Oh the holidays!!!

It's been quite awhile since we we last posted...but as you can imagine and probably know all to well, the holidays around here are a crazy buys times and the days fly by! Let's start with November! So the 22nd was Ben and I's 7th anniversary (yea for us!), the 24th was my birthday and the 25th was Thanksgiving! For our anniversary this year we just went out to dinner to a VERY nice place and spent the evening together. It started with Roses from the hubby and ended with a sleigh ride around Salt Lake City, so fun! Thank you to Dee and Hailey for taking the kidos so we could have a fun night out! My birthday...27, wow I'm getting old! Ben's family was here because they came to our house this year for Thanksgiving so it was a fun filled night! We had cake, opened presents, and went shopping that night for Thanksgiving stuff. The night before my birthday Ben wanted to give me one of my gifts that he was really excited about before all of the family and the chaos began. All that week he had been working on putting together a BEAUTIFUL picture frame for me with some of my favorite pics...it brought tears to my eyes and I LOVED it! Thanks babe! Thanksgiving was so fun. Bens mom and dad, brothers and sister and her hubby came along with Ben's aunt and her 3 kids. We were lucky to fit everyone in my house. I have never hosted such a big event at my place before, so it was alot of work but so worth it! That night, me and some crazy friends went to Walmart at midnight for the after thanksgiving sales, shopped there for a couple of hours and then decided to just keep going instead of going home and then going back out. We hit Old Navy, Target, the Mall, etc..came home around 5am and WAS EXHAUSTED!!! A few hours later I went back to the mall with my mother in law, but didn't make it long before I started feeling seriously sick and had to go home and sleep. Every year I say I'm not going to do that, and then the phone rings from my crazy friends, they SOMEHOW talk me into and before I know it..I'M THE ONE DRIVING!! Anyways, so fun and I love that I have such fun family and friends to do these things with.
We were going to just stay at our little house with our little family this year for Christmas but last minute got the phone call from Grandpa and Grandma McSpadden begging us to come home "one last year" (which was 2 years ago!!) and we decided to go. Partially because Ben's family was coming the day after Christmas and that's when were originally going go to mine, so this way we could spend time with my fam and be back for his.
Christmas was a blast! Thursday night I invited Kelli and Courtney (some bestest friends from High School) and their hubbies over for Pizza and visiting. Courts husband had to stay home with the flu, so she visited for a little while and Kelli and Jeremy stayed and ate, played cards, and had so much fun! I am so grateful for such good friends and feel so lucky to have held onto such wonderful people throughout my life. We had a great Christmas Eve with family and 2 of the families that always come over and we spend it with. We had yummy soup bowels, desert, and put on a fun Christmas program. That night I was up til 3am putting together toys, wrapping last minute gifts, and organizing Santa's gifts...my fav part about Christmas. I swear every year I am more excited then my own kids! Well, Santa definitely came.....and boy were my kids spoiled rotten! Holly cow I have never seen so many gifts in my life mainly because of my parents who SPOILED them crazy! All Christmas day we just played our new toys, ate to much food, and played fun games together. Thanks to Mom and Dad for such a great time and for taking such good care of us, we love you more then you know!
We came back to good ol' Utah the next day and were so happy to be back in our own beds and made it happy and healthy! The next day we spent some time at Ben's Grandma's with his family and were even able to see his sister Carly and their kids so my kids had a blast playing with cousins and catching up on some much needed Fullmer time! That night when we came home we pulled into the neighborhood and it was PITCH DARK. I guess the power had gone out a few hours before so it looked kind of creepy! And for any of you that don't know me...I HATE THE DARK!! I'm a scardy cat and HATE HATE HATE when the power goes out at night, it's like a scary movie for me. It's the worst! of course our house was freezing so the kids got to spend the night in our room because the basement was WAY to cold for them and we were up ALL NIGHT changing batteries and consoling scared kids (and wives haha!) SOO, the next few days we spent and PJS and doing NOTHING because we were so burnt out from traveling and being up all night for nights on end! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the holidays, but sometimes after them I feel like I need another vacation!
SO, sense then, we have gotten back into normal life. Started kindergarten again, pre school again, normal nap times and bedtimes again, back to work again, and training for my wonderful marathon again. New years was spent with friends, eating MORE food, counting down the dropping ball, kissing while holding a overly tired baby, and making New Years Resolutions...which are: finish my half marathon (which is in two weeks by the way!) (finish my full marathon...can't even think about that yet!) spend more individual time with my kids, daily scripture study more often, serving someone else AT LEAST once a week, begin sewing and finish my scrapbooks, be a better wife, sister and daughter. (Oh the list could go on but those are just a few!)
I look back on the past few years of my life and I cannot complain, they have been wonderful! I have been extremely blessed and have really come to learn more about myself and who I am truly as person, a mom, a wife, etc.. but I want to be better. I want to be my best self and accomplish some things this year that I have wanted to do for a long time. I feel like with Dru being 6 months old now, finally getting back on track with a normal schedule and back to real life again with NO PLANS of getting prego in the near future..that I'm going to start focusing on the now and bettering my life along with my families life. I love you all and cannot begin to tell all of my friends and family how much we love and appreciate you all. Thank you for being so wonderful! We hope you all enjoyed your holidays and are looking forward to a new year!

