I know It's been a while

I know, we were having too much fun over the Holiday. I will post again soon.

The Grand Reveal:

This last weekend we were in Santa Monica visiting some friends of the family and decided to check out the Temple lights. We wanted to make sure the lights we strung managed to stay up. Here is the tree we did:

Aubree had so much fun playing with the different lights. She loved that this one made her shadow huge. She loved the balls, Eli wanted her to say Crystal ball show me the future. She tried but didn't sound quite the same. Aubree's favorite lights were the "snowflakes" , Luke helped her to "touch the sky".


Hayley spend most of the time with Grandpa:Our sweet family, my most favorite time is when we are all together.

Fix it man for hire

NOT!! This is too funny to not write about. Our friend the Larsen's computer was having some issues, so Eli being a good friend offered to take a look at it. I am proud to say after 2 weeks of working on it during the little down time he has he fixed it. However while fixing it he needed some number off of the bottom so he held the LAPTOP up to read it while Erik double checked and corrected the number. I would have turned it over, wrote the number down, and then typed it in. That might just be my dad in me. However if they would have done it my way we wouldn't have this great picture.

How do you get bag balm out of clothes? anyone?

After Aubree's party Aubree was taking her nap, Eli and I were carrying things up the stairs, and Hayley was down stairs with her uncles, Luke and Kaleb. When Eli and I came back down the stairs both Luke and Kaleb looked like the bird that caught the canary and Hayley was just in her onsie. Kaleb started laughing and proceeded to recant the story of Hayley getting into the bag balm. Apparently Kaleb found the bag balm, smelled it, out the lid back on it and gave it to Hayley to play with. (bag balm is in a green tin that is square shaped, like a block). Hayley was played with it many times before but never had this much fun. Kaleb and Luke looked away for about 3 minutes and what happens next is hilarious. Somehow Hayley got the lid off and decided to cover herself in it. Because they are such great uncles they got her covered clothes off and cleaned her up. Here are the clothes after:
The bag balm afterI love the little finger marks. She obviously had a really good time.

It's your birthday shout hurray

Because Aubree's birthday is so close to Christmas and we celebrate it with a lot of people, we have decided to celebrate it about a week before. Last year when we celebrated it all on the same day she was a little presented out by Christmas. So we had her party with Grandma and Grandpa after her dance recital. We had pizza, opened gifts, played with the gifts and then had cupcakes. She got some great gifts and has really enjoyed playing with them all. Due to our families love of expensive cupcakes we went and got them as a surprise for Aubree that morning. She picked out a pink raspberry for herself and then Eli picked an assortment for the rest of the family. She was able to blow the candles out all by herself this year. She is getting to be quite the independent individual, but who thought it was a good idea to leave the 3yr old with fire? Luckily it was without incident.

I got no strings to hold me down

Aubree had her winter dance recital this last weekend. She danced to Pinocchio's I got no stings. She did so good and did exactly what Miss Claire asked them do to. I love to watch her dance. She is learning so much and having so much fun. Miss Claire suggested that we bring our dances flowers, so we did. Here is Aubree and all of her little friends from dance class.
Maleigha, Gretta, Julie, Aubs, and Izzy.

Don't worry we got the whole thing on film for posterity.

When your a princess anything will do...

We went out to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants with some friends and as soon as Aubree sat down she took her napkin and placed in on her head as her crown. She also was hilarious trying to eat with chopsticks. She insisted on eating every bite herself, which wouldn't have been that big of a deal if she would have used a fork. Lets just say by the end of the night she was stabbing her food with one chop stick.

PS mini DVD player is a life saver at restaurants.

Kids say the darnest things

Last night while Eli was putting Aubree to bed he asked her to hand him a book. She looked at him, and while handing him the book said, "sure dad, stink it up". I was in the other room, and had no idea what was going on in there and when I walked in to ask Eli was laughing. I guess its a line from Monsters Inc. Mike(green guy) needs so oderant, and Sully(blue guy) hands it to him and says, stink it up. I don't think Aubree has watched this movie in at least a month and a half. I think maybe she got her mothers memory. Hilarious!

Our Eternal Family

While we were dressed up for Thanksgiving I decided it was a perfect opportunity for a new family photo. We haven't taken one all together since we blessed Hayley, back in July. I think I take after my dad because when choosing photos he always goes for one that has personality instead of picture taking zombies. So here you go, Eli was laughing, Aubree was trying to smile at the camera and keep an eye on everyone else, I am just me, and Hayley is just happy to be outside. Pictures are much better when there is a story behind them.

