We had to get outside.

January 28

Stockton had a very short nap-too short-and was up at 3:30. It was his third, and final, nap of the day and I knew there was no way he was going to last until his 7-o-clock bedtime. I had nowhere I needed to go so the only other option was to just go outside. So I bundled up the kids and out we went.Molly, on her scooter, said that she would only go outside if she could wear a skirt. I was way past the point of caring so I put tights and sweats on underneath. She was warm and she was happy.Stockton was equally happy, just hanging out in the stroller. He broke out into peals of laughter when he heard some dogs barking. It was funny.

Our short jaunt outside boosted everyone's spirits and we survived the rest of the night with our sanity intact.

6 months-oops, I mean 7 months!

A lot of people tell me that my kids look alike. I guess I can see why they say that, but to me they look pretty different. So I decided to do a comparison. Here is Molly at 6 months:She weighed 13 lbs 12 oz, 2nd percentile

Here is Stockton at the same age:(I don't usually put bobbles in his hair, that was all his sister's doing.)
He weighed 16 lbs 2 oz, 19th percentile

More than 2 pounds bigger than his sister...I guess we can call him a chub! Not that it was hard to out-weigh Molly; she was barely on the charts!

Stockton is growing up so fast! I still think of him as a brand new baby, but he's not. He's 7 months now. He went from thisto thisway too fast.

I took him to get his pictures taken at the beginning of January. I was very pleased with how they turned out. In fact, I had a hard time choosing my favorites...Here's one with both kids, although Molly wasn't as tolerant of the cold as her brother was. Her smile is looking a little forced.

Snow Days

January 1

The combination was just right: there was enough snow and Daddy was home. (Daddy's are much better at playing in the snow, don't you think?) Molly had been wanting to play in the snow and test out her new tube all week. Just across the street we have a pretty good tubing hill. She did a few runs on Justin's lap then tried going half-way down by herself. But she hit a jump and bit her tongue so it was back to riding on Dad's lap.After a few runs down the big hill, they moved to a smaller hill that was just right for her to try out by herself. Much better.The spent the rest of the time building a snowman...Frosty, of course. He's much better than the Frosty I made with her last year. Mine was pretty wimpy.Justin lasted longer than Molly...she came in and he continued to work on Frosty. Then he added our Christmas tree and made a lovely winter scene. It stayed like this for about one week.
January 11

School was at our house and we were learning about snow. What better way to learn about snow than go and play in it? So that's what we did! I had some activities prepared to play with them but they weren't too interested. They made up their own games! They filled up their cups with snow...only it wasn't just snow to them. Emma's was full of hot chocolate, Jade's was a snow cookie, and Molly's was hot chocolate cookie ice cream. I wonder what that tastes like?Stockton wanted to get in the snow with them...I think he wanted to eat it. But he just sat and watched with Mommy. Maybe next year bud. So all that snow that everyone got last week...we got none. Bummer. A lot of our snow is melted and there are huge patches of grass everywhere. Bring on the spring!

Bath Time

Stockton really enjoys getting a bath. Many times when I need him to last 20 minutes before a nap I'll bathe him because it makes him happy. This is the only video I've been able to get, and he's fairly mellow. Usually I get soaked when I am giving him a bath...

Molly, on the other hand, does not particularly enjoy bathing. I have to give her a warning, then set a timer, and when it goes off it's time for a bath. And it has to be a bubble bath. And she likes me to sit and watch her and tell her stories the whole time (which I don't usually do). And she likes her brother to sit in the bouncer and watch her. And on and on...

Three Days of Christmas

After all of our activities leading up to Christmas, it was finally here! Molly was pretty excited, although I'm not sure she knew exactly what she was supposed to be excited about. I'm not sure how much she remembered about last Christmas and the whole Santa thing...but she quickly remembered!

We headed to Plain City for our Christmas Eve party. We got there just in time to meet a special visitor...Santa! Molly had just woken up from a long nap...she takes a little while to warm up after a nap so she wasn't too excited to see him. But she enjoyed the gift he gave her!Stockton wasn't scared of him; he just wanted to eat Santa's beard!It's not Christmas Eve without the nativity. We used to do this when I was little and it's fun to watch our kids doing it now. Molly was Mary this year and she took her role very seriously. She wore the costume the rest of the night and told everyone to call her "Mary."Stockton was Jesus. He laid in that basket and didn't try to squirm away or roll off, just took in his surroundings.Mom brought back our favorite Christmas Eve game...if you roll doubles, you put on gloves and try to unwrap a present.Then we exchanged presents. Molly got this Snow White mirror from Abby...you push a button and it lights up and says things like, "You are the fairest of them all." Lucky us, we got to listen to it the whole way home...all 90 minutes of our ride home.Here is an attempt at a family picture. Wish Stockton was looking at the camera.We made it home that night around 10:30, set out cookies and milk for Santa, and read "The Night Before Christmas" before putting Molly in bed. It was a late night!

Molly woke up at around 8:00 the next morning. Of course we had to wait for Daddy to go downstairs, plug in all the lights, set up the camera, and make sure Santa came. We anxiously waited at the top of the stairs.The only thing Molly asked for all season was a Jasmine Barbie. She never changed her mind or wavered...it was what she wanted. Santa looked everywhere for weeks with no luck...7 days before Christmas a co-worker of Santa's happened to find one, bought it, and passed it on to him. Apparently Jasmine Barbie's were the hot commodity among little girls this year. Who would have thought?Santa also thought that Molly would enjoy her very own computer. It has been a huge hit...it comes out of the closet everyday, multiple times. I've been very impressed with the games that Molly has been able to figure out on her own.Stockton really didn't need a thing...but since the biggest wall in his room was still bare, Justin decided to get creative and make something to fill the space. His room is full of some of Justin's sports paraphanelia that he's collected over the years...old baseballs, a jersey, things of that nature. I'm pretty sure it's Justin's favorite room in the whole house. Anyway, he found a panorama of a baseball field and made a frame to go around it. It turned out awesome. That was what Stockton got from Santa. His stocking was filled with shoes and a little pounding bench.We didn't have much time to play that morning so we saved our gifts to each other for later and headed to Sandy for brunch with Justin's family. And more presents, of course. Molly got these cute dress-up dolls, a sledding tube, and some princess movies.Stockton got this jumper.Justin and I got a deep freezer, wahoo!

