Merry Christmas

For Christmas we have the tradition of eating breakfast before we open presents, it is very hard for Grace to wait but she really does quite a good job for a 3 year old! Grace provided us with these beautiful decorations for our table. Here are some pictures of the girls and some of their wonderful presents.

Sarah has loved Grace's stroller, and now has one of her own!

Grace got a new TV chair, which I am sad to say she loves TV!

We have never bought one of these ball poppers, I don't know why it seems that everyone has them, but this was one of Sarah's favorite things.

Santa brought Sarah this tractor that she really enjoyed.

Santa brought Grace a "nice, soft, and cuddly baby doll" That is how she always asked him for it


After our Christmas we went up to my mom's and had brunch and opened more presents. It is so fun to be close to so much family for the hollidays. Then we went to Jamie's parents and had a dinner, (yes mostly what we did on Christmas was eat) and then opened presents. Then the girls played with their cousins and the adults played games. It was such a fun day, I hope all of your Christmas's were wonderful too.

Christmas Eve

This year Christmas was a lot of fun. For Christmas Eve we ordered Chinese and then we talked with Grace about the Christmas story, and she told us everything she knew. Then we watched a little movie that showed the nativity. After that Grace and Sarah opened their pajamas and then Grace recited Twas The Night Before Christmas. She only needed help a couple of times, it was quite cute. Then we decorated sugar cookies for Santa, and for us as well! Here are some pictures of the girls in their jamies. Here is Grace posing.

Here is everyone showing off their cookies!

Christmas Concert

Today I was able to go to Grace's pre-school and

hear her and her friends sing Christmas songs and

then we had sugar cookies and apple juice (it was

a Mom and Me tea party.) It was so fun to see

Grace and see how much she likes to perform!

This is Grace and me at her school, she is

showing her plate that she made for me.
This is Grace getting ready to sing, can you
tell she is excited?

SANTA!

Here is Grace sitting with Santa, Sarah would

have no part of this.

Here is Grace and Sarah afterwards, Sarah was

happy she got a candy cane.

So last night we went to the mall to see Santa with some of my family. It was fun. The line was of course long, but the kids did pretty well. Grace asked Santa for a cuddly baby doll with long hair. I am not really sure what Sarah is asking for, she talks to me all day long with hardly taking time to breathe but I have no idea what she's saying most of the time.

Frosty The Snowman

Here is Grace getting ready to go out and

play in the snow.

Here is Grace with her snowman, that she

insisted on everyone calling Frosty The Snowman.

She would get upset if we called him Frosty, it

had to be the whole title.

Grace just loves to play in the snow, I haven't let Sarah venture that far yet mainly because she doesn't have any snow pants but also because it's just easier that way! Usually when Grace plays she walks around the back yard singing songs as she explores. But yesterday she got to play with Dad while he was shoveling. I glanced out to see Jamie shoveling and grace laying down doing snow angels where he was trying to shovel. Good times. Jamie helped Grace build this snowman so I am not sure if it was a goal or not to have the snowman looking like he is signaling a touchdown.

ELMO

This is Sarah in her Elmo outfit. This was

a hand me down from someone in my family

and both of my girls have just loved it! Sarah

won't let me take it off! And she keeps the hoodie

part on all night! ( We use them as PJ's.)

Grace of course wanted to get in on the action,

which was great. Notice she is in a nice spring time

church dress. If I would have gotten a full body

picture you would see the princess shoes. No need

to worry about the snow storm going on outside,

Grace just wears this stuff whenever she can!

We're Pregnant!

