Christmas and the events surrounding it!

A couple days before christmas Jake headed down to Las Vegas for the Vegas Bowl with his traveling buddies. Too bad they lost but it's always good to have some male bonding time on a 30 hour trip! They met up with Anabel and Joe at the game so I can thank Anabel for the one picture that got taken!

Rodney, Bones, Joey and Jake

Christmas Eve we always go over to Jake's parents house, eat dinner, participate in a program and open gifts! It's so fun to see what each of the eight siblings come up with every year when their family gets up to perform!
When we got home Lydia was so excited to write Santa a note and leave the milk and cookies. She's getting so much better at writing her name and drawing.


Christmas Morning!

Looks like Santa came
and ate most of his cookies!
And after 4 months of asking for a dollhouse, Lydia finally got it! She must have been a good girl this year! I love that it's taller than her!
Nate's first Christmas!
Larry is always hilarious to watch! He rips the paper off the presents and runs off with it! He really gets into it!!!
Lydia got a book from Grandma Frandsen. It's really cool...since my mom lives 1000 miles away, she hardly ever gets to read to Lydia so she bought a book that she could record the words and when you turn the page, it's my mom's voice reading each page. Lydia loves it and now she has G-ma Frandsen reading to her whenever she wants!
Seriously, Lydia got SOOO spoiled this year. I mean, she was a good girl but wow! All she wanted was a dollhouse and five dolls. She got the dollhouse but ended up with 17 dolls in all! Thanks everyone...especially Santa for taking care of my girl this year!
Larry can't get enough of his little bed!
Nate just laid around all morning, smiling at everyone! What a happy baby!
Jake spoils me every year and this year was no different! He got me a new Macbook and new Dyson vacuum; two things I've wanted for quite a while! Thanks honey! I hope you enjoyed your ties, dvds, dress shirts and picture frame (as you can tell, I'm the frugal one)!
Nate got some toys and clothes but he mostly enjoyed the wrapping paper of course!

My aunt bought Lydia this ballerina where your feet connect so you can dance together! Lydia loves it and since she loves to dance, it's perfect! Now she has a partner!
We're so grateful for this time of year, remembering the birth of Christ, spending time with family and witnessing all the good that happens during Christmas time!

On Monday the 27th we took Lydia to see "Tangled" and what an adorable movie that was!

Tuesday we were invited to a Couples Christmas Bunko night. We had an ugly sweater contest, white elephant exchange and gift exchange! What a fun night it was. There were 28 of us so we headed up to Heather's parents house in their gym for all the fun!

Here we all are in all our glory with our Ugly Sweaters!
Oh yeah, we're rockin' it! Don't be jealous of our sweet sweaters!

Here's Jake getting ready to cheat!!! Cheater!!!
Every couples bunko party I've been to has been so crazy because the guys get so into it. Well, this night was no different...only one chair was broken though so not too much damage!

It was such a fun night! Thanks Angie and Heather for putting it all together! Hopefully this will become an annual thing!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

Nate turned five months, then six!

These past two months have gone by WAY too fast. I think I say that every month but it's true! Nate has done a lot these past few months. He's scooting around on the floor like a champion so baby proofing the floors has already begun.

My Grandma Seymour's tradition is getting a five month picture of each of her grandkids/great grandkids and instead of paying someone to take the pics, I just did it myself. They turned out pretty good. He was happy so that was a plus. These are my two favorites..they are essentially the same but a tad different. And I only did this one pose! Love his cute dimple!

He started eating solids. He pretty much hates them. He makes this really sour face and spits it all out. I started him on different things like sweet potatoes at six months and he seems to like that a tad better, but not much!

At about 5 1/2 months

At Five Months

-He completely stopped taking a binky. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise but when he got sick at five months, he never took it again.

-He loves chewing on everything and bites hard too. Everyone keeps telling me he's teething but it's been about 3 months that he's done this and no tooth. I just think he likes to chew and he's a strong boy, hence the strong bite!!!

Here he is at about 6 months. I just love that smile of his!
At Six Months

He's still super happy will smile at pretty much anything. I love how laid back and smily he is. The only complaint I have is that he has reverted back to newborn sleeping. Ever since he got sick at 5 months, he's slept horribly ever since. So for the past month, he's been getting up every two to three hours. The hardest thing is, is that at three weeks he was pretty much sleeping through the night so to revert back has been SUPER hard on me. Oh well, hopefully it will pass!!!

STATS

Weight: 18.3 lbs 75%

Height: 27 3/4 inches 90%

Head: 17.32 inches 50%

Love you little fella!!!!

More Christmas Activities!

What a fun week we've had. I just love the holidays and all the fun stuff there is to do.

Lydia had her very first preschool Christmas party and I signed up to be there for a craft and game. It was so fun to see Lydia excited to see me and to also see her so confident in interacting with her new friends.

Aimee was there with me also so that was fun!

The Best Friends Brock, Lydia and Jordan. Lyd just loves these boys and I'm so happy they're in school together and will be next year as well!

Lydia's preschool class also had their first Christmas program. They had it at that care center in Bountiful on 2600. It was so funny seeing all the old people either asleep or having no clue what was going on in the room around them. Awesome.

Lydia did pretty well. She didn't sing much but at least she stayed in her chair and smiled the whole time! I just think she is the cutest little girl!! Love her!

