Temple construction visit

Ryan was the last one to come down with the fever on Sunday after Christmas. We had been planning on going up to see the temple lights in Mesa, but with everyone sick, we didn't make it. But a couple days before New Years everyone was finally fever free, so we took advantage and decided to get out of the house.
First we went to the church parking lot to ride bikes. Annie got a balance bike for Christmas that she had been riding up and down the sidewalk. After riding it a while at the church parking lot she was ready to try her regular bike with the training wheels off. Unfortunately we didn't bring the right tools to take them off (I thought we had), so she had to wait until we came back 2 days later. On her first try she was riding without any help on her regular two-wheeler. I knew it wouldn't be long after she got her balance bike before she would be a pro on her two-wheeler. Now Ryan and Megan can make use of the balance bike. In fact I think Ryan may be almost ready for taking his training wheels off, too.

Anyway, after riding bikes at the church parking lot we headed up to the Tucson temple site. If we weren't going to make it to the Mesa Temple lights at least we could check out the progress on construction of our temple.

 They have a viewing platform where we can watch all the construction workers doing their thing. It was cool to see all they've done in a short amount of time.

 They also have a trailer you can go in to see pictures of the progress and pictures of other temples, etc. A visitor's center for the duration of construction. It's run by a missionary couple that is overseeing construction, or something of the sort.

 The kids liked the trailers as much as they liked watching the construction workers.

Afterwards we headed to Chick Fil-A where Megan ate straight ketchup (and maybe some fries).

 We decided we'd make it a tradition that every couple months we'll head up and check out the progress on the temple, then head to Chick Fil-A. It makes for a great afternoon.

We're so excited to have a temple going up in our town. Even though it's still a 45 minute drive from our house, that's still better than 2 hours each way. And from my parents' house it's only 30 minutes, so after dropping the kids off, I'll be able to be there and back in 3 hours. Way better than the 6-7 hours a temple trip currently takes. :)

Christmas Day

Rachel woke up nice and early Christmas morning (no surprise there). She had to wait for a while before everyone was allowed to go downstairs and start Christmas fun.

Everyone got a wheeled vehicle from Santa. Megan especially loved her car. She would hardly get out of it to open presents. Except for when she noticed the candy in her stocking.

Ryan was super pleased to see that Santa brought the Rescue Bot transformers he'd been hoping for. He'd play with them, open a present, play with the Rescue Bots some more, open another present, play with the Rescue Bots more, etc.

Christmas chaos at it's finest:

The 3 older kids all got new helmets for their growing heads along with their wheeled presents. Rachel got a scooter, Annie got a balance bike, and Ryan got a ride on tractor that actually digs. Megan loves that one, too.

Rachel was happy enough during the present opening, but soon after came down with the fever that Annie and Megan had had earlier in the week.  You can see her laying next to her new pillow pet in the picture above.

Annie got an engineering set from us. You read a storybook and as it goes along it teaches you how to make different items in an amusement park. She had tons of fun and is really good at looking at the picture instructions and putting it together with very little help. This is the Merry-Go-Round she built. It really twirls around.

Ryan on his new tractor with a sucker in his mouth:

We headed in to Grandma and Grandpa's house where Rachel was quarantined because of her fever. She is prone to motion sickness, so with the yuckiness from the fever, combined with the car ride in, Rachel threw up one block from Grandma and Grandpa's house. Luckily we had anticipated this and she had a bucket to use. 

She opened her presents, then laid on the couch for the rest of the time we were there watching Penguins of Madagascar on the iPad and reading her new books.

Grandpa Knight got a "special" gift for Grandma. A fur coat.

 She looks like Sully on Monsters, Inc. It was a gag gift with a receipt to exchange for something she might actually wear. 

