December Traditions

In keeping with tradition, my mom, sisters, dad and I took our kids to Festival of Trees the first week in December. I say it with everything that we do all together, but it is always crazy, everything takes longer than it should, and we all feel like we've been wrestling wild animals when all is said and done. But we must enjoy because we keep getting all these crazies together.

 I think rather than feeling left out from the older girls, Meili and Ruby decided to form a "club" and were inseparable all weekend.

 The highlight for the girls is hardly the trees. They like the activities and the prizes.

 The next day, my sister Emily, my parents and I took the kids to Temple Square to see the lights. 

The last couple years, I've gone with Josh and the YM/YW in our ward the week after Christmas, so I was totally not prepared for how much more crowded it is to go before Christmas. I also wonder if because it was so much warmer this year that there were more people there. I prepared my children for the Arctic, and most of the time Meili was begging me to take her gloves off.

Sadly, I think Meili had been having so much "Cousin fun" for the couple of days that we were there, that she was really not super well-behaved. So I was pretty frustrated with her by the end of the night, and it kind of tainted my feeling about the whole event. However, in the scrapbook, I think I will choose to leave that part out, because I think Temple Square is absolutely one of the most beautiful places on earth. 

The next day, my mom hosted her annual Gingerbread House making party-where I took no pictures. So I will have to get some from someone else :)

10 Months

Even though Grant is well on his way to 11 months now, I've got to get milestones down before I forget. Also, this post has a million pictures of essentially nothing, because I wanted to get all the pictures off mine and Josh's phones. 

This month Grant...

Can go up and downstairs, but at the top he, a lot of times, doesn't think to turn around so he can go backwards, so I still have to be watching him constantly.

He learned to clap this month.

He CRUISES EVERYWHERE. Mentally, he is dying to walk, but his body just needs to catch up a little.

My biggest pet peeve is that he just clings on to my legs and cries every single time I am in the kitchen which makes cleaning, cooking, and basically everything else pretty tough.

He has 7 teeth and I don't really see signs of any new ones any time soon.

 My sister asked me, "Does Grant always make that face where he turns his head to the side and looks out of the one side?" When I finally updated his picture frame, I thought it was hilarious! Maybe he's not as photogenic as I thought, but he definitely knows his best side.

 Oh yes, another reason my house is always such a mess: Grant's obsession with the dishwasher. And he doesn't want to just look around inside, he NEEDS to BE inside.

 The same day that I had a conversation with a couple of my friends about how so far Grant doesn't really get in to stuff or make a mess, he did this... and pulled all the books off all the shelves in the library... and pulled all the straws and plastic bags out of the bottom drawer. It's like he heard me, and realized that he was missing out on something.

These next pictures are nothing new. Every time I look at my phone, I have a similar sequence of selfies from Meili. I really liked these particular faces so they're going in the scrapbook. Bear in mind that I deleted about 75% of the pictures she had taken and just kept the best ones. Can we say vain?

 When it was less than 20 degrees outside we decided to take our kids to an Aggie football game, because that is the kind of cautious, caring, sensitive parents that we are. But really, can you blame me? They're just so fun at football games!

 I couldn't narrow them down because I love every single one of Grant's faces.

 The joy of being dad.

 Meili got birthday money from Jake and Kami, and picked out this barbie.

 Meili thought it was hilarious that Grant had banana stuck to his face, so we laughed and laughed. Grant had no idea what was so funny, but he sure was a good sport!

 Everyday I hear my kids laughing together and think, "Oh, I need to record this!" Because I know that someday it won't be the same anymore I won't remember what it sounded like. But it is my favorite part of the day.

 Meili and I made a couple Christmas decorations, but look at how beautiful she is. (Maybe if I stopped saying that she would stop taking so many pictures of herself :)

 Meili and Josh made donuts, and they were both so cute in their aprons.

 Of course, Grant wanted to be pictured as well!

That face!