The picture above is my brother and sister-in-law and their son Tucker. He was born 7 weeks early and is 4 mos younger than Lana but now weighs as much as she does! He's gonna be a chunk.

After Christmas is over I am always sad. It always comes and goes too fast. Honestly, I wish that "Christmas decorations" were how we decorate all year round. Daniel and I are determined to keep our tree up till the end of January.



A couple days after Christmas all the Heiner girls went to a production of The Nutcracker. I have never seen The Nutcracker before. I have got to tell you, my favorite characters are definitely the rats. The costumes they had were hilarious. My friend Jenny told me that she played one of the rats once when she was little. When I saw the rats come out on stage, I was dying just picturing Jenny in one of those costumes.

On Sunday we had Tucker's baby blessing. He looked so cute in his blessing outfit! Aric gave a great blessing and we had lots of yummy food.



This is Lana as a sheep for our family nativity.



This is pretty much my favorite picture in the world. Dan is pretending to ride a horse as a wise man.

James was an angel. Dan says he is the goofiest angel he has ever seen.


The Christmas Tree you see in front of Lilly (above) dances. She likes to dance with it. It is so dang cute!



These are Lana's Christmas PJs. Dan says that they don't look anything like Christmas PJs. What do boys know?....


Me getting my wedding band.

Dan getting his GPS.

Me got a doll for christmas. She was so excited. A smile was a big thing for her at this moment. She was a very sick girl Christmas morning.






Lana slept in the closet in our room. At first I felt kinda funny shutting my kid in a closet but it seemed just fine with her...so as long as it works, right?


Monday was our big trip to New York City!!!! Just Dan and I went. We left Lana at home with Nana and Aunt Jessica. This is the longest I ever left her. I was a little stressed but it helps to know that there were so many people there to help out with her.

We rented a car. That actually is a story itself. Dan called a couple of places to get quotes. About an hour after he had called a few places he got a text from a number he didn't recognize. It said something like, " How are you". He texted back saying,"I'm sorry. I don't have this number in my phone so, I'm not sure who this is." Turns out is was this british lady he talked to at a car rental place. She said that he sounded "plum" (which in England means sweet, I guess). hahaha. She called him after they texted a few times and he had to tell her that he was happily married.

The couch we are sitting on is Michael's favorite part of his apartment.

Anyway, to continue with our NYC trip. We rented a car. The whole year we had planned on visiting Michael on his mission while we were up there. (don't worry...we got approval from his mission president) At the very last miniute Michael found out that he was getting transfered and the transfer meeting was that day! Of all the bad luck! So, in order to see him we had to leave Washington DC at 2:30 AM! We met him and his companion at 6:30 and went to breakfast at IHOP.


It was very weird to see him as a missionary. When I was younger, missionaries were always sooooo old and when I was about 13, sooo HOTT! ahaha. I am definitly over that perception. I am so proud of him. He is doing great and looks so happy. For those of you who know Michael well, I bet you can never guess what he ordered???? ding ding ding!! you guessed it. A salsa filled omlet.



This is on the Jersey side of NYC. After we saw Michael, we searched for a neighborhood where we weren't afraid of being robbed ;) and laid in our car to take a nap. Well, at least I did. Dan doesn't quite sleep as easily.

We went to see the Statue of liberty from a distance. We wanted to go over to the island but there is only so much you can do in one day.

We parked by Central Park. It was fun to see all the people. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone just because I have heard stories all my life about New York. If you can tell, in the picture below there is a model in the background. Daniel is immiating her.



These guys were awesome! This particular man was playing a homeade little drumset. They were so talented. There was a huge crowd gathered around them. Dan and I felt bad for the lonely piccillo (sp?) player who was competing with them for attention.


The places we visited included: The Rockafeller Center, ST. Peter's cathedral, Time square, FAO Schwarz, and China Town. Even just walking around randomly was fun. It is such a huge city! Something I am definitly not used to yet.

My favorite part was definitly China town. It was hilarious. It was all asian people; and they were all selling knock offs of some kind. My sister-in-law Jessica told us how to do everything. I really wanted a Coach purse(A real one) but the ones out front are fake. We went into one of the stores. We asked the storekeeper if they had Coach purses. The storekeeper then looked around suspiciusly and walkee-talkeed someone. Then he led us to the wall where he pulled open a door that you can't really tell is a door. We were led downstairs into this creepy basement and after we went down the hallway, there was a room full of handbags! I got 2 for $40 each. As far as I can tell they are real. When we went back up we had to wait for the guy upstairs to say the coast was clear.

The whole thing was really kind of funny. If the authorities cared that they were selling these all they would have to do is go in undercover and say, "Do you have Coach purses?" and they would be led downstairs. It's not a very good cover.



We also bought 2 bootleg DVDs (Twighlight, and YES MAN) They were so bad!! You could totally tell it was just someone in the theatre with a video camera. The picture was super fuzzy and you could hear people laughing in the background.


I got to play on the big piano! Ya know, from the movie BIG with Tom Hanks? I played mary had a little lamb and twinkle twinkle. I know, I know, my talent amazes you.



This picture was for Dan's sister Jessica. She think that Daniel Craig is really hott.




We loved the sign above Dan's head.

TIME SQUARE!!!!!!

The way home was pretty much torture. We had been awake for more than 24 hours (and with only 2 hours of sleep the night before.) So, really basically 48 hours with a 2 hour cat nap. Dan's GPS that I just gave him wouldn't work. We tried to get out of NYC but ended up leaving and then accidentally coming back to the city (paying the tolls twice ). I had to stay awake to keep Daniel awake. I didn't know what else to talk about so, I started telling him every single teeny tiny memory from the very beginning of my life. hahaha well, I guess that was really boring (who would have ever guessed) becuase he fell asleep at the wheel while I was talking to him. He almost hit the gaurdrail at 70 mph before he woke up to me screaming at and hitting him.

After that incident I was especially determined to stay up with him but, I was soooooo tired. Tired enough that I was almost in tears. Then we both had to go to the bathroom. So, we stopped at a rest stop but then got back on the highway in the wrong direction. Because of that we had to go a very round about way through DC to get back home. I was crying by the end, just because I was so tired. I know, pathetic.

The next day we went to do sealings at the DC Temple. It was so nice to go to the temple again.

The flight on the way home was a dream compared to the flight on the way out. We even got upgraded to 1st class! Lana was so good. She slep practially the entire way.

Now we are back to the apartment complex. Normal life once again. dang I hate when Christmas is over!