The Once and Future Westeners: December 2012

They Dwelt in a Tent

After the last day of school before Christmas break, we planned a little family party. I toyed with the idea of getting a babysitter and going to the Elder's Quorum Christmas party, but after what happened in Newton that day it was an easy decision to stay home with the kids. I wanted to bundle them up and hold them close. We ended up setting up a tent in the living room and watching Christmas movies all night. The kids slept in there all night with their sleeping bags. It was sweet.

Rowan's little sign that he made for the tent.

These sweeties are so precious to me. I'm so grateful to be their mother!

Our Christmas Adventures

A few weeks before Christmas, someone alerted us to a special visitor roaming the neighborhood. A good thing too because we nearly missed him (it was bath time).

Who doesn't like Santa driving a fire truck late at night throwing candy out to any kid crazy enough to be up and willing to stand in the cold waiting for him? Probably a lot of people. Especially those trying to sleep!

We've also been making TONS of sugar cookies here. Nadia has been having lots of playdates to try and help her out of her shell and we've centered them around goodies a lot of the time. I've tried several recipes and am still struggling to find just the right one. Betty Crocker mixes are great, but they aren't as good when you use the rolling out variation. I found another recipe I really like, but it was really hard to get the cut outs in their original cookie cutter shape transferred over to the cookie sheet without messing them up. We may just stick with circles in the future. Nadia's teacher, Mrs. Casterline came over once too and we made gingerbread houses. Word to the wise- don't buy gingerbread houses from Walmart. They were probably made in China and had the worst instructions and quality (tastes like sawdust) that I've ever seen. Does anyone even like gingerbread?

Ellie from church

Kaitlyn from preschool- sweet, sweet girls.

Rowan, of course, wanted in on the cookie decorating action too.

While Steve was gone interviewing at BYU, Livingsocial had a deal on Nutcracker tickets the evening after he got back. I'd never seen the Nutcracker ballet in person and thought it would be a nice outing after surviving the week without Steve. We got a kind soul in the ward to watch Elsa and took the other kidlets to go see it. I was a little concerned because the ballet started at the kids' bedtime, but they LOVED it. I was holding Nadia the whole time and I could feel her tense the moment the show started. She was completely enthralled.

Rowan has gotten to an annoying stage to where he either loves or hates getting his picture taken. I'm sure you can guess what side of the spectrum he stood on that night.

We weren't supposed to take pictures. I snapped a few shots anyways. So rebellious.

By the time we got home, all the kids were asleep. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to go. It was a great performance and while it didn't compare technically to the Russian ballet that Steven took me to for my birthday a few years ago, it made up for that with it's costumes, effects, and employing dancers of all ages. There was even a dog on stage at one point!

Another fun thing we did leading up to Christmas was attend a drive through nativity. Yes, you heard me right. Nadia's preschool is in a church and they were doing a huge production where you drive through Bethlehem. It sounds cheesy, and parts of it were, but overall it was really well done and beautiful. They even had a live camel! We were driving as I was taking pictures, so forgive the blurry shots. It was pretty fun though. All the "actors" from the church were in character and some were even speaking actual (?) Hebrew.

We're in Bethlehem y'all!

Unrelated to Christmas, but I'm adding them in because they are cute. Elsa has graduated from her baby tub now that she sits up so well. She LOVES crawling around in the tub and her siblings love hopping in to join her- clothes or no clothes.

I cannot describe how much these guys love Elsa. The other day Rowan was carrying Elsa and tripped, dropping her on the ground. He cried harder than she did and not because he thought he'd get in trouble. He was genuinely concerned and horrified about what he had done to his sister. I hope they will always love each other as much as they do now.

Rockin' those maple leafs, eh! I love the clothes that I've been able to utilize for all three kids. These shoes are one of those items.

I Spoke Too Soon

A while ago I was bragging on Facebook how I was glad that my child wasn't crawling so my Christmas tree would survive the season. Needless to say, I jinxed myself.

