New Year, New Beginnings!

Wow, 2010...sounds so futuristic! I know it's so cliche to say, but I really don't know where the time has gone! I suppose keeping up with my mom and wife duties keeps me busy enough to NOT notice the time going by, but WOW. I will have a 10 year old this year, Jason and I met 15 years ago, married 10...I have an already 8 year old who will be getting baptized soon, Cameron will be 6! My baby Payton will be turning 1 this year, and Braxton will be going into preschool and is growing up so fast! 2009was a pretty good year in da Bohn's household. We've managed to stay afloat during this recession, even though our house is worth about 100k less now than what it was 2 years ago! Good thing we plan on staying here for a while...we've had family members who have struggled financially and we've even found things to be a little tight for a family of 7, as we had to get Jason a new car this last year and added a new car payment to our budget! But, I have to admit, Jason's car sure is fun to drive and GREAT for our date nights! He found his dream car, a Nissan Z, for a great price, with low miles, so I figured he can have his toy to get him to and from work and then some in between :) I am optimistic for the future even when everything tries to say otherwise...positive affirmations, thank you! If people would spend more time focusing on the good, the positive stuff that goes on, send out good energy to all around us, this whole "economical collapse" BS would disappear and only good would prevail! But that's maybe in my own little world I have inside my head, but I am a strong believer of the law of the universe, God's law, in attracting the stuff you want in life, and in order to do that, you have to push out the negative, ie; stop watching the news and reading newspapers, create a positive world within your own life and things will start to change! Another reason why those who read nothing at all are better off than just reading newspapers :) Cheers! Here is to a wonderful, prosperous, loving, healthy and fantastic TWENTY-TEN!!!



So we decided to take the boys to Macaroni Grill for our annual New Years Eve dinner...thanks to an awesome gift card giver!! Usually we'll do something fancy, like crab legs, which the boys love, but thought it would be nice to go to one of our favorite restaurants to eat, instead...less cleanup for Jason and I, anyways!



Knights of the round table!








Our cute family at the roundtable :)


So after dinner we headed back home...grandma was coming over to babysit for a couple of hours while Jason and I went to go birthday shopping for Teagan. He was born January 2nd so I always have to remind myself through the holidays that I better remember to put together his party plans and get him presents (which is hard to do right after Christmas & Chanukah, as our kids always get more than they really need!) Not to mention New Years Day...it's just a lazy day so it's my job to stay motivated so Teagan can have a great birthday like any of our other kids!

Sleepy baby after the ride home!


So we brought in the new year with a bang! and pots and pans and kazoo's, and Jason bringing in the new year with a drum solo! What a fun time, to go outside and hear everyone all over the place, yelling "Happy New Year!", and whistling, and cheering...gives that sense of unity of us all, even though we're in different places, can become one in celebration of new possibilities, new hopes, new dreams, a NEW YEAR!

Being silly...and our dog Milo


NEW YEARS EVE night sky...





Teagan being silly with the popcorn...

Cameron made it to midnight, but passed out in our doorway...couldn't even make it up the stairs to his bedroom, poor little guy :(

Christmas 2009 continued...

So here we are, Christmas morning! I have to say Santa left our house about 30 minutes before the kiddos were up...4:00 to be exact!! That was a big NO WAY from me, as I believe I had just settled down for a long winter's nap, myself. I told them to go back to bed until they could see the sun coming up, then they could come back in and wake dad and myself up. They wanted their stockings to have until then, but I knew better than this! Another NO and back to bed, boys! I know they are so excited they can hardly stand it, but I am hardly the morning person, especially only having laid my head on the pillow for not even 1/2 an hour before I hear noises and realize it must be St. Nick~ I'm kidding, of course :) So they went back upstairs and I really don't know if they actully fell back asleep, but they were up at it again, 6am! I sure didn't plan very well for the "Night before Christmas" part of starting to wrap stuff days before! Once again, I repeat to go back upstairs until the sun comes out, and I know they didn't go back to sleep this time, but luckily in between being awakened by a nursing baby boy, I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of sleep. 8 o'clock came quickly so I dragged my tired butt outta bed so I could watch the boys' faces as they opened up the presents and found the goodies in their stockings! I'm starting to realize that taking that perfect picture to capture the moment, really is key to a good blog post...so you will have to forgive me for my pre-blogging failures as I think about what maybe I SHOULD have snap-shotted to complete this post. Here are some shots of the boys opening their presents and I always take a picture of them sitting by all of the stuff (well, most of it, at least), too.

