What's in a Name?

As we are getting closer to delivery day we have finally narrowed our name list down to 5! We thought it would be interesting to do a poll and see what our friends thought. In no way will this make the decision for us. Who knows, maybe we'll end up naming her something completely different. But for fun, tell us what you think by voting.

Countdown to Christmas

Christmas dresses

This year has been a lot of fun in doing activities every day with the girls counting down to Christmas. Abby is at an age where she understands everything and can do so much. We have a countdown house with doors on it and every morning the girls find out our "activity" for the day as we countdown to Christmas. I started this last year but got the idea years ago before I even had kids at a Relief Society Enrichment.

Some of our favorite activities this year were:

-Gingerbread house (I was smart enough to buy a kit this year. Last year took way to long with the baking.)

-Swimming at the gym. We loved it so much we've gone back a couple of times.

-Taking treats to the neighbors

-Driving around to see the Christmas lights

-Christmas parade

-We have done lots and lots of crafts

-Our journey to Bethlehem

-Building a fort and reading Christmas stories with flashlights

-Making and eating lots of sweets

-Sleeping under the Christmas tree. After Abby had asked a few times to sleep under the tree, I let them last night. Kaitlyn was surprisingly the first one to fall asleep. They looked so cute in their sleeping bags and they slept there until 8:00 in the morning!

I'm curious to know what are some of your families favorite Christmas traditions?

Frustrated

Adjective:

1. Disappointingly unsuccessful; "disappointed expectations and thwarted ambitions"; "his best efforts were thwarted".

2. Used especially of feelings of defeat and discouragement.


I could actually use this definition right now with my 2 year old. For 3 nights now she's not gone to bed and has stayed up past 10:00. Most of the time throwing some kind of tantrum for 2 hours. She has defeated me in many ways this week. Oh, yeah, she hasn't napped either. Where is she getting the energy? Ok, on to the real post:




I finally finished sewing project #2 and frustrated is how I felt. It is a diaper/wipe case for my purse. I've seen these on Ebay and Etsy and the go for an average of $13. Didn't want to pay that, so I found some instructions on-line. The instructions stated that it would take about 30 minutes of my time. LIE!!! I can't begin to tell you how long this sucker took! It would have been easier to just buy one. But Todd says I never would learn how to sew if I just buy it. So many hours, yes hours, later and a lot of undoing with my little hooky-bober (don't know the real name). It's FINALLY finished! It probably would have helped had I had someone helping me along or if this wasn't my second sewing task. Oh well, it's how we learn right?! On to the next project!

It's Been a Bad Week and it's only Tuesday

MONDAY:
- started off with Abby throwing a fit about not wanting to go to her private speech.
-After speech we run to Costco, they don't have our Christmas cards ready because they are backed up and are told to come back later that afternoon. I still don't have our cards.
-During shopping, Abby decided to pinch and pull at Kaitlyn's fingers, anything to be mean. It was driving me crazy and it was making Kaitlyn cry.
-While checking out at Costco, Kaitlyn decides to help put things on the belt. She picks up the dozen and a half eggs which open and fall out everywhere! It was messy!
-Kaitlyn refuses to take a nap and kept coming out of her room.
-Had the girls in bed by 7:00, Abby was asleep right away and I thought YEAH! Success and a little quiet time for me. Nope! Kaitlyn opens the door at 7:30 and refuses to go to bed. I have turned off the lights and she starts screaming. I go start getting myself ready for bed and she starts hitting. She ends up throwing a big fit for about an hour and a half. Finally, close to 9:00 she's in bed.

TUESDAY:
-Leaving late for speech (at the school) as usual. It's so cold outside the garage door doesn't open all the way. Can't tell in my rear view mirror and back into the garage door. All I hear is a "crunch". Bottom half of the garage door is all bent and the van is scratched up. Now I can't get the door up or down.
-Decide to take the girls for donuts after Abby's speech. Things are starting to look up. I also kicked the "beep" out of the garage door trying to get it back in shape. It felt good to get a little aggression out.

Here's hoping things great better, my pregnancy hormones can't take much more.

