Ice Skating

On Christmas eve we went ice skating. Annelise has wanted to try this for a long time. Good thing we never went sooner. She has no balance on ice skates. Brian basically held her up and skated her around the entire time. It took them about ten minutes to make it around the rink one time, but it didn't matter. Annelise absolutely loved every minute of her ice skating time.

Dinosaur Jammies

I bought these pjs on clearance last January thinking they were a little too "boyish" for Annelise. Then this fall PBS came out with the new kids show Dinosaur Train and my kids fell in love with everything dinosaurs. The dinosaur jammies were a big hit this Christmas!

SLB party

Brian took Annelise and Nathan to the kids Christmas party this morning while Lily and I went shopping. Annelise loved riding the pony and Nathan was thrilled to participate this year riding the train a few times and jumping in the bounce house.

Self Portrait

Annelise drew this picture and said, "Look Mommy. I drew myself. I even made a neck and a tummy." My favorite part of her picture is that she has ten fingers and four toes.

Winter Lily

Here she is sporting her winter clothing and sucking her favorite fingers. Lily is 7 months old today!

Snow!!!

Yesterday it snowed in Houston. Enough to cover the grass. Annelise and Nathan were sooo excited to play in it. This is Annelise making her first snowball ever. Since she only lived in Illinois her first year of life, to her this was her first experience with snow. Notice she is not equipped to play in the snow very long. We don't own much winter clothing. I loved how each time she threw a snowball she yelled, "Hiyah!"

Annelise's nativity scene

I put this nativity set down low where the kids could play with it this year. Annelise played with it the first day I had it out and gave it this new formation. Every time she plays with the set it ends up like this. I think it makes perfect sense.

Kite Flying

Annelise got this ladybug kite for her birthday and we finally took it out and flew it Thanksgiving week when Brian had work off. We went to the playground at the elementary school behind our house and flew it there. It was so fun! I don't think Brian and I had flown a kite since we were kids.

Go Cougars!

BYU wins this years rivalry in overtime (15) BYU 26, (19) Utah 23. Thankfully my superfan husband got to watch this one and I know he'll be home in a few minutes on some sort of natural football high. I really think the best gift I could get him this year would be a new tv and the college sports package on satellite. Too bad that's not what he's getting for christmas, but I'm definitely going to keep it in mind for the near future.....

Black Friday

We've only tried shopping the Black Friday deals once a few years ago and decided it wasn't worth it. But today Lily woke up at 5:30 am, so off she and I went to Kohls. It was awesome! I found everything I was looking for-including the truck I wanted for Nathan that I thought was sold out that I later found discarded in the women's sleepwear section. Since I had store credit I ended up spending nothing, got two dollars back, and left with more Kohls cash. Oh, and I even got a really good parking space. Today completes my christmas shopping, and I can look forward to the next month without buying worries. I've never been done this early...yeah!

2 year old funny stuff

Nathan is by far our funniest kid right now. Most everything he does and says is pretty cute. We spent yesterday painting our master bedroom, so we slept on an air mattress in the family room. We put the kids to bed tonight and an hour later when we went to check on them we found Nathan asleep not in his room, but on the air mattress that is still out. Funny kid-your bed is definitely more comfortable than a sinking air mattress!

Sitting Up

Almost missed posting this milestone. A week and a half ago Lily figured out how to sit up on her own. She was pretty happy about it. Now she loves to sit and thinks tummy time is only for sleeping. That attitude won't help her learn to crawl, but that's ok. She just can't get into much trouble yet.

Sister Help

Annelise is great at helping Lily. She loves to try and entertain her. Today she wanted to help Lily by giving her toys, so she dumped the entire baby toy bin out on her.

Car Room

Nathan's car themed bedroom is finally done! This was our first project in a long time and it feels great to have one finished. The kids are having a fun time driving their cars on the walls. Thanks to Brian for helping me paint at night while the kids slept and putting the bed together last night by himself. For anyone who loves before and after pics, there wasn't much to to show before we painted. His room was empty and had a mattress on the floor. See before picture here.

Happy Halloween

This year we had a cheerleader, a tiger, and a pumpkin. Annelise and Nathan had a great time trick or treating in the neighborhood and battling over who got to ring or knock on the door first. Since Nathan can't walk as fast, he was constantly saying, "No 'E' (Annelise) my turn!"

Happy Birthday Nate!

From 1 to 2!

