Stowellzone

Wow! I can’t believe that McKinley is one month old today!  She was awake for a few minutes so we hurried and snapped some pictures of her.  She has changed so much, everyday she looks different.  She is starting to smile at us when we are talking to her and she holds her head up like a champ!  She loves to be talked to and already acts like she wants to talk back.  She is still sleeping quite a bit and a few times she’s slept for 5 hours at a time at night (mom really likes those nights).  She is enthralled with her brother and likes to watch him run around.  She loves the sound of running water and will just hang out in her bouncer and listen while I shower or do the dishes, so that is really nice!  Here are some pictures we grabbed of her tonight.  She spent most of the evening sleeping on her Dad, but we got her to wake up for a minute!

I love this bottom picture because you can see her dimple in her cheek a little!

Yeah!  The big day was finally here!  After a very long night of trying to get Mason to bed (he was so excited that he didn’t stop talking and trying to get out of his room until 11:00) he jumped out of bed when we told him that Santa had come and left some new toys!  He rushed downstairs and saw that Santa had left him a huge train set!!  It took about a half hour before he’d leave it and open his other presents.  Then two hours later (because he had to play with every toy first for awhile before he’d move on) we were finally done.  It was a great morning.  McKinley, now this is strange, slept through it all in Great Grandma Johnson’s arms!  That girl sure know how to sleep!  She made a haul too, lots of new little toys to play with in the future and her first doll!

He got this little trampoline from Great Grandma and Grandpa Shifflet.  He was a little unsure about it the first day but is now jumping away on it like a madman!  We were excited about it because we don’t have a good backyard for a trampoline so this one is great until he can someday have a big one.  And we are really hoping it keeps him from jumping on our couch!

After we finished at our house, we drove down to Lynndyl where Mason got to open even more presents!  Then we spent the day relaxing while Mason played with Shana and McKinley slept, lol!  We were a little nervous about the weather because we were supposed to get hit hard with snow, but it very nicely waited to hit our area after we got back home!

Ethan got a Wii for Christmas so this is about what we saw of him!! 

We are so blessed with such wonderful families. We are so grateful to have the Gospel in our lives and to able to remember and celebrate Christ’s birth.  With all the excitment of presents and Santa, it seems that the true meaning of Christmas is sometimes forgotten.  We sure did miss all our family that couldn’t be with us this year and hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!

There were 5 new posts added tonight, so make sure you scroll down and see them all.

Since Mason is kind of starting to understand who Santa is, I decided that we should start the tradition of making cookies for him on Christmas Eve.  It was so much fun and oh what a mess!  I just let go of my anxiety of seeing flour covering my kitchen and Mason and let him have fun!  He dumped all the ingredients in and then helped me roll out the dough.

If anyone is thinking that there is a fair amount of flour on the cookies, they are right!  Mason liked to help a little too much with the flour so Santa needed a big drink to get them down!

The cookies were also extra sugary with all the sprinkles!  But very festive, right!

He had to taste them to make sure they were good enough for Santa!  Even with a sore upper lip from his cold, he had a great time!

Daddy and McKinley hung out in the living room and watched the craziness from a distance.

We usually have the annual Nielson Christmas Party at the church in Lynndyl but this year it was being used, so at the last minute we all crammed into Kay and Roger’s house.  It turned out really nice because their house is decorated with tons of Christmas stuff so it was really cozy.  All the kids could also go downstairs and play and the adults just hung out upstairs and visited.  There was lots of great food and wonderful company!

All the kids got a present from Grandma and Grandpa Nielson.  Mason got some Cars crayons and McKinley got a cute stuffed animal.  She, of course, slept through the whole party!

This is just a way cute picture of Mason trying to get his Great Grandpa to come and play with him!  You can see all the pictures taken this night by clicking here.