Fun in the Sun!

Don't mind the lack of blogging for the next few weeks. Me and my girls are off having some fun with grandparents, cousins, friends and enjoying LOTS and LOTS of SUNSHINE! Today Lauren was playing outside, with no shoes on and having a blast. We had almost forgotten how nice it was to run outside without a big coat, hat, gloves and boots. And just incase you are wondering what we will be doing tomorrow - we will be enjoying another day of 69 degree weather, eating popcycles and playing with cousins!

Snow Days!

For those of you lucky enough to not be living in the Midwest right now, let me tell you what it is like - COLD!!! I thought last winter was bad but this winter is down right COLD! Yesterday we had pretty cold temperatures and new snow so school was cancelled for the day. Today we don't have any new snow but it is so cold that they cancelled school again today! Now how cold do you think it would have to be for them to cancel school? Well, today our high is, are you ready for it, -10. -10 for a HIGH? Who ever heard of such a thing! With the windchill it is down to between -30 and -50. So we are home again today trying to stay inside and warm! Dave went to the store for me today and his car almost didn't start for him. Yesterday I did let Lauren out to play in the snow on our deck for a little bit and got some cute pictures of her. Today I haven't let her outside because it is just to dangerously cold.

Dave and I have been busy painting our little condo so it will look nice when we sell it. We are almost done and just have the kitchen and bedroom left. We hoped to have it all painted by tomorrow but the snow days are kind of putting a damper on our plans. But hopefully it will be done soon. Unfortunately that is about as exciting as we have been around here lately. Here are some pict. of the girls from the last week. Enjoy!

Playing in the snow yesterday!

Liddy, hanging out inside where it was warm with me!

Snuggle buddies!

Finally starting to like the Bumbo!

Our family room - all ready to be painted!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

This post is long overdue. I promised Grandparents pictures of the girls on Christmas Morning so here you go (sorry to the rest of you but we live far away from family so these pict. are for them)

Christmas Eve:

We started off our Christmas Eve by spending the morning playing in the snow (see previous post). That afternoon we had fun making sugar cookies and decorating them. We also made some yummy BBQ Pork for our Christmas Eve Party that night with friends. We partied kind of early so everyone could then head home and get ready for the next day and it worked out perfectly for us. The McKay's hosted again this year and a bunch of us all brought food and we ate, the kids acted out the navitivy, we sang some songs, and then it was over. A bunch of us stayed in Iowa this year for the Holidays so it was a lot of fun to have so many friends together to celebrate with. And of course all the kids love it because they just get to play!

Anna, Lauren, Megan, and Harrison - all ready to act out the Nativity

This is where Lydia spent the entire evening - sleeping in her car seat under the Christmas Tree

We got a picture of all the girls at the party! Back - Rivka, Holly, Regan, Kristie, Katie, Tricia, Alisha. Front - Jessica, Emily, Amy.

This is Lauren in her new Christmas P.J's. She was so excited she wouldn't stand still for a picture.

She was so excited to leave a note and cookies for Santa! She picked out her 3 favorite cookes to leave for him.

Christmas Morning:

Lauren was so excited for Christmas it took her an extra long time to fall asleep that night - over an hour! In my family growing up we always got up so early to go and open presents so I was the first one up in our family, but it wasn't that early. At 7:15 I woke up and decided we had slept in enough so it was time to get going. We went in and got Lauren up and she was sooooo excited to go out and see the presents. She loved seeing that Santa had eaten some of the cookies and he even left a note behind thanking her for the snack and answering some questions she had asked him (she wanted to know if he likes ice in his milk - the great debate at our house). She loved everything she got and was spoiled by grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts and us. Dave and I got pretty spoiled too so thank you to everyone for all the fun stuff! Lauren is such a good big sister and helped Lydia open all her gifts and sat and played with her. Liddy woke up about 45 min. into gift opening so then she got to come out and join in the fun. We made yummy cinnamon rolls the night before for Christmas breakfast and Dave made us a breakfast casserole when we woke up that morning. So we had a fun morning of eating, playing games, putting toys together, and just being together.

