Once There Was a Snowman

After a pretty dry winter, it's finally been snowing in Cedar!

We decided to make some snowmen with the girls.  But we waited a little too long.  The snow was hard and it was hard to get the snow to stick into snowballs.

So we made mini snowmen instead!

And when I say "we," I mean Jake and the girls.

I was busy taking pictures :)

Jake helping Kate make her snowman.

Aw, such a cute little guy.

I love it when these two get along.

They had fun finding leaves for hats and twigs for arms.

{Kate's snowman}

 

And the girls insisted on having carrots for noses.

{Emmy's snowman}

Daddy and the girls w/ their snowmen!

  Mommy and the girls        

Christmas 2012

Christmas was so much fun this year!

And REALLY busy.

I started selling Scentsy right before Christmas and all the Scensty parties kept me BUSY!  It paid off - I was the top salesman of my Scentsy sales team in December.  It was a great start for my business!

Santa sent us an Elf on the Shelf this year.

The girls named him Sonny :)

They had so much fun looking for him every morning.  That was always the first thing on Emmy's mind, and the first thing she would say to me every morning, "Mom, where's Sonny?"  So we'd go searching for him.  He ended up in lots of fun places - hanging from our pot rack in the kitchen, on our Christmas tree, and, as you can see below, holding baby Jesus in our Nativity.

Sonny was a great motivator to keep the girls on the "Nice" list this year.  We thank him for that :)

Silly little elf!

Emmy didn't want Sonny to be lonely, so we drew, colored and cut out a little friend for him.  Emmy wanted it to look just like Sonny.  I drew him and Emmy colored him in and drew in his face.  Sonny loved him!  He kept his friend with him the whole time!

Christmas was on a Sunday this year, which was a great way to keep Christmas focused on the Savior.  We had 9:00 church, which we thought might be a little difficult.  But Santa wrote a letter to the girls asking them to wait until after church to open their presents.  They were more than happy to wait!  Thanks for that, Santa!

Here we are right after church, in our Sunday best.  We all match!

We finally got some cute pics of the girls together!

Here's our Christmas tree.
I LOVE decorating for Christmas!!!

Here are the girls' presents, all laid out!  Santa always leaves a silver bell on his presents to the girls.

 

The girls got a dollhouse from Santa this year!

He was sneaky and didn't bring it to us until we were at church.  Otherwise, the girls wouldn't have wanted to leave it.  So when we came home from church, there it was right in our living room!  The girls were SO excited.  They played with the dollhouse (and some mini Disney Princess dolls - the ones that have their clothes attached!  Thank you, Santa!) ALL DAY!

They also got baby Rapunzel dolls - what Emmy had been asking Santa for.  Santa was smart and gave the girls the same things - he knew there might be fighting over toys otherwise.  Kate didn't even want to open any of her other presents after she opened Rapunzel.  I had to open her stocking for her. 

And the girls also got Scentsy Buddies for Christmas from mommy!  They had been fighting over the one I got in my Starter Kit (which I didn't really want them playing with, anyways, since I use it to displays at parties) so they each got their own!  They are so cuddly and adorable and the girls still sleep with them every night.

Emmy named her elephant Polly:

And Kate named her frog Mr. Frog (who you can't really see in this pic . . .):

The girls got a few other things and we all had a wonderful Christmas!  It even included a new iPhone for mom (yay!) and an iPad from Grammy and Papa for the whole family (Jake is LOVING it!).  Having kids makes Christmas so much fun!!!  It makes Christmas morning so exciting.  We love our Emmy and Kate!  Who knows . . . maybe next Christmas, mommy will be pregnant with another little Malie?  We'll see!

Christmas in SLC

We wanted to spend time with our family in the SLC area, so we headed up a couple of weeks before Christmas.

Bekah and Jess had Santa come to their house.  They invited all the nieces and nephews, along with some of their friends, to come visit with Santa and to sit on his lap.

Kate wasn't so sure about Santa this year . . . she stayed toward the back of the group of kids.

Santa talking to the kids:

Kate's turn to sit on Santa's lap - she wouldn't do it!  He even gave her a present, but she wouldn't leave Jake's arms.

Emmy loves Santa!  She got to see four different Santa's this year - one at The Dickens Festival, here at Bekah's, one at the ward Christmas party and then he came to her school, too!  She's one lucky girl to get to see him that many times.

We stayed with Matt and Sonya at their new house in Farmington.  They've got this awesome trail across the street from their house that goes up the mountain a little ways.  We took a little hike and watched out for "Deerhead Man" . . .  he is half man, half deer and is Matt's way of keeping Grey from going to the forest area alone.  Emmy asked me about him today.  For reals.  I guess it will keep her away from there, too.

These are how our family photos always seem to turn out . . . we can't ever get everyone to look at the camera!  At least everyone is smiling in the one above.

Since we were in SLC, we really wanted to take the girls to Temple Square.  I love going when the Christmas lights are up!  It's so hard getting good pics w/ out a tripod, but I did manage to get a couple good ones.

Emmy and Ellie in front of the Christus statue :)

Another attempt at a family photo.  We are blurry here.  But wait . . .

Kate's face is classic here.

This pretty much sums up how she was most of the time at Temple Square:

We feel lucky that we live so close to family!  We love being able to spend time with them, even if it is only a few times a year.

4th of July {2011}

I know, I know, the 4th of July was over two months ago.  I'm just a little behind on blogging!  Better late than never, right?

We had a fun, relaxed 4th of July this year.

We went to the parade here in town in the morning.  Cedar City has a parade for everything, I swear :)

{At the parade}

 They got SO much candy!

 Kate kept running into the middle of the street . . . she's two, can you tell?

The girls sure love their daddy!

After the parade, we headed to St. George for a BBQ and to hang out w/ family.  We also went swimming at Coral Canyon - my parents own a home there.  The girls had so much fun jumping into the pool!

Later that night, we lit fireworks with some friends in our neighborhood - the Coons and the Holmgrens.  Jake and Chad had a great time lighting the fireworks while the rest of us watched!  I can't find those pics right now :(  When I do I'll post them.

I love the 4th of July!

Summer Fun

Here's what we've been up to this summer:

{Hiking with friends}

(Check out that waterfall!)

{Playing in the sprinklers & eating popsicles}

{Having tea parties}

{Swimming & swim lessons}

{And taking lots of fun pics!}

What have you been up to?