Happy New Year!

Our New Year's celebration started on New Year's Eve with the annual 'Warnick Family Soup in a Bread Bowl Game Night' at my parents house. This year my sister, Becky, decided to take it up a notch and make it an American Idol party. This is the 3rd time our family has done this and this time the new rule was that you had to use karaoke music- or music without the lyrics. This wouldn't be a problem for a musically talented family, but for Jon and I, we had a really hard time staying with the music. We decided to do "What I've Been Looking For"- Ryan and Sharpay's audition song and dance from the first High School Musical. About halfway through the song I was so lost all of the little girls in the audience had to start singing to get me back on track! It was pretty sad since all of our best moves were in the middle of the song and I messed it all up! Oh well, it was still a lot of fun and we can't wait until the next time to try and redeem ourselves!

Jake and Nathan sang "The Wise Man Built His House Upon a Rock." They got a little stage fright and it ended up being more of a solo on my part!

Carli did a song from High School Musical 2 and brought out some serious hip action moves as she sang!

Wendy and Derek sang "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"

Becky and Zac sang "Eye of the Tiger"

Please excuse this disgusting photo of myself and focus on how much we resemble Ryan and Sharpay (a six months pregnant Sharpay)!!!

Rob and Bethany sang a Jack Black song from 'School of Rock'

Christy and Adam sang the theme song from "Fame"

Holly and Brodie sang "I'm a Believer"

My parents sang the country song "I'm Proud of the House We Built"

The next morning we woke up bright and early and drove up to Pasadena to watch the Rose Parade. This is another Warnick family tradition that we have done every year since I was born. The boys had a lot of fun running around and spraying the silly string that Jon bought for them. Their favorite floats were the train with the animals and the Sesame Street one.

Overall we had a fun New Year's celebration and are looking forward to everything 2008 brings our way!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2007

We had such afun Christmas this year! We started the festivities at my parent's house on Christmas Eve. We had dinner and then took part in the traditional family talent show where each family has to perform some sort of Chrstmas talent. We sang 'Jingle Bells' and then showed a video of us being "Elfed" from elfyourself.com. Everyone thought this was pretty funny since they don't blog and they'd never seen it before.

We then did the Nativity where Jake and Nathan were both shepherds. They did such a great job- they actually sat there the whole time and Nathan was very concerned about making sure that baby Jesus was doing okay!

They got to open one gift that night and each got a new pair of Christmas pajamas.

Here is what Santa Claus left for the boys during the night. They were so excited when they came down and saw all of their new toys and presents!

Grandma and Grandpa Draper got the boys this teeter totter and Grandma and Grandpa Warnick got the boys the Leap Frog Clickstart, both of which they love!

We then had my parents and Carli and Justin over for Christmas morning breakfast. Later that day we went over to my sister, Christy's house and had the big adult gift exchange and dinner. Overall it was a fun, relaxing day and we think we are sold on celebrating Christmas morning in our own house with our little family!

The day after Christmas we went to Newport Beach with just the four of us and enjoyed playing in the sand, jumping down the sand hills, walking down the pier, riding the Merry-Go-Round and Ferris Wheel and getting candy from the candy shop. It was such a beautiful day!

More Holiday Fun

I can't believe Christmas is only 2 days away. I am finally feeling ready- the baking is done, the shopping is done, Christmas cards are done, all that is left is the wrapping and Jon has said that he is excited to help me with that! We've had such a fun holiday season- here are some more of the fun things we have been up to!

Thursday Jon and I went to Jake's preschool holiday party where we helped him decorate a graham cracker 'gingerbread house' and sat and read stories with him. Jake was so excited when we got there and proudly showed us around his classroom. It was so cute to be there with him and to see how much he loves going to school!

Jake came home on Friday with this cute reindeer hat on and a red Rudolph nose! He looked so cute and was so excited to show it to us.

Saturday morning was our ward's breakfast with Santa. It was really bright outside so the pictures didn't turn out too well. Jake was actually excited to sit on Santa's lap, Nathan- not so much!

Saturday afternoon the boys were helping Jon with the yardwork. Nathan decided to sit on the little electrical meter box out front and watch Jon mow the lawn. He lost his balance and fell about 3 feet straight onto his head on the concrete. The bump on his head swelled up pretty good and he scratched the lens on his glasses. He's a pretty tough kid and didn't cry for very long, but I did thinking that now he is going to have a huge goose egg and scratched glasses for all of the Christmas day pictures! I guess the most important thing is that he is okay!!!

