Christmas 2012

Christmas was seriously so fun this year with a toddler in our house.  I think this is the most excited I've been about Christmas in a long time--the excitement of seeing Aurora's reaction to everything was the biggest highlight of all!

We really had a wonderful Christmas, and hope you all did too!  We decided a while back that we're done traveling for Christmas, which means we didn't make it up to see my family for Christmas, even though they're only 1.5 hour drive away.  We plan to get up to see them soon though!  I seriously LOVED being home Christmas morning and being able to open presents at our house.  We've been married for almost 7.5 years and I think this is the first time it really felt like our family Christmas just because we got to have Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house, ya know?  I'm all for doing it again ;)

So, here we go with the gazillion pictures.  Enjoy!

Christmas Eve

Dar made Christmas waffles for breakfast.  Delish!  And you can never go wrong with making waffles for our little munchkin (as long as you use soy milk!)

 We made some Christmas goodies: this candy cane popcorn recipe is a must-do-again!

And Aurora watched some TV upside-down.  I guess it's better that way?

 

When we were kids, my dad used to take us swimming Christmas Eve and it's one tradition we want to continue on with our own kids.  Aurora loves the pool, so it was a huge hit, especially because we haven't been to the pool in a while.

After swimming we got ready to have dinner with Dar's family--they only live 5 minutes away so I guess that doesn't count as traveling ;)

Aurora and "Janna" munching on pomegranate seeds.  Delish!

Babs occupied herself while we were waiting for dinner
 

 
After dinner we hurried home to set out milk and cookies for Santa!


Christmas Day
Santa came!
 

Aurora and I woke up and watched TV for a bit while we waited for Daddy to wake up

Then we opened presents!  (Don't judge our looks, it was Christmas morning :)




Before heading back to Gamma and Bampa's for brunch and more presents we had to take our traditional family picture

Me and my sugar dumpling sharing a Christmas smooch

At Gamma and Bampa's:
Aurora loves nativities!  Especially Baby Jesus :)

 Our cutie in her darling Christmas outfit I've been waiting all year to put her in!
 
Opening more presents!



Some of the gifts Aurora got this year

I love watching her play and interact with her toys.  She loved getting tons of princess stuff this year.  Princesses and Minnie Mouse are always a big hit at our house!
 
We didn't get a picture of Aurora visiting Santa at the mall, but who needs one when your very own Grandpa looks like Santa!  This is seriously one of my favorite pictures of the whole week.  Love you three!!!

 

Merry Christmas to you all!  We hope yours was a wonderful as ours was!

P.S.  I didn't a picture of it, but I wanted to publicly thank my BFF, Tracee, for your very thoughtful gift.  You totally made me cry, and I'm so grateful to have yet another physical reminder of my babies, especially our sweet Nastassia who gets to spend every Christmas with Jesus :)  It was just what I needed, especially because of the tough moments this Christmas season when I'd think about her and knew I couldn't have her with me.  Thanks again, Trace!! You're the best!!!!  Hope you know how much I love you and appreciate your friendship.  I don't know what I'd do without you!!!

Merry Christmas!

I've watched this beautiful video several times in the last few weeks and it always brings tears to my eyes.  I thought I'd be selfish to not share it because Jesus Christ is what Christmas is really all about.  I can't help but think that "Christ-mas" just means "more Christ."  We all need more Christ in our lives, no matter where we are in our journey.  I have certainly been trying to focus more on the birth and life of my Savior this Christmas season, especially as I try to teach our sweet Aurora why we celebrate Christmas and why it is so special.  



How grateful I am for my Savior, Jesus Christ, especially during this Christmas season when we celebrate His birth. I often think of how neat it would be to meet and talk to Mary, His mother, to see what it was like to raise the Son of God.  What an amazing woman she was to have that privilege and enormous responsibility!  I hope we all remember our Savior during Christmas this week--remember the reason we give gifts at Christmas is to remind us of all the countless gifts and blessings we receive because of His birth, life, and atoning sacrifice for each of us personally.

Merry Christmas!!

For more great Christmas videos to remind us of what Christmas is really all about, click here.