Christmas night we went over to the Mergenthaler's and had a yummy turkey dinner with their family and stayed to play games until way past bedtime. It was a fun way to end Christmas.

Lauren and her new Leapster on Christmas morning. She loves her Leapster and plays it all the time! (Thanks G & G Folsom for the great gift)

Lauren and Lydia got these stuffed horses from my brother's family and they love them. They were just smiling and laughing playing with them.

One of the toys Lauren specifically asked Santa for this year was the Scooby Doo Game. When she opened this gift she just got so excited that she kissed the box!

Then she sat and just hugged it for a long time. We are so glad Santa brought this game - it made her Christmas!

The other toy Lauren really wanted this year was a Diamond Castle Barbie that sings. (Thank you G & G Hobbs - she loves it)!

Liddy got a new play set for Christmas! She loves it and will lay in it for long periods of time just looking at all the different things and Lauren loves to play in it with her.

We had a fun Christmas even though we were far away from family. It was kind of sad putting away all our Christmas decorations this week because this was our last Christmas in Iowa and in our little home. We don't know where we will be next year but I am dreaming of a warmer Christmas!

Playing in the Snow!

We woke up to new snow on Christmas Eve so Lauren and I decided we needed to go out and play in it. This was our first time to really go out and play in it this year (we have had a lot of storms but most of them have been ice storms - they make for very yucky/crunchy snow). Of course we had fun but it was pretty cold outside so we didn't last longer than 40 min. - our cheeks were getting pretty pink.

Ready to get out to play!

Cute pink cheeks!

She loved running through the fresh snow and leaving tracks!

Lauren LOVES making snow angels

The finished product

My snow angel

Sledding down the hill behind our place. They plow all the snow into a big pile at the top of this hill so we like to climb to the top and then I give her a good push and she goes pretty far!

Here she is warming up with her favorite blanket. She is a die hard and it took me awhile to finally convince her we needed to go in a warm up. Too bad she doesn't like hot chocolate cuz it would have helped her warm up more quickly!

Not Our Lucky Day!!

Well - after 6 years in Iowa we finally picked the wrong days to travel. I find this ironic because I was just telling Dave how lucky we have been to never have had a cancelled flight or any major traveling problems since living here. Our lucky streak ended this week. Our oldest niece is getting married tomorrow in Utah and unfortunately we will not be able to go. We thought we had planned well and allowed 2 extra days for travel in case we had some bad weather and had delayed flights. As we watched the weather all week we thought we had planned PERFECTLY! Our area was supposed to get a big snow/ice storm that would start sometime Thurs. afternoon and our plane left Thurs. morning. We woke up and started getting ready when Dave decided to check our flight info. and that is when our bad luck started. Our flight was cancelled due to weather. We couldn't believe it because it was nice and sunny outside! We called the airline and found out that our connecting flight in Dallas was cancelled because of dense fog! They couldn't get us out on anything Thurs. but put us on their first flight out today and this time they had us connecting in Chicago. We told them we were worried about this because of the big storm that was coming through and what if this flight was cancelled. They just told us to hope for the best.

Well - the freezing rain started at 6pm last night and it was still going when I woke up at 2:45am to start getting us ready to go. Even though we had freezing rain all night the airline still had our flight leaving on time. I was about to wake up Dave but then decided to check our flight from Chicago to SLC and wouldn't you know it - it was cancelled! I called the airline back and they started looking for another flight that would get us all into SLC sometime today but the earliest flight they had with 3 seats wasn't until 3:30 tomorrow (Sat.) afternoon! Liz's wedding is Sat. morning so we are going to miss the whole thing! Our one piece of good luck is that the airline gave us a full refund for our tickets because we missed the event we were going for. Of course we are sad about missing the wedding and not being able to see family and show off our newest addition. And Dave was really excited to finally show Lauren "Real" mountains. So it looks like we will have to try to get out to Utah another time so Lydia can meet her Folsom Grandparents who are currently serving an LDS Mission at the Provo MTC.

