Post-Christmas Fun!

The weather has been crazy this Christmas! It snowed almost every day for a week or so leading up to Christmas. This made for a beautiful white Christmas but also put a damper on our traditional visit to Temple Square. Finally, the day after Christmas, the weather report was not too bad and we jumped in the car and headed out. We hit a bit of snow on the way up but it wasn't that bad and we got downtown safely enough. We went to the Clark Planetarium first. Skylar had received some tickets for entering the Reflections contest and we were able to go see Santa vs. the Snowman in 3D. It was not too shabby and actually had some Star Wars references that were pretty good. We enjoyed it and then went and looked around the Planetarium for awhile. This was Nick's dream come true. He loves planets! He is really into these toys called Planet Heroes, which I love because he totally knows all about the planets, their location to the sun, their attributes, etc. He had been begging to go for almost a year to go so I'm glad we were able to include it.

After the planetarium, we hopped on TRAX and headed over to Temple Square. This was our first time on TRAX and the kids totally thought it was awesome. Ben and I didn't think piling 4 kids and one stroller at lightning speed onto a train about to take off was that awesome, but it was a lot more convenient than finding a parking space near the temple! It was an adventure in itself!

Temple Square was beautiful, as usual, and we've discovered something. Going the day after Christmas is sooo much less crowded! We could actually get around easily!! This may be a new tradition!! We had a wonderful, although freezing, time as we always do, and it really made us concentrate on what this wonderful season is all about. It was especially good to go back to thinking about Christ's birth after all the crazy Christmas day presents and such!! A trip to temple square is one of my favorite traditions and I'm glad we were able to get it in this year!

Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas this year! We started out the celebration by going to my parent's house on Christmas Eve. We had some yummy dinner, played Christmas Bingo amongst other games, had our nativity, showed off some talents, and opened presents. My little family was supposed to constitute the Holy Family with Skylar as Mary, Kade as Joseph, and Alexis as Baby Jesus. Nick opted to be a shepherd. When it came down to it, Kade was too exhausted and cousin, Dylan, jumped into the role of Joseph. Even though he turned 18 this last week, I'm glad he's not too old to join in our nativity! We had a great night and were very grateful for exhausted kids who konked out on the way home, except for Skylar, who was insistent on leaving out cookies for Santa, which I'm sure Santa was very grateful for.
So Christmas morning arrived at 4:30 am. Skylar came to inform us that the big guy had been there. We told her to go back to sleep and wait until the sun was up. At 5:30 I heard Nick and Skylar over the monitor in Skylar's room and went in there. They had the light on and were chatting away excitedly. I told them to go back to sleep. Surprisingly, they did. At 7:45, Nick came in to tell us that the sun was up. We agreed that it was and dragged ourselves out of bed and then the mayhem began.
We were spoiled, as usual, and Ben and I decided we're dumb. We just get crazy good deals and end up with too much. Anyway, the highlights for the kids this year were Skylar's Rainbow in my Room and pink V-smile pocket, Nick's V-Smile pocket and cool, light-up Batmans, Kade's Little Einsteins rocket and R2-D2 Laptop, and Alexis's Kickin' Bobbin Gym-which folks, unfortunately doesn't come even close to our old beloved Kick Start Gym which was kicked to it's death by Skylar & Nick. Alexis seems to enjoy it though. We also scored a Wii, which has already brought hours of fun to our abode.

Sweet Baby Alexis's first Christmas!

After the loot was all opened, Ben's family-his mom, sister, and brother-came over to our house to spend the day. We had some lunch , opened more presents, and relaxed. It's so nice to be able to stay home and chill on Christmas. Our kids also love being able to stay and play with all of their stuff! We had a really nice, relaxing day. What a great ending to a great Christmas!!

Pre-Christmas Fun!

Nick's Joy School Nativity:


St. Lucia's Day:

Nick's Preschool Christmas Program:
where we saw Santa:Skylar's Class Party:

Finally playing in some snow, even if all the snowsuits are too small:We also went to see the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork and it was really cool. We forgot the camera, of course.

And someone did the Twelve Days of Christmas to us. They gave us a piece of the Nativity every day. It was a great way to remember Christ throughout all of the busyness. It gave us something to look forward to every night! It was so much fun! We're so thankful to whomever did it!!

The Christmas Letter

So here's our family Christmas letter. I promised Ben this was the last year we'd mail them out. We're moving to e-mail next year. I have to admit it sounds appealing. It's a lot of work! Enjoy!!

Merry Christmas, Dec. 2008

It's amazing to think that this year has flown by so fast. It has been such a whirlwind year for us! We hope you have all had a wonderful year and are doing well.

We were blessed with a new baby girl on September 20th of this year. Her name is Alexis Camille Jordan. She was very eager to get here and arrived a few weeks early. She weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long. She looks like her mom and has big blue eyes. Alexis is such a sweet baby. She always has a big smile and has started cooing and talking to us. She has fit right into the family and we are very happy she is here.

