December 23rd - Morning

Josh's Kindergarten class had their Christmas party this morning. Dave and Amabuela and I volunteered to staff one of the "Centers", and we taught the kids how to make snowflake ornaments. It was so fun and the kids were really cute about it.

Cutting the paper

Josh, Carter, and two cute girls

Amabuela showing how the snowflake ornament works

Josh shows off his gingerbread house with the "Snowman Garden"

"1-2-3, Eyes on me!" Mrs. Proud wraps up the party.

December 19 - 22nd: Holiday Festivities

December 18th: Tonight we had Clara's dance recital. She was so cute and adorable - as all three year old girls are at their dance recitals. Dave's mom and my dad and step-mom came to the show. Bless them for their tolerance through 30 dances! Obviously Josh didn't make it very far.

December 19th: I woke up to this. Clara had decided that her hair was "too long". After shedding many many tears, I hauled her to my hair salon where they were able to fix it. It's cute, but I miss her long hair. She just looks too grown up now!

December 19th continued: For our cute friend Clara Bright's birthday, we headed downtown to Temple Square to have dinner and see the lights. We went to Rumbi Island Grill where Oliver was pleasantly surprised with the tortilla soup. Then we hopped on TRAX and went over to see the lights followed by cupcakes in the parking garage. I said to Oliver, "Did you think 10 years ago when we were getting ready for the big Y2K dance at the Hilton that in 10 years we would be in a parking garage in SLC celebrating your daughter's 3rd birthday?"

December 20th: After a wonderful Christmas Sacrament Meeting, we headed down to Orem for our annual Christmas with my cousins and aunt and uncle. We opened presents, had dinner, sang carols, butchered the "Hallelujah Chorus", and laughed a lot. It was a lot of fun.





December 21st: Blissfully, we had nothing going on tonight! So we just cleaned up a bit and Dave and I watched a movie.

December 22nd: After a wonderful birthday breakfast for my sweet friend, Laurie, I came home and worked for a while and then got my haircut. I look awesome. :)

December 6 - December 18: Food, Family, Friends, Fu7

The Fire is So Delightful...

Resting up for the big ride

This is what happens when little girls fall asleep in the car and doze for 15 minutes before being shoved out into the cold and snow to see reindeer.

Be still my heart - I want to burn this image on my brain forever. Six year old boys rule.

December 6th: First Presidency Devotional and Erin came over for dinner before heading out to Virginia for her grandfather's funeral.

December 7th: Neighborhood Cookie Exchange at my house with lots of neighbors and excellent cookies. One more reminder about how I would love to just live here forever. If I had a third car garage and we weren't North facing.

December 8th: Our home teacher came over and gave us a very memorable lesson that I plan to plagiarize and use in my lesson this month.

December 9th: Birthday party for a friend at Cheesecake Factory. I love strong and independent women!

December 10th: Surprise Baby Shower for my dear friend in the neighborhood. Whenever she cries, I cry. Also found out two more friends are pregnant! Babies to snuggle and give back - wahoo!

December 11th: My work company party at Luganos Italian restaurant. It was surprisingly pleasant!

December 12th: We drove all the way up to Ogden for Great Grandpa Totten's 89th birthday party at Aunt Pennie's house. It was a lot of fun and a lot of food! Fudge should be illegal.

December 13th: It was snowing and icy and slushy and slippery in our neck of the woods so after Church we just stayed home in pajamas and snuggled.

December 14th: For Family Home Evening, we went to Thanksgiving Point to see the reindeer and the Festival of Lights. Or something like that. We had our membership card, a $2 off coupon, and a Senior (mom) in the car. The best deal we could get was $4 for our car, which was half off so I won't complain, but you would think....

December 15th: Annual Christmas Book Club! This year it was at Rachel's and as wonderful as ever. It's my favorite book club because we do a white elephant exchange and that is always entertaining. I love my book club. And we do actually read and discuss the books. And they are sometimes very through-provoking books. But, sometimes they are fluffy and I love that, too.

December 16th: I cried a bit today. It's the anniversary of my friend's baby's death. She died a year ago of SIDS. I went to her funeral and it was the saddest funeral I have ever attended. I went to visit my friend so I could hug her and cry with her.

December 17th: Dave shipped me off to a movie with my mom since he gets to go see Avatar for his work party. We saw "The Blind Side", which just might be my new favorite movie. I want to be just like Sandra Bullock's character when I grow up only more modestly dressed.

