First Grade Love Update

Yesterday I was teasing Sophia about her boyfriend Judson. She said "he's not my boyfriend". I affirmed that was right and that she was too young to have a boyfriend. She then said "Rees is my boyfriend. Judson likes me but I really like Rees." I had no idea such love triangles existed in first grade! I love how it keeps getting so complicated.

Christmas Past is Passed

I think it's safe to say we had a visit (or two) from Santa this year! The day started off great. I thought it would be fun to have everyone sleep in the basement but Doug and I were the only ones who ended up there. Sophia was too afraid that she'd see Santa so she opted for her bed.

Here's the girls checking out the stash Santa left.

The classic stair picture.

Both of these pictures turned out so well. I can't decide which one I like better. At least Mabel was totally cooperative for both of them.

Here's the stockings. I totally did not have time to make on for Mabel this year. Doug threw in one of his socks with a piece of candy in it and a Post-it with her name on it at the last minute. Poor third child.

When did my baby become this little girl?! She's changing so much!

Here's Doug with his Paper Jamz. He really wanted a guitar this year but I told him I didn't have time to get one and this was the best I could do.Luckily I have a brother who is amazing and let us have an old one they weren't using any more. Doug loved it (and it was fun to trick him)! (Side note: I love the Twinkie shirt Doug has on. It says "It's whats on the inside that counts."I got an awesome pair of slippers and some Toms! I told Doug that was all I wanted this year. He did a great job picking them out and even picked the color I would have chosen!

Here's the aftermath.

I'm not sure if she's sad because the unwrapping is over or because Santa didn't bring her what she wanted.After church we headed to my parents for some more fun present (and stocking) opening.

My parents completely spoiled my girls! You can't see it very well but they gave them this awesome princess tower that is as tall as Lilly. You can see if better in the picture at the top of this post.

Here's all the princesses. Lilly loves them and was completely disinterested in opening any other gifts.

My mom gave Mabel this super cute and cozy blanket that she quickly discovered was perfect for putting your fingers through.

Sophia got this really fun bubble bath basket that had this cute princess towel in it.

After my parents we headed to Doug's parents for more present opening.

After all the fun and excitement (and yummy food!) there we went to my brother Dylan's for some delicious prime rib and even more gifts (his family had our family for presents this year). Lilly got these awesome red sparkly shoes

And Sophia got these beautiful pink ones. Doug and I got Brian Reagan tickets. We can't wait! Thanks again guys!

Sophia and Lilly also got these beautiful porcelain dolls from my mom. They love them!Doug's brother had our family and they gave the girls this awesome house that they can color. This picture does not show how big this house really is. It's about 5 feet tall and honestly takes up about half of the room. The girls are so in love with it!

He also gave us this fun game. We've seen it but have never tried it. The girls love it and we're excited to use it more when it warms up!

This little one had fun outside too while everyone was playing. She enjoyed eating some snow

and mud.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We know we certainly did!

Happy Christmas Eve and Such

We've had such a fun time getting ready for Christmas this week! Most of this has included spending a lot of fun time with cousins! On Thursday we got to go to BYU to my dad's lab to see his pigeons and learn about the studies he does with them.Sophia loved having a turn holding Frank the pigeon.The other night we got all bundled up (I can't get enough of Lilly's hat) and headed to Spanish Fork for the... This one was definitely our favorite.After that we came home to make a gingerbread house.Unfortunately it only lasted a few minutes before it turned into this.
Yesterday we took advantage of our Pass of all Passes and took the kids mini golfing at Trafalga. It was kind of a nightmare. Mabel was definitely too little to go and Lilly cried every time she didn't make it in the hole on the first try.Here's Mabel stealing everyone's balls out of the hole.Here's a cute princes that decided to grace us with her presence. For some reason she looks really weird in this picture. She refuses to wear anything besides dresses and skirts these days and I love the addition of the purse.We also took a quick minute to watch the cool 4D movie they had going on. It was pretty great!
Last night we made the fun snowflake tortillas that were on Our Best Bites. The girls had a blast with that.This is random but I always like to take a picture of the cards we receive during the month. Thanks for thinking of us everyone!

