Christmas

Christmas was awesome this year! It was so much fun having the kids be old enough to start really catching on to a lot of the things and also being able to include them in on more activities. This year I had to make 21 goody plates!!! Isn't that insane? Yeah, I think it is. I had 21 goody plates to make, an Activity's day activity at my house with eight 10-11 year old girls at my house, and a preschool party to go to on top of all my other day to day things. Seems like there was a lot more, but I can't think of anything else off hand. Needless to say December went by very quickly.
I admit that we spoiled the kids quite a bit this year, and honestly their favorite toys are the $10 or less toys...lesson learned for us. :) We had a nice dinner with our friends next door and just really enjoyed our day. The kids and I also went down to Tucson to celebrate Christmas Eve at my Grandma's. I love that we have that tradition in our family and that we have such a nice gathering place. (Thanks grandma for all your hard work! We love you and that you do that for us!!!) Christmas morning we got to talk to Elder Hine, open more presents, and have a brunch with my Dad, step mom, and Aunt Anita..and again open more presents! I love spending Christmas with family. I love driving by lights on people's houses or taking the kids to see the Temple lights and having Ezra sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" every time we see Christmas Lights. I love showing pictures of Jesus to the kids and them knowing who He is. I love giving to people and knowing they appreciate it. I love Christmas! Most importantly though, I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and the blessings I have in my life through Him.

Ezra

Ezra, Ezra...where do I start? Ezra is my little man, my sidekick, mi amigo. Ezra is doing sooo good these days, we are very happy with his progress. We have increased our therapy in the home to about 20 hrs a week and preschool has helped a lot with communication too. Some of my favorite things he tells me now are; "one more time", "do you see him" (this is usually said while looking for a piece of mr. potato head), "I love you", "Sissy, where are you", and "ABC song please". I hear these phrases a lot through out the day, and I love it. I love hearing him talk and communicating with me. My absolute favorite thing he does these days though is when he prays. One day when we sat down to eat dinner we folded our arms and I was about to pray, but Ezra busted out in prayer. He even says his nightly prayer too. Its so cute, it really made me happy to know that all those stressful Sundays were paying off. I have to do church a lot by myself and it is not an easy task. I remember about 2 months ago I was struggling with the kids and the speaker from the High Council was talking, and I honestly don't know what he was talking about because I was battling 2 toddlers. But half way through his talk he looked at me and I looked at him and he said, "you know what I am talking about, don't you? Believe me you are doing the right thing coming to church with your kids even when you don't feel like you are getting anything out of it and you don't think they are either, they are. They are learning that going to church is important, that it was and is important to you, and one day you will realize that it is impacting their lives." I was red as he was saying this. Ezra then pretended burp and said "esus me" really loud. Everyone I felt was looking at me and I wanted to cry, but i didn't. He said exactly wanted I need to hear, at the time I needed to hear it the most. Well I can now see the impact that church is having on my little ones, and it really makes my heart happy.

Ezra is also obsessed with Mr. Potato head. Ever since Toy Story 3 we have had to take Mr. Potato head with us everywhere we go and we also have to turn everything into a potato head. We have done tortillas (he gets 1 a day to do a tortilla head), play dough, rocks, bread, a real potato, and basically anything that is round and you can stick pieces of potato head into. I need to snap more pictures of his creativity, its quite impressive I think. He also is a fix it man. He loves tools and he goes around the house with a screw driver fixing everything...literally!

He is such a happy boy and I love his sweet spirit.

Ms. Rylie Jane

Pictures for your enjoyment!

Ms. Rylie Cont.

This video is Rylie playing with her speech therapist. This gives you a pretty good idea of her personality. Robin, the therapist, puts a necklace on like Rylie so of course Rylie has to take hers off b/c now she is not original.

I'm not really sure why we call Rylie; Rylie Jane. Her middle name is actually Dianne, but she just acts like a Rylie Jane sometimes.

Rylie is getting so big so fast! I can't believe she will be 2 in a month. We love our little girl to pieces. I will say she is one stubborn cookie though! We have been trying to get her to not go to bed with milk now for awhile, and well, we are not doing so good with that goal. One night she cried for 3 1/2 hours until we finally gave in and gave her milk. She LOVES animals, Ezra, playing outside, getting dirty, Woody and Buzz, her "baba" (baby), acting like she is a baby, my shoes, necklaces, baths, bubbles, Princess and the Frog, high fives and "rocks", and peaches. She is starting to pick up on some words, but her favorite is 'please' while rubbing her chest and looking super cute, so I always give in. She also loves to color in nursery and her nursery teachers have mentioned to me that they love all her dresses...so do I!

some crafts and an early Christmas present.

Because my husband rocks; he got me a Silhouette for Christmas (OK so I may have ordered it myself, but he said yes..) And he also said yes to letting me open it early because he could understand the logic of that when I told him I could make a lot of really fun, cute, and inexpensive Christmas gifts...I told you, he rocks!

So these are the projects I worked on. The 6 Be mirror project is probably my favorite, that is why it is staying in my house :)

I got the idea for the wall hanging project for a super Saturday thing that my mother in law did. The plates with the Nativity scene I think I came up on that on my own, but I don't know if I did see it somewhere on a blog before and that is why the idea came so easily. So if someone posted it on a blog and I just don't remember, sorry I did not give you credit. The Blessing Block I got the idea from this blog, its one of my favorites to follow.

I'm so excited for the things I can do with my silhouette machine, I will keep posting more crafts that I do...so stay tuned :)