A Very White Christmas

Warning: Long post ahead

This year we decided to spend Christmas with Nate's parents in snowy, cold West Yellowstone. This was the first time we'd spent Christmas with them since the first Christmas we were married, so it was nice to spend the holiday with them. It was a first for both of us to be there during the winter, and I was a little concerned about having good weather to make it there and back without too much difficulty. Thankfully, we had great roads on the way there and mostly good roads on the way back.

Enjoying the road trip 

The kids did pretty well in the car (except that Felicity won't really nap in her car seat). The good news is that with good roads, it actually takes less time to travel there in the winter than in the summer because there's very little traffic. We made it there in just 4.5 hours including a quick stop for gas.

A couple of moose we had to stop and see just off the road in Mack's Inn, Idaho

And when we arrived, this was the beautiful winter wonderland we got to be surrounded by for a week:

The gorgeous views from Nate's parents' house

Felicity had a rough time sleeping while we were there which made for several poor night's sleep for all of us. Granted, she had just gotten over a week long GI illness right before we left, but if she continues to sleep this poorly when we travel, we may just have to stay home and never go on vacation again.

Anyway, onto Christmas. Santa was able to find us without any problem, and the girls both enjoyed opening presents and playing with all of their gifts.

Felicity enjoying some of her Christmas presents

Bridget with her pile of presents on the chair behind her

Even though the temperatures stayed in the teens during most of the days we were there, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to play in all of that snow. Sledding was everyone's favorite, although Bridget really liked going for rides in the RZR including on top of the frozen lake (just the edge where is was solid enough). I even made my first snow angel in over 20 years, and my in-laws got a good laugh at me trying to get myself back up afterwards. In my defense, it was really deep snow and the snow gear I was wearing was really heavy.

Left: Nate helping Felicity go sledding. She loved it!
Top right: Bridget and Grandpa riding in the RZR
Bottom right: Bridget and me making snow angels in the 1.5 ft. of snow

Felicity preferred sitting in the RZR rather than riding in it because she didn't like the snow and cold wind in her face.

Grandma and Grandpa even had a kid-sized snowmobile for Bridget to ride on. The first time she got on it, she pushed right down on the accelerator 2 seconds after she sat down and before Grandpa could give her instructions. Luckily, she stopped when she hit a big snow pile a few feet away. The video below was her next attempt after Grandpa had a chance to instruct her:

I was hoping to go into Yellowstone Park on a snow coach while were there, but it turns out they are super expensive and the guy didn't offer us a deal. So even though it would have been nice to see the Park in the winter, we made our own fun in and around the house.

December Preschool Program and Field Trip

The night before we left to go out of town for Christmas, Bridget had her preschool Christmas program. It was only about 15-20 minutes long which was perfect. The dress she's wearing is one I made for her for Christmas, and I also made a matching one for Felicity. Maybe I'll get around to taking a picture of them in them togther, and post that as some point.

Here's a clip from Holly Jolly Christmas:



And here's one more clip to show how much Felicity was enjoying dancing along as the kids performed:

The morning after her program, we went on a field trip with her class to the bowling alley. We debated about going or not since we were leaving on vacation that day. Because she loves bowling so much, we decided to go on the field trip and then make the 4.5 hour drive to Grandma's and Grandpa's house after that.

 

Random December Happenings

December is always so crazy busy that keeping up with blogging is never a high priority. Here's a recap of some of our month leading up to our vacation.

Bridget loved decorating the tree this year. Felicity loved removing the decorations but was unable to put them back on by herself. Even with all of the undecorating and redecorating, it held up pretty well for the month.

Bridget wanted to pose like this under the tree because there's an ornament with her picture as a newborn under the tree. Five years later, she's just a wee bit bigger. ;-)

The finished tree looks so much prettier all lit up.

For a family night treat, I made these peanut butter reindeer cookies. Bridget thought they were great and enjoyed helping put on all of the decorations.

For the first time in a few years, we actually made it down to Temple Square to look at the Christmas lights. We went just before all the frigid weather set in, so it was nice to enjoy it with just a slight chill in the air. We met up with Megan one evening after she got off work and also walked through the new City Creek Mall. Sadly, the kids didn't get to see Santa there as we'd planned because they were only letting people with dogs see him that night. Lame!