Brock and Lydia smiling...not singing! Lydia is confident on stage dancing but not so much when she sings (just like her mama)!
Lydia would not stop staring, smiling and laughing at Brock. It was so funny!
Brock, Lyd and Jordan...always together! Good job Lydia!
On Friday the 17th Lydia had her last dance performance of the year with Legacy at Flip's. Lydia surprises me every time she gets on stage. She just gets better and better. This was by far her best performance. She smiled the whole time, did every move and improves each move every time she dances!
She loves to practice and likes to pretend she's Miss Mo, her teacher so I know that 20 minutes a day really helps her performance. Way to go Lydia. We're so proud of you!!
On Saturday, my sweet friend Margo invited a few of us to go to the MoTab/David Archuleta concert downtown and I am so grateful she did! It was AWESOME! David Archuleta did NOT disappoint! His voice was flawless that night and so smooth! Such a good concert, although I could've used a bit more Archuleta and bit less of everything else!

Ducka, myself, Alison and Margo waiting outside in the cold before we were let in.
We had to get there 2 hours early to wait in line to be sure we got in and got good seats! You wouldn't believe the lines! It was crazy! That little Archuleta is one popular kid in the SLC! I can see why...he's such a cute, talented kid! Thanks again Margo! You're awesome for giving us a girls' night out!

Afterward we went to this amazing pastry place but it was so dang busy that we didnt' get home til like 11pm. But it was well worth it! Thanks for taking us Margo!!!

You can't tell in the below pic, but the lines were insane. Although we got there two hours early, we were still a couple hundred people back in one of the MANY lines you had to get into! Well worth it though!!!
On Sunday we finally decorated our gingerbread house. I got it at Costco not realizing that the house came already built. I was ticked...even though it's a pain to put the walls and roof together yourself, we love it and we love the challenge so we hated that it was already together! No more costco Gbread houses for us! We also buy our own candy cuz the candy they give is LAME-O. It's so fun to be creative and think of new things to do.
Having said that, it was last minute buying the candy so we weren't too creative this year. We used to have a competition with our friends to see who's house was best so when there's pressure, you're always better. But this was Lyd's very first house building experience so it was fun to watch her and daddy do it together!

It turned out pretty cute! Good job Lyd's on your first house!
Gotta have a U flag right? It wouldn't be a Johnsen house without it!
So proud!
Jake has to be creative with pretty much everything he does. He can't be normal and just have a family picture on a christmas card that says "Merry Christmas"!

So we went out, I set up my tripod and got a picture of our family for our card.

Here's the picture.
And here's what Jake came up with. We did two cards this year so here are the two outside pics of the card.

And here's what the inside said:

I have to admit, it was pretty good! Nice job Honey! And Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas to do List--Ice Skating!

Saturday was such a fun day! One of my old co-workers and I went to lunch at our usual spot, The Dodo! Michelle was the first friend I made when I moved to Utah eight years ago so it was fun to catch up with her! Thanks Michelle for a fun morning of shopping and eating!

After that we invited some friends to dinner to Salt City Burger before we headed out to burn some calories ice skating!

I haven't been ice skating since I was about 19 so I thought since Lydia was old enough we should go as a family and we were so happy that the Newell's and Watts could come with us. I think those tiny skates on the girls' are just so cute!

Here are the Johnsen's ready to go. Jake has never been ice skating in his entire life so I knew it would be interesting. He thought it was going to be a piece of cake....wrong!!!
Jake got out there and fell within two seconds! He made it around the rink in about 12-15 minutes while clinging to the wall every second! It was awesome! Love you Hun! So glad you tried it at least! I just wish I would've gotten a picture! I did get video though...way better!

The girls' had fun though! We held hands as we skated around who knows how many times!
I can't even tell you how much Lydia LOVED ice skating! She fell about a million times but laughed, got back up and kept going! She told me she wanted something else from Santa: Ice skates. I said it was too late to tell Santa of any other things...maybe next year!

Go Anabel!
Joe was the only guy brave enough to get out there for more than 10 minutes! He was even crazy enough to strap Mathias to his chest! Don't worry people...Joe's a pro!
All the girls'!!!
It seriously was so much fun! I'm so glad we went and had our friends' come along! It's always more fun for Lydia to have her little girl friends to play with.
Everyone was calling it quits and going home for the night but Lyd's was a trooper and wanted to keep going! Sure, why not?!! After making it around 1 1/2 times (and multiple falls later) she had her first big accident! If know my Lydia, it wouldn't be a complete night out unless Lydia got hurt at least once!

We were stopped on the side of the rink while she asked me hilarious questions then as she started skating again, she lost her balance, fell on the ice and her hand landed right on the blade of my skate and sliced her skin wide open! She screamed bloody murder as I scooted her off the rink to get help! Poor thing! She was SUPER brave though. She usually doesn't let me look at her ouchies but this time she did. She even let me put on the stinging antibiotic ointment, which she NEVER lets me do! Way to go Lyd's! You were amazing! She wants to go ice skating again very soon so at least she's not traumatized! And we'll be wearing gloves next time!

Here's her cut the next day! From the beginning of the cut to the end, her skin was just dangling there! So gross! Luckily she didn't need stitches! Hopefully next time we go, there won't be anything but good old fashioned falls!!!