Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2015

We had a quiet, fun Christmas with fun presents and lots of snow. Our day with filled with Minnie Mouse, candy and light saber battles. Clara was playing with her new Minnie Mouse doll house until she heard the word "candy". It took at least half an hour to convince her to open the presents under the tree. It took some convincing to get her to focus on presents and luckily the first one she opened had candy in it! That helped motivate her to open the rest. Henry loved playing everything Star Wars. Santa brought him a build your own light saber, so we spent most of the day designing light sabers and trying it out in battle.

Caleb & Becca

December 18, 2015

My baby brother got married! I think he made an excellent choice and I think they are adorable together! It's been fun getting to know Becca and I'm excited that we'll live close for at least a little while while they finish up at BYU.

I am ashamed to say that I have almost zero pictures of Becca and Caleb's wedding. This is almost every picture I possess. Largely because we were chasing children around and keeping them from playing in the snow. Most of the pictures are of my children being adorable. One is of them being a little naughty and was followed by a discussion about why you don't throw snow balls at the Temple or wedding guests unless you're G.G.

After the wedding, luncheon, and then reception in Moab, we crashed at a hotel. Clara was readily crawled herself into bed and got nice and comfy. She was SO CLOSE to falling asleep when Henry gagged himself on a cough and threw up on the bed in G.G.'s room. After that, it was no sleep for Clara (or her loving parents).

Star Wars!

December 17, 2015

We were able to go to a preview showing of Star Wars Thursday night! Nate works with some amazingly creative and awesome people that invited the two of us to come to a preview party followed by a not yet midnight showing. Both were amazing! We spent the before movie hours hanging out with R2D2, Kylo Ren, Darth Vader (who is unbelievably tall!), storm troopers, bounty hunters, fighting our way out of a trash compactor, and a whole bunch of extremely believable characters. 

As for the movie, I forgot how much fun it is to see a movie with the midnight showing crowd! We would have loved the movie without the crowd, but the enthusiasm makes it that much more fun and memorable. We both hope that we can see the next movies with the midnight showing crowd!

December 22, 2015

Back when tickets were first available, we bought enough tickets for those of us above the age of 2 to go with Grandpa to see the new Star Wars. This day was anxiously awaited and a little overwhelming for some when it finally arrived. A few days before I asked Henry if he was more excited for Star Wars or Christmas. The answer was Star Wars! On the big day, Henry had planned on wearing his Jedi costume, but changed his mind at the last minute and opted for his Star Wars t-shirt. (This was such a last minute decision that the costume was in my purse during the movie.) Up until this movie, there was no way we were getting this kid in front of "the big t.v.". Star Wars was sufficient motivation and the previews couldn't be over fast enough! I believe he enjoyed the movie. He is already excited for the next one, so it will probably be another year of looking forward to Star Wars more than Christmas.

Oregon, Baby Mary & Thanksgiving

November 21st - 30th

We drove to Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. We went to meet baby Mary and so we could be there for her baby blessing. It was timed nicely so that we could also spend Thanksgiving with most every one (even Becca, who survived her first trip to Oregon!) While we were there, we got to play at and around G.G.'s house, visit the coast, and go on a hike. Here are a whole lot of pictures of our trip. 

About 9 hours into our drive, Clara got sick of being in the car. We came up with fun ways to entertain her. I'm not sure how she felt about marshmallow face, but we were picking them off of clothes and the car seat for a few days after. When we got to G.G.'s, she had fun running around the house and collecting treasures with her basket.

Baby Mary

Baby Mary is such a sweet, quiet, easy going baby with so much dark hair! Her Butterfield cousins absolutely adored her! Clara thought she had her very own, real life baby doll, but she was fairly gentle considering she's 1. Henry just loves babies. He thinks they are the sweetest people and fun to snuggle and play with. He is such a good big brother/cousin.

Beach Day

There was a day that Mama had to work in Florence (on the coast), so we rode with her and stole the car while she worked. Frist we went to the light house at Heceta Head, but due to formatting problems that I have decided not to bother with anymore, those pictures are after the beach pictures. We have a picture of Henry at a similar age looking backwards over that same bench. This time he was much more interested in the light house and watching the seals in the ocean. Clara hung out with her Daddy then ran around after Henry. 

The kids LOVED the beach!!! I think our children are in need of a warm beach vacation! Clara loved the "bubbles" in the waves and playing in the sand. She enjoyed playing with the sand and was pretty proud of herself when she figured out how to slide down the dunes. Henry probably picked up every sea shell he could find. We had quite the pile before we headed to pick up G.G. 

