xmas at home :)

xmas at home is one of my favorite things. I absolutely love doing our own thing and making our own traditions. I love seeing my kids in their own element and space. This year was no let down. They woke up so excited and I caught some lovely expressions on camera. It was SO fun :) Xmas day is awesome. Thanks to both of our parents we really had a nice xmas :) It was perfect. The before: complete with letters to santa, a plate with milk and cookies and carrots too for the reigndeer :)Prepare for some excited faces...Ha this makes me laugh, he was utterly confused, 'what is with all this chaos???' He was so struggling to process!! But then he perked up :)Yes, the missy got a bike and a scooter... spoi... led...Oh and when you don't have a yard, yes, you ride in the house :)Kids got a lego table and chairs, totally love it!Kai was so awesome building these legos, The box says ages 7-14, he literally did it completely by himself... crazy!

The loot...

So much fun!!!

Feeling Festive!

I love living in vegas and one of the many reasons I do is that there are so many festivities around xmas and halloween. There are so many, in fact, that we just couldn't do them all... We did get a chance to go to the cactus gardens (vegas' temple square) ha, with our dear friends. We followed it up with a great dinner at Marie Callenders... shout out to kids eat free on sat/tues!! Our lovely friends were even so kind to watch our kiddos for us while we went out afterwards. Rich got invited to an ortho doc's house for a xmas party. He had rotated with him and the doc was really fond of Rich. I kid you not, I'm so glad I wore my heels because we pulled up to the gated neighborhood in summerlin and the guy checked us in and said, 'pull ahead Mr. and Mrs. Holt, valet will take your car for you....' Valet? to his house??? Our diaper ridden minivan??? ha. Yes, it was that kind of a neighborhood, it was a 4 million dollar home like I have never been to before. It was catered, prime rib mind you, and it had a full bar! yey for us right!?! ha. He even had his own pianist and DJ that broke out some tunes as it got later. It gave us a glimps into a completely different lifestyle. It was fun to live it for an evening, but as the doc told us that night, as we were complementing him on his beautiful home, 'ah you don't want this, or need this. It's good that you have chosen the specialty that you have.' It was crazy to hear from someone that appeared to 'have it all' that really he didn't and knew better. Unfortunately his ex wife had overdosed and died and his 2 girls were in college. I'm sure his life wasn't easy and at first glance you might have though it was all glamerous. I had a feeling he threw parties at his home just to fill the emptyness. He was such a nice man who really seemed to have a great perspective on life and I really respected and appreciated that. I'm grateful for what I have :)Here's a few pics of temple square... haThe ward party is always a treat and didn't dissapoint, sadly I only got a pic with Mei and santa :(We went with Nate and Sarah to the bellagio to check it out. Sadly we didn't end up getting a pic with them! We love hangin with them, they are such a huge part of our lives here... to say we are going to miss them, would be an understatement...My parents got a chance to come into town, which was so fun! We took the kids to bass pro and they always have fun activities for kiddos during the holidays. It's only the guys' favorite place to be...My parents even brought an apple slicer and the kids made their own dehydrated apple slices. It was a huge hit with them :)xmas shirts!

Kai drew a pic for santa of a ninja, complete with ninja stars and swords...And here's one of meili's, all of her drawings have ears on the head, sometimes they are huge, running off of the paper. This one, not so bad, but still there :)

Gingerbread house

We got this gingerbread kit from one of Kai's family fun school nights. It was $2, I didn't have high hopes for it because we were just using regular frosting, but it turned out super cute and they loved it/loved eating it... They are great buddies. It was a fun evening :)

These kiddos are growing too fast...

