Can Christmas Please Post Itself?

Wow, it's like my body instictually knows it is now the year in which it turns 30 (and therefore: old) because all the sudden 9 o'clock hits and I'm in a dream world, just dying to climb into bed!  and this is my new excuse for becoming a negligent blogger.

But seriously, folks... Christmas was wonderful!  I tried really hard this year to have a good balance of checking off the "things that make it Christmas" list as well as the ever elusive "slow down and enjoy the reason for the season" thing.  I have to say it made for quite a wonderful time!

Here are the pictures, with captions and probably more of my ramblings interspersed:

made gingerbread houses (graham cracker houses) and used all the candy we had on hand instead of the traditional stuff.  nobody complained.

Layla looked like this the whole time.  "CANDY!!! TWEATS!!  AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

Spencer's (above), Campbell's (below)



Cadence's, above.  I love how it looks like a stable. 



The Angel and Mary with Baby Jesus, waiting to begin our traditional "Shepherd's Dinner" on Christmas Eve.

One present before bed, Pajamas from Mamaw and Gramps.

You know you did something right when the presents they are hooked on enough to ignore all the pretty wrappings cost you 4 dollars.  (our oooold laptop and a "grocery store" we got a a garage sale).

traditional Christmas morning breakfast: pannettone, hot chocolate, and eggs.

SANTA CAME!!

How did Santa know that watch is just what I wanted?!?  I guess he got the link I sent him.

Santa spent a good amount of time in the dark, cold middle of the night setting up this huge tent from Mamaw and Gramps. 

just thought this was adorable.  Enjoying the beautiful, spring-y Christmas day together.

Had lunch with the Flemings and the Hanbergs and the missionaries, followed by the cutest little nativity reenactment you've ever seen.  during rehearsals, Mary and Joseph (Cadence and Gavin) were seen travelling by donkey (Gavin's new bike) to Bethlehem.

I always get really homesick on Christmas, so to battle that, I typically invite as many people over as I can.  This was our spread.  I have to say it was pretty awesome food.  So fun to spend Christmas evening with my adorable family and some really beloved friends.

I decided to do New Year's Eve separately because I have too many pictures, and blogger takes about a year to download them.  So that will be next.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Layla!

Well, it's almost Christmas, which means I have about 24 hours before it's too late forever to blog about my adorable 2-year-old Layla. 

Layla is an awesome 2 year old.  She is awesomely passionate about throwing tantrums, sure, but she is also awesomely passionate about life in general.  About everything.  she walks into a room and her eyes get HUGE and the muscles in her neck get tense and she says, "WOW!'   Regardless of what's in the room, it's exciting to her.  When she sees somebody she loves, she shreiks their name with excitement.  I think it's obvious which parent she's more like--the one who is always excited about everything.

However, like her mother, food is a vehicle for sauce, and in this way we relate very well.  She has never met a sauce she doesn't like. 

Layla has an astounding vocabulary and  a super sweet little voice.  She is often heard pronouncing loudly that she is a "MU-KUH-TEEEEEEW!"  (muskateer).  She knows her colors, can count to "poopteen"  (actually, she usually gets to 8 without fail and then it's hit-or-miss after that, but when she gets past 12 it's all poopteen).  She can sing along to the alphabet song and recognizes a couple of the letters.

Layla loves dogs and has no fear of them at all.  To a fault.  She will get in the face of the biggest, snarliest, jumpiest, lickiest, or anyother kind of dog she sees.  She gives Abby a lot of attention and is currently working on training her to give horsey rides.

Layla also loves yogurt.  a lot.  I mean, loooooves it!  And cheese.  And milk.  She's a dairy kind of girl.  There's really nothing (within the realm of food and not treats) that she loves like yogurt and cheese and milk.  Except apples and oranges, which she is not able to digest and technically not allowed to eat.  So that explains that.

Layla is a lot of fun.  She is always up for having a good time.  She is NOT always up for missing out on a good time or being told "no" when she has decided what the next "good time" is.  She loves to play and dance and climb and jump and sing and color and build and all those things.  There's just not anything I can think of that Layla isn't into.

Layla is great at loving.  She is always giving hugs, especially when somebody is crying.  sometime recently I may or may not have started crying and throwing my own sort of fit and she smothered me with a hug and told me it was going to be okay.  She does hit but it's almost always immediately followed by a big hug and a "I'm sorry--ah you ok?" 

Layla is a joy.  She just is.

------------  Here are some pics from her birthday:



Birthday Party #1, the day before her birthday we left Utah, so before we left we had a quick little party with cousins and Aunts and Grandma's and Grandpa!  So fun!  The cake is a pile of leftover little cakes from Mignon and Joel's wedding. yum.




The morning of her real birthday we rolled into town and spent the whole day wasted.  So that evening we had cupcakes (muffins disguised with frosting, actually), and presents with the family.





So that weekend we had a little get-together with a few of her friends from nursery and their families and I made another barbie cake.  This one took waaay less time (and looks like it), but it was the best I could do that week.  Do you like how I'm in the background about to swat her hand away?





And this was a few weeks earlier.  It just shows how excited she is. sooooo happy!



just have to record some things...

some hilarity that has come from the kids' mouths recently:

Campbell, upon finding her digestive system a little "stopped up" after our drive to Utah proclaims with no uncertainty that she has a "grumpy tomato in her bottom."  She explained to cousin Zavian that it will probably come out in her sleep.  The two of them walked around talking about it the rest of the night!  It did come out in her sleep, but then the next day in the bathroom she went #2 again and "had to check if it was red."

When Aunt Mignon came out of the temple with her new groom, Uncle Joel, Campbell spun around and around and shouted gleefully "I'm MARRIED!!! I'm MARRIED!!!"  She explained that she married "all the boys and all the girls".  She's got a big heart, it seems.

Campbell loves to stand on my scale in the bathroom.  It made me smile when the other day she stood and said, "Oh, Mommy, my foots have a feveh!!"


Cadence watched Lilo and Stitch while away.  She just explained to me, "Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind.  And the parents get left behind though.  Cause they're dead."  I laughed out loud.  it was a great description of the movie.  They will not get to watch it again, by the way.  Do you find it inappropriate for kids?

Cadence still sees herself as an adult and lectures me frequently.  think that will stop when she's a teenager?  She got after me the other day because I told her she IS smaller than many of the kids in her class.  Apparently she wanted me to side with her.  She got mad and told me it was mean of me to call her "small".   She also thinks it's very rude  of me to deny her access to my headbands and accessories.


Layla is hilarious but I can't quite put it into words.  She says things like, "Oh, aaaaaaaaaaaawwwwe you da mommy?"  and, "let's do this!"  and, "doe blehblehbleh dress!" (don't mess with the dress!)

okay, pictures and more utah details to come!

Halloween and Famiily Pictures, in mostly pictures

blehhhhh....  You know I loooooooove Halloween, right?  And also my kids have been hilarious.  also haven't blogged about the mysterious illness that took over our lives during july, august, september and some of October, and a little of November. 

And now we are about to embark on our travels to Utah for weddings and holidays and so I've got to get sort of caught up.  I wish I had time to blog about it all!

Here are some pictures of Halloween, which was, as usual, wonderful, and horribly exhausting.  I can't decide if I love or hate that Halloween was a full 4 days this year:

You've seen the unicorn costume before, but have you seen the way Layla works it?  I'm telling you, she was sooo loveable.

Looove this picture of Camcake and Bergen, fingers fingers everywhere.

Trick-or-Treating at Walmart home office: Princess Bride (no pics because I thought I would have several opportunities, but she was sooo cute!), Trunk-or-Treat: Angel/tooth fairy

 

delicious little cupcake!



The Aquardians!  That's right, first prize in group category.  You should have seen our performance!  The pool in these pics is a little sad, but it was marvelous before we were too cold and tired to do anything about it.

Jill and Mark.  While Mark professed to be "not too into this" and such, he came up with the idea, and he built the pool, and DANG, you should have seen their moment in the performance.  We called their move the "spoon stroke."  it was good.

Dan and Tara.  Dan drives a big truck and keeps his beard rather gruff, but look at that pose--you know those are just to hide his affinity for pretties and "spirit fingers".  and yes, it's annoying to be friends with somebody who looks like Barbie. :)

Serious as a heart-attack, baby.

lady aquardians, grace and beauty rivaled by none...

except possibly the man (ish) aquardians :)

And now we are finally to the REAL Halloween!  Getting ready to go out trick-or-treating, you'll  note that Cadence is in yet another costume!  That pretty girl with Campbell is one of our favorite babysitters (who is too old now- booo!) who offered her help with the wandering of the neighborhood.

oh....happy kids.

since I was feeling Lyme disease-y that night, I manned the door.  Spent the down-time reviewing "Raising Your Spirited Child" and facebooking about the trick-or-treaters that annoyed me.  Next year I am posting my trick-or-treat rules:  I will not give candy to the following:
 1. Adults
2. Pregnant girls.  If you are old enough for your "fun" to impregnate you, you are too old to trick-or-treat.
3.  If you are under the age of 8 months (i.e. if you are holding a baby who has no clue what is going on, is hopefully not going to eat the candy, and have no other children with you)
4. If you are old enough to drive.
5.  If you have ALREADY BEEN TO MY HOUSE!!! 
6.  If you are NOT dressed up as anything.
7.  If you are wandering around the neighborhood, which is filled with children, shouting obscenities.
8.  If you refuse to take the candy I offer and whine for something else.  and esp. if you do so and a parent does not seem to care.



having curly hair is soooo exciting!  This picture is out of order.  my condolences.

The Witch, Rapunzel, a unicorn, cupcake, and a hotdog examine their spoils.  Thor and his hammer are around there somewhere.  Sigh of happy relief...that was a lot of fun!  

We got our family pictures taken the other day.  I should say, we forced Tara to take our pictures the other day.  I went through a lot to secure this awwwwwesome location, which in the end, wasn't secured at all but we mostly stayed on our side of the fence :)

In order to get some good pictures with this old fuel pump, spencer cooked up this great plan: "hey kids, here are some coins, and here is a CANDY MACHINE!  You just have to find where the coins go to get the candy out."  It worked.  don't worry, we were armed with candy.

see this? (below)  Yes, that is a tree growing out of an ancient truck.  can't tell you how much I love this spot.

There are so many more but it takes about 4 thousand years to upload pictures onto blogger.  anybody else having that problem?

Thanks Tara, it was all I had dreamed up!  and Thanks Jill, for being the toy-shaker in the background (or dead-bush-stomper, or dog-watcher, or consultant, etc!)  You girls rock!

and as annoying as this is going to be for the rest of the world: I hereby declare that my kids are as cute as humanly possible!  (And my husband, too.)

there, said it.  for you, family, not for them.  glad to get it off my chest.

can you tell i'm tired? no more caps.

and since i'm moving on in my blog to what is coming up next (wedding, etc), I will just say this:

I was never officially diagnosed but Lyme disease makes the most sense.  It actually makes perfect sense, minus the tick.  But that is perfectly easily explained.  It still comes back about once a week or so, usually just for an evening or morning, but that is nothing compared to all day every day like it was back when.  I have an appointment with an endocrinologist to discuss some family history + my blood sugar weirdness, and then if that doc has nothing remarkable to add, I'm going to close the case as Lyme Disease.

And there you have it.