Christmas in Mesa 2012

All of us siblings and our families and my grandmother came together at my parents house for Christmas this year.

We had a baby shower for Brigham and Elizabeth and since guys were invited Brigham had fun playing the shower games.

I think my favorite part was sitting around playing games like boggle and spelling bees with the family. We got together with the Powell cousins a few nights and played some fun games like Blurt with them too. We all loved Brigham’s wildebeest.

The girls loved having all their aunts and uncles around to play with them. Elise especially liked all the “horsey” shoulder rides she got she wouldn’t let Brigham put her down.

We went to the orange patch, got together with the Powell family at the Park on Christmas.

And we just hung out together ate ate a lot of good food and sweets and cutie oranges. We so much enjoyed having Mina around and the fun that she brings with her. We were able to sit down one afternoon with her and record many of her memories of her parents and grandparents.

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Christmas morning was a delight. Being a parent is really fun on Christmas. It was so fun to get presents for the girls that I knew they would love and to see their faces and how excited they were opening their presents.

I also loved that my mom gave me the nativity set I had as a child. There are many fond memories there. As I explained the Christmas story to the girls using it, I think they understood somewhat why we celebrate Christmas. 

I am grateful for this time of year, not only for Christmas trees and lights, presents, family and good things to eat but that our Father in Heaven gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ for us that we could one day return to him with our families.

The Turkey Trot and Thanksgiving

So I decided to run the Mesa Turkey trot this year, it is at 10k, 6.2 miles; so I would actually have a goal and make myself go jogging. I went out running several times a week training for this. So, the crazy thing is Kent randomly decided to do run it with me, and push the girls in the stroller along with too, and he hadn't even been training at all! Ok, if I hadn't been training and I had to push the girls in that heavy stroller for 6.2 miles, I would have fallen over dead after 1/2 a mile; there is no way. I thought maybe I can beat Kent; yeah, that would be so awesome to beat Kent in a race! But, then I came to, and remembered that Kent isn't normal, he has some sort of running super powers or something.
It was a good dream though. :)

We were all happy to accomplish our goals. I finished in 58:50, Yes I made it under an hour! Kent and the girls were especially excited to have beaten the Turkey with a time of 47:05. There really was a person running  dressed up as a turkey.

Following the Turkey Trot, we hurried home to make our part of the Thanksgiving feast and give the girls a short nap. After all the hard running, the girls were exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the way home. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for naps for Mom and Dad.

We then hustled off to my grandparents home a great family gathering. The food was great! Though Anna wouldn't know because she refused to eat the amazing food, instead she only wanted to eat dinner rolls and tangerines. So sad, but what can you do.

Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving Day. We have a lot to be thankful for. (Like oranges turkeys that are pretending to be pilgrim so they won't be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.)

The Crazies and the Fun

Now that the girls are no longer babies, they have started palling around a lot more and the synergy between them is taking off. Just recently they have started to encourage, cajole, snicker, and rial each other up. Sometimes it gets a little crazy for example:

Today a little while after putting them down for naps I started hearing laughing, talking and pitter- patters in the girls room. I went in to see what was going on and I found Anna in Elise's crib with dolls and stuffed animals piled around her, and Elise carrying the dolls to Anna. What! How did Elise get out of her crib and how did Anna get in it? They have never before left their beds, once put down.  

Yesterday, I heard them playing nicely in the bedroom and when I went to check on them, there was water covering their bedroom floor and coming into the hall, and they were dancing in it, with their empty sippy cups in their hands.

And later in the afternoon I found them sitting on the bathroom floor, surrounded by pads, unwrapping my sanitary supplies as if they were opening presents on Christmas morning.

They keep us on our toes.

On the other hand they girls can be quite helpful. For example I hate bugs and when Kent is not here and I  find one in our house and I kill it, Anna will get a napkin and pick it up for me and put it in the trash. Thank you so much Anna. She also puts clean trash bags in all the trashes by herself once we take the trash out; very helpful. When I don't know what to make for dinner she will sing the, "What should we make for din din?" song with me. She always asks daddy for a dance when their is dancing music going. When we are tired she will sing us a song. She always lets me know when there is a stop sign and makes sure I stop all the way even when we are out on a jog. When I went to the lab to get my blood drawn and they poked me with that ginormous needle she was there to say, "oh, poor mama!" I really appreciated the sympathy, as the lab tech had none.

Elise is quite helpful too. She will bust out biggest smile whenever the day is rough. Oh and she is a cuddle bug and loves to snuggle and makes me feel loved. She runs with her arms behind her and makes me think of a little bird. She will make me laugh with her little sense of humor. She even helps us load the dryer and unload the dishwasher. And she will point out all the planes that fly by in case we did not notice them.  

These are our girls, crazy and fun as ever.

Two Girls in a Box

This is what Anna and Elise were doing tonight.

Halloween

I didn’t think Anna could draw a face, I handed her an erasable marker just thinking she would scribble on the pumpkin while I got ready. When I came back to look, there was this cute face; I was so surprised, so I carved it!

We made Halloween crafts one morning. The witch we made would fly to a different wall every morning! The girls would wake up and run out to see where the witch had moved to. It even flew to Nana’s house one morning; silly witch! And some more carving pics.

I had the cutest little frog for Halloween. She kept pointing to her frog costume and saying, “frog!”

. I had both girls practice saying, “Trick or Treat, Thank you,” all week long so they were ready for the big night. Elise would pitter patter following Anna up to each door. After the first door we went to Anna realized she got candy for trick or treating, she got so excited she giggled and yelled, “I love candy, this is soooo fun. Let’s go to the next house.” Whenever Elise saw a a Halloween decoration she would point at it and say, “witch or ghost, or pumpkin.”We stayed at my mom’s house for Halloween since Kent was out of town.

Anna’s favorite part was not the trick or treating, it was passing out candy. She got even more excited about that. When she heard the door bell ring she would jump up and run as fast as her legs would carrier her to the door and put candy from the bowl into all the trick or treater’s bags. For a long time she wanted to just sit on the porch with the bowl on her lap waiting for the dressed up kids to come by.

We had fun decorating Nana and Papa’s house with cobwebs. The girls loved it and Papa was prompt to take it down when Halloween was over. I think he thought it was too scary for his house :) We also had fun at my parents Halloween neighborhood party

Here is a video of Anna singing her Witch song.