McKade is 2 ½ and remains our bundle of energy. He wears both himself and his mom out and luckily still takes two naps a day. He loves to play with the big kids and especially wants to do everything with his big brother. He is learning his ABC's and 123's right along with Nickolas. He is very compassionate and never wants to see anyone hurt or sad and is such an attentive big brother to his baby sister.

Nickolas is 4½ now and is in both Joy School and preschool this year and loves being around all of his friends. He took swimming lessons this summer and a sports skills class and enjoyed both a lot. Nick loves his dog, Koda, and has taken over feeding him every day, which is a great help to his mom. Nick is a really sweet kid. Sometimes he just comes and gives us a big hug for no reason at all. He is also very funny and loves to make us laugh.

Skylar, age 7, graduated from kindergarten and moved onto the first grade. She really loves school and was very disappointed that there was such a thing as summer break. She insisted on staying busy and spent the summer taking T-ball, swimming, piano, and craft classes and of course, drawing. She is in the Mini Stars Company at a local dance studio and was excited to go to Lagoon to compete, where her group won first place.

As for Ben and Cyndi we have had a fun and exciting year. In May we were able to go on a cruise to Baja Mexico with a large group of friends. Cyndi's parents were kind enough to watch the kids for us while we were gone. It was such a fun trip! We went to the beach in San Diego, snorkeling in Catalina, bought fun trinkets in Ensenada, Mexico, and we had a really good time with our friends. We can't wait to go on another one! We took another family trip to Yellowstone with Cyndi's family. We went fishing and all of the kids caught their own fish with the help of Grandpa. Skylar caught her first fish all by herself. We also went to a ghost town, the Lewis & Clark caverns, and over to Jackson and the Tetons. It was a great trip.

Cyndi is staying home and is happy staying busy with the baby and three other crazy active kids. She takes great care of the kids and tries to take them to the library once a week as well as many other fun activities. She enjoys keeping up her blog and connecting with friends through their blogs.

Ben is currently working at OrangeSoda as the Creative Design Manager. He enjoys his job and co-workers and is working hard to help build the company. He is working as a language missionary in the Spanish ward and is also helping the 11 year old Scouts in that ward.

We feel very fortunate to have been blessed so much throughout our lives and especially this last year. Although we all have our trials, we are our grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all of the joy that it brings to us. We know you have all had your own struggles as well and our hearts and prayers are with you. We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We love you all!

Love,

The Jordans

I've Elfed Again! This time I had to leave myself out. Sacrifces, sacrifices!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Poor Ben

Okay, so a week or so ago our automatic sliding door on our van broke while I was at the store with my three littles. I had to use all my power just to get the door closed so we could drive home. Nice. So we took it into the shop and the price to fix it was hefty. It just happened to be on Ben's birthday. What a great present. Anyway, we decided to get it fixed and justified the price thinking it might save a limb or two from our kids slamming themselves in the door. Totally worth it after Ben slammed his thumb in the side that's not automatic. Yup, it's broken. Ouch!!

Christmas is upon us....

My favorite time of year! So far, we've been busy. The Monday before Thanksgiving we went to Orem City's lights on ceremony. After some long speeches and some awful country singer (why must it always be country?!?), they finally lit up all of the trees. The look on McKade's face was priceless. Oh, the wonders of the season!
The night after Thanksgiving we were surprised on our way to the Tongs with the Spanish Fork Christmas Light Parade. We joined the Tongs on the side of the road to watch a pretty fun little show. Now if only they'd have had Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade song playing it would have been complete. I guess since it was Christmas, they decided to go that route with the music. Santa was there and that made the kids pretty excited! After some good 'ol small town fun we headed to the Tongs for some fun games with them and the Jensens. As always, we had a good time and stayed up way too late.Last weekend was the kicker. On Friday we went up to SLC to Hogle Zoo t0 see Zoo Lights. It was really cool. The Tongs, the Hanamaikais, and the Jensens (minus Colby) all joined us and we had a great time! We didn't see many real animals but they did have a bazillion lighted animals all over. It was really pretty and quite impressive. Of course, that night was the first night it decided to drop to like 25 degrees and we froze our tails off but we had a fun time anyway.

Nick & Dylan are the best of friends & love being together! Nick will be devastated when they move as will all of us!

The next morning we headed back up to SLC for the Festival of the Trees. Skylar's dance company always has their Christmas performance there. The trees are always cool to see. I had to laugh at the Twilight trees that all of the girls were getting their pictures taken at. The coolest tree by far was the fully blown glass one. It was beautiful! Ben's dad and my parents both came to see Skylar dance and she did a wonderful job. She LOVED her costume this year because it had a giant tutu. She totally felt like a ballerina. Now the question is where do we store that thing until the Spring concert?


Afterwards we dropped all of the kids, even Alexis, off at my mom & dad's and Ben & I went to see the Body Worlds exhibit downtown. Okay, so not too Christmassy, but wow! I just have to say wow! It was totally awesome! I love stuff like that and was amazed at how cool it was. My favorite thing about it was the intelligence of the surrounding people. The best line was: "Did you see that body over there? The girl is soooo skinny!" Um, yeah, chick, everyone's pretty skinny when they've been stripped down to just their skeleton and muscles. Amazing!