"Punkin Eats" and thoughts from the Munchkin

**I'm playing catch-up, so make sure you at least glance at the pictures from the two posts below this one too :)**

Aurora is such a hoot lately.  She cracks us up all the time with the little things she's doing.  Today's funny was definitely a humdinger!

One of Aurora's favorite treats is baked pumpkin seeds.  We still have a bag we're working on eating from the pumpkins we grew in the garden this year.  Today while I was working on the dishes she was snacking on "punkin eats" and watching Punzel.  I wasn't paying close attention to her (I didn't know I needed to!) when all of a sudden I hear her saying, "Owie.  Owie" and rubbing her nose.  I immediately knew what she had done--sure enough I looked up her nose and could barely see the pumpkin seed she had shoved up her left nostril.

I calmly brought her to my room, laid her on the bed and told her she had to hold really still so I could pull the pumpkin seed out with the tweezers.  She laid still like a champ and I pulled the seed out on the first try.  I still can't believe how far she shoved it up there.  Little stinker.  But what joy and laughter she brings to our lives at the same time.  Love you, Rori Girl!

Her expression in this picture is how I felt today when the "punkin eats" incident took place

Here are some other things of note from the munckin recently:
*A week ago Aurora counted from 1-6 all by herself while I was changing her diaper.  I'm not sure if it was a fluke yet because she couldn't do it again in the right order when I asked her to, although she frequently will count backwards from 3 to 1.  One of her fav's when she's playing with her toys is to play: "3, 2, 1. . . Blast Off!!"  Thanks, Little Einsteins!

*She will look up, half roll her eyes in a very thoughtful manner, and say: "How 'bout. . . Snowman!" when she wants us to sing "Once there was a snowman."  This happens most frequently at the dinner table :)

*She is definitely her Daddy's daughter when she asks to watch "Space," meaning Star Trek.  We've been watching the original series together, and we're on season 2 so far.  She likes to sing the theme song at the beginning and end of each episode and she's getting better at saying "Space" before Captain Kirk does at the beginning of each episode.  It really is pretty cute, and we don't mind that we're nerds like that :)

*She can climb up into her high chair and buckle herself in, all by herself!

*We have a package of the Crayola twistable crayons, and Aurora ate an entire purple crayon last week when I was out of the room for 5 (maybe 10) minutes.  Little stinker.  I'm surprised her poop didn't come out purple!

*She has a favorite baby, a Cabbage Patch doll she lovingly calls "Baby," that has to do pretty much everything she does.  Baby gets to have her diaper changed, get "bum medicine", sit at the table with us to eat breakfast, Baby has a blanket that matches Aurora's special blanket (i.e. the burp cloth that matches her blanket), and Baby even gets to wear Aurora's socks when her feet are cold!  Baby should definitely feel loved with all the kisses she gets from Aurora too.  She loves that doll!

*She loves to take baths with the shower water running, and she'll play in the water until her fingers and toes turn to raisins.

*For some reason right now she thinks it's pretty hilarious to watch me put my contacts in and take them out at night.  She gets the biggest kick out of it and has such a goofy laugh when she watches me.  Silly girl :)

*She always notices when someone is sad, even on TV, and wants to give them a hug.

*Aurora has been hugging everything lately: Pictures she sees on my phone, her "tiny" broccoli at lunch yesterday, her grapes at lunch today, all of her toys, baby Vannah in Mommy's tummy, and of course us :)

*She always has to pray for Daddy when he's not home with us.  Daddy is who she talks to on the phone the most when she's playing.  She sure loves that amazing Daddy of hers!  I don't blame her one bit!!

*When she has heard a pretty song, usually one that's just instrumental or sounds like one we sing at church, she will immediately fold her arms and ask if it's time to pray.

*Last week she was using a new wand she got from Daddy's trip to the dentist to lead music; she'd lead the music for a few seconds and then say: "Mom, pray,"  She'd then proceed to say: "Dear Fadder. . . Amen!" and do it all over again.  This went on for a good 5 minutes.  I'm glad she likes to pray so much :)

*Her favorite book for us to read to her at night right now is "One Fish, Two Fish."  She picks it for us to read every night.  It's a long book, so sometimes we might skip a few pages.  She also puts in requests for songs when I sing to her.  I love that she's singing along with me sometimes now too.  Sweet girl.

