Christmas and Mickey Mouse

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Happy Belated Christmas everyone!! We've been seriously busy with tons of Christmas activities and lots of jovial family time. :) Ben's mom and nephew share a birthday on the 18th and their birthday celebration always kicks off the family Christmas events. We went to see Despereaux (Emma and I read the book prior to seeing the movie and she was very into seeing it on the big screen!). After the movie we did the traditional dinner, presents, and cake. In the following days we went to see the Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX - this has become a tradition and this year Emma actually kept her 3D glasses on the whole time. :) On the night before Christmas Eve we went to Zoo Lights, which was chilly and fun. Christmas Eve we did our last Advent along with the kids dressing up as Mary and Joseph (and Samuel). It was especially fun to throw paper balls at Samuel (Emma's cousin, Adam). Christmas Day was an adventure - we started out early opening loads of gifts (we were combined with Ben's sister and brother and parents... so lots of gifts were exchanged!). After getting ourselves pulled together and eating a yummy lunch of turkey and mashed potatoes, we hopped in the car and headed to California to meet up with my side of the family. We spent the 2 days after Christmas at Disneyland! LOVE Disneyland!! We had a very successful time there this year with our kids. Last year Becca was too little to know what was going on and Emma was scared of all the rides (even Peter Pan!), but this year Becca giggled and excitedly rode all the kid rides with us and Emma was so much more brave than a year ago. We were so proud of her! She even rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and was tall enough to ride Soarin' Over California. I think her favorites were Dumbo, teacups, and Gadget's Go-coaster in ToonTown. The weather was very cold the first day we were there (it had been rainy the day before), but the sky was clear and blue both days and the 2nd Disneyland day was much warmer... I even wore short sleeves for a couple of hours in the afternoon. We were bummed to not get to ride the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure - we went over to get in line after eating lunch, but they were having technical difficulties with the ride and it was temporarily shut down for at the least the next couple hours... seeing as we were done riding everything else in that part of the park we decided to skip waiting around and headed back over to Disneyland. Our sadness was quickly compensated for, however, with a surprise turn of events on the Nemo Submarine ride. We never rode this one last year because the wait time was over 2 hours - this time, we decided to give it a try, even though the wait was supposed to be about 70 minutes. Well, we had only been waiting for about 10 minutes, when all of a sudden this Disneyland employee comes up to me and asks how big our party is - I told him we had 8 all together and he then proceeds to have us follow him, so we exited the line and followed him as he takes us the very front of the line! We immediately got put onto a submarine... no way!! He said that since his shift was over for the day they sometimes get to do "magical" things for people they pick out at the park. Yippee!! It must have been my massive prego belly that drew his attention and he probably thought to himself "that poor girl looks like she's about to explode or fall over... there's no way she'll make it through a 70 minute line". ;) See how it pays to be pregnant and pathetic looking?!

So, New Years celebrations are next up on the list. Today we are taking a short hiatus from family celebrations... yesterday we met up with Ben's family again - the boys went golfing and the girls got pedicures. The last time I had a "pedicure" was at a mutual activity when one of the Beehives did my toes. It was fun to be truly pampered and have nice shiny red toes again. :) Thanks Carol! Tomorrow we'll be heading back to Gilbert for New Years partying. Today we are playing catch up doing laundry, unpacking, and putting away new Christmas toys. Ben spent the morning doing a residency interview at the Mayo Clinic nearby. I've been eating lots of chocolate... Santa really spoiled me this year with a stocking full of chocolate. :) Mmmm...

8 more days?!!

Only 8 more days till Christmas! Holy cow! I love it! I'm particularly thrilled because Ben is soon to start up a 6 week break - he's currently at the hospital finishing up what should be his last call night of the school year... after his break, the rest of his rotations should be pretty easy without long hours. What a relief that will be - just a little relaxation before residency, right? I'm super happy this morning, too, because our good friends just successfully matched through the military into their number one pick for surgery! Merry Christmas to the Jones family who no longer have to fret over where they will be next year!! :) Seriously so awesome!

We've had a fun and relatively busy December so far. Emma finished up her dance class last week, which she really enjoyed. She also recently had her Preschool Christmas party and is now on Christmas break till January. What a wonderful preschool she goes to - I'm so impressed with her teachers and the time and attention they put towards teaching and having fun with the kids. It's a really great group of kids too and it's been fun to watch Emma do well in a school-like setting. I stuck around for the Christmas Party and Becca came along as well - Becca was a little hyper but also really enjoyed sitting down on the rug when they read Christmas stories and sang songs. I'm sure Becca will really enjoy preschool too, when it's her turn.

