Christmas Vacation!

This Christmas was an absolutely AMAZING vacation!! We had such a wonderful time, we were actually able to go to both Brandon's and my families for the break and even though it was an awful amount of driving it was totally worth it. Come this Summer we will be moving to Tennessee and since this could possibly be the last Christmas (for at least 4 years) where we are within driving distance of both of our families we decided it would be worth the drive with a screaming toddler who's only desire was to watch "The Incredibles" over 17 times. On a side tangent I just want to say that although "The Incredibles" used to be my favorite Pixar movie I don't want to see it again for a VERY long time. Anyway, we just thought that we would share with you a few pictures from our adventures.

This is a picture of us the first Sunday on vacation, right before Christmas, it is my families tradition that we do a sort of reenactment of the night in bethlehem when Joseph and Mary come and give birth to Jesus in the stable. We all play a part as families staying at the Inn that turn away the couple, soon after the dinner angelic music begins playing in the other room and we all go out to see what the big deal is and there is a beautiful live nativity scene set up. Every year I bawl my eyes out. It is such a wonderfully spiritual way to remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and it was a super way to begin our vacation.

The next adventure on our trip was a hockey game between the Boise "Steelheads" and the Alaska "Aces". The funny thing was that we all painted our faces with dark blue food coloring mixed with white paint and even though we were all rooting for the "Steelheads" (Dark Blue) the colors that we chose looked more like the "Aces" (Light Blue). It was really fun, although it could have been a little more exciting if a fight would have broke out. I know that is what Brandon was looking forward to. In the end Boise came out on top!

The next day we all decided as a family to go ice skating and to be quite honest had Krew been wearing skates he could have probably been more of a natural than Brandon or myself!!! Once Krew got on the ice he did NOT want to get off. He favorite thing was to hold on to both of our hands and encourage us to GO GO GO and then he would stop running and just slide along the rink...

A few days before Christmas a few of us decided to go see the lights at the Boise Botanical gardens. I was Born and raised in Boise and every year they put up these lights at the Botanical garden and this is the first year I have ever gone. It was very beautiful and very cold. But we had a great time walking around together looking at the lights, and drinking our hot chocolate at the end to warm us up.

We spent Christmas Eve at my uncles house with my moms side of the family. It was such a nice evening full of music, good food and great company. As you can see Krew got to be in the nativity scene ( he lasted about 30 sec and then he was done) The best part is though I said Krew do you want to be a sheep and he said baaa. I tried to get it on film but he wasn't doing it for me. But the rest of the kids did a great job sitting there all reverent while we sang. It was a very nice Christmas Eve!!

Then came CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!! First of all there were about 22 people between my parents and siblings families that it took about 20 minutes just to get everyone up and ready for the gift opening process, and with my families tradition of "no one aloud in the living room until everyone is ready" we spent those 20 minutes waiting on the stairs in anticipation for Santa's surprises. Finally when we went in there Krew was so excited to find himself a Noah's Ark "Quiet Book" for when we go to church, some socks, diapers, and lots and lots of candy (which of course was his favorite part)!!! Also included in the booty Krew got a bathtime basketball hoop, some new pants, blocks, a hide and seek safari monkey, and a Tonka car shop. (Also from his Grandma Sloan a big truck full of hot wheels cars) Diedre got a Kitchenaid shredder attachment and "Breaking Dawn" the 4th book in the Twilight series. Brandon got a few new games and a Wii remote. Then as a family we got a zoo pass from my brother David and his wife for the Memphis Zoo which will be activated as soon as we move there, I am soooo excited to have a place where I can take Krew and Barton while Brandon is at optometry school. Also from Brandon's sister Sami and her husband Cam we got some etched dinner glasses personalized for our family! All in all we made out like bandits and thank Santa for keeping us all on the "Nice" list this year.

Then the day after Christmas we traveled north to Post Falls Idaho to visit Brandon's mom... It was quite different from being around about 20 people all week in Boise to then have it be us three and Brandon's mom and Jana. It was a welcomed calmness. We spent most of the days just relaxing and playing games as a family, but by far one of the most exciting things that we did was go and see "Avatar" in 3D!!!! We not only loved it the first time around, but we loved it enough to go again 2 days later! For those of you who have not seen it yet, both Brandon and I HIGHLY recommend it. Other than that we spent a lot of time playing Trivial Pursuit Wii and watching Krew give his Grandma kisses and hugs! We had soooo much fun and even stayed up till about 1am on new years watching "New Years Rockin Eve". All-in-all this vacation was absolutely perfect and we are sooo excited for 2010... especially since we know we will have a new addition to our family. Happy New Year everyone we love you!

Merry Christmas every body!

Our christmas card and letter for all to see. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2009 has been quite the year for our family, and I’m sure it is no different for everyone reading this. In past years, we have summed up our year with a word or phrase that encompasses our endeavors. This year, that phrase would have to be: “First Things First”, because it has surely been a year of brand new things that we have never experienced before.

Of course everything to do with Krew was new to us, throughout this last year he has transitioned from being a little bump on a log to a wonderful bouncing baby boy that likes to flex his muscles for all the ladies and imitate just about every animal sound we could think of. Among these, some of his favorite things to do are sing “popcorn popping” while doing the actions, talking on the phone just like he sees his mommy doing, giving kisses and saying “cheeeese” every time he spots a camera. He is such an incredible little boy and we just hope that he stays that way as we go into the “terrible twos” this next year.