Saturday night my good friend from high school, Heather and her husband, Brian came over to visit. Heather is such a thoughtful friend and always brings gifts for me and the boys. They gave Nathan a dump truck which he loved and played with the entire time they were here. Jake was asleep so he didn't open his gift until later. I wish Heather and Brian could have seen how excited he was to open his firetruck. He loves that it squirts water and makes fire truck noises! Thanks, Heather and Brian for the fun gifts and for coming to visit!

And last but not least... GO COUGARS!!! Jon was more than excited about their victory on Saturday night and I was more than excited that now Jon would be in a good mood for Christmas!

We hope that everyone has a happy and safe Christmas!

Grandma and Grandpa Draper

Friday morning I went into Jake's class and read them "The Gingerbread Man" story and then brought these gingerbread men for them to decorate. They don't usually like parent volunteers so it was so much fun to get to go spend some time in Jake's class. He was pretty excited about it as well!

Friday afernoon Jon's parents got here to spend the weekend with us. The boys warmed up to them immediately and were so excited to see them! We got a babysitter that night and Jon and I took them to go see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. It was such a fun holiday show and really got us into the spirit of Christmas!

Saturday Jon and Grandpa Ron took the boys for a ride in his new convertible Saab. Jon said that the boys absolutely loved it and were laughing the whole time!

Saturday night Jon's parents treated us to Islands and then we took them to see the Boat Parade of Lights at Newport Harbor.

We met up with my parents and Carli and Justin at the boat parade. It wasn't too cold this year and everyone enjoyed just talking and watching all of the decorated boats go by.

Sunday morning we all hung out and then Jon's parents left a little before church. The boys weren't dressed yet, but we still wanted to get some pictures of them with their grandparents before they headed back to Utah!

Overall we had a really fun weekend with Grandpa Ron and Grandma Lorelei and hope that they come back to visit again soon!

Holiday Fun

I love Christmas time. I love all of the fun things there are to do during this time of year. Here are some of the things that we have been up to...

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a trip to Disneyland to see all of the holiday decorations (and ride some of the rides!). We got to see the holiday firework show at the end of the night which Nathan and I loved. Jake is still a little terrified of fireworks, so Jon took him inside one of the buildings until it was over. I think we might have to make one more trip to the magic kingdom before the Christmas season is over!

The boys were playing by the sliding back door last week and I looked over and noticed that it was shattered into thousands of pieces, though thankfully it was still in place and not all over the house yet. We still have no idea how it happened, but we do know that Jon spent about 3 hours that night breaking the glass and cleaning it all up and that it is going to cost $500 just to replace the one pane of glass. Thankfully, the door is double paned and only the inside one broke, but still so annoying that we are going to have to pay so much money to fix it. I guess it's just one of the perks that comes with having kids!

We went with my friend, Cortney and her daughter, Roxie to Borders last week to see Santa, hear a story and have cookies. Unfortunately, when we got there the event had been cancelled! We were disappointed, but Nathan and Roxie still had fun walking through the bookstore holding these cute polar bears.

Jake got invited to a birthday party for his school friend at Chuck E. Cheese last weekend. When we got there his friend, Kevin was so excited to see him and the two played together the whole time. I teared up watching Jake actually having a friend that wanted to play with him and that he got along so well with. Jon and I have been having a hard time lately with the fact that it is really hard for Jake to interact appropriately with other kids and therefore he gets excluded a lot. We never blame the other kids- they don't understand his special needs- but it is still hard as a parent to watch your child get left out of everything that is going on. I think we might have to invite Kevin over for a little playdate sometime soon!

Monday night for Family Home Evening we talked about the Nativity story and then we put together this ginger bread house. Here are the before and after pictures. The boys had so much fun putting all of the candy on and also enjoyed eating it along the way! I think they did a great job and surprisingly they haven't touched it since- we'll see how long it lasts on our counter!

Today we decorated Christmas sugar cookies and made cards for their Primary teachers. We went around and delivered them all tonight which the boys thought was pretty fun. I think the teachers enjoyed receiving the goodies as well!

Some other highlights of this season include going to Roger's Gardens to see all of the trees and lights, driving around and looking at everyone's Christmas lights, getting my Christmas cards done and sent (sorry, no homemade cards this year), Christmas shopping, dancing to Christmas music, Christmas parties and gift exchanges, going to see Fred Claus, Enchanted and Bee Movie, going to Follow the Star (a live Nativity)... and there's still 2 weeks to go! Did I mention how much I love this time of year?!!!