We enjoyed Christmas dinner and playing with cousins for a while before we headed home for movie night and an early bedtime. It was a merry Christmas despite Rachel having to enjoy it from the couch. Though that's likely where she would have spent a good portion of the day even if she hadn't gotten sick, with all the new books she got. :)

Christmas Break

We spent a good portion of our Christmas break hiding out at home to keep from spreading germs. Annie came home from church early that first Sunday of break because she felt sick, came down with a fever that had some respiratory illness accompanying it, and then it got passed around. Megan had her turn next, then Rachel on Christmas Day, and Ryan 2 days later. So we watched Christmas movies and played in the back yard when it wasn't too cold.

We did have Grandma and Grandpa over for Grandma's birthday dinner.

 After dinner they went on a drive with Ryan driving. :)

Megan "helped" me put together a nightstand for Jacob for Christmas.

 She also loved Dr Ohm, carved by Grandpa Campbell. Especially his eyes.

 Yes, she does have scissors in her hands, and yes she does wear that jacket all the time (at least whenever she comes across it--we have to hide it from her sometimes).

On Christmas Eve the kids were all fever free, but Jacob wasn't feeling well, so we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house without him. I left the kids with Grandma and went to Justin's house to help with some Christmas Eve construction, and made it back just in time to watch the traditional acting out of the Nativity by the kids.

Megan's costume that she tolerated for 2 minutes:

 Mary (Annie) rode the donkey Rachel to Bethlehem.

 Ryan the shepherd came to worship Baby Jesus.

 When we came home the kids got to open their Christmas Eve present of pajamas.

The kids were excited about their slippers and Megan was happy to steal Ryan's shoes since he had to take them off to put on his new slippers.

We were going to let the kids stay up to watch a movie that night since we figured they wouldn't fall asleep quickly anyway, but Rachel had woken up that morning at 3am and had fallen back asleep from 5-6, and Ryan had already demonstrated how completely tired he was, so we just finished 15 minutes of a movie we had been watching that morning, then put them to bed and they were all out by 8:30, which is good on a regular night, let alone Christmas Eve.  Waking up the next morning, of course, happened nice and early...

School fun

The Christmas parties are in full swing at the kids' schools. Annie's teacher has been out all this week, so last Friday they went to the bowling alley for some fun.

Annie has loved Mrs. Xochitl (pronounced So-chee).

But she has not loved the half hour of homework daily or being away from the family for the whole day. She was doing fine for a while, but before Thanksgiving started complaining a lot more and not wanting to go to school in the mornings. And homework always involved a lot of crying. I totally do not agree with 30+ minutes of homework for kindergartners, but that is part of SSA's "appeal" is that they are college prep, which they somehow think means lots of homework even when it does nothing but make kids hate school. Annie is at the top of her class. I can't imagine how homework goes for some of her classmates that still struggle with knowing which letter is which.

Anyway, since Annie has not been loving school, and Desert Willow would not allow us to transfer her over because their cut off for kinder is September and Annie's b-day is October, we are just taking the rest of the year off and Annie will go to Mrs. Heather's preschool until she starts kinder at DW in July. She is excited about it, but will miss her friends, especially Arianna and Isaac.

Rachel has been doing great in school. She has met every AR (accelerated reader) goal this year, so she got to participate in pie day on Wednesday.

They also decorated their winter wonderland scenes Wednesday.

I was going to help out, but Tuesday came down with a horrible stomach bug, so I decided to keep it to myself even though I was mostly better Wednesday.

Annie has reached a new milestone: she lost her very first tooth!

She was so excited to have it come out as it has been loose for a long while--probably 2 months.

She woke up so excited to see what the tooth fairy had left her, only to find her tooth still there! When she got down stairs for breakfast she found a note that said, "I didn't want to wake you up, so I left some money here for you. Since it's your first tooth, you can keep it! Love, Tooth Fairy" She was happy to have some money and immediately said, "I need to pay tithing." Good girl! She took her tooth to school to show at show and tell today. Lucky the tooth fairy left it for her to keep. :)

Ryan's school had a Christmas program yesterday. They sang a bunch of songs for us, then got to make gingerbread houses.

It was lots of fun. Even Megan got in on the fun making a Christmas tree.

Ryan helped make this awesome snow globe ornament.

