I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...

Is Christmas really over? I just turned on pandora to listen to while I typed this and it automatically started to play Christmas music because that was the last station that I was listening to. It made me a little sad. We have to wait 12 more months until we can feel that cozy comfort cheer of Christmas again. (Actually we'll probable only have to wait about 7 months because I swear they have Christmas stuff up in the stores starting in July. I was at Wal-mart and I saw cadbury eggs. CADBURY EGGS! Seriously.) Anyways, it's over and here's a crap loap of pictures documenting the awesomeness of it all...

Alright this one isn't about Christmas...it's about our anniversary. December 14th marked 7 years for ol' Jon and Katie. Wow. And just to show what an awesome (sense the sarcastic tone)wife Jon got, I totally forgot our anniversary and Jon brought me home these beautiful flowers. Yes, you can feel bad for him. I do. ...but aren't my flowers perfect? :)

On to Idaho!!!!!!!

Upon arrival at my parents house we were greeted by an spectacular miniature city that is slowly taking over their living room. My dad has quite the collection. he has everything from a festive ferris wheel to actual mini Christmas lights strung around the fence surrounding the outdoor ice skating rink. We were impressed.

...And of course Maddie and Lyndon were in awe. They loved it. Lyndon loved it so much that every single morning, despite any type of punishment, he re-arranged the gravel roads. every. morning. without. fail. I think I reconstructed about 50 roads during our stay.

We got to spend Christmas week up at my parents cabin in Island Park. I LOVE being there for Christmas. The cabin to me, is all about Christmas. It's a time that there is NOTHING taking anyone away. (Except for when my Dad has to fix something like say, the water heater that went out DURING my shower. ...for the record, I screamed. I couldn't help myself. The water was so frigid, I thought I just might pass out. okay, I'm being a tiny bit over dramatic but it was so cold. )

Pretty sure more candy went in their little mouths than on the house. Oh well. That's just how Maddie and Lyndon roll.

Maddie is patiently waiting to open her Christmas eve gift of...Pajamas. Does everyone do that?

Everyone was very focused on the Christmas eve movie...Dinosaur Christmas. My Mom found this obscure cartoon about a dinosaur and a little boy and Christmas. It was a hit...even with Grandpa. :)

Christmas morning!!! Santa came. He really did. I was upstairs with Maddie and Lyndon while we were waiting to go down and see if Santa came. I told Maddie not to peek but the next thing I know she's stretching her neck around totally PEEKING. She quickly turned to Lyndon and I and said matter-of-factly, "Yep. He did it. He came. I just had to be sure."

This was so sweet...The first present Lyndon opened was a gift from Maddie. As he started opening it Maddie scooted up next to him and put her arm around his back. They are such good friends. It makes my heart swell.

Yep. Maraca's. Lyndon was dying for maraca's. He wasn't disappointed.

My Mom made Maddie and Lyndon these adorable quilts and pillow shams for their beds. And also these awesome stuffed guitars to match. I gotta say, I LOVE that my mom and Jonathon's mom are so amazingly talented.

You know Lyndon...he's like the energizer bunny. He runs wherever he wants to go. He doesn't know the meaning of slow down or walk. But we finally found what it takes to get him to stand still. and I mean still. They each got these little mp3 players that we downloaded some of their favorite songs on. ...Taylor swift, of course. Fireflies by owl city, paparazzi by lady gaga (you should see Lyndon's rendition, it's pretty sweet.), party in the USA by Miley Cyrus to name a few. Lyndon is in love. He's one happy camper listening to all his music.

A look out the front window of the cabin. Christmas morning was beautiful. It was white and snowy and a light snow fell all day. Very picturesque.

Lyndon toting around his loot. A very life-like dinosaur that growls--incidentally it scared the crap out of me when I stepped on it in the middle of the night. (Thank you Jim and Kris. :) ) And then his beloved Handy Manny tools. Oh he's in love, alright.

Never a dull moment...

So here's the low down on kids under the age of 5 and snow...not my cup of tea. Here's why: it takes an INSANE amount of time to get them dressed, only to have those very boots, gloves and hats that took so long to put on come off after their first fall outside. I admit it's fun to be out in the snow with them but it will be even more fun when they can dress themselves.

This is Jonathon and Maddie digging a fort.

He just threw some snow in his face...

making a snow angel.

This is OG. He's Byron's dog. I have to admit, I was smitten with OG. I just love the little guy. How could you not?

New Year's eve...Lyndon is celebrating in a big way.

Playing cards with OG, uh I mean, Mom. :)

Lyndon LOVES to crack people up. Exhibit A:

And I can't believe I didn't get one picture of Ben (Benny, as Lyndon calls him.) and Rachel the whole trip. We got to see them a lot. It was soooooo fun! We ate at their favorite sandwich joint in Rigby and they took us to get gormet donuts in Rexburg, and they got to hang at the Perkes house in Idaho Falls. Good memories. My hope is that someday we will live near eachother. someday.

...making cookies with Grandma, Rylee, Maddie and Lyndon.

Maddie was smitten too. This girl wants a dog.

BIG TIME.

On our way home we had a layover in Las Vegas. This was the first time we've been back since we moved 3 and a half years ago. As we were flying in I recognized so many of our old stompin' grounds. The memories kept flooding my mind. Our apartment in Henderson, eating at Roberto's, shopping at Smiths, our condo, Lucid recording, where Jonathon worked, North Vista Hospital where I worked and where Maddie was born...it's was all too much. I couldn't help but shed a few tears. I surprised myself by how sweet those memories really are to me. I look forward to going back there someday.

