Busy December

So since it's been a very busy couple of weeks, I thought I would recap what we've been up to (minus Christmas. I'll post Christmas day in a few days).

On December 19th, Lindsay and Zane had a Preschool Christmas program. It was so cute and they both had to memorize a line from 'Twas the Night before Christmas!

This is a clip of them doing a Christmas rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Lindsay is right behind Zane.

Lindsay's line is at the end of this clip. I'm so proud of her memorizing it and speaking loudly and clearly!

Zane says his line at the end of this clip. He has it memorized but still waited for Miss Nicole to tell him the words. He wasn't shy at all. (He's the one playing with his nose!)

On December 17th, Lindsay had her Christmas dance recital, which I also had to help with backstage because I help teach. It was kind of stressful, but fun to see all the girls in their pretty costumes performing. Lindsay did a very good job. Check out the video clips below. (Try to ignore Dan and my dad talking in the background. We'd just purchased a new video camera that day and they were trying it out, talking about it!)

Lindsay in her ballet costume

Cambree, Lindsay and Lila all ready to tap dance

Chris, me, Lindsay and Charlee after the recital. I help Chris teach on Tuesdays and help Charlee on Wednesdays. Can you tell we're exhausted?

Here we are taking family pictures in our Sunday Christmas outfits

Our little princess



What a stud!

That's our baby!

On December 15th, Dan and I went to The Grand American Hotel for his work party. It was a lot fun to go out on a hot date for FREE! They had a buffet with very delicious food. Too bad I got full too fast. But of course saved room for dessert. For the entertainment, they had The Dueling Pianos. They were so fun to watch and listen to. Wish I could play the piano like them.

Because our Elf Snowball Fight was such a big hit, we decided to do another one even though Christmas is over.

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SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!! (Go to the bottom of our blog to pause the music so you can hear the music from our snowball fight)

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Temple Square

In trying to keep with tradition, we took the kids up to Temple Square to see the lights. We decided to take Trax because the kids had never riden it before. The first 10 minutes there was great! But then Gavin decided he wanted to walk around instead of sit on my lap. Before we knew it, he was arching his back, screaming. We tried to feed him a snack and give him his binky and stand up with him. But nothing was good enough. I feel bad for the people who had to listen to it! We also picked the night, when there was a concert at the Conference Center so there was a million people downtown and it was about 18 degrees outside. We met up with Karen, Christian, Nathan, Jenny, Carter and mom and dad Skousen. The kids were very good at Temple Square and there was no whining until the end when we had to wait 15 minutes for the next Trax train to come. After being on the train for a few minutes, they announced that there was a disabled train at 7700 South. So we had to get off at 7700 So. and get on a bus. Well, Lindsay and I got seperated from Dan and the boys during that process. I was at the back of one of the buses saving Dan some seats, then I spotted him getting on the bus just as they were closing the doors. But he couldn't get back to me because there were people sitting in the aisles. So he stood with Gavin on his back and Zane at his feet. The bus took us to 9000 South so we could get back on Trax but it took forever because of an accident. Finally, we reunited and squished onto a 2 car Trax train that took us to our destination 10000 South. The kids were so tired and cold. It was quite an adventure!

Riding trax on the way there, before Gavin's meltdown!

To take 3 kids downtown was interesting. We didn't want anyone complaining of having to walk so we brought both umbrella strollers for Lindsay and Zane and the back pack thingy for Dan to carry Gavin in. It sure helped. Gavin loves it in that thing!

Lindsay insisted I take this picture. Very blurry!

Santa came to our neighborhood!

In years past, Santa has come to our neighborhood on a firetruck, driving down every street, passing out candy canes. Because our neighborhood is getting so big now (homes are still being built), this year, Santa stopped at one of the neighborhood parks and had the kids come to him. It was still kind of early on Saturday morning and we had just barely gotten dressed for the day. But it was still kinda fun.

The kids got to climb up inside the fire truck and honk the horn. It was fun but FREEZING!!!!!

