Christmas 2008

We had a very Merry Christmas. We are enjoying this stage of our lives when our children still make Christmas so magical. The anticipation for Christmas was almost too much for Emily this year. They each had a Christmas chain to help them visualize how many days left until Christmas, and I think that helped! As much as they looked forward to Christmas though, the whole "you better be good, Santa's watching you" thing didn't work as well as I would have liked!

We spent Christmas Eve day cleaning the house for Santa to visit. The upstairs looked pretty good, but the downstairs was another story! I can't keep up with these kids when they're home all day! It was nice to have the upstairs all clean for a couple of hours though - we still can't get it back that way! We went to Paige's house for dinner with the sisters and G&G. Paige & Dan gave us our present - vacuum seal lids that fit any container. That was a good idea and I've already used one to cover our bowl of strawberries - seems to work well! The girls were happy leaving for the first time since they knew we had fun waiting for us at home! First thing we did was let them open their Christmas Eve present since they'd been waiting all day. It was new PJs of course and they loved them! Then we tried to read Luke 2, but it didn't go as well as I would have liked. They were too excited. But Emily knows the story pretty good now. We got our stockings ready for Santa, as well as the milk, cookies and carrots (for the reindeer). We also read "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Since we finished all our traditions before bedtime, we played, "Don't Eat Christmas" for about 20 minutes! (I sure hope that doesn't become a tradition!) The girls fell asleep reasonably fast for being Christmas Eve!!

Christmas morning I was able to get the Cinnamon rolls in the oven before I heard stirring. They'd been warned to stay in their room, and they did well. We were able to video tape them coming out to see the presents. It sure was hard to restrain their excitement and try to maintain some semblemce of order! We got them to look through their stockings and take turns opening the Santa presents. Emily found the pickle on the tree, so she got to open the first present. She sure was thrilled with her Cinderella costume and wore it for the rest of the day! Ella was excited to get her FurReal Kitty as well. Steve got the game Apples to Apples and I got a digital picture frame. Eden even got an outfit to wear home from the hospital! We actually got the girls to take a break to eat some cinnamon rolls before we dug in on the family presents. We did stretch the stockings, Santa gifts, and breakfast into about 1 1/2 hours! The rest of the gift opening took about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Emily was under the tree half the morning pulling out the presents even though we kept telling her it was daddy's job. Steve got the family a lot of Wii assessories, so we've been enjoying the Wii again. Emily got a Princess Wii game and has already beaten it twice and is on her third go-around! Glad she likes it! Ella's favorite present was from Emily - a baby doll with bathtub assessories. She played with that thing constantly for several days! Both Emily and Ella got another year scrapbook from me. My biggest surprises were the digital photo frame and gold earrings from Losee Jewelry. Mom and Dad stopped by right after we finished opening presents. It was a super day - except for some reason Eden was extra, extra active and I was having a lot of contractions. Guess she wanted to be part of the fun! We spent the day playing Wii, Hungry, Hungry Hippos and resting. The girls are very sad that Christmas is over and are now constantly talking about the baby! I guess they thought she would come RIGHT after Christmas! Today I have my doctor's appointment and we will set an induction date! Then we'll have to make a countdown chain for her!!

Cute moments

Here's a few cute moments from lately, before I forget them.
**One night Ella was studying her daddy's face. Then she declared, "Daddy, you have stripes on your forehead!" :)"
**During primary I asked what would happen if we didn't have the sacrament on the earth today. Emily burst out, "We would all get really thirsty!"
**Emily was looking around our house after we got it all decorated for Christmas. She said, "It sure feels like Christmas. We have our tree, our stockings, and presents. The only thing we need is for Grandma and Grandpa to come."
**We were listening to Christmas music in the car. One came on that had a lot of bells and instruments. Emily asked, "Is this Chinese music?" Now how does she know what Chinese music sounds like?
**It's so cute how the girls will make-believe play current events. At Halloween they played trick-or-treat. Now all the girls play is Christmas morning and/or I have a baby in my stomach. I'm just glad that they play together!
**During clean up time, I must sound like a drill Sargent because the girls will often reply with, "Aye, Aye, Captain Kim!"

School Christmas concert

Emily's school put on a Christmas concert for the parents. Grandma, Grandpa and Natalia were nice enough to come support Emily with me. Unfortunately it was very crowded and the Kindergarteners were last! But they all did great job. Emily's class sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and later sang Have a Holly Jolly Greenwood with all the students. She sure has had a lot of opportunities to perform lately!

