Chocolate, polka-dots, and plenty of LOVE

I have seriously been putting off blogging because it's all piling up on me... so now I'm trying to think of the quickest way to get caught up. I think I'm going to forget about slide shows and just put up some of the better pics from some of the events over the past couple weeks.

To start, we celebrated Chinese New Year at the end of January, but I neglected to put up pictures until now.. I love seeing the kids all dressed up!



At the beginning of the month we went to the Chocolate festival in downtown Glendale - we pretty much wandered the crowds and ate food, including plenty of chocolate! The kids really enjoyed the chocolate covered marshmallows-




Emma turned 4 yesterday! What a lovely 4 year old she's turned into. I love her so much. She's so weird and silly and fun! We had a little b-day party last week with some of her friends from primary and preschool and such. It was a polka-dot themed party and it was a lot of fun to plan and prepare, but lots of work.. I quickly got tired of cutting out polka dots!




Since her actual b-day was yesterday we celebrated with Ben's family at Makutu's Island and then had pizza, cake, and presents over at Grandma's house. Emma also got to try out her new scooter.





I LOVE Valentines Day! We had a great day with a fun Valentines party with our friends and then a really great date in the evening. We went out to dinner without the kiddos and then came home to exchange gifts, watch a movie, and enjoy the chocolate covered strawberries that we had prepared earlier. Yummy!

6 more weeks...

Well, Mr. Groundhog emerged from his burrow on a sunny morning yesterday and saw his shadow... so 6 more weeks of winter it is! I'm just not sure I can handle 6 more weeks of 75 degree Arizona winter days... it will just be horrible! ;) In honor of Groundhog's Day I attempted the silliest cupcakes you've ever seen. What do you think? Creepy or cute?

Trains, Travels, and Triceratops ;)

I've gotten rather behind on my blogging, so this will be a bit of catch up of the activities we've done over the past couple of weeks-

First off... we had a great at-home date last weekend. We've been rather strapped financially this month from Christmas and traveling expenses, so we've been spending very little money on entertainment to help make up for it - so dating has been scarce the past few weeks. We decided we needed to do something fun as a couple so we had a romantic dinner in our living room. :) Ben's always so good with setting the atmosphere - with candles, cloth napkins, and our china. He even wrapped up our pink lemonade bottle in fabric so we felt extra fancy (and pretend like we were drinking an expensive wine at a classy restaurant). Well, we had a lovely dinner after the kids went to bed and I am amazed at how well you can replicate dining out when on a budget.

As another inexpensive family outing we spent a Saturday morning at the Railroad Park in Scottsdale. We hadn't been in a long time and the kids loved riding the train and carousel, playing on the big playground, picnicking, and getting a little ice cream. Yum! And what a mess!

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Ben had to take a test near Philadelphia this past Monday. I really can't believe they make all the DO students fly all the way across the country just to take a test - the good part of it is it's really the last test he needed to take before getting his degree in June. What a relief that will be! (The bigger relief will be matching with a residency we want in March). Anyway, after taking his test he drove over to Valley Forge (it was only a few miles from his hotel) and took some pictures. He said that it was really awesome and was cursing my camera for running out of battery after only a few pictures. Oops! Probably should have charged it before giving it to him to take.




So, after buying a van (see previous post) last night, we woke up this morning with no where planned to go, but anxious to get out and drive our new vehicle! :) So, we arranged to meet up with Ben's sister's family across town to go to the Museum of Natural History in Mesa. What a fun place! It had been at least a couple of years since I had been there last and I forgot how amusing it is. The kids can pan for gold, go through old jail cells, and view lots of dinosaur fossils! It was a lot of fun. After the museum, we went to the Mesa Temple grounds for a picnic lunch and then had a little treat afterwords at Bahama Bucks. A very pleasant Saturday outing.

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So, I still need to post about Chinese New Year, but I'm waiting on pictures to get sent to me from the family. I know you just can't wait! ;)

I'm in the club!

Look! I have a van! I'm REALLY excited about it - we weren't sure it was going to happen in time for the baby to come, but we finally were able to get a deal we were happy with. In the process of getting this van, we had to trade in our Altima as well- we were sad to part with it, but I'm even more excited to be the owner of a minivan! Can you believe I just said that, mom? I'm quoted as saying to my mother "I will NEVER own a van!" - well, never say never. :) Anyway- we got a Nissan Quest, which is exactly what we wanted... it's got an interesting body style for a van, making it a little sportier looking and thus making me feel less like an old tired mom. ;) But, then again, it is still a van. We found a 2005, which is older than we were originally looking at (we're of the mentality that you should buy newer and repair less), but we soon realized we just weren't going to be able to afford much newer than that - however, it's got lots of cool features that came with it, like a built in DVD player, power seats and doors, new speakers, and even seat warmers! What the heck are we going to need seat warmers for in Arizona?!

Chicken and what?!

Can I tell you how much I love all the holidays through January and February? It's a great way to spring back from all the fun of Christmas since there is still so much to celebrate... and they're all simple holidays so all you have to do something small and it creates for such a fun day. Well, yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, so we had Ben's parents and sister's family over for a themed dinner. Now, you all will think we're super weird and crazy, but we decided to try eating chicken and waffles. Ben and I had been hearing about this for a while from Ben's brother and honestly I didn't believe it would be good (the concept reminded me of the Friends' episode where Rachel puts the beef in the trifle!). So, chicken and waffles is a southern dish and along with it we tried out a fun red white and blue drink in honor of Martin Luther King Jr Day and the big Inauguration Day to follow. I couldn't believe how yummy it all was! Chicken and waffles with syrup drizzled all over the top was really delicious (and incredibly fattening... we opted against having a dessert to accompany the meal... but isn't that what holidays are for? to eat yummy fattening food?!)

