December Highlights

Christmas Dance Recital

Blakeslie’s had a little Christmas dance recital at her studio. She was a star and loved performing for Santa.

Preschool Program

Blakeslie’s Christmas Program at preschool is my favorite thing all year. She was very excited about being a shepherd and she loved all the songs especially the ones with “instruments.”

Cookies with Santa

We had a great time going to Cookies with Santa. Blakeslie hopped on Santa’s lap and was very comfortable. Mayzie however wanted nothing to do with the big guy.

Christmas Party

We had a little Christmas Party for Bean and her friends. The highlights were Don’t Eat Pete and the treats. Mayzie especially liked the Jello which stained her entire body for a couple of days.

Nutcracker

We took Bean to the Nutcracker again this year. She loves it so much and is a huge fan of Miranda, our neighbor, who she calls “The Nutcracker Girl” all year long.

Polar Express

We went on the Polar Express in Heber and had a great time. They really did a cute job complete with cookies, hot chocolate, reading the story, singing and of course a visit with Mr. and Mrs. Claus.
Gingerbread House
We had fun making our Gingerbread house with Mike and Lynna. Even Mayzie helped. Her system was eat 3 pieces….. put 1 on the house….. eat 4 pieces….. put 1 on the house… She definitely had a good time.

Christmas
Christmas Eve we spent up in Park City with Chip’s family. Lynna makes a beautiful dinner and we all had a great time with the nativity.

Christmas morning was wonderful. We spent it with my Mom and Dad in our new basement. The last guy to work on it came on Christmas Eve so we cut it pretty close. Santa actually moved our tree downstairs when he brought the toys. The girls were in awe and we had so much fun watching them.

Our Crazy Thanksgiving

Well we didn’t spend our Thanksgiving quite like we thought we would. Instead of going to my Aunt and Uncle’s with all my family we spent it more like this……

Both the girls got sick the day before and got worse on Thanksgiving Day.

Chip and I still decided to make the complete Thanksgiving diner just for the two of us. The girls were not really up for eating anything. (Note their PJs. I think it is a first for me to have pajamas at the Thanksgiving dinner table.) I thought it was pretty silly to make dinner for just the two of us. However, I realized Chip hadn’t listened to me the entire month while I shouted from my soap box that it isn’t about the Turkey dinner. It was really good and with just us there was no stress or time table.

We decided to go to Phoenix to see my parents the day after Thanksgiving - probably against our better judgment. Here is a pic of Mayzie from Chip’s phone. She was happy here, but a few miles outside of Kanab it was a different story. Let’s just say it is not fun changing clothes and cleaning out a car seat on the side of the road – what were we thinking! I really wish she had used that bowl for catching instead of as a hat.

We had a great time in Phoenix - even though we passed our plague to almost everyone.

We had another Thanksgiving dinner and note Troy and Papa are missing and by the end of the night Nana was sick and sometime in there Chip got it bad too. The only survivors of this dreadful sickness were Erin and I. So we took complete advantage and had a great time shopping. The highlight of our 2 days of power shopping was finding a shoe store that was going out of business. I bought 14 pairs of shoes for $65! No joke! The best deal was a pair of Steve Maddens for $1.25. We definitely had a good time!

Here are a few fun pics from before the sickness fiasco.

Blakeslie loved her vest and headband from preschool.

Blakeslie named the big Turkey Sally the Turkey and filled out a feather each day of something we were thankful for. It was pretty funny to hear some of the things Bean was thankful for. My personal favorite was P.J.s and popcorn. I had nothing to do with that one, but it is by far two of my most favorite things.

15 month appointment

I can’t believe how fast life is going. Mayzie had her 15 month appointment this week. She passed with flying colors. Her stats were 50% height, 5% weight, and 90% head! She is so stinkin’ funny! She has the sweetest personality and already has a sense of humor. She has started doing animals sounds, kissing everything, and she loves to wrestle with Dad and Big Sister.

Here are a few of her most recent funny moments.

She held this paperclip to her head for over 5 minutes pretending it was a barrette. If it wasn’t so funny it would be sad- poor baldy!

She has discovered the candy drawer. This drawer has been on the bottom since we moved into the house. Bean never really bothered it. Mayzie just pulled most of it out and reorganized. It wasn’t until the very end that she realized what she was playing with. It has been a couple of days and she hasn’t been back. It will be interesting to see if I have to move it or is she will be like the rest of our family who ignores candy.

And so it starts…..I found her like this after two naps this week. When she starts going for the diaper- I’m grabbing the duct tape.


This is how Chip found Mayzie one morning. He used his phone so it isn’t the best pic, but it still made me laugh. I wish I could have seen how she got in there.

One of those “What was I thinking!” moments.

Poor thing has been so sick this weekend. We actually spent a couple of hours in the Urgent Care today for double ear infections. Then I had to drive all the way to the Provo Walgreen’s to fill the prescription (Gotta love Utah County on Sundays!) Hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow.

Cute Pics of the girls

We had the girls pictures done by sugar'n'spice photopgraphy. (sugarnspicephotopraphy.blogspot.com) Jenn did a great job! The girls' individual pictures turned out fun, unfortunately we had to get the family ones redone and I haven't seen them yet. I loved the train track setting and I found a new clothing store (Naartjie) for their outfits that I'm quickly

falling in love with.

I absolutely LOVE her little lone snaggle tooth!

