PreChristmas

 By Christmastime, I finally figured out a holiday treat that Natalie is capable of really helping me make without me going crazy: rolo pretzels. She could unwrap the rolos and set them each on a pretzel, then I baked them and pressed on the top pretzel.

We made pretty good cookie plates this year: sugar cookies, ginger chews, snickerdoodles, pb chocolate no bakes, banana bread, rice krispie treats with mini m&m topping and oatmeal cookies with cranberries and while chocolate. We took some around to our neighbors and it was a good way to introduce ourselves. We have some interesting folks across the road- one guy is an italian exhibitionist with lots of guns and the other is a born-again Christian who told us that all muslims are evil. There is a family two doors down with a three-year-old daughter, so hopefully we'll get to know them better.

 And, it wouldn't be Christmas without LeAnn's shrimp dip at least once.

The weekend before Christmas we got to watch our next-door-neighbor's chickens while he was out f town. I took the girls over to throw them bread almost every day and they loved it. Natalie tried to become one of them.

They were molting, so we didn't get too many eggs, but we enjoyed the few that we did find!

Temperatures have continued to be in the 80's, hotter than normal even for here. So, we went to the beach on Christmas eve.

Then we came home and got into our Christmas jammies

Opened a package from Aunt Marian with an ornament to remember our Uncle Joe who passed away this year

We read the story of Christ's birth and got out each figurine to our new nativity set as we told the story. I think it would make a fun tradition to do this every Christmas eve and collect more and more nativity sets over the years.

Then, the girls each helped themselves to a cookie and set out the rest for Santa

Definition of Toddler

This is what a tantrum looks like. It was caused because we required Angela to sit at the table before eating juicy mango slices.

In the last 2 seconds, you can see she gets her just reward.

Media-rich Tidings of Great Joy

Tonight, Micah has been out shopping, both kids have been asleep since 8 and I have cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed three rugs, baked sugar cookies and am now devouring them. It's been a great Christmas season so far for us so far!

It began the day after Thanksgiving with putting up the lights

We caught a grasshopper

In order for Micah to reach the dormer windows, he had to use our ladder to climb on the roof behind the house where it wasn't quite so steep, then climb up and over the point and slide down to the top of the windows and then try to scurry back up to the top. It was crazy and he nearly died over and over again and it took all day and we are now contemplating just leaving them up year round. Or getting a longer ladder as a Christmas gift.

But it does look very nice.

 The girls' favorite game lately is called "snuggle pile". It involves collecting as many soft things as possible in a cluster and then wrestling on the ground until Angela's head get rolled on and she starts crying. I *HATE* snuggle pile. It's not so bad downstairs, like in this photo. But when it occurs in their bedrooms, they empty all the clothes and stuffed animals and blankets and pillows, often with a few toys strewn in that are NOT soft, and of course they can't be trusted to sort all their stuff back out into the right place, so I end up cleaning it up every. single. time.

 Our biggest adventure was going up to Atlanta last weekend for Micah's graduation. Angela got to sit front-facing for the first time. It didn't have the intended effect, she still whined and screamed the whole time. Also, I learned that chips are the worst car snack ever for a small child. I think more crumbs reached her carseat than were actually swallowed.

The girls were actually very well behaved considering they had to sit through 2 long, really boring ceremonies the day after being stuck in the car for 9 hours.

We're very proud of Doctor Daddy, as I am trying to get the girls to call him now.

We watched frozen on the car ride home on Micah's laptop and it reawakened our girls' enthusiasm for the movie. Angela has been singing "let it go". Natalie was intrigued by the ice cutters in the first scene. She asked what they were doing and what the tools were that they were using. She asked if she could have one. When I said no, she said she would ask Santa for one. We tried to distract her from the idea, but she was determined that she had to have one. Micah, in his wisdom, made her a "toy ice saw" out of paper to satisfy her. Because, no. Just, no.

I'm finding that Christmas is even more joyful as a parent of multiple young children because, instead of decorating just once, you continually decorate all month as your children keep messing things up.

 ...in some cases, even hiding the Christmas decor!

The nativity is from Gabby, who used to play with one at Christmastime when she was little!

Why the kids love the dog bed so much, I will never understand.

Trying to make sugar cookies with the children was a complete disaster. Maybe next year, I will just throw the dough straight into the garbage and send the kids out to roll in the mud. They will have just as much fun, make just as much mess, and I will end up with about as many cookies. But I will be spared the misery of having the oven on all afternoon in this 85 degree heat!

Natalie has been really into the Santa thing this year, and is certainly beginning to understand the commercial side of things

But she is also grasping more details about the real reason for Christmas, too.

This is the definition of being a younger sister

And, finally, I become so crazy during road trips that I revert to a twelve-year-old state.