Cheese for the Christmas card!!














Long lonst friends getting together again

Decorating Christams cookies at Austin's pre

school party that mom helped at.

Austin has the BEST pre school teacher, we

love Ms. Kelly! This is her readding a

Christmas story to the class.

Reading a letter from Santa thanking the kids

for writing him letters

Austin's pre school friend Graham...they are the

only boys in the class so think they are pretty

cool! haha

Mom and her baby boy

Brooklyn and Ellie playing in the snow...they

had a blast if you can't tell by the huge grins!

Brooklyn LOVES the snow, she would play in

it ALL day if I let her

Uncle Treagan and Allison came to visit for a

weekend and this is what Tregan ended up doing

after shoveling my drivway. haha My kids

ADORE this boy

This is Kelli's little girl Lyla and my little Dru

(not so little) ...match made in heaven!

There is house in my parent's neighborhood that

every year has Santa come and the kids get to

sit on his lap and tell them what they want for

Chritsmas. My kids JUMPED at the chance and

LOVED seeing him. I thought Talon would be

scared but he was on his lap before I knew it!

Brooklyn and Santa

Austin was little shy so said he wanted his new

Transformer toy..and off he went hah

Me and my little sis...I love this girl and already

miss her. Thanks for running the dreaded loop

with me andspending some much needed sister

time..love you sister

And what does Kyli want from Santa this year?

This house is decorated in all the disney's stuff

you can imagine! Talon was in heaven with Buzz

and Woddy.

Bestest friends

Cheese!

Brooklyn and Grandma!

This is wear you could find Talon most of the

time at my parent's house...

My little Mary

Austin LOVED his new Criss Cross Crash

car set...still plays it all day!

My 6 month old sucking on his present

And yes, Brooklyn got her much wanted

Leapster with a Tinkerbell game

Christmas morning...don't judge pls! Going on

two hours of sleep and pretty much delirious!

Look at those cheekies!!

Dru LOVES Grandma..I'm pretty sure she likes

him a little too

Talon with is Buzz bike that he wanted all year

The beatuful picture frame ben put together for me.

Brooklyn lost her FIRST tooth on my birthday!

The toothfairy definitly came..I've never seen

her so happy!

Happy birthday momy! My husband spoiled me

with some money to get some new clothes and

a gift card to my favorite running store so I could

get some warm sutff since we're insane and I run

with a friend at 5am in the freezing cold weather

to train for this thing.

This is all of us getting ready to blow the candles

out!