Next up: Christmas and our family reunion in sunny Arizona!

Our cute little Elf!

November 29 - December 5, 2009: The Start of the Holidays

This week was quite the eventful week. We started off Monday with a Family Home Evening where we brought out the Nativity and I told the kids the story of the Nativity as we got them out of boxes and put them together. Then we read the story of the Shelf Elf and named him "Zeekee". Then we got out our advent calendar so we could start counting down the days until Christmas. The kids are quite obsessed with Zeekee. If I had realized how hilarious this was going to be, I would have gotten on board sooner. It does help that I am done with all of my shopping and everything is wrapped, so I don't have that stress and can just enjoy the Holidays!

Clara as "Santa's Elf". I still have the song in my head and it is driving me nuts.

Clara and her little dancing friend, Alyson.

On stage for the first time! This was right before the music started.

After a costume change, she turned into a reindeer.

The dance performance was at Festival of the Trees, so afterward we wandered around looking at the different trees that people had designed to sell. The proceeds went to Primary Children's Hospital.

Josh and Clara love the Grinch.

After weeks of listening to Josh spout off nursery rhymes, Providence Hall held its 2nd Annual Nursery Rhyme Festival! Josh decided to be the mouse in "Hickory Dickory Dock" so this was the costume I came up with. Headband courtesy of the Sudweeks about 10 minutes before school started.

Josh the mouse

The Nursery Rhyme Festival consists of all of the Kindergartners memorizing 25 nursery rhymes. They then choose one, dress up, and perform for parents and all of the older grades. They had stickers on them, and when you pushed the sticker, they had to recite their rhyme. There were huge backdrops hung all over the classrooms and common area.

You can see the little sticker on his shirt that you had to push for him to say the rhyme.

Eden is one of Josh's really good friends. I pick her up from school twice a week and she is one of my favorite kids to have come over because she is easy and loves my waffles. We practiced her rhyme a few times.
This is in the common area where they have computers and reading centers. The Kindergarten and First Grade classes are in the same wing.

I found Josh's nursery rhyme collage with a list of the rhymes that he did in watercolor. I love his school! They do so many wonderful and challenging things. Josh has had a fun time learning the rhymes, and it's amazing that he actually knows so many!

November 24-28: Thanksgiving Week

After being in Afghanistan for most of the year, Uncle Kelly came home for Thanksgiving. He spent a few days with us playing with the kids, taking them to the park, and baking. I loved the baking part. He is welcome to come back and do a repeat on it for Christmas (hint).

One day in a baking frenzy, he decided to make cinnamon rolls. Josh decided to help, and I couldn't resist taking pictures. It was really cute to watch them. Apparently Josh was so tired from baking and playing with Uncle Kelly that he fell asleep on the bathroom floor after his shower.

Our friends Dayna, Sara, Woodstock and Pebbles came for Thanksgiving Dinner. My mom and Uncle Kelly were there to give thanks with us as well. It was a small and quiet dinner and I have to say that I loved it for the peace! Clara and Josh loved all over Pebbles (and I did as well) and after eating we sat around talking and just enjoying the afternoon.

I didn't take many pictures - but I love this one of Clara and Pebbles snuggling.

On Saturday we spent the morning cleaning, and then after Clara's nap, headed up to Temple Square. First we stopped at Red Iguana for dinner. We were hoping that with the BYU vs. Utah game being held in Provo that there would be less traffic and fewer people. We were right! It was still crowded, but nothing like previous years. Plus it was relatively warm with no snow. The perfect night to go!

Josh and Clara in front of Red Iguana

Clara wanted to play in the water...brrrr.Dave's favorite tree at Temple Square.

In front of the Salt Lake Temple

Family picture! We don't get these too often.

The Nativity - out in the middle of the fountain. It was stunning.

Josh and Clara in front of the Salt Lake Temple

Our grown up kid!

November 19: New Moon

Last year when Twilight premiered, my whole neighborhood went together at midnight to see it. I was in Phoenix so I didn't join them, but this year I was determined to experience the craziness. And crazy it was! For the record, I don't like the books and I hated the first movie. This was about the experience of hanging out with 50 friends at midnight. That being said, I thought New Moon was way better than Twilight. Probably because Robert Whats-his-name is barely in it. For the other record, I am firmly on Team Sam. Forget the teenagers.

My friend Allison is the organizer of the event. She's amazing!

Laurie and Paige came even after a Board of Trustees meeting that lasted several hours.