Decemeber Date Night

I don't know what's better. A cheap date night with the hubby, or walking around Temple Square during Christmas Season! Luckily, December's date night was a little of both!


Salt Lake Temple...Isn't it GORGEOUS?!








Remembering the Reason for the Season. The birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

The BEST part of Thanksgiving

We had the privilege of spending our Thanksgiving in Nampa, ID with Dwight's brother, Donavon, and his family. We were truly excited to have Dwight's mom staying there with us as well! Dwight's other brother, Dustin, and his wife and new baby were an added treat to spend time with, as well as Dwight's late-brother, Donald's family. I wish we had taken more pictures with everyone! At any rate, we are extremely grateful to Donavon and Gretchen for their kindness and hospitality and we had a GREAT time!Anika, mom, Gretchen, Daven, Donavon, and MaddoxOur little family with momWhen we first arrived and Donavon and Gretchen's we walked in the front room and saw Dwight's mom sitting on one of the chairs. Annabelle screamed "GRANDMA!!" and ran straight over to her, jumped on her lap and gave her the biggest hug she could muster. She later asked if she could sit with Grandma on the chair and ended up snuggling with with her that night. She sure did miss her Grandma!!
COUSINS!!

The not-so-best-part of Thanksgiving

During a manly game of tackle football for 2009's Turkey Bowl in Nampa, ID, during the final series of the game, Dwight threw himself at the legs of an offensive player who was headed for the end zone in an attempt to tackle him. As Dwight threw his arms around the guys legs to pull him down, the other player juked to one side slamming his knee into Dwight's right forearm. With a resounding "crack!", Dwight crumpled to the ground clutching his broken arm. Thus, Thanksgiving morning was spent in the hospital...
As a result of said injury, surgery was required to obtain full movement and rotation in Dwight's right wrist, which is a necessity for becoming an animator (Dwight's major). So, almost one week to the day, Dwight entered the surgery center in Provo to emerge several hours later with a war wound. This is the picture two weeks after surgery when the splint was finally removed:
Despite all the griping I've done to my husband for his broken arm, I have to admit it IS pretty manly that he broke it during tackle. Can you imagine if he broke it playing FLAG?! lol

Random cuteness

One night while cleaning up from the kids, I heard giggling from Annabelle's room one night and thought I'd better go see what my little kiddies were up to. I found Annabelle and Dallas lying on Annabelle's toddler bed watching a projector movie on the ceiling with Annabelle simultaneously entertaining Dallas with her doggie. What sweet children!


Another afternoon, after nap time, I told Annabelle that if she wanted to watch a movie she had to clean up the toys in her room first. She protested a bit, but after insisting that that was the only way she'd be able to watch a movie, she went into her room to begin cleaning. Several minutes passed by (maybe closer to 10 or 15!) and I realized it had been awful quiet back there for a loooong time. So I called Annabelle's name to see what she was doing. There was no response. I called again, this time a bit louder. Still no answer. I called several more times, increasing the volume of my voice until I finally heard, "whaaaaat"! I said, "Hey what are you doing back there? Are you cleaning your room?" Annabelle replied, "Yeah". So I said, "ok. Hurry so you can watch your movie." Silence again. For a loooooong time. I finally figured I should check to see what's taking so long and this is what I found:

No wonder it took her so long to respond to me calling her name!! lol I guess she'd rather sleep than clean up!
I love that my sweet babies love to play with each other!

Arts and Crafts with Daddy

On one of our many cold November Sunday's, Dwight told Annabelle they could build and paint a birdhouse together. Dwight cut out all the pieces while she "slept". Annabelle could hardly wait until nap time was over to start painting!

Enjoying each other and their work!

The front and back of the bird house

The sides of the bird house

The finished product!!! Way to go, guys!!

Let it snow!

This morning I looked out the front window to see that Mother Nature dropped some wonderful snow all over our front yard. It didn't stick too long, unfortunately, but we did get to see it for an hour or so, drifting softly from the sky. So magical!






These poor little flowers have been trying to bud in our cold weather all week long. But don't they look beautiful covered in snow?





Today was Sadie's first experience with snow. The first thing she did? She walked right over to the fence to see her new boyfriend then, after making sure he was doing ok, she sniffed around the ground, shaking from the cold. I'm not sure how crazy she is about the snow, but I think she'll adjust just fine!

Dallas' New Word :0

Dallas has recently decided that talking is a whole lot more fun that just babbling. His vocabulary has been increasing daily and we are so excited to hear new words! Some of the most recent words include Sadie, Ah-belle (for Annabelle), Sister, Side (for outside), shoes, and of course, the dreaded "no". I was hoping this word wouldn't come for a while longer, because we all know how much little toddlers use it, but I suppose I have no choice. Though I hate it when the kids tell me no, I can't help but laugh when Dallas does it. I don't want to get into the habit of posting all videos, but you can't understand just how funny his "no" is unless you see it. lol P.S. Please excuse his boogers. I didn't realize he had them until after the video haha!