This little one, named Elise, is spelled Trouble!
Yes, when she finds the opportunity she pulls the toilet paper off the rolls.
A few times a day pulls all the books off the shelf, and makes funny faces while doing it.
She makes a grand mess when she eats.
She climbs up everything she can.
She puts everything into her mouth, handfuls of sand, rocks, dirt, leaves, anything she finds.
She eats all our oranges.
But we keep her for the kisses.
Several times a day Elise gets on her knees and raises her hands high in the air and then maintains that pose for a few seconds as if she is praying. And maybe she is.
Anna is so fun lately she likes to do a lot of things just like I am doing them. She doesn’t want me to cut up her apple in little slices anymore like I used to, but she wants to eat big slices like her mom. If I am vacuuming the floor she will go get her vacuum and vacuum along with me. She likes to take baby on walks just like her mama too.
Elise like riding on dad’s head and using his hair as her handle bars. That’s got to hurt, but it doesn’t phase him. Every time we take Elise outside she is always putting something in her mouth. I have found several rocks in her mouth, dirt clumps, leaves, sticks, the other day she stuck a handful of sand in her mouth; it can’t be tasty. I don’t get it, she wont eat food but she will eat dirt.
Whenever we go and feed the ducks Anna has a hard time getting the bread to the ducks. She goes to throw a piece to the ducks but before the bread leaves her hand she stops looks at it, then puts it in her mouth. She has good intentions but it just does not always make it to the ducks.
Gram and Grandpa’s Ranch is always a fun and magical place for us at Christmas time. We built the biggest snow man ever!
The middle snow ball was so heavy it took all four of us to lift it up. Anna loved the snow man and even tried to make her own. Every time she saw the snowman she would sing, “tall, tall, tall.” Chris was gung ho on the snow man building.
Anna liked to eat the snow too. I thought she looked like a pink marshmallow in that snow suit, waddling around. Her and her cuz were sure cute together.
It was baby Elise’s first Christmas. We all had a beautiful Christmas morning.
Elise got an ornament with her name and birthdate engraved in it. She also put everything in her mouth, preferring to eat her presents then to open them.
All of the great grand-girls got western shirts to match great grandpa’s.
Chris thought he was too big to be turned upside down and tickled and was proved wrong. Kent went down flat after giving 3 girls a horsey ride.
Grandma made the grandkids aprons and the guys in the family sported mustaches.
Gram and Grandpa were amazing hosts and are just the cutest couple ever. Uncle Chris was so much fun.
Grandpa got the horses out for us to ride. Anna absolutely loved it and kept singing, “horsey, horsey, on our way…” Elise also got her first horse ride.
Grandma had amazing crafts and activities for the grand girls to do. They had so much fun sitting at the table together doing so many fun things. Anna especially was thrilled to be sitting at a “big” table with older girls.
Aunt Maria even built a ginger bread house with Anna.
One of the best things about going to Montana was that Grandma was able to play with all of her grandchildren. They all had so much fun! They baked cookies, played with play dough, made jingle-bell necklaces, decorated cookies, played ring around the rosy, painted pictures, and many other fun things. It was so neat to see grandma with the girls, she is so good with them. They all warmed up to Grandma very quickly, though it took a while for them to warm up to Grandpa.
Aunt Shay Shay, Brigham, and Elizabeth came down to AZ for New Years! So Fun! We watched the BYU game with them and our little cougar fans.
We had dinner and played games: Banana grams and Settlers.
We blew our horns, banged our pots, and yelled happy New Year at 8:00 so the girls could get to bed and because we are tired in our old age.
We had fun together.
Aunt Shay Shay did everything with the girls.
We carried on the New Years tradition of going to the park and eating tamales and then 12 big grapes for the wishes of the new year. We also took a walk through the orange orchard behind grandma’s house with everyone and granddad came along. We walked to the Orange Patch and got some citrus and ice cream cones. What a fun weekend.
