fireworks show I've ever seen, then they even made fake snow fall after the show. Kai was so pleasantly shocked about the snow he said, "OH MY GOSH MOM! I CAN NOT EVEN BELIEVE IT!" He also told me, "Mom, Disney Land was so meat!" Yes, meat is the new NEAT! He was so excited and it was a perfect ending to an awesome day. We had a great time with Ambrea and her kids and can't wait to go to D-land again!

Watching a play :)
Brigham & Kai

Kai also had his last T-ball game this last week and he has done so well and has had so much fun doing it. He gets so excited and so into it. It was such a fun season and he might even do it again in the spring so we are excited for that! He had a party with his team at Chucky Cheese and he even got a trophy. It was pretty cute. Here are a few pics :)

Deep Conversations....
Waving at the onlookers...

Coach Pete and the trophy :)

New Slide Show!!!

Check it out! :)

Thanksgiving in Utah

We made the journey to Utah for Thanksgiving and we had such a great time with family. We split the long weekend, spending Thanksgiving day with my sister and family in Provo and then drove to Price with Rich's family for the rest of our time. We played tons of games and ate loads of great food. We stayed up way too late every night, but it was so worth it! We even took Kailer to the dinosaur museum in Price. There were so many cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, the kids were so pampered! We are so thankful for our families and love them dearly. Thanks so much for a wonderful weekend everyone, we so enjoyed our time :)

We even got a chance to take some family pics and I love this pic below, it so shows their personalities!

The dinosaur museum with Price cousins

We kept up our annual tradition, sad as it might be, by going to our local lowes to purchase a real tree. It's not much of a tree hunt, but it has had to suffice while here in Vegas, not like there's a forest around the corner :) We did get a beauty, I might add.

The finished product :)

xmas cards

If anyone would like to be added to my Christmas card list leave me your address or you can email to me heatherlholt@gmail.com :)

Three Bedrooms!!!

Ok so we had a brilliant idea to turn our garage into a playroom and we did it over the weekend! We carpeted the entire thing and insulated the garage door, walling it off with studs and drywall. Rich's cousin Nate pretty much built a wall and carpeted the entire room in 1 weekend. We really owe him one! We're so grateful to have such awesome family here. This now means that I have to park outside in the parking lot, which is going to take some adjustment, but I'll do pretty much anything for a third bedroom! It really is a huge space. We love it. I thought it would be fun to paint a mural on the wall that we will end up ripping out when we move for Kai. I asked him what he wanted on his wall and he said a shark, so I made an ocean for him. It took me 2 nights and one nap to finish, but it turned out awesome. He loves it and we are now going to fill this area with toys!

On a side note, and a very important one at that, I went to New Moon with Sarah and some friends and she was awesome enough to make me a t-shirt that said, "Married My Edward" which of course I did :) And I wore it proudly! We ended up having 15 people once the movie started taking up 3 rows! It was awesome, we got there super early and got first choice of seats! Yes, we are die-hards :) Needless to say, I loved it and can't wait to see it again and buy it :)