Once There Was A Snowman!

Matthew had his two buddies over for a little snowman party.  We started out with breakfast.

I made these snowman pancakes with bacon scarfs. 

We sang snowman songs.

We played pin the nose on the snowman.

We had a snowball fight using cotton balls.

We had some snacks and watched "Frosty the Snowman."

I got the ideas for snacks from my sister-in-law Jadi. You can see her party HERE.

And Matt gave the kids a bag of "Snowman Soup."

These kids really are so cute!  They always have so much fun together...and the moms kind of like each other too.

Lights at Temple Square

The kids all bundled up together.  They really do love each other.

We went to Deseret Book and got some yummy Gingerbread cookies!  Matt loved watching the awesome gingerbread machine that the Barrus boys made!  Click HERE to watch their project!  AMAZING job Jesse!

Matt and me on "Lover's Lane." 

Darin and Matt.--You can see Matt's teary eyes.  He didn't want to go.

                      

Lindsay liked coming home to the warm house.

Run run as fast as you can....

...you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

My cute cousin Krista came over to make some Gingerbread Men/Women with Matthew and me. Matt made such a big mess, I think we changed his clothes 3 times, but it was fun. While the cookies were baking in the oven we read “The Gingerbread Man” and “The Gingerbread Girl”—both very cute books. It was a GREAT day!

(Matt looks like he has a "dead tooth" in this picture-- but its just because he snuck some of the dough).

(Notice frosting in his hair, on his face, and on his clothes).

(Smooching Krista goodbye).

(A few of the gingerbread men/girls we made).

Lindsay Update!

We’re so happy to report GREAT news for Lindsay! This week we went back into Primary’s for a CT Scan to see if the surgery is working or if she’d need a shunt. I was nervous that she would hate getting strapped down and that she’d wiggle too much, but she was just perfect! She never cried or wiggled. You can see in her picture that she was even smiling—and the pictures don’t even show her with the straps on her head.

After the scan we met with her doctor and he said that she’d not too far off of where her head size should be for her age and she’s almost on the charts! (When she was born her head was 48cm and now it is 50cm). He also said that her ventricles look about the same size (a good thing), and her cyst looks like it may have shrunk a little (a great thing). Most likely she isn’t going to need a shunt, and we don’t even need to go back to Primary’s until the summer! Wahoo! Thanks for all the prayers! Miracles happen!

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow!

Darin and I received some free tickets to see Annie at Pioneer Theater Company. It was so well done! We LOVED it!

My mom and dad came with us, and they took us to dinner at Noodles and Co. (So yummy!!) And I asked my mom to take a picture of us--and this is what we got! ha ha! (Luckily we have a better one from my dad).

 And a big THANK YOU to Ben and Kristy for watching the kiddos!

Baking Up A Storm

Matthew has been helping me bake dozens and dozens of these cookies for our neighbors. This was the first recipe I ever posted on my food blog. If you’d like the recipe click HERE.

Rub-a-dub-dub Matt and Linds Paint in the Tub!

I saw this cute idea online—but I didn’t realize how much Matt would love it! However, there were 2 bad things about it:

1- It was REALLY hard to get him to stop!--He would have painted all day if I would have let him.

2-I didn’t chose a very good paint—it took me FOREVER to get it all off! (But on the plus side, I have a super clean tub now!)

Sinterklaas Came to Town!

Sinterklaas came to our house and left some yummy chocolates in our shoes.  My sister does this too—but she has some cute Dutch shoes that she leaves out.  Hopefully one day I’ll have some cute Dutch shoes too! 

When I was growing up, each year at Christmas, my great grandma Mimi would give each of us a fifty dollar bill and a Droste Chocolate Letter of our first initial (I was always so jealous of my mom because she got more money and her chocolate W seemed so much bigger than my chocolate H.)  I won’t be giving my kids a fifty dollar bill each year, and I won’t be shipping in Dutch chocolates, but I can melt some chocolate chips and make them a little letter each year!

Reading Count Down to Christmas

Matthew and Lindsay get to open one Christmas book each night until Christmas. I know it's not the most original idea, but they are both really excited about it!

Dinner and a Movie

Last week we were supposed to go to the Bountiful City Light Parade but, because of the windstorm it was canceled. Instead, my family came over to our house for some yummy pizza (provided by mom and dad), a delicious salad (thanks to Heather), breadsticks, and a fancy hot chocolate bar (provided by Ben and Kristy). We also watched “Elf”—Best movie ever made! I was pretty proud of my awesome “stadium seating” to fit everyone—even though most the adults stayed upstairs and visited. It was nice ending to a hard working weekend.

One Reason I LOVE my Neighborhood

I looked out my window to find 40+ men and 6+ trucks cleaning up the tree that fell down across the street. Similar groups cleaned up my parent's yard and my grandpa's yard.

“Everyone knows It’s Windy”

This is honestly one of my favorite songs—I love it!  And I’ve had it stuck in my head with the big wind storm we’ve had (even though this song is not about wind).  It has been unreal up here in Davis County!  I went for a little drive around our neighborhood, and you honestly couldn’t go 1 block before you’d find another huge tree down!

Our problems are diminutive compared to most of our neighbors. Some of our shingles came off, our gate to our back yard broke, our Christmas lights shattered, and one of our rain gutters came off. My mom got hit pretty hard, and my grandpa even worse! He lost probably 15 trees in his yard alone, and he lost his fence to his swimming pool. I think I know how we’ll be spending our weekend.

Here are just a few pictures—we had lots more—and I stopped taking pictures because it was just feeling redundant.

This is the tree directly across the street from our house.  The tree fell and barely missed their house. (We've joked with several of our neighbors that we were going to go cut that tree down in the middle of the night--because we all hated that tree--we're actually REALLY glad it fell down!) 

Two of the kids in my neighborhood standing next to the tree.

This house is about 5 houses away from us.  The house got hit with a light post and a tree.  They're in Poland right now, and don't even know this happend!

Look at those roots!  Almost as tall as the house!

I found this trampoline in the church parking lot!

This tree was blocking the road on Davis Blvd.

The first truckload of stuff from my mom's yard.  And you can also see part of the tree on her roof.

Darin and I were going to go to the Nutcracker this night—but with no shower, we decided to pass it up.  Instead, we cuddled by the fire in our dark cold house.

…the power came on later that night, but we were having so much fun that we just decided to keep all the lights of and pretend the power was out—using candles and flashlights to get around.  It was a fun adventure!

Our prayers to those who have worse damage--and anyone is welcome to come stay in our spare bedrooms if you need a place to stay!