Christmas Time!

We had a wonderful Christmas in the Applehans Family! We started off with our traditional traipsing through the woods for the perfect tree. We found it! We enjoyed Christmas parties, Breakfast with Santa Primary Activity, shopping, and lots of snow. We made gingerbread houses, dipped pretzels, and decorated sugar cookies. We spent several hours Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day sledding. We enjoyed lots of family time! We loved our traditional Christmas Eve celebrations - focusing on the true meaning of the holiday - the Savior, as well as leaving cookies, milk, and letters for Santa. We thoroughly enjoyed only sleeping until 7am on Christmas morning as excited little boys couldn't wait to see what was left under the tree for them. We spent the day as a family and enjoyed every second of it!

Daddy and the boys looking for the perfect tree.

Mommy and Tanner (and Baby Easton) Reindeer

Mommy and Tanner making gingerbread houses (with Aunt Melissa and Andrew)

Precious little Andrew hands.

Making dipped pretzels.

Making and decorating Christmas Cookies. I think more frosting ended up in little mouths (esp Tanner's) than on cookies.

Cuddle/story time with Daddy.

The boys got new robes for Christmas. Mommy and Daddy make a good team -

Mom cuts stuff out, Dad sews!

The boys LOVED their new cranes from Santa. This was the only thing they really asked for!

Our precious little boys in their new Christmas outfits from Grandma Applehans.

I LOVE Christmas time! I love celebrating the Savior - his birth, life, and gift to each of us. And I LOVE that whenever we asked the boys why we celebrate Christmas, they told us it was Jesus' birthday. Yes, they are typical children who loved opening their gifts, but they also enjoyed the GIVING of gifts, time, and homemade goodies just as much. Now I'm eagerly awaiting next Christmas when we get the share the joy and excitement with THREE little boys! (Not that I'm anxious or counting down the days or hours or anything, but less than a month to go until we meet our youngest little man!!!!!)

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a fabulour 2011!

Tanner Turns 3!

Wow - already?! Where has the time gone? I can't believe that my baby is 3 years old already!

First "Family of 4" picture, 3 years ago:



We had birthday celebrations for 2 days! Saturday was his actual birthday, but since Daddy had to work, we just had balloons and went out to dinner. Doesn't he look so cute in his sombrero? He LOVED the fried ice cream!



For months, this little guy has talked about wanting a tractor birthday cake. I thought he'd enjoy a "real" tractor as a keepsake, but still wanted to honor his request:



He was such a happy little boy. He thought it was so fun to receive a birthday balloon, crown, tractor birthday cake, and presents. He was giddy with excitement when he opened them and saw what he'd been given:



Thank-you everyone who helped make his birthday so much fun for him!

Spokane with Daddy!

This past week Jess had training for a few days in Spokane and he got to bring the family! The boys were thrilled that we stayed at a hotel with a swimming pool. We had a lot of fun swimming, shopping, exploring several parks, and just hanging out. Here's proof:

I took the boys to Manito Park and Japanese Gardens - about 90 acres of beauty! One portion of the park boasted over 1500 rose bushes. My little Tan-Man thought his Mommy better have a rose...

Andrew loved going around and smelling the different colors/varieties of roses:

Mommy and her Boys:

At the Japanese Gardens, the boys were thrilled with the size fish in the water and loved playing on the bridge:

I've always wanted to take the boys to the "Big Wagon Park." Sadly, once down the slide was enough for them - I think they were a little scared.

They LOVED the carousel horses!

...all the boys did. :)

Sunday Best

Jess snapped these pics before church last Sunday. I just think little (and big) boys look SO GOOD in their Sunday best!

In this pic, Jess told them to be silly.
Brothers. Best friends. I feel so blessed to be Mom to these two precious, handsome, sweet, adorable little boys.

These two are Daddy's little mini-me's. They are Daddy's boys for sure! When he gets ready for church and sprays on his cologne, two little boys are right there begging for some too. After they get their little spray, they come running to mom, hold up their necks, and BEAM when I tell them how good they smell. So cute! I love these two little boys!!!

Mother's Day 2010

Here are a few pics taken on Mother's Day.

Mommy and Tanner:

Mommy and Andrew:

Giving Mommy kisses.

The reasons I LOVE celebrating Mother's Day:

10 Things I Love About Being "Mom":

1. Hearing angelic voices say "Mommy, Mama, Mom"
2. Lots of kisses - sometimes sticky, sometimes slobbery
3. Kissing owies and handing out "ban-maids" (bandaids)
4. Unconditional Love
5. Being referee, chef, maid, coach, chauffer, nurse, and teacher
6. Pure joy and happiness
7. Reading together
8. Cuddles
9. Rediscovering the world through little eyes
10. Belly laughs

Saint Patrick's Day

We had a fun St. Patrick's Day this year. The boys really got into it and enjoyed all the fun stuff I planned... even green eggs for breakfast!
Daddy had to work, but Aunt Keri came over for dinner (including green jello) and art projects. We make these adorable shamrock hats and colored a leprechaun picture.

