Christmas!

Christmas Eve and Christmas were busy for our family. We started a new Christmas Eve tradition and made tamales for dinner. Michael was busy all day with the preparations. Yum!

The evening of Christmas Eve Jessica watched the new Christmas movie Prep and Landing (ABC - it's too funny) with her Uncle Jon, we went to the temple visitors center and listened to a presentation about the Savior, made cookies for Santa, and read the Christmas story.

We finished off Christmas Eve by opening our PJs from Grandma and Papa Hales - Thanks! Who doesn't LOVE getting new pajamas?!

Christmas morning began with the stockings. Jessica had a ridiculous haul just from that. It's too easy to find fun things for that girl. Chandler was thrilled with his new binkies. :)

Opening the rest of the presents...

The favorite toy of the day had to be Chandler's remote control airplane from G&G Hales. Jessica also loved making a crazy amount of noise on her new recorder. Don't you just love her face in the bottom left picture? That is pure Jessica. :)

And in case we missed you, here was our Christmas card for the year. Merry Christmas!

P.S. If you didn't receive a card from us in the mail feel free to send me an email (laurageese@gmail.com) with your address for next year. There's a good chance I didn't have an up to date address for you.

December so far...

Here's a run-down of what we've been up to this month:

We discovered open gym at the local rec center.


Jessica wrote a letter to Santa asking for "musical instruments." Well, she told me what to write and she decorated it with stickers and drawings about naughty monsters. Silly kid.


We made Christmas cookies.


Jessica and Michael got down with their bad selves. :)


I had a b-day (25!).
FYI - The New Moon poster was a gag gift. I like the books; the movies... not as much.


Chandler got into his Mommy's magazines, just like another little baby a few years back.


Chandler mastered the art of crawling... sort of.


Christmas post to come soon...

He's Crawling (Kind Of)

I took Chan with me to teach the Deacons today and ended up setting him down to play while I expounded on the mysteries of womanhood. To my surprise, he got down and started crawling military-style over to me. Looks like our little guy is finally going to be mobile.

The Car Wash!

The car's needed a good cleaning the last month, but with the temperature jumping between -14 and 28 degrees, we weren't very motivated. So I took Jessica too the car wash yesterday and she had a blast.

New Talents

Nope, he's still not crawling... but Chandler has developed another very exciting talent. :)

Spaghetti

Chandler has discovered a new favorite food.

That smile makes the clean-up so worth it.

First (real) haircut

Jessica has had lots of haircuts, but only done by me. We've had varied results. :) It was time to get it done for real. So we went to Great Clips this morning (I know, not a "salon" like the picture says, but good enough for now). She was a little scared, but did good enough for a lolly-pop at the end. Wow, she is getting big!

Thanksgiving

We did our own little Thanksgiving this year rather than travel since Michael didn't get much time off. It definitely would have been nice to see everyone, but Michael and I both agreed that it was lots of fun with just our little group as well. No question that it was an improvement over last year. We enjoyed Cornish game hens (prepared superbly by Michael), mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, crescent rolls, fresh veggies, green olives (tradition for Michael's family), sparkling cider, and chocolate pecan pie for dessert.

Michael was the master chef.

Chandler was lovin' it.

Can you believe the size of that bird compared to her?!

I think this leg is all the meat she ate of it though.

I was loving it as well. (Please forgive the "natural" face and hair) :)

And no, I didn't eat that whole thing either. I felt so blessed that day to be with my little family enjoying all of the blessing we have been given. The word "thankful" doesn't even seem sufficient.

Thank You!

It would have been a hard night for Michael if BYU didn't pull this off in OT.

End of the Season

The football season that is. But before BYU plays its last regular season game, we were lucky enough to get tickets for the BYU/Air Force game from 2 partners at Michael's firm. Here's Jessica saying, "thanks Lance and Jarin."

We got Jessica all bundled up and headed to the game. As you know, there tends be lots of music at football games and Jessica gets into it. I'm not entirely sure, but it looks like someone may have taught her the robot.

It was a really fun day at the game, despite being so cold. I actually spent most of it in the car with Chandler trying to get him to take a nap. After the game, Michael hopped on a flight to LA so he could get his driving record for his Nevada bar application (long story... not one I'm happy about). The kids and I spent the weekend with my parents in Salt Lake before driving home on Monday afternoon. Although we wandered Temple Square I failed to take any pictures.

Chandler's First Haircut

Chandler has been needing a haircut for a little bit now. Nothing drastic, but his hair was over his ears sometimes and it was longer in the back than I liked.

So we pulled out the scissors and went to it.


I don't think he has wiggled and splashed in the tub so much in his entire life. Silly kid.


At least the worst parts are now under control.

Chicky-Dawn

I've kind of been on a craft kick lately. I saw a free (my favorite part) pattern for these cute Black Apple Dolls. Click here for pattern. So cute. Luckily this was a super fast project and Jessica is IN LOVE with her new doll. She named her Chicky-Dawn. We just call her Dawn.

Big Buildings

Yesterday I took the kids downtown for an open gym time at the Rec Center. As we got out of the car Jessica looks up at the building next to us. "Wow Mommy! That is a really big tall building!" I look over:

Really? This is what has become a "really big tall building" to her? Oh dear.

It's Done!

A few weeks back I became OBSESSED with this project. I couldn't believe it. Isn't that the most adorable little playhouse EVER!? Seriously... obsessed. I was determined to make one for the kiddos.

I measured like a maniac on our card table. I took a big roll of newsprint and sketched exactly what I wanted (which basically meant I drew a smaller version of the playhouse I fell in love with). Then I measured again to figure out how much felt (the fabric type I used) I'd need. Then I waited for the felt to come on sale at the craft store. Fine... I went to the craft store fully expecting to pay full price. Heck, I even got up to the register with my cut cloth fully expecting to pay full price. Thank goodness for totally unadvertised sales.

But you don't care about all this. The point is... it's done!!! It took WAY less time than a project of this magnitude should take a good mother. Let's just say that nap time for Chandler turned into quiet time for Jessica. It's a trade-off, right? Here it is - the playhouse!


I thought about putting an actual door on the playhouse, like the one I fell in love with. But that just seemed too dark and too likely to get ripped off.

The mail box comes complete with a few pieces of mail.

The big window side has a window box with flowers that can be removed. I followed the directions from the other playhouse.


The last two sides are my favorite. The garden has corn, lettuce, and carrots that can be removed. Again, look at the inspiration site for extra info.


The tree/dog side is fun too. The apples on the tree come off as well and reattach with velcro. The dog is a copy-cat from this Etsy store. She actually makes and sells these types of playhouses. I can't believe her prices. I mean, the materials were super cheap, but when I count my time... no way I would sell these. No way. There's a bag next to the dog with removable bones to feed him.


The windows are lined with tulle, left over from Prom dresses years ago. I won't pretend that my version is NEARLY as cute as the inspiration, but I love it. I'm fully expecting it to only get a few minutes excitement from Jessica, but that's ok. I'm just glad it's done so I can be a good mommy again and finally clean the bathroom... ugh. :)

Halloween

Halloween was not the night we expected it to be. Jessica was super tired the whole time and after about 5 houses of trick-or-treating she was begging to go home. She fell asleep on our way back. Poor kid. Maybe next year. :)

What it was really like.

28 1/2

I have wanted to celebrate Michael's half birthday for FOREVER! But it's just one of those things I never remember when the timing is right. This year I remembered just a couple weeks beforehand. I kept it low-key: half a cake, hot cocoa for a present, and dinner at Chuck-a-Rama (Michael LOVES this place!). It was a fun night.