How to make Christmas morning last longer

Me: Did you know that Santa is coming tonight?
Ella: He is?
Me: Yes, what do you think he'll bring you?
Ella: I don't know. But mom, I'm going to try something I've never tried before.
Me: What's that?
Ella: I'm going to open all my presents with my feet. I've always wanted to try it.

Making Breakfast with Dad

Ella & Lily both love helping in the kitchen. Especially when their dad is making muffins.

On a side note, if anyone hears of radio stations or any other ways to win tickets to see "Walking with the Dinosaurs" let me know! I'd love to take Ella to see this show. I've already entered one contest. I'm determined to win some tickets!

Snow Day

Today Ella threw her first snowball [at me].

At dinner, Lily dumped her soup out to see if she could find another carrot. When she found there were no more carrots, she put the soup back into her bowl (minus the broth).

Preschool Party

Today was the Christmas party for preschool. Everything was perfect (which is typical for anything Ella's teacher does.) There were lots of games, prizes, presents, and food. At the end, the girls sang some Christmas songs. Ella LOVES preschool!

Dinner by candle light

Monday night we had a pizza, popcorn, & slushy party in our family room. We watched the movie, Horton Hears a Who. Lily didn't watch the movie, but she had fun climbing on everyone.

Tuesday night, Ella didn't want to eat in the kitchen (We hardly ever do, because our business has taken over our dining area.) But it was all cleaned up, so I thought we should eat at our table. To entice Ella, I lit some candles that were left over from Lily's birthday party. Tyler turned all the Christmas lights on & the kitchen light off. Ella loved eating by candle light (although she didn't eat a whole lot.) Lily loved it even more! After dinner Ella entertained us by dancing to Christmas music in her favorite pony shirt, skirt, & St. Patricks day socks.

Lily performed by doing her famous gymnastic tricks.

Cookie Party

I do comb Lily's hair several times a day, You could never tell.

Growing up my grandma hosted the best party of each year. Our annual Christmas cookie party. My cousins and I would all get together to make & decorate Christmas cookies. It was so much fun. My kids are lucky to have a grandma who carries on this fun tradition. Friday night the girls were all invited to my mom’s Christmas Cookie party to make cookies, read books & to sleep over. Tyler and I were surprisingly caught up with orders. We usually end up working when our kids are gone, but since we didn't have much work, we enjoyed dinner at Red Lobster.
All the parents were invited to my mom's house for breakfast in the morning & our first annual "Nogger" party. My mom won the prize for the best outfit!

Don't you know what cute is?

Ella: Mom, draw something cute for me.

So I drew a cute angel for her.

Ella: No, something cuter.

So I drew an even cuter angel, then after seeing the look of disapproval on her face, I drew an ice cream cone. I thought it was cute.

Ella: No, something really cute, like a T-Rex.

a Winter "One"derland

The birthday girl was "SNOW" cute!

Eating Yummy Cake!

Great Grandma Atwood

Nana Jones

Ella checking out the favors.

The cake.

Yummy Chocolate.

Paper snowflakes for our Winter "One"derland.

Fun cousins everywhere.

We are so happy Lily is in our family. Happy Birthday Lily!
And happy 1/2 birthday Ella.

My favorite part of today

Ella: Mom, do you want to hear the song I just made up?
Me: Yes!
(to the tune of "Who let the dogs out" she sings:
Ella: Who let the Chocolate out? mmm yumm mmm mmm

Today we went with Ella's preschool class on a tour of the Candy Factory.

FHE in the mail

We didn’t have anything planned for Family Home Evening tonight. Luckily we got this cute, but very elaborate "Make your own Nativity Kit" in the mail today. It was an early Christmas gift to Ella from my dad, but it was a fun surprise for us all! We decided putting it together would make the perfect Family Home Evening activity.

Ella ate crackers & provided the music. She sang jingle bells until Tyler handed her Jesus’s mother and told her that her name was Mary. Ella picked up a sheep, then she sang "Mary had a little Lamb" the rest of the evening.

Lily desperately wanted to participate, but we knew the outcome would be disastrous. So, we fed her crackers and cheese until she got so wild that we finally had to put her to bed (almost an hour early.) We missed her crazy personality, but the rest of the night was quite peaceful.

B is for Ballet

Yesterday our family went to a theatre downtown with Ella’s preschool class to watch a children’s version of the Nutcracker. It was very cute! Ella and I especially enjoyed the well designed scenery. Lily had a hard time sitting still in the beginning, but was soon entranced by the music & dancing. I wish I had a cute picture of my girls all dressed up, but it was a crazy day. (I accidentally scheduled way too many things all at the same time.) Thank you to everyone who helped me out yesterday & the day before!

A gift for you

Click Here to download these free printable gift tags.
There are 2 designs / 6 per sheet.
If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can download a free copy here.
Merry Christmas!

Ella's perfect Setup

Ella: Mom, come look at my setup.
In her room she points to her bed.
Ella: Mom, isn't this the perfect setup? Can you take a picture of my setup? Do you just love it? I'm going to show dad my setup. Where's your camera?

You are all probably wondering what a setup is. Ella uses this word almost daily. I'm not sure where she picked it up from, but from what she's shown me, I believe it means "setting things in a perfect arrangement." I could be wrong... I'm just guessing.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Ella being an Indian for her Preschool Thanksgiving Celebration.

My Grandma.

Ryan Jones Birthday Celebration.

Meeting cute little Navi.

Hanging the Stockings.

Putting up the tree & decorations.

Lily and her Uncle Ryan.

Lily.
Making snowmen ornaments with Ella.
Ella made this with no help.
Black Friday. I finished almost all our Christmas shopping by 6:30AM.