Fence and Videos of Angela

The only big news around here: we just signed a contract to have a fence built. We are very suddenly not feeling rich anymore :)

We're excited, though. After researching online, we thought that we could only afford a split-rail or agricultural fence- 4 ft tall with wire mesh to contain the kids and dog. We got some quotes from local contractors and found that a 6ft wooden privacy fence would actually be cheaper than we had expected. When you're spending $8000, why not go all the way and make it $11000 and get a good, quality product? It should help the property value, last longer and help us maintain healthy distance from our single, male neighbors on either side. It will be safer for the kids- they won't be able to climb it as easily and creepers from the street won't see them out playing in the yard. It should be up before Christmas!

I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately, but Natalie took this one of me before I left for the gym this morning.

Here are a few videos illustrating Angela's development:

Kind of late sharing this one, but the week of Halloween, Micah taught Angela to do an evil laugh

She's learning all of her body parts. Just can't figure out where mom is!

She's been using a lot more words, especially the important ones like "cookie", "juice"

And this was hilarious. Micah and I were talking about Angela's cute little curls, and a minute later we looked over in the family room to find Natalie trying to curl her hair with her toy tongs. Bwahaha.

Treat Yo Self

Rushed and a bit unorganized photos from my camera:

Micah's bonuses and stipend/travel reimbursements have all come through now and we are feeling silly rich. We plan to hang on to some for savings, but we're also just enjoying spending money on quality things that we will get good use out of. It's nice to let loose after so many years of being a tightwad!

I set a $2000 budget for Micah to get a riding lawn mower. So, here he is on his $2800 mower.

He also spent several hundred on other tools. We now have stuff to take care of our yard.

Last weekend, Natalie had her first primary program. She said her part in the microphone very loud, kept dancing to the songs and giving me two thumbs up in the audience.
Also, Angela is in nursery now. They love her because she is a sweet doll.

Our stake also had an amazing family fun festival last weekend. I didn't get many good pictures because it was raining half the time, but we had a great time. Natalie rode a horse and did bouncy houses and we rode a little train around the parking lot.

Micah was gone last weekend in Atlanta defending his thesis. He passed. It is over. Hallelujah. He celebrated his return by destressing with a good friend and some nice, mindless dominance over nature.

Micah's buddy Alex visited to help Micah get the yard under control. Here is a portion of the brush they cut from the back of our property. Some had already been hauled away by waste management and some is still out in the back yard and needs to be hauled out to the curb. It's hard to get perspective- this pile is about as tall as me. It was a massive amount of growth they cleared. 

 We tried hard to stay out of the way. We went to the zoo- here's Natalie being a sea turtle.

We also played water table a couple of times

We had an issue with the a/c- it took 2 days to get it fixed and our home warranty only saved us a little bit of money. The problem was a coolant leak, guy put a sealant through the system and filled the freon. We're still hoping it will die completely so that we can get the unit replaced under warranty. It's like 20 years old!

We love watching our neighbor's chickens. The girls always want to go out and feed them bread, they're so entertaining. Excitedly looking forward to getting our own once we've got a handle on a few other things.

Tidbits... with Photos!

We closed on the house Friday at 4pm, went straight to the ward Halloween party, spent Saturday running errands, Micah cleaned the church, Natalie had a birthday party, we got an estimate on a fence and we moved some of our stuff out of the apartment to the house, then went trick or treating. Sunday was cleaning and getting the last things out of the apartment, then Monday, the movers arrived. I've been rushing to get this place in decent order so that I can host preschool tomorrow and Micah is leaving to drive to Atlanta after work tomorrow so he can defend his thesis and he is still working on his presentation. To say the least, we have been busy. So, here are a few pictures...

This is a little kid mannequin. I found him/her in JC Penny at the mall. He/She had stripped naked and was hiding in the women's clothing section. Ah, kids.

Natalie asking the ocean to carry her away

Which Jack-o-lantern is better?! And for the record, we carved on Monday and they were moldy by Friday. This heat and humidity!

Here's our family room, off the back of the house. It used to be a screened porch, the previous owners finished it and put it under air. It has the square footage of our previous living room, dining room and kitchen combined, so it's a nice little space.

Paper pit for the kids to play in. Bought these couches and pictures from the house sellers, btw.

The living areas downstairs are all in decent shape- still have plenty of boxes in the garage to unpack slowly, but all the essentials are in place for us to live comfortably. Our bedrooms, especially mine and Micah's, are still disasters. Here is one small example of why I can't get anything done up there (that's Micah's shirt I had just put away)

Aaaaaaand, finally, here are the dining room set and hutch we bought from the sellers. With leaves, we can comfortably seat 10 in here :)