He's got more of a grimace than a smile here, but I think that's because we are true Arizonans and the thought of snow makes us grimace. ;) Though we really do love the once a year snow we usually get. That's plenty for us. (Ryan's camera smile needs a little work. The only way to catch a real smile is to catch a candid or to have him say candy, or turkey, or something of the sort.)

Christmas prep

We put off decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving this year because of all our house guests. But we still got things up pretty fast, thanks mostly to Cari being there to clean like crazy, and keep the kids occupied while I got out the big boxes. We had to take our traditional topping the tree picture.

Annie got to put the star on the other tree.

We also got to visit Santa when he stopped here in Rita Ranch.

Ryan delivered his letter asking for Rescue Bots. He made sure to specify to Santa that he already has Chase, so he just needs 3 more.

Annie read Santa her note that she wrote all by herself. She asked for a Webkinz stuffed animal and drew a blue fish on it to give him an idea of what to get her.

Rachel's letter was lost somewhere, but she was okay with just telling him that she wants a unicorn Pillow Pet for Christmas.

I knew Megan (with her stranger anxiety) wouldn't be a fan of sitting on Santa's lap, so I didn't even try. I thought she might be okay with Rachel holding her.

But not when Rachel is holding her so close to Santa. She did calm down for a semi-nice picture.

We made a list of things we want to do before Christmas. One was make and decorate cookies, so we did it last Sunday.

Rachel's cookies that she made for herself looked like Christmas threw up all over them.

My mom came over for our annual candy making. Ryan helped stir the caramels.

We used probably 3 pounds of sugar, and 15+ cups of sugar to make lots of caramels, fudge, and candied pecans. Now we're ready for Christmas! :)

Megan shenanigans

Megan decided in November that strangers were scary. She would run and hide her face in my shoulder any time an adult besides Mom, Dad, Grandma Knight, Grandpa Knight, or possibly Uncle Justin or Aunt Marie would try to talk with her. Then I cemented the deal when I left her with her Uncle Todd for an hour while I took Ryan to a dentist appointment. She cried for a while, he figured out that she'd stop crying outside as long as he didn't talk to her, and she wouldn't do anything but stare forlornly at her play lawn mower until I got home. The next day Todd walked in the house, said, "Hi, Megan!" and she immediately started crying and ran to me. Of course that was the week of Thanksgiving when we had 15 extra people she didn't know staying in our house. She wouldn't even let Grandma Campbell hold her. She didn't mind all the kids, but once she noticed an adult she didn't really know she'd run for a familiar face. Cari stayed 3 extra days and on the last day this miracle occurred:

Megan actually played with Cari and let her pick her up. It took a full week before she warmed up to her.

Megan is a bit of a copy cat. Ryan is her favorite person to shadow, but if someone else is doing something cool, she'll copy them, too. Daddy was trying to take a nap on the couch, so she joined in.

Cute picture of Daddy and Megan:

Jacob was trying to get her to copy him blinking. This is how she blinks. Also how she closes her eyes during prayer:

She squints so she can "close" her eyes like everyone else, but still see what's going on.

Love the hairdo, dude.

Ice cream makes everyone happy.

Another favorite activity is "riding the horsie" that is Mom or Dad's leg. She loves to bounce over and over, and it's a good workout.

I love the expressions on her face.

And yes, our little girl has moved on to bigger and better things. Climbing the stool is no longer enough. She must get on top of the counters to reach all sorts of new toys.

Megan is beginning to talk more now. We can even understand some of what she says. She says all our names: Mommy, Daddy, ātch (Rach), Aaah-eee (Annie), Ay-an (Ryan). She signs milk, says and signs water, juice, more, all done/all gone, probably a few others, and has quite a few animal sounds down, too. She used to say ruff ruff for all animals except sheep, which say baa, but now she knows meow, moo, roar, and does an awesome pig--not an oink, but an actual snort.

She is getting in to things more and throws a fit when she doesn't get what she wants. She is definitely approaching the age of time outs. Good thing lots of cuteness comes right along with lots of naughtiness.