Temple lights

We decided we wanted to take the kids to see the temple lights since they love the temple and they love Christmas lights.  We kept putting if off because it has been so cold here, but we decided we just needed to do it so we went last Sunday.  We invited Luke and Taylor to come with us.  Everything is more fun with Aunts and Uncles around!!!

Emery fell asleep in the car on the way there and we forgot the stroller.  Good thing she woke up pretty happy when we got there.  We started walking around.  I forgot how many people would be there.  I don't really like crowds much especially when we have three little ones to keep track of!  But we managed not to lose anyone thanks to Luke and Taylor's help.  Thanks guys! 

We loved looking at the nativities and all the beautiful lights.  Emery kept pointing up in the sky and yelling "trumpet!"  I finally figured out she was talking about Angel Moroni's horn.  :)  She is a little obsessed with Little Einsteins (a show) right now.  They play classical music and one of the characters from the show has a trumpet.  If you ever see her, ask her to play her trumpet.  It's pretty cute!

 Uncle Luke was great at giving the kids' legs a break.  

 Our attempt at a family photo in the dark and with a not so good camera.  Turned out ok.  

 Sadie wanted me to take this.  :)

 I love the way the temple looks when it is all lit up at night.  So pretty.

 We went into the old tabernacle to check it out.  It is amazing to me at how small it is compared to the new one!  To think only a select few could attend conference before the new one was built.  Crazy.

 We hung out inside for a while to get warm.  

I'm glad we got to go see the lights.  It is a much different experience with young children because you kind of have to rush through and make sure no one is lost, but I still enjoyed it and I know the kids did too.

As we were heading back to where we parked we were kind of spread out.  Rob was holding one of the kids and Luke had another I think and Rob and Luke were a little ahead of me and Zac.  All of a sudden I look up to see Rob taking off across the street because the don't walk signal was flashing.  I didn't want to get separated so I told Zac to run.  We were a little ways away from the corner but we made it into the street with about 5 seconds left.  I thought we were good until Zac fell down right in the middle of the street on the train tracks.  I tried to pick him up and keep running, but he is getting heavy.  So I helped him to his feet and we ran across the rest of the way.  The nice cars didn't even hank at me.  ha ha.  I'm sure they were too busy laughing.  ha ha  Funny stuff.

Daddy daughter skate date

 Sadie's school sometimes has family nights.  They've had a math and science night, and a movie night at the school, and a few weeks ago they had a family night at the skating rink.  We could all get in for free and rent skates for one dollar.  I thought it would be fun to go together as a family....in a few years.  ha ha.  Emery and Zac are a little young for that.  So I told Rob he should take Sadie on a date.  They had a blast.  Rob had to hold her hand pretty much the whole time and his back was killing him from holding her up, but he said it was a blast.  Sadie came home with blisters on her shins because we didn't have any long socks for her, but she still loved it. 

I made Rob take the camera to take pictures.  :)

 This is Sadie and her friend London from school and church.  They are in the same class and we carpool together.  Such cuties! See how they had to be holding on to the table so they didn't fall?  ha ha

 Apparently Santa showed up.  She loved it, although it doesn't quite look that way in the picture.  :)  She said she told Santa she wanted a Jack in the Box for Christmas and she told me that she gave him some ideas for Zac too.  So thoughtful!

 Here they are on the rink.  

That little boy photo bombing the picture is London's little brother.  I'm glad Rob and Sadie had a great time.  Sadie said it wasn't as slippery as ice skating which she has done once about a year ago.  WE will have to take the whole family when they can all hold themselves up.  :)

Emery is 2!

 Emery had a birthday a couple weeks ago.  It was fun.  She was practicing holding up two fingers for a few weeks prior to her birthday so when someone asked her how old she was she could say 2 with her fingers.  She is still working on it.  It is pretty tricky.  The night before Emery's birthday Crys and Alan came over and gave her a present.  She was so excited to open it and kept gasping and saying "oooo".  Then when she actually saw what it was, she was really excited!

 A cute sweater dress!  And  blue and white striped sweater.  So cute!  Thanks!

