Oh Christmas Tree....

We always get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and this year was no exception. However, we usually hike up into the mountains scouring the countryside for the perfect tree - which is beautiful in it's own way, but we've definitely had our share of "Charlie brown Christmas trees". This year we went to a tree farm near our home called Tannenbaum's. We absolutely loved it! They pull you out on a trailer through fields of beautiful trees, drop you off by a big campfire and a building that serves hot cocoa and donuts. They have a saw and a tree-wagon for you to take out into the fields of trees where you cut down your own (they are each individually priced) They were all so beautiful it didn't make the hunt for the "perfect" tree very hard. In fact after a few minutes of looking Sophie said, "What are we waiting for, let's cut one down already!" The hard part is trying to decide what type of tree to get. Then you load it onto your tree-wagon and they have a machine that wraps it up nice and tight for you. Did I mention they have a reindeer? They had to de-horn him because his antlers were so big they didn't want it to hurt anyone. After some cocoa and donuts by the fire we loaded back up onto the wagon and they pulled us back to the main building where we paid for our tree (only $27.00) and headed back home. This will definitely be a Michigan tradition! Another one of my family traditions is to sleep under the tree the day we put it up. We gave it a try but with a 4 year old and a 2 year old who were bouncing off the walls it didn't go so well, but it was a lot of fun to try. Maybe it will go better next year! The best part for Brian was putting the lights on the tree. In past years he would always wrap each individual branch on the tree (it helped it not to look quite so bare) and it was always a very long process. This year all it took was a few strands draped around the outside of the tree and it still looked great! Hurray!

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Brian's family has a tradition that on Thanksgiving everyone makes turkeys out of gumdrops and toothpicks. Since our Thanksgiving dinner ended up being delayed a few hours we didn't get time to do them on the day of actual Thanksgiving. So we did them all together on Sunday. They all turned out quite nicely (I think the colored toothpicks really helped!) The girls had fun doing them and there was a lot of extra candy left over - yummy!!

One tired little girl!!

Our family is usually pretty prepared on Sunday morning, but this morning was pretty hectic! Five minutes before we were supposed to leave for church Brian was ironing his shirt, I was trying to print some things off for Enrichment and the girls were both crying; Sophie because she suddenly decided she wanted her hair to be straight for church and Nora because - well mostly because Sophie was crying. Anyway, we were late for church and then during church Brian and I were called to be in the nursery (he is the Young Men's secretary and I am on the Enrichment Committee already) and then we ended up substituting in the Primary and teaching a class of rowdy 8-12 year olds. Not that it was a bad day, honestly we won't mind being in the nursery and Brian did a wonderful job teaching Primary at the last minute. The day just felt long. Well, Nora must have felt the same way because at about 6:30 right in the middle of her and I playing with a princess sticker book she lay down on me and about 5 minutes later I realized that she was sound asleep! Brian was at the computer and Sophie was at the desk "scrapbooking" (she's the only one who uses it these days!) It was so funny and so cute I had to post the picture Brian took. Poor, tired girl!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So here I am at 4 am blogging on my computer. Why? Because In just an hour Ashlee and I are braving the weather and the crowds (the crowds being the worst of the two) to hit the sales at Toys 'R Us, Wal-Mart, and Target and I can't sleep!! It may be crazy but I love the after Thanksgiving sales. I don't love the long lines and selfish people that undoubtedly accompany the experience but if you go with an open mind that you probably won't get 1/2 the stuff your planning on getting and just enjoy the holiday excitement and shopping without kids it is actually very enjoyable. So I woke up at 2am (pregnancy = multiple nightly potty trips) and once I was able to go back to sleep Nora woke up at 3:15 and 3:30. After that it was pointless for me to even try to sleep, I was dreaming about shopping anyway so why bother! Definitely pointless. So I am now waiting..... Yesterday was a very nice and mostly relaxing Thanksgiving. We ate over at Ashlee and Andy's and the kids had a great time playing super hero's with their dinner napkins, not eating the food Ashlee and I had worked so hard to make and watching Ratatouille. We were planning on eating at 2:00, but I was in charge of the turkey and since it was my first time I didn't realize the darn things take so long to defrost so we ended up eating closer to 6:00 - but we were definitely hungry! It was a delicious meal with plenty of leftovers (a must!) and too much pie (of course!). We missed our families but are happy we had Andy, Ashlee, Laynee, Shay and Maggie to share it with! So thankful for all we are blessed with! Off to the sales! :)

Let the festivities begin!

