Mistle toe

Tay: Dad, there's something I'm sorry about. I knocked the thing off that was hanging on the light by the front door.
Jeff: What is that you knocked off? (He looked around for something out of place and couldn't see anything.)
Tay: It looks kinda like a ball but a lot like Mistle toe. :)

All about Christmas?

I guess it's traditional to do a great big blog post about what we did this Christmas. We do the same thing every year so I should just write it, then next year link back to it so I don't have to do it again. :) Right now that just sounds overwhelming so I'll keep it simple.

Here's the highlights.

• Emmie's doll that sucks on her bottle, then burps and goes to sleep. ( I've played with it as much as she has. Really I have.)
• Brigham wearing sparkly star sun glasses that he won from the ball of fun on Christmas Eve.
• The thank you note that Aly wrote to Jeff and I for Christmas. (Seriously so sweet. She wasn't even required to write it in primary or anything. She said she was thankful that Jeff got to baptize her and that I take care of her.)
  
• Tayson's bad reaction to the sweater from Grandma and Grandpa. Think Christmas Story. I thought he was going to cry. :)
  
• Emmie's Christmas Day concert. It lasted for a half an hour and she only actually sang 1 song. The rest of the time was her with her hands on her hips dancing around saying "Okay! Ready?" It was hilarious.
• Aly being baptized
• Michael Buble tickets
• My awesome prank on Kimi. :) She asked me to make a card for my sister who she had for the gift exchange and she told me to sign it from "Your Favorite Sister" So I signed it "Your second favorite sister." She didn't think it was funny. It probably wasn't as funny as I thought it was but it was still funny. :)
• Candy bar game at the Southwick family party. My kids made out like bandits. Afterward Karilynn was trying to get Tayson to trade a Milky way for a nutroll and he wasn't going for it. She pulled the nut roll out of his bag and put the Milky Way into his. Then he said that he wanted his nutroll so she said give me my Milky way back. He looked into his bag and said: "I don't have a Milky Way!"
  
• Tayson Checking out everyone else's presents first before checking out his own on Christmas morning.
• Aly roller blading through the house. She's as graceful as me.
  
• Brigham playing & filling his piggy bank over and over, and trying to steal Emmie's doll at every opportunity.
• Brigham's courtesy laughs.
  
• Reading the Christmas Story with the kids
• Being with our families

We had an awesome holidays. Minus the neighbor gift fiasco. We had ruined pumpkin bread, and ruined brownies and I kinda gave up. If you didn't get a neighbor gift this year. . . you're welcome. We were doing you a favor by saving space in your garbage can. (You could still smell charred pumpkin bread even after the oven was off and the loaves had cooled. :( It was that bad.) If I get ambitious I may still show up on your doorstep with something in hand. Maybe... My oven still shudders in terror whenever I walk by it.

My husband is

THE BEST!!!!!!

I have two words for you:

Michael.

Buble.

Tuesday Dresses

Emmie loves to dress up. She loves the frilly girly lacey pretty sunday dresses and wants to wear them EVERYWHERE: Sandbox, grocery store, preschool and anywhere else you can think of. Whenever she tries to where her sunday dresses to one of these inappropriate places I tell her sorry these are "Sunday dresses". Which led to this conversation this morning:

Emmie: Mom?
Me: Yeah?
Emmie: What day is today?
Me: It's Tuesday today.
Emmie: Oh....okay

at this point she walks out of the room and in a second is back with a dress.

Emmie: Mom?
Me: Yeah?
Emmie: This is a Tuesday dress.

She said it with so much authority in her voice that I figured she must be right. It must be a "Tuesday dress" so I helped her majesty put it on so that she could continue on with her busy day.

Thankful

Emmie had Thanksgiving dinner at school today. She told me that she told Miss Jackie what she was thankful for: Her orange kitty.

So thinking this was a good teaching moment I asked her what else she was thankful for. She just sat there for a minute then trying to be helpful I asked her: "Are you thankful for your family?" To which she responded as if I was really slow, "Noooooooo! Just my kitty!"

On the way to Grammy's house

We have the best conversations in the car. On the way there Tay was talking about this site we showed him from forever ago that my friend emailed me. Check it out my kids love it: Puppy Clean

He asked how I got the puppy in the computer, then Jeff asked him if he wanted a computer dog and he said "Yeah! I want a real computer!" :) Seriously, this kid! I know most of my stories are about him but he gives us so much to work with!!

Our other kids do way cute stuff too. Emmie has been going around telling us who's great and who's the best. She'll come up to me or Jeff and say Mama's Great and you're the best! Then she beams at us like she granted us our one true wish. Aly made a lost sign. She drew pictures of her Hannah Montana notebook and a couple of other little things she lost and hung it up. :) Aren't kids hilarous? Love em.

Love this

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley