Christmas (In July : ))

Our Christmastime was full of fun craziness as it always is.  Here are some pics to share...

Family time together on Thanksgiving weekend kicks off the season...

Taking Mary to The Polar Express and The Nutcracker

Annabel and I attending one of her baby showers

 Zoo Lights with Stephanie, Sigmund, and Mike

Making treats for Mary's Preschool Christmas Party

The kids got to wear their pajamas to school!  Isn't her class cute?

A cute seasonal outfit....The kids also had matching Christmas outfits - not sure if I took a picture.   Anyway, they were super cute white and black fairisle sweater and dress.

"Gingerbread" house decorating

Christmas Morning

 And I just have to tell you about Mary's main Christmas present this year.  I don't have a picture to post yet.  I'll try to do that.  She was still sleeping in a toddler bed and she was getting too big for it.  So I thought we could get her a new bed and fix up her room as her present and kill two birds with one stone.   Ellen, Jeff's Mom, also helped us.  Besides buying a chandelier (Mary's belated birthday gift), she took the curtains that used to hang in Mary's nursery and detached the old matching fabric and used a sheet from the new bedding and put it on the curtains.  (She also made matching dolls blankets and pillows.  Seriously awesome!)  We also got a new mirror for above her chest of drawers.
Anyway, so Christmas Eve, we had her sleep in our bed (which we never do) and put up the mirror, chandelier, etc., put the bed together (thank you for helping Charles) while she was sleeping.  It went pretty fast I thought.
In the middle of the night though - close to morning - she got up and wanted to go back to her bed!  I was nervous about that because she was tired and I didn't know if she'd like her NEW bed.  Of course I didn't want her to have a bad experience, but ultimately Jeff and I decided to let her go back to her (new) bedroom.  We walked in behind her as she walked into her room.  As soon as she saw it, she lit up and turned around, and said something like, "See Dad, I knew I liked this kind of bed".
So she loved it, and climbed into her new bed and we didn't see her again until morning.  It was fun!

I think I'm finally done recording 2013!  On to 2014.  : )

November - A Month of Gratitude

I enjoyed November.  One thing that we did that was fun was our gratitude calendar - a tradition I've been wanting to start for awhile.  Everyday we would say one thing that we were grateful for, write it on the back of the calendar, and stick a leaf on the tree.  (I had to come up with an activity for the Beehives in October - I was the Beehive adviser at the time - and I had seen this on Oopsey Daisy -  and been wanting to do it for awhile.  So it was a good excuse to finally do it!)  I enjoyed doing it so much that I made a magnetic leaf gratitude tree for all of my family members (and for us for future years) for Christmas.

Another fun thing we did was participate in another busy bag swap x2 because I signed up for the toddler and preschool age.  A busy bag swap is where you come up with an activity for your child that fits into a gallon sized storage bag.  You make 20 of them.  Then you get together with 19 other ladies, swap bags, and by the end you have 20 (or in our case 40) activity bags.  We now have three of the blue storage bins (shown below) full of activities.  My kids use them often!  Another thing to be grateful for!

The toddler bag I did is shown below (pipe cleaner toy).  It is perfect for Jonathan's age!  Before I began, I actually found a mini pringle can and did the same thing except using colored straws.  It works a little better than the pipe cleaners.  But the price was right for the big ones (my friend Heather helped me get a great price because she is a coupon queen).  Anyway, that mini one is the best $1.50 I ever spent.  Jonathan plays with it every Sunday.  

The one I made for the preschool swap was a spin and spell using nuts and bolts.  It is pretty cool too, but I don't have a picture of it.  Here is Mary playing with a different busy bag (counting fish - but she decided instead to take them swimming : )

Another thing I was most grateful for in November was that our new furniture started coming in.  When we moved, we decided to get rid of most of our master bedroom furniture - most of it was all old from college.  And in our new house we have a loft that we didn't have before.  So shortly after we moved in, we went to Ethan Allen.  They have design consultants that help you figure out your style, come measure your home, and make suggestions for new furniture.  So we ended up getting a bunch of new furniture for our family room (our old family room stuff went to the loft) and bedroom.  But it took 8-10 weeks to finally come!  It was worth the wait though.  

Prior to the new furniture coming in, it was just kind of frustrating.  I kept wanting to unpack more, but there was just so much and no where to put stuff, no where to sit....  When the furniture started arriving, it really became a turning point for me starting to love our new home.  Here is a picture of the new sectional (without the throw pillows) and rug.  I'm sure it doesn't look that exciting to you here, but you won't believe how it lifted my spirits!  I am hoping to do a post soon about how the house has come together this past year.  Hopefully you can get a better idea of how everything looks then.  But I really love my home now.  

Also of course we celebrated Thanksgiving in November.  Here are some family pics from that day:

Singing around the piano of course...

  Cousins playing....

Hanging out with the family....

Seeing relatives that don't live as close anymore (boo)...

And enjoying these little tots....

 And going to Frozen the next day!  This was Mary's first movie in the movie theater and it did not disappoint.

Mary is using her ice powers here...

We truly have so much to be grateful for!  And here is just one more thing I thought I'd throw in.  I got some professional photos done of Jonathan in September ....
and included Mary in one of them.  For their shot together they wore these fall outfits.  We went grocery shopping afterward.  Just thought you might like seeing the cute autumnal outfits.

Grateful indeed!

Halloween

This year, I finally was able to have my way and do a family themed set of costumes.  Since Jeff's work always throws a Halloween bash, as does our church, and I know from experience that I feel stupid if I don't dress up - I figured we may as well!  The trick was going to be finding a costume that was almost regular attire for Jeff.  When I saw a darling Little Red Riding Hood Costume, and then an adorable wolf costume for Jonathan - I was pretty sure I could convince Jeff to dress up as the woodcutter and then I could be granny.  The result was pretty great if I do say so myself.  Friends on Facebook LOVED it!

And here is a better picture of Little Red Riding Hood.

....And the wolf. (He wouldn't always leave the hat on.)

I spent a little more than usual for this costume.  But I figured, you always have to find a costume and the cheapo ones are like in the $30 range.  So I thought I could spend a little more, get something good quality, and then Mary could use it as a dress up.

Here is Mary with all her loot!  She didn't even do all the cars at the trunk or treat and still came home with a bundle.

We had a great time at the ward Trunk or Treat the weekend before Halloween.  I don't know if the sugar is to blame, but typical for us, Mary started getting sick the following week!  I was so bummed for her!  She had to miss preschool that whole week including her Halloween party.  The actual day of Halloween she was mostly better, so I took her around the neighborhood and she got to trick or treat.  Also the day before, she seemed almost better, so we went to Jeff's work Halloween Bash.  It was a little too soon probably, as she regressed a bit the next day.  But she had fun, so I think it was worth it.

You know something is up when you start seeing your kid randomly fall asleep when they don't normally...

Jonathan followed suit, and I had some very sick babies for a week or so.

 Here, they are both fighting over Momma.

But all in all it was a fun Halloween, and a beautiful Fall.

The kids and Daddy help rake the back yard.

Mary swimming in the leaves...