13 1/2 years later

When I was in high school, my hobby was to make porcelain dolls. This hobby consumed much of my freetime and most of my spending money. But I loved it. I also got a job at the doll store to earn my spending money and learn more about the business. After I moved away from home, I had many unfinished projects that I worked on each time I visited home. During my visit last summer, I was able to finish one more doll. The date I engraved on the back of his head was 6/95. My mom made all the costumes for my dolls and just finished the costume for this doll and presented it to me on her Christmas visit here. This little boy is dressed in a Bavarian traditional lederhosen. Didn't my mom do a great job on the costume? Since I served my mission in Bavaria, Germany - it makes it all the more sentimental to me. I think I have 3-4 more dolls in various stages of being finished left at home. Eventually I figure I'll have them all done. Unfortunately in my present home, I don't have any place to display my dolls, but maybe someday...

Tooth Fairy Visit

Emily decided to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy, so she would visit her for getting a silver tooth. She sat down and wrote the letter and drew the picture all by herself! I was very impressed with her spelling. She's really getting good at reading and writing. She was also VERY excited to find a dollar under her pillow the next day!! Ahh, it's so fun having little children and big imaginations!

(The Tooth Fairy visiting while she's asleep in bed.)
("Dear Tooth Fairy, I got a silver tooth. I am going to put it under my bed. Love, Emily")

LIttle Chefs

The girls had a blast cutting out Christmas cookies, frosting them and pouring on the sprinkles yesterday! Ella kept saying, "This is SO fun, mom!" They did a great job. Oddly enough though, they don't like to eat their creations - so we have a ton of decorated cookies laying around if anyone wants some!!

New Smiles!

We've been through our first cavity filling experiences with the girls. Ella's was last week. They got her laying down and within 2 minutes they were done!! Ella did great, especially since I opted not to give her laughing gas. (After I realized it only took two minutes, I was glad I made that decision!) The only thing she didn't like was having her mouth propped open. She had one tooth filled and hopefully we can keep it at that from now on!

Emily is a different story, though. Poor child has been neglected, not having checkups every 6 months. So unfortunately she had 5 cavities and needed a baby root canal and a crown. She had to have IV sedation, so I had Steve take the afternoon off to be with me and Emily during the ordeal. Ella was pleased as punch to get to go to a babysitter! Emily had to be fasting, so she had a tough day being hungry. The anesthesiologist gave her the first shot in the waiting room. She was on Steve's lap and I was trying to distract her with picking a prize. Everyone for miles around knew it when the shot when in. Then I read her a story while she drifted off to la-la land. It was so weird to see her "with the lights on, but nobody home." Her eyes glazed over and she just stared at the book. Then the anesthesiologist carried her to the back where they gave her the IV and did the dental work. It took about 1/2 hour. Then they brought us all into another room and we waited until she woke up. It took her about 45 minutes to get fully aware. She was very dizzy and kept saying she wanted to feel like herself. I was asking her about what she remembered and she remembered the shot and the first part of the story. She didn't remember the end of the story or anything else. After she was able to hold her head up by herself, Steve carried her to the car. She had a hard evening, but luckily no side effects. I gave her Tylenol all the next day and then she was fine. The first time she noticed her silver crown, she was very sad. I tried to tell her how special it was, and I think she eventually accepted it. Luckily it's just a baby tooth. It's hard to see your kids go through tough things, so I'm glad we've had pretty good health. We're being very careful with brushing and taking good care of their teeth.

An unexpected treasure

Since we were already at temple square (see previous post), we decided to hang around for awhile to wait for the lights to turn on. My friend told me about an "I am a Child of God" exhibit at the Family History Museum. We started at the south visitor's center and played with the house exhibits there. Then we headed across the street to the Museum. I can't believe I hadn't heard about the exhibit before - it's absolutely darling!! It's upstairs in the back, so you kind of have to know it's there. When you walk in, there's a mural of an expectant mother and husband entering the hospital. Then there's two rows of stations in front of fake "nursery" windows where the kids can take care of the newborns. There are boxes of blankets, outfits, diapers, bottles, etc to play with. There's even a weigh station and a place to fill out birth certificates (Emily LOVED that!) They could have played there all day. Eventually I got them to look at the other areas. One area is a nativity with dress-ups. There's also tables with places to do CTR rubbings, magnetic cars you need to get to church or the temple, blocks to build a temple, an iron rod and straight and narrow path that lead to the tree of life, etc. We didn't even do everything because they had so much fun with the babies. Anyway, they've decided to leave it up for another year. So I definitely recommend going once or twice or more. It's just like a mini children's museum! Here's some pics.
We finally left the museum way later than I intended because the girls were having such a ball! We quickly walked through the lights and watched the outdoor nativity show before heading back to our car. I sure had a fun evening out with my kids!!
Of course, did all those all these wonderful family moments and religious experiences count for a terrific family night?? Oh no, Emily had a fit when I told her that was Family night. We have to do family night the same every week in her book. (Mostly it's because of the 3 games we always play at the end.) Well, it was too late to do it, but they did talk us into making the gingerbread house we'd promised them earlier in the week!
It made for a VERY busy and tiring day. I'm still recovering today and hope the kids will let us have a relaxing evening doing NOTHING!!

