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!!