Funny things kids say!

Sometimes kids say funny things. This happened on Christmas Eve while we were wrapping presents. Guy was in our bedroom wrapping presents when he realized that he really didn't know what he was doing. He told Amelia that he was at a loss and needed some help. So, Amelia said, "Stay here. I'll go get help." She came running into the kitchen where I was and said, "Mommy! There is something wrong with Daddy!" Luckily, he had already called to me saying that he needed help with the presents so I wasn't concerned that he was hurt or anything like that. By the time I got there, we were both laughing at this hilarious conversation.

Festival of Lights

Last night, we took the girls to the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork. Amelia tends to get sleepy in the car so we had to work really hard to keep her awake until we got there, even though it was just a 5 minute drive from our house. Once she saw the lights though, her eyes were wide open with excitement. My favorite part was that we got to stay in our nice warm car and take our time driving through the lights. Even Ashley let out a few "Ah's" when she saw something that she liked. There were a lot of animated displays like a frog catching flies, a ski jumper, and a dinosaur hatching out of an egg. Amelia loved to watch the scenes come to life and find all the different Santa's. There was even a Nativity scene all done in lights! When we got to the end, Amelia wanted to start all over again. I'm really glad that we got a chance to do this and hopefully it will become a tradition for us.

'Tis the Season

What a busy time we have had these last few days. But it has been so fun getting together with family.The fun all started for us on the Sunday before Christmas. We went to the Colling's (my Mom's side) Family Christmas party. This year it was especially memorable for everyone. For the past few years, we have done a little $5 gift exchange between everyone and it has been a ton of fun. But this year, we decided to do something that we haven't done for probably 20 years...We decided to help a family that wasn't going to get a visit from Santa. The family consisted of a Mom and Dad and six kids that we split up between my Mom and her six siblings. We were assigned the one year old baby in the family and it was so fun to go shopping for her and make sure that she would have warm clothes this winter and a few toys from Santa. After Santa made a visit during our party, he told us that he needed to make another delivery to this family. So, we all came along to help Santa deliver the presents and fixin's for Christmas dinner to this wonderful family. It was such a great feeling to be able to help a family have Christmas and hopefully we will be able to do it all again next year.

On Monday, Christmas Eve, we headed down to Sterling to spend the day with Guy's family and have a little Christmas Eve dinner. For the most part, it was a really relaxing day. By the time that we left to come home, the roads were snow packed and it was still coming down. Normally it takes us about an hour and a half to get home, but that night it took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes. After we dressed the girls in their Christmas pajamas and put them to bed, it was time for Santa and Mrs. Claus to get to work. All the presents needed to be wrapped and I still needed to put another coat of paint on the kid's table and chairs and put them together. I was up until about 4 a.m. and then Amelia woke up at 8 a.m.
Christmas morning was really laid back at our house. Luckily, I was able to keep the girls away from seeing the living room and all the presents until after we had eaten breakfast. Amelia loved opening presents and handing presents to everyone. Once Ashley opened a toy, she didn't want to put it back down so Amelia opened a lot of her presents. Both Ashley and Amelia were really excited to see the table and chairs that Santa left. Hopefully they will be able to get a lot of coloring and other projects done at that table over the years.

Christmas afternoon we headed up to West Valley to spend the rest of the day with my Mom, her husband Steve, my sister Tamara and my Grandpa Choo-Choo. We opened more presents and then had a wonderful Christmas dinner together. We left to come home late that night and I was really starting to drag due to my lack of sleep from the night before. Luckily, Amelia let my sleep in until 9 a.m. the next morning so I was able to catch up on my sleep just a little bit. Overall, it was a great few days but I am really looking forward to a weekend with nothing planned and hopefully we can recover a little bit.

Ashley's 18th month check-up

Even though Ashley won't be 18 months old until Sunday, we had her check-up on Wednesday, most likely because the doctor is going to be out of town over Christmas. It was great to see how much she has grown. It's never a surprise that she is tall for her age but it is so fun to see it plotted on the little growth chart. So, she is off the chart for her height and in the 90th percentile for her weight and head circumference. She had to get three shots and she didn't even cry. What a brave girl.
After moving to Utah County and not knowing anyone in the area, I hurried and just picked a pediatrician for Amelia out of the phone book. When Ashley was born, I just kept the same pediatrician. I was never completely happy with him, but I just couldn't justify switching to a new doctor when there was really nothing wrong with the doctor that I had. Now back up just a little bit...When I was in the hospital after having Ashley, my regular pediatrician was out of town so I got to see two different doctors that were on call for the weekend. I was really impressed with one of them but I still wanted to give my regular pediatrician a chance. But when Amelia turned three, I decided that it would be a great time to give this doctor that I met in the hospital a chance. Well, I was really happy with how her appointment went and so I made an appointment for Ashley's next check-up with the same doctor. One of my favorite things that this new doctor does is that he sends out a little questionnaire to fill out about your child about a week before your visit. It has really helped me to notice the amazing things that my kids are doing and how much they are learning. I think that this pediatrician is a keeper!

