Merry Christmas!

 Happy Holidays everyone.  I can't believe Christmas is here and gone, our decorations are still set up because it's always hard for me to put them away!!  A few pictures and highlights...

Andy and I ate dinner at Farrells one date night.  This place is famous around these parts of the state, and was a loud, exciting dinner for us both.  We're getting old I think, because it WAS really loud.  Great food and dessert!

We caught another gopher.  This time he was alive.  Our kitty was interested for a few minutes, but got bored after that.  That's 2 gophers down, and who knows how many more!  It is actually fun to set the traps, then check to see if we caught any:)  The girls really like it.

Sunday before Christmas:)  Can you see a few envelopes under the tree?  All month the girls have been drawing pictures for Andy and I, and then 'wrapping' them in the envelope, and saving them for Christmas.  They were really excited to give them to us.  Maren knew early on what she wanted to get for Andy.  She told me it was at Home Depot.  So we went there, asked the clerk where the 'pipes' were, and she picked out 2 short metal pipes for him-and that was it!  He loved it!

 

Andy worked a half day on Christmas Eve, so the girls and I went here while it rained.  It was an indoor playplace\bounce house, and we had a great time. They are at such fun ages, because they will venture off and explore, play without needing me with them.  I very well remember the days when they'd be in the McDonald's playplace and another child would pass by them up inside, and they would lose it:)  

When we moved into our house, this in-ground hot tub was filled with dirt-but no one knew why.  We started digging,(by 'we' I mean Andy), and dug up the entire hole.  Now we'll see how the pipes are:)

The girls leaving reindeer food on the lawn.  

2 happy girls on Christmas.

One awesome thing about this week is that we got to have Andy's sister and family come stay with us!  I snapped this picture of the 4 girls on the top bunk together.  It's awesome how kids just know who family is, and can have a blast together even though they live so far apart.

More fun with the cousins!

We all visited the Long Beach aquarium together too.  

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas all!  This is the first year both Maren and Lauren wanted to sit with Santa.  It was really so much fun to see them love it.  We were 1st in line, and as Santa walked by us to sit in the sleigh, Lauren opened her arms as wide as she could for a hug.  He didn't see her, but it was really cute:) 

We had a mini stay-cation on Friday.  We went to Balboa island for beach time and boat time. I love getting out of town, even if your town is beautiful and great!  A change of scenery can be just what the doctor ordered.

All you Utah folks, 'Wish you were here'!

The girls made a sledding hill for their bums.  I noticed today that Lauren's pants are still stained from the sand:)

 

We rented a surrey to ride around town.  The girls couldn't stop giggling when we put them in their seats, they thought it was really silly!

Merry Christmas to everyone, have a great one!  We love you.

Lately

Our lives lately have been pretty smooth.  Both girls took turns with a pretty strong cold, and here's Maren napping on the couch.  She slept a lot this day!  After she stood up from the couch though, Lauren got her blanket and laid down and said she was sick.  Maybe she wanted some pampering too?

They are really close buddies lately.  When we get Maren from preschool, she'll run to Lauren a lot of the time first, and give her a squeeze. 

We went to our Stake's live nativity over the weekend.  WOW!  It was really cool.  They even had a real camel(below).  This will probably become a tradition for us.  We really don't have too many of our own.  You would think we would because 4 out of 5 Christmases together have been away from family.  One that we have carried on though is finding a 'greasy spoon' restaurant on Christmas eve to dine at.  This year, Kono's.

Lauren had a little friend over, and when 3 little girls get together, it's dress up time.  My role was the ballet teacher, theirs was ballet student:)

I'm feeling good, large, but good. lol  The other day Andy and I joked that wives are in charge in the relationship, then laughed that I was Large and in Charge.

We've started a 'Walk to Sea World' activity with the girls.  It's 97 miles to get there from our house, so we earn stickers for each mile we walk around our area, as a family.  Maren is pretty motivated to get there.

We put new cabinets in our kitchen, which are really cool!  Because of this, we've been washing dishes in the bathroom.  I'm always wondering what visitor might go to use our bathroom, and peek behind the curtain to see a bathtub of dishes, and never return to our home...hehe.

Lastly, we have some pretty awesome home teachers.  He and his wife come on Sundays when they visit, and you never know what you're going to get from small children on Sundays, right?  Well yesterday they brought a nativity puppet show that the girls loved acting out.  Brilliant, thoughtful, and fun! 

The Holidays

We had a fantastic break over Thanksgiving!  We spent the first part of it with the Halls.  The girls were very happy and spoiled to get Grandpa/Grandma time as well as a lot of cousin time.  We made it just in time to make a snowman with the girls.  

Grandpa playing with the girls.  

  Andy's mom was nice to play her violin at our request! 

Here's Lauren and Cami, our niece.  We had a blast catching up with family and watching the girls reconnect with family.  We are blessed.

