Santa Claus is Coming to Town!!

Every year my parents have Santa Claus come to there house the first Monday of December to let the children/families of Shelley come sit on his lap. This year was there 15th year of doing this, Santa has been showing up at my parents house since 1997!! Once I found out that Emily was going to make the drive up, I really wanted to go and get a ride up with her to help out. There was only one day where I was scheduled to work that kept me from going, so I asked around and was able to find someone to trade my shift with me. Jackson really wanted to come too because he remembered what it was like when we lived in Idaho Falls and were able to help out last year. But with his work schedule this year, he couldn't make it and he felt like he's already asked for too many days off for our move in November to ask for anymore. We missed you Jackson!

Anyhow, little did my parents know that I switched my schedule around to come. So when Emily and I drove up to Shelley, we stopped by my moms work and surprised her, not only with me but with Maximus too! The people my mom worked with LOVED Maximus! He was in heaven while we were visiting in there office! Than Maximus and I were in the living room waiting for my dad to get home from work. My dad was so excited to see us! :)

Well finally the night arrived for Santa to come to my parents house, my parents and Emily spent all day Monday getting ready for it. There's a lot of prep work that goes into it, I was really tired that day and wasn't much help until a couple of hours before where I helped get the sitting area in front of the house ready for where Santa would sit. We like to turn the porch into a cute Christmas setting so that way it's a nice looking backdrop for when parents take pictures of there kids sitting on Santa's lap.

This pic below is the flyer that gets passed out to all the kids at the elementary school the week before.

So as you can see, it started at 6:00, Santa is always ready to go by 5:30 because people usually start lining up around that time. So 5:30 rolls around and the Santa night begins! The rest of the pictures says it all on how the night turned out.

This picture is of the house right before kids showed up.

The snowman and sleigh is a new addition to the decorations this year! The green box back to the left of the snowman is a mailbox that is available for kids to put there letters to Santa in. The sleigh is an early Christmas gift from Emily to my mom and dad this year!

The line of kids that lasted until 8:15PM!

One of Santa's cute elves (Emily Hawkins) handed out yummy sugar cookies donated by Broulims in honor of it being our 15th year!

Emily had fun visiting with the kids before Santa did, often finding out what they wanted for Christmas before Santa did!

Ever since this started back in 97', I've always been one of the ones to hand out the coloring pictures that Santa gives the kids to color and write there Christmas wish-list on. I of course have missed a few of the 15 years of helping out with being away for College etc but it was fun to be back this year to help out. I am 6 months pregnant in this picture.

I couldn't leave Maximus home alone in Utah, so as I mentioned earlier I got to bring him with us! It was of course really cold outside so my mom was nice enough to find us an old blanket to wrap him up in. He's also wearing that sweater I bought him! :) He is such a good dog! :)

He fell asleep, all snug as a bug in the blanket.

The line ran clear past the house into the neighbors yard!

The kids just kept on coming!

We would have never made it throughout the night without the help of some awesome friends who helped in serving the hot chocolate as well as transporting the heavy gallons of it!

Over 400 cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows were served!

Just under 300 children sat on Santa's lap to share their Christmas wishes!

Katy Wilson one of Emily's friends took a turn at helping hand out papers, I couldn't stand there the full 2 hours like I use too. Thanx Katy!

At the end of the night after the long line of children, Maximus and I couldn't resist and had to sit on Santa's lap as well!

Maximus wanted his own turn! :)

I just love this picture of Maximus!! :)

Emily the cookie elf!

Emily and her great friends that helped out!

Ben Wilson, one of the helpers with hauling in all the donated food!

Emily by the tree!

Food collected for the Shelley Food bank! So many generous people who came to visit Santa shared there food with those who are less fortunate! (Approximately 400 lbs of food!)

Emily and I helping box up all the food for the Shelley food bank!

Well, that is it for the pictures of the Santa night! Hopefully my parents can do it for another 5 more years and at least make it to 20 years!! ;) Jackson and I hope to take our kids to come meet Santa sometime in the years to come! :)

Meet Maximus!! :)

Ever since Jackson and I got married, we have always wanted a dog. In fact over the last 3-5 months Jackson would ask me at least 2-3 times a month if we could stop by Petco that Saturday to just look at the homeless dogs for fun that people brought into Petco to try and sale every Saturday. So there's been a few Saturdays where we would go look at dogs at Petco just for fun. We decided that once we bought a house that we would consider getting a dog. So once we bought our house, Jackson kept asking me when we could buy one. I told him that if we were to get a dog that it would have to be a puppy so we could train it. I also told him that if we get a puppy, we need to get it before the baby is born that way we had a few months with it to train it. I wasn't going to dare get a puppy after the baby comes. So now it was looking into what type of dog.