Elsa is motivated to MOVE! Just a few days after learning to crawl really well, she pulled herself up to standing. This girl is not content with any achievement. She really doesn't snuggle well, much like Nadia at that stage. Just envision trying to get through Relief Society with a girl who does this in your lap...

Don't let that smile fool you! Quite often she is just frustrated with her inability to do things as she sees fit. This is probably a more accurate representation of our day-to-day life and also one of the first times she's pulled herself up.

In fact, if you want her to be content while being held, you're going to have to provide some kind of mobile entertainment.

We're finding out just how unprepared we are for a crawling baby everyday. I should have put cabinet locks on Elsa's letter to Santa.

She's just so darn cute though!

My Precioussssss

Steve and Rowan have been reading The Hobbit together for the past month. They just finished it this week and it's been a fun bonding time for them. I love it when they spend their free time together doing things that don't involve Minecraft. :) Nadia wasn't that interested, but she liked being there for the photo op. It may be a few years before we will let Rowan watch the movie, but it was nice to see him still enjoy the story. His favorite part was the poem Old Tom-Noddy. We got him the graphic novel after they finished the actual book, which has some really great illustrations in it. My favorite reaction of his when he was looking through the pictures was the difference between how he envisioned Gollum and how he was depicted in the novel. Apparently he saw him more as a blob of slime, although one would wonder how he wore the ring.

Our Version of Shoveling the Driveway

I can never go back to snow again! I love winter here.

You have to rake the leaves to the curb here and the leaf vacuum (?) truck comes by and sucks them all up. Just in case you thought I was a bad mom for making my kids jump in piles of leaves right by the road.

The kids ended up making this their fort and got their Nerf guns out. I'm sure the leaf sucker guys got away with a few of our darts.

This isn't really a big pile, but our tree hasn't even lost all its leaves yet. For some reason it keeps them all until spring. This is just our neighbor's castoffs.

More Beach Adventures

Edisto Island State Park= a little piece of heaven.

A few weeks ago I was feeling a little run down and worn out. I wanted to go to the beach, but somewhere a little more rustic and laid back than Charleston. In looking up places to go, Edisto Island popped up as someplace I heard about and had put on my bucket list of places to go before we leave SC. I found some sweet little cabins that they rent out, which you usually have to rent by the week, but as our luck would have it one was available for just the weekend we were looking to get out of town. It seemed like perfect timing and just what the doctor ordered. Since we weren't going out of town for the holidays, this weekend became our mini-vacation before Thanksgiving and the craziness of December came upon us. We loved it so much, we've planned a family reunion for this summer with the Beck clan. Hopefully they love it as much as we did!

Right next to the cabin we had a private dock that you could fish off of. The guy in the next cabin was very nice to us and let us borrow some bait which was really generous since the stale hot dog we were using didn't seem to be cutting it. He told us the state record was caught off this dock and that he had seem dolphins and small sharks in this inlet. We didn't have time to fish a lot and ended up getting a lot on nibbles, but no takers. Smart fish.

Steve with Nadia's Barbie pole. We're hard core.

Our cabin. It turned out to not be so rustic and probably nicer than our current home in many ways. Rowan was over the moon that it had a Battleship game in it.

The moss on the trees was beautiful.

Some may wonder how we took all our gear, luggage, three kids, food, entertainment, etc etc in our little car. We may be reaching the limit of what this car can do, but I will forever be a fan. Our car top carrier housed our luggage and made the trip possible. We still have a minivan on our wish list, but I will never regret buying this car.

So this beach had the best shells, bar none. I've never seen so many on a beach.

Leisurely reading is difficult to do on vacation with three kids. Steve made it work anyways.

We watched the fishing boats go by, while the dolphins trailed behind for an easy dinner.

More dolphins- if you look REALLY closely.

At night while we were roasting marshmallows for s'mores, we didn't pay as close attention to Elsa as we should have. Sneaky girl swiped the chocolate wrappers and was having a grand old time in the dark while no one was watching.