So I was going to have some creative way to put this on my blog, but I just haven't gotten to it. Sorry! So the news is out. We are expecting another little one. I am due June 12. I almost put the year there, but then I thought I bet you all can figure it out. I would be lying if I said that Jamie and I weren't hoping that this one is a boy, but that being said, we will be fine if it is a girl so no worries. Grace hasn't really grasped the concept completely I don't think. I think it will help as my stomach gets bigger, instead of the state I'm in now where I just like a little chubbier than usual. I can't believe that Sarah isn't going to be my baby anymore. I have babied her way more than I ever did Grace. Sarah just still seems so little. She only says a few things and still walks like she's had too much too drink. Grace has always been so grown up for her age that when I was pregnant with Sarah it wasn't hard to imagine her being a big sister. Anyway, sorry for the long entry there, but I wanted to share the news!

Happy Turkey Day!

I was trying to get a picture of Sarah in the

chair, but of course as soon as she saw the

camera she had to run towards me to say

cheese! She was so excited for dinner she found

her chair on the floor and was just sitting there waiting

for the rest of us to get ready!

This is Grace with her cousin Emily, they are only

3 weeks apart and love each other so much, it is so

much fun. Emily lives in Logan, or as Grace would

correct me, Hyrum, so they don't get to see each other

as often as they would like but when they do they are so

excited they can hardly control themselves!

Sorry for not posting anything in awhile, but the truth is we really haven't been doing anything so there just hasn't been that much to post! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I DID NOT WORK! This was the first Thanksgiving since I have been married that I have not worked. It was great. We went to Jamie's parents for dinner and then to my parents for dinner. (Yes the double dinner!) Then we had dessert at my mom's. Fun to see all the family and eat all the yummy food.

Starting so young

Ever since Christmas of last year, when Grace received many dress up clothes, she has been very into dress up. Pretty much every day Grace gets up and puts on a princess dress and then it is a struggle to get her into regular clothes after that. It appears that Sarah has joined her sister in this mission to become a princess. Sarah brought the sparkled cheerleading dress to me and said, "On, On!" So I put it on her. Then she found this lovely number, which was one of my old dancing costumes to put on over the cheerleading outfit. She did that herself. Grace has now extended the dress up to just changing clothes all day long. She probably wears 2 church dresses, 3 dress up dresses, and 3 pairs of a pajamas a day. Every time I look at her she is in something different. Is this what I have to look forward to with Sarah? I just didn't anticipate it all happening so soon! I guess that happens with your second though.

Halloween

Well this was the only picture I got of Sarah with the

antennae on her head! The rest of the time she wore it

around her neck.

This picture is of Grace at the Halloween party

at the church that the YM/YW did for all of the

primary kids. Grace got a cat painted on her

face and was very pleased!

Here is Grace and Sarah together at the party.

Sarah loves to sit on chairs by herself, I think

it makes her feel big.

This is of Grace before getting to go to pre-school
in her costume. She was so excited.

This year Halloween reminded me a little bit of Christmas in the way that Grace kept asking me if it was Halloween yet, she was confused because we went to so many parties this year. Grace does the same thing with Christmas, there's just so much build up. It was fun this year to do so many fun things for Halloween, it really got me in the spirit of Halloween.

So Many Fun Things To Do!

These are pictures of when we went to the

Scarecrow Festival. They had so many

things to do. Grace found a princess blow up

jumping thing that she never wanted to leave,

but once she did she had a pony ride, which she

declared as her favorite part of the day.

A few weeks ago we went to the library for a

princess party. There were probably about 75

little princesses there, no joke. It was crazy.

They read about princesses, sang songs, made

necklaces, decorated cookies and got their fingernails

painted. This is what Grace is showing in the

picture, her pink fingernails. This goes with out saying,

Grace was in heaven!

Big Day!

Well today was a VERY big day for my little Gracie. She gets to wear her first pony tail to school today. She has been asking me for probably over a year now when she will be able to have a pony tail that goes down her back. While this one does not go down her back she is still very pleased! I am sure this pony tail will have come out by the time she comes home from school, but still today is a very exciting day for yes, my 3 1/2 year old!