This morning we went to my parents house for a yummy Christmas breakfast provided by Jeff and Lexie. They also gave Doug this awesome Gun Mug. I love it!

This is just a cute random shot of Lilly on the way to Grandmas.

After that we went to Doug's parents for a yummy lunch. We also got to celebrate December birthdays. We also got to find out a big surprise. Back in August Doug's parents gave us a challenge of "walking" a certain amount of miles (they wanted to walk a certain distance to a certain place - the surprise) as a family. Our family had walk about 432 miles. We could also get "miles" for going to the temple, having Family Home Evening and reading the whole Book of Mormon. We finished a few weeks ago and were glad to meet our goal! Here's grandma with our big surprise.

The kids could not wait to see what it was.

Here's Lilly just waiting in anticipation.They finally opened the box and here's what came out (it's balloons with Disney characters on it)They figured out that the surprise was a trip to Disneyland and they were all so excited! Here's Sophia's happy face.And more happy faces.They also gave all the kids Disney jammies which they were pretty excited about.This doesn't really have anything to do with anything but we thought it was cute that she found this drink and could not get enough. I love this baby!Anyway, it really was a great Christmas Eve and we are SO grateful to Doug's parents for the fun surprise. We can't wait to go!

Shelly's Wedding!

Warning: This post is mainly for my sisters so sorry if there's too many boring wedding details. At the beginning of the week I was lucky enough to escape the kids for a few days and head to sunny Arizona for my cousin Shelly's wedding. It was such a great time and I'm so glad I got to go! The night before we met up at the temple to see the lights. It was so cool to see how they did them up in the palm trees!Here's my cute nieces, nephews, cousins (and cousin's roommate) at the lights.Me and Lexie at the lights. My brother had to stay back at the hotel to do some class work so she was nice enough to let me hang out with her!

My cute nieces and nephews.

The cool lighted wise men and camels.

The actual wedding day was beautiful! We got to go to the temple early and do a session before the sealing. It was really neat. Here's her cute bridesmaids. The one in the middle is her older sister. I always thought that she was like Sophia and that Shelly (the one who got married) was like Lilly. I totally love their outfit choices! They're colors were teal, red and candy apple green. I love it!

Here's the happy couple.

Isn't she beautiful!? I love her bouquet too. It had these really cool teal jewels in the roses and fiddle head ferns. I love those! If I had known about them when I got married they totally would have been in my bouquet.

Here's the gorgeous temple. It really was a beautiful day!After the ceremony we headed over to the luncheon. It was at the prettiest place! Here's Jeff and Lexie in the courtyard.

Later that night they had the reception. It was so beautiful! Every little detail was so fun! Here's the cake.

And some of the food. They had bread bowls in the suitcase on the table with delicious soups.

There was also a sweet stop which was really cute. I love the look of the bench and chairs on the table. So fun!

Here's a close up of the books on the bench. So cute!They also put all these cute frames on the table that they served the treats on. I thought that was a super fun touch.

This picture is kind of blurry but here's my cute dad dancing with the bride. Her dad passed away a few years ago so my dad got to sit in for the dance. It was really sweet. If you look at her cute groom in the background you can see his awesome green shoes. His trademark is that he always wears green sneakers so he made sure to have snakeskin green shoes for his wedding. All of his groomsmen had matching pairs as well.Cute picture of the cute couple.

I thought it was pretty cute to put their presents under the tree.

They also had a hot chocolate bar which was pretty fun.

And then they left through a parade of sparklers and floating Chinese lanterns.Overall it was so fun and so beautiful and I'm glad I got to go! I was especially glad to see my grandma and bring back some of her delicious citrus!