During our lay-over Jonathon's brother, Micheal and his wife Cris, who live in Henderson, came to see us. It was fun to chat with them and catch up. They are having a little boy in just a couple of weeks. We're very excited.

Oh yeah, and now that we're home Lyndon is potty training. He's doin' great, just needs to work on hiking up those undies.

the end.

that's what it's all about

Been a while, I know. :)



A few weeks ago we were driving in the car and I let the kids have the windows down for a little air. As we started speeding up to around 50 mph the wind was gushing in at all sides and whipping our hair around. I knew the kids were loving it because I could hear them giggling in the back. And then out of no where Maddie exuberantly yells above the wind, "That's what I'm talkin' about!"



That same day I took the kids to McDonalds to eat and play. Maddie likes the jungle gym but only if there are no other kids playing on it. Lyndon, on the other hand has the motto of "the more the merrier". This particular day there were lots of kids so Maddie took her seat next to me and Lyndon ventured out to start making friends. He attached himself to this Hispanic family of 3 kids. They ran and played together, Lyndon with them every step of the way. Meanwhile their Dad and one of their brothers were playing air hockey so the rest of the kids, including Lyndon, stopped to watch. To cheer her dad on the littlest girl yelled out, "¡Vaya a Papá!" (Go Daddy!) So what does Lyndon yell out? ..."¡Vaya a Papá!" I started laughing and so the Dad. He wanted to know if I was teaching Lyndon Spanish. Nope. :)



One day Maddie and Lyndon just would not listen. It seemed like anything we said or threatened were falling on deaf ears. So Jonathon, thinking on the fly, said, "Do you know that Santa is watching you all the time?" This perked their attention a little. Especially Maddie. So Jonathon continued, "Yeah, do you see these things?" (pointing to the smoke alarms.) "these are cameras so that Santa can watch you at all times. And if you aren't listening to your Mom and Dad, Santa knows." Maddie quietly listened and was pretty good the rest of the evening. I actually forgot about it until about a week later we were in Chick-fil-a and Maddie pointed to a smoke detector and exclaimed, "He even has them in HERE too??!!!" And then last night we come home from a night out and our baby sitter, the lovely Diana, said to us, "So...Santa has your house equipped with cameras, huh?" Apparently Maddie and Diana were in the pantry getting a snack when Maddie says in a hushed voice pointing to the ceiling, "See that? Up there? That's a camera." Diana's immediate thought was, what the heck? Are the Evans monitoring their pantry?! But then Maddie explained how it's a camera for Santa to make sure she and Lyndon are being good. Sweet success. For the record, I don't feel a bit guilty. This has helped us more than you know. :)

(side note: phone calls from Santa have also worked miracles in this house. I've never seen Maddie pick up the playroom as fast as I did the night that Jonathon had a little chat with the big guy.)



Lyndon has a big tendency of running off. We'll be in a store, any store, and if left out of the cart for any length of time he will turn, look at me with a sparkle in his eye and bolt. It's annoying. I can't stand it. (But he's just so darn charismatic...) So, needless to say, he spends the majority of his time buckled in a cart. Which he's certainly is not a fan of. I've never understood what the point of it is. (Except for the sure thrill of seeing his Mom sprinting down a crowded isle dodging innocent bystanders.) So I've never figured out why he won't stop after I call out his name 8o times. ...until now. We were at IKEA, eating hot dogs and cinnamon rolls. (what a steal, btw.) Lyndon jumps off his chair and immediately begins to take off. I call out, "Lyndon, Lyndon, stop, turn around, Lyndon, stop, Lyndon." I finally catch him, bring him back to the table sit down and sternly start the "Mom scolding" quietly in his little ear. "Lyndon", I say in a quick low voice, trying to make myself sound gruff, "when I call out your name. you. stop. do. you. understand?" to which he innocently replied, "What's my name?" So has this been our problem...he doesn't know his name?

So here are some random pictures...

First of all this was a fun Christmas parade. And most of you know...I'm a sucker for any type of parade. This was a pretty good one.

Lyndon, waiting for the parade to start was trying to make some leaves "Fly around".

We love our H-E-B!!!

Maddie got her face painted. Our little Rudolf. I'm actually a little surprised she didn't choose something a little more girly. Incidentally after the parade we went to Chik-fil-a for lunch. And I think the face painting gave her some power because she wasn't a bit hesitant to go in the jungle gym and play with all the other kids. All of the other girls pretended to be scared of her and would scream and run from her. At first I thought it might hurt her feelings a little but boy was I mistaken. She loved it. She was very proud to be the scary one chasing everyone.

Check out that HUGE bag of kettle corn. Real kettle corn made in a real kettle. It was heavenly. I wish that bag was twice that big. :)

Okay, so Lyndon has had a long term love affair with Cinderella. He likes to point out, "My favorite princess is Cinderella." It's really quite sweet. He wanted me to take a few shots of them together. ...engagement pictures maybe?

...astronaut, Lyndon came back for a bit.

Maddie had to come join us with her favorite princess, Aurora.

Lyndon LOVES to make anyone laugh, especially Maddie. I just love this picture.

and this one.