Christmas Eve

Christmas was less than a month ago, but it already feels like it was forever ago! So weird. Christmas was with Matt's family this year. The bummer part was Bryan was in the hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Thankfully, Nedra was able to bribe a few of the nurses to let the girls visit him for a few minutes. (You technically have to be 14 to visit, but it was Christmas!) Christmas Eve we let the girls open their sibling gifts to each other. Kalianna picked out the pig for Magdalyn all by herself. Maggie had a little bit of help. Kalianna has been in this funny phase lately where she is obsessed with cages. Every animal toy she owns has a cage. And anything from laundry baskets to mixing bowls make up these cages.

Then Matt and I decided to start a new tradition this year, and we all went out to breakfast that morning. It was lots of fun!

In the car on our way to IHOP. She loves Mommy's sunglasses

The cream off Mommy's hot chocolate. How did I know it wouldn't really be mine?

Coloring while we waited for our food

Magdalyn slept through the entire breakfast. Next year...

Very excited about her smiley face pancake

Yummy banana smile

Cinnamon roll french toast. My favorite!

Diving in

Like father like daughter, right?

It's all about the whip cream

And a yummy gogurt

After breakfast we had a fun afternoon playing. Well, the girls and I did. Matt worked on the never-ending pile of homework. Kalianna helped me make some Christmas cookies while Magdalyn went nuts in her bouncy chair. She loves this thing!

We went to Matt's parent's house that afternoon for a nice dinner and then a visit to the hospital. We couldn't stay too long, with the girls getting very anxious in a teeny hospital room, so we then headed to my parents to get them ready for bed before heading home. Matching jammies! The girls loved them! Kalianna loves having her little sister match. Then it was home and off to bed for the little ones.

 

Zoo Lights

I was hoping to have Christmas and our December activities posted on here before leaving for our trip. Oh well! Didn't happen! So I am back-tracking a little bit. Stay tuned. Pictures and cruise stories to come.

My parent's bought Grandparent passes to Hogle Zoo at the beginning of the summer so they could take their grandkids anytime. None of us had ever been to Zoo Lights before so when I saw a billboard for it, I asked them if we could go one last time. It was my parents, Kristine & Logan and their three boys and me and Matt and our girls.

We all had a ball! Not as many animals to see, but the lights were fun. It snowed while we were there, making things pretty cold. Poor Magdalyn was bundled up so tight in her stroller, she couldn't put her arms down. Then I picked her up and carried her, and she stayed much happier (and warmer) after that.   

The lights were everywhere! It was really pretty

The girls checking out the monkeys

Doesn't she remind you of the poor kid in "Christmas Story"?

Grandma and Grandpa spoiled the kids with Carousel rides

Kristine and Hayden

She thought this was a regular kitty and wanted to pet it

So happy to see animals!

Mommy and Maggie keeping each other warm

Carousel ride

So happy!

Both babies conked before we were done

Kalianna was terrified of the fire in the warmers

Maggie 8 months + more

So many little things I've been wanting to post, so I decided to combine them all. Are you ready? Here we go!

Magdalyn turned 8 months last week! This has been kind of a surreal milestone for me. Last December I looked like this:

I remember talking with my sister, Kristine, around Christmastime about our future little ones. We were specifically talking about them being 8 months old because we said, "Can you believe we will have 8 month olds by this time next year on the cruise?" It was so weird to believe the little kicks we were feeling would be active, babbling, toothy babies in just one year. Well, here we are!

Magdalyn hasn't changed a whole lot since 7 months. She has two teeth now, and is working on getting her top ones in as well. I think it will be a matter of weeks. She loves food more and more! She is starting to like "real" food, which I love! She enjoys bread (especially Olive Garden breadsticks) cheerios, teething cookies, graham crackers, and Club crackers. And whip cream. Courtesy of her Daddy on Thanksgiving. She loved it! She seems like she wants to crawl, you can tell she is starting to get frustrated about not being able to move where she wants to go, but she hasn't quite figured out how to do it yet. She can roll to get an item, but that isn't always as accurate. She is babbling like crazy, which is super cute! Her first word was "Dada", much to Matt's absolute joy! Since then she has also mastered "Baba" and "Mama". Kalianna keeps saying, "try Kalianna". Yeah...it may be awhile for that one sweetie. =)

Other than that, she is still my super sweet, happy, easy-going girl. She is starting to show a little more personality, especially around her sister. She is starting to fight back when Kalianna tries to trade toys with her and Maggie doesn't want to. But if Maggie gets upset, Kalianna hugs her and makes everything all better again. The two of them always want to be doing the same thing, and they are the happiest when they are together. I know they will have their fights as all siblings do, but I hope this closeness they share continues through the years! Sisters are the best!

Matt found these giant marshmallows at Wal Mart and thought, "Hey, we need those!" So he bought them. Kalianna only made it through a couple bites before she was done. It's the size of her hand! These would make some killer big smores though.