Choir concerts

Emily's been a busy little girl this semester attending American Fork Choir and American Fork Youth Theater. Last Friday she had her first choir concert at the American Fork Junior High School and yesterday she sang at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square. She looked darling at both concerts and knew most of the words. Mostly I was proud that she stood still and paid attention! There were some kids that had definite issues with standing still!!

American Fork Junior High

My pictures at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building didn't work because I was too far away and they were in front of a window. But here they are in front of the giant tree in the lobby that reached all the way to the chandelier.

Award of Merit

Emily received the Award of Merit for the literature category in the school's Reflections contest!
Here's the story she wrote for the theme WOW!

The Magic Cat

Once upon a time, there was a cat named Magic Cat. The cat could talk. It could fly. But it didn’t have a friend. One day, the Magic Cat couldn’t do anything magic anymore. She couldn’t climb a tree. She couldn’t scratch dogs and be mean. She felt very, very sad. The only thing she could do is make people sneeze. She found a skunk behind a bush. They became friends. Then the skunk and the cat played together. The skunk helped the cat find something to help the cat have magic. They found a magic fountain. The cat and the skunk drank the water and had magic again. The cat and the skunk decided to play a trick on the dogs. They want to make all the dogs switch houses. The moms and dads in the houses yell for their dogs. The wrong dogs came. The moms and dads said, “Shoo…shoo!!” The dogs ran to the right houses. The cat and the skunk were laughing quietly at the dogs. They were glad they became friends. They lived happily ever after.

The End

Pretty cute, huh? I was able to go to the assembly to see her receive her award. She was pretty pleased and I think she was the youngest one up there! She also got $4 and a ticket to the Hale Center Theater. The PTA lady told me that her story was going to move on to the next level of competition, so we'll let you know if that happens!

Thanksgiving weekend

Since we didn't get the stomach bug until late last night, I think I can safely say we made it through the Thanksgiving break! We were pretty busy and around a lot of people, so our immune systems must have been a bit weak! Anyway, here's a rundown of our weekend.

I spent Wednesday deep cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and doing some errands while Jill watched the kids. By Thursday morning, I was already pooped! Steve was home that day to help me declutter the rest of the areas and move furniture around. We were able to fit our craft table in the living room and the two preschool tables in the kitchen to accommodate all the family. It worked out pretty well. Mark's family arrived around 12:00 and we had fun visiting with them until Jill & Paige's family arrived and we started eating around 2:30. Dinner was delicious and I'm not aware of any spills! (That was my most paranoid problem with eating in the living room!) After dinner, Dan challenged me to a game of Monopoly and to my suprise - Steve joined in! Steve was out first, but it was nice to have him in the game because he gave me a few good deals including payment by kisses! Dan won ultimately, but it's really not fair because he's been practicing with computer monopoly! The kids were pretty much out of our hair most of the day. Of course, I think every toy was dumped out at some point or another, but everyone - especially Jill - were very helpful in cleaning it up before they left! Lynn's family came over later for pie and it was nice to all get together!

These are the turkey headbands I was going to have the kids make - but they were always busy with toys, so we just skipped it!Steve carving our turkey!
The kids table!
The adult table.
Friday morning we did our annual decorating for Christmas. The girls were very helpful and excited to put up the tree, and then spent the rest of the morning playing in the tree box! I must say our house looks nice all decked out for Christmas!! Maybe I just need better year-round decor and I'd appreciate my house more. That afternoon we headed to Lynn's house. She watched the kids while Paige & Dan, Mark & Kellie, Holly & Kayla and Steve and I went to see Twilight! Then we went to the Spanish Fork electrical parade. It wasn't too chilly and I remembered a chair, so I was pretty comfy!

Saturday, Steve did the outdoor lights. We realized we bought a few too many Christmas items after Christmas last year - including lights! But at least we bought an outdoor timer, so Steve won't have to go out everynight. Mark came to visit for awhile then later, we met Mark, Paige and Lynn's family at the mall that afternoon to see Santa. We got there right as his break started. When he came back, he talked to each of our girls and gave them a reindeer ring. We decided to wait in line to see him again, just so we'd be done for the year. The girls were both very brave and told them what they wanted.
Here's Santa being grouchy because I asked if both girls could be in a picture together. Oh, the hardship!!
Here's the girls favorite activity at the mall.
Sunday was pretty much back to normal. Both Steve and I weren't feeling all that well. By nighttime, I was down with a stomach bug. The girls woke up several times throwing up. They've been on the couch all day today with a fever. They've only thrown up a couple of times though. I wonder why it is that kids ask you to hold them right before they need to throw up? Emily was VERY sad to miss school today. Hopefully, she'll be better tomorrow - she's going to recieve an award at school - more on that later.

Sunday morning tradition - making "daddy pancakes!"
And here we are today. Poor little sweethearts!!
The girls are calling for me again, so I'd better post some pics and be done!