TYLER'S FORT

So our sweet little Tyler man decided a couple of weeks before Christmas that he wanted a fort! That was the first thing he really seemed like he wanted...so I was bored one night and got online and researched craigslist, etc trying to see if someone was selling anything for cheap. I ended up finding a man who would build custom ones for you out of wood for the price ranging from $250 - to unlimited - just depending on what you wanted. I decided to give the number a call and see what happened. He answered when I called and we talked - I just wanted a basic fort with 4 sides and a roof and to make it fancy maybe the roof could have a square cut out of it so Tyler could stand on it and jump off. He said he could do that and we talked for a while, then we both bounced more ideas off each other, then more emails went back and forth and then more pictures and it kept spiraling from there. He was getting excited, we were getting excited and he kept coming up with all these things that his dream fort would have had as a kid and he wanted to add that to Tyler's. We wanted it to be a surprise for Christmas so he came over 3 days before Christmas and showed up about 9am and didn't leave until 1:30am that day - he stayed the whole time. We left Tyler a present outside the front of the house for him to find when he came home from school and we pretended Santa has left it. It was telling him that he had received his letter at the North Pole and in order to fulfill his wish his helpers had to come and start making it. He was not allowed to look in the backyard or sneak a peak or else it would all disappear. The guy who came and built the fort even wore green to help our Santa helper cause.

In the end Tyler was freaking thrilled with it! It was built around the tree, has upstairs and down stairs, holes in the sides of the walls so he can peak through them, a rope to climb up and down, a ramp to climb up, a door with a lock on the first level to keep unwanted visitors out, it has 2 benches on the inside, etc - its pretty pimp!
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

CHRISTMAS AND ALL IT'S GLORY!

Since I am technically writing this 10 months later - I sadly don't remember a lot of things - so once again its mostly going to be pictures doing the talking...

I do know that Christmas was filled with our usual traditions, writing letters to Santa, Christmas tree decorating, Jensen movie night, Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Rodgers house and then Christmas day with the Jensens!

Our first trip to Macy's to write our letters to Santa - yes first trip.....

 

 

 

 Second trip.......

 

Christmas Tree decorating time!

 

We even had a little help from our other daughter - Maddie Parry

 

 Jensen Movie night - this year it was bring your own treats and we provided the movie theater popcorn!

One night Ashley and Blake came over and wanted to watch the kids and make "Christmas Trees" with them!

 Ward Christmas Party with Santa -

 Christmas Eve....

 

 Christmas jammies -

 

 

 

 

 Laying out the food for the Reindeer....

 

 Christmas morning we got up bright and early 6am and got dressed and headed over to downtown Mesa to help feed the homeless. I loved that my kids were more than willing to do this and forgo opening their presents to help the less fortunate...melted my heart...sadly, this was the first year for feeding the homeless at this location so not a lot of people showed up, but we left and were home around 8:30am and the kids were pumped for it to finally be their turn to see what Santa brought them!

Tyson got a fun little thing in his stocking to put Mentos in Coke and watch it explode -
 

 

One of our favorite Christmas movies around our house is "Elf" - Tyson found the almost gone 2 liter of root-beer and decided to drink it like Buddy the Elf and then afterwards he burped really loud - just like in the movies - his brothers found him to be hilarious!