Celebrating Christmas

We had a fun Christmas in Arizona this year with all my family, except my brother and his family (we missed you guys!).

The girls loved having other adults besides Dad and Mom around. They especially loved Grandma and Grandpa, and would wake up and climb into their bed at obscene hours of the morning. But Chris and I sure loved sleeping in a little longer.

No trip would ever be complete without a tea party.

(my Dad looks amazing! He has lost over 70lbs in the past 6 months)

This is a girl feeling well and having fun Christmas Eve.....

This is a girl feeling sick and throwing up on Christmas Eve.

Caitlin throwing up? I know, shocking.

This is a girl trying to feel better to have fun and participate in our silly Christmas song.

Elves in the song.

The Christmas trees in the song.

Baby dolls in the song.

Our nativity. The pregnant one gets to be Mary!

(which is not me, in case anyone got confused)

Our Christmas Eve ended with Ashlee entertaining us for 30 minutes or so.

She is one crazy and so funny girl.

We asked her who she got her funniness from and she said "Mom." I'm not sure about that, Ash.

Our new pajamas.

Katie and I both arrived in Arizona the evening of the 22nd, and we spent most of our spare time the next 2 days making pajama pants for everyone.

Ashlee LOVED her Jessie doll that Caitlin gave her.

Caitlin liked the Ariel that Ashlee gave her, but kind of wanted a Jessie doll too.

The girls opened their present from us that was a trip to Disneyland.

This sums up their reaction......

They were not excited AT ALL. It was all very anti-climactic.

But now we are in California and going tomorrow and now they are excited.

Who even needs presents when you can just jump on the bubble wrap.

We also made humanitarian kits. The girls were both great helpers

The girls fed the ducks on 2 different occasions

And we played horse-shoes.

The girls team made an incredible comeback and ended up winning!!

We really are good, I just threw them off by only throwing it half-way to the pit the first time.

The boys may, or may not, have been poor losers.

We had a great trip with more documented events for other posts, and many more undocumented events. It is nice to be with family and out of the freezing cold.

We are in California with Katie and Ryan now and heading to Disneyland tomorrow!

Escape

We made our escape from a very snowy Rock Springs Tuesday afternoon. We were a little concerned we might get stuck getting out of our driveway, but we made it and it was pretty much smooth sailing after that.

Chris has never seen the lights on Temple Square, so we stopped and did that. The girls were tired and bored until the lights finally came on, then they were enthralled.

This was the pre-light boredom

Trying to keep them entertained in the Tabernacle until the lights came on.

They came on at 5:30, and were beautiful, this is the Assembly Hall.

The Temple looking so beautiful.

They had Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in the middle of the reflecting pool. It looked really cool.

We spent the night in Utah, and got up early the next morning to finish our drive south. Some dense fog slowed us down just a little, but we had perfect roads and made it by 7:20pm totally exhausted and glad to be here!

Off to bed so we can have a visit from a jolly, round man dressed in red.

An early visit

We were all surprised yesterday morning when we went downstairs and there were a bike and scooter by the Christmas tree with a note from Santa.

When the girls wrote their letters to Santa they told him we would be at Grandma and Grandpa Bishop's for Christmas this year.

Santa was sure thinking because the bike and scooter would never have fit in our car to bring back home!

Caitlin rode it around in the house, and then around the block a few times in the afternoon even though it was so cold and there was a dusting of snow on the ground.

Ashlee is a little bit unsure of her scooter. She likes it, but would rather walk then ride it. I'm sure she will warm up to it once we can be outside more.

Santa Came! from Beth Will on Vimeo.

More tea parties?!

Caitlin loves having tea parties with her little tea set, so she was over the moon when she received a new tea party set at her pre-school gift exchange. (which, by the way, I obviously missed the part about a girl bringing a girl gift. Girls like Chutes and Ladders, right?)

The new tea set is the beloved Belle set, and the girls got to have a party for snack yesterday.

Now, with both sets, we have service for 8. Anyone for tea? (a.k.a. water)

Goodie Making

This week we have been baking a lot of scrumptious holiday goodies.

(By "we" I mean myself and Caitlin and Ashlee. Chris was giving finals all day Monday and Tuesday.)

