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!