... that we can't get enough of those Williams?

Of course we had to stop by and visit the Williams on the way home too.  But this time, we met them in Cedar City at their family's cabin!  This place is GORGEOUS.   The cabin is amazing, the snow was beautiful, and there is nothing to do but relax and have fun!!!  We managed to have a little bit of fun in between all of our napping:





Marshall LOVED the sleds!

Harrison was a little wary at first, then he couldn't get enough!

Things I love about this pic:
1: Marshall covering his eyes.
2: Harrison sticking his tongue out to eat snow off of his scarf.
3. Kim's face.
4. Renee's face.
Hahahahahahahahaha!

Matt and Lance took a few runs on their snowboards:

And apparently the Kids didn't get enough naps inside, so they took one in the snow too.

It was a beautiful day!  We were sledding on a great hill right outside the cabin door, and it was perfect.  See, I like the snow sometimes!!!







Byron even let Matt and I drive the snow mobiles around a little bit!

 So fun.  And we only almost hit one tree.  And it wasn't even when I was driving.  Promise.

We were lucky enough to be with the Williams for our second New Year's Eve in a row!!!  And it was quite the party!  We made homemade turnovers:


And played several rousing games of Family Business, Blurt, and Five Crowns (which I won, NBD).

We stayed up till 1:00 watching the New Year's Eve broadcast from Vegas, cause that was the only one we could find on TV.  We drank Martinelli's, ate popcorn, and Renee ate candy after a year hiatus.

The only bad thing was IT WAS SO STINKIN COLD!  Seriously, we took off our snow gear and left it in the basement and the next day the snow was still on there.  Not even melted.  That's how cold it was INSIDE the house.  But we were all upstairs most of the time where it was nice and toasty, so we didn't really mind.

What I DID mind though, was our water pipes freezing at our house when we got home!  Woke up Thursday morning with no water.  And let me tell you, this OCD California girl was NOT happy.  You're telling me it is so cold outside that I can't wash my hands?????  Atrocious.

Lucky for us, it was a simple problem.  Matt unfroze a short section of pipe hooked up to a hose outside with a hair dryer and a heated rice bag, and we were back in business in a few hours.  Unfortunately for me, I had already gone to work by that time, withOUT a shower, and I was looking uuuber sexy.  Thankfully, Kelly had done my hair while I was home and a lot of people told me that it looked pretty even though it hadn't been washed for two days, so my self esteem wasn't totally ruined.

I love the Williams and sledding and New Year's, but not the freezing cold!!!

... that I don't want a White Christmas?

I love Christmas in California!!!  Here's a breakdown of our week in the Golden State:

The Hat for Jeremy's Birthday:

With a little ice skating at The Lakes in Thousand Oaks afterward:




Les Miserables on Christmas Eve:
LOVED IT!!!!!

Helped Cait sew spikes and lengthen the legs on Jake's Christmas present:

Which lead to the creation of the Footie Club:


Wrapped Presents:

Had our traditional Chinese Christmas Dinner (with some not-so-traditional additions to the menu):

Fried rice, lumpia, Chinese chicken salad, pan fried noodles

Apricot chicken, potstickers, stir-fried veggies, and di pong (soy sauce roasted pork shoulder)

DELICIOUS!

Went to the Four Seasons Spa for our Christmas massages:

Babysat the Babies:

Cleaned up after the Babies:

Helped Grampus with his back exercises:

Introduced Matt to (the non-coffee side of) Coffee Bean ♥ :


Dinner at Cadario in Santa Barbara ♥ :

And of course, multiple other dinners with all of our friends and family.

I love California Christmas!

... that I'll be home for Christmas?

We got to go home to California for Christmas this year!!!  Which means... ROADTRIP!

We decided to break up the trip, so we drove to Vegas to spend a few days with the Williams.  And lucky for us, the Nuttalls decided to come down too!  AND they brought Renee with them!  It was a real party!  We started the fun with a trip to Grimaldi's for lunch:

Then hopped next door for a quick custard at Nielsen's.  Delicious!!!

After we all had a good nap, it was time to open presents!  Harrison and Marshall LOVED their dinosaur sweatshirts!!!



I am also making sweatshirts for Asher and Ollie.  How else are we supposed to keep our status as favorite aunt and uncle??  I also made some hair clips for Mira:

And I managed only one second-degree burn in the process, so that was good.

After presents, we all went out to tour the Cactus Gardens.  It's this cute little garden with a chocolate factory on the premises... don't ask me why those two things go together.  But they passed out free samples and had lots of Christmas lights, so it was pretty fun for the kids.

Harrison loved his dinosaur sweatshirt so much, he insisted on wearing his coat backwards with the zipper open so that people could see the spikes.  So cute!!!

We all went to church the next morning, and on the way there I got a text from Kaari:  SHE WAS HAVING HER BABY!!!!!!!!!  I immediately regretted leaving Utah!  But she did great, and they probably didn't even want me there anyway.  They got a few days with sweet baby Georgia all to themselves!

Isn't she beautiful???

After church, Matt and I packed up and were off to California!!!!!

I love going home for Christmas!!!

... that I am a Christmas Elf?

Hi, my name is Krissy and I am addicted to Pinterest.

Seriously, how did I not know that this existed for so long???  I am also ashamed to admit that the only reason that I started a Pinterest account is because I saw someone post a Pinterest recipe for snickerdoodle brownies on Facebook and I became instantly obsessed with finding it because I'm pretty sure that when I make it someday, I will never be sad again.

