December Fun

Gingerbread House Kit: $9.00

Making snowflakes: A million sheets of paper and a bit of a mess

Popping bubble wrap from out-of-town presents: Free

Spending Christmas with my family: Priceless

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From us to you...

To see our annual Elfing, click here.

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Miss Lily Tells It Like It Is

At just shy of 4 years old, Lily is pretty confident in her understanding of the world and is amazingly smart (at least I think so). As you have probably gathered, Dora is one of her favorite shows. But I'm beginning to think she might need to move on to more sophisticated programming. The other night while she watching it, this is what I heard:

Dora: We have to find the bridge. Can you help us find the bridge?

Lily: It's right there, dumbo.

Dora: Where's the bridge?

Lily: I said, it's right there, dumbo!

After I pulled myself together in the kitchen, I went in the other room and explained why we don't call people "dumbo," but I have to say I was a little proud of her for finally wondering why Dora has such a hard time finding things that are right in front of her... :-)

Then, this morning before leaving for daycare, she provided some insight into spiders:

Lily: Last time I went to Angie's, Zayners (Angie's son, Zayne, who is the same age) found a spider.

Erik: A spider? Oh no.

Lily: Yeah. And you know what spiders do? They will crawl up you and bite you and then KILL YOU. (Think Achmed, the dead terrorist when she says KILL YOU, because that's exactly what it sounded like.)

Erik: Well, spiders do bite sometimes, but they don't usually kill you.

Lily: No. It was a boy spider, and the boy spiders will kill you!!! (Who knew??!!??)

Erik: Oh, ok. You know what you should do when you see a spider? (He showed her how to squish a spider.)

Lily: I'll have to show Zayners that!!!!

It's so fun listening to her explain what's going on around her. She gets very serious and explains exactly what we should or should not be doing or how something works. It's often accompanied by a pointed finger for emphasis, making it hard to take her very seriously. How can you not laugh? But she's big enough now that if you do laugh, she is not amused. So you just have to nod in agreement and hope she doesn't notice the smirk you're trying to hold in. 

I absolutely love her to pieces.

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Temple Square

In true Christmas tradition, we headed down to Salt Lake on Tuesday to see the lights at Temple Square. And this year, we picked a day other than the annual MoTab Christmas concert. Although there were still a ton of people, of course.

Despite the huge storm we had a couple weeks ago, most of it was gone. Normally, I would say that's a good thing, but when it comes to Temple Square, I actually prefer it with snow. It makes the lights that much more...magical, I guess. But it was still gorgeous as always. Like anything she does, Lily had a ton of fun running around and causing us much anxiety because she refused to walk close by, but for the most part, she was good and enjoyed seeing the lights and nativity scenes. Hopefully next year, Timothy will actually see some of the lights. I was so worried that he'd get cold, so we bundled him up so well that he thought a nap was more important this year.

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The Gutter

The other night, Derek asked if Lily wanted to join Daxton for some sledding. Since she was still getting over a nasty cough, we decided it was probably better for her to stay inside. So we opted for some bowling instead. It'd been a while since our balls had seen the light of day (or a bowling alley), so we were both a little rusty. In fact, Lily's score almost matched ours. There were a few tiffs over whose turn it was since Lily and Daxton had a hard time understanding that they got to go twice before the other person did, and I spent a good portion of the night reminding Lily that her hand needed to stay as far away from the ball return as possible (visions of King Pin were flashing through my head). But based on the fact that we had a MAJOR melt down at the prospect of returning her awesome bowling shoes, I would say she had a good time.

There are a few things I want to point out in this picture. One is my awesome bowling ball. There's nothing better than having your ball smile at you as it rolls down the gutter not hitting a single pin...which it did a couple times that night. Remember, I said I was rusty. The second is the lovely form Erik has. I like to call it The Fountain.

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Our Little Olympian

I don't ski. I went once. If you could call it that. About 10 years ago. I spent most of the time on my rear end cursing Erik for letting him talk me into trying it. And the next day? I could barely move. I refuse to go again.

But Erik convinced Lily that skiing is the best thing ever and had her so completely excited about its prospects by the time they headed up to Beaver Mountain this week that I was sure someone's high hopes were about to be crushed, especially since she wouldn't even let them buckle the boots when Erik took her to get fitted for them.

Luckily...I was wrong. She LOVED it. Before they went, Erik worked with her on what to do if she fell down. "I jump up and try again!" And it must have worked, because she had a great time. They went with Buzzy and Carson (who is about a year older than Lily). The guys did some skiing on their own while the kids had a lesson and then they did a couple runs with them. She's super excited about going again, and was sure to tell everyone we saw that she went skiing. I see a gold medal in our future... :-)

Now if only Erik could convince her to get on her little snowmobile...

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All I want for Christmas...

Yesterday, we took this kids to sit on Santa's lap. Which means I now feel like a good parent again since we completely forgot to take Lily last year. I think it was a combination of being busy coupled with the fact that I was about two and half months pregnant and sick as a dog most of the time.

When I first mentioned going to see Santa, Lily wasn't so sure about sitting on his lap. "I'll just stand next to him and tell him what I want." But by the time we got there, she was ready to do about anything the complete stranger in the red suit told her to do.

And what does she want Santa to bring her? A mermaid. Which is total news to us. A few months ago when I asked what she wanted from Santa, all I got was an, "I don't know." So I went with what I wanted Santa to bring her. But in the last month, anytime someone asks what Santa is bringing her, she says a mermaid. If she'd come up with the answer just once, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But she says it EVERY TIME. Which means Santa now has to do some more shopping because there is no way I'm destroying the illusion of Santa the first year she's actually interested in it. And she knows Santa won't let her down. If we ask what Santa is bringing her now, we get the answer in a very exasperated tone, because come on...she's already told us...it's a mermaid already. Can't you remember? Jeese!

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Family Pictures 2010

This year, we had Erik's cousin, Dani, take our family pictures. Usually, this isn't a very eventful activity. We arrive at the location, we smile a lot, we try to get Laddie to look at the camera at the same time as everyone else, we go home. It's a good day.

But this year was a completely different story. About half way to Ogden's Union Station to meet Dani, Laddie decided to puke on me. Well, not on me so much as in my general direction. Most of it landed on the seat. It wasn't a lot, so I didn't worry about it much.

A little while later, we arrived at Union Station. As we were getting ready to get out of the car, Lily decided she didn't feel great either, so she puked on me, too. Unfortunately, it was significantly more than what Laddie managed. I had it all down my arm and side. And on the seat. Luckily, none of it ended up on her. I managed to wipe it all off, so at least I was presentable for our pictures, even if I did stick a little...

Dani arrived and we started our shoot. But it was so windy and cold, and we could hardly get pictures with our coats on. I mean, I'd agonized for months over what we would be wearing. I was not covering anything up with a coat. So we toughed it out long enough to get some shots in a couple locations. And now that we have the finished product, you'd never know we were freezing. But I think next year, we'll do pictures on a warmer day.

Thanks, Dani!

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Wherein I send you to another blog...

Because we don't really have anything too exciting happening in our own lives, I thought I'd pass along a link to a blog that (thanks to Meg) I recently re-discovered. This post made my day! It's probably best appreciated by people with dogs, but I laughed so hard, which actually hurt because I did an ab workout a couple days ago that apparently made more of an impression than I originally thought.

I should have some blogging fodder of my own as we get further into the season...at least I hope. I managed to forget my camera over Thanksgiving so that was a bust. But we did just get our family pictures back, and we'll be doing the SLC light scene. And Christmas itself should produce something of substance. In the meantime, I hope everyone's holiday activities are going well.

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