Kalianna Loves her stuffed animals! She has way more than she needs (as did I) and actually a lot of her animals are my old ones. Whenever we clean her floor to vacuum, they end up in a huge animal pile in the corner. The other day when we were cleaning, she decided she needed to hide in her animal pile. She thought this way pretty cool! And yes, she has chip residue on her face. These are my awesome parenting skills at work.

 Our little neighbor boy, Kaleo, is almost a year older than Kalianna. Well they absolutely love each other! I call him her first boyfriend (which Matt hates). But growing up, I never played with boys. Ever! I was too shy I think. Whereas my daughter seems to play really well with a lot of the boys in our ward (which again, Matt hates). A couple months ago the two of them were playing outside together when Magdalyn fell asleep. I didn't want to leave two two-year-olds outside alone so I shooed them into the house and sent them downstairs to play while I laid her down for a nap. I came downstairs to find this:

 
 Kalianna is such a sweetheart! I am often so impressed with how sincerely sweet she is to others around her. Yesterday at church, Matt peeked in the nursery window between classes. Unfortunately since Kalianna is one of the oldest in her age group, she is losing most of her friends to Sunbeams next year. Really sad! But  I'm not too worried after what Matt saw yesterday. She was sitting next to a little girl during snack time. The girl was probably a year younger than her. Kalianna reached over and pat the girl on the head (she does this all the time-not sure why) Well her finger got caught in the girl's hair so as she pulled away, she yanked the girl's hair a tiny bit. The little girl was extremely angry and immediately started hitting Kali and tried to grab her own hair to pull back. Kalianna looked at her, and without saying a word she wrapped her arms around the angry child and gave her a big hug. One of those moments that makes me so proud to be her mom!

Christmas Story

This is one of the greatest inventions ever!

I don't know about you, but growing up I always loved nativities. They were, and still are, my favorite decorations for Christmas. But most nativities are fragile and not meant for children's hands. So when my sister found an awesome deal online a couple years ago, I jumped on it and ordered the Fisher Price nativity set for my future kids. I love that Kalianna and I can sit down together and play with her nativity while we talk about the Christmas story. And she Loves that baby Jesus!

Last week for family night I sat the girls next to me and we acted out the Christmas story with their toys. Then the next day, I sat Maggie on the floor next to the coffee table and asked Kalianna to play with her while I went to the restroom. This is what I overheard:

"This is Mary and Joseph. They got married in the temple (love that marriage = temple!) Then baby Jesus came. Then the three kings came and brought baby Jesus presents for his birthday. Then they all had cake!" (because what's a birthday without cake?) Then she continued to explain all the animals that were there to Maggie, and the noises each animal made. "Then baby Jesus slept in the hay."

Talk about moments that just melt your heart! I absolutely love that Kalianna knows what Christmas is about! She picks up on more pieces of the story each time we tell it, and she loves to hear about how baby Jesus was born.

After that, Matt and I decided not to talk about Santa Claus yet. We don't want to ruin everything she has learned by throwing in a fat jolly dude who shimmies down the chimney. She knows who Santa Claus is, she recognizes him when she sees pictures and other things. But we've never gone over the story with her, so she doesn't exactly know what it is he does. I just can't bring myself to focus on that aspect of Christmas when she is So Excited about Jesus' birthday! It seriously makes me one proud mamma! We definitely don't want to take Santa out of Christmas, I think that's just plain silly. It's a great tradition and Santa Claus teaches kids about giving and love, which is what this season is all about. But on the other hand, we want the focus in our house to be on the story of Christmas and Christ's birth. Santa is still welcome in our home, as long as he wipes his feet, and we will carry on the tradition of leaving milk and cookies as well as carrots for the reindeer. We just don't want to put all the focus and attention on that.    

Matching

I got this shirt back when my parents went to Hong Kong to pick up my sister, Julie, from her mission. Then several years later, when Kalianna was a baby, my dad went back and brought home a dress for her of almost identical fabric. A couple months ago he brought back another dress for Kalianna. All three are from different trips, years apart. And all three match perfectly! My dad did not do this intentionally, I guess he just knows what I like! So a few Sundays ago the three of us wore matching clothes to church and we got tons of compliments. It was really fun matching my girls, and Kalianna was in heaven! She Loves to pick out clothes for Maggie that resemble her own, so they will match. But this time Mommy matched too and that was just icing on the cake!

Escaping the Wind

Yes, we are safe, our house is safe, we suffered almost no damages in the ginormous windstorms on Thursday. Thanks everyone for all your concern! I got lots of texts wondering how we were.

Matt and I don't have TV, so we had no idea that big windstorms were expected all day Thursday. We went to sleep Wednesday night, thinking it was just like any other day. I first noticed something was up when I got woken up Thursday morning by Sobaka laying down right beside my face. Sobaka never does this! He does not sleep on our bed and only feels the need to snuggle when he is scared. So I knew something was up. Then I heard it. Then I felt it. The wind was blowing so hard and was so loud, I couldn't believe I'd slept through it thus far. And the entire house was shaking. That's saying something when our house is connected to 9 others! Pretty soon Magdalyn and Kalianna were both awake from the noise too. I woke up Matt, wondering why he was still home so late. He said he woke up and saw the wind and decided it wasn't worth the risk to drive on I-15 all the way to Salt Lake for school.