Sentimental moments

Today, while I was putting the girls down for their naps I was just thinking how truly blessed Eli and I are for having them in our lives. I was holding Hayley and was so touched by her sweet spirit. I am Thankful for my Heavenly Father who entrusted these two to us. I am marveled by the Plan of Happiness and the opportunity I have to be with them forever. It shows me that the Lord is all knowing and understands our needs as parents and children. Isn't it amazing that something this sweet was created in me? There sweet faces make the 9 months all worth it.

Why have a clean house? When you can have this:

I had cleaned the house while the girls were down for their naps and just sitting down to enjoy it when they woke up. Aubree decided she and Hayley we going to play little people. Aubree took out a few toys but the box was closer to Hayley. Handsey Hayley as we affectionately call her, grabbed the box and spilled some of the toys. Well Aubree thought this was the best idea so Aubs helped dump the rest of the toys out. Then while Hayley was playing little people Aubree decided to play beauty shop. Beauty shop didn't last long with no customers so Aubs went back to little people. I just love that they play so well together. The mess I can deal with.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

CHRISTMAS!!!! I love Christmas. I am one of those people that the decorations go up the second Thanksgiving is over. However I am also one of those people that the decorations come down the second Christmas is over. I love this time of year. I love the hustle bustle and all the stores. Even if all my shopping is done I like to go to the mall and people watch especially on Christmas Eve. I get this from my mom. So Saturday Eli was sweet and helped me clean the house, you can't put Christmas decorations up in a messy home. Then we out up the decorations. Aubree had a lot of fun, she wanted all the ornaments really close together but when they started falling off due to weight Eli helped her start putting them up higher. We have the Christmas candle burning, the music blaring, and all those twinkle lights on. I LOVE IT!I think it's important to show what Hayley was doing so here she is. After Eli helped Aubree, Hayley played with some toys with him. She's so sweet.

Up up in the sky

Eli's family always does a big activity on Thanksgiving. We have stayed in a house in Joshua Tree, we have gone 4-wheeling at Pizmo Beach, and this year we went hot air balloon riding. If you ever get the chance it is totally worth waking up before the farmers to go. We had the chance down in Temecula. Who knew temecula was this beautiful wine country. We thought Aubree would have just as much fun as we did, so we decided to take her with us for the ride. You don't just show up at hop in the balloon they have to fill it first. They fill it with cold air and then us the burners with fire to heat the air which causes the balloon to rise. (a little physics lesson for you). Aubree was all set to go until Eli was in the basket and I was handing her Aubree, because right then our pilot turned on a burner (which is kind of loud) and freaked her out. So Aubree ended up staying on the ground with her Grandma and Hayley. I have to say as we started to go up I got a little choked up looking down and having both girls down on the ground. I just kept praying don't let us die, don't let us die. Well drama much, because if any of you have ever gone it is very peaceful and not at all scary. The family split up into 2 baskets so we would all have some space. Here is our basket:Eli's brothers in the other basket:It was cool as the morning went on fog started to roll in it was magical. I loved it and will definantly go again.
ps this is were pilot go to retire. Most of the pilot of the hot air ballon rides are airline pilots. Ours server in the airforce and now we works for american airline. And did you know that pilots have to retire at 61. Interesting the things you learn while up up in the air.

Solids

As a weird family tradition passed on for years we thought we would let Hayley has some Thanksgiving Dinner mashed potatoes. What do you think did she like them? We thought maybe it was just a new texture and would like another bite. She obviously was not such a huge fan. We are still trying to get her to even want to eat solids at all. This was just too funny. At least we can get some food, minimal at times but some food in Aubree.

"twas the night before Thanksgiving..."

It is a family tradition in my family to have soup the night before Thanksgiving. So that is what we did. We had a few set backs, the corn chowder next worked. I tried 2 times, whatever just something I will practice. The cheese and broccoli turned out delicious. Eli's mom brought bread bowls which turned it up a notch. We also had good drinks and some salad. All in all it was a fun time. As you can tell Aubree really enjoyed it, and anything she eats this good is something we will do again.