10 Years of Gayness! and I mean Happy!

Ten years ago on December 1st, 1997, my sister Karen and I met Melissa Straw, through her cousin (who is our friend) Heather Andersen. Who would have thought that we would become such good friends and roommates a couple months later. After Dan and I got married, my other sister, Jenny, was roommates with her. Now we're married and have kids, but that doesn't change much. We still act like we're 20 years old! For our 10 year Anniversary, we went out to dinner and stayed the night in a hotel room. We stayed up late reading our journals from back in the day, talking, laughing and peeing our pants (literally). For those of you who don't know, I come from a family of several sisters who don't have a lot of control over our bladders when we laugh. Then we meet Melissa Straw who has the same problem. Friends in heaven? Hmmmmmm? Anyways, below are some pics from that night and a video clip of me and my sister Jenny doing what we do best!

Dinner at Chili's

Melissa brought a little bubbly and glasses for a toast. She was very disappointed when she realized she only had 2 goblets instead of 4.

Jenny and Melissa
Karen and I

Don't ask. It was late and my name is Heather.

We woke up to several inches of snow. It was a winter wonderland but not very fun to drive home in!

Ok, so I need to set the stage. We decided to take a picture of Jenny and I jumping on the bed, but Melissa wanted to video us jumping first. We started jumping and on my second jump, my head hit the cottage cheese ceiling (which crumbled down onto me) and when I landed I stepped on a water bottle, squishing it. Jenny just started laughing and peeing immediately. Don't judge us, we're still nice people!

Let it Snow!

What a great way to begin the month of December - with a snow storm! And a fun one it was! Last Saturday (December 1st) we got about 5 inches of snow dumped on us and the kids were so excited. So we took them to the park across the street to go sledding, where there is the perfect hill for them. It's just long enough to tickle their tummies, but short enough for them to walk back up the hill by themselves. They had a blast and the snow looked so pretty. Gavin was so mad at me when I brought him back inside. He kept trying to open the front door to go back out.

Thanks to our fabulous neighbors for letting us use their snow blower, Dan spent quite some time cleaning our LONG driveway off. Thanks Carl & Mindy!


Gavin wanted to go back outside so badly, that he found the bathroom stool, carried it into Lindsay and Zane's room, put it on Zane's bed and climbed up to watch daddy shovel snow. He seriously did this on his own!


Then Zane wanted a turn.


Mommy and Lindsay


Daddy, Zane and Gavin. Look at those rosey cheeks!

The Nutcracker

Last week, some of our good friends, Joe and Amy, asked if I could come up to the clock shop that Joe's family owns and help out. Once a year, they have the Steinbach's come from Germany, to sign their Nutcrackers. Christian Steinbach passed away in February, so his daughter, Karla came to sign them this time. They needed help unpacking the Nutcrackers, handing them to Karla, then after she signed them, we would re-package them. It was a lot of fun meeting Joe's family and hearing Karla speak German (sprechen zie deutsch anyone?). As many of you know, my grandparents are from Germany. I don't speak it very good AT ALL (my family will attest to that), but I LOVE to make up my own German. Deutschland uber alles in der Welt! I didn't make that up though! It just sounds cool. Here's some of my favorite Nutcrackers that I saw in the process of re-packing.....

"Crack nuts, I will!"

"Luke, I am your Nutcracker!"

"N-U-T-C-R-A-C-K-E-R-S"

"You wee lass. I wear a kilt when I crack nuts!"

Amy and I re-packing the Nutcrackers

Me and Karla Steinbach


P.S. Dan made me keep what I wrote under each Nutcracker. I just wrote them to be funny and then I was going to delete them, but Dan was laughing so hard, he told me to leave it, so sorry!

_{But Heather came up with them...not me.-Dan}

Festival of Trees

Lindsay asked for a baby doll.



Family togetherness. Gavin's giving Santa the evil eye!



"Ho, ho, ho THIS, Santa!"

Zane asked for a pretend dog.