This is a picture of the primary kids during the live nativity they did as part of our church Christmas party. There's a bunch of animals off to the right that you can't see. We had pretty nice weather earlier this month until this particular weekend. It was so cold outside, so the kids had to bundle up hiding their shepherd and angel costumes. Bridget's in the middle of the front row dressed as an angel. They sang a couple of songs and then we hurried inside to get warm.

As a side note, I should mention that tons of people in our ward got sick the Sunday night after the ward Christmas party. I know of at least 50 people that got sick, including me, Nate, and Felicity, and there were probably a bunch more I didn't know about. We're pretty sure it was some type of food poisoning and not a stomach bug because Bridget never did get it. All I can say is taking care of a puking toddler when both Nate and I were puking our guts out was horrible. I'm just grateful Bridget didn't get it because I think I would have starting crying if we'd had to try and take care of her too. Luckily she was able to take care of us the best a 5-year-old can.

Felicity thought this present of hers made a great little chair, and we thought it made a cute picture.



Megan and I teamed up for Bakefest 2012 to spend an entire day making tons of delicious Christmas goodies to share with our friends and neighbors. The treats included heath bars, sugar cookies, spritz cookies, 2 types of fudge, ginger crinkles, white chocolate and chocolate dipped pretzels, mini monster cookies, chcolate mint cookies, and peppermint bark popcorn.

Sadly, I was unable to get any pictures of our kids with Santa this year. I mentioned how City Creek didn't work out, which I was a little bummed by, but my backup plan was to go to a local bakery/restaurant where they were doing a breakfast for dinner with Santa a few days later. As luck would have it, that didn't work out either because it was the night after the food poisoning incident, so we were in no condition to leave our home or eat normal food. My plan C was to take the girls to the mall or some other place nearby before we left to go out of town, but Felicity was really sick that whole week right up until we left with some weird GI thing. Sitting on Santa's lap just wasn't meant to be for them this year. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to see Felicity's reaction to him.

Bridget's 5th Birthday

Bridget's birthday celebration actually ended up being a two-day event this year because Nate had to work on her birthday. On Monday, she started off the celebration at preschool where she got to be the teacher's helper for the day and took cupcakes to share with her class. Later that day I took Bridget and Felicity to go play in the bounce houses at a nearby fun center. Then Bridget got to go to the doctor for her check-up and 3 shots. She was kind of scared but ended up laughing while she was getting the shots. We told her if she was good about getting her shots then we would go play games at Chuck E Cheese afterwards.

Having a good time at Chuck E Cheese

On the morning of her actual birthday, we started off the day with some birthday cake pancakes. I also let her open a present at breakfast and another a lunch. When Nate got home from work, we met Megan for dinner at Bridget's favorite place (and mine too) - Cafe Zupas. Then we came back to our house for cake, ice cream, and a few more presents.



Birthday Cake Pancakes

Present opening

The Tinkerbell Cake - a layer of chocolate and a layer of white cake with butter cream frosting

Wearing her new Rapunzel pajamas from Aunt Megan



At the end of the day Bridget said multiple times that it was the best birthday ever! I'm glad she had fun  because we love her so much and wanted to make it a special day for her.

Thanksgiving

Here's just a bit of what we did the week of Thanksgiving:

For family night we talked about gratitude and listed some of the things we are thankful for on the feathers of this turkey. Then we made and ate the oreo/peanut butter cup/candy corn turkeys.

Nate's extended family has this awesome tradition of getting together the night before Thanksgiving and eating tons of pie. There are appetizers too, but it's mostly about the pie. Here's just of a few of the many many pies to choose from. I made coconut cream and chocolate cookies and cream pies.

We spent our Thanksgiving this year with Nate's extended family. A large portion of them gathered at his cousin Chad's house, and there was tons and tons of delicious food. Our girls had a great time playing with all the toys. Too bad we weren't very good about taking more pictures.

Felicity trying to ride a stuffed horse

Happy Thanksgiving!



Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

The week before Thanksgiving, Bridget's preschool teacher hosted a Thanksgiving Feast for all of the kids and their families. Here's a little of what we did in addition to eating a yummy mini Thanksgiving meal:

 

Bridget made this turkey all by herself while we were waiting for everyone to arrive.

The kids had already these cute pilgrims during another preschool class, but they got to show them to everyone and say what they were thankful for.

Bridget's pilgrim said she was thankful for her family and included a drawing of all of us.

