New Year's Eve/ Matt and Kim's Wedding

We left Boise on the 29th of December and flew to Omaha for Matt and Kim's wedding. I always love seeing our Omaha family. Here we are at the church waiting for the ceremony to start. This is only some of us!!

Jarod was part of the wedding party, so we sent Jacoby with Grandma and Grandpa J and we went on the wedding bus. It was a lot of fun! Lots of loud music and laughing at some of the crazy dance moves.

We sat at the wedding party table while Jacoby went back and forth between Mary and us. I had a great conversation with Connor about life. I always love when I get to see him because we really do get pretty deep and he has had a rough year so it was nice to catch up with him and see how he is doing.

Our little family. Jacoby looked so handsome with his little tie on and Jarod and I coordinated and didn't even plan it. They gave him this tie the day before the wedding and it just so happened I was wearing the same color.

It was so fun to have the whole family there. Here are the boy cousins that were in the wedding party. Connor, Jarod, Matt and Shane.

The Jostes'

A picture of just the two of us- wow!

After pictures it was time to get on the dance floor. My baby loves to dance!!

and so does the rest of the Jostes' which makes for lots of fun at weddings.

Michelle, Elizabeth, Kara, Katie, Krista and Dan

The happy couple! Kim looked so beautiful and the entire wedding was amazing!

Jacoby had his first dance with another girl- Cleo! She asked him to dance and it was hysterical. He acted all shy and just stood there. I could not stop laughing!!

This was the face and how he stood the entire time. So funny!! I guess this little boy is going to stick with his Mama for a while and I am 100% ok with that!

Jacoby made it to midnight! He crashed about 11:30 and just sat on my lap and we watched everyone else dance but as soon as they pulled out the hats and horns he wanted back out there. He looks exhausted though- poor baby!

The next morning, we had to get moving and Jacoby was not happy about it. I think this was how we all felt.

It was a great time and a beautiful wedding. I love weddings because it always makes me reflect back on our wedding day. What can I say I am a sucker for weddings!

More Christmas

I am so grateful for this huge, wonderful family of mine that keeps getting bigger and bigger!

I am also thankful for my wonderful Grandma! We are so close and I love her so much!

She gave Jacoby this cute sweater that he loves! She gets so excited when she gets to see my little boy and I am so glad that they share a special bond too. She has always been my biggest fan and such a source of unconditional love for me. I am so lucky to have her as my grandma.

Oh Sweet Emma! I could seriously bring her home and keep her. I am pretty sure she would miss her Mama though but I just can't get enough of her when I am home.

Jacoby thinks it is pretty cool that his Uncle Ty is a police officer. He got to sit in his car when we were home and even got to wear his badge around.

See Jacoby could bring her home too!! He LOVES Emma!! He used to try to play horsey on her when she was little but now we got it figured out.

I love my family and I cherish all the time that I get to spend with them. They are all amazing people and I am so blessed to have them in my life.

While I was home, we had the opportunity to go to the temple. I hadn't been for a very long time but it was so cool to go with my sisters, their husbands and my mom and dad to start the temple work for my grandpa. It was a very neat experience and I was glad I was able to be apart of it.

Christmas in Idaho

To say I was excited to be home for Christmas this year would be an understatement! I was excited!! It had been 4 years since I had been home and it was long over due. We switch off families for the Holidays every year but my year two years ago I had the cutest little 3 week old baby so we stayed home.
Speaking of cuties, I cannot get enough of these two. They are so dang cute!! The last time we were home we had a few OK a lot of fighting with these two but not this time. They had the best time and played so well together much to my relief!!
They were so funny sitting at the table eating. They were laughing and having their own little conversation. It was too cute!


These three boys are so entertaining!! I love them all so much! I love that they are so close in age and I love all of their cute personalities. They are all so different but so much fun.

Christmas Eve we all got in our jammies and had a party. A tradition at my house. Since we were staying at my mom's house she bought us all jammies. The funny thing is my mom bought us ours and Lace and Brian bought each other theirs but the girls ended up with the same jammies and so did Brian and Jarod. What can I say but we have good taste!

My Mom, Dad and Ash planned a really nice little Christmas Eve program that my child was interested in for the first three minutes and after that I was busy trying to keep him still. It was really cute and hopefully next time the boys will be a little more cooperative. They just wanted to play with the nativity set this year. Jacoby likes to play with Baby Jesus and put him on top of the stable. That's where he belongs according to him.