Jaeden just wanted baseball stuff for Christmas...his new glove! Watch for him in the future making it into the majors ;)


Teagan's havoc razor heli!


Cameron is excited to get his Transformers toys!


Braxton unwrapping a...

...book!


Payton's getting the hang of it, too!




So much brotherly love :)



...and daddy love!



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da Bohn's hope you continue to keep the Christmas spirit within your heart and homes the whole year through! xoxo

Christmas 2009

Underneath the infamous red-lit pine tree at temple square...it really is a sight! 50-ft pine tree covered in red christmas lights...it almost hurts your eyes to look at!




So I feel like Christmas came and went by too fast this year! Where is the time to just reflect on the spirit of Christmas, that wonderful, magical feeling that it brings each year...instead of the hustle and bustle and running to and fro...I still feel like I'm reeling from all the Halloween stuff! I think that having your own kids brings back that special feeling you have as a child yourself and I have enjoyed the simpleness of it all once again. We took the kids to temple square to see the lights, got us some hot chocolate at a little market across the street.







I love this picture of the Assembly Hall at Temple Square, especially the Jewish star that adorns the entryway!




We then drove over to Sugarhouse to read the biblical story about Jesus...this street is directly across from Westminster college and most of the houses on the U-shaped road have big wooden signs on their lawns, depicting the story about Christ from the book of Luke, which also have beautifully painted images along with the wording. We make this a tradition each year to remind our boys of the TRUE meaning of why we celebrate Christmas...CHRIST! Even though Jason wasn't raised as a Christian, we still have a great time being together as a family.



Then we head over to a little place called Christmas Street, which is just south of 1700 south, and on 17th east in Sugarhouse, as well. It's a little circle of houses which decorates and connects their Christmas lights to one another's homes and it's always fun to drive through there, as well. Afterall, my mom would take me and my siblings through these place as a child and it's a fun tradition to carry on with my own boys now!




We also get to celebrate Chanukah (Hanukah), whatever way you believe it to be spelled...I've never figured this out myself, as there seem to be all kinds of variations on the spelling, hehe. I think it's great that our kids get to celebrate the Christian and non-Christian side of the holidays...I hope that they can enjoy the Jewish part of their heritage, as well.



We get to eat one of the delicacies of this holiday, potato latkes, yummm!! My Jewish mom made them this year and boy were they delicious!





I didn't bring my camera to this years celebration, dangit! So if one of my wonderful jewish family members would shoot some over to me, I'd love to post them! The only one I have is of Payton sitting in his cousin Gage's new Lightning McQueen...the pictures speak for themselves!










Christmas Eve we have my family over to our house...years ago it was over at my mom's house, my childhood home. But over the years, our families have grown and so has our house, so we just decided it would be a nice tradition to keep that going where we are now. Plenty of room to accomodate all! We moved into our house 2 years ago, boy does time fly! We hope to stay here for many years to come...

We have since put in our yard, I just love this picture with the snow falling...fitting for this holiday season!



This year a lot of family members had to work Christmas eve, so the hard part was trying to work in a time to try and include most of them...my mom had to work until 7, my brother had to GO to work at 7, my sister Lindsay had to work until 8...boy, oh boy! So in the end I figured Grandma would have wanted to spend the evening with her grandkids the most so we opted for 5pm so she could make it after she got off of work. My niece came over a few hours early since her mom had to work, so she got to spend some extra playtime with her cousins. So all in all, we were missing my brother Bill, sister Lindsay and her little boy Daemian who was with his daddy :( My sister Laurie, my dad, my auntie Koo all showed up in the beginning and here are just a few pics from the beginning of our festivities...

Laurie and Payton


Jason talking with Dad


Teagan and my cute niece, Raynee


auntie Koo and Cameron


Jason and myself


Jaeden!




My mom excited about her canning jars...up until she realized they weren't the ones she uses!! my bad!








...ok, so I guess I took the picture too soon of Braxton saying "cheese"! He looks more like an Elvis impersonator...we all had a good laugh with this one!! LOL


Payton's 1st Christmas! Santa baby wants his turn, too!


Our feeble attempt at a Gingerbread house!