Talking!

These pictures may not seem significant to some, but for me it was catching one of Zoey's first words on film. In these photos she is saying CHEESE! (or rather "eeeese") She is starting to talk these days, which blows me away sometimes. Doggie was certainly her first word. Now she has added banana or "nana" and cheese to her collection. She jabbers all day long and is very social. She loves to talk, but mostly we get the "tigle digle tikel tickel" jabber that is her "speech"

Candle Canes

All season long, Jackson has been calling the candy canes on our tree "candle canes." I never corrected him because I thought it was a little bit cute, AND more importantly, I didn't want him eating them all off the tree! Today, I finally shared the secret with him. I told him it was called a CANDY cane, showed him that there was a clear wrapper to be removed, and let him have a lick. One lick was all it took! Then he said, " And Grandma's tree has candy canes too?!?" I think he's excited to eat all candy canes from every Christmas tree of everyone he knows....you better watch out!

The Spirit of the Season

There are so many wonderful things to participate in at this time of year, that life can easily begin to feel overwhelming, and the 'to-do' list can simply take over the feeling that one should have during Christmastime.

I vowed not to let that happen this year. We completed most of our Christmas shopping prior to Thanksgiving. We finished up with the little details yesterday, and if all goes well, I won't need to step foot in a store for at least a week, maybe more....and only to buy food! We sent out our Christmas cards early, and instead of making my own, we did a photo card (which was a great and easy idea that I will probably do again). We are opting out of doing neighbor gifts, we have no Christmas parties to attend, we haven't even hung Christmas lights....and we have few other 'obligations' that would make our schedules hectic.

But don't think of us as "Scrooges"....this is what we ARE doing to celebrate the season:

We decorated our house for the holidays, for me, this always helps bring the spirit of the season
as we put up the tree and hang the stocking while listening to Christmas music. I made these stockings last year (we are hanging six because we will have Annie and Danny spend Christmas with us while their parents are away on a mission).

We are spending time with our kids. We are staying home to play in the snow, watch movies and bake. Being in the snow makes it feel more like Christmas, especially now that we are back from Florida, I am appreciating the 'White Christmas.' There is also something very nostalgic about holiday baking. Jackson enjoys helping, and I hope our other kids will look forward to the special treats we only make during the season....

Last night we watched POLAR EXPRESS, which Jackson was enthralled with, He loves trains right now, and we was so excited about the movie. If I could have only captured a picture of his eyes. They were so wide with excitement through the whole movie. Seeing and feeling this excitement from our children is part of what brings the spirit of Christmas to my heart.

This year, we made a book called "The Twelve Nights of Christmas." I am very excited about this, and hope to make it a yearly family tradition. Starting twelve days before Christmas, we will read out of our book each night by the fire. It is coordinated with spiritual stories, carols, and a scripture for each night leading up to Christmas Eve when we will cover the Nativity. But I hope this will be a special way our family can bring the the Spirit of Christ during the Christmas season.

Brian and I also enjoyed sponsoring a family for Sub-for-Santa. We made a date night out of shopping for gifts for this family in need. It feels so good to give gifts to those who would otherwise not have anything to open on Christmas day. It was a fun activity, and another tradition we want to implement each year, especially as our children get older. I want them to think of others, to be able to feel the spirit of service and giving and not always be thinking of what they want for Christmas.

Tonight, we will attend the stake choir production of 'Carols to our King.' We are looking forward to this event, because few things bring in the spirit like listening to or singing Carols about our King. I know it will be worthwhile.

So far, I feel it has been the best season yet, as we try to focus on those things that are most important for our family. For us, it is leaving the "fluff" behind, and trimming away all the excess 'to-do's' that do little more than fill up our calendars and make us too busy to remember the important things. We just have to pick and choose which activities we want to be involved in....and this is what works for us, it feels great to slow down and relish the season.

Part 2

We went for a riverboat tour on an old paddle boat to see the homes of the rich and famous on Ft. Lauderdale. It was pretty cool. We also got to see a bunch of the cruise ships in harbor, Jackson liked the big boats.