We have been trying to enjoy the holiday season though. We had our ward Christmas party last weekend and had a fun time with friends. And Lauren had a Christmas performance at her dance studio. It was fun to see her first dance performance and it was extra special because Santa was there too and he gave her a candy cane after her dance. We also had our annual friend gingerbread house making party with all of Lauren’s friends. We had a great time being with friends and eating candy and frosting! And now that we will be staying in Iowa and missing out on our holiday fun with family in Utah we need to find a few more things to do! I think we need to rent some holiday movies and have some fun evenings cuddled up in front of the fire with some yummy popcorn and orange Julius. And we will definitely be making sugar cookies a little closer to Christmas Day to give to Santa. And we are looking forward to our Christmas Eve Party with a bunch of our friends who are also staying in Iowa for the holidays. All the kids will be acting out the nativity and Lauren gets to be an angel.

So for your viewing pleasure – here are a few recent pictures of the girls.

After their group performed Santa gave each of the girls a candy cane and they got to have their pict. taken with him.

I LOVE the look of sheer joy on her face. This was right after they danced and she has her candy cane in one hand and her star wand that they danced with in the other!

So Happy! And you can even see Lydia back behind.

Our Gingerbread (Grahm Cracker) House. We made ours "Adobe" style (very Arizona) with a flat roof so we could pile it high with candy!

Since we were supposed to be in Utah this Sunday we let the girls wear their Christmas Dresses to church last week. This was our attempt at trying to get a quick picture before running out the door.

Last week Lauren walked up to me dressed like this and asked me to take a picture of her "style"! I though it was so funny that she then started posing for the camera.

I love it when she is sleeping so peacefully - all snuggled up in her BundleMe - as I run errands all over town!

Look who's 2 Months Old!

Liddy had her two month check-up last Friday. I can't believe she is already two whole months old. She is acting so much older already and holds her head up so well and has become so smiley. Some days she does great with her schedule and I think we are finally getting it down but then we have a crazy day and I wonder if she will ever get her schedule figured out! We don't grow them too big around here so Liddy topped the scale and just under 10 lbs. and was 21 1/2 inches long (I think the length is off - they took the measurement really quickly and she wasn't on the scale quite right). Here are some things about Lydia:

She loves her big sister.

She hates taking a bottle (much to the frustration of her mother).

She is finally liking her swing and bouncy chair.

She is sleeping much better so she now sleeps in her crib and shares a room with Lauren (it really helps that Lauren can sleep through anything and if Lydia wakes up crying, Lauren will sleep through it).

She will sleep for hours in her carseat all snuggled up in her Bundle Me.

She loves to sit up in her bouncy chair on the kitchen counter and watch as I cook or clean. She is very good at following me around with her eyes.

She loves to smile and I love that when she smiles her eyes crinkle up so cute!

And she is starting to coo for us a little more each day!

We are so glad you are in our family Liddy and can't imagine what it was like without you!

A week of pink eye

So I had this wonderful idea to blog about all the things I am thankful for during the Thanksgiving week - I never got around to it. We did have a pretty good Thanksgiving week though. Dave spent a lot of time at school working on his dissertation but we were able to celebrate the actual day with good friends and of course eat way too much good food. And Dave and Lauren topped off the night by going to see Madagascar 2 together. On Black Friday, I was able to get up early and do some shopping. I went to 4 different stores, got everything I wanted, and made it home by 7:30am. I probably would have made it home by 7 if I hadn't bought the wrong phone in Target and then had to return it and buy the correct phone! And my early morning shopping even landed me on the front page of the IC newspaper. A reporter was doing a story on a sales lady that helped me in Sears and he took a picture and used it in his story. I have also been able to get our Christmas Cards all finished, except for a picture to put in the card. We have not yet been able to get a photo taken because this week has been our week of pink eye!