I hid shamrocks around the house for the boys to find and we ate yummy, green cupcakes with green frosting and green sprinkles.

My little Andrew leprechaun.

My little Tanner leprechaun.

We had a fun, LUCKY day! :)

Our 2nd Honeymoon

I realize this post is WAY overdue, but...

The end of January, Jesse and I left the boys with Grandma and had a 2nd Honeymoon/business trip to Anaheim, CA. We had a blast! We were gone 8 days and had beautiful California weather for almost all of them.

We spent 3 1/2 days at the CHA Convention, drooling over all the beautiful, new scrapbooking supplies. Jesse won me a Slice. He was such a good sport, and at least pretended to have a great time while I did my thing at the convention. :) We have lots of fun and gorgeous stuff planned for our upcoming Paper Posies Scrapbooking kits!
We spent 2 days of our trip at the happiest place on earth: Disneyland (and California Adventures). We had a great time riding rides, eating Disneyland food, laughing, holding hands, and just being together!

We missed the boys! We had to get this picture to show them we got to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater.

We spent a day at the beach and had dinner at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Factory on the Santa Monica Pier. We got to watch the sun go down at the end of the pier - talk about GORGEOUS!

We also went to Hollywood one afternoon and Jesse took me shopping at a huge, southern CA mall. Another day we spent a half day at an outdoor mall. Of course he bought me some really cute stuff both places! I'm so spoiled. Our motel was right across from Disneyland and we got to lay on our bed watching the fireworks both Friday nights we were there. We hot tubbed, tried The Cheesecake Factory for the first time (oh, yummy!), ate at a very nice restaurant overlooking the ocean from the top balcony view, and really, just had the time of our lives together. We really enjoyed celebrating our 5th anniversary (a couple months late) and made some great memories!

Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas season at the Applehans' home. We were blessed to be visited by all of our families, had 4 Christmas celebrations, had opportunity to share Christmas with others, participate in many traditions brought from both Jesse's and my families, but most importantly, reflect on the birth, life, and gift of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Here are a few highlights, in no particular order:

Dad and Elaine were able to come up the middle of December and visit for the weekend, along with all the girls in the family (we sure missed Kevin, Amy, and Chloe!). Their visit occured during our Stake's Creche Show. It was simply amazing. There were hundreds of navitities on display, a Children's Room where the kids got to create some art projects and play with children's nativity sets, and a room set up for taking pictures such as the one below. We thoroughly enjoyed their visit and the boys loved playing with Puck (their little dog). We played many games of Wacky Six and ate lots of good food!

The day after Christmas, we were blessed have Jesse's parents come for a visit. We had the privledge of having them here for 10 days, during which time we accomplished a lot of eating, game playing, finishing projects around the house, shopping, and playing with the boys. We also celebrated Jesse's collage graduation! Tanner loved getting reacquainted with "Bub" (Grandpa) and getting spoiled by Grandma. Andrew thought Grandpa's mustache was really great and tried creating one of his own with sticky white paper. He also enjoyed going into Gma and Gpa's room each morning to cuddle. We sure wish they lived closer because we don't get to see them often enough!

One evening, we went to Lewiston to walk through the park with an amazing Christmas light display:

Our own little family's traditions this year included baking and decorating sugar cookies, making a gingerbread house, sharing Christmas with others in need, driving around looking at Christmas lights, cutting down a live Christmas tree, and spending as much time together as possible. We also enjoyed writing letters to Santa, reading a new Christmas story together, telling THE Christmas story, and having Daddy off work Christmas Eve for the first time since starting his career. Jess and I both ended up with a horrible 24 hour stomach flu about 9pm Christmas Eve. Go figure. We still loved our time together (even if it included several trips to the restroom).

Just a couple days before Christmas, my Mom and some of my sisters were able to come down and celebrate an early Christmas with us. We had a lovely Christmas dinner, played games, talked and talked (us girls do that quite well), decorated cookies, and worked on Amy's recipe scrapbook. The boys love visits from their "special Bonner's Ferry Grandma" and Aunts.

Well, I guess that's it in a nutshell. Now we're on to 2010 already! I just can't believe how quickly time passes. We have so much to be grateful for and count our blessings everyday for Jesse's job, a nice warm home, a graduated husband (woo-hoo, finally!) our wonderful families, good friends, the gospel, our Savior, our special little boys, and most certainly each other. We're looking forward to all the happiness this year will bring!