A little fake cheer for you...

This is Lia's fake laugh. She uses this laugh a lot!! She's such a clown. Here she goes a little crazy offering a little fake cheer for you all!



Also, pay attention to what Max is doing. Rodys = reindeer.

Just SIT STILL!!

I think most people have no idea how seriously wiggly our kids are. I can see that glazed over look in their eyes when we tell them that our kids are wildly energetic ALL.THE.TIME. -- they are thinking, yeah right, so are ours, nothing special. Here is a small glimpse into the world of an over-active Seibert. I'm pretty sure maybe the only other person in the world who gets what I'm saying is MAYBE Tyler's mom -- but I don't even think he was this bad. And this is NOTHING. This was just another story time with daddy. This is toned down. It gets much worse than this.

My Loves in Silhouette

Christmas Day-ing

After much anticipation by Max and the rest of us, it was finally Christmas morning and time to open all the wonderful presents from Santa! Max had a hard time understanding that not ALL the presents were from Santa, that he also had grandmas and mimis and grandpas and aunts and uncles and cousins that sent him presents too. And that mom and dad spent an arm and a leg on awesome stuff, too. Not liking how Santa gets all the credit for that.

Anyway... the kids woke up on Christmas morning in their jammies the Elves left them on the front door on Christmas Eve. So adorable in their little jammies opening all of their many presents!







Lia saw the doll in her stroller first and went crazy!! All she could say was "wow wow wow!!!!" and she ran over and dragged it out from behind all the other presents. She LOVED it!! Santa sure knows her, er, his stuff!!







Max got everything he asked for from Santa this year -- a green candy cane, a guy with legs to ride his motorcycles and a video. He got a lot of great toys and some new ties hung on the tree from the Elves.













Max got a remote control car from my dad and the kids thought it was hilarious to run after it and try to catch it. I think Tyler liked this present, too. It was a little hard for Max to control, but he loved running after it!!





Here's a video of the chasing. So funny.


The shopping cart and the tea set for Lia were big hits, too. Not to mention the Wii and all the games that came with it! Tyler and I are having a lot of fun with that one, too (thanks dad!!). Tyler got a jogging stroller from the kiddies and a couple of small things from me. And I got a weekend getaway from Tyler!!! So awesome -- I love getting to hang out with him for a whole weekend without any kids to tend to. We're going to go to Santa Barbara for the weekend in January. We'd been there before but didn't get much time to explore so we're looking forward to just bumming around together!







For breakfast we had eggnog waffles. They were DELICIOUS!! And thanks to Brooke we also had the Snickerdoodle spread to go on top. It was SOOO good!!!



Later that day we went to Legoland with the kids. My parents got us passes as a gift (one for Danielle, too) so we can all go together! We didn't get to stay very long because the kids were kind of on stimulation overload. But we had fun going on some of the rides. I luckily talked Max out of going on one of the pirate rides that swayed and spun all over -- I seriously would have thrown up. It only cost me a few pirate dubloons from the store.

It was a great Christmas for us!! We got awesome stuff, we got to spend the day just the four of us hanging out, playing, watching new movies, eating delicious food. Tyler invented this new way of improvising apple pie a la mode if you find yourself without ice cream. Yes folks, that is an ice cream sandwich.



We hope everyone else had a great Christmas, too!! We're so blessed with such wonderful family and friends and I'm glad we get this time of year to celebrate that! Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve-ing

I have to say, I was pretty excited for Christmas this year. We definitely missed our families, but we loved having our own Christmas together. It was calm and laid back and so fun making our own new Christmas traditions -- like popcorn and hot chocolate for decorating the Christmas tree, Christmas Eve boeuf bourguignon with the Bakers, cookies for Santa, Christmas morning egg nog waffles...

This year on Christmas Eve we spent with our neighbors and awesome friends The Bakers. Brooke and I worked our tails off making the perfect boeuf bourguignon from Julia Child's cookbook. It's basically a glorified frenchy beef stew -- but it was AMAZING. The beef melted in your mouth, the gravy was delicious. Stephen made some awesome mashed potatoes to go with it. We were so busy eating and enjoying we forgot to take any pictures. Especially because we got to cook it in Brooke's new Le Creuset!!



We also had fun exchanging gifts with the Bakers, too. We all pulled names out of a hat and we each had one person to spend $5 on at Target. We all went together and it was really fun. Chloe had me and I got a Coke and a very pretty dish towel -- perfect! Max had Sienna and got her some chocolate milk and a game. It was really really fun!! I think we might have played Rock Band or something later after the kids went to bed if both families didn't have so much wrapping to do. And if Brooke and I weren't exhausted from the very involved boeuf.





We had the most fun on Christmas Eve with them, though!! We left a plate of home-made cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer. Max also left Santa and the elves two special letters written/drawn by him. Here is the one for the elves:



Although now in retrospect it slightly resembles a Christmas Elf Slaughter...

Tyler and I didn't stay up too late wrapping presents. But it was so so fun to see all the presents for the kids from Santa and our families under the tree. They got SO many gifts this year!! Our families are awesome, seriously.











We couldn't wait to watch them open their gifts in the morning! And honestly, the only thing better than being a kid on Christmas is watching your kids have an awesome Christmas. My favorite part of Christmas!

Temple Lights

We're seriously lucky to live about a mile from the Temple. The lights at Christmas time are so pretty there. Max loves walking around there, too. He's dying to go inside.





We walked around and looked at the nativities they had there. It was a chilly night, but we came home and had hot chocolate (well, Tyler and I did after the kids went to bed).







We love going to see the lights and hearing the Christmas music playing every year on Christmas. Last year Lia was just a tiny little thing all snuggly warm inside a sling. This year she was all over the place. She loves when we let her down somewhere to run around -- reminds me of Max.

Christmas Cookie-ing

Max and I made and decorated Christmas cookies together so that Santa would have something to snack on when he got to our house on Christmas Eve. Max decorated a Rudolph cookie for said reindeer, too. He didn't want to leave him out.

Being Messy

While I was away for the weekend on a trip to San Francisco Tyler had the kids all to himself for a few days. He's a pretty fun dad (way more fun than me -- I'm all business, no fun) and took the kids all over.


They got ice cream at Thrifty one night.





They also went to the library and picked out some books. Tyler is a huge fan of Dr. Seuss. He had the great idea of getting Bartholomew and the Oobleck for Max and then making oobleck with him. Max thought this was the greatest thing! And I was shocked to come home and see the pictures of him actually putting his hands in it and touching it! He hates getting messy or getting things on his hands. Tyler didn't think he'd actually touch it. But he got pretty into it!







Tyler says it took him a little while to actually put his hands in. But once he did he loved it.







And after lots of handwashing, his hands were green. So cute!


I think they truly loved having all that alone time with Tyler. And I loved being able to go away on know they were in great hands with their dad back home. Tyler is an awesome dad, always playing and taking them for walks and runs and reading to them and changing diapers and getting dinner ready, even when I am home! He's awesome. Truly.