Family Pictures

I don't know why I didn't post these earlier...I guess I have a pregnancy brain (meaning one that doesn't work!) Ali took these for us on Thanksgiving day. It's been 2 years since we took family pictures so it was past due. I never look great in pictures, especially pregnant, but I decided to do it before it got pushed off again for 2 more years! I love this one of Julia. Best friends forever!!My favorite part about these pictures is the barefeet. Shoes just never stay on those kids!This is my favorite of all. We'll put this one up. I think the girls look so sweet. In reality, Adria wouldn't leave Julia alone and Julia was trying to move away while still smiling so she could get her "special treat" for being good. I like the real life shots.Baby bump! Thanks Ali for taking these, they turned out great!!

Christmas!!

The excitement in our family was running high on Christmas morning. Luckily the girls were so worn out from the day before that they slept until 7:45. I think that's a great time for children to wake up on Christmas. In fact, that is the latest I have ever slept on a Christmas morning. I really liked having stairs for the girls to come down. How cute are they!? As soon as she was done looking through her stocking, Adria ran to the window and started yelling, "Snow! Snow! Snow!" When she realized there wasn't any snow she turned to me with a look of betrayal and said, "It's not Christmas." She was very sad that we didn't get snow on Christmas.

Unfortunately, things didn't go smoothly all morning. While the girls were excited to open their gifts, they were a bit ungrateful. Especially once the music box was opened.

I told Ben the night before that there was something magical for me about a music box. What I didn't anticipate was that it would be the favorite toy. In fact, things got a little nasty between the girls. It's one of the few moments when they weren't best friends. Julia is still holding a grudge about it. We promised her that the New Year's Man would bring her one. The other favorite is definately the doll house from Grandma Stoddard (whom the girls refuse to call Grandma Stoddard and lovingly refer to as "Grandma Julie"). They have spent the most time with the doll house by far. The other presents seemed to be a bit of a letdown. In fact, Adria was so uninterested in the doll set we got her, that its still sitting in the box on the living room floor. We're taking it back today. All she wanted for Christmas was a rocking horse. Luckily Santa had one. She has dubbed it "Rainbow Dash" and rides it or drags it all around the house.

Ben got just a few small things, the way he likes it. I was able to surprise him which was fun. He is hard to surprise. For me, Ben made sure I was totally spoiled and got way more than any wife deserved. He is the best husband I can imagine and he made my Christmas totally wonderful.We had Matt and Ali and their girls over for Christmas lunch. Julia and Adria really love having cousins their own age that live so close. I don't think it would have felt nearly as much like Christmas without some family coming over to play.

We also got to talk to my brother in Chile using Skype which was so fun. I loved that we could see him and he could see us. What a miracle that we can have a face to face conversation with someone on the other side of the world.

All in all, I have to say that I really enjoyed our Christmas.

Christmas Eve

I feel like I should do a whole post on Christmas Eve because there were so many things I want to remember from Friday. It was one of those mornings where I was in a very deep sleep and I wasn't quite sure what was happening when my bed started bouncing violently. It took me a second before my brain turned the shouting turned into words, "It's Christmas Eve!! It's CHRISTMAS EVE!!!" I opened one eye to see the girls jumping up and down clapping their hands. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: "Yes, today is Christmas Eve."

Julia: "Hooray!! We put out Santa's milk and cookies for him!"

At that point I started to wake up as I wondered how she reached the milk from the top shelf of the fridge, got a cup from the cupboards and poured milk without spilling. Also, did we have cookies? Where did she find cookies?

Julia jumped off the bed as Adria continued to chant, "It's Christmas Eve! It's Christmas Eve!"

Julia (looking out the window): "Can you see Santa?! I don't see him yet! Where is he?"

Me: "Sweetheart, Santa doesn't come until you go to bed and you are asleep."

Julia: "Goodnight!"

The girls tried going to bed several times throughout the morning to see if Santa would come. We had to explain that Santa will only come after the sun goes down and EVERYONE is asleep.

