Christmas Traditions!!!

A few days before Christmas, GG came to town, and two little children were THRILLED!!!

 We tried out this restaurant that Derick has been to before called Lucille's and it was FABULOUS!!  I recommend the fried pickles and anything with their BBQ sauce, it was really great, and very filling!!  

The kids enjoyed the train too (despite their sad faces).

Normally, you will find us all back East for Christmas with all of my family.  But this year we had to make our own traditions.  We really did miss traveling back to VA and seeing all of my family, some could not make it out here and we love and missed you all!!

Since we couldn't take the plane ride there, we decided to invite some friends over to make christmas cookies, read the nativity from the scriptures, and enjoyed some quality wii entertainment.

Then the kids continued the tradition of opening Nanny's gifts.

We went to sleep and woke up to Santa's goodies, Sarah actually had to be woken up so she was a bit unhappy at first, but notice the baby doll in hand Christmas morning, it is the one she had just opened the night before.  She LOVES babies as you can see from almost all of her gifts.

I also love the just awaken faces for photos on Christmas morning, Kurtis with all of his loot.  He loved absolutely everything!!!

I finally got my Kitchen Aid mixer, YIPPIE, and it has been used many times already.

Kurtis asked me to take a photo of his shirt, and would not smile, so this very serious face is what we got in the photo!

Christmas Day, Derick's family met us at our house for lunch.  It was great to spend time altogether on Christmas Day, something we do not always get to do since we are usually in VA.  The food was good, the company was terrific and we would not have had it any other way! **Pictures from lunch provided by Damon!!  Thanks!!!

We are so very very very blessed.  We both have jobs, we have two beautiful children, we have each other and we are blessed with great family and friends.  We had a wonderful Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.  Thank you to everyone that called and/or visited us, we love and appreciate all of you!

Disneyland here we come!!!

We finally decided to use our final day at Disneyland and we loved every minute of it! We decided this time we would try to do the things that we had not done the past two trips. So...

We saw as many characters as we could, some twice!

We went and ate at Ariel's Grotto, that is where we saw a lot of princesses!

 We went to California Adventure and rode some rides.

We caught some shows, Sarah's favorite was Disney Junior!

 We saw the Christmas Parade!

 We LOVED the Holiday decorations!!!

and the fireworks!

It was a great trip, we had a ton of fun!  Sarah was so tired but would not let go of her princess pin from Ariel's Grotto.  She screamed and screamed and screamed people on the tram that she did not want to go home, it was a good thing we were sitting with kind people that took pity on us as parents of this screaming child.  But then she passed out, she was just way too tired from all the entertainment!

 That night POPS came into town, and the kids got to see him first thing in the morning.  In the morning we heard Sarah say "Daddy, Daddy", and then Kurtis say "Sarah do you remember who is here?....Pops", then Sarah said "OOOooohhh!!!" To both children that meant Christmas was on its way!!!!

and they were happy for that!

Holiday Card

Sorry everyone, I have not had the time to print our Christmas Cards, so this year we are just going to go digital!! I will type up and update of our lives before the new year!!

Everyone have a safe and happy holiday season!!!

Love, The Pikula's

Tis The Season

I am happy to tell all of our blog fans out there that our tree has been trimmed and the stockings are hung from the chimney with care in hopes that Saint Nic will soon be here!!!

They were so very happy to get Christmas decorations up, they wanted to put lights up all over the house but Derick and I are not quite there yet. May be next year!!

Last a picture of the wreath I made at Relief Society a few weeks ago. It was my first, but I channeled my inner creativity to create something.

Happy Holidays from happy Pikula Children!

Our Evening....

Tonight we planned on going to Macy's and just delivering our letters to Santa to the special red drop box!! Well, then we received a special special package...from GG. A Christmas dress for a specific blond girl!! She immediately had to put it on, and call GG to say Thank You, so what pops in my head? Quick, Kurtis get dressed in nice clothes, we are going to take our photos with Santa!! Yeah, and so we did. Sarah was very excited about going and giving her list to Santa; however, that was NOT the case once we got there. She would not let go of me, Derick was not there yet to help cheer them, yes them because once Sarah gets upset her brother does too...I digress....Derick was not there yet to cheer them up. In my opinion

, this was our experience to document so the fact that Sarah is balling is just a part of the experience. You can see that I had to hold her hand to calm her down, at least I did not have to sit on Santa's lap too. At the end you should know Sarah shook Santa's hand on her own. Of course he had to give her a candy cane before she would even think about it, but still.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Holiday season!!! Just a plug if you live in the area- Go to Century City mall (next to Yogurtland) they have Santa's Picture Perfect Holiday photos put on by Microsoft, for FREE....yes I received these photos e-mailed to me personally for FREE people. AND NO LINE....You just cannot beat that!!!

Holiday...pictures!!!

Ask and you shall receive. My wonderful friends took photos of my children at Halloween time, so here are the photos from our ward Trunk or Treat and Halloween night!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday, we are so blessed with so many family, friends, and many many other things. We are gearing up for Christmas and more holiday fun!!!