Here is the second attempt at a family picture.After spending a few hours there we came home and had more presents to open. Molly got a book full of fairy tales from Dad, princess nightgowns from Mom, and a doctor kit from Stockton. It took her a while to open her presents because she had to try each one out before moving on to the next one.Stockton was happy just chewing on the wrapping paper...but he got a few things. Justin also made a baseball holder for his room (I have a very talented husband, he can basically make anything I ask him to), a firetruck from Molly, and a drum from Mom.Our house looked like this after we opened all our presents-does this happen to everyone, or just us?After a game of Candy Land (a family gift) and some more pictures under the tree, it was off to bed. Phew! It was a very merry Christmas for us, but it wasn't quite over. We still had another day of celebrating.

It was a little strange not seeing my family on Christmas Day. But my parents were kind enough to make the drive down the day after Christmas so we could celebrate with them then. They also brought two little girls, Abby and Chloe, to play with Molly. Molly doesn't get many visitors her age so she was super excited!

Molly's first Cabbage Patch Doll, Ashley Emily. She came with a very cute baby bed and highchair.Stockton got a wooden train and this basketball toy.My parents gave us a video camera.

After playing with toys and cousins for a few hours, they were on their way home and our Christmas had come to an end. I think we were all ready! Mom and Dad were tired, Molly had had her share of meltdowns, and Stockton was as mellow as ever. Molly was sound asleep by 7:45 that night and Stockton not much later. It was very nice; Justin and I finally had a chance to play "Ticket to Ride" that we got for our anniversary a couple weeks earlier.

Some things we learned this year:
1. Christmas is much more fun with kids.
2. Our families are awesome.
3. Three days of that much excitement can lead to many tears for a sometimes-sensitive three-year-old.
4. As much as we love the Christmas season and all the excitement, it's nice when life gets back to "normal."
5. Our life is overflowing with blessings.
6. So I don't forget our one "mis-hap"...if you're feeling congested and clogged up, it's okay to take a Sudafed. Just don't take two 12-hour Sudafed's at the same time. Within 5 minutes, you will be terribly sick and wonder if you're going to die. More importantly, don't do this on Christmas Eve, just as you are leaving work. (Yes, my husband did this. He debated about going to the party at all. If it was any other night he would had stayed home, but luckily after a nap in the car on the way, he was feeling much better and was able to enjoy himself. By the end of the night, I think he was back to normal!)

Making aprons

December 17

One day we decided to be ambitious, so...

-10 kids (my sis-in-law had two extras),
-2 movies,
-2 pizzas,
-1 Rhino (a big 4-wheeler) ride with Grandpa and Jeff,
-1 romp in the snow,
-5 naps,
-2 sewing machines,
-lots of cutting, ironing, and sewing,
-and one HUGE mess at my parent's house

and this is what we ended up with:

Christmas Advent, Days 13-24

I had so much fun doing our Christmas Advent with Molly. It gave me an excuse to spend some quality time with just her when Stockton was sleeping. I think she had fun too; every morning she would wake up and ask what our activity was. We had two rules for when we were doing our activity: First, we had to listen to Christmas music and Second, she had to let me take a picture (I wanted to document our activities). None of our activities required a lot of thought or preparation, but it was still fun! Here's what we did the rest of the month...

Day 13: Watch a Christmas movie.I had Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from the library. Molly chose Rudolph. We laid on the floor next to the Christmas tree and ate peppermint ice cream.

Day 14: Go out to breakfast.There was really no way to make this "Christmas-y." Justin took the day off which is always exciting! We also let Molly choose her clothes...whatever she wanted to wear was okay.

Day 15: Wrap presents.Molly helped with the tape and the bows. This is her present to Stockton, I love where she put the bow!

Day 16: Make a jingle bell bracelet.I probably wouldn't do this again; Molly never wore the bracelet. Oh well.

Day 17: Make a gingerbread man craft.I copied this. It was fun. It was displayed on Grandma's fridge the rest of the holiday season.

Day 18: Go to temple square.Molly really did have fun. She doesn't look particularly happy in this picture. We hadn't been for 6 years!

Day 19: Open a new Christmas book.We do this every year, on a different day. Every year we read the same book on the same day we opened it (does that make sense?). Our kids didn't have a nativity book, so that was what they got this year.

Day 20: Have Christmas pancakes for breakfast.Just make your batter and make sure there are no lumps in it. Put the batter in one of those condiment bottles and then you can make your own designs.

Day 21: Deliver gifts to friends and neighbors.Another one of Molly's favorites. She was having a blast, going to every door and saying "Merry Christmas!"

Day 22: Make a Christmas tree craft.Get a liter pop bottle (better if it's green), glue pom-poms all over it and a star on top. Cute.

Day 23: Make cookies for Santa.It's not Christmas if you haven't decorated sugar cookies! Molly had fun making a mess! :)

Day 24: Make a nativity book.I printed off coloring pages from the Internet that told the story of Jesus' birth. Molly colored them and then we made her pages into a book that we could read. I kept it so she can read it next year.