We decided to go downtown Lansing and join in the official Christmas kick-off with a downtown parade and lighting of the tree at the State Capital. We were planning on going with the Woolf's but I left my phone at home and I don't know Ashlee's cell number - I usually just use speed dial - so we had to just go alone. I'm glad we went - but we probably won't go again next year! It was SO crowded, Brian and I had the kids on our shoulders so they could see the parade because there were so many people. The parade was a little long - or maybe it just felt long with Nora on my shoulders. But the fireworks were fun, the tree was beautiful, we got free hot cocoa, and now I have something to post on my blog! So enjoy the pics... and happy holidays!!

A funny similarity

I have been trying to organize the photos on my computer (I have almost 11,000 pictures on it!) so I can make sure I have copies before taking them off and I ran across these pictures of the girls and it made me laugh to realize that they both pulled this funny face at the same age. The picture of Sophie is her when she was Nora's age and Nora's was taken about a week ago. This is the ever popular standard funny-face at our house, which is pretty funny!

Here's the latest...

Just some info on Sophie and Nora's busy lives... :)
Sophie has taken her last ballet class and is now looking forward to swimming lessons in a few weeks. Of course this has caused Nora to think she is going to be taking swimming lessons as well, so we may end up getting some kind of family pass so I can take both the girls once a week (we need some cold weather leave-the-house activities!) Sophie now writes the letter J perfectly and about a week after I dropped the subject she came up to me and showed me a paper she had been practicing the letter J on and said, "I used to get confused about letter J, but now I can do it the right way!" Yay! Sophie called my mom while I was reading her a book the other day and I said, "Hey, I'm reading a book right now can you call Naunie after we're done?" She put her hand over the receiver and said, "I just need to ask her one thing." So I put the book down and told her to let me know when she was ready and she said, "Well, I'm going to be a minute." Silly girl, and so grown up!

Nora WAS doing so well only having her binky at night but ever since she was sick she's had a relapse and now wants it in the day again, and because me and the girls have all had a cold for the last week I have not been as diligent in NOT giving it to her. She is growing up so fast lately. Here are some of the things I've overheard her say just this morning, "You'll never find me now - hee hee hee!", "I'm a princess every time!", "Let's hide from the big bad wolf, sissy!", "Bibbidi bobbidi boo - your a frog!", "I see something, it's maybe a giraffe - oh, how bout 3 giraffes. No it's something else - a bear. Watch out!", "Why sissy do that mommy?", "Open it that please. Oh, you want me to open it?", "Let's cross bridge. Cross, cross, cross! I made it!", "Let's go outside. That be awesome!" She is talking constantly and she and Sophie have some pretty cute conversations, if only I could remember them all!

Anyway, the girls and I are about over our colds and luckily Brian hasn't caught it yet. The weather has turned colder and we've been listening to Christmas music, I still plan on enjoying Thanksgiving but there isn't any music for it - I figure the season comes and goes so fast we may as well make the most of it!

Fall in Michigan

Fall has been so BEAUTIFUL in Michigan! Maybe because it is a new place to us, or maybe because it stays greener here so much longer which makes for prettier leaves. Either way we have loved enjoying the changing leaves and the crisp fall air. Each day I prepare myself for the possibility that it will be the last nice fall day before the cold hits! My landlord told me that Logan's winters are MUCH colder than ours, so that was a nice surprise since we are used to freezing Logan, Utah winters! We have heard that the hardest thing about winter in Michigan is that it can be overcast for weeks at a time. So we'll see..... We went to our favorite park a few days ago and played in the leaves and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. We love being together and playing with our sweet little girls, they are growing up way too fast!

Halloween Happenings

We went to some pretty fun Halloween parties this year! The first one was our ward Halloween party where the girls dressed up as Rapunzel and a witch. Brian wore his standard powder blue 70's polyester suit and black mullet and I went as a tired pregnant mommy in my bathrobe and slippers (I know - boring!) All along Sophie has insisted she didn't need long hair to be Rapunzel so I didn't worry about it, of course on Halloween night she changed her mind so we quickly made a nice long braid out of yarn and bobby pinned it to her hair, luckily that was good enough! Nora was so excited to be a "witchy" and for about 2 weeks before would wake up each morning and say "Paint my face like a witchy for Halloween!!" On Halloween night we went to a party at the Woolf's that Ashlee and I had planned. This time I was a pinata and Brian went as the birthday boy! We had a great time eating food, visiting and making new friends with families in our ward. The girls had way too much candy, stayed up way too late and basically had a blast! A typical Halloween night!!