Christmas Utah

For the last 3 years we have taken our kids for one FHE to go see the Christmas Utah light display, which is really just one man who has thousands and thousands of lights synced up to a music from his own short wave radio station you can tune on to in your car.  It lasts about 15-20 minutes and the kids all just love watching it from the warmth of our car.  

This was the first time the twins got to see the show and once we got a better parking spot they really enjoyed watching all the blinking lights.

 

I recommend stopping in to see this show next year if you live around the Salt Lake area, it really is entertaining to watch for kids and adults of all ages. 

TVs: Here today, Gone tomorrow

This year for Cory's Christmas bonus we decided to really splurge and replace our TV.  Our beloved TV is a Potts family heirloom; when I was 12 I  went with my dad and picked it out it was our "big screen" TV and after 18 years of perfect working condition, we decided to upgrade.  After a heartfelt hug goodbye we unplugged it and took it to our local DI (Utah's version of Goodwill).  

With this TV gone it was time to go shopping for a new one, which was so exciting wore poor Josh right out. While hooking up our new TV it quickly became apparent that we also had archaic TV cords so we had to make another trip out to the store for cables and we even splurged again and bought a cheap antenna so we could watch TV once and a while.  Note the level of excitement Cami had for the first shopping trip vs the second.

Here is our new TV all hooked up and you may even note we also bought a Xbox & Kinect bundle to enjoy & get in shape with, which Cory has had many hours enjoying already.

Rockin' around the Church House

One of our favorite activities every year is our church's ward Christmas party. This year didn't disappoint.  The food was exceptionally excellent this year!  The program was short and funny, here is a picture of 4 of the bishopric members, if you are confused....the arms pictured do not belong to the heads of Buddy and Peppermint Patrick in the pictures.  

Even though the food was great and the program was hilarious the true highlight was getting to see Santa. Phoebe was really excited for Santa this year we have been asking her what she wanted from Santa this year and every time she has answered "A Present" if you try naming some kinds of presents she gets upset and yells, "No, a present!"  So Santa gets to picks what kind of present I guess, she just wants to be surprised.  When Phoebe finally did sit on Santa's lap, however, she instead of asking for a present, asked Santa for a treat.  Being the magical person Santa is he did not disappoint, he gave Phoebe a candy cane right then; so as far as Phoebe is concerned, Santa is magical and she got what she asked for.

The twins are very much like Phoebe and have no qualms about sitting on strangers laps so when they sat on Santa's Cami was more interested in his long beard than the fact that he was a funny dressed stranger.

Look What We Have Been Up To

Cami is beginning to take her fist steps.  She has gotten up to 10 in a row now.  Josh isn't really close to walking yet, just working on standing, but he can now go down stairs & that is something Cami isn't very good at yet.

Bookworms

When Phoebe was little she had little to no interest in book. The twins however LOVE books, they will sit & sit for long periods of time if you read to them.  Often time they will just go get their own books and sit down to look through them to by their selves.  Josh in fact has his crib near some books and on an almost daily bases he will pull multiples of them in his crib and when you got to get him from naps he will just be sitting in his crib flipping through a book.  The twins are really funny how different they are from Phoebe, but how similar they are to each other.

Christmas Devotional

Earlier in November & December Cory had to spend every Tuesday and Sunday at the church while the Bishop did the years end tithing settlement.  On one of the last Sundays the Church was broadcasting their annual Christmas devotional and since Phoebe has learned to recognize Thomas Monson as the Prophet she was eager to see him speak. To make it more special I made fancy Sundays for us to enjoy while we watched he broadcast.  Phoebe loved her ice cream and I loved mine & so did the twiners who eagerly stood at my feet to get a couple bit of ice cream & chocolate.

About half way through the broadcast Phoebe reached her attention span limit so all of the kids dicided to spread some old blue prints of daddy's  out all over the floor and run/crawl all over it for the fun crinkle noise it made.  It drove me a bit nutty, because it was SOOO loud, but it made the kids happy so I just let them play on.

Date Night December Edition

Date Night in December was suppose to be Pizzeria Night where we make our own pizzas and then eat them, but we were felling lazy so we changed it to be go get pizza from 5 Buck, have root beer and watch Eclipse & afterwards enjoy banana splits.  I really end up enjoying these casual dates so much more that next year I have made my 12 dates of 2011 and most of them are casual fun ones, and not stress out nights of planning and perfection.  Also this coming year Cory agreed to plan 4 of the dates while I plan the other 8 so we drew months our months out of a jar and I got busy planning.  Many of the dates I picked are going to be fun group dates so if you are in the area you may be chosen to accompany us on one of our fantastic 12 dates of 2011.

Temple Square '10

Every year we take our family down to Temple Square to look at all the thousands & thousands of Christmas lights. Luckily this year Grandma Fergy and aunt Megan & uncle Blake were able to join us which helped to make Phoebe happy.  Normally this trip is a very frigid and short lived experience, but this year we managed to pick a "warmer" Utah evening, the high for the day had been about 45degrees. Having the kids not all frozen made this years experience much more pleasant and in fact we were able to linger and look without any crying. Phoebe did get a little cold towards the end so Daddy stuffed her in his jacket to stay warm.

Christmas Pics

I always have this dream in mind that this will be the year we will have the perfect picture of our family on our Christmas cards, we will be a model postcard family.  Plans for this year were once again too lofty.  As time was quickly passing I decided to try to do cute kid pictures by myself at home.  

Here were the results in matching cute clothes. Phoebe cooperated nicely, Cami did okay, but I saw later she had crumb on her cheek and Josh...well I probably have an ulcer after yelling so much to get his attention or to try and have him sit in one place and not to just crawl to me.

  

The group picture in front of the tree was the ONLY one I was able to get, before tears and crying broke out & by the expressions on 2 of the 3 kids it was not exactly the pictures I wanted to send on this year's Christmas cards

 

After a couple days had passed I was feeling brave enough to try the pictures again, but this time in a new venue, our back yard.  Once again I could not get the perfect picture of everyone at the same time & I probably just aggravated the ulcer I gave myself trying to do this the first time, but I do love these pics for all the fun expressions I was able to capture of the kids. 

These were just a couple other pictures I got that day. Cami is always at this gate shaking it with all her might to let you know to come and get her. Also, I blogged a couple weeks ago about Cami & the rocking chair, well now the twins both fight over who gets to be in it & sometimes they are willing to share it while being naughty and standing in it.

 

Phoebe ScissorHands

A couple weeks ago we were dressing Josh in his PJs when we suddenly saw a suspicious rip in the back.   but we let it go without too much more thought. The next day however I noticed Daddy had dressed Josh in this shirt with tons of little uniform "rips" in them. I then realized what was happening to all of Josh's clothing.

Mommy: Phoebe did you cut take scissors and cutup Joshie's clothes?

Phoebe: Ummm yes

Mommy:  When did you do that?

Phoebe:  Thursday...umm no Saturday.

That simply was her confession with zero regret in it. She then continued to tell everyone that she cutup Joshie's clothes on Saturday, like she has any concept of what days of the week are. I had to laugh even though it was naughty  and we had to have a talk about NEVER playing with scissors.