Our Merry Little Christmas (just a few speedbumps)

We had a wonderful Christmas! After we got back from our trip, we only had a few days left before Christmas and a lot of stuff to squeeze in! We had a great time at our family parties...as I mentioned in an earlier post, Daxton wasn't too excited to meet Santa Claus, but other than that it was great to see families. We even got to talk to have a video conference call with Preston's parents who are on their mission in India at the Zaugg family party! Here are a couple of pictures of that party.

Here is Arden "decorating" her gingerbread house next to her cousin Benson (this is as good as she can smile with 3 pieces of candy shoved into her cheeks!)

Here is Arden watching some of her cousins decorate their houses. I think it is so funny how her cousins still think of Arden as a baby and want to carry her around! Even 5-year-old Brooklyn tried to carry Arden around, and Arden is nearly as big as she is! Sooo funny.

Here is Daxton opening his present! He got pretty good at it by the end of Christmas!

We also went down and to see the lights on Temple Square in SLC. It was fun...for about 10 or 15 minutes. After that, Dax decided he was cold and started to cry. Arden lasted another 5 minutes or so after that and started whining so we quickly headed back to the car. By the time we got there, we had two screaming kids, and the screamed most of the way home :) I think they screamed for at least as long as we looked at the lights. I forgot my camera too, so I had to use my phone, so here are the only shots I got (no one is crying yet!!)

Then, before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve. We went to my parents' house and had our traditional Christmas Eve meal of pizza, and enjoyed talking at watching Christmas movies. We came home, got the kids in bed, and I finished wrapping presents. We got Arden a kitchen for Christmas (that was what she wanted most, and the only thing she would tell Santa she wanted) and we were planning on assembling it for her on Christmas Eve so she could see it first thing when she came down on Christmas morning. However, when we opened up the box, all of the hardware (screws, bolts, EVERYTHING!) was missing!! It was impossible to put together without that! I was so mad, because it was Arden's only big present, and a lot of her other small presents were food and pots and stuff that went along with the kitchen! ARRRGGH! That kind of put me out of the Christmas mood (we took the kitchen back today and got the parts we needed, but it just isn't the same!).

Here is Arden on Christmas Day standing next to the box in her apron. She was a good sport about the whole thing, but I felt so bad!!!

On Christmas Day my fam came to my house to open presents (except for my brother Dan and him family, who live in St. Louis...we wish you guys could have been with us, but at least we got to talk on the phone!). After that, we spent a "quiet" Christmas day at home. Usually we are running around everywhere, but this year Preston's parents are gone on their mission and my Grandma Wilson decided to go to Oregon to visit my aunt Janice for the holidays (we missed you Grandma!!), so we all spent the day playing on the Wii, watching movies and eating eating eating!

Here is Arden with her stocking Christmas morning (can you tell she is a little excited?)

Dax and Arden playing with one of Daxton's new toys.

Dax playing (i.e. slobbering all over) his new Pooh bear! Yum!

Hope you all had as good a Christmas as we did! Happy New Year too!

Later on, we'll perspire as we dream by the fire...

Someone sent me a link to a funny article that talks about how people have misunderstood the lyrics to Christmas songs and it made me laugh because for years and years I thought that the words to Winter Wonderland really were "later on, we'll perspire as we as we dream by the fire." I thought maybe it was really warm by the fire!

Some of the other ones they listed that I thought were funny were:

"Get dressed ye married gentlemen" (God rest ye merry gentlemen)

"Joy to the World! The Lord has gum!" (Joy to the World, the Lord is come!)

"Fleas naughty dog" (Feliz Navidad)"

"Oh what fun it is to sing a slaying song to knives!" (oh what fun it is to sing a sleighing song tonight!)

"Where treetops glisten, and children listen to hear slave elves in the snow" (where treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow)

"Frosty the Snowman is a ferret elf I say" (Frosty the Snowman is a fairy tale they say)

Here is a link to the article http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/humor/mondegreens.asp

Did anyone else ever sing the wrong words to a Christmas song?

Santa....scary or not?