Monday was our only "normal" day this week. On Tuesday Lauren came down with pink eye and had to stay home from preschool. Despite our best efforts, the pink eye was then passed on to Liddy on Wednesday. We thought our quarantine was almost over, and I even let Lauren go to school on Thursday. only to have pink eye strike again that night - this time in Lauren's other eye. Friday we only left the house to take Liddy to her 2 month check-up and then it was back home to wait out another 24 hours of being contagious. Then wouldn't you know it - Saturday I woke up with a pink eye! So now everyone has had pink eye in at least one eye except for Dave. He says he will get it just in time for our family pictures we are taking in a couple of weeks. Since my church calling is in primary, Dave thought I should stay home so I didn't "contaminate" anyone else. I didn't agree and thought I could just hide out behind my piano in the primary room for 2 hours and it would be fine. I finally changed my mind last night when my eye was puffy and very pink. I thought I might scare a few kids so I found a substitute and Liddy and I are enjoying a quiet Sunday morning at home. Hopefully we can get a picture of the girls in front of our Christmas tree sometime today so we can get our cards finished and in the mail!

Here are a few pict. of us from the last week!

I think we had 20 adults at our Thanksgiving dinner. So here is a pict. of the adult table.

I think we had about 15 kids at the kid table.

My first attempt at trying to get a cute pict. of the girls. Liddy was having none of it!

Since we got our first "real" snow this week Lauren has wanted to go out and build a snowman. Since we have all been fighting colds and coughs on top of the pink eye I have not wanted to go outside to build a snowman. This was our compromise the other day.

Dave stayed home with the girls one morning while I went out and got my hair cut and colored. It was time for a change and it is fun to be blonde again! (My Mom and Sisters have been asking for a pict. so here you are)

We are hoping this week is a lot more normal with a lot less pink!

Smiles

Look who found her smile!

Lydia's Blessing

Yesterday Dave blessed Lydia in church. We were sad that we couldn't have any family here with us but we definitely understand, it isn't very convenient to come all the way to Iowa for a baby blessing. We had some great friends come and join Dave in the circle though so we weren't completely alone out here. Lydia can be a little high maintenance and Dave was a little worried she would scream during the blessing but she was perfect and slept peacefully during the whole thing. Dave gave her a beautiful blessing and she looked beautiful in her white gown. Here are a couple of photo's from the day.

Dave and the girls

Lauren wanted a pict. of just her and Liddy

Me and Liddy

This is what she looked like for about 80% of the photo's!

Finally - a pict. of Lydia with her eyes open and her mouth closed!

Sometimes she gives us such serious looks

Sleeping peacefully

Photo Overload

We are having a great time having Liddy in our family! I have really been able to get quite a bit of sleep and when my Mom was here I was able to get a nap almost everyday. We are definitely missing having Grandma Hobbs here though. She was the BEST and cooked and cleaned and shopped and played with us all day. We are so glad she stayed for so long. Now that she is gone I am finally taking the time to download pictures and update this neglected blog!

This is what Liddy thought of her first bath!

Hanging out with me when she was just a few days old.

Looking cute in her new outfit from the Arnett's and her cute new hair bow from the Caffrey's (thank goodness for kind sisters to make my little girl look cute!!)

Getting some cuddles from her loving big sister!

Just hanging out!

I bought this costume for Lauren years ago but she never wore it. It says it is for 0-9 mos. and Liddy is just 3 weeks old so it is a little on the big side. When we put it on her this is how excited she was to be wearing it! I decided not to torture her and didn't make her wear it for our ward party last weekend.

Lauren was excited to wear her costume. She picked it all out by herself at Target and couldn't wait to tell her Dad that she was a BYU Cheerleader!

This is obviously not a BYU cheer costume but since it was 1/2 the price we just let her think it is and she just goes around the house yelling "Goooo Cougars"!

Doesn't she make a beautiful Cheerleader!?!?!

Since my Mom left a few days ago we have had our ward Halloween party and Stake conference and I have had two sickies in my house! Lauren started running a fever Sat. and Dave started getting sick that same night. So Liddy and I went to Stake Conf. on our own Sun. morning so we could get out of our germy house. Lauren had a great time trunk-or-treating at the ward Halloween party and can't wait until she gets to wear her costume to preschool on Friday and go trick-or-treating again on Fri. night. We have really been making sure this girl brushes her teeth very well each night to counteract all the treats she has been eating!

So there you have it. We are adjusting to having a new baby in the house and we are even getting out and doing some fun things. We have more fun stuff planned for this week so hopefully I will remember to pull my camera out and take some pictures.