Holiday Celebrations

Christmas time was a lot of fun this year with Kelsey. She really started catching on to a lot of our favorite traditions. I can see how fun it would be to have lots of kids at Christmas time.

Her favorite part was probably the amount of Christmas dresses that she could choose from. I loved this one most only because it is the dress that Whitley wore at our wedding so it was kind of fun to see Kelsey wearing it.

Every year we have a list of movies that are must sees for our family including: Muppets, Elf, White Christmas, Rudolph, Home Alone, Santa Clause, Its a Wonderful Life. My favorite is White Christmas, Ethan busts up at Home Alone every year like he's never seen it, and Kelsey really took to Elf. She was locked on and actually laughed without prompting. It was actually a lot of fun.

She laughed so hard when Buddy gets hit by the taxi and then when he gets stuck on the escalator. It really made it so much more fun for Ethan and I.

This year wrapping took twice as long because I let Kelsey help. She was in charge of the bows and the name stickers and she was so proud. She wanted to give Ethan his presents every single day to show him her work.

I managed a Christmas craft for Kelsey's nursery leaders. This year for neighbor gifts I just gave wrapping paper so I didn't have a need to make many things which was actually totally cool by me. This little diddy took like 10 minutes and I don't think it would have turned out any better if I tired. Note to self: sometimes the more time you spend on crafts the worse they are and ALWAYS give store bought gifts to neighbors. Lets be honest, the cookies end up in the trash anyway.

We played "Don't Eat Pete!" a lot with Kelsey but would use her "special stables" people to hide the marshmallows under. She was a terrible peeker, but she loved the game.

Setting up Grandma Wing's tree and our tree.

Instead of driving to Salt Lake to look at the lights we went to the Riverwoods. It was just as gorgeous in our opinion. While we were there we got to meet Santa and although Kelsey got a little shy she didn't scream like last year. He sang her Jingle Bells and she wouldn't stop talking about it.

Kelsey kept pulling her hat over her eyes and running around. She laughed so hard every time she did it.

Some nice person let Kelsey pet their dog and she would have stayed all night, but he kept drooling on her and I was getting so grossed out that I made her stop

Another nice man saw our camera die before we got a family picture, ran up took this one with his phone and emailed it to Ethan right away. Technology really is super awesome.

Ethan and I have never really done a live nativity, but this year the Palmers invited us over to join theirs. The Morris's, Smiths, and Apkers all came to. This is something that I would actually love to do with other families through out the years. It was really fun. Kelsey was a wise man and actually wore the costume. She didn't make it to baby Jesus though because she thought baby Peter was much cuter.

December Photos

So much has happened lately and in the process of trying to catch up I had a ton of pictures that had no place.

This is way back from October, but we had a sick day from nursery and Ethan prepared the best lesson for Kelsey. It was about how Elijah was able to make fire with the help of God. We had some dry ice so it turned out to be an awesome visual lesson. She was little nervous at first, inhaled some of the smoke which made her sick, but all in all it was awesome.

 Back to December:
Nap times have become rarer and rarer as the month went on. Even quiet time would just turn into 30 minutes of reading. Unfortunately I think we are pass that stage of life. Its funny to me how hard she fights nap time and yet when she's tired she still just crashes anywhere. She still needs naps but hates missing out. Kelsey is just like her mother.
I watched this one happen. She walked into her room and then laid down like this and slept

 

 Outside the Cannon Center  

Don't remember this but obviously it happened

 

She wanted to see the pictures I was working on and then stayed like this for about 2 hours. I'll take that any day!

 

She wanted mommy to hold her and then I found her like this

 

She wanted to say hi to dad because he just got back from a final and I turned around to find them like this.

When nap time isn't happening we manage to fit in a lot of fun. Because December was so warm we were able to do a lot outside including trips to BYU to see the dancers,swimmers, and volleyball players, a trip to ride the ponies at Thanksgiving point which she did for 10 straight minutes because there was no line, and plenty of walks and park time.
When the nights came and it was chilly and thats when we would play with Ralphie. I'm pretty sure they are watching a movie. Regardless, they both need a nap. 