This is one of those outlandish homes, costing around 20 million dollars. Unbelievable wealth in this area, it was amazing to see!

They call this area the Venice if the Americas, the whole side of this coastal area is trenched out into these canals and waterways. The wealthy have the homes and just as expensive yachts "parked' out in front of their homes. I think this home belongs to the CFO if Khols department store. It's the guest house, his house is being built and will consist of 11 bedrooms....

Brian was working at a conference and by the time he got home, it was too late and too dark to go to the ocean with the kids. One night, we decided to do it anyway "just to look" but once again, we ended up in the sand and water!

It was such a fun trip, we are glad to be back home, but it's hard coming back to snow!

We're Back!

If it weren't for Brian, I'm not sure the kids would have ever napped on the plane. They did so much better than I thought for the long rides, and Brian was the only one who could get them to sleep when they were tired. Here is a picture of Zoey loving up to her daddy.....

We went for an airboat tour of the everglades...we were in Florida, so we had to experience it! This is a baby gator, we paid $2 extra bucks so Jackson and Brian could get the experience of holding one :) This is showing the mouth of the animal my boys held...yikes!

Jackson said the skin was hard and bumpy, he was a little nervous to hold it, so Brian did the honors.

The airboat....

the gator in the wild, it was about 20 feet long, male and kept bumping its nose against our boat, which made me nervous!

This is the everglade land we went through. I thought there would be water paths the boat would take, but it just went right through all of theses weeds.

The boat was loud when it was moving, we all had earplugs except for Zoey who was too little to wear them, so Brian covered her ears for her.

Jackson and I.....

Running on the beach, Jackson's favorite thing from the vacation

The second day we were there, it was pretty windy and cloudy. The ocean was choppy and too rough to swim in, but we wanted to take advantage of the warm weather while we were there, so what started out as just going for a walk, ended up in us wading in the ocean and Zoey naked! It was too much of a temptation!

Annie came with us to help out with the kids. It was great to have her because it kept me sane, and the kids happy! Although Jackson was content to play in the sand, Zoey was drawn to the water and she would head straight out into the ocean if we weren't careful. It was helpful to have an extra set of eyes to watch out for her.

The storm washed up a ton of trash and seaweed and jellyfish onto the beach, this was clean the day before! Check out the wind surfers in the background, there were at least 20 of them, and they were fun to watch catching air.

Playing at the park...

On our walk we saw pelicans

This shower is meant to wash off your feet from sand, but it was the perfect height for showering off the kiddos

In nearly every picture I have of Zoey, she has sand all over her face. She would pick out shells from the sand and lick them clean, but the sand would cake on to her face. After trying to keep her from doing this the first 20 minutes, I realized it was not worth the effort to keep her from doing it.....

It was so nice to be in the warm, humid, sunny weather!

The kids loved the plane for the first hour....it was work to keep them happy for the rest of the trip. Jackson was interested in all the plane parts....he wanted to see the turbofans, wheels, wings, etc. He loved it!

Is that Jesus?

This week, Jackson, Zoey, Annie and I tagged along with Brian on a business trip to Florida. It is odd to be somewhere warm enough to swim in the ocean in December, or seeing Christmas lights on palm trees. It almost feels like it's the wrong month! But we are excited to be here and out of the cold....although it has made me decide that as much as I am relishing the warm weather, I think I like to live somewhere where there are four seasons.

I will post more about our trip, along with pictures later (most likely when we get back home next week), but I just had to share our funny moment of the day! Jackson saw Jesus on the beach.

We were walking on the beach this afternoon, hauling more than is necessary for a couple of adults and two little kids. But amid our chaotic moment of shuffling items around and our excited talk about the beach, we walked passed a man who had long dark wavy brown hair (like down to his waist) and a full beard, wearing nothing more than swim trunks hanging low on his waistline. I didn't give much thought about him, we had seen many beach bums throughout the day, but without skipping a beat Jackson turned to me and asked, "Is that Jesus Mommy?" Annie and I had a roar of a laugh at that innocent questions. I'm happy to see he 'knows' what Jesus looks like!