Hike Day

The day after Thanksgiving, we hiked Skinner's Butte. It started out FREEZING, but we were all pretty warm by the time we were done. It was windy at the top and Clara was freezing in the wind, so we all bundled back up, then slowly made our way back down (ahead of the rest of the group). Super Nate carried both kids for a stretch of the hike up. Our large group ended up getting split into 3 smaller groups. Nate had Clara on his back and was running to keep up with Henry and totally left me in the dust. We were really taking our time on our way down, as to not have to wait forever for the rest of the crowd at the bottom. On our way down, we stopped at the "pull off" spot where you could see a beautiful lake at the bottom of the hill. Henry found a "number 4 tree" that we all thought was pretty cool. I wonder if it's one of those trees that was intentionally made to be like that or if it just grew that was naturally.

When we got to the bottom of the trail, we loaded in the van to warm up and hang out while we waited for the rest of the crowd. We weren't there long, but the kids got to "drive" and dance to a fun Christmas song or two. It was a pretty fun way to spend the day after Thanksgiving and burn off some of that yummy food.

Drive Home

The drive home was much less eventful than our last drive home from Thanksgiving in Oregon. (Thank Heaven!!!) We left right after the baby blessing, but still got on the road pretty late. Around 9 or 10 p.m. we were about to Twin Falls and Clara had been scream for most of the drive since Portland. That is over 500 miles of screaming! We did the math and calculated our Payson e.t.a, evaluated our nerves, the fog, the sketchy roads and decided we should stop in Burley. The kids were relieved to get out of the car, but one certain toddler decided she didn't need to sleep. Our plan was to get up early enough that we could get Nate to work on time in Salt Lake the next morning, so this staying up super late thing wasn't flying. I finally decided to give it up. I have Clara the iPad, set everything up in the safest way possible and went to sleep. I woke up at 5ish with her feet in my face. Who knows how long it took her to settle down that way. Monday morning we got Nate to work on time and made it home all safe and sound. There was a lot of napping the rest of the way home and no more screaming, so it was probably a good call.

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2015

My growing up Jedi and baby kitty had so much fun with Halloween this year! We kicked off the festivities with the Halloween parade at school on Friday.

Actual Halloween morning, we went to the Fishy Museum (aka the Aquarium) and went trick-or-treating in the Haunted Rainforest. Ooo! There were creepy skeletons hanging out with the fish, spiders and ghosts hanging from the ceiling, and jack-o-lanterns hanging out with all of the fish. My favorite part was the decked out rope bridge! 

My adorable Jedi and kitty! It was almost impossible to get them both to sit still long enough to take a good picture. 

Clara figured out trick-or-treating REALLY FAST!!! The first house she bravely walked to the front door with the assistance of her big brother. He held her hand all of the way to the door and all of the way back. She figured out that there was candy in her bucket and she was off! She out paced most of us for the first 2 blocks. She learned a new word tonight. "Nanny" (candy) was the word of the night. Followed closely by "mo" (more). She refused to let go of her bucket that got fairly heavy. She held on tight, with both hands, the entire way.

Henry was sick of walking in about half a block. He started sitting down at every door step after knocking on the door. He would jump up quickly when people came to the door and then either RUN to the next house or practically crawl. He really enjoyed joining up with groups of kids. One group was more than twice his age, but he thought they were awesome (not sure if they even noticed he was joining in on their group for a few houses)! 

We ended up back at Grandmas house so that Henry could help hand out treats. He has always loved this part! Probably more than the trick-or-treating. When there is a lull of kids, he tries to find a near by group of kids and makes sure they know which house is open for business. Now my two worn out children are exhausted and in bed. The grown ups are assessing our parent tax and thanking our lucky stars tomorrow is not a work day. Happy Halloween!

Family Night

October 22, 2015

We do not get very many hours to spend as a family. One Friday night, Daddy was home soon early enough that we could have a family night out and get home not too late after bed time. We have been struggling knowing what to get Henry for Christmas, so we decided to make a little trip to Toys-R-Us. We played with about everything we could play with and had a lot of fun! The kids were so good and walked out of a toy store toy-less without one single complaint, whine, or pout. It was a proud parenting moment. On our way home, we drove right by a "Hot Now" Krispy Kreme sign and couldn't deny our amazingly sweet children some hot, sugar coated goodness. They were more excited about watching the doughnuts cook than eating them. KK got us all home happily and awake, so the kids fell right asleep when they got in bed. That is a great night!

Clara was not interested in the hat. :)