*She calls the Christmas tree "Rori Kimmas" and we have to have the lights on at all times when she's awake.  We also have to drive around the neighborhood at night before we go home to see all the lights.

Annual Leaf Cleanup

Gamma and Bampa have lots of trees at their house.  Needless to say, there's always loads of leaves to be racked in the autumn time and we love having the opportunity to help clean them up!  Dar had some extra time off over Thanksgiving and the weather was so nice that we ended up doing our annual leaf cleanup party then.  Rori and Daddy always have fun playing in the leaves together.  They're certainly two peas in a pod!

Silly kids :)

Surprised about something I can't remember.  Love the face though!

Good grief I love this girl!!


I could post a zillion pictures.  Seriously.

She was getting a kick out of throwing the leaves on Daddy's face :)
 Dar stomping the leaves down in the truck so we could pile more on top

Part of our cleanup included branch removal from the nice snow storm we got a couple weeks before Thanksgiving.  I love that you can barely see Dar behind the willow branch :)
 

We love living close to Gamma and Bampa.  Being able to work in the yard is one thing we love doing together, and we're glad to help them out too!

And just for kicks, here's a picture of our little sweetie in the leaves from last year's cleanup party:

Park City

This short trip was actually over a month ago, but with not being able to upload pictures and Aurora taking shorter naps now-a-days I've fallen behind in my blogging.  I'm hoping to get all caught up on my blogging before the end of the year.  I guess it helps that we haven't had too many exciting things going on around here so I don't have too much to catch up on :)

Darwin is part of a group of teachers from his school district that meet about once a month or so to discuss teaching and other concerns teachers come across.  For their November conference spouses were invited to go stay in Park City with them.  We were the only ones who brought our kid (they didn't really want kids up there, but since she's just a toddler we were allowed to bring her).  We kind of have this weird thing about not liking to leave Aurora for long periods of time, so it was an adventure for me for sure!  Darwin was in meetings for the good part of both days we were up there so I had the challenge of occupying our toddler without the comfort of home, no DVD player, and no Disney Junior channel.  It was an exciting challenge for sure!  She and I did some shopping the second day we were there but we spent a good amount of time entertaining ourselves in the hotel room around Dar's meetings and nap time both days.

Beautiful scenery driving up Provo Canyon to Park City
 

 It was nice to have fairly fresh snow to make the drive so beautiful!

Unfortunately the sun was just right that it was in Aurora's eyes a good part of the drive up.  We tried the best we could to keep her eyes shaded but she was cracking us up with her own techniques :)

Steam coming off Deer Creek Reservoir - so pretty!

Luckily Dar was able to get Rori and I checked into the hotel early so I could try to get her down for a nap, which worked out perfectly! Dar got all his meals provided, but Rori and I were on our own.  This picture of her at lunch cracks me up too :)

Aurora and I spent some time entertaining ourselves by taking a gazillion goofy pictures of ourselves in the hotel room while we were waiting for Dar to get done with his meetings.

Dar got done with his meetings and we took Aurora swimming before going out to dinner with the group

My cuties trying to get warm in the hot tub

 

The water was warm but the air in the pool area was pretty cold.  Look at the snow outside behind them!  Brr!!

 We don't have a pack-n-play, so with having two queen beds we improvised and made sure Aurora wouldn't fall off the bed during the night.  I sure hope she was cozy . . . she definitely looked like she was!

 Rori entertaining herself with one of our phones as we were packing up to head home.

 We turned the heat down in our house while we were gone for just overnight.  Before we got home Dar and I took bets to see who had the closest guess as to what the temperature was going to be.  I don't remember who won (I think it was me, haha) but either way, it was COLD in our house!!

 

It was a fun little trip to get away for a night, but I don't know if Aurora and I will go up to Park City with him for his conference again.  We like our routine at home :)