So, other holidays/events coming up are the following (if any of you are looking for a reason to celebrate!):
January 26- Chinese New Year
February 1- Superbowl Sunday
February 2- Groundhog Day
February 14- Valentines Day
February 16- President's Day (and Emma's birthday!)

Happy celebrating!

My little Fairy Princesses

Ben's has been away this evening on a Young Men campout - the crazies are out there camping in the snow up in Flagstaff. He seemed rather excited about it... me, on the other hand, was glad to be able to stay home in my warm house. :) Since daddy was away, the rest of us girls decided to have a tea party. Nothing more girly then that, right? For Christmas we got Emma a new cookbook called, Pink Princess Tea Parties. She loves it, and considering she loves cooking, princesses, and anything pink, that's no surprise. Well, she picked out the recipe she wanted to do - the teacup cupcakes (probably because it was pictured so prominently on the front cover. We headed to the grocery store and picked up a couple things we needed and headed home to get cooking. She was a good help and did a lot of mixing, adding of ingredients, and most importantly adding pink sprinkles at the end. We made most of them as regular cupcakes in a muffin tin, but a few we made special in teacups. The girls dressed up as a Fairy and a Princess and happily dug into their special pink cupcake creations at our candle-lit table. So, other than a messy kitchen to clean up, we had a fun evening - even though daddy was away. So, once I have this boy that's on it's way... how will he fit into our pink princess tea parties? I guess you always need a prince right? Or maybe daddy will have to take him on his scout campouts so that we still have our girly nights. :)

Wrapping up the holiday season

Hmm... I really am not in the mood to be blogging right now... I don't know why, but at the same time, I don't want it to turn into February without posting about New Years and our recent Utah visit.

We spent New Years Eve at Ben's parents house. We stayed up late playing games (5 Crowns, and a couple rounds of Harry Potter Clue... how cool are we?!), watching movies ("old classics" like Run Fat Boy Run and Hot Rod... ha!). We drank lots of root beer (thanks to Ben's Christmas present he's been saving - a keg of Virgils!) and the evening was sealed with a nice kiss from my cutie Ben.

That weekend we went to ASU to see the Lion King broadway performance... very cool! The costumes were incredible! And it makes me want to see the Disney movie again.

Sunday was the first of the year, so Emma started Sunbeams!! She's definitely enjoyed nursery, but after almost 2 1/2 years of it, she was very ready to move on to Primary. On the way home from church we asked her what she learned about and she showed us her new CTR ring and said that she always needs to choose the right - she said that when she gets cranky she shouldn't hit people, but to be nice. Very true, Emma. ;)

After church the kids napped while we finished up last minute packing and then we headed off to Utah. Ben had a residency interview at the U of U lined up, so it was a good excuse to go visit my family since we only saw them for a couple of days at Disneyland at Christmas time. We were also anxious for the kids to see the snow (it's only a once a year thing for them, so Emma was very excited!). I thought Becca might get into it a little more, but when we went sledding she did not want any part of her to touch the snow. She didn't want her shoes, gloves, or anything else to make any contact whatsoever. Such an Arizona girl, right? Emma, on the other hand, was seriously awesome sledding - she was so brave and fun and full of energy. She went down a huge hill all by herself many times, and hauled up her sled all by herself. I was thankful for no injuries. :) If you click here you can see the video my mom has posted of Emma sledding down the big hill - Ben didn't mean to get her spinning on her sled like he did and you can hear him say "Oh crud!" at the beginning. But Emma seemed to handle her daring ride rather well and came back up the hill smiling!

Other fun things we did while in Utah included a visit to the temple (always good to start off the new year with a temple visit, eh?), and a great date with Ben - we walked through the U of U art museum and then had a great dinner at Tucanos (one of my favorite places to eat!) at their new Salt Lake location. We also played lots of games and made a visit to Provo to see Peter and Lacy and eat out at Old Spaghetti Factory (another one of my faves!). I was hoping to squeeze in some visits to old friends during our stay there, but couldn't because of colds that hit. Poor Becca was very snotty (literally) and I was under the weather on the last part of the week. Sorry to my mom for giving her our colds!

Random note: We discovered a while back that Becca has some serious motion sickness trouble when we travel in the car for long distances. In the beginning, we thought we were just getting unlucky and she would just happen to catch a stomach bug when we traveled, but we soon realized that it was just serious car sickness (poor thing gets that from me). Anyway, on Utah trips, she'll almost always throw up at least a couple of times during the drive which is a mess to deal with while traveling. Well, thanks to advice from Ben's mom, we finally found some Dramamine that you can give to kids... the stuff we found was in pill form, so we just cut it up in small pieces and hid it in her food. Well, miraculously she made it the whole way home from Utah without vomit!! Woohoo!! I hope you can imagine what a breakthrough this is for us and her... I've routinely started bringing a throw up kit in the car just in case (including towels, wipes, extra clothes, febreeze, hand sanitizer, garbage bags, and a throw up bucket) - well, I'll probably continue to bring along my kit when we make long trips, but I hope to never have to use it again, thanks to fabulous anti-nausea drugs! :)

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.