I had to take a picture of this sweet, adorable little girl in her first Christmas jammies! She could not be any cuter!

Taking pictures of all the grandkids could be one of my least favorite things to do. Seriously. It is so tough and there is only 4 of them- what am I going to do when there is more. I think I will hand off my responsibility. Anyway, this is the best one we got but this time I thought I would add what most of them look like.

Yep, that would be all of them escaping!!! Except for Emma, she is always good for a smile!

Everyone went home that night only to return the next day to celebrate Christmas and yes we do that in jammies too!

Once again, Boden is not happy to be taking pictures and poor Ty had to work all of Christmas Eve and hadn't slept yet.

The newlyweds.

Derek and Vera

The Anderson's

Mom and Dad

I got a nice picture of everyone and then wait my son trying to escape again- he thinks he is so funny!!

The kids had so much fun opening Christmas presents but I think the highlight was playing in the wrapping paper when we were all done. Jacoby got lots of books and a Mickey Mouse guitar from Michael and Boden that he was a huge fan of.

He also got this adorable sweater and jeans from my mom. It was so him and so is this picture. He heard my dad getting into the whip cream so he ran over with his mouth gaping open and asked Paka for some. He was so excited he had to run around the house showing everyone.

We had an amazing meal- as usual with my mom!! Derek, Vera and us went to the park and played football and went on the swings. We played a little cards and Grandma GG came over to see all of us. We had a very relaxing, wonderful Christmas and I am so glad that I was able to be home for it this year!

Train to the North Pole

Jacoby and I left on the 19th of December to head to Idaho for Christmas. Jarod flew out on the 23rd and that night we went to good old Horseshoe Bend but this time we went for the train. It was AWESOME!!! It was the highlight of the trip for all of us. The boys were so excited while we waited in line to go on the train to the North Pole to see Santa!!

As soon as we got on the train, my mom gave each one of the boys a cute little package and inside was a train ornament for the tree to remember the ride, a train whistle and a conductor's hat that she made. They were all adorable in them!!

I will say that by the end of the night after hearing Michael blow on his whistle all night long that maybe next year we will leave out the whistle :)

The boys loved watching out the windows and were so excited to get there.

I love this picture of Michael- he soon joined us on our side though because he ended up with the mountain on his side.

It was a nice warm day in Boise so we were not very prepared for the cold weather at the North Pole. Good thing the train had some blankets outside so we could take in the view from out there as well.

This was Jacoby's first experience with Santa and I have seen so many sad pictures of kids with Santa that I was a little nervous how he would respond so I decided we would take it slow this year. We went up with all the boys at first and as you can see Jacoby and Boden would not take their eyes off Santa and Michael is so excited he can hardly stand himself!!

Michael wanted to tell Santa about the train set that he wanted with certain colors and shapes. I mean this kid had all the details of his train track figured out and luckily for us Santa delivered this year. Boden just kept looking at him.

I am not sure if Jacoby would have gone up by himself but he was happy as a clam sitting on my lap next to Santa. He told Santa that we wanted toys in Chicago. Good thing he added in the Chicago. I thought it was so cute!! He was super excited to meet Santa and it was a very good first impression of Santa.

Then they had chocolate milk and cookies for the kids. Boden put his entire mouth over the top of the milk and drank it like that and so did Jacoby. It was really entertaining to watch. Jacoby was also certain that it was hot chocolate that was just cold.

We attempted to take some pictures of the boys which was a joke. I mean seriously they were all running different ways and as soon as my child gets any sugar in him he runs laps- seriously laps and it was no different this night. He was everywhere- running over the bridge, around the fire and by Santa's sleigh. At least he would wave as he was going by. Once the sugar high died down a little bit, we got back on the train.

Santa came and visited with the boys on the train!! It was so much fun for them to be able to visit with Santa for as long as they did.

Santa's elves were there too and we sang Christmas carols. It really was amazing!

The boys loved hearing stories about Santa's reindeer and his sleigh.

Santa Claus told them all about how he makes toys and what his elves do. He also told them about Mrs. Claus. The boys just took it all in with these huge eyes. It was great!

It was so neat to share this experience not only with my son but my nephews. Christmas is so much more fun with little ones around and I loved every minute of it this year!