Christmas is here!

Now that we're back home it's time to get ready for Christmas! Once we get the house cleaned (if that ever happens) we'll pull out the Christmas decorations. Woohoo! But I am done with Christmas cards! Well, they're ordered. If you've moved in the last year or two, make sure to email me your new address and I'll get one mailed out to you this year. This year we've resolved to have no hospital visits to thwart our Christmas card plans, like happened last year. :) So far, so good!

Merry Christmas to all! Turn up the Christmas music!

Photo Card

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Leaves

While we were playing in the leaves we went a little crazy with the cameras. I think we got some pretty good shots. It helps that our kids are kind of cute. :)

Trip to Utah-Part 2

Wednesday we spent some time hanging out in the back yard, enjoying the nice fall weather. Rachel wanted to build a playhouse out of the waffle blocks, which ended up being a dog house, or a kitty house, I don't remember which one she was that day. Rachel loved her little house, and Annie loved the box that stores the waffle blocks.

Daddy started watching something on the computer--Shaun the Sheep, or something like that--and immediately both girls were on his lap, sucked in to the blackhole of video-on-the-computer-watching.

Thanksgiving morning Rachel woke up with a tummy-ache, and shortly thereafter began throwing up. It was not a fun morning, but by lunchtime the puking was done and she was just dealing with a fever for the rest of that day and the next. The poor girl spent most of Thanksgiving Day like this:

The rest of us spent Thanksgiving Day making, then eating food. And lots of it.

Well, some of us spent it making food. Jake and Andrew stared at the computer while the rest of us slaved away. ;)

The bakers with their pie and roll masterpieces:

When we returned to Von and Patty's house Rachel was very happy to have her second cousin, Hannah staying over night again (she'd been there the night before, but they didn't have time to play before bedtime). They had a good time the next morning running around together playing and watching Scooby Doo.

After Annie's morning nap we went back over to the Campbell house and Sharon raked some leaves together for Rachel to jump in. After Sharon had to go to work the rest of us went out to play, too.

Rachel helping Uncle Jesse make a bigger pile:

We also snuck into the neighbor's yard to jump on their trampoline (invited, of course). Annie had lots of fun getting bounce by Rachel, and Rachel met a new friend while we were over there, too.

That afternoon Jesse watched the girls for us so we could go do a session at the temple. It was so nice to have a temple trip take just 2 hours, instead of 6+ hours with all the driving. It makes me miss those days at BYU living so close to the temple that I could go every week. Now we're lucky to go every few months.

Saturday morning we packed up as fast as we could and headed back to the Campbell house to spend the morning there before heading off around lunchtime. We got there just in time to miss Cari, who had arrived late the night before and had a friend going through the temple that morning. She had left a little early to stop by Von and Patty's house to say goodbye to us. We must have passed each other going the opposite direction. :{

Jesse put his mad skills to work building a tower that would touch the ceiling, along with Rachel, Annie, and Sharon as his helpers.

Rachel had a fun time playing with Sharon and hiding with her in the princess tent from the rest of us.

Sharon wrote her a little note that she kept playing with for hours afterwards: "I got this envelope in the mail. I wonder who it could be from?!" Then she'd open it and "read" it to us.

Before we left we managed to remember to document the trip with a (partial) family photo. We had a great time! Thanks for the fun week, and hope to see you all again soon! If anyone wants to warm up in the coming winter months, a road trip down south might just be called for!! We'll be waiting. :)

Our trip home went much better than our trip up. We got all the way to Page on the first day, which made the second day of driving seem really short, relatively speaking. The dramamine actually knocked Rachel out on Saturday afternoon for a while, and Rachel was so anxious to get home that she didn't put up any fights with getting in the car after our potty stops. Annie put up a fight everytime, but as long as we bribed her with food or candy she forgot that she hated getting strapped back in to her carseat. At least for a minute or two. :)

Trip to Utah-Part 1

We just got back from a fun trip up to Utah for Thanksgiving. Maybe I should clarify--the trip itself wasn't so fun, but our time in Utah was. I'm not sure driving hundreds of miles with a 1-year-old can ever be considered "fun." Unless you have one of those docile children that my children do not resemble AT ALL. Sitting still for 5 minutes is not their forte (especially Annie's).