The kids also entertained us with the Thanksgiving songs they learned. Here's one of the four or five they performed:

Dinosaur Park Field Trip

We've had pretty mild weather this November except for a brief storm/cold spell that lasted about 3 days. As luck would have it, Bridget's field trip for this month fell on the first day of that storm which wouldn't have been a big deal if it had been an indoor one. This was the one I was looking forward to the most since we've never been to the Dinosaur Park, but I promised Bridget we'd go another time when there's better weather. I debated about going at all with her class, but she was looking forward to it, so we bundled up, took an umbrella, and hoped for the best.

 

The first part was in the education building where one of the employees gave the kids a little lesson in dinosaurs. I have to admit, my dinosaur knowledge is pretty limited, so I even learned a few things. For example, the most ferocious dinosaur was not the T-Rex but actually the Utah Raptor. After the lesson, the kids got to pick a dinosaur mask to color.

 



Bridget and Max working on their masks. These two were definitely the most detailed with their coloring out if the group and took the longest to finish.

The finished triceratops mask

Normally the group photo would be taken outdoors in front of one of the big dinosaur replicas, but the heavy, wet snow that was coming down hard made that impossible. Here's the indoor shot in front of the dinosaur bones:

After the lesson, we headed over to the main building to look at the indoor displays. The best display was the Triceratops and T-Rex robots that showed a mother Triceratops protecting her babies from the T-Rex. Sadly, I didn't even attempt a picture because the lighting was really dim in that room.

Overall, we had a good time, but I do look forward to going back as a family and seeing all of the outdoor stuff.

Nate's Birthday

I'm big on birthdays, and Nate is not. This year his birthday was more low-key than what I prefer, but that's because I was lame and didn't get my act together as far as planning. He didn't complain though since that's how he likes it.

He took the day off of work since he's trying to use up his vacation days before the end of the year (they don't carry over into next year). We didn't do anything super exciting, but we did enjoy some nice family time together. We started the day off with a nice breakfast - Baked Pumpkin French Toast. Nate and the girls spent a good chunk of time raking the millions of leaves that continue to fill our yard. It certainly wasn't fun for him, but at least the girls got to enjoy that part. He did manage to squeeze in a much deserved afternoon nap while I was busy making his cake. For dinner, we opted to try Union Grill, a local restaurant that I'd never been to and he hadn't been to in years. We were both disappointed with the food, so we probably won't be heading back there again. At least we got to come home to a delicious carrot cake. His birthday presents were also kind of lame - new black dress shoes, compression shorts for running, and a new polo shirt.

As a side note, his birthday fell on election day this year (and a Presidential one at that). Too bad our candidate of choice didn't win. We did enjoy watching the election coverage though since it was a close race.

I'll have to do better at making next year a better birthday celebration. Happy birthday, Nate!!

Halloween Festivities

Our Halloween festivities actually started a couple of weeks ago when we made and decorated some sugar cookies with Megan, as seems to be our tradition. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures.

On the 28th, we had an evening filled with Halloween fun at my cousin Cat's house. My Aunt Jennine invited us over for pumpkin carving (which we missed due to Felicity's nap), dinner in a pumpkin, bingo, a scavenger hunt for the kids, and pin the nose on the pumpkin. We had a great time, and once again I failed to take any pictures. :-(

We ended up carving our pumpkin as part of our FHE the following night, and here's how it turned out:

 

On Halloween, Bridget's preschool teacher put on a Halloween Carnival which included the kids performing their Halloween songs.

Bridget is standing next to her friend Kaleb, as usual.

 

And now for a better look at our little princesses. This little photo shoot was just as difficult as I thought it would be since getting Felicity to stand still or smile on command is nearly impossible.

Our little Cinderella

Our beautiful Rapunzel

Magically, I was able to capture one decent picture of the two of them together actually looking at the camera.

Most of our attempts looked more like this with Felicity running away from Bridget as fast as she could.

This year, I made both of their costumes which meant I had to start in August to make sure I'd have them done in time and without a bunch of stress. Felicity's dress was my first attempt to make something this detailed without a pattern. I followed an online tutorial which was somewhat helpful although I had to change a few things. It certainly was a learning experience and not something I would attempt again on such a little person who refuses to try things on during the process. Needless to say, I had to pull things apart and redo the dress 3 times to finally get the fit right due to her lack of cooperation. At least it turned out in the end.