We made fudge- for the first time ever. Chocolate fudge and peanut butter fudge. It turned out pretty good, although I'm not sure I cooked it quite long enough, the elevation thing throws me for cooking candies.

Breaking up candy canes for chocolate candy cane sandwich cookies.

They really liked making these cookies and kept saying, "Daddy will love these," because they know their daddy loves candy canes.

We had an assemble line. Ashlee helped spoon on the frosting and Caitlin put the "lids" on.

I am glad we gave most of it away, or we would all be gaining 40lbs this Christmas.

The girls played in backyard yesterday afternoon. I inadvertently left the sandbox toys out this year, but it is just as well because there is NO SNOW in the backyard. It has even melted away from all the places that never see the sun in the winter and so usually have snow all winter long.

I can't believe our yard looks like this in mid-December. (although we did get a dusting of snow last night)

When you have nothing else to talk about

This is what a sad potty girl, who doesn't feel good, looks like:

Ashlee has been a little under the weather lately, and yesterday seemed to be the climax. Poor thing.


I know there have been a lot of potty posts as of late, but that seems to be most of what has been going on with us lately. Chris was out of town recruiting at the end of last week, so we litterally have just been at home potty training for days. We did go out for a McDonald's playland lunch and for a choir concert last night that Chris sang in. I think we will begin moving on with our lives today.

Update

We have been at home, mostly, for the past few days and the potty girl is doing pretty well.
She is getting the hang of it.
We still have plenty of accidents, but they are getting fewer.

I might be really kicking myself for doing this when we embark on our 15-18 hour drive in a week and a half. But she was ready, and the reward is worth it. No more diapers!

(if only we could stop buying pull-ups for night time, but alas, someone seems to have a very small bladder.)

Potty Girl

We are working on potty training Ashlee, and she is getting to be a pretty good potty girl.

We officially started yesterday, although she used the big girl potty the 2 nights before just before bedtime. When she had success Monday night we cheered and cheered for her and she smiled so big and said "thank you, thank you, thank you" while moving her hands in front of her body in a gracious manner. Ash, you are so funny!

Yesterday we had 4 successes and 3 accidents. Not to bad for the first day with a stubborn girl!

We set up her bunny, a bear, and all the animals in the Ark to anxiously watch and wait for her to use the potty. She loved it, and kept saying "Mom, they all washing me."

A little good reading during potty time helps also.

We are proud of you Ashlee, our potty girl*. Keep up the good work!

*although Ashlee would say "I not a potty girl. I Ash-she."

Ornament Painting

A couple nights ago the girls each painted an ornament. They LOVE to paint, so they loved it even though half of the paint was dry. (As can be expected when it comes from a dollar store I guess)

Ashlee was in the middle of singing "Happy Birthday" to her Bamba Bishop.
They combined all the colors, so we got beautiful greenish-golden-brown ornaments. They look great on our tree!

Decked Out

Yesterday we realized that we were dressed Christmasy to the max without even planning it.

So we took a picture:




And a few of the girls:


They are so cute together, and they truely love each other. When Caitlin is gone, Ashlee can't wait until the moment Cait will come home again. Today when she was at swimming lessons, Ashlee spent a long time and worked so hard setting the hopstotch up so they could play when Caitlin got home. She was so proud to tell her "I did it all myself!" So precious.

decorating kid style

Yesterday afternoon Chris was busy with auditions for his spring musical, so the girls and I decorated the tree and house without him. We did leave him the village which is his favorite to put up :)

I let the girls hang all the ornaments on the tree themselves. They did a great job!

You can tell how high they could reach, and the spot Caitlin figured out she could reach if she stood on the couch.

You better believe that Ashlee hung 9 ornaments on 1 branch!

I looked up to see that, had a little giggle to myself, and said "Ash, maybe you should look for a different place to hang."

Otherwise I made no comments and let them do their work.

Caitlin loved it all, Ashlee got bored halfway through.

This morning some ornaments had fallen off, so I helped Caitlin spread them out. So they do cover all the tree now.

I also had to laugh when I saw that Caitlin had put the Christmas tree skirt on for her dress-up. It fit her great!