Today was the Haun family Christmas party! It was great to catch up with everyone and the food was good too. We even got a visit from Santa Claus! He even brought his wife! Arden was a little shy and said she wanted Daxton to go first. So, I sat Daxton down on Santa's lap, and he turned and looked at Santa for 5 seconds or so, and then this is what he did:He screamed and screamed! It was weird because he will usually sit with anyone as long as he can still see me, but I guess Santa is extra scary! Next up was Arden. This is the first year she has really understood the whole Santa concept, so she was actually pretty excited to see him. Here is the little sweetie showing Santa what a good girl she is:

Oh well. Even if Daxton doesn't like Santa, he sure looks cute in his Santa hat!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!!!

Blessings and Vacations and Running Behind

Last Sunday we blessed Daxton in church. Preston did a great job, and it was so nice to finally be able to get it done!! Daxton really is a blessing to us, and I am glad our blessing is officially blessed. Right after the church and the family breakfast we had after, we started packing our bags for our trip to Southern California. Unfortunately, Preston thought our plane left an hour later than it actually did. Fortunately, I made him double check the time. Unfortunately, I didn't make him double check the time soon enough and we really had to rush to make our plane! But make it we did, and we were on our way.

Sidenote: we had a completely ridiculous amount of luggage. Each of us (Preston, Arden, Daxton and I) each needed a bag since we had to pack warm clothes. Then, we had the car seats for both kids. We brought along Daxton's pack-n-play so he could have somewhere semi-familiar to sleep. And, finally we had the sit and stand stroller! Oh, and the diaper bag! YIKES! So in the end we had 4 suitcases, 2 car seats, a pack-n-play, a stroller, a diaper bag and a partridge in a pear tree! I wish I would have taken a picture of all of our luggage but I didn't. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for helping us lug it all around!!!).

The flights went pretty well, and we all had a good time at Disneyland and Sea World. It was especially nice to go with my cousin Kati, who used to be my Disneyland buddy back in the day! The weather was really nice, especially the day we were at Sea World. Here is a picture of Arden petting a dolphin:

Daxton didn't have the best time the first day or two, he was really grumpy and we weren't sure if it was just the weirdness of being on vacation or what. Preston finally figured it out...his first tooth popped up out of his gums, followed quickly by his second! Once we figured out what his problem was and gave him stuff to chew on and a little Baby Tylenol, he was back to his old happy self. Here he is hanging out on Preston's lap:

Daxton was a good sport and went on quite a few rides, but this was mostly Arden's show. She LOVED it. She especially enjoyed the carousel, the teacups, and the Buzz Lightyear ride. Here she is on the teacups...I let her daddy take her cuz those make me sick!!!

She liked to get her picture taken with the characters too, and was especially cute with Sulley and gave him a big hug):

She was excited to be tall enough to ride on the Matterhorn (here she is getting measured):

She went on it a couple of times, but the first time she didn't see the snow monster cause she was too short. The second time, she did see him...after the ride, I asked her if she was ok, and she told me "I brave! Monster in there a widdle scary, but not too scary." She must have decided that "a widdle scary" was scary enough because she never went on it again, and asked me on a few other rides if there were any "Monsters in there?"

Since Grandma, Grandpa, Kati and my sister Amanda and her husband Matt were there with us, we got to go on quite a few of the "bigger" rides and took turns watching the kids. But, we all like the little kid rides too, and Preston and I still (barely) fit inside the rocket ride together:


It was a fun time, but Arden was really tired and ready to be home, and so were the rest of us! We got home on the 14th, and all of the sudden I realized I still have a TON of stuff to do before Christmas, so I am scrambling now! So, I better quit blogging and start on my to-do list! If you don't get your Christmas cards until New Years, don't be surprised!!!

Foreverized!!

Today we took Daxton to the temple! It was such an amazing experience, and Daxton and Arden both did great. It was amazing to have the support of so many family and friends at the temple as well. I am so glad to be an official forever family with Daxton, and we are looking forward to blessing him at church in the morning (speaking of which, I hafta go clean my house!!) Here are a couple of pictures:

Yay! We survived and he is ours!

