the last ornament

When we returned home from our Christmas vacation, we were happy to find our last ornament from the Kids Ornament Swap waiting for us in the mail. This cute little black cat came all the way from KENT, WASHINGTON! Just a hop, skip and a jump away from my parents' house in Maple Valley. What a neat little surprise?! :) This ornament exchange was such a fun experience. We will definitely keep it on the advent calendar for next year!!!

Happy Birthday Grammy!!!

We were happy to stay in Vegas for a little while longer after Christmas, to help Grammy celebrate her birthday! The very best part (even better than the french silk pie, playing president for hours or watching Shallon try to "ride" Sadie) was watching Grammy open the Photobook that Natalie put together with contributions from the whole family!!!! Grammy LOVED it and even starting tearing up (so did I)! Natalie did a great job putting the book together, it turned out amazing!

3 months

Tason is already 3 months old!  It is going by soooo fast.  I wish somehow we could just hit the pause button for a little while.  He is at such a fun age!  He is soooo smiley!  And Tason loves to have little conversations with us.  He will make some cute little babbley noises then he will wait for us to say something back.   And when you do say something back, he gets the biggest smile on his face.  It's sooo cute! 

ps. Check out the cute blanket Tason is chillin' on!  Our friend Wendy made it.  It's a giant teddy bear, raggy quilt!  It's super cute and BLUE!  We love it!  Thanks Wendy!

New family picture

An updated family picture! Thanks Kevin!

Tason's 1st Christmas morning

Tason slept through the early morning craziness.  But he really enjoyed his own private time with his new toys!  And of course he loves his Bumbo!  Yay!  Could he BE any cuter?!  I love this baby!!!!

Christmas morning (the girls)

Here are some pictures of the girls Christmas morning: (Tason was still sleeping)

Christmas Eve videos

Christmas Eve presents

Christmas Eve Presents!!!!  The kids each get to open 1 present before they go to bed.  This year they got some jammies from Nana and Grumps.  The girls each got a lip gloss slipped in also.  As you can see the extra surprise was quite a hit!  Good job Nana!  :)

Advent Calendar, day 24

Day 24: See a movie at the theater

It's a Severts' family tradition to go to the theater on Christmas Eve.  This year we went to see The Princess and the Frog! Soooo good! Definitely a must have, when it comes out on DVD. And ALL the kids did great during the movie. Tason (along with a few others) slept through the movie, so I actually got to watch the whole thing!

Christmas Eve

Baking some cookies for Santa with Grammy. And reading/singing some Christmas stories with Daddy and Granddad.

Advent Calendar, day 23

Day 23: Watch a Christmas movie

Sorry, no pictures of us watching the movie.

City Center

After the Bellagio, we walked over to City Center. The girls had fun playing with some artsy water tubes and hanging out on the "jellybean" stairs.

Advent Calendar, day 22

Day 22: Check out the Bellagio Christmas display

Kid's Ornament Swap 2009

These are 4 of the 5 ornaments that we received from the other families before we left for Las Vegas. Hopefully the 5th one is waiting for us when we get home. Aren't they soooo cute?! I can't wait to do this again next year!

Advent Calendar, day 21

Day 21: Go to Grammy and Granddad's house

Advent Calendar, day 20

Day 20: Breakfast for dinner
Yummy pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon for dinner!

Advent Calendar, day 19

Day 19: Participate in the ground breaking ceremony for our new stake center in Pahrump

Advent Calendar, day 18

Day 18: Pajama Day at Floyd Elementary

Advent Calendar, day 17

Day 17:  Preschool Christmas Party
Here are the kids enjoying ALL their Christmas treats at snack time!

Advent Calendar, day 16

Day 16: Buy sibling presents
This is probably my favorite family tradition for our little family! Last year was the first year that we did this. We take the kids to the dollar store and they get to pick out presents for their siblings!  I love seeing what they pick out for each other.  But even better is seeing how excited they get when they're watching their sister (or brother) opening the presents that they picked out!!!  :)

Advent Calendar, day 15, con't

I couldn't get Avalyn's video to post on day 15, so here it is:
Avalyn sung about 4 Christmas songs with the rest of first grade. This one was her favorite, All I want for Christmas is My 2 Front Teeth!

Advent Calendar, day 15

Day 15: Attend Avalyn's Winter Concert and Briley's Christmas Ballet Recital

Ok, hopefully this never happens again! Avalyn and Briley both had performances on the same night, at the same time, on opposite sides of town!!! Greg and I had to split up to attend both performances. Greg went with Avalyn and Shallon to Avalyn's Winter Singing Concert.  And Briley, Tason and I went to Briley's Christmas Ballet recital.

Briley with Peyton and Avery.  They performed to Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, it was sooo cute.  Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out our new video camera in time to record it.  Don't worry, I have already recorded some test video for our next video worthy event, CHRISTMAS!