The Princess and the Frog

December 11

I've mentioned Molly's princess obsession a few times. She also loves going on "dates" with her dad. So when we started seeing previews on TV for a new princess movie, we thought it would be a great excuse to combine both of her loves. We had some movie passes from a few years ago (we don't get to the movies very often) so Justin took Molly on a date to see "The Princess and the Frog." On opening night. She was so excited and looked forward to it for weeks.

Justin went all out and ordered the biggest tub of popcorn he could.It was a late movie but her excitement lasted so long that she even had a hard time going to sleep that night. She thought Princess Tiana was beautiful, the alligator was hilarious, and kept saying "the TV was bigger than my room!"Don't you think she has a great dad who would go sit through a princess movie? I do. He said it was worth it to see her excitement.

Christmas Advent, Days 1-11

Day 1: Decorate the tree.Her favorite ornaments are Hello Kitty and the husband and wife bears Justin and I got the year we were married. They are on the bottom branches because she keeps taking them off and putting them back on.

Day 2: Make a Christmas necklace.I found this particular kit at JoAnn's for $1. Molly likes to wear it. She's worn it to church twice.

Day 3: Make a Christmas wreath.We punched holes in a green piece of paper, glued it to a red piece of paper and tied a bow on top. Molly didn't know what a wreath was before this craft, now she points them out every time she sees one. "Look, a Christmas wreath just like the one I made!"

Day 4: Go Christmas shopping.Molly picked out this truck for Stockton. It says Age 2 and up. I guess he'll like it in a couple of years. Justin's excited to get some boyish toys around this place.

Day 5: Go see Christmas lights.We went to the Festival of Lights, a drive-through light display here in Spanish Fork. It was fun and Molly's excitement was contagious. We drove through twice.

Day 6: Watch the Christmas Devotional and have hot chocolate with marshmallows.Molly was excited to see the prophet and danced to the music.

Day 7: Make ornaments.We squirted paint into some clear, glass balls and rolled them around until the paint covered the ball. Molly chose the color combinations. We hung them from our chandelier.

Day 8: Make Rice Krispie treats.We added red and green M & M's to make them festive. We shared them with the ward choir at our house that night. (Yes, I am involved in the choir. No, that is not something I ever imagined I would do. No, I don't sing. Yes, I am the piano player. Yes, they all come to my house at 9:00 every Sunday morning. Molly likes to dance for them while they sing.)

Day 9: Make a gumdrop tree.We used gumdrops, toothpicks, and a styrofoam tree. It goes well with her gingerbread sleigh that we decorated a couple days after Thanksgiving.

Day 10: Get Christmas books from the library.I was bummed that the limit was 3 Christmas books. We got some normal books too.

Day 11: Make Christmas playdough.Her favorite activity thus far. We made peppermint playdough. We used this recipe, added red food coloring, mint extract (note: you need a lot of extract if you want it to smell-I don't think I put enough in ours because it ended up smelling like regular playdough), and glitter. We rolled it out and used Christmas cookie cutters to make shapes. She has played with this playdough a lot.

Thanksgiving 2009

This is our Thanksgiving Tree:At dinner each night we would write what we were thankful for on a leaf and hang it on our tree. Molly was thankful for the following:
-Food
-Jesus
-Flu shot
-My Room
-Stockton
-The leaves in the fall
-Jade (her friend from school)
-Books
-Cousins
-My Bed
-Fish
She did pretty well with this activity, although most things that she said were said while looking at it. We had fun doing this, I think it will become a family tradition.

We made the trip to Vernal for the Goodrich Thanksgiving this year. Justin's grandparents are from a very small town called Tridell, which is near Vernal. It's always held at a church and is a good time to catch up on cousins (Justin has a lot). The numbers seem to be dwindling, but I guess you can expect that to happen since the cousins are getting married and splitting time between families and in-laws. But our family made a good showing-all were in attendance! We had a good time hanging out at the church, eating dinner, playing basketball, and playing Pounce.

We found an empty classroom and Stockton took a couple of nice naps in the port-a-crib.Waiting for the food to be ready. Molly's favorite part of dinner was the ice cream.4 Generations of Goodrich boys.Stockton's middle name is Ray...we named him after three great men. Rae Goodrich (great-grandpa in the picture above), Norman Ray Fletcher (Justin's maternal grandpa), and Justin Ray (who was named after his two grandpas).
The name Stockton is also a small tribute to Grandpa Goodrich. Ask Justin to explain.

I was surprised to learn that Grandma and Grandpa Goodrich have 85 great-grandkids. 85! That's a lot. Here are two cute ones...Justin and I had to drive home after dinner since he had to work the next day. I guess we missed out on the fun...watching "White Christmas" at Grandma Fletcher's and cutting down our own Christmas tree. Oh well, such is life...

Disney on Ice: Princess Classics

November 14

Molly anxiously waited for weeks to go to Disney on Ice. Every morning she would wake up, put on some dress-ups, and tell me that she was ready to go to Disney on Ice. Finally the day came! (Can I say I was excited too? I couldn't wait for another Mommy-Daughter date, it had been a while!) Molly chose to dress up as Sleeping Beauty, and I thought she looked adorable. She was able to pick out one prize when we got there-she chose the crown-and not just any old crown, this one lit up! We met my mom, my sister, and my sister-in-law along with Chloe and Abby (Belle and Cinderella, rather). The show was actually quite impressive and I found myself enjoying it right alongside the girls. We saw all 7 princesses (can you name them all?) and their princes. The girls didn't take their eyes of the show. Molly looked like this for the first 3 princesses:Then she slowly inched forward on her seat, hesitated a little bit, and then just let loose...she started dancing right there in front of her seat. Oh my goodness, this girl is a dancer! It's all she does. (Side note: the other day she was dancing and said "Look Mom! The sports!" and jumps into the splits!) She danced off and on the rest of the show-it was like she couldn't hold it in!Our fabulous day was made possible by my mom, Grandma Kay. We love you Mom! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Funnies

November 10

Molly found a way to make her brother laugh. She's done this almost every day since...