So, we made it through the adoption finalization in court today! It was a rocky ride. First, our adoption caseworker couldn't locate a couple of the papers she was supposed to have while she was on the stand. Eventually it turned out she didn't need them for the adoption to go through, but my heart didn't beat for at least 30 seconds while she was looking. Next, our lawyer didn't seem to have some papers he needed and had to ask the judge for a copy (which he had, phew!)...another small heart attack. Then, while we were signing our papers in front of the judge, Daxton grabbed one of them and tried to shove it in his mouth (which he does to everything he can get his hands on). I had to grab his hand and wrestle the paper gently away from him before he could rip it in half. It was a little wrinkly after that :). Finally, when the whole thing was almost over, Daxton decided he couldn't wait another minute for his bottle and started screaming. So, I didn't even get to hear the last couple of minutes of the proceedings over his yelling, but Preston told me they went well.:) I got him his bottle and he shut right up, and we took a quick picture of our new legalized family with our very nice (and patient) judge:
It may not have been the smoothest court appearance ever, but I guess all is well that ends well! Hooray!!

Six Months!

Daxton turned 6 months old this week. As you may know, 6 months is a MAJOR milestone for us here at the Zaugg house. Now that Daxton is 6 months old, we can finally finalize (finally finalize? Is that too many "final"'s? Oh well.) his adoption! We have our court appointment tomorrow, and I am pretty stressed. My shoulders are sore from being so tense. I know that there is probably nothing to worry about, but I guess it is my nature to imagine all of the things that could possibly go wrong, especially with something sooooooooooooooo important. I am worried that someone forgot to file some paperwork somewhere along the line, I am worried that our lawyer will get in a car accident on the way there, I am worried that the judge will be in a bad mood and say "no" just to be mean, and about a zillion other things. At least I don't have very much longer to worry...we will (hopefully!) be all done by this time tomorrow!

Dax is getting HUGE! We had is 6-month old doctors appointment this week, and he is now over 19 pounds. He is 28 inches long now, which is the 91% for height! He is growing up so fast, I thought I would give you a look at a couple of his "bear" pictures so far:

Daxton at 3 days old:
Three months old:

Six months old:

As you can see from the picture above, Daxton has discovered his tongue. It is almost always sticking out how. His other favorite pastimes include blowing raspberries and slobbering all over himself. I think he is almost ready to get his first teeth in!

We had a great Thanksgiving at my mom's house (sorry, no pictures) It was pretty low-key, but I loved it. The food was amazing, and it was great to sit on the couch and be full while my dad ran around the house with Arden all day. Thanks Dad! We also decorated our Christmas tree this week. This is the first year that Arden could really help, and she was so excited. Unfortunately, she couldn't reach very many branches, and so by the end, we would up with quite a few ornaments on one branch...here is an example:
It is hard to see, but there are about 6 ornaments all hung RIGHT next to each other on that branch. So cute :) She is already really excited for Christmas to come. She LOVES to play hide and seek lately, especially with her daddy. Her favorite shows to watch now are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Annie (does anyone remember that movie from when they were little? Arden can't get enough of it.)

Something is wrong with you....

What is wrong with this picture?

We went to the eye doctor yesterday to get our prescriptions updated. It was Preston's turn to get his eyes dilated, but something went wrong. One of Preston's eyes was REALLY dilated, and the other one...not so much. It made Preston look more than a little crazy. I unfortunately didn't have my camera at first and by the time we got home after running some errands, the effect had worn off a little. But, you can get the idea from the picture above. Every time I looked at him it made me laugh. We went out to lunch, and I told him to just open up his eyes really big and tell the person behind the counter "ME WANT HAMBURGER!" and see what happened. Unfortunately, he didn't go for it.

I am totally excited for Thanksgiving! I LOVE Thanksgiving! I just get to be lazy and eat all day long and hang out with the fam and watch football on TV. What could be better? The problem for me is that I already have a head start on the 10 or so pounds I seem to put on between Thanksgiving and Christmas...Arden had a TON of Halloween candy, and I have been helping myself quite a bit. Also, I bought a tub of chocolate cookie dough for a fundraiser for a friend's kid about a month ago, and with Preston being gone so much, I have no one to blame but myself for its current almost-empty state. I LOVE chocolate. But, now that Preston is home hopefully I can find some time to exercise more than once a week :)

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Speaking of chocolate, I was watching TV the other night after I put the kids to bed, and I saw the dumbest commercial I think I have ever seen. There was a woman helping her kid make some cupcakes or something. They had just finished pouring out the batter, and the bowl was just dripping with yummy chocolaty gooey batter. The woman catches some batter on her finger and is just about to lick it off, and then for some inexplicable reason she stops. She remembers she can't possibly eat even a little finger full of the batter, and instead decides to have a bowl of Special K. And then she smiles and pretends that it is just as good. All I am thinking is, this woman has PROBLEMS. Is life really worth living if you can't even lick the cupcake batter off of the bowl??? I say no. And I have tried that Special K cereal with the "chocolate" chunks in it. They taste like wax. If that woman has fooled herself into thinking they are just as good as chocolate cupcake batter, than there is something wrong with her.