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Emma and Becca have both been really enjoying all the counting down to Christmas activities - we've got way too many advent things... a paper countdown chain (that Emma made at preschool), our advent tree that the kids take turns pinning felt pieces to, two chocolate countdowns (from Trader Joes... we bought them after the month had already begun, so they were selling them for only 49 cents...what a deal!). We also have our other countdown traditions such as our Advent activity we do each Sunday after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve as well, lighting another candle on the advent wreath, singing Christmas hymns, reading scriptures, and eating desserts. Also, this will be the third year we've done 12 days of Christmas gifts. The idea came from an Ensign, where you wrap 12 little gifts and each includes a scripture you read about a gift we have received from Heavenly Father. So, all these things have been keeping the kids (and their mommy) rather excited about the upcoming celebrations.

And here's a random picture of Emma and Becca - lately Emma has often been plopping herself down on Becca as they're watching tv, with Emma wanting Becca to scratch her back - Becca willingly complies. What a nice little sister. :)

Oh no! Not Santa!

Well, we're one week into December and we've already done quite a bit of Christmas stuff. LOVE it! At the Ward Christmas Party the kids had the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap - and as in past years, our kids were not happy about it. Emma was nervous and didn't want to do it at first, but in the end did tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas (Hannah Montana makeup... what?! She's never even seen Hannah Montana... does that mean that we have to get it for her, since that's the one thing she told Santa she wants?). Becca screamed while on Santa's lap, but I insisted on a picture anyway, because everyone loves a good freaking out on Santa's lap pic right? :) After leaving Santa, however, Becca waved and said "bye". Weird.

Ben had the day off on Saturday so we had a lazy morning playing Rock Band and making/eating cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls were really delicious, however, they didn't hardly rise the second time around. I rolled them with their filling and sliced them up and put them in the pan and they were supposed to double in size in about 45 minutes before baking them. However, they hardly did at all - so they ended up more dense in texture than they should have been. I've been having bad luck lately with yeasted products. I made some dinner rolls a few weeks back and they didn't hardly rise the second time around either (the first rise works great, though). Anyway- any suggestions or ideas? The yeast was new (and both from different store purchases), so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. ho hum. Well, around lunch time we headed to IKEA to do some preliminary Christmas shopping. We hadn't even started on the kids yet (Ben and I however are all done with each other - it was easy this year... we bought ourselves a new and very comfortable mattress!... so practical and yet so rewarding!). In the evening we made a gingerbread house (a graham cracker house, rather). Can you believe this was the first time I remember doing this? Mom, did we ever do a gingerbread house when we were little? It really felt like this was the first time and it was so fun! Do people actually eat the things when they are done? It sure doesn't look like something I'd want to eat... with all our fingers all touching it and after sitting out for the night it's all hard and crusty. But it looks cute! Word of advice: don't use Honey Graham brand crackers when doing this - they are too flaky and easily broken - I'd recommend using a store brand instead as they are usually much more firm. A lot of people must be making graham cracker houses because when I went to Walmart yesterday to buy some, the store brand was completely sold out. Annoying! Oh, and in the slideshow there's a random picture of my belly next to our creation - Ben thought we should take a picture of the baby with the house - so that he would know he was there too. :)

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Lastly, I have to post a couple of these pictures I took recently. Emma and Becca have been really teaming up together lately and being mischievous and silly. See below... :)

Virtue

So - super cool! I've just learned that the Young Women's program is adding an 8th value to their theme and personal progress goals - Virtue. As a YW leader, I think this is pretty exciting, but even if I wasn't a YW leader, I think I would find this quite interesting. The color associated with this new value is gold - how fun! :) Now I'm really going to be bumbling over the theme each Sunday when we recite it together - I still haven't gotten the hang of the "strengthen home and family" part which was added years ago, but after I left YW.

And since I'm discussing Church news, I wouldn't want to neglect the passing of Elder Wirthlin. This makes me sad, but also I'm happy that he'll be moving on to see his wife who died a couple years ago. I hope that someday when I die, it won't be too long before or after my cute hubby. I'd miss him a little too much. :)

In other news (but not nearly as important), we got our tree decorated. It stood undecorated in our living room for about 3 days, but finally Emma went on strike and insisted that we put the ornaments on the thing. Ben and I were both rather surprised and impressed that she so capably hung probably half of the ornaments. She even spaced them around the tree quite well, and stood on a chair to reach the top half of the tree. She's actually getting to be quite useful! Who would have thought. We used the same tree and decor as last year (and many other previous years), so it looks like this.