When I went in the girls' room, Kalianna was sitting on her windowsill looking out the window. I sat beside her and we just stared for awhile. I have never seen anything like it before in my life! I felt like we were in the movie Twister. Every time a gust blew, we saw huge trees blow over like they were nothing more than a couple of toothpicks. Shingles flew off roofs as though they weren't attached at all, and fences were being blown over left and right. Or pieces of fences, like in our case.

We began our morning routine and while Kalianna and I were in the bathroom, the lights flickered several times. We kept having to open the door so we could see. Then they finally went out. And then they stayed out. Matt checked the news and called the power company (thank goodness for cell phones!) and we decided it would be best to hit the road when the storm calmed and head to my parent's. Matt had to be to work at 4:00, and there was no guarantee we would have power back that night. Plus we were headed there Friday anyway, so we just packed the girls up and went a day early.

We left our house in the early afternoon, after the brunt of the storm was over. But we still had to run a few errands before leaving Layton. It was crazy!! Driving down the road, there were huge trees all over the place, ripped up right from their roots! There was garbage everywhere! Debris from all over the place now lay in piles around people's yards and in the road. Branches, wood, roof shingles, lawn furniture, Christmas decorations, anything and everything that was out in people's yards when the storm hit. It was such a weird feeling driving past all the people cleaning up, moving trees, repairing fences, etc. I seriously felt like we had driven straight into the scene of a scary movie! Or maybe an action movie...either way it was very surreal. I wish now that I had my camera with me, just to remember what everything looked like.

None of the streetlights worked and there were people from the power company all over the place trying to repair power lines, so it took awhile to get out. The freeway wasn't any better. Every few feet there was an overturned semi on the side of the road or trucks pulled over. We went about 5 mph until Centerville. I even ended up nursing Maggie in the car while we drove because it was taking so long to get anywhere, and she woke up hungry. But after Centerville everything opened up and we were able to make it to my parent's house.

We ended up having a really fun weekend with my parents! And the girls were spoiled rotten! (Matt has been working every Saturday lately to get a big upgrade done at work, so the girls and I have been spending a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa.) Thursday night my dad took Kalianna to the store to get cookies and after being gone for an hour, my mom and I began wondering where they were. Awhile later they came back and Kalianna had an ice cream cone, a bag of Oreos and another bag with several Muppet movies in it. (After seeing the new Muppet movie last weekend, we discovered Kalianna Loves them!) My mom just laughed. We had been making bets on where he took her and what she would arrive home with. My mom called it spot on, with the exception of which store they bought the movies at.

Friday we played all day. My sister dropped Hayden and Ian off for a little while so for about 30 minutes I had the 4 kids alone. Kalianna and Ian had a ball together! She sure loves her cousins! Then that night was Matt's work Christmas party so my brother, Brent, and his cute new girlfriend watched the girls for a couple hours.

Saturday we went to the mall to help my mom pick out a new shirt for her concert that night and Grandpa spoiled Kalianna again. She wanted to ride the carousel, so he bought her 4 rides and she was in heaven! Kalianna Loves the carousel! Then he took all of us out to Olive Garden for lunch. I had Magdalyn on my lap while I was eating a breadstick and she grabbed it right out of my hand and started chowing down on it. She loved it! It was so funny! Maggie has not been interested in solids at all, but I guess I just wasn't giving her the right flavor. Forget the cardboard tasting cheerios and Gerber snacks, she wanted butter and garlic! We played some more at my parent's house that afternoon and then we all went to watch my mom's bell choir perform that night. Really fun!

Biggest grin ever!

Yummy!

What started out as a scary experience turned into a really fun weekend!

2-Year-Old Thankfuls

Every morning for the month of November, up until Thanksgiving day, I would ask Kalianna what she was thankful for. I would then write it on a feather and she would stick it on her turkey. He started out naked and the hope was by Thanksgiving morning he would look beautiful with a full tail of feathers. Well, his tail turned out a bit clumpy, Kalianna liked to stack the feathers on top of each other according to color, but seeing my 2-year-old get excited about writing down her "thankfuls" was absolutely priceless! Kalianna loved her turkey and couldn't wait to add a new feather each day. We had so much fun doing it and I look forward to next year when he will have twice the feathers! Here are all the things she was thankful for. Typically they reflected what she could see in the room, or what we had been talking about.
Feathers
Turkey
Jack-O-Lanterns
Pumpkins
Kutse & Sobaka
Our Family
Balls
Shampoo
Soccer Balls
Diaper Bag
Family
The Kitchen
Pianos
Cages
Kitties
Maggie
Snow
Mommy & Daddy
Diapers
Blankie
The Basement
Clothes
Dogs
Temple