Next we have Brandon who is just finishing up his time here at BYU-Idaho. We have now lived here for going on 5 years and we can finally see the finish line. During this last summer Brandon began by studying very hard to take his Optometry Admissions Test in May. Luckily the time that he spent studying really paid off and he ended up getting a 370 overall score on it. He then went and interviewed at a few different schools and, after being accepted at a few, we decided that Memphis Tennessee is where we will be moving next year for the next four years of school at Southern College of Optometry.

As for Diedre she has pretty much been busy being pregnant bare foot in the kitchen baking pie!!! She so enjoys having the opportunity to stay at home with Krew watching him grow. She has really proven to be such a wonderful mother. Also Diedre and Krew were able to travel quite a few places throughout the year visiting family. But by far the most exciting news involving Diedre is that we found out about 4 months ago that Diedre is now pregnant with our second baby boy. He will be born around the 10^th of April 2010 and we couldn’t be more enthused. We just hope that he is as cute and sweet of a kid as his older brother.

Although we have had many firsts this year we look forward to many more years full of first experiences that we can enjoy. We love you all and hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. God Bless.

The Sloans,

Brandon, Diedre, Krew, and “Sembryo the Embryo”

Santa

Santa came to visit us at our house! Aren't we lucky!! Apparently our bishop is really good friends with Santa so he asked him to do a little favor and go visit all the little kids in our ward. We have such a great bishop. This was Krew's first encounter with Santa and he was a little nervous. He's ok with Santa far away but close up is another story. Here he his with Santa. As you can tell he's not very thrilled that Santa was that close to him.

Thankful

Yeah I know that thanksgiving was over 2 weeks ago, but I thought that I would take this time to write about it and about the things that I am thankful for. First of all this thanksgiving was not the best one I have ever had. We spent the first couple of days at Brandon's mothers in Post Falls Idaho, which is a 7 hour drive from Rexburg. Krew did actually pretty good on the way there, mainly because we borrowed a dvd player from some friends and he mostly watched baby signing time ( We listened to that movie probably around 8 times that trip because that was the only movie that Krew would actually watch and not "complain", so you could say we are a little sick of that movie: ) We had a good time at Brandon's mother's. She made us a little Thanksgiving meal that Sunday before Thanksgiving and it was really good and fun to spend time with her and Jana (a friend of the family who is basically family)... but then came Monday. Krew threw up the WHOLE day! No joke!!! He couldn't keep anything down not even a sip of water. It was the saddest thing. It really broke my heart. We also had to do around 7 loads of laundry because of course he couldn't tell us when he felt like throwing up he just would all over us both. And getting him to throw up in a bowl was pretty impossible because he would be moving around so much. Then Tuesday he had HORRIBLE Diarrhea (I'm sorry if this is a little too much information for some of you.) and then Wednesday we left for Boise to spend Thanksgiving day with my parents. Krew slept the entire way there because of the lack of sleep the nights before. Once we pulled into my parents I started not feeling very good but thinking that it was just a combination of motion sickness and eating too much for lunch. Then I went to lay down for a bit, come to find out motion sickness was not what it was. I got what Krew had, apparently I made the mistake of telling Krew that I would take his sickness away from him if I could. Brandon got sick as well the next morning. So we didn't really get to spend thanksgiving dinner with my family. But once we started felling better we had a really good time. We got together with my oldest brother and his family a lot and we had so much fun. We played a lot of "Beatles Rock Band", Thanks to Brandon's mom letting us borrow it for this month since we are going to visit her again at Christmas time. We had played at Brandon's mom's and we had so much fun we thought that my family would have a blast with it, and we did... that's basically what we did while we were there. Another highlight in Boise is a group of girls from High School got together for dinner and dessert. It was so much fun!! I haven't seen some of these girls since Graduation 5 years ago. It was really nice to sit and talk and see how everyone has been and what they are up to. Thanks Emily for putting it all together.

Now that I have probably shared a lot more information then you would like, I would just like to write about some things that I am VERY thankful for because I have so many blessing in my life. I could probably write forever about the things that I am grateful for. first I should mention my wonderful Husband whom I LOVE and ADORE!! He is AMAZING! I don't know were I would be without him. He makes life so enjoyable.

Of course I am very Grateful for Krew, I can't imagine life with out him. He is the sweetest little boy, I don't know how I got so lucky to have such a wonderful kid, he is so helpful. It's been really fun to watch him learn and grow, It's interesting the words that he picks up on. Apparently I say the phrase "OH NO" and "EEWW" a lot since those are his favorite words to say. It's weird because I can't blame Brandon if he says something because I'm the one with him all day, so more than likely I am the one who says it. He lights up my day he has such a sweet spirit and I thank my heavenly father everyday for him.

I am also grateful for a new little sweet spirit that is going to be coming into our home in April I can't wait to meet him, he already seems like he's going to be a hyper one which will make life fun, and very entertaining. I know Krew is going to be a great big brother and I can't wait to see them interacting it will be a blast!

One last thing that I will mention is The Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for the knowledge and happiness it brings into my home. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I'm very grateful that we have it as a tool in our home. I am also grateful for the Temple and for the wonderful spirit that resides there and the peace it brings to me.