Quirks

I love odd things that people do. I also love getting to the point in a relationship with someone where you know them well enough to know their quirks. My friend Chelsea does some of these top five lists and I think that they are fun, so basically I am going to copy her. Thanks for the idea Chels. So here are my top 5 quirks.

1. I only like even numbers. Now this one is not that rare, I know many people who have this same quirk. I know I scared Jamie a little bit when we were dating and I said that I couldn't really see having an odd number of children.
2. I hate when there are multiple switches for the same light, because then there is a chance that the switch will be up when the light is off.
3. I don't like to wear socks. Now this one really may just add up to me being lazy. But my favorite time of year is when I can wear flip flops, which I really continue to wear way to long and it just looks ridiculous with my outfits. Then when it gets too cold I usually wear some clogs without socks. This is bad because my shoes stink and sometimes I will get snow in my shoes when I am walking. This is usually about the time of year I then reluctantly switch to socks and shoes for a few months.
4. I step into my garment top. I am not really sure why this started, I think because I am usually getting dressed with a towel around my head so I figured it was easier to step into it, since garments are huge, rather than get it over my big towel. I didn't realize this was odd until I married Jamie and he couldn't stop laughing everytime he saw me do it.
5. I tap my fingers on the top of a soda can before I open it. Even once it's been brought to my attention that I do that, I still do it without thinking. I think someone told me to do that when I was little so that the pop wouldn't come shouting out. I have no idea if that even works.

Hope that wasn't too long, or too personal for you. So what are some of your quirks?

The End of Summer

Well for those of you who know Grace, you know that she loves flowers. She has spent the better part of her summer picking flowers. I have tried to keep her under control a bit by telling her that she can't just pick other people's flowers because she wants to. I have let her pick our flowers though, and it has been one of her favorite past times. So it makes me sad now that Fall is really here, she isn't able to go outside and play as often. But the other day she came in with all of these flowers and found this basket and said she was going to make a birthday basket for her dad. I was impressed that she thought to weave them in the basket instead of just putting them in. So here is a picture of my little flower girl who will have to wait awhile until she can begin picking again. Oh and try and not focus on the dirty house in the background!

Another year older and wiser

So the wiser part of that title may be debatable. Both Jamie's and my birthday are in September. So my nice mother-in-law offered to watch our girls while we went away for the weekend. So we went to Vegas! It was so fun. Friday night we went to The Producers which was starring none other than Tony Danza! Then Saturday we went to the Utah football game which was pretty bad as far as the game goes but we still had fun! There were many good buffets that we ate at of course and it was so nice to have time together without the kids! Grace is now at an age where I don't know if she even misses us when we leave for just a few days. The first thing she said to us when we got back was, "I don't want you to be here, I don't want to go home yet." I think it's obvious that she gets the royal treatment from her grandparents. Oh and sorry the picture is so bad. I took this myself, if you couldn't tell. I really was planning on taking pictures of our trip and then didn't, so this is a picture I took before we left to come back home!

Museum Fun

We went to the museum at the Gateway with some friends the other day. It was so much fun. I can't believe all the fun stuff they have for kids these days! I didn't get any pictures of it, but they even had a helicopter up on top that the kids can get in and play. The kids were in heaven!

Football Season Has Begun!

We have enjoyed going to the Utah football games for the past few years. Grace enjoys getting in her cheerleader outfit and shouting Defense! This season started out pretty sad but last saturday the Utes beat UCLA who was ranked #11. So GO UTES!

A new favorite snack

We went to a fun Elder's quorum activity last night. We watched Curious George in the Gym on a projector. We brought this popcorn and Sarah could not get enough. She did pretty well with it for awhile, until she started dumping it all over.

1st Day of School

Grace had her first day of pre-school! It was hard to get much out of her about what they did. She just kept replying I do no not know, Mother to every question I would ask. I am so excited for her to go to school. I know sometimes parents are sad that their child is growing up, but I am excited. Is that wrong? It will be nice to have some time with just Sarah and it is so fun to see her interact with other children.