December 2010 *lots of pictures*

I'm warning you right now there are a lot of pictures in this post, which surprises me cause I didn't feel like I took that many.  I guess it's just been a while since I updated.  The week of Christmas we got almost two feet of snow and we loved it! Unfortunately Spence still had to work, but while Daniel napped Lizzie and I went out to build a snowman.  Since the snow was nearly as tall as her I decided to shovel a maze through the yard where she could walk.  Her favorite part was eating the snow. :)

 

Getting ready to go out.

 I never got a picture of our awesome fort, but Lizzie spent most of the time getting stuck and asking for help.

 

 She LOVED the snowman!  She's a great helper when it comes to patting the snow to get it solid.

  

Our snowman, complete with what we had in the kitchen, broccoli eyes, celery nose, and a licorice smile.  The stupid rain melted him way too fast.

  

Daniel being happy, which he is a lot more now that he's getting enough food.

 We made gingerbread houses this year.  We had a kit in our Christmas stuff for two years and finally made it on a Sunday morning.  Sundays are usually our time with Spence and we loved every minute of it.

 Lizzie, obviously enjoying the icing and Daniel's foot on the side.

 The finished product.  I really liked the added licorice Spence used from our old Halloween candy.

 This is the gingerbread house we did when we went over to hang out with Meredith and Steve.  Ok, so Spence did nearly all of it, but still, look how cool it turned out!  We are definitely making gingerbread houses again next year.  Daniel was a stinker and we had to switch off who was holding him.

 Another random picture of Daniel just smiling.  He absolutely loves getting naked.  The minute he thinks you're going to change him, he starts grinning and laughing.  We usually take forever getting him ready for bed because we love making him laugh.

 

We celebrated Christmas with the Scanlon's on the 23rd.  It was great to be up there and just relax.  Spence loves being able to play games with his brothers.  The only downside was that we ended up running Lizzie to the instacare since she had a fever again.  Add another UTI to her list.  We're going in next week to see what further tests they want to do on her.  Aside from that we had tons of fun opening presents early and visiting.  Unfortunately I always forget to take pictures because Deanna (Spencer's mom) usually is.  I'll have to get better at that.  Then for Christmas Eve my Dad always reads Santa Mouse and The Night Before Christmas after we watch the nativity.  Lizzie was obsessed with the books. As soon as he put the books down she grabbed them.  We had to take them home in order to get her in the car.  She did not want to leave them.

 Lizzie showing off what Santa Mouse brought us...Twinkies and Cupcakes!  This was our breakfast.  Luckily my Dad actually made real breakfast when we got up there.

 Starting to open the stocking.  She was so glad Santa had finally come to our house.

 Showing off her Tinkerbell chapstick.  Tinkerbell is just one of her many obsessions right now.

 This is what Daniel liked about Christmas, eating.  Santa brought him formula. :)

Lizzie was so excited that Santa brought Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon, more of her obsessions.  A few days before Christmas she came out in the morning crying because she thought Santa didn't come.  It took us a while to explain it wasn't Christmas yet.  She was asking every day for "the dragon show".  Luckily Santa knew exactly what to bring for her.

Ok this is the coolest toy.  Lizzie got it from her cousin David and we love it!  It's a cookie set with all velcro.  The cookies can hook together so she can cut them apart like real dough.  Then there's icing that velcros on, which I can use with making patterns for preschool.  I love that she can play with it and I can use it for teaching.  Ok I'll be honest I play with it too.  It's just so much fun!

 Here's Lizzie in her Tinkerbell/fairy dress-up I made for her.  Slowly we're getting her some dress-ups and she has a blast dancing around in them.  Dancing is her new favorite activity.  Every day I have to turn on the ipod for us to dance for a while.  Hopefully we can find a place we like for her to start taking lessons in the Fall.

 Lizzie and Daniel in their new Sunday clothes.  Those two are just too adorable.

 On our way down to visit my sister Julie and her family.  Lizzie wanted to wear some of my Mom's sunglasses to block the sun which was super bright.

 Lizzie with her cousins Jackson and Berklee.  She loved being in the gloves and hat.  Berklee always cheeses it.  Not really sure what Jackson's doing. :)

 Lizzie in her new outfit her Grandma Scanlon gave her.  I love the skirt and pants!

 Though we got stranded down there because of the weather and took over 7 hours to drive home when it should have been 5, we eventually made it home for New Year's Eve with Spencer.  Here a few pics of Daniel's New Year's Eve.  He mostly just went to bed like regular.  I was trying to take a picture of his mohawk, but his hair's so light it doesn't show up much.  Needless to say we haven't trimmed his hair this way, but it is growing in like a mohawk.

 Lizzie's learning how to sing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas in the background.

 This was our first New Year's Eve at home.  We had a blast!  We did miss playing games with my family and all the yummy food, but we still had fun because we got time with Spence.  He set up a whole dart gun obstacle course for Lizzie.  We played all of her games.  Her favorites were the dancing game (Just Dance 2 on the Wii), and Don't Break the Ice, which basically turned into hammering at the ice as fast we could.

 

 We let her stay up until nine and did a toast with her.  We had yummy sparkling apple/peach cider and made sweet potato chips which were absolutely delicious!  They're our new favorite food thanks to Ruth.  Our food process sliced them thick so they didn't get quite so crunchy, but for our first time they were awesome.  Now we got a mandoline just for this purpose.  Can't wait to try it out!

After she was in bed we just played Halo Reach until about midnight.  Really the best thing about the day was being able to spend half of it together as a family. Even though he didn't have school, both jobs kept him just as busy.  He gave his two weeks to BYU Magazine this week.  I knew none of us, including him, could handle another semester of school full-time and two jobs so at least he'll just be working for Family Learning Tree and finishing his school.  Yay for one semester left!