11 Months Old

It is truly not fair that babies have to grow up! I can't believe our baby is 11 months old today. She is so full of personality and is so much fun! She is walking everywhere now and would run if she could. I was hoping to get a few more pictures of her today, but the ones that I got are her best faces-the ones that crack us up!

 I am hoping we see some teeth before her birthday next month! She is constantly chomping on her fingers.

Whenever she does this, Eric says, "Power to the people!!"

She sure makes our home a happy place to be. We are excited to watch her rip open her presents on Christmas. I am sure she will be more interested in ripping the paper than playing with any of her new toys. She gets a lot of practice ripping my magazines to smithereens. 

Our Christmas Countdown Begins!

Our December has not started off as nice as we had hoped. There is a nasty stomach bug going around the state of Utah (I swear everyone I know has had it!) and this week we caught it. Poor Tessa started throwing up Wednesday night and didn't stop until her Daddy gave her a blessing at about 4am the next morning. It was a rough night. 

Poor little Gwen has had to entertain herself a lot this weekend. She has had fun playing Peek-a-Boo with our snow people. 

 Tessa was feeling much better Thursday afternoon and into Friday, and then started getting sick again Friday night. Eric was up in Salt Lake all weekend taking his finals, so it was just me and the kiddos. 

 Saturday Gwen and I started getting sick, but we managed to make it to Christmas Around the World at BYU. Gwen was not happy about Adam holding her, but she loved seeing all the bright lights during the show. 

 This is pretty much what has been all over our floors for 3 day now-towels and bowls. I am so sick of vomit and laundry!!

Despite our barfiness, we had our Christmas Countdowns to start! We have 3 different countdowns for the month of December-excessive is my new middle name:)

Countdown #1-Santa's Beard: Each day the kids get to glue a cotton ball to Santa's beard. By the time Christmas arrives, it will be a full, white beard!

Countdown #2-Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem: Each day the kids get to move Mary and Joseph a little closer to Bethlehem. On Christmas morning the kids will wake up to a full nativity scene.

Countdown #3-Christmas Tree Countdown: Each day the kids get to pick an ornament that has an activity t that I have planned for that day and then they get to decorate our homemade tree with the ornament.

 Days 1 and 2 for our countdown included attending Christmas Around the World and a special story about the Savior. I am glad that since we have been so sick, our activities have been pretty easy! Hopefully we will be feeling better soon!

It's Christmas Time!

On Monday night for Family Home Evening, we decorated our house for Christmas. Adam and Tessa were such good helpers! Tessa asked if we could keep the decorations up all year long.

 Adam and Tess were good little tree fluffers.

 Gwen took all the lids off our boxes. 

 Gwen loves to "read" books. She got right to work checking out her Christmas books. 

 The cutest Elf ever!!

 They were excited to find their Santa hats!

 Daddy did a great job getting all the lights on the tree. 

Adam got to be our Bumble this year.  

 Yay-Mommy was there too!

 Reading our stocking notes.

 After all the decorations were up, we enjoyed our traditional cinnamon rolls and eggnog. 

We are ready for the season and can't wait to get started on all of our fun activities that we have planned for December!

Decorating with Ma and Pa

Yesterday we went to Ma and Pa's house to help them decorate for Christmas. All the kids still come home for Christmas to decorate. We listened to our favorite Christmas decorating music- John Denver and the Muppet's, had our traditional Christmas decorating dinner-Mango Salsa Soup (Tessa had Mac and Cheese), and had our traditional decorating dessert-hot chocolate, eggnog, and donuts. 

 Adam and Tessa loved decorating the tree and wasted no time once we arrived!

 Everyone got busy fluffing the branches. We are still some what confused as to why we live in Utah and have a fake tree, when we always had a real tree when we lived in California. 

Gwen was not a fan of the prickly branches. She doesn't like touching Uncle Ben's spiky hair either.  

 Matt, Ben, and Katy all tried to distract Gwen with some kid friendly ornaments. She only wanted to play with the dangerous ones. 

 She was not happy about being the Star.

 Tessa did a great job decorating!

 Uncle Danny had fun plotting another way to tease Tessa and her cat, Lucky. He had already pretended to hang Lucky with a string of Christmas lights, and then pretended to run Lucky over with a car. At first, Tessa was not amused, but the video he made with the car made her bust up laughing. I told my brothers they were going to have to pay for Tessa's therapy someday. 

 Tessa got to put the star on top of the tree. 

 Adam was a good decorator as well. 

 Aunt Gillian was nice enough to hold onto the kids while they made sure the back of the tree got some decorations. 

 Gwen did lots of walking! She is getting better everyday!

Eggnog and donuts!!