Thanksgiving with Bre

Our week full of partying began with meeting up with Michelle and Sean in Mesquite. Zach had football playoffs and we stayed in a hotel with them there. We ate out and went to the hot tub. We got to watch Zach's game in the morning. It was a nice getaway for a night :) Then we headed back to vegas and did some much needed shopping! Bre flew in from MN that evening and we went out to eat and watched the twilight movie while the kids watched happy feet! whoop whoop! It was an awesome eve out with my sisters. It was a full house, but it was so fun to be together. Bre and I spent the rest of the week together with Lauren and Mike. She is an excellent cook and needless to say we were thrilled to have her for thanksgiving!!! She cooked a different meal for us everyday of the week and they were exceptional! Thanksgiving dinner itself was nothing short of amazing. The kids even made pilgram hats out of rieces and cookies. It was just awesome!We spent time shopping, going for walks, taking a visit to the dam, and trying out this bird sanctuary that we will definitely be returning to. The kids had a blast on their 'adventure hike'. Note the walking sticks... it was serious! so much fun!We also spent a lot of time lovin on these babies... :)Before they headed out we went deep into the woods and found the most perfect xmas tree and chopped it down with our ax... yeah just kidding, this is vegas, sadly there is no woods... We did the next best thing and went to home depot and handed over our $20 :) It is a perfect tree though :) The kids enjoyed coloring while we decorated some...It was sad to see Bre leave, we had such a great time with them, It was so much fun! Our week of partying wasn't over yet... We headed to mesquite and went to dinner with Rich's brother's and his dad. We stayed in a hotel and the cousins had such a great time together, even the 2 ladies of the group :) We have such great families and feel so blessed.

Randomness

note the large ears... :)This boy and his need to match his Daddy is pretty intense :)Patting her baby :)

Such a happy baby!

October

This is going to be picture overload, but here it goes! We took an evening and went to the pumpkin patch with Nate and Sarah. The kids are always so excited to do this every year, and it did not disappoint. Nate and Sarah had just gotten back from Hawaii and bought Meili this coconut purse, which she carried everywhere and got Kai a shark tooth necklace. Boy did they pin down exactly what these kiddos are into! Of course the evening wasn't complete without slushies and colored tounges! To say we will miss these two when we move is an understatement...Kai wanted to be a blue ninja this year. I convinced him that ninjas are typically black and that I could make the accessories dark blue. He's not particular at all!!! Rich made him 'ninja stars' out of black electrical tape. Kai told rich, 'I don't think you know how to make those.' Rich said, 'of course I do Kai... I'm a ninja...' After he made them Kai looked them over and said with wide eyes and barely a whisper, 'wow dad... you really are a ninja! Meili wanted to be a pink princess this year, but then changed her mind while we were mid costume assembly and said she wanted to be rapunzel. So she was a pink rapunzel instead :) she was happy either way. I can only claim 1/3 of this dress though, my sister michelle made the rest of it! My best buddie Jordon made Tristan's minion hat and it totally fueled the fire for the whole despicable me themed costumes. For Halloween night I went as Ms. Hattie, Rich went as Gru, Kai was a cookie robot, Meili was agnes with the fluffy unicorn (yes we did spray her hair black) and T was the cutest minion ever! With 7 Halloween events to attent the kids had plenty of things to dress up for. It was a little crazy... Henderson's Halloween festivities never disappoint. We did everything from a ward party to rec center walk throughs, a school parade, and tons of trick or treating. Meili even had the pleasure of meeting rapunzel! What!?! That's right, we thought we were at Dland or something! She was thrilled!We did some pumpkin carvings and this year Kai wanted to carve his own and did successfully! He was pretty proud of himself. It was really cute. He actually got his hands dirty this year, it was still a little painful though, Meili as well. For some reason they don't enjoy shoving their hands in it unless they are being silly and pretending to eat it...Deanna and weston came down for the festivities and it was so much fun to have them! We did some site seeing on the strip and for Halloween they dressed up too and between all of us we got tons and I mean tons of candy! It was a blast to have them and an awesome Halloween once again. By the time it was over the kids had been in costume 7 times! After trick or treating Halloween night for the last time, Meili was exhausted and sighed saying, 'This is my best day I ever walked...' haha I think they loved going house to house the best. We will do more of that next year :) Good times!