Gifts.

Truman made us this darling snowman ornament at school for Christmas.  He was so excited to give it to us, he also made a bag and card with it. 

Truman was totally into giving gifts this year.  Gregg took him shopping for me at Dick's Sporting Good - any girls dream store, right?!  Truman picked out a purple and green size 3 soccer ball.

All month he kept saying,

"Mom, I bought you a purple soccer ball for Christmas because purple is your favorite color, and your other favorite color is now green, and it is a size 3 so I can borrow it.  It's a surprise and you can open it on Christmas!"

Then when the gift showed up {miraculously} wrapped under the Christmas tree he would go and get it and say,

"Mom, this is your green and purple soccer ball, it's a surprise"

It ended up being the year of memory books and memory sticks {which I totally loved}.  My parents gave each of us kids a photo book of photos from some of our family vacations growing up.

 Me rocking my sweats and permed hair in Lake Powell in '91 and working on my tan in California while reading in '95.

It was fun to look at the pictures with the in-laws {Aaron, Gregg, Sharon and Lauren} in the family, they had some good laughs!

Greggs parents gave each of their kids this awesome book that had a memory stick in it with ALL their family photos from 1975 - 2007 {I married into the family in 2005}.  

 I know Krista had a lot to do with this BIG project, so a BIG thank you to Lynn and Krista for all the hard work.  Gregg has already spent hours looking at old photos.  

I think Friday Flashbacks just got a whole lot better!

 My siblings and I started a tradition last year of giving my parents a photo book each year highlighting the year.  Once the book is printed we have each of the grandkids trace their hand and write their name by one of their pictures and then we each write a little note.

 I have been having a copy of the book printed for me too!  I like having them and the boys love looking at them.

My grandpa and grandma Arave also gave us a memory stick with a copy of all their family photos and all other pictures they had from their genealogy   I told you it was a year of memory books and memory sticks!  We love it.

 The last few months I have been working on getting this blog printed into books.  It was always my intention to print my blog - I see this blog as our "scrapbook" of things I want to remember and milestones.  After I received my first book in the mail this fall I was addicted!  I loved it and was so excited to get the other years printed.   

And while we are on the topic of Christmas - I wanted to document the "sports" Christmas tree in Truman and Bodies room.  We let them fall asleep with the Christmas lights on every night.  This is also the tree where they can hang their special ornaments they make or get.  Eventually we will upgrade to a full size "kid" tree.

 They got these darling ornaments from their music teacher Miss. Emily this year.

 One last thing while I am really off on a tangent!  I have been meaning to take a picture of this 'picture wall' in the boys room but it seems like every time I remember the sun has already gone down.  

I knew I wanted picture of the boys and our family in their room, but that is so hard to do without the pictures looking like they are 'floating' on the wall or without getting huge prints.  It started with the picture in the middle which is an original pencil drawing that my Aunt Christine did of Truman for me.  Amazing.  I built out the collage from there.

If it seems like I favore "T" and Truman more then "B" and Bodie that is because this was just Trumans room - we added Bodie to the room a few months ago.