We decided to break up the driving and started out on Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving. The girls had a blast playing in the car while we waited for Dad to get home from work so we could head out.
The drive up was... interesting. We'd hoped to get to Page and spend the night there, but ended up calling it quits in Flagstaff. My car seat plan kind of worked for Annie--she fell asleep really easily for her naps in her rear-facing carseat in the very back row of the van, but never did sleep more than a half hour until this morning on our return drive when she made it almost an hour (her normal naps are usually closer to 1 1/2 hours). However, being front-facing the rest of the time wasn't all that great for her. It may have been better than being rear-facing the entire time, but only marginally so. I think that just goes with her gotta-be-moving-constantly personality, though, mostly. Rachel had a hard time on the curvy roads and got car sick and was generally miserable for the last part of that first day. We found some dramamine before starting out the next day for the rest of the drive, and that helped her not get sick at all the next day, but our hoped-for side effect of a nap did not materialize.

Anyway, after many hours when we were almost to Provo we realized that we hadn't talked to Jake's family for a few weeks and they probably had no idea that we were even coming that day. We called and surprised them: "we'll be there in a half hour!" I had already talked to my aunt and uncle whose house we were staying at to make sure it was okay, so we weren't completely irresponsible, but the main reason we were going to Utah was to visit Jake's siblings (Jake's parents are still in Alaska on their mission) and none of them even knew when we would be there until that night, or in the case of the BYU-I girls, the next day. So we didn't get to spend as much time with some of them as we would have liked, but we were happy for the time we did get to spend with everyone (though we really missed Lisa!). One bonus was that we did get to spend some time with Von and Patty (my uncle and aunt) and their family that I hadn't really anticipated, so that was nice.

Anyway, we were welcomed with a blanket of snow when we got there, and the next morning we let Rachel go outside and take full advantage, since it would be gone by the end of the day.
She was really excited about playing in the snow. But didn't quite get the idea that you have to lie where there is actual snow (not just a patch here and there) to make a good snow angel. :)
She worked on a snowman, then decided he needed to be brought up on the deck to visit, or be built bigger, or something.
She had a real good time in the snow.

Before church on Sunday we hung out at the Campbell house and Rachel and Annie had a blast with the banana chairs. Annie is really into chairs in general these days and LOVES sitting on anything you call a chair.
Rockin' their matching outfits: (Rachel thinks it's the coolest thing in the world when she and Annie match!)
Annie found a visor to play with to satisfy her love of hats. And as a bonus it doubled as a necklace.

Monday Jake's sister Cari called and surprised us, saying she was on the road, almost to Provo, coming down from Rexburg. We jumped in the car and drove over to the Campbell house and arrived just in time to feed the ducks some popcorn that Cari and her man, Kody, were popping to feed them.
If you ever need to herd ducks, just get a big bowl of popcorn.
And thus began the beginning of Annie's obsession with ducks:
Every time we'd get out of the car at their house she'd hear the ducks across the street in the little river inlet and say "duh!" If we didn't take her to see them she'd throw a fit. If we did take her to see them she'd be very happy. Until we took her inside the house, then she'd throw a fit. (Oh, the wonderful age of tantrums has hit!)

It was a blast for the girls having all those ducks flocking all around them. Definitely a highlight of their day.

The next day we headed up to Salt Lake City to the Hogle Zoo. We squeezed the trip in between Annie's morning and afternoon nap, so we didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, and didn't get to see everything, but had fun nonetheless. Our first stop was the zoo train.



There was a bison named Jaker, according to the train driver, that we saw on the ride, so that made our trip extra special. :) They also had ravens, which I thought was very odd since you can see those lots of places, if you just leave your picnic unguarded for a little while.

We had fun looking around at the different animals, but the lemurs put on the best show for us, jumping right up onto the casings of the glass and walking around right as close as they could get.

On the way back to Orem I sat in the back with Annie in her rear-facing carseat in the hopes that she'd take her afternoon nap, since it was past her regular naptime. It was a no-go for Annie, as she stayed awake playing the whole way home, but the other two girls got their naps in.

Cari and Kody left that afternoon to head back up to Rexburg, which we were all bummed about, but we're glad we got to meet Kody and glad they got to come down and hang out with us for a couple of days at least.