I couldn't get the other sweet pic of Mayzie loaded so instead one of the many "Why are you doing this to me Mama!" pictures.

Blakeslie was quite the model for most of the pictures.

I love my Beauty Queens!

Disney on Ice

We went to Disney on Ice last week and had an amazing time. Through a comedy of errors we ended up on the front row. (Right next to Andrei Kirilenko's wife and kids.) This turned out to be such a blessing because the show, that close up, even held Mayzie's attention. She sat in my lap the entire time and didn't even wiggle. She just kept pointing and Oooohing and Ahhhhing. It is so fun to watch the girls get excited about things. Does anybody else get teary eyed when you know they are so happy? It is also funny to me how young Mayzie recognizes the Princesses and Mickey and Minnie -

I think it will be a Disney Christmas.

(Mayzie is too busy pointing at the Cotton Candy Guy in all the pictures. She did eventually get to try the stuff and decided she loved it! )

Little Funny - When I wore this new grey sweater the first time Blakeslie said, "Oh Mom, I just love your new bathrobe!" I didn't know if I should go out of the house or not. :0)

Hard Day

First I have to apologize. I know not everyone that reads our blog is LDS so this isn’t going to make a lot of sense. I am lamenting about going to my last Young Women activity. I am being released from my 2 ½ year calling as the Young Women’s second counselor. I can’t explain why I am sad about this. I should be relieved. It will be the first time in almost 5 years that Chip and I will have our Tuesday nights back. He served in YM for 2 years, then we both served in YM/YW for a year and a half (This was really tricky because we had to either bring the kids or pay for a sitter), and now I’ve been in there alone for a year. Anyway, I’m sad. I am really going to miss the girls and the ladies I have worked with. I have learned so much from everyone. Our president, Julie, is seriously the most amazing lady. It stresses me to even think about what she juggles and accomplishes while making it all look easy. I am so grateful for working with her and watching how she has managed and guided our youth. Ilene, my beehive advisor, is someone I can only hope to become. She taught our girls almost every Sunday and I know her lessons were actually for me. She teaches with so much love and is very dynamic. Her words of wisdom will guide me my entire life. Yvonne has taught me ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE! That woman is a pro and has a real talent for managing situations. One can only aspire to acquire her talent. Annie taught me patience (4 kids under 4). She also taught me how to manage the YW in a stern, but loving way. Whenever things got a little rowdy we looked to Annie to settle it down. It always worked and the girls loved her the most. Laura is an inspiration on perspective and has made me feel the best about leaving. She has many fun and good ideas and I very much value her opinion in style and method. Dallas is a good time! She was the most fun with the girls and I also learned how to take a few extra seconds to make ordinary things look beautiful. Nothing I could say would explain how much I have loved working with my girls. They are all amazing and I have watched some of them turn from cute little girls to beautiful young ladies. I am so proud of all of them and I’m grateful for their friendships.

I’m not sure why I felt like I had to write this. I guess I needed to express these thoughts and maybe now that I’m done I am feeling a little better. I know this calling and release were inspired, but change is never easy. However, it does seem pretty ridiculous to be this heartbroken about loosing my very time consuming, volunteer job, but I have LOVED IT! I guess now it is onto new adventures, which like in anything is VERY scary! Where will they put me now!!!!!

Catch up on October

October is my favorite month. There are so many fun holiday/fall things to do, the weather is perfect and nothing beats baseball season. Here is a quick catch up of our month.

Painted Lady Butterflies
In the summer we got a butterfly pavilion and did the whole caterpillar to butterfly thing. Blakeslie absolutely loved it. It actually inspired her Halloween costume. We were walking in the mall and she shouted, “Look a painted lady butterfly!” We had to get the costume and we got another set of caterpillars to watch during October. She was so funny as the caterpillars grew because she would ask all the time, “When are my capitillars going to turn into raccoons.” She had a great time putting on her costume and making sure her Painted Ladies knew she looked just like them.

(I highly recommend doing this. We had so much fun watching and waiting for our butterflies. Bean took it to show and tell at school at every stage. If anyone is interested you can buy the pavilion and caterpillars from http://www.insectlore.com/ It is a fun adventure!)

We had a great time going to all the fun fall activities around the valley. Our favorites were the scarecrow festival, Cornbelly’s and Gardner Village

to see the witches.

My Funny Kidos
Blakeslie woke up one day and was just not feeling well. It never really turned into much, but I knew she wasn’t great when she told me to call her teacher to tell her she wasn’t making it to school. She also took a 4 hour nap. She spent a lot of the day just hanging out in our bed. Once when I went into check on her this is where I found her bowl. I couldn’t resist taking a picture.

When we decorated our spooky Halloween house Mayzie was more interested in the box. She kept putting it on her head so Chip finally helped her out and cut a spot for her eyes. She wore it all night and Chip started calling her

“Box Vader.”

We did a little Halloween party for Bean’s friends. We had a great time and Bean was so cute about getting excited about the games and treats. It made it all worth it.

Halloween was great. We had Blakeslie’s school party and then went to Omniture for the biggest party in the valley – thanks Scott! The kids had a great time there. We ran home to have our annual Halloween dinner with mummy hotdogs before trick-or-treating around the circle. Mayzie actually got it more than I thought she would. I let her eat her candy as we went so she was very excited to knock at the doors.