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Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Calm before the storm

Hi everyone! We are all officially back to healthy now! Hooray! It has been a good week...I know that I have really been enjoying the little things that I usually take for granted, like being able to breathe through my nose and bending over without feeling like my head is going to explode, things like that. :) I was pretty bummed when Preston had to leave town (again) on Sunday night because I was still feeling pretty sick. On Monday I felt better, and Tuesday I felt even better, especially Tuesday night when Preston called to say he would be coming home a day early!! Hooray again! We are sad that he has to leave again this week, but he has promised it will be his last trip of 2008 (I will believe it when I see it).

Arden and Daxton are both enjoying being healthy again too! Daxton's eyes were still a little goopy early in the week and the doctor gave us some eye drops that we have been putting in his eyes. Arden was very interested to watch the first time we put them in, and Daxton of course had no idea what we were doing. When the first drop hit his eye, Daxton's eyes closed tight, he took a deep breath and his arms started flailing around in all directions and his feet started kicking. I think he was worried he was drowning or something. Sweet little Arden was really concerned about the poor little guy, especially since as soon as he dared to open his eyes again, we hit him with a drop in his other eye and the same scene played out again. Daxton was fine about 15 seconds later and didn't think about it again, but Arden didn't get over it quite as fast. When I sent Preston to get the eye drops again later that night, Arden threw herself in front of Dax and started yelling "NOOOOO! NOOOO DO DAT TO DAX AGIN!!! HE CAN'T WIKE DAT!! NOOOOOO PUT STUFFS IN HIS EYES!!!!!" We had to calm her down and explain to her about 10 times that the drops were medicine to help his eyes get better before she would let us near him. It still bothered her a lot more than it bothered Dax. It is good to know she is looking out for her little brother. She really is a great big sister and loves her little brother so much.

We got out Arden's Jumperoo for Daxton this week, and he has been LOVING it. He loves to "stand up" as anyone who has tried to hold him will know, so he really likes how it helps him stand up. He is still getting the hang of the whole bouncing thing, but he is having fun!

Anyway, this week is going to be a lot busier with us starting to run around to get ready for Thanksgiving, and then our adoption finalization in court, and then Daxton's temple day and blessing day! We are planning a family vacation to Disneyland before Christmas and then of course it will be Christmas itself right after that! We have a crazy few weeks in front of us, and I am really starting to stress out about everything. I had a nightmare last week that we forgot to go to an appointment that we had scheduled the next day with our adoption case worker, and for some reason, in my dream that meant that the adoption wasn't going to go through. I woke up really panicked about it! We made it to the appointment just fine in real life, but I know I am going to be stressing over every little thing right up until the end. Even though I have only had Daxton for 5+ months, I can't imagine my life without him in it now, and I can't wait to make everything final and legal and foreverized!!

Daxton's Photo Shoot

Okay, don't get too excited by the title...Daxton hasn't been discovered or anything. I just did a little photo shoot with him this morning at home. I am trying to get some good pictures to put on the invitations we are going to send out for Daxton's blessing. I never got around to sending birth announcements out, so I am just going to send these instead. We are going to be blessing him on December 7th, assuming all goes well with the adoption finalization. Save the date! (Let me know if you want an invite and aren't related to me!). Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Do I have my "mommy-goggles" on, or is he ready for his magazine cover?

I don't have too much else to report...I have had a cold all week. It started out as just a little one but as the days go by it seems to be getting worse instead of better, and it is getting pretty old. Arden was sick (throwing up) at the beginning of the week, but Dax has mostly been fine. We are just trying to fight our way back to healthiness so we can rejoin the outside world again!

