2010 in Review

I always like to look back at the past year and my blog makes it easy! 2010 has been a rough year for several people I know. I hate to say it, for fear of what 2011 will bring if I do, but I'm going to say it anyway. Compared to what so many people I know have been through, we have been so blessed! There I said it! Now I can blame this post when things start falling apart. :)

The biggest change I noticed in 2010 was how much our little Eliza has changed over the past year. She turned 2 this year. She learned to walk, go up and down the stairs the right way (meaning the same way everyone else does), grew 15 teeth, went from hating nursery to love it, learned to communicate through facial expressions, learned tons of sign language and went from hardly talking to talking sentences. It's amazing the things she says these days. She's full of personality and opinions!

As I look back at pictures of Brooklyn in January 2010, she has changed a ton too! Brooklyn turned 4 this year. She tried dance and tumbling in the Spring and is now in a consistent dance class and loves it! She graduated from her first year of preschool and has learned so many new things. She loved Sunbeams and her teachers and loved being in Primary with the big kids and learning songs. She loves to be a big sister and teach Eliza things (good and bad). She doesn't quite understand that Eliza is constantly watching her. She went through a spell of not wanting to be separated from her family. I'm happy to report she is still doing well and actually told me over the holiday break, that she would rather be at school then home. Let's hope this continues as she gets new primary teachers on Sunday and Kindergarten is coming fast.

We finished our basement and I must say that we love it! It's so nice to have a basement. It's still not organized and "put together", but we are so glad we finished it! Marty and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. We had fun as a family celebrating holidays and birthdays. We went to Lagoon, a couple of baseball games, Disney on Ice, The Princess Festival and enjoyed summer playgroups.
We visited Burley, ID, Moab, UT (twice) and had a few Staycations. No big vacations for us this year (remember how we love our basement). :) We enjoyed our time with the youth of our ward at Youth Conference B.O.O.T Camp. We raised money for CF and MS and enjoyed participating in those events.

Overall, it's been a great year full of growth and learning experiences. We are truly a blessed people!!

Christmas

Christmas lasted a full four days around our house this year! We are starting to take down all our decorations so I figured I had better write a post about Christmas before I forget it all!
One of our gifts to our girls this year was to finally let them "Build A Bear". Brooklyn has had her eye on this store for at least a year. She never fully understood what happened in there, but she loved to look around. I probably made a mistake showing her all the fun inside. We tried to make it a point that this was one special event and probably not something that will ever happen again. We got a good deal though, which is why we went. We went on December 23rd because Marty had the day off. This was obviously an early present.
The line to stuff the bears was really long! We didn't have a whole lot going on that day so it was fine with us. Brooklyn picked out the blue bear as her favorite! It has peace signs all over it, but she thinks they are dots.
One super excited little girl! We decided to include Eliza in on the party, but she really didn't understand what was happening. She had fun, just not to the extent that Brooklyn did.
They both enjoyed giving their animals their first bath!
Picking out clothes took forever and one spoiled girl got more than she should, but it was overall a fun experience!
Brooklyn introduced her new bear "Love" to her other favorite bear "teddy". She's been trying to steal her sister's dog's clothes to put on her other teddy.
This is Eliza's dog, affectionately known as "Princess Ruff". Both girls named their animals all on their own. Brooklyn even changed her Bear's birthday to Valentine's Day since she named it Love.
On Christmas Eve we enjoyed being together as a family and got ready for my mom's party at my brother's house in Layton. But before we went, we decided to open our Christmas Eve present at home.
Both girls got matching Dora pajamas and slippers! Eliza loved Dora. The slippers, not so much.
Brooklyn LOVES the slippers!
Then Eliza sat and pouted when she realized she couldn't open the other presents under the tree.
Favorite cousins, Brooklyn and Sariah. We decided to have a nontraditional Christmas Eve party and had Mexican cuisine. We had tons of food! We played games, opened presents, watched a slide show of pictures of everyone and had fun together. It was a great time!
Brooklyn got the pillow pet she has been wanting. She had the best reaction once she figured out that the black furry thing actually was a penguin. She loves penguins!
Eliza got a monkey pillow pet. And both girls got a Tinkerbell blanket. Eliza loves "bell"!
The kids enjoyed playing together all night and hiding under the table eating brownies! It's no wonder they had a hard time falling asleep that night. Since Layton is a far distance from our house, both girls managed to fall asleep on the way home.
Then the magic started to happen and everything was ready for Christmas morning.
The girls slept in until 8:30 (remember they were up late), but they were both SUPER excited from the moment they opened their eyes that day! Brooklyn had this energy about her that was contagious. Eliza caught right on to the excitement and both girls were hyper little bundles of joy!
Santa didn't disappoint Brooklyn on the first gift she opened. She got the Backyardigan's movie she wanted!!
Emptying stockings was a little bit of work when you have short arms.
Brooklyn got right to work checking everything out. She quickly figured out which gifts had her name on them and which ones were for others. She did try to claim a few presents that were from Brooklyn. :)
Both girls got right to work opening gifts. Here they are opening some quiet books I made for them.
Then they really got into the action. Rip, tear, and repeat.
Eliza got a train table from Santa so they can finally start using the trains Brooklyn got last year!
Brooklyn got a Leapfrog Tag reading system. She didn't ask for this (she didn't ask for much this year), but she is enjoying it!
Then we had breakfast and stayed home and played with all their fun presents!
Coloring was one of their favorite activities! Eliza got the little couch thing she is sitting on. Brooklyn had to tell everyone that Eliza is going to share that with her because there is enough room for two! Brooklyn has always wanted one of those things.
One of our Christmas evening traditions is to see the lights at Temple Square. I told Brooklyn to pick one nativity to have her picture with and she picked "Mary and Jesus on the water". She loved it!
It was a bit cold, but nothing unbearable.
The girls were still a bit hyper, but they enjoyed seeing all the lights.
It's really beautiful there and always so amazing how many lights they have. I always stop to look at the trees and wonder how long it would take to strand one of those trees. Amazing!
We had a fun night as a family!
Sunday we went to church and then we went up to Kamas to celebrate Christmas with the Nowling's. Marty's mom was in the hospital the night before with some stomach pains so we weren't sure if we would still have the party. Connie had faith and told everyone to still come. Some people made it there early to help with the food prep and Connie was home and ready to party before we made it there.
We had a yummy dinner and opened more presents. The kids received more fun presents there. Spoiled kids!
All the grown up kids got these cool money trees. Very creative!
We also spent the night. Our kids had the hardest time falling asleep there. I did as well. I think I only slept 3 hours total that night so by the next day, we were all exhausted and ready to go home.
We had a great time celebrating with everyone and we are truly grateful for all we have! It was a wonderful Christmas season!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We hope you have a magical Christmas!