The Holidays-part 2

One thing we really wanted to do with our girls is to go sledding.  Growing up, I used plastic sleds(like in the pic) and Andy used tubes. So we figured we needed both.  We reasoned that the plastic are easier to steer, but the tubes are WAY more gentle on your rumps.  Needless to say, the plastic sled was returned to the store.

I couldn't get over how cute they were all bundled up.  We never get to see them like this!!  After driving about to Brighton ski resort, we found enough snow to have a complete blast.

They each took turns going alone, together, and with one of us(expect pregnant me).

Maren was so excited, that she'd get off her tube, and then run it back up to the top to go again.

We went to my parent's home to spend the latter part of the week, and to eat Thanksgiving dinner.  Here's my brother's daughter who is 1 year older than Maren.  They had a blast together, and we found mine and Carrie's old My Little Pony collection:)  Does anyone still remember the smell of these like I do?!

We made it down to Provo that weekend to watch the BYU women's team play against the infamous UNC.  What a great game, unfortunately the cougs lost.  UNC was incredibly fast, just like I'd always heard.

We slept over 2 nights at my brother and sister-in-laws home in Woodland Hills.  We made gingerbread houses and had a great time with the younger kids.  I don't think I saw Maren all day because she was busy playing with cousins, it's a great feeling.  Andy and the boys went fishing that day and caught 68 fish at Strawberry reservoir.  His fishing curse has officially ended!

Last but not least, we got to see my Grandpa in St. George on our way home.  He's such a great man, all 95 years of him!  I'm just glad our girls get to know him.

These days

We still like this place.  It never gets old, and currently, it's the easiest it's ever been to get there.  The girls are at great ages to walk most places, and carry something to help out.  

Holding on to the last HOT days of fall.  

The above pic. is taken at the Yorba regional river trail.  This leads straight to the ocean, with the river on the other side of the biker.  Each time we're at this trail, I recommit that Andy and I will do a day date and bike this.  Maren is holding up a pic. that she traced of different things we saw on the trail.  

We went to Tom's farm with Sherri.  It had a little farmers market and shops. 

Looking forward to Thanksgiving time!  And getting more excited to meet our little girl, but we've got a while..long while:)

Frankenstein 2012

Happy Halloween everyone!  I made the mistake of asking our next door neighbor girl if she's excited for Trick-or-Treating, then went on to tell me they don't celebrate Halloween.  Ahh!  That's cool, we don't need all that candy either:)  But it's sure fun to get our girls excited about pumpkins and trunk or treats etc!

The above photo is a little gopher we caught.  After talking with a few neighbors, it seems like this guy(and possibly a family of them) have been leaving their mark on all of our yards.  They're pretty ugly.

We visited the Irvine Park pumpkin patch with some friends.  It was a lot of fun!  

Their best scary faces for Frankenstein. 

 

Pony rides.  They loved, loved these little ponies!  Lauren kept saying, 'giddy-up horsey!'

Maren kept telling me she was going to choose the biggest pumpkin she could find.  I kept saying she could get any pumpkin she could carry:)  Luckily our wallets could afford that size!

Rolling away our pumpkins.  Happy Halloween everyone.

Rain!

My blog might be boring, but my life isn't.  So if you're bored reading my blog...stop, and come on over and spend some time face to face, and we'll entertain you:)  This grasshopper chose Andy's shoulder during some yard work.  We have a few large insects around here.

Rather than make our fridge into one huge art paper project, we got this stainless steel wire set at IKEA, and love it!  The girls love to see their art displayed.  They are constantly drawing and coloring, and me?  I'm constantly switching out old ones with the new.  (Only a few times has Maren discovered the eventual fate of most of the papers:)  But we love what they draw.

Recent adventure to Knott's.  Serious faces...

Silly ones.

Maren was a little nervous of this ride, and the girl with her arm in the air wasn't helping.  Neither of us knew what she was up to:)  I'm noticing this is a funny picture all around.  The boy closest to Maren looks like he might fall out once the ride starts moving bc he so tiny!  The end girl and boy could be brother and sister, and she's like,"give me back my quarter!" Not to mention the hole in Maren's pants...Good laughs though.

I really enjoy getting to know people, of any age and type.  Leslie in our ward is a young Grammy who is retired.  She had us over yesterday for a fun morning of crafts, dolls, and snacks.  She is awesome.  She also makes American Girl doll clothes that are incredible.

Last night FHE game.  Lauren's choice.  My Little Pony board game.  What this picture doesn't show is Andy's head 1 minute earlier as he was banging it on the coffee table.  I love him for what he does for us girls!

I'm feeling pretty good as far as baby number 3 goes.   The Dr. says I'm carrying super low, and hopefully that will change as the baby grows bigger, because carrying low is not comfy by any means:)  It's a fun time of year to be a mom though, I am blessed.