Raking, Raking, & More Raking

Now that fall has officially arrived, it's time to bust out the rake and start raking up the billion leaves that will fill our yard over the next 2 months. With 4 large trees in our yard plus our neighbors 3 along the fenceline that also drop into our yard, there's plenty of leaves for the girls to play in. Because our trees drop at different rates, it really does take clear until the beginning of December for them to all fall. I just hope the next home we live in doesn't come with so much fall cleanup. At least this chore is fun for somebody.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Bridget's preschool field trip this month was to the pumpkin patch. Apparently nearly every preschool and grade school in the area goes there because she went to the same one last year, and this place was so busy while we were there. Last year I opted to stay home with Felicity, but this year we decided to make it a family event. The girls definitely had a good time and didn't want to leave even though it was way past Felicity's nap time at that point. Here's a few pictures from our outing:

 



The 3 and 4-year-old preschool classes

Try as we might, we could not get Felicity to look at the camera because she was too interested in the ginormous pumpkins.

Bridget finally decides on a pumpkin

The tractor ride back from the pumpkin patch (and Felicity refusing to look at the camera again)

Felicity was quite interested in this goose because it was being so noisy.

The girls loved riding the train so much that we couldn't get them to get off after one ride, so they got to take two in a row.

18 Months

I truly feel like the last year and a half since Felicity was born has flown by. It must be a sign that I'm getting old. Anyway...

Felicity continues to keep us on our toes with her curiosity and desire to learn new things. Here's a little bit of what she's doing these days:

• We moved her out of the highchair and into the booster seat pictured above so she could join us at the table. She loves it, and can climb up into it herself. I love that she can still be strapped into it. :-) It has certainly helped since she doesn't throw food on the floor as much as she used to.
• Also feeding related, she prefers no help from us with eating which can lead to big messes and her frustration at times, but she really is doing pretty well with a fork and spoon.
• She LOVES books! She would be content if someone would read or look at books with her all day. Sometimes we read the same book probably 20 times or more in a week, and she rotates which ones are her favorites. I just hope she always loves to read this much.
• She continues to be a girl of few words, but that doesn't mean she's quiet. Grunting, squawking, and pointing work pretty well for her, and we're able to understand what she wants most of the time. Right now she says dada (her most frequently used word), mama (rarely used because she often calls me dada too), hi, uh-oh, eye, ah duh (meaning all done), ya, woah, and oof (her way of saying woof).
• Much to my dismay, she climbs on everything, and I often have to remind her to get off the kitchen counter or table.
• She's very good at following directions, and is happy to help with lots of things I ask or don't ask her to do. If she sees me doing laundry she'll start handing me the dirty clothes so I can put them in the washer. She's even pretty good at helping clean up. If I start, she jumps right in to help.
• Her blanket and stuffed Curious George are still her favorite comfort items.
• A couple of months ago we made the transition to one nap. The transition went smoothly and has helped her sleep better at night. Most nights she sleeps for about 12 hours straight and then takes about a 1.5-2.5 hour nap right after lunch.
• Even though she continues to be stubborn about a lot of things, she has a definite sweetness to her personality. She's very affectionate and loves to cuddle, give kisses, and blow kisses. And her laugh makes me smile every time.
• She loves to try and be like her big sister and tries to copy everything she does - good and bad.

Hopefully the next few months bring lots of words because I can't wait to hear more of her cute little voice.

Here's her stats:
      Height: 33 inches (85th percentile)
      Weight: 24.4 lbs. (50th percentile)
      Head: 18.5 inches (60th percentile)

Zoo Field Trip

For Bridget's first field trip this year, we had the opportunity to go to the zoo. Even though we went with family in June, it was fun to go again.

 

Here's a picture of all the kids. The back row is the 4-year-old class, and the front row is the 3-year-olds. The boy with his arm around Bridget is Kaleb. Although she really likes all of the kids in her class, she has a definite fondness for him and talks about him frequently.

I didn't take very many pictures since we took a bunch in June, but here's one of Bridget by the giraffs.

The polar bear and spider monkeys were Bridget's favorite this time, and that polar bear sure knows how to put on a show. He jumps in the water and swims right up to the glass over and over again.

The zoo is currently undergoing major construction, so in 2014 it should be even better when they open the African Savannah exhibit they just started working on.

We had a good time, and it was nice to enjoy the perfect temperature instead of the sweltering heat and crowds we had in June. It was also nice to get to know some of the parents and kids from her school a litle better.