 She was especially excited that her dress had pockets.  Whenever she wears it she points out the pockets to everyone that will listen.  :)

 This was on her actual birthday.  She was dressed and ready to go to church and then she sat in this box and couldnt get out.  Of course I had to take a picture before I helped her out.  ha ha.

 All the kids right before church.  

 Emery blowing out her two candles.  It took a couple tries, but she got them out all by herself.  I'm just glad the candles were on a cupcake and not on a big cake.  That way, she got all of her slobber on her own cupcake and we all could enjoy our own slobber free cupcakes.  :)

 Zac enjoying his cupcake.

 And this is what Emery got for her birthday from us.  Little People stuff.  She loves it.

 She played with it for a long time.

She loves it.  I hope she doesn't get tired of it since she is getting more for Christmas.  

Emery is such a cute little two year old.  Here are some things that I don't want to forget:

-She calls me "Momia."  Like a mix of mama mia.  Like from the ABBA song.  It is pretty funny.

-She is so sweet.  She has started giving compliments.  She will come up to me randomly and say "ooo, I love your scarp!" (scarf)  Or I love your toenails.  :)  

-She can scream!  If Zac says something that offends her she will just look at him and scream until she runs out of breath.  

-It takes her about 5 minutes to choose which pair of shoes she wants to wear for the day.  She only has like 2 pairs to chose from, but she sometimes likes to choose Sadie's shoes or Zac's boots.  Silly girl.

-She still loves her pacifier, but only gets it at bedtime.  And pretty soon I think they will disappear.  :)

-She gives great cuddles.  Especially when she is tired, but she will give them out whenever you ask.  

Anyway, we love our Emery and our family wouldn't be complete without her! 

Typical evening

 I really love the kitchen in our new house.  I love that it has a wrap around counter that we can put chairs on the other side.  And I love that I can see the living room from the kitchen.  It really has everything I was looking for when we were looking at houses.  When we moved in, there was one white swivel type chair attached to the counter.  I thought it was annoying and always in the way.  But Sadie loved to sit there and color or read or whatever.  So about a month ago I told Rob that I thought I saw some more chairs like that that attach to the counter in our furnace room.  I asked him to put them in thinking I would hate it, but so far I have loved it!  The chairs themselves are pretty annoying because they are in the way a lot, but eventually I would like to replace them with bar stools. Until then, the kids love sitting in them and coloring.  This is what a typical afternoon/evening looks like at our house:

 Sadie is usually working on homework and Zac has started doing color by numbers.  

 He is finally getting excited about learning letters and he is great with his numbers.  He is always counting things.

 Sadie is always there to help if he needs it.  And Emery likes to color up there too.  It is pretty fun.

 And I usually don't let the kids eat there but on the occasional evening they get to enjoy a yummy bowl of ice cream in their counter seats.  Notice Rob in the background clearing the table.  He is awesome.  :)

These guys are great!

Big girl bed

 A few weeks ago I decided one day that I would take the side off of the crib and make it into a toddler bed.  I have no idea why.  I just did it.  She wasn't quite two yet, but I just decided to do it.  She loved it the rest of the day.  She would run down the hall and jump right in.  Then I remembered that Rob had something that evening and I would be putting the kids down to bed on my own.  That's when I started second guessing my decision to make the switch to a big girl bed.  I began thinking back to when Sadie made the switch. 

Sadie had learned how to crawl out of her crib and it was a little bit dangerous so we switched her at about the same age.  but she would get out of bed ALL the time. 

If you want a little glimpse into our normal evening back then...just go here.  pretty funny stuff.

Although I was very nervous that our bedtimes would be just like when Sadie was young, Emery has done very well.  The first week was awesome.  For some reason she sleeps much better than she did in her crib.  One night she wandered out around 10pm and then 11pm thinking it was morning time.  But we just took her right back to bed and she went to sleep.  She sometimes doesn't stay in bed at naptime, but that is only once or twice a week.  So I'm ok with that.  She is just such a big girl!  WE love her!

 Pretending to be asleep.

Standing on her big girl bed.  She loves it!