Christmas Dresses

I mentioned a few posts back that I made the girls some matching dresses for Christmas, and I just barely got around to taking a picture of them together, so here it is.

I love any excuse to sew something for them, and dresses and costumes are definitely at the top of my list. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and I'm glad that they love wearing them. Bridget loves to match Felicity, and Felicity loves anything that makes her like her older sister so it's a win-win situation. I know they won't always like to match, so I have to take advantage of it on occasion. Now if only I could get them to cooperate better when taking a picture so they look at the camera at the same time with nice, normal smiles. This was the best out of about a dozen pictures.

Girls With Curls

If I had a dollar for every time someone asks us where Felicity's curly hair comes from, I'd be a rich woman. People who knew me prior to about 10 years ago know the answer to that question. It was about 10  years ago that I discovered the miracle of ceramic flat irons and have straightened my crazy curls nearly every day since. With as naturally curly as my hair is, I knew it would be impossible for me to have children with straight hair, and so far I've been right.

I thought it would be fun to do a picture comparison between me as a child and my girls with all of our curls at their finest.

Age 3 -  The curliest my hair has probably ever been

About  Age 2 - Her hair finally filled in and started getting long enough for an Afro just before she turned 2 and got long enough by about 2-1/2 that the curls started to relax a little.

18 months - Her hair was curly by about 10 months and she's had a head full of tight curls ever since. Her hair is much curlier than Bridget's ever was.

So there's the proof. There's no doubt about where their curls come from, and I'm sure that someday they'll hate me for it.

First Snowman of Snowmageddon

Even though we've had a couple feet of snow dumped on us this winter (hence my reference to this winter as Snowmageddon), this was the first time we got out to build a snowman. Most of the snow we received was too powdery and wouldn't stick together, but we finally got over 32 degrees for the first time in a few weeks making it possible for us to finally build a snowman. Sadly, Felicity was napping during our fun, so hopefully she'll still have the opportunity to help us build another one before winter is over.

We even built another small snowman next to this one because Bridget thought he needed a friend, but he never got a face or anything because it was getting cold and we needed to quit for the day.

Our First Child to Get Stitches is...

Felicity!!!

Just over a week ago we had the dreaded experience of having to run one of our children to the doctor due to and injury/accident. Amazingly, Bridget is 5 and has only suffered minor injuries. Felicity, on the other hand is the winner of the title "Our First Child to Get Stitches," and it only took her 21 months of life to do it. Honestly, with as much of a monkey as she is not to mention blatantly disobedient, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

Last Friday, she was standing on a kitchen chair (like most little kids tend to do), and she leaned over the back a little too far causing the chair to topple over with her in it. Normally, this kind of accident would just scare a kid or give them a little bump. But in her case, she happened to hit the rung of another chair with her mouth. She screamed, and I ran over to discover her mouth full of blood which proceeded to get all over her, me, and the floor. Seriously, our kitchen looked like a murder scene.

I grabbed a dish towel and then ran to the couch to try to figure out where the blood was coming from and assess the injury. After a minute or two, I noticed a chunk of tissue missing from her bottom lip, a huge cut just under her bottom lip, and her front teeth were messed up.

Luckily, Nate was working from home that a day, but he had just started a conference call. Bridget ran downstairs to tell him Felicity was hurt, which he immediately dismissed as Bridget being overly dramatic, and then he sent her back upstairs. It was at this point that I realized how serious things were and that she needed medical attention ASAP. I honestly thought she'd bitten completely through her lip and broken off half of her front tooth. I told Bridget to go back down and tell him he needed to come upstairs now. Then he heard me freaking out, saying how bad it was, and that she needed stitches and promptly ended his phone call.

I should also mention at this point that we were in the middle of a huge snowstorm. It had been snowing constantly since the previous afternoon, and we had about 9-10 inches of new snow on top of the 9 inches we received a couple of weeks before that still hadn't melted. It was seriously like Snowmageddon outside. Our usual pediatrician is about 10 minutes away in good weather, so I told Nate to just run her to the clinic that's about 3 minutes from our house.

I'm so glad he was able to take her because I don't think I would have been able to restrain her the way he had to at the clinic. Thankfully, she had not bitten completely through her lip, but she did need 5 stitches just below her lip. The tissue missing on the inside of her lip would just have to heal on its own, and we also needed to get some dental x-rays done to try and determine the extent of the damage to her teeth. With the location of her laceration, they weren't able to apply a topical anesthetic, so they had to poke her with a needle 10-12 times to numb the area. And Nate got to hold her body down while a nurse held her head during all of that. Then he had to hold her again during the stitches.

Sitting in the exam room holding a rag to her mouth Nate brought from home. She preferred this to the gauze the nurse tried to have her hold. Poor little girl.

 

Sorry this one's kind of gross, but you can see the cut pretty well in it . It makes my mouth hurt just looking at it.

Then Nate ran her to our dentist which is only a minute from the clinic. Since she was pretty traumatized from everything up to this point, she didn't want to cooperate at the dentist either. They were able to get one x-ray. Basically, her tooth has a small chip and got pushed up a few millimeters into her gums, so it's a little loose. We're not sure what will happen at this point. It may move back down and firm up again. It may die, fall out, or become abscessed and need to be extracted. It's not a huge concern because it is just a baby tooth, but we'll just watch it and see what happens.

She had her stitches in for 7 days, and is healing very well. Nothing got infected. Her appetite didn't seem to be affected at all either. And thanks to how close the cut was to her pouty lower lip, it will hardly be noticeable in no time. Here she is proudly showing off how nicely she healed after getting her stitches out:

.

This one shows the damage done to her teeth a little bit. Notice her front teeth aren't level at all.

Moral of the story: Do not let kids stand on kitchen chairs. Felicity's been really good about it since her accident, and if she does forget, she sits very quickly after we remind her. Let's hope that continues for a long time.

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.