Thanksgiving dinner take a lot of time and patience

I just love Thanksgiving. There is no other day when food is the main attraction. This year we stayed and had it with Eli's family at his Aunt Melissa's house. There is nothing greater than 8 people all trying to climb over each other is the kitchen to make dinner. We all had food assignments and were given a time to have dinner the rest was up to us. Eli and I were in charge of the rolls (rhodes), the gravy (from a jar, can't quite get it right on my own yet), and the cranberry sauce (this one I actually made from scratch). It was fun trying to accomidate everyone it the kitchen and I say this with honesty. There is nothing better than being with family and the end result is worht it.

Desert anyone?

Eli's favorite desert for Thanksgiving is a Boston Cream Pie. Well as my luck would have it, NOBODY makes them anymore. I couldn't buy one to save my life. When I was complaining to my mom about this she said, you know if it's your husband's favorite you should just learn to make it. So this year I decided to try. Did you know that Boston Cream Pie isn't a pie but really a cake? All the recipies online seemed easy enough but when Iwould read the comments people would just say how hard it was and that they had tried multiple times and never could get it to work. I was getting a little discouraged, then I found a comment that said the hard part is getting the cake to rise and she just uses a yellow cake mix. So we tried it and with a little trouble with the ganoche (just a little thick due to too much heat) it turned out pretty good. It tasted amazing, Eli has already requested one for his birhday.

Don't you just love the lights at the Temple?

Did you ever wonder how they get there? Maybe you don't care or you never really thought about it before. Well I am here to tell you that it is a lot of hard work. 2 years ago Eli and I thought it would be a good service opportunity to help put the lights on the LA temple grounds. It was a good service project, but it was a lot of work. Our Stake is assigned a couple of Olive trees on the East side of the Temple. A couple of trees you say, shouldn't take that long. It is when the director of the project keeps having you take strands down and change them. Last time it took us 4 hours to get 75% of the way done with the help of our friends the Covingtons. So when the sign up sheet went around last year there was no way I was about to do it again.

This year when the sign up sheet went around RS I felt like I should explain it as it really is not as this amazing fun thing that you can go do, and that is a lot of hard work. But when the sign up sheet went around I thought what could it hurt because this year I knew what I was getting into besides I thought that Eli would get a kick out of the protesters for Prop 8. However much to my surprise it was a lot more fun. The director was a really nice man who came over and was just having a good time with us. We took Eli's brother Luke who is taller than Eli so I think that that helped. We finished with our trees in about 2 hours. We did have some help from other members of our Stake but we got 2 trees done this time.

So if the opportunity presents itself again next year I think we might take it.
Ps. there were no protesters, it was kind of disapointing

Sharing sharing everybody sharing

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As we have started to give Hayley solids we thought it would be fun for her to share a treat with her daddy. So the other day Eli shared a Popsicle with her. She LOVED IT! She couldn't keep her hands off of it, we finally had to hold them down. This girl is defiantly a girl after my own heart.
I love the melted blue Popsicle on her chin. This is something we will defiantly do again.

Clean up, clean up

A few years ago Aubree got this toy vacuum. She has played with it on and off but now anytime I vacuum she needs to vacuum. On the back of the toy it has a switch that turns on and off the voice that talks when you push it. When I turn on my vacuum she turns the switch on, when I turn my vacuum off she turns hers off. If I use my hose she uses hers. When we were finished I put my vacuum in the closet Aubree insisted hers go in there as well. Aubree finds new ways to make me smile every single day.

Introducing the one the only.....

Necia, Ok so not the one and only. This is one of Aubree's favorite little people. I am not sure what her "real" name was but Aubree re-named her Necia after my sister. She started to call her this all on her own. When Aubree can't find her she calls out, "Necia, where are you". This makes me miss my Necia everytime.

15 minutes a day

They say it will really help your child in development if you read out loud to them for at least 15 minutes a day. Eli has really taken this to heart ever since Aubree was about 6 months old. As part of the bedtime routine he takes Aubree and has now started to take Hayley upstairs for book time. We have most of our kids books upstairs but have a handful downstairs. These books downstairs never get to be apart of the bedtime routine and so consequently are read less, for this reason the other night Eli asked Aubree if we could read downstairs so we could read the books down stairs. Aubree decided that would be ok, but instead of Eli reading to her she would read to him. So cute.
She was very determined to read it to him the way he reads to her, with the pictures out. I was really impressed by how much of the book she actually could read ( well had memorized, lets not kid ourselves ) and the rest she just made up. She always is able to make us smile.