Random Pictures

Here's the latest of what we've been up to lately.  Here's a bunch of babies enjoying a football game on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

My mom bought these awesome snow suits for my nieces when they came to visit last month.  They didn't take them back with them so my mom passed them on to us.  We were pretty excited!  Thanks mom!

For FHE one night we went outside to play Fox and Geese.  We made it about 10 minutes before we were all freezing and had to come back inside.  

 But of course we weren't so cold that we couldn't make snow angels. 

For another FHE we talked about manners.  Doug found these awesome Manners Super Heroes on Sugardoodle and we did some role playing to see what super hero could save us in different situations.  I think it went pretty well and the girls are definitely making a better effort to be more polite. 

Sophia and Lilly wanted to create their own super heroes so Doug helped them out.  Lilly is "Loving Lilly" and Sophia is "Sincere Sophie".

 This is a random picture of one of Sophia's latest bedtime creations.  She loves to color while she gets sleepy instead of read.  Whatever works.

She also set up a beauty salon for her ponies the other day.

I love how they were all patiently waiting their turn in line.

Overall we've been having fun trying to stay warm and entertained.  It's been so cold, cloudy and miserable here that we're starting to go a little crazy.  Spring can't come soon enough!

New Years and the latest stuff

The picture above is a random shot of something Sophia created on the lite brite a few weeks ago. Not sure how it ended up at the top of this post but there it is.

Moving on.  We had a good New Year's Eve.  We went to Doug's sister's house for games and yummy food and then came home and had a small family celebration.  We poured everyone a little bubbly and then watched the ball drop live in New York (10 pm so we wouldn't have to stay up until Midnight!)

 Here's everyone counting down

 Mabel enjoyed her bubbly.

The next day Doug had the day off so we decided to take a trip up to Salt Lake.  We planned on going to the planetarium and a few other places but pretty much everything was closed so the planetarium was it!  We watched a little movie and then let the kids play around.  Here they are on Mars

 and the moon. 

 It was a fun day and nice to spend some time with dad before his busy season starts!

Now onto more random stuff.  Lilly's preschool played in the snow yesterday and she came home with these fun things.  A snowman (filled with real snow), a picture of our family having a snowball fight and her class in the snow.  I love her preschool.  They do the best stuff.  Her favorite from the day was they brought out the parachute and placed a ton of cotton balls on top.  The kids got to fling them in the air so that it looked like it was snowing. She said it was so fun.

Every Friday we let the kids choose where they want to sleep.  This time they picked the fold out couch in the living room.  Mabel refused to be left out so of course she had to sleep with them.

Last Sunday Sophia got to go to the baptism preview in our stake (so hard to believe she's getting baptized this year!).  They gave each of the kids a giant footprint cookie (it was seriously the size of the plate) with their name on it so that they can remember they're following Christ's footsteps by getting baptized.  She loved it.

Finally, I have 2 brothers who live in Charlotte who happened to go to the Jazz/Bobcats game last night.  After the game Stuart called us and waved to Sophia on the TV.  You can kind of see him to the left of the announcer.  She pretty much thought it was the greatest thing ever!  Thanks Stu!

A few of my favorite gifts

Just wanted to do a quick post about some of my favorite gifts from Christmas.  Doug gave me a picture he sketched of Mabel as a baby.  He's done sketches of our other kids baby pictures so it was nice to add this one to the collection.

 

Sophia gave me this darling calendar that she made in class.  I love it so much! Notice at the bottom it says "Created by the hands of Sophia".  I love it because each picture is literally made with her handprints!  How clever is that?!  Her teacher is the best.  

 

I was only going to show a few of the months but I couldn't decide which ones so I've just included them all. Here's a snowflake for January,

 A heart for February,

 4 leaf clover for March,

an umbrella for those April showers,

 cute flowers for May

 a butterfly for June

 a flag for July,

 a boat for August,

 a back to school apple for September,

 a scary spider for October,

 a cute Tom turkey for November

and a Christmas tree for December.

Her teacher is seriously amazing.  This is actually one of those gifts that I will keep forever! (not that I don't keep every last thing my kids give me).

Notes to Daddy

Sorry these are hard to see but I had to post some of the notes the girls have written Doug lately.  I love them. Lilly randomly handed him this one the other day.  I love how she spelled Dad.

 

This was all that was inside.  Just a picture she drew of the 2 of them.  Pretty much melted his heart.

 And here's a classic one from Sophia "Dear dad you are the best dad I could ever have you are so nise and kinduve grumpy but I don't minde."  Thanks Sophs.  You're a real champ.

Finally, this isn't a note from Sophia but something I found when I was going through her school stuff.  I guess she'd just read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and was trying to come up with a comparison.  The bottom got cut off but it said "This story reminds me of when I was born.  I had lots and lots of hair.  We kut it and now it is long. And I sometime tese my sister.  One time she got so mad that she sat on me".  I guess that explains what's going on in the picture.  She cracks me up!