Tree Decorating

Having a Christmas tree this year is something very special to us. We have not had a Christmas tree since Amelia was 3 months old and we were living in Nibley. And that year, I only had the energy to put lights up on the tree and the ornaments just stayed in the box for the year. The following year, we were living in our tiny basement apartment in Payson and there was just no room for a tree and all of our decorations were in storage so we just didn't get a tree that year. Last year was our first year in our new house in Springville and Guy's truck was missing an engine and so we had no way to bring a tree home. I tried to tell Guy that we could just strap it to the roof of our car, but he didn't think that was such a great idea. I ended up buying some garland to go on our railing and then I just hung the ornaments on that.

So, this year, I was really determined to get a tree. The day that I had wanted to go get a tree, Guy had the heater core out of the truck and it was snowing pretty hard outside so we put it off for a few days. When the day came again to go and get a tree, it was raining but I knew that if we didn't hurry and get it, we might just decide that it was too late and not get one...again. It took me three days to put lights on (about 12 strands) and two separate trips to the store to buy more lights. And even after all those lights, we still have a bare spot that I just turned towards the wall. After that, I took a few days off to recover before I put ornaments on. Ashley thought that the funnest thing to do was to take off all the ornaments so pretty soon, every ornament was hanging about 4 feet up on the tree. It makes for a very interesting tree and lots of memories.

Happy Birthday Guy!

On Sunday, we celebrated Guy's 34th birthday. Or, as he likes to say, his sixth 29th birthday. He really doesn't want to admit that he is getting older and I think that he will be so happy when I join the over 30 club, too.

We started out the day with the birthday boy choosing what we should have for breakfast. Usually I make waffles on Sunday morning but he chose to have a hash brown and egg casserole. Yummy! The rest of the day was a little busy with church

but luckily I was able to make him a special birthday cake. Amelia loved watching the cake bake in the oven

and she couldn't wait to eat it. Of course, she wanted to help Guy blow out his candles but he was really afraid that she was going to spit on the cake. But who cares if there is a little bit of spit on the cake. Then Amelia and Ashley got to lick all the frosting off the candles and after having cake, both girls had a great chocolate mustache. I just think that we should have birthdays more often so that we have a good excuse to have cake!

Simple Pleasures

I love watching Amelia and Ashley have fun with the simple things in life. And I really love being able to capture some of them.



Last week I left the broom out and Amelia started riding it around the house. Soon, Ashley grabbed on too and the two of them went around and around the house for what seemed like forever. It was a great time for me to get a little something done. And they were even learning great skills like team work and sharing.



As I started putting up Christmas decorations earlier this week, Amelia and Ashley decided that the empty boxes were just about the funnest things to play with on this planet. And this went on for a few days afterwards as well. (Amelia later told me that Ashley's box was a barn and that Ashley was a kitty.) Ashley just loved to sit in her box and play. Amelia decided that her box was going to be a bed. So, she got a pillow and a blanket and sat in her little box for about an hour. I guess that all that decorating was exhausting.

Gingerbread Houses

One of my favorite holiday traditions is to make a gingerbread house. And this is even more fun getting together with my extended family and seeing all the different ideas that we all come up with to make our houses unique. Sharing the star tipped frosting bags was just about the biggest conflict that we had. But none of us had ever laughed so hard than when blizzard Amelia hit the Howick home. Instead of the light dusting of powdered sugar that Grandma Corinne was going for, Amelia pretty much dumped the powdered sugar all over the pristine gingerbread house and there was no sign of this storm stopping because we were all laughing too hard to do anything about it. In the end, more holiday memories were born and there were smiles all around.

Amelia does everything to the extreme. This picture was taken before she dumped the entire bag of sprinkles out on Grandma's house and before the blizzard hit.

Now look at the sprinkles in front of the house and all the snow falling. She said that Grandma's house needed more winter.

What a crazy group!

After all the houses were done, we decorated a gingerbread train for Grandpa Choo-Choo. Amelia loved helping Auntie Tamara put candy all over the train. It must be hard for a little kid to have so much candy in front of them and not eat it.

I don't want to go to Nursery!

I heard the strangest noise when I walked by the Nursery door on Sunday on my way to find Guy so that I could hand Ashley off to him. It was the sound of Amelia...crying. Amelia has never put up a fight to go to Nursery so I was really confused when I heard this strange sound coming from her. Guy and I started her in Nursery when she was 15 months old because we both had callings at the time where it was really hard to juggle her and do the other things that we needed to do. Every week, we would drop her off and she would go straight for the toys not even looking back to say goodbye. But this week, she was crying because Daddy took her to Nursery and not to Primary. For the past couple of weeks, I have been taking her to Primary for singing time to help her make the transition to Sunbeams at the beginning of the year. Apparently, she has really enjoyed this time in Primary and wanted it to be a full time thing. So, I took her to Sharing Time and singing time and then she went with the Sunbeam class for lesson time. It was amazing!! She was so excited about every bit of Primary. I hope that this love for Primary continues for many years.

Snow!

We finally got some snow that actually stuck around. Amelia was so excited to come outside and help me shovel. She went and got a little garden shovel out so that she could do her part. I guess that the only tool left for Ashley was a rake but she didn't really care. Amelia kept saying that she want to make the biggest snowman in the universe, but by the time I was done shoveling, Ashley was soaked to the bone and really sad so we had to go inside. This was Ashley's first big experience with snow since last year she wasn't crawling or walking or so she didn't get to have play time in the snow. Amelia, on the other hand, wanted to go outside ever since she looked out the window on Saturday morning and saw all the snow. This is going to be a really fun winter letting the girls play in the snow and really enjoy childhood.