Holidays 2010

We finally unloaded our very full camera, and I figured I should post some Thanksgiving and Christmas pics. For Thanksgiving, we went to SoCal to spend the holiday with Johnny's fam. Everyone was able to make it, so that was nice. Ellie and Gretel loved dining and playing together!

They are women, hear them roar! Caitland and Cheryl, cooking our turkey rostisserie style

Gwennie waiting beneath, hoping for some scraps to drop

One of the best parts of this trip, was the girls riding around the courtyard on this little bike. It was fun to see little Jane joining in on the fun. What pleasant weather we enjoyed!

Gretel of course, making her princesses dance together. These are from the toyroom there; little does she know, Santa will later bring her the whole princess collection!!

Gwen modeling her Juicy fur coat my parents gave her a couple of years ago! She's ready for some glam holiday parties!!

Now on to the Christmas fun.... Johnny's mom's friend had these hats made for the 3 little granddaughters-so cute!

Waiting for the annual sleigh ride (with Rapunzel too!) that we go on with Johnny's fam

We rode the carriage ride around temple square and Gretel loved our horse, Charlie

Christmas day-Gretel loved her "Beast and Belle" and made sure Beast danced with all the other princesses too. Grandma and Grandpa gave her a "Cinda-grella" dress and shoes, which she calls her glass slippers, and gave her Rapunzel, Beast, and Jasmin as well as other goodies.

Her favorite thing that Johnny and I got her was the whole princess Barbie collection. She was thrilled!

She's still obsessed with this book Caitland gave her-thanks Cait!!

She loved playing with Hudson and Ollie and I feel so bad I don't have a picture with Hudda-all three kids got matching jammies from my parents and Hab got a cute picture of them on Christmas Eve.

Gretel loved chasing and playing with them-and they all loved the train, of course... We took the kids to the Living Aquarium one day and they loved it, as always. Hudson especially loved Gretel and was so extra sweet with her. He cried when we would leave to go to Johnny's fam's, and he cried when we left to go home. All three were such good playmates! She misses you too, Hudda!

She got tons of books and clothes/shoes from Mimi and Pop-C, as well as a play kitchen, pretend food, and shopping cart!

One of her favorite things about Johnny's parents house was the drinking fountain. She would climb up on her little ladder and hang out there for a really long time! She'd also wear my headband and call it her crown.

She still fights getting dressed, but she doesn't fight about putting on her "doll dress." Thanks mom and dad, she loves it!

I got to fly out separately with Gretel while poor Johnny drove alone and even slid off the road into a ditch one night! Poor guy-thanks dad, for fixing everything on his car as part of our many Christmas gifts, and also for flying Gretel and I! You are too nice to us!

I stayed for a total of 3 weeks, and it was a great trip home! A highlight for me was going with my fam on New Year's Eve to see a play at Desert Star Playhouse. It's one of my favorite places to go, and it made me miss the days when we had season tickets with Hab and Steve and we'd go on double dates!

Thanks fam, for all the fun dinners and nights just hanging out and talking....we had a blast with you all!

The Wicked Witch of the West

Gretel loves witches-she notices them when we're in a store, or she finds them in certain pages of books (like Snow White) and growls at me while opening the page. Her favorite page in the book "A Cache of Jewels" is the page with a coven of witches, and we talk about their pointy noses and chins, and we point to all of their scary warts on their faces.
So I thought the perfect costume for her this year would be a witch!! She especially loved wearing her little hat.

We planned on attending a big Stake Halloween carnival, and since she's so naughty about taking naps and only falls asleep in the car, I decided to drive her around for an hour in hopes that she'd take a nap. I have never wasted that much gas doing this-I knew it was a horrible thing to do, but I just wanted her to nap so she wouldn't fall asleep on the way to the party. Unfortunately, my plan failed, and she did not take a nap. But she did fall asleep just as we were pulling in to the parking lot of the church. Then she slept through the entire thing, and woke up at the very end just as we were leaving. She was so furious that it was a major fight to get her into her car seat.
It was a different type of scary Halloween for us! Scary and very depressing for me...I had such high hopes and it was a total let down since she didn't get to enjoy any of the festivities.

Oh well-there's always next year I guess.

I was proud of her tutu that I made!

"OOOh Whooooo-Witchy Woman...See how high she flies" (sing-song voice, of course)

We love our little Wicked Witch of the West!!

Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday Part 2

I can't believe Gretel is already 2!! On her "special day," Johnny brought her a Winnie-the-Pooh balloon (she wants to hold one every time she sees them at the store) and we opened presents, played at the park, and just relaxed and had a fun day!