 Kelsey LOVES to peel oranges. She always asks, opens the "bridge" grabs an orange and peels away. She started peeling so many, and not eating them, that we had to hide the oranges. Kelsey loves her orange peeling

Despite all our efforts, one of her many colds turned into a really really bad fever and a few bad days/nights. She slept awful and it just made me nervous for having a new born again actually. During the day she would just sit and stare or watch TV. She didn't eat for days. It was so sad. Luckily medicine would help her get really perky again so sometimes we had this:

 but sometimes we had this:

 It was a rough few days for everyone.

Kelsey and Ethan had a few dates themselves. One of the days that was a tad more chilly they went to the park all bundled up. There she mastered the twisty staircase and was so proud of herself.

 Oh my gosh! So one night at dinner we were eating and Kelsey all of a sudden goes "Oh no! The poor croutons!" We turned around and saw the bag of croutons sticking out of the cupboard like this. We laughed so hard.

 In December we went to a lot of basketball games. Utah was the most crowded and Kelsey and I sat on the floor so we left at halftime, but most games we can sit where ever we want and Kelsey can climb all the bleachers she wants.

 Kelsey found her dream bed at Bed Bath and Beyond

 Kelsey learned how to turn on the lights and now does it all the time. If we do it instead of her she cries.

  I made this for my mom and dad and LOVED how it turned out. I made something similar for Diana and Robert too but forgot a picture.



 Andrea ran at Pre Nationals and got 4th! She did so good. We were so proud of her. She went on to nationals and got 46th. She had such an amazing season. Her last race was really emotional for the whole family because her last race meant the end of running and racing on a team for all of us. We have had someone on a team competing for about 20 years and now its all over. It was so emotional for all of us.

Kelsey LOVES to pick out her own outfits and does every single day. Sometimes I can talk her into things that match, but sometimes I choose to lose the battle. One day I just went with it and we ended with this little number.

 Typically she chooses a dress or a skirt and most of the time wears both. I can get her to wear one pair of pants because I told her they were the pants that James wears on Sofia the first and I can get her to wear three shirts because she thinks they are dresses. Its a headache when it matters what she wears, but most days its just kind of fun to see what she comes up with.


 Hannah won a signed football and was nice enough to give it to Ethan. It was obviously a big enough deal to remember it for the rest of our lives.

 Ethan also won a Dominion game 282 to 12. He was ecstatic.

At some point, Ethan had bro date with his buddies in the program and they all went to a BYU game in the pouring rain. They got to sit really close and got tons of treats thanks to Dallin Salmon, but when Ethan got home he was SOAKED! I was so glad I missed that game.

 Over the holiday season I hit 6 months and 7 months. Typing this I am now 33 weeks and I'm beginning to feel stressed about how little we have prepared for this sweet child to come to our home. We really need to get going! Poor little girl. She's going to end up sleeping in a box with no name.

No computer and other random thoughts

Kelsey and I had a unique experience this last week. For the past week our lap top has been in the shop getting repaired for mystery problems leaving us with Ethan's phone and the Google Chrome, still plenty of internet connection right? Well heres the kicker:  the laptop broke during finals week meaning that Ethan needed something to study with aka the Chrome leaving Kelsey and I with nothing. I don't have a smart phone so the days that he needed the computer we were literally without internet. It was like we were living in 1999 all over again!!
It was a great thing for me. I always try really hard to not be on the computer when Kelsey is around, but now I had no excuse. We played so many games and sang so many songs, and did so many fun things just the two of us. Whats funny too is that when Ethan would get home at night I would sometimes forget to check my email or even get on the computer. When I finally got around to it I had like one message for two days. I realized I was missing nothing because that is not real life. My life was the life I was living: going to the library, letting Kelsey put on 4 bows on a present because its more fun that way, playing tag, taking twice the time to make cookies because I let her help, and reading the same story over and over.