Ben took the girls for the morning and did some last minute Christmas shopping. Julia quite enjoyed knowing what my gifts were and keeping it a secret. She is a great little secret keeper. She knew Ben's gifts for a couple weeks but never told.

We didn't do naps because there was already enough confusion about when Santa was coming. Instead we wrapped presents and cleaned up "for Santa" which I wish I could use as a motivation every day. The girls loved wrapping presents. All month long they have brought me every picture they draw or toy they aren't playing with and asked if they could wrap it. They love the tape most of all. It was easy to know which gifts had been wrapped by little helpers because there was so much tape it was tricky to open.

We went to dinner at Julie and Teejay's. The girls had a great time and got some fun presents. Ben and Teejay took the kids to the park to run out some energy. When they got back, the sun was going down (around 5:30) and from that point on Julia would ask if we were going to miss Santa or if we should be going to bed or what time it was every 10 or 15 minutes. I tried to set a timer, but she was still very worried about getting home in time.

When we finally did get home, it was the easiest bedtime I had ever had. Those girls were up the stairs and into their beds before I could blink, much less get jammies on or prayers said. Adria clenched her eyes shut and refused to move to get her pjs on. I'm pretty sure she feel asleep from the sheer exhaustion of clenching her eyes shut so tight. Julia asked if she could sleep with the window open so that she could hear Santa come. I reminded her that she couldn't get out of bed. She promised just to listen so I let her have the window open. Good thing it was a warm night! (I still shut it after "Santa" came.)

Ben and I were up a long time wrapping presents and getting everything just right. But I didn't mind that it was 3am because this is how my living room looked.

Perfect.

You don't see that every day...

We went to the Phoenix Zoo last Saturday. The girls had such a great time. We didn't stay too long, but we got the annual pass so we can go back whenever we want. As Ben was pushing the girls up to the zoo he asked them what animal they wanted to see the most. Julia picked the giraffe. Then Adria said, "Horses!!" and Julia looked and her and said, "Silly Adria, you see horses out the window." I told Adria there would be zebras but she still wanted horses. Her favorite by far ended up being the otters. (There are otters in this picture, I promise) Julia's favorite was definately the giraffe. She would have sat and watched them all day. Maybe next time I'll let Ben take one girl and I'll take the other and we can just sit in front of the giraffes and otters all day. The real highlight of the day though was when Daddy let them take a (very overpriced) camel ride on a real camel. Pretty cool! Did you know camels can go 2 weeks without water and 8 months without food?! Crazy. The girls loved it. When they were done they both told Daddy thanks over and over. Julia even told him, "Thanks Daddy, every little girl needs to ride a camel."

Manners

As parents we all do our best to teach our children manners. On Tuesday Ben and I found out that it was working. Ben has a smartphone for work. He is a good daddy and has a Dora game on there (ok fine, I downloaded it when I was desperate). Julia was playing it on Tuesday when my Grandpa called. Ben answered the call and started talking. Julia asked if she could talk to Grandpa and so Ben handed her the phone. Here is how the conversation went:

Julia: Hi Grandpa

Grandpa: Hi Julia, what are you doing?

Julia: Well, my daddy has a new Dora game on his phone. I was playing it. You called my daddy though, which was very nice of you, but how would you feel if someone called during your game?

I'm pretty sure that's one of the funniest things she has ever said. So awesome.

Ginger houses

Every year my family makes gingerbread houses. I love it! This year we shared the tradition with Julie and TeeJay since we aren't going to make it up to Utah. Julia was really excited, but if I called them gingerbread houses she would say, "No, we're making "ginger houses" because I don't want any bread on my house! Just frosting and candy!" It went down about the way I expected. Julia loved decorating it and Adria just wanted to eat it.

Although, I was quite disappointed in the Honey Maid graham crackers which no longer work because they are more narrow than they used to be. I was left with gaping holes in my roof! I think I'll write them a letter and tell them how their cheapness ruined my gingerbread houses. Christmas killers.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Julia decorating and Adria enjoying a sugar high.