Last week we took the kids to the Festival of Trees on opening night, Wednesday. What were we thinking? Well, I'll tell you what we thought. We thought that it might not be as busy that night, and we were wrong. It took us about 15 minutes to find a parking spot. We thought it would be a fun tradition to continue and that the kids would enjoy seeing the different trees, we were wrong. Zane had fallen asleep on the way there, so he was SOOOOOOO grumpy almost the whole time. Lindsay was bored after about 10 minutes of looking at trees and wanted a cinnamon roll, that she only ate about 3 bites of (but mommy was willing to finish it!). We thought the kids would be too afraid to see Santa and we were wrong, well, except Gavin. Lindsay and Zane both walked right up to him and sat on his lap. Gavin acted like he was going to sit on his lap, then at the last second, he turned and started running (see photo). It was hilarious! So maybe next year, we'll start a different tradition, of going to the Festival of Trees for a date night!

We are so grateful....

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Heather's parents. All of her sisters and brother-in-laws and nieces and nephews were there, except Matt and Lauren (in California) and Amy ( in Texas on her mission). We missed you guys! Oma (Heather's grandma) was able to join us too. Dinner was delicious and so was dessert and so were leftovers and ok, ok, you get the point. We ate ALL weekend and didn't feel guilty one bit! We also celebrated our nephews birthdays, Jarom (7), Nathan (1)and Carter (1). So along with all of the pies, we had 2 birthday cakes and cupcakes! Yumm! We are so grateful for so many things ~

• Our families. We have such amazing support from both of our families. We are so blessed to have most of our family members living nearby so we get to see them a lot! We love you all!
• The gospel. How fortunate we are to be part of the true church. We're grateful to have both been raised in the gospel and to have strong testimonies.
• Our Children. Yes, life was simple before we had our 3 little munchkins and we had more money laying around and in savings, but boy has it been fun raising them. And so worth it! They have brought us so much joy! We love you Lindsay, Zane and Gavin!
• Our Home. We love where we live and have the best neighbors. Our home is perfect for our growing family and we're planning on being here for a while!
• Our Jobs. Dan is loving his job where he's been for almost a year. He gets to work with other computer nerds (as he calls them) and enjoys everything about the business. It's so nice to be at this point in our lives, where he has graduated from college and has his career. A few years ago it felt like school was never going to end. Heather loves the freedom and flexibility of working for the title company from home now. They have been so good to her these past 11 years. She's also been loving her newest job, teaching tap and ballet to 3-5 year olds. This is something she's always wanted to do and LOVES it!
• Our Friends. We have been so blessed to meet and become friends with so many good people. Thank you to all of you who put up with us! We love you!
• Our Health. Even though we've had strep throat, the stomach flu and about 50 colds since September, we're grateful they are just small illnesses that we have to deal with.

We hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving. (We'll post some Thanksgiving pics in the next few days)

What time is it? High School Musical Time!

Lindsay and Zane filled their sticker reward charts again and this time earned tickets to see High School Musical on Ice. We went on Saturday afternoon and they had a blast! It was so cute to see their faces as we walked into the arena. I spent a lot of the time just sitting watching their reactions.

Lindsay's favorite parts were "Get Your Head in the Game" and the breakup song (as she calls it) when Troy and Gabriella break-up! Zane's favorite parts were when they were singing and the fireworks at the end.

One of Lindsay's best friends, Lydia Lambson, Lindsay and her cousin, Kaelynne

Mommy and Zane

Another one of Lindsay's best friend's, Lila Cowdell, Lila's cousin, Alayna Garn and Lila's friend from preschool

"Can I wear it like this?"

So the other day, Zane came out from his bedroom and asked if he could where his boxer underwear like this. He had both legs in one pant leg and it looked like a mini skirt. I calmly said (without trying to pee my pants from laughter), "well Son, I think that might be a little uncomfortable. So lets try it a different way. But first, can I take your picture?" He agreed and this is what it looked like.

Here they are the right way.

Then Lindsay wanted a silly picture with Daddy's hat from Hawaii on her behind.

Gavin kept standing in front of the camera when I was trying to take Zane's picture. He's such a ham!