Holiday EVERYTHING...

My blogging has been leaving a little to be desired lately *gulp*.  I truly think it's the holiday season...it's just the nature of the beast, my friends!  I have been taking some pictures here and there, and now they've all accumulated to a giant blog-post-conglomerate!

This is Marin, and she sits on the couch...JUST like her daddy.  It made me laugh to see her sitting like this, she is such a daddy's girl.

 I've been wanting to make cookies with my little Marin and I seem to struggle having a little Owen crawling all over the place and needing attention.  It's a very punctuated process!  But, we triumphed!

 Sweet girl :)

 She loves to use my little red rolling pin, and she refers to it as though it belongs to her.

 Sugar cookies with white frosting and blue sugar sprinklies.

 Owen was a spectator for this one.

 I love this pic, Marin with her giant cookie and Owen with his silly grin.

 Oh, my boy, he is such a sweet guy.  He just touches my heart with tenderness.

 Sometimes I wonder if he thinks his name is "Buddy", we call him that quite a bit, so I've made an effort to stop using that nickname so much.

 Hey, there's my cookies!  I bundled them into little party bags (LOVE them) and Marin and I delivered them to our neighbors on Saturday.  Ahhh, I love the holidays for this reason!

 There's my little helper.  It's hard to get things done when you have to monitor/entertain a little one.

 But who can get mad at this face, huh?!

 At our ward Christmas breakfast on Saturday, daddy and a *very* sleepy Owen.

 The line to see Santa!!

 The gym was FILLED, there were so many people there!  I signed up to bring a breakfast casserole, and I hesitated over what I knew people would be familiar with (a sausage egg casserole) and something different (a hash brown casserole).  I ended up making the sausage egg....and so did *everyone* else!!  Haha, next time I know....make the one that's different!

 Marin and her friend from nursery, Sammy.  The saw each other in the Santa line and jumped and held hands, it was the cutest thing ever.

 Those little girls.

 Playing toss-the-jacket.

 Sitting with Santa!  Sammy was a little less sure.

 Marin did....ok.  She was excited, but a little hesitant, but she pulled through, good job Marin!

 Owen was less than thrilled.  He took one look at Santa, put his head down and came up crying for mama.  Haha, it's ok, next year maybe?

 And Saturday still...Grandad and Sallie took us out for a late lunch to Red Robin and Marin had fun playing Angry Birds on Sallie's phone.

 And MORE Saturday (it was a busy day!), Our children went with Grandad and Sallie, and my husband and I went to a Christmas concert at the Conference Center.

 This performance featured Jane Seymour and world famous baritone, Nathan Gunn.  It was a fantastic show.  It's funny that the one thing that really stood out to me was the organ solo...WOW!  They showed the organist playing his solo, and all I can say.... is that playing the organ is a finger slappin', toe tappin' choreography of sheer talent!!  There was so much going on with each of his hands and both of his feet on the pedals, amazing!

 Marin in her pretty Christmas dress, she is such a pretty girl.

 Oh, that girl!

 And she's off to her next adventure.

 Twirling!

 And....Owen's first haircut!  He's been sporting a bit of a baby-mullet now that his hair is growing in, so I bit the mommy bullet and took the clippers to my son's hair.  This is the before.

 Aaand the after.  I'm not experienced using clippers...I cut Kris's hair, but I use scissors, so it was a new adventure for me today!

 I think I did pretty well, all things considered!  Owen was obviously distracted with the buzzing sound, so it was tough to work with, and you can see I had a slip up on (his) left side there.  But, I can't believe how much like a little boy he is looking!

I truly think I aged about five years today though.  Seeing as today was Marin's last day in nursery and then she will be my little Sunbeam!  And giving my son a haircut...it all made me feel like I had aged!  Plus, I've been rearranging Owen's feeding schedule slightly to prepare for the one-year-weaning in 8 weeks.  I cannot even imagine that my sweet boy will be a year old in (less than) 8 weeks!!  It's going to be another emotional roller-coaster when the time comes and I'm already feeling it.  Kristoffer does the bedtime feeding now and I pump.  It will be nice to be done, but I'm really a weepy basketcase of emotions for a good week.  The Lyman kids are growing up!!