Laps, craft, party, and snow

A few days ago, my girls were so cute and wanted to sit on laps all day long! Fortunately for me, it wasn't my lap.
Brooklyn LOVES when Eliza wants to sit on her lap. It makes her feel so big! So she was DELIGHTED when Eliza let her read her a book.
And sat on her lap while eating lunch.
This craft was very impromptu and not well thought out. I told them we were going to make a wreath. While I was cutting out leaves to attach to the wreath, Brooklyn had already glued most of them on and liked it just the way it was. Eliza glued on about 4 leaves and called it good.
Saturday night we had a family party at my Dad's home. This picture is my dad talking with the grandchildren about the Christmas story. We had such a good time! We haven't been able to get everyone together for several years so I was SUPER excited that we were able to gather this year (minus 6 people). It brought back many years of growing up and it's always good to be together with family. I don't see some of my family very often. My dad and step-mom are planning on going on a mission some time next year so we thought we had better make it work this year.
Eliza's turn to open a present, Lincoln Logs! She especially loved playing with all her boy cousin's trucks while we were all together.
Brooklyn didn't like all the attention of opening her gift in front of everyone. Plus, she also got a set of Lincoln Logs and didn't like that she got the same thing as her sister. She told her dad that we didn't need so many of them.
However, the next day she was eager to get them out and build!
Eliza found a new way to play!
She enjoys playing with the little people and horses that came with the set. She is often accidentally knocking them over. Luckily, they are pretty easy to rebuild. They have really enjoyed having something new to play with so far this week.
We woke up to more snow on Monday and after preschool Brooklyn wanted to go out to play. I was incredibly ornery yesterday and realized I do not particularly enjoy building a snowman. We built this pathetic looking thing and put two rocks in for the eyes and then I was done. Marty came home and quickly added more to him.
The girls enjoyed playing on their swingset in the backyard and sliding down the slide. They realized they go really fast down a wet slide while wearing snow pants, but found it fun to fall in the snow at the bottom.

P.S. If you happen to notice Eliza's facial bruises in these pictures, it's from her pulling the stocking holder down on her face and falling on her head at least three times in the past three days. Poor kid.

Another week

Another week has come and gone and we've managed to sneak in a little more Christmas fun.
We painted fingernails and toenails. Brooklyn wanted red, green and white! Eliza had red and green.
We painted Christmas ornaments. I finally wised up and bought the Crayola Washable paints so they painted in their pajamas.
Brooklyn did really well doing this project. She painted four of them.
She was proud of her house. She did great considering our paintbrushes were only one size and hard to get exactly on the lines.
She wrote her name on the back of each one.
Eliza was a mess. She just kept painting the same spot over and over again. I think it's a masterpiece. :)
Thursday was Brooklyn's dance performance. Her dance was held in her dance studio and the parents were able to watch it, but no one else could fit so we video tapped it if anyone is interested. We curled her hair up and made it special.
Her dance costume.
Dancing
And more dancing. They performed two dances and they each had a small solo part. It was cute!
The whole class.
Friday was Marty's birthday. He had the day off work and he enjoyed his day with his girls. Eliza, who just had a birthday, was eager to open more presents.
These girls love their dad.
Then we went to Leatherby's for ice cream! Look who's "eyeing" the ice cream.
Eliza quickly stole my peppermint ice cream and ate most of it.
These two shared Marty's caramel sundae.
Then we took the girls up to Marty's parents in Kamas for a sleepover and enjoyed a little parent break. We had a whole day to ourselves to go to a movie, shop, go to the temple, eat and rest. It was lovely, but very quiet!
We made our gingerbread house. We had to let it sit for 24 hours before we could decorate it.
Last night it was time to decorate it with lots of candy!
We had fun!
Marty and Brooklyn did most of the work. It was decided that we would make two gingerbread houses next year because these two had very strong opinions about how it should look. I just sat back with Eliza and contributed a little. Eliza enjoyed eating the candy.
Here's our final product!