Picture Tag

I was tagged by my friend Leslie. According to the tag, I am supposed to go to my computer and open the 4th folder in my photos file, and then post the 4th picture in that file. So....here it is!

This picture was taken in July 2006...so Arden was 5 months old. Isn't she the cutest thing? We took her "swimming" at the pool at my sister's apartment, and she HATED it. She didn't mind her feet in the water, but anything more than that and she would SCREAM. I had forgotten that Arden's legs were once chubby too! And I am glad that only part of me in my swimsuit is showing.

My poor baby girl has been sick these past couple of days. She pretty much spent all day yesterday flat on her back either in her bed or on the couch...which hasn't happened since she learned how to roll over (so right around the time of this picture!) But, she was a little better today and hopefully she will be back to her usual busy self by tomorrow.

This was kind of a fun tag, so anyone who needs something to blog about, please play along!

HALLOWEEN

We had a great Halloween this year, and I am sad that it is over! The kids and I had pretty bad colds this week, but we willed ourselves to get better (well, better enough) so that we could enjoy the holiday.

On Thursday night we went "trunk-or-treating" over at the church, and Arden (and consequently me) scored a TON of candy. Right after that, we quickly came home for the 2nd annual Zaugg family Halloween party. I don't have many pictures, but I will try to steal some later from my sisters-in-law. The kids (and some parents!) all dressed up in their costumes, and it was so fun to see everyone all dressed up. We ate jack-o-lantern pizzas, broke a Frankenstein pinata, and played some games, and pretty much made a lot of noise. It was great to see everyone! We don't get together as much as we used to since Preston's parents left on their mission. Here is one picture I have of some if the kids playing Halloween bingo:

The next day was Halloween! We hadn't carved our pumpkins, so we spent part of the morning doing that. I get to draw on the faces, and then Preston gets to cut them out. Arden (of course) wanted to help with the cutting and the drawing, but when it came time to scoop out the gross insides, which was the only part that she could actually help with, she wasn't too interested. We all had fun anyway, and Daxton as usual just loved to sit in his chair and watch us.

After the kids took their naps, we put them in their costumes again! Here is Arden, she was a cute little skunk:

My favorite part of the costume was the back...on her little skunk bum it says "Lil' Stinker." So true.

Dax was a dinosaur:

I had a witches hat from a couple of years ago, so I thought I would join in the fun too:

We ran up to my parents' house to trick or treat them, and then after a short visit, we tore Arden away so Preston could take her trick or treating around our neighborhood. Preston is a firm believer in old school trick or treating. He is against the trunk or treating, he thinks that the kids should have to work harder for the candy! So, Daxton and I dropped Arden and Preston off at the top of the hill where they met up with some friends and trick-or-treated their way downhill to our house. Arden was getting pretty good at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" and "bye bye" to everyone without having to be reminded by the end of the night. Amanda and Matt stopped by to see the kids, and Arden was excited to "play toys" with them a little before bedtime. It was a fun Halloween this year! I can't wait for next year!!

Pumpkin Walk

We went to the "Pumpkin Walk" in Syracuse last night. I had heard about it last year from some people and it sounded really fun, so we thought we would go down and see all of the pumpkins! The problem was that everyone in Northern Utah had the same idea! We had to wait in a pretty long line before we actually got to the pumpkins, but it was really fun to see all of them once we got there. There were hundreds and hundreds of them!! There were all different kinds...lots of faces, some monsters, cats, and the usual Halloween stuff, and some with very random things on them like temples or video game characters or college logos. The batteries in my camera died on the first picture (bummer!), so I tried to take some with my phone. I couldn't take any pictures of the kids (no flash), but the pumpkins showed up ok. Here were some of our favorites:

I loved this one of Jack Skellington:

Tigger!

Preston liked the one with "Pi" on it....get it? Pumpkin Pi? Heee.

ANIMAL!

I liked this tower of pumpkins too:

Arden liked all the Disney ones. There was Mickey and Donald and the whole gang:

Arden had a good time, even though we didn't get finished until WAY after bedtime. Daxton slept through quite a bit, but he woke up in the middle of the pumpkins and seemed to really enjoy them. It was fun, but next year we will show up earlier and hopefully beat some of the crowd!

We are getting really excited for Halloween this week! HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!