Below, she's modeling outfits that both Mimi and Grandma gave her.

We invited a few friends over for a cupcake-themed party, which was a lot of fun!

I made tissue paper pom-poms and was excited about how they turned out. (The tissue paper had cupcakes and sprinkles on them.)

First, I read them the story "Pinkalicious" and then we had a snack. Below are some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a little raspberry on top, but we also had cupcake-shaped jello jigglers which were the biggest hit of all!

Then, we had a cakewalk which was really cute. I wasn't sure how this would go with girls this young, but they all seemed to catch on to the idea and liked it! I have some cute video of this!

Next, a little craft time! I had drawn large paper cupcakes for them to decorate by coloring them & applying little foam stickers.

After that, Gretel got to open some really fun gifties!

Then, cake time!

As the party was winding down, we turned some kids songs on nice and loud (same as we used for our cakewalk) and danced in the family room! It was really cute to see the little girls all dancing together. Then my M-I-L Cheryl read them "Pinkalicious" again.

She was my biggest help-I wouldn't have been able to finish doing anything for the party without her. I am never good at judging time, and how long each task will take. Thank you, Cheryl! You were a true lifesaver!

The little party favor-I should've taken a pic of the little cake balls before they were wrapped, but was short on time! They were little cupcake truffles and I also made cupcake hair clips that were attached to the package.

Happy Birthday, my sweet little cupcake! You are the best little girl in the whole world! I just love you so much, and I love smelling you at night when you're sleeping. Thanks for letting me nibble on your face and ears all the time, too. You are simply delicious!!

Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday Part 1

I have some major catching up to do! These next two posts are two months late! Johnny's birthday is the day after mine, and then Gretel's is just a couple of weeks later. So even though I did short birthdays shout-outs to them, I wanted to actually show how we celebrated!!

My fam sent me lots of cool presents. Thanks so much!! Johnny gave me a girls trip to San Fran to see the show "Wicked" and stay in a hotel overnight with my cohorts! That was awesome-if I ever get around to downloading pics from my other camera, I'll have to do a little post about it!!

I had to pose with my sweet baby!!



That night my favorite girls came over ("Tribond"-it's the name of a board game, and while playing it long ago, we realized it's also OUR name!!) They gave me awesome gifties too-I have the most fun, thoughtful girlfriends ever~

Abby stopped on her way over to pick up the best chocolate cake ever!!

What a delicious day I had!!

The only presents that Johnny received that were wrapped were from my parents-I have become so lazy! Thanks mom for always going above and beyond, and sending such gorgeously wrapped gifts! He got lots of great additions to his wardrobe-cuff links, shirts, ties, new dress socks, shoes, and also casual wear too!

Thank you M & D- if it weren't for you, we'd all be nude!!

I threw Johnny a 30th birthday party-it was a pizza party with our friends, and we had a great time with them! Abby and Todd were nice enough to let us do it at their house, since they have more room.

Johnny loves gummi bears, so guests could take some home with them or just munch throughout the night. Also, we had a root beer tasting contest later, so this was the prize.

Abby and Todd

Jaycee and David

Rob and Amanda

Johnny and Shauna

Bill and Beka

The contest is all set up-7 types of root beer to guess. It was a little too hard for everyone.

Birthday Boy ended up winning even though he was just as clueless as everyone else. I didn't want to give him the prize, since that seemed really rude, but everyone said to give it to him-it's his b-day and he really did get 3 right. I think the runner-up got 2 right, and he won a bag of licorice!

Todd made him an ice cream cake which was really good, and I made a cheesecake with fruit on top. Johnny said he didn't care what kind of cake I made, and since my birthday was the day before his, I decided to make my favorite-I live for cheesecake!!

We had lots of fun playing Mafia with our friends-we are so lucky to have such darling, fun couples to hang out with!!

Happy Birthday to us!

Next post will be all about Gretel's special day!!

Happy Happy Birthday, Gretel Dear!!!

To our sweet Gretel Gumdrops~ Happy Birthday! We love you SO much! You are such a good girl, and you make us laugh constantly. You are so sweet, funny and always full of energy. We love hearing your sweet voice always speaking each word as if it's a question.

Today you said "goodness!" a lot because you were so pleased with your gifts, and all day you sang the song from Sleeping Beauty, "I know you- I walked with you once upon a dream..." Both of those things were brand new, and we can't wait to hear what you'll do tomorrow! We can't believe you are TWO! You are so yummy, we just want to eat you all the time!

Love, Mom and Dad