I was browsing Pinterest a few months ago when I found this:

http://diyingtobedomestic.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/dinosaur-hoodie/

And I immediately knew that I wanted to make them for Cutter and Fin for Christmas!  SO ADORABLE!!!  It was really quite easy!  The hardest part was actually finding the sweatshirts!  Here's how you do it:

Cut a bunch of diamonds out of felt and sew them down the middle of the back of the sweatshirt:

Hint: I did this both with pull overs and zip up sweatshirts.  It is MUCH easier to sew down the back of a zip up hoodie :/

Then just sew the two halves of the diamonds together...

And voila!  Adorable!!!!

They turned out so cute!!!  And really cheap too!  I was so excited for the kids to see them at Christmas!!!!  Matt and I decided that we should make them for his nephews too, so all in all I am making 6!

I love presents and sewing and Pinterest!!!

... that it's Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Since Christmas is only a week and a half away (and we are leaving in a week to go to CA), I figured we better get our decorations up!

Actually Matt was really awesome and put these lights up right after Thanksgiving with the help of our BIL, Andy.  I was super lazy with everything else and didn't get anything out until tonight... oops.  But it looks cute now!

I wanted a star... then decided this was the next best thing.  And now I secretly kind of love it.

Matt's mom had the perfect ornaments: beautiful red balls and adorable jingle bells.  Plain and beautiful.  I also decided to add a few star ornaments made in Bangladesh that my boss gave me this year for Christmas:

Most of these decorations are my mother in law's.  In fact, all of them are except for the "Let It Snow" blocks and the tree skirt.  But at least we put them up!

I love Christmas!!!

... that we almost lost Tina?

I am a bad parent.

In my defense, Tina 1 is kind of crazy.  She is very jumpy, extremely fast, and not afraid to dive out of your hands and plummet to the ground.

Note to potential hamster owners: dwarf hamsters are the cutest, but they are all kind of jumpy and therefore very easy to lose.  However, I have found that the Djungarian dwarf hamsters (the two that Kar and Cait gave me for my birthday) are much calmer, less afraid, and make better pets, especially for children.  This is also the type of hamster that I had as pets in my 3rd grade classroom, and the kids loved them.

Tina 1, on the other hand, is a Roborovski dwarf, and let me tell you, she is FAST.  She has gotten away from me several times, but she hasn't escaped the playroom yet (knock on wood).  She is just so stinkin jumpy, and very easily spooked, it's hard to hold on to her!

On Tuesday, we had Mira over and of course she wanted to look at the hamsters.  She LOVES them.  So I got Tina 2 and Karboochie out and put them in a little plastic bin on the ground so that Mira could watch them.  She actually wanted to read them a book, which was so adorable.  But then I took out Tina 1 and was holding her in my hands, and with so many people in the room she got spooked.  She jumped loose and started tearing around the room.  I quickly barricaded the door, thinking that we could just catch her like always.  And then I saw her running toward the closet.  I had almost grabbed her when she slipped into a thin crack between the wall and a permanent drawer on the floor of the closet:



I started freaking out.  Where did that crack lead?  Did it open into the wall?  the floor?  Was she stuck?  Would she stay in the playroom?  Could we get her out?

I was devastated.

I set up her toy log as a ladder going into a bin with food to see if we could lure her out:



And at the last minute I put her cage on the floor with the door down and extra food inside.  I was hoping she might just crawl in during the night and stay there.  We covered the heater vents in the room and blocked off any other escape routes we could see and hoped for the best.  But the next morning when I checked her cage, the food was gone and she was NOT in there!  She had climbed in, taken the food, and climbed back out.  She is so stinkin smart!  She didn't even go near the log ladder and bin trap.  But I could still hear her shuffling in the closet, so I was really hoping she was just hiding back there and couldn't get into the walls.

So I set up my next trap:

I even smeared a little peanut butter on the board and the inside of the hamper.  I left it there all day, and was so nervous to check it when I got home from work.

No dice.  It hadn't been touched.  Which didn't really surprise me because hamsters are nocturnal and I thought she would just sleep all day.  I decided to leave it there overnight, but I put some carrot bits on the board before we went to sleep just to make it extra appealing.

This morning, I ran into the room to check the trap: two carrot bits gone, no hamster.  She didn't even climb to the top of the ramp!  She is just too wary to get on anything she doesn't know.  Why does she have to be so smart?  But as I sat there in despair, I heard a very quiet rustle coming from under the bed!  I yelled for Matt to come and help me and immediately blocked off the closet.  Then I had Matt pull out the trundle bed VERY CAREFULLY as I watched for Tina 1.  I could hear her scurrying as he pulled, and eventually saw a little pile of food that she had stashed down there!  We were close!  He lifted one end of the trundle, and there she was, just a tiny furball of trouble.  But as soon as I went to grab her, she bolted toward the closet.  When she couldn't get back in, she panicked and bolted again.  After 5 minutes of chasing her under the bed and barricading more escape routes, I finally caught her!  I was so relieved!  Not only did I have her back, but I really really REALLY did not want to have to tell my in laws that there was possibly a dead hamster somewhere in the walls of their house.  Luckily, that is not the case, and Tina is safe and sound locked back in her cage.  She is definitely grounded for a few days.

But it's okay, because I love my hamsters!!!