What a difference a year makes when you're little. Some of Nathan's greatest accomplishments this year include: walking, talking, and growing hair that sticks straight up no matter what length it is. Sometimes it seems like Nathan has been two for a long time, but I think that is just because he isn't the baby. Today was his big birthday and he loved it. Almost every present this year had wheels and he was so happy about it. I'm not sure he needs anything for Christmas now. We took the kids to the Children's Museum last night to celebrate and did presents, cake, and pumpkin carving today.

At the Children's Museum.

This month Nathan's favorite game to play is "lawnmower". He made it up himself and used the doll stroller as the lawnmower. He insisted on always wearing shorts with pockets so that he could stuff little bits of toilet paper in the pockets. We all quickly realized he did this to look like Brian because Brian shoves trash bags in his pockets when he mows our lawn. While we're glad that he used the doll stroller for "boy play" the toy lawn mower was an easy birthday present choice. We must love him a lot to have purposefully brought an extremely loud and obnoxious toy into our home.

Pumpkin Patch

This morning we went to a local pumpkin patch. Annelise picked out a big one to carve later and for whatever reason Nathan decided to pick a much smaller one. We also bought a little one for each kid. As soon as we got home, Nathan and Annelise had fun decorating the pumpkins with these cute little stickers.

Sweet Baby

Lily at 4 months

Lily's latest accomplishments: rolling onto her stomach, grabbing toys, and laughing! And no it isn't cold here. She's wearing the hat to protect her head from her scratching hands.

Dance Day

Annelise's very first dance class started today. I think we both have been looking forward to this for weeks as we shopped around town looking for the right leotard, tights, tap and ballet shoes. She had an absolute blast! She told us and showed us all about it for the rest of the night. Here she is right before class as I made my last attempt at teaching her how to distinguish the right tap shoe from the left.

Cave Formations

What is that you ask? A home grown cave formation. On our Mount Timpanogos tour the guide told us we could make our own cave formations using a piece of cement and covering it in vinegar. So we tried it and got this nice result.

(20)BYU 14, (3)Oklahoma 13

College football: BYU beats Oklahoma

This one is for Brian and BYU superfans everywhere.

Bugs

Last night during one of Annelise's talking spells she tells me, "I do know one thing. Bugs go to Heaven through the toilet."

Utah Vacation

We're back from our trip to Utah. Despite continual illnesses we had a blast and can't believe how much we managed to do with three kids. After looking through our pictures it looks like we missed capturing a lot of stuff, but here are some our favorite pics that we do have-enjoy!

Annelise and Ruffles reunited! Walking to one of the Daybreak parks with Gpa to play.

Playing at the park with Grandma Eldredge.

Lily and Grandpa Eldredge.
Visiting Hill Airforce Base museum.

Brian took these girls to the Hogle Zoo one day. Annelise was so excited to visit a zoo that had penguins.

Apparently, she also liked the lion water fountain. Brian thinks there is a picture of him doing the same thing in this fountain when he was a kid. What do you think Eldredges. Can anyone confirm this story?
Gpa taking Annelise for a ride on a bike without training wheels. Notice how he had to hold the bike up the whole way.
Nate helping Uncle Ryan with the umbrella. There was a little rain right before the BBQ to celebrate Ryan and Katie's upcoming wedding, but fortunately it stopped just in time and we all got to eat as much Cafe Rio (catered) as we wanted!

Brian having a little fun being a kid again at Grandpa Cronquist's 80th birthday party.
Lily with her awesome Aunt Kaili-aka The World's Best Babysitter

Nathan and Uncle Sean. Nathan really misses Sean already. He walks around our house just saying Sean's name.

Our family all dressed up for Ryan and Katie's wedding.

We hiked to Timpanogos cave one day towards the end of our trip. Thanks to my family for making this possible with our kids. Brian used a baby carrier to get Lily up and down. And fortunately for Nathan, Gpa carried him all the way up the mountain on his shoulders-then carried him all the way down the mountain in his arms while Nathan slept. Nana and Kaili walked with Annelise and Sean was kind enough to walk next to me since I seem to have developed a fear of heights in the last 11 years. I know I hiked to Timp cave at 16 and had no problems, but now it seems to make me physically ill-parental anxiety?-I don't know.

We enjoyed the tour once we got to the cave. Annelise surprised all of us towards the end of the tour when the tour guide asked if anyone had any questions and she raised her hand. The tour guide called on her and she asked, "Do any dragons live in here?" On our last night Annelise had a "camp in" with Nana and Gpa. She loves the idea of camping. Thanks everyone for making our vacation so much fun! It was great to see all of you!