Tiredness

November 5

On the way to Macey's (we literally live about 5 blocks away), Molly fell asleep in the car. This is normal. I arrived at the store, got Molly out, put her down, found a cart, picked her up, put her in the cart, then went to get Stockton and the diaper bag. I came back to the cart and found that Molly had indeed fallen back to sleep:I quickly took a picture with my phone because it was so hilarious! I found a blanket that she used as a pillow and proceeded to do my grocery shopping. This proved to be the easiest shopping trip ever, both my kids slept through the whole thing! The hardest part was trying to find a spot in the cart for all my groceries since a 3-year-old was taking up most of the space!

As unbelievable as this was, she did it again 2 days later. We were on our way home from a visit to Plain City. We stopped at Target in Orem to get some Christmas ideas. Molly slept in the cart the whole time-and this was after she had already slept for an hour in the car.

Now why won't she nap at home on those days I really, really need her to?

4th and 5th Months

Today we celebrate 5 months of Stockton's life. The time has flown by but I really can't imagine life without our sweet baby boy. Funny how that happens...our family would NOT be complete without him. He has the three of us completely smitten.

We took him to his 4-month well-child check where he weighed in at 14.2 pounds. Not bad-almost 2 pounds heavier than his sister was at the same age! A "chunk" compared to her. That would probably be because even at 5 months old, he still likes to eat every two hours during the day. Yup, 2 hours! I happily oblige because it gives me a chance to hold him for 10 minutes before moving on to the next thing.

Stockton is a smiley baby and will smile at anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to him. Sometimes I even catch him smiling at someone when they are completely oblivious to him.

Last weekend he really figured out the rolling over thing. He started rolling over so early (like before he turned 3 months) but then he quit and just barely picked it up again. He gets stuck on his belly, which is frustrating to him, but he'll get it soon enough. We're also working on the sitting up thing and have a little bit of work to do, but he is enjoying his saucer and the Bumbo we borrowed from my sister.Of course by now he is pretty good at reaching for and picking up things...and then they go directly to his mouth. He slobbers a whole lot too...and sucks on his fingers...and everything else.Stockton is still trying to figure out the whole napping thing. He'll go down and sleep for about 30-40 minutes and then he's up again! It makes it hard to get anything done but I try not to get frustrated and remember that Molly did the same thing and once she reached six or seven months, she was a great napper! I guess I'm just not very great at getting them on "schedule" until sometime between 6 and 9 months. Oh well, that's life.

Stockton is our jumper. When you stand him up on your legs he'll immediately start to jump. Actually, whenever he can find anything to push his feet against he's "jumping." This is most annoying when I'm trying to feed him.

What a joy this boy has brought to our family; I am thankful to be his mom everyday!

Haircuts

October 25

Stockton's hair had finally reached the point where it was completely out of control...okay, maybe it had been out of control for a while. When a lady came to Justin's mom's house to clean her carpets she saw the picture of all 8 grandkids and said, pointing to Stockton, "What's that on his head?" It was just his hair. For some reason I was so hesitant to cut it but Justin finally talked me into it last month. So I trimmed the top of it and slicked it into a much more controllable mohawk. The handsome devil...Poor picture, I know, but it really does look good.

Not one to be left out, Molly thought she needed a haircut too:Yup, she did it herself. A big chunk right above her left ear. When I asked her why she did it, she said "The friendly troll came into my room and told me to. Don't worry about it Mom." We had a talk about what scissors are used for and who cuts her hair and then Justin and I had a good laugh. It could be a million times worse but it's not so bad because it can be easily camoflauged. She is so independent, the little stinker.

When Grandma asked where she cut her hair she said "on my rug." Haha!

Halloween Recap

Molly was Little Red Riding Hood.Stockton was a skeleton.We started our Halloween celebrations one week early with a party at my mom and dad's. Of course my mom goes all out planning games, making treats, giving presents, etc..

A trip to the pumpkin patch AND a pinata were also included in this party.

Molly thoroughly enjoyed herself and I thoroughly enjoyed the white-chocolate caramel-covered apples that my mom sent home with us. Mmm-mmm good!The night before Halloween we headed to Sandy for some more fun. Food was eaten, games were played, pictures were taken.We played pin the mouth on the jack-o-lantern. (Molly made the jack-o-lantern, I think she did a great job!) See those mouths lined up off to the side? Those were all those that didn't make it on the right wall; Molly moved them over there later. Oh yes, we had to make up a "Halloween-y" name; names like, "Megavich," "Justin the Ripper," "The Halloweener," "Witchy-Poo," and "Punkadilly Heidi."That brings us to Halloween day-wasn't it nice to have it on Saturday? We were going to skip the pumpkin carving because we had done it in Plain City but Justin needed his roasted pumpkin seeds...so we ended up carving...well, Justin and Molly ended up carving.Then, of course, trick-or-treating! Molly was not very good at saying "trick-or-treat" or "thank you" but she kept telling me "Mom, I never knew trick-or-treating could be so much fun!" Here she is, anxiously waiting for the door to open so she can pick her favorite treat. Justin and I were disappointed in her choice of candy, though, hardly any chocolate! Mostly suckers...boo!We ended our night with a heaping bowl of our traditional Halloween meal, taco soup, and a yummy pumpkin roll sprinkled with powdered sugar (also a tradition).