Games.
Movies.
Guitar Hero.

Tagged

I was tagged by Tonya

10 years ago I was...
1. Going to school at USU
2. Living with the funnest roommates ever! Including my sister Emily.
3. Having a great time celebrating April Fools Day (like everyday.)
4. Working at the USU computer lab.
5. The worst artist in my drawing class. (Emily can verify.)

To Do List
1. Design 25 more stamp sets before Jan. (Don't know if I'll make it.)
2. Go to the temple.
3. Stay caught up on Vinyl orders.
4. Do at least one little fun Christmas activity a day with our family in December.
5. Teach Lily to crawl down the stairs.

snacks I enjoy
1. pickles
2. candy
3. celery & pickles
4. more candy (Peanut Butter M&M's)
5. Dreyer's Fruit Bars

Places I have Vacationed
1. New York
2. California
3. St. George, Utah (ohhh exciting)
4. Florida
5. Once my family went on a Senor Citizens Tour bus to Branson, MO. Best vacation ever! Everyone on the tour (minus our family) was retired.

Jobs I've had:
1. Illustrator & Designer for Stampin' Up! (Funnest Co-workers)
2. Nanny in NJ & TN (Neatest experience)
3. Taco Bell (First REAL job)
4. USU Computer Lab (Best Job Ever!)
5. Preflight Design at Nichols (WORST job EVER!)

Pet Peeves
1. Dishes in the part of the sink where the disposal is.
2. People who tailgait & honk at me, when I'm already driving faster than the speed limit.
3. The penguin obessed lady who keeps emailing me & telling me how to run my business & that my artwork is no good.
4. Not following through with promises.
5. Customers who leave negative feedback on Etsy for me, even though I was very nice to them, and sent them their order twice (since they said they never received it.) And I refunded their money.

Things that bring me joy
1. Tyler.
2. Daily funny conversations with Ella.
3. When Lily presses her hand to her nose & snorts as long as she can, just to make me laugh.
4. Making things & learning new skills.
5. Libraries & reading a really good book.
6. When both my girls squeal with delight each morning when they first see each other.

I tag:
1. Megan H.
2. Jami Jones
3. Emily Call

& anyone else who wants to play

Like a tiger

Ella: Mom, what are some dangerous animals?
Me: Alligators, bears, some snakes.
Ella: And Tigers! I could totally beat up a tiger.
Me: You think?
Ella: Yup! Lily is like a Tiger. Her growls like one. Her has sharp claws that dig real hard, and her eats everything in her way.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

My grandpa is the funniest guy ever!

Grandma: John (my grandpa), scrape that butter off that roll right now, you don't need to eat that much butter.
My grandpa quickly obeyed and scraped the butter off his roll . . . then he licked the butter off his knife.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Bull Rides

Ella: Mom, can I ride a horse?
Me: If you had the opportunity, would you ride it? (she was scared last time.)
Ella: Yes
Me: How about a pony? They have pony rides at Gardner Village.
Ella: Yah, I'd ride a pony. Or, actually I want to ride a Mule, cause they would try to kick me off, but I could stay on. Or maybe, a Bull! Can I ride a bull instead of a pony mom?

---------------------------------

Ella: Mom you shouldn't hit birds with your car.
Me: Nope, that wouldn't be nice.
Ella: But, you should hit a bear, because they are mean.

Sleigh Rides

Ella: Do you know what I'd really love to have for Christmas?
Me: What?
Ella: A sleigh ride. With 3, no, 4, no 6 dogs pulling it. In two lines. The dogs need to be in two lines. And they will be waiting outside our house when I wake up on Christmas. I think I'd really like to have that for Christmas.

Anyone know where I can get 6 dogs that know how to pull a sleigh for Christmas morning?

Lunch

Even though I was very, VERY tired from the night before, I decided to go to lunch with a bunch of designers on Friday anyhow. I'm glad I did, we had a great time eating & shopping after wards. Check out some of their websites, they really are great designers/photographer.
Kristina, Jessi, Layle, Carina, Sande, & Rhonna.
I'm a little bit jealous that some of them have their designs (in the form of stamps & other products) at places like Target. Thanks for inviting me to lunch! It was fun.

The Aquarium

A Beautiful Dream

8:00 PM Tyler puts Ella to bed.
8:03 PM Ella comes running into the office.

Ella: Mom, I just had a Fabooloos (Fabulous) dream!
Me: What was it?
Ella: Dinosaur band aides.
Me: What happened in the dream?
Ella: Just Dinosaur band aides.
Me: Was it a dream you had? or was it a really good idea you thought of?
Ella: It was a beautiful dream.

We are all excited!

Everyone was so excited Saturday when we found out that Brian & April will be adopting a little girl in about 3 weeks! April just happened to be in Salt Lake this week, so we had a surprise baby shower and celebration tonight with yummy food, and lots of family & friends. Brian & April are heading to Michigan in about 3 weeks to watch the birth of their new little girl. Congratulations! We can't wait to see pictures.

Bowling

After working extra hard this week, we were finally able to catch up on all our orders for Vinyl Wall Art! To celebrate, we decided to head downtown to do all the legal stuff to make our new business official. Instead of our whole family waiting in boring lines at all the government offices, Tyler dropped Ella, Lily, and I off at Gateway, while he ran all the boring errands.

Since we were already downtown, we decided to use our "free bowling" coupons we got at the Corn maze last month. So we headed to Fat Cats for our first family night of bowling.

Lily was really into the whole thing. She clapped and cheered for everyone, and was extremely excited when we let her push the ball down the alley. Then we stayed for pizza & yummy bread sticks.