Arizona Before Christmas

 My parents offered to fly us out to AZ for Christmas because it would be the last time we were all together as a family for a few years, because my brother is going on a mission this next year. We jumped at the opportunity! We bought the cheapest tickets though, which means we left our house at 3:30am...... there was definitely sleeping on the plane. I've said it before, but I'll say it again-- my girls have AMAZING lashes.

 Charlotte's lashes are so long!!!

 All my siblings, all their spouses, my parents and my nephew were there! It was A BLAST!!!!!

 My nephew, Noni, just turned 2 and likes to throw tantrums. It made me laugh.

 The adults stayed up way too late talking.

 We all took turns cooking....

 and Matt cooked this up for me on my birthday. :) What a guy!

 Noni is so cute!

 Matt and my dad were busy planning something and had to draw it out. They were in builder mode.

 My brother slept in really late and didn't like my girls waking him up.

 My sister found a dead scorpion in her bathroom.

 Apparently my bro doesn't appreciate me snapping pictures of him!

 More cooking...and some food stealing as well. Who can resist Lydia though?

 Uncle Dan wrestled with children.

We like food. :)

December before Christmas

  As always, December was a busy month and we did lots of stuff before Christmas.

 We took lots of warm baths.

 Charlotte had her preschool Christmas concert.

 Nathalie had her kindergarten Christmas concert.

 

I got my haircut, for the first time in a really long time.

And we spent many quiet nights reading.

How do you make December less hectic? I feel like it's always totally crazy until about the 22nd, then everything slows way down. I do love the anticipation though!

New camera pics! So nice!

 Back in December I found a good deal on a nice camera on craigslist. It wasn't a dSLR but it was a nice point-and-shoot. Since we didn't have a camera, only our phones, I had been wanting one for a long time and I saved up all the money I had earned watching other people's kids. All $80. The woman had never used it and she gave it to me for $80, which included batteries and a 16GB SD card! All because she had lost the lense cap!

 I'm amazed at how amazing the pictures are, compared to my phone.

 The sharpness.

 The levels of detail.

 Later that day we went to a crab boil with friends and I got some good shots. Did you know the crabs are blue until you cook them?

 I tried taking pictures of the kids for our Christmas card. Some turned out well, others.....well....

 Charlotte was striking all sorts of poses for me!

 Look at those lashes!

I LOVE my new camera. It's exactly what I wanted and I got such a great deal.

Nitpicking

Literally.

Yep, you heard right. Yesterday I got The Call from the school nurse. Apparently Emily and Nan had been itching their heads like crazy. Nan didn't have lice, just dry scalp. But Emily.... she had nits. No live bugs yet, although if there are eggs, there should be at least one live bug, right? I had the nurse check Charlotte too, and Charlotte doesn't have lice, just cradle cap. Matt checked up and I'm clear, so it's just Emily.

So I brought her home (20 minutes after school started!) and bought the treatment (LiceMD) and spent the next few hours treating her hair, shampooing, nit picking, rinse, repeat. Today I'm vacuuming and laundering EVERYTHING. Tomorrow all of us girls (except Lydia) will get treated just in case, and every few days Emily will have to be retreated and her sheets laundered.

It really is the best case scenario here. But my head still feels super itchy now....

Words At Our House

-- Nathalie wouldn't stop talking at dinner one night and she kept interrupting every one over and over. Finally Matt said, "Nan, we need you to stop talking so we can hear your sisters! Why are you talking so much?" And Nathalie replied, "Because I like to talk Dad!"

--Also Nathalie. She has some really funny phrases that she says. When someone scribbles on a piece of paper, she says they "scribble scrabble". She calls all of the kids in her class "classmates" and she calls Lydia "goopy gupp" (I have no idea where she came up with that!) She was also singing the theme song to "Mickey Mouse Club" the other day (another thing I don't know where she learned it) and she was saying, "M-U-C-K-E-Y-L-O-U-S-E!" It took a little convincing before she understood what she was actually spelling!

--Lydia has been talking up a storm. She's really cute because she combines signs with words. At this point she can say: home, mama, mimi, daddy, doggy, goose, cow, cat, ow, up, uh-oh, help, done, down, uh-uh, go, ball, truck, car, duck, mine, and some things I can't remember. She can sign: more, all done, milk, juice, water, beautiful, please and she's learning cookie. She knows the animals sounds for: owl, goose, duck, cow, horse, donkey, doggy, fish, monkey, lion, tiger, elephant, bear, snake, bee. She points a lot and understands everything we're saying and will follow through when we ask her to do things (unless she doesn't want to, which is when she says, "uh-uh", shakes her head and runs away).

--Emily has been showing a lot of independence and awareness lately. A few nights ago we had friends over and she got in trouble for playing too rough with Lydia. She ran over to a chair and buried her face in it and said, "I'm so ashamed when I get in trouble in front of friends." It made me laugh because she was close, but not quite using the right word! So I taught her the difference between ashamed and embarrassed.

--Emily also loves to talk and explain things now. After church on Sunday, I asked her if she'd be willing to give a talk in Primary this next week. She looked at me and said, "Yes, but you have to give me the topic. Because I need to have time to prepare my talk." Such an adult statement coming from a little girl!

-- Charlotte is an absolute sassafrass right now. She has so much personality and likes to be in charge. (This seems to be a running theme with the women in our families....) But my favorite is that she will be playing with her sisters and then she'll say something like, "You're not listening to me! I'm not little! You need to make good choices!" (I talk about choices all the time!)

-- The other day Charlotte was running around the house with Nathalie and Emily. I don't remember what they were playing but Charlotte got very upset. Nan and Em tried to comfort her by saying, "It's okay Charlotte-- you're not as fast as us because you're smaller." And she replied, "I'm not smaller! It's not fair that you're winning all the time! When I get bigger I will beat you!"

These girls make my heart rejoice.

Outside Time

Winter here is wonderful. Most days it is in the high 50s, which is perfect hoodie weather. It does throw me off a bit because I'm so used to this kind of weather happening in April! The last few days have been in the 70s! I've gotten some good yard work in and prepped our yard and garden for growing things this year. I actually got hot this morning while I was raking and had to take off my jacket.

Anyway, we play outside a lot in the winter. These two videos are actually from November, when it was about 80 degrees, but we do most of our playing in the winter. During the summer it gets too hot, so we only go outside to go swimming.

We took a walk with friends who had a little puppy and she got tired, so Matt ended up carrying her.

And we play outside after school every day. Usually they ride bikes or draw with chalk, but sometimes it's making up stories and acting them out in the backyard or playing on a friend's trampoline. Today we're going to the park!