Christmas

Christmas was very fun this year because now Kohlton is getting more excited about things and can actually open his own presents... well, when he's not distracted by the ones he's already opened. Nevaeh was very conscience of Santa this year and knew what she wanted to ask him for and was very excited when she got a few things from him that she asked for. Here are some pictures of Christmas morning.

Here is Nevaeh looking in her stocking. She is wearing her Christmas PJ's that Grandma Roth made for her and sent before Christmas. She LOVES them and wants to wear them all the time.

Kohlton is also wearing the PJ's that Grandma Roth sent him... they are his "car car" pajamas. He loves anything that has anything to do with Cars the movie. Most mornings when I am getting him ready he doesn't want to take off his Cars pajamas and cries, screams, and fights me when I am taking them off of him.

I absolutely love this picture. This is Nevaeh opening one of her gifts from Santa that she asked for. I love her face.

While we were opening gifts, Kohlton found one of Nilda's rolls of wrapping paper and decided that it was much more fun to play with than all the toys that he got for Christmas! I could have saved myself a lot of money and just got him a roll for $2.99... Even cheaper if I went to the dollar store!

Nevaeh, Hunter and Kohlton playing Connect Four later in the morning...

After presents were all open, we went over to the Belnaps for lunch. The Belnap siblings all filled out papers about another one of their siblings and then they sat around and read what they wrote. Heidi and Monica were not able to make it so they were doing it over speaker phone. 3-way calling wasn't working well, so they had each of them on a separate phone. Well in order to hear what each other had written, we put the phones up to each other so that they could hear! It was quite funny and fun to listen to. Well done to whoever thought of that activity!!!

In the last picture I want everyone to note Jason's (Roth, not Needler) FABULOUS sweater. In fact, if you see him you may want to mention it to him and even ask him why he is not wearing it. He loves to talk about said sweater and will have a lengthy conversation about it also. Just ask him about it sometime, I promise it will be REALLY funny!!!!

New Year's in Montana

Well, so maybe I haven't been so good at keeping up at this blog thing yet either. But to throw some excuses out there, I have been busy. I have a student teacher and so have been busy getting everything ready for her to take over my classes. It is fabulous though having her there... It is amazing how much I have been getting done that I have been putting off at school!

So anyway, here is what we have been up to...

Over Christmas break, we headed up to Montana the weekend after Christmas. We went to Bozeman to visit Jason's family. It was very fun... AND COLD!!!! Oh my goodness!!!! I guess my blood has thinned out a bit since living down here in AZ. There was quite a bit of snow and it was really fun to play in but I forget how bundled up the kids have to get just to go outside. Here are some pictures of us all outside sledding and having fun.

Poor Kohlton really wasn't a fan of the cold weather.

They finally convinced me to go down once. I, like Kohlton am not a fan of the cold either!!! It was fun though, I have to admit :-)

Erica has this snowman kit that she found somewhere and it has all the parts for a snowman except for the snow :-)... a scarf, eyes, mouth, nose, pipe, buttons, and hat... all in a cute little box. So she and Jason took the kids outside to build a snowman. The snow really wasn't snowman-making snow but they still managed to get a cute snowman built.

We had a wonderful time and miss everyone there. Wish we lived closer... however, it is warmer down here so if anyone wants to get out of the cold... :-)

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

Yesterday around 5:00 pm, Jason told me and the kids to get ready and be ready to go by 6:30 pm. We kept asking him why and he just wouldn't tell us. I am not one that likes surprises very much and kept asking questions about what I should expect... "Do we need to wear coats?", "Do we need to bring blankets?", "Do I need to bring a camera?" etc... I was trying to figure out where we were going and what we were doing but he really wouldn't say much. Well, at 6:30 we hopped in the car and started driving. I asked him how far we were going and he told me, "About 3.7 miles." That was probably the most information I got out of him with all my questioning. Anyway, about 5 minutes later (holiday traffic) we turn into the Walmart parking lot. Wow, Jason... Fun... Thanks... I mean, what do you say to that?

Well, actually 'Vixen' the Coke truck was there. If you don't know what Vixen is, join the club. Vixen is one of a small amount of Coke trucks that is decked out in lights and a huge picture of Santa on the side.

However, when we first got there, the lights weren't on. As we got closer we noticed that there was a large chair and some Christmas trees with a camera set up for pictures with Santa. Santa had not yet made his appearance and Nevaeh FREAKED out when we told her that he was going to be there. And I mean freaked out in a bad way. I'm still waiting for the blood to return to my fingertips... She had a death grip on my hand and was hiding behind me and he wasn't even out there! We decided that we would go inside and get a few things while we waited for Santa.

When we got done inside and walked out, Santa was there and there was a line of people waiting to get their pictures taken with him. After some discussion, we all got in line to get a picture with Santa. At first we were just going to have the kids get their pictures taken and I tried my hardest to convince Nevaeh that Santa was nice and there was nothing to be afraid of. After a while, we came to a compromise and decided that we would get a family picture with Santa.

The best part was that the picture was FREE!!! And the line was only about 10 people long so we were only in line for about 5 minutes.

It was a great surprise for us and kudos to Jason for taking us there. Thank you Jason!!! We love you!!!

Here is a picture of our picture :-) and some other pictures from last night. They had Santa's mail box there with some paper for the kids to write letters to Santa... They were all in Spanish, but that's ok :-)

Nevaeh's Christmas Program

Today was a very busy day for Nevaeh.

First, Nevaeh had her Hibernation Celebration during school today. All the students in her class wore their pajamas and slippers to school and brought a stuffed animal with them. During school they talked about hibernation and then put their stuffed animals into the hibernation box. In the spring, they will bring them out of hibernation.

Then she had her Christmas program tonight at her school. The kindergarten performed with the 4th graders. It was very cute, they all came dressed in their pajamas and slippers (which they were all wearing during school already). Someone read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and then they sang songs in between. I didn't check my memory card before we left and I kept running out of room and then having to go back and delete pictures to make more room for more videos. So consequently some of the songs are cut short and for that I apologize. However, I think they are still cute.

One of the best things about today was that Nevaeh got to wear her new night gown that her Grandma Roth made for her. She was very excited to wear it to school and show everyone her "beautiful night gown." Thank you Grandma Roth!

Here is a picture of Kohlton cheering on his big sister.

Here are the videos of the songs.

Pictures

The other day we had Nilda take some pictures of us in the park. Kohlton was quite amusing because he wouldn't sit still to get his picture taken. We did get some good ones though. One of the only ones with Kohlton smiling was the very last picture taken.

Here is a little video of what it is like trying to get Kohlton to sit still :-)

Here are some more pictures that I thought were cute and funny.... enjoy!

A flock of birds flew over us during this picture... Both Nevaeh and Kohlton are looking at them. If they wouldn't have been looking off to the right, it would have been a really good picture.

I'm not quite sure what we're looking at here, but Kohlton is still looking at the birds.

At this park that we were at, they have a bunch of old buildings, houses and such and for some reason there are a bunch of roosters and peacocks out and about. Here are some pictures of Nevaeh chasing one of the roosters and finally catching up to it. Once it finally stopped running and she got close to it, she got scared.

Kohlton Discovers Olives

We had olives tonight with dinner and showed Kohlton how to put them on his fingers. He thought it was pretty funny. Here are a couple pictures I took. It was just cute so I thought I'd share :-)