Jackson wanted a big dog and I wanted a dog that wouldn't shed. I really don't care too much what type of dog as long as it didn't shed. Plus I wanted a dog that is good with kids/families. Well my friend Ashlee from Idaho has a boxer named Abby, that dog just amazed me on how good she was with kids. Whenever I went to Ashlee's house over the years I would see the kids at times playing with Abby hard core, like either playing with toys on Abby's back or trying to get on top of Abby, or pulling on her ears and Abby would just sit there and not bite at the kids or get mad. She is a really good dog. So when Jackson and I first got married, we would go hang out at Ashlee's house, so Jackson got to meet Abby as well. He too was amazed at what a good dog Abby was. So we have kind of been set on a boxer since than just didn't know for sure. Plus, the nice thing about boxers is that there hair is short and fine and you don't see the sheded hair as much because of that. So boxers do shed but not nearly as much as labs or other dogs with long thick hair do. So after deciding on a boxer, we asked Ashlee where she got Abby from or where she looks for boxers at. She told me to look on www.ksl.com, so I started looking on KSL daily just to see what we could find. There were so many options on KSL, that I kept bugging Ashlee about different ads asking if it was a good deal or not. I don't know nearly as much about boxer's as her and her husband do.

So I found an ad on November 8th, a Thursday morning and thought it looked good. I e-mailed the link to Ashlee and she showed her husband and they both thought it was a good deal. So after talking to Jackson, he told me that instant to call the guy about the puppies. A family in Provo Utah was selling a litter of 8 purebred boxer puppies. They were born September 24 and already had there first set of shots, tails cropped, and dew claws removed. The ad said the puppies would be ready the next Sunday. So when I called the guy about it, he said they are ready to go now and that he just copied and pasted that same ad he put on facebook a week ago. So within an hour after talking to the guy, Jackson and I talked about it and decided to go look at these pups. It was a very last minute thing we did Novemeber 8th. We got to the house and the puppies were so CUTE!!! The boxer parents looked great as well and were very loving to us strangers! And the family that were selling them were very nice to us as well. So now it was to pick one out. Jackson and I kept holding different pups to see which one we wanted. Jackson told me before we got there that he really wanted a boy, (of course he did lol). So there were 5 males and 3 females. After holding a bunch I held this one that just kept licking me, he was so loving and so sweet, so I told Jackson I was interested in that one. So Jackson held him for a bit and we both fell in love with that one and agreed on that pup. There was a big snow storm coming in that weekend so we decided to take him home that night even! :) It was sad to see the puppy leave his siblings and parents but we instantly fell in love with him and made him feel loved and safe in his new home with us.

So I told Ashlee about us getting a puppy from the ad, and to our surprise, she said that her and Clint (her husband) talked to the guy that same day as well and asked to buy one of the female puppies. So Ashlee and her family drove up that following Saturday and bought a puppy as well! There Abby is getting older and they wanted to get another puppy for Abby to help train. I was so excited about her getting a pup from the same litter so our puppy could see his sister every now and than!

So now to come up with a name, I liked the name Maximus from tangled because the horse was so cute in that movie and Maximus sounds like a big strong name. So Jackson said, "Sure, I like the name lets call him Maximus", little did I know that Jackson thinks of the movie "Gladiator" every time he hears the name Maximus, so no wonder he liked that name and agreed on it. :) 

So that is how we got our puppy Maximus! He has been such a joy in our home! It's like having a baby, our lives have been turned upside down since we've gotten him. He is such a fun loving puppy and we couldn't be more happier about the newest member of our family! He has already been around other kids and does really well with them, in fact he is very playful and loves kids. Of course it will be awhile before he can play with our baby but he really is a kind loving dog and we love him to death!

So meet Maximus!

Maximus only 6 1/2 weeks old the night we got him!

 Jackson loves him so much! Words could never describe how much he loves having Maximus!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jackson and Maximus, Jackson was playing with him and Maximus got behind him just like that. I was fast enough to pull out my phone and get a picture real quick! Love it!!

 Maximus and his sister Roxy that Saturday when Ashlee and Clint came to pick up Roxy!

Roxy on top and Maximus on bottom.

 Look, they are in the shape of a heart!!

 Maximus meeting my family in Idaho!

My dad just Loves him!! I don't know who my dad was more excited to see, me or the dog?! :) 

Before we took Maximus to Idaho my dad would call my up and give me pointers on training it and ask how the dog was. My dad LOVES dogs! He grew up with dogs and you can just tell how much he is a dog person.

Maximus sure loves him too!! I've got some fun videos of Maximus and my dad playing! :)

 Emily and Maximus!

 Emily loves Maximus as well!!

All tired and tuckered out!!

My sister and I got a sweater for him when we took him outside to decorate my parents house with Christmas lights! Doesn't he look cute!! :)

Just love this picture of Maximus sleeping! He looks so adorable! :)

 When we went to Idaho, we went to Ashlee's house near Idaho Falls to see Abby the older boxer and Roxy his sister! They had so much fun together!!

 Maximus with Terrance one of Ashlee's kids!

So fun!!

All of them sleeping :)

 Jackson making Maximus calm down! He was getting a bit too excited!

A close up of him! :) lol Yep, he fell asleep! :)

These last two are a quick picture of him today!! :) He's gotten so big in just 5 weeks! :) He's 11 weeks now! We love you Maximus!! :)