This is the face I got when I asked if she could put some decorations on for me to take a picture. She held that face for a good 3 minutes before taking a bite and then giving me a big smile.Yes, Adria's house lacked the structural integrity needed to withstand a two-year old.

Julia dumped about 1/2 the bottle of blue sprinkles to make her "ice pond."

Singing Angels

My girls love to sing. They have always loved it. Julia knows more primary songs than most kids twice her age and Adria is not far behind. The primary chorister asked me a few weeks ago if Julia would sing "When Joseph Went to Bethlehem" for the Relief Society's Christmas night. I told her Julia would love that. Julia has been so excited about it. She has loved going to her teacher's house to practice with the other 4 kids. They even got to wear costumes and Julia's was purple, her very favorite color! I wanted to get her performance on video, but I was backstage helping the kids and Ben was in San Antonio. She did a great job though! She sang it for me when we got home, but for some reason, blogger doesn't like that video and won't upload it. Sorry. Anyway, of course when Adria saw the video, she wanted to sing for me too. I know I'm biased, but I think this is the sweetest video ever.

Surprises

I made the mistake on Friday of letting Julia overhear me tell Ben that I was going to keep the Christmas presents in the garage. She has been asking me all week what her "surprise" is going to be and everytime we walk through the garage she strains her neck looking around. This morning while I was making pancakes, I heard the garage door open and shut. I was surprised because it's very dark in there and the girls can't reach the light. I went out and found that they had gone through the toy room until they both found a toy that lit up and they were using them as flashlights. I told Julia to go back inside and she turned to Adria and said, "We weren't sneaky enough!" I will have to find a new hiding place during nap time!

The most wonderful time of the year!

Yay for Christmas time! I know, all you Thanksgiving lovers out there are holding out until Friday, but I just can't wait. I love everything about this season (except the lines at Target!). In fact, if you were to ask my husband what my most prized posession is, he would tell you it's my Christmas decorations. I actually started decorating my house last Monday, but we just got our tree last night. The tree is my very favorite thing in the whole world. I love how my house smells, the lights sparkle, the star shines and the whole house seems more complete when our tree is up. Last night at the tree lot Ben said to Julia, "Can you smell the yummy smell? That is pine." This morning I overheard Julia say to Adria, "Do you love the smell? It smells like pie!" Pie, pine, sugar cookies...I love it all!

As we were walking around the tree lot wondering why there were no employees out there (what's up Home Depot?) Ben explained to Julia that the fun part of getting a new tree each year is that we get to hunt for the perfect tree. She looked around for a while and then pointed to one and said, "There Daddy! That's the most perfect tree in the whole world!" Ben held it up and we spun it around and could see it was in fact a very nice tree with no holes or weird angles and since Julia had her mind made up, we got the most perfect tree in the whole world. As was the case last year, all the string on the ground was Adria's favorite part of the tree lot. She even tried to help tie the tree on to the car which is one of my favorite pictures of the whole night.

We continued our tradition of letting the girls buy a new ornament for the tree. They were as excited about the ones from last year as they were about the new ones. This year, Julia got Strawberry Shortcake

Adria picked Mr. Potato Head. So fitting of their personalities.

Hot chocolate face!

So excited about the tree

Christmas trees don't seem to photograph well, but here is the finished product. I really love how our tree looks this year. It feels like the most Christmas-y tree ever!

One last picture

The girls wanted to hang up a stocking for their baby sister. Ben and I both noticed that somehow with Kara's stocking up there, our family feels so much bigger. I love it!

Let's make pie

I want to thank Ben for teaching me how to relax and let my kids just be kids. If it weren't for him, I think when I found this I might have freaked out a little bit. Instead, I got my camera and added some more water. He reminds me that if it isn't hurting anything, I just need to sit back and enjoy the smiles. So I did. Just for the record, they got into the mud during the 60 seconds it took me to water the tree you see in the background there. The girls totally enjoyed themselves for almost an hour before it was too dark to stay outside anymore. Plus, now I have a patio full of mud pies! Win win!