UPDATE:
Things have gotten better. My friend who had Kaitlyn's Joy School today ended up having both my girls. She has a boy Abby's age and had her stay and play. I had 2 free hours to run and get our Christmas cards and get some things at the grocery store sans kids! Another friend's husband came over to help fix the garage door. And the girls are playing nicely for their mom's sanity :)

Pictures with Santa

After not getting a good picture of the girls at the work party with Santa, I decided to press my luck by taking the girls to the mall to see Santa. Abby was thrilled that she was able to talk to Santa and give him her wish list. Kaitlyn freaked out once we got close. We had even practiced smiling, telling him what we wanted and she said she was going to be good. So after paying too much for a bad quality picture on horrible paper we were done. Santa did however give us about 10 suckers and the girls were very happy about that.

Journey to Bethlehem

A local church puts on a live reenactment of the Christmas story from the Bible. We decided to do that as our Family Home Evening this week. You set off in a group and are part of a Jewish family heading to Bethlehem. On the way we encountered Roman soldiers, beggars, thieves, the wise men, and shepherds. When we make it to Bethlehem there were many stalls with people selling goods and finally an inn which, of course, had no room for us. As we left the inn we passed the stable and were able to see Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. I thought it was well put together and glad Abby was able to see the story acted out and understand it a little better.

Kaitlyn got a little scared with the Roman soldiers but other wise did great on the journey. Abby stood guard around Kaitlyn in her "chariot" (stroller) and time soldiers would appear to protect her from them. She didn't want the soldiers to hurt Kaitlyn. Abby loved seeing the angel coming to tell us about Jesus being born while we were visiting the shepherds. She was also so excited to see baby Jesus. At the end she said she wanted to go back tomorrow and do it again.

Christmas Parade

Every year Todd's work gets bleacher seats for the Christmas parade. We made our annual trip downtown, and after sitting 20 minutes in traffic due to bad police directing, we finally made it to our seats. The girls were a little unsure at the beginning - both had pouty faces - but once those balloon floats came by they were excited. Kaitlyn kept looking down the street for what was next.

After a fun parade, we headed to the annual work brunch. Yummy pancakes and waffles with chocolate shavings and caramel sauce- so good! Kaitlyn ate more than she ever does at home. It must have been the sauce. There was clown doing magic and balloon tricks and a visit by Santa. We thought this year Kaitlyn wouldn't cry and scream like last year with Santa since we've been talking Santa up. No such luck. The girl was frightened once again by the jolly man. Maybe next year we'll have better luck.

Christmas Cookies

While making Christmas sugar cookies for one of our advent activities, Kaitlyn got a little too close to the flour. There was flour dusted all over the counter and she bent down to take a lick.

The Elf on the Shelf

Yesterday we recieved a special package from the North Pole. It was our own Elf on the Shelf. I've heard about this little Elf from a few friends and thought it would be a fun tradition to start in our house.

Abby is so excited about our Elf. We decided to call him Jack and he has special magic that allows him to fly back to Santa every night to tell him weather we've been naughty or nice. The rules are that the kids can't touch the elf or his magic will be gone but they can talk to him. Boy was Abby giving him an earful this morning! The girls woke up at 6:30 this morning and the first thing they did was turn on the living room light to find where Jack was sitting for the day (after he flies back from Santa, he sits in a new spot for the day). Abby was telling Jack all about her morning and how she was good yesterday and hoped that he told Santa that.

There have been a few times today where she has not been very nice and all I have to do is remind her that Jack is listening for Santa. Abby has been telling everyone she can about our new friend in our house and is very animated when doing so. We are glad we have Jack here to add a little more fun to our holiday season.

If you and your family want your own Elf on the Shelf- I got mine at a Hallmark.

Family Pictures

We went with some friends to do our family pictures for Christmas cards. Kaitlyn was all happy and good until we got out of the car and took off her jacket to pose. In her defiance, she kept her eyes closed through the first half of the pictures and refused to open them until our friend's wife showed up and made silly noises to get her to look. I just wanted to show one of the pictures with her eyes closed. Funny kid- wonder where she gets her stubbornness?