Birthdays!

I turned 27 this month. I've noticed the last couple years whenever I got asked how old I was I had to think about it for a minute. I remember asking my parents when I was younger how old they were and they wouldn't know and I couldn't imagine how you couldn't know how old you were but now I do lol!

My birthdays when I was little never seemed like they were a big deal. I didn't have parties, I don't remember any cake or presents so now Aaron gets the responsibility of making up for it and making it a special day for me every year, and he does a great job!

I have the greatest friends! My girlfriends from Texas all chipped in on a ticket for me to fly out to Texas for the weekend, I am so freakin' excited!!! My brother Jon was so awesome and came over and made me chocolate molten cakes with mint sauce, they were soooo good! My sister took me to lunch at Kneaders and I don't know if it's just because Im pregnant but I had the Best sandwich I have ever had, I've been craving it ever since. Then Aaron surprised me with flowers, velvet cake and took me to get my nails done (which I love doing but can't justify how expensive it is) and then topped it off with dinner and a movie. It was a great birthday!



My little Princess turned 4 years old this month and she definitely took advantage of being Princess of the day, we couldn't get her to make her bed or do anything she didn't want to do. I was so happy to be able to celebrate her birthday in Utah where family could come. We took her to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with a bunch of family and it was awesome! After that we came back to our house for cake, ice cream, pinata and presents. She really racked it in! It was so nice to have her cousins and family there to celebrate her special day with us.


This dinosaur was so huge I couldn't even get half of it in the picture.

This is Chloe and Anna's scary dinosaur faces, lol!
Mary plays so well with Chloe, she gave her all the dinosaurs. Chloe gathered such a huge pile other kids were coming and asking if they could have one.
Myree and Emma had so much fun building and rebuilding their dam.

I love this picture and how Chloe is worried about Grandma Bell.
Digging for fossils and they found one :)

Grandma Bell is the Best! The kids have so much fun with her.

I don't know how but we managed to squeeze 25 people into our little apartment. It was a little crazy but well worth it!
It's not a party without a pinata! I was surprised at how fast these kiddos tore it apart.
Happy Birthday Chloebug! You're such a sweetheart and so loving and we are so blessed to have you in our family, we love you!!!



My Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Christmas!

We had our first Christmas at home without having to deal with airports, layovers, fitting all the gifts into the suitcases onto the plane and it was heaven! We had such a great Christmas! My favorite part of Christmas and the thing I look forward to the most every year is my immediate families Tycksen Christmas Party. It is a blast every year just having a party with my siblings and nieces and nephews. We do the nativity every year and Chloe was an angel this year and one of the three wise men.

After that each family does a skit or contributes to the program. First was my amazing older sister Kerstin and her family. She is my example of a great mother. I admire her for so many things and she is my go-to gal for everything! She is always there for me and I love her to death! Her and her kids did a song with bells, they are very smart and talented kiddos.
Emma woked hard on a Christmas story that she wanted to read for everyone. Emma is always writing books. When Piper (my parents yorkie puppy) died a couple of months ago, Emma wrote a couple of stories for my Grandma about Piper, one called 'Piper and the Cabin' because my Dad would always take Piper to the cabin every weekend and the other was 'Piper and the Bath' and it was all about how Piper was stinky and needed a bath lol! Then Emma and Chloe sang Jingle Bells with bells of course.

Josh and McCall's skit was the funniest skit! They did the twelve days of Christmas and include every member of the family in the lyrics, it was awesome!

Then Aaron and all my brothers (plus Joey a family friend) surprised my mom and sang Away in a Manger. It was really nice, they all sounded great! After their song Aaron and I had a surprise of our own for everyone. We gave Grandma Ruthie a present and inside was a baby bib. Everyone was really excited for us, I am working on getting the video of their reaction downloaded, just have to figure it out.
Then we played games, the kids played white elephant.
And decorated gingerbread houses. This is Kerstin's youngest Anna. These two are best friends and less then a month apart. They both love playing princesses together.


Emma spent hours outside building this snowman all by herself. Not too shabby!
We got together with Grandma Bell and had scones and hot chocolate at Porters Place and then went and saw the Thanksgiving Point Lights. Karen is the sweetest, caring person and she is so much fun to be around. We love her to pieces!
It was nice to have our own little Christmas morning actually on Christmas and not two weeks in advance. It was a small Christmas but the girls loved it and were happy. They got sleds, scooters, movies, books and jewelry boxes. Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas!


My Family from WiddlyTinks.com