All that being said I can't WAIT to get the computer back because I am dying to sort my pictures but until then we have to patiently wait. I just love picture stuff so much. It really is my favorite hobby next to exercising and I miss it. Plus our camera and Ethan's phone is running out of space. We need to dump these pictures before Christmas!!!

In other news Kelsey is hilarious
She loves turtles because of the song in nursery "I have a little turtle.."
She calls octopus an hoctoepuss
She calls macaroni macamoni
She thinks princess Jasmine is Pocahontas but calls her Po-pohontas
And one day at church she told me that she loves Jesus because he helps her in the water and then they saw turtles.
We play a game like don't eat pete but hide a marshmallow under the nativity little people toys. Kelsey asked to play and we played a few times and then it was time to put the marshmallows away. Apparently we didn't put them away or didn't put them away right because after like 10 minutes I looked and Kelsey was stuffing the bottoms of all the toy with marshmallows and then telling herself "which one" and then picking them all up and eating the marshmallows. I swear she had like 50 marshmallows.

My birthday was on 12-13-14 which is AWESOME!

The month of December was pretty much 55-60 all month long. The nights would still get pretty cold, but the days were NOT cold at all! We like went to the park, ran outside, and played with chalk. It was insane.

15 reasons why we need a yard

Okay not 15 but it sounded better than any other number. 

November 30th was a really great Sunday, but it was one of those days where we were reminded over and over and over that we need a yard. 

Kels didn't nap but these days thats not that rare. She probably naps 3 out of 7 days now excluding falling asleep in the car which she does a lot because she is so tired and wont nap. Regardless of the lack of sleep she was super happy and hyper the whole day including at church. 

When we got home, she decided to help herself to her own snacks. She ate half of two pears which is I guess is a good thing because why would you eat one whole pear when you can have two whole halves! 

Knocked all the magnets off the fridge like 19 times. She'd knock them off to put them on to knock them off to put them on. I think this entertainer her for about 15 minutes.

We put on 4 different dresses and if you include jammies, we wore a totally of 6 outfits on Sunday! Three cheers for being able to undress ourselves right?! 

She wanted to help Ethan read and climbed up on his shoulders to do so. Now that I'm looking at these pictures she looks super calm, but I'll just have to believe myself that she wasn't!

Naturally climbing on dad turned into wrestle time which she loved!

After wrestle time I thought making cookies would calm her down, but oh how wrong I was. The cookies were great by the way and she didn't eat a single one. She was too busy playing in her room or on her dad. 

The Harrison's stopped by to say hello and got to witness Kelsey running laps around her "Special Stable" while singing all of her favorite songs with a few new ones:
Twinkle Little Star
See the Temple
Child of God
ABCs
Jingle Bells
See the Light
Baby Beluga
Turtle Tiny Time
and the new one she added which went something like this " I love Jed. I love Andrea. I love Jed. I love Hannah. I love Jed. I love Gramma. I love Jed. I love Grandpa" and so on. You get the idea!

*Since Sunday I have taught her Two Front Teeth and We Wish you a Merry Christmas and those make the line up every so often.

After her laps (which, not joking lasted like 30 minutes!) we spent a big chunk of the evening making a Kelsey wrap which was quiet possible the funniest thing we have done all month.

We have this giant felt Christmas tree that hangs on the wall to measure heights but it kept falling down. Kelsey grabbed it and started to roll herself in it and everything else just sort of happened from there.

I just absolutely love when we get a genuine laugh from this girl. She gives us a lot of fake half laughs so a true gut wrenching laugh just makes my whole job worth it!

And from there we ran around with just our diaper for like 20 minutes. Would you believe me if I told you that she CRASHED at bed time?

 In a lot of ways I want a yard, but right now as I'm typing and Kelsey sleeps, I kind of don't want life to ever change. A yard would mean that she laughs outside and not in and that her time would be spent with siblings and friends and not me. I'm going to struggle watching my kids grow up I think.