Back home

This blog entry is coming from Rexburg. Yes, we're finally home. We had a pretty miserable flight from St. Louis to Salt Lake City yesterday morning, but the drive from the airport to Rexburg when by very fast. Michael had warned me that Rexburg was not the same as it was when I left. Before I left, there wasn't any snow. There's now 2-3 feet piled on the sides of the road. This morning, Michael spent about 20 minutes trying to back the truck up out of our parking spot. Because it hadn't been driven for a while and it's been well-below freezing, there was a pile up of ice and snow behind the wheels of the tires. We filled up a bucket with hot water several times and tried to melt the ice. Finally, he was off to work.

I have tons of pictures and videos from our wonderful trip to O'Fallon. Annabelle had a blast playing with her grandparents and my brothers and sister. So here's warning that a flood of blog entries will be posted soon illustrating all the fun we had.

The potentially big news with Annabelle is that she is probably through with pacifiers. The crazy thing is it's not because Michael and I are forcing it. I've noticed for the last few weeks that the two pacifiers she uses were getting very old and gross. I finally got some new ones for her when we were in IL. However, they are not the exact same as the old ones and she wonuldn't take them. Last night, I offered her her choice of 4 different pacifiers, none of which were the old ones, and she chose to not take any. Same thing with her nap today. She has gone to sleep 2 times now without the use of a pacifier, even though they were available, just as well as she had when she used the old ones. I thought that when the time came to rid the use of pacifiers that it would be difficult. However, it looks like it will be very easy and painless. Let's hope issues such as potty training will go just as easily.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I love this time of year and am thankful we can celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful to have Him as my Savior.

Annabelle and I have been in my hometown of O'Fallon, IL since Wednesday night and we have had a blast with my parents, sister, and brother. Michael arrives tonight and we are so excited to see him. It's impossible to explain all the fun things we've done, but Annabelle is now well acquainted with everyone and loves to play all sorts of games with them.

We began our trip by setting up the Chrstmas tree, and Annabelle was a great little helper.

Amber took this one of Annabelle and me and I think it is my favorite one of the two of us.

I hope no one minds these pictures, but I couldn't help but post them. Amber and I did Annabelle's hair while she was taking a bath and they turned out so cute, I had to put them up.

Here's a cute one of Amber and Annabelle.

Time with great-grandparents

It's been so busy that I haven't been able to write anything for awhile. Annabelle and I are in Salt Lake right now, awaiting our flight to O'Fallon, IL tomorrow evening. We drove here with Michael on Saturday so Michael and I could attend a mission reunion in Salt Lake. His mission president and wife are from Switzerland and they came over to the states for this reunion. They had such a postive influence in Michael's life that we decided we should make an effort to go. Although I did not get to know them on the personal level that Michael did, I could tell upon meeting them that they are a very special couple and I'm grateful for the example they were to Michael during his mission.

Michael drove back to Rexburg Sunday, as he will not be flying to IL until next week. Annabelle and I have had a great time playing with her great-grandparents. They adore her and she has really taken a liking to them. Annabelle found a bunch of hats yesterday and insisted that we all wear one. We were such an awesome looking group that we had to get some pictures.

The Salt Lake zoo has a really neat light diplay up and since Annabelle loves to look at lights, we took her to see all the lights at the zoo and some animals as well. We took some of my cousins with, tool. One cousin, in particular, became Annabelle's best friend. Annabelle is much younger than Steffi (Steffi is 7, I think), but Annabelle had to hold Steffi's hand at all times. She refused to hold my hand or Ellen's hand unless she was first holding Steffi's hand. Thank goodness Steffi didn't mind.

Annabelle's favorite part of the zoo was riding on the carousel. She and Steffi rode side-by-side and Annabelle couldn't stop smiling. Of course, she threw a fit when she had to get off. Thank goodness that was the last stop on our way out of the zoo.

Annabelle was a great sport. I thought I might have to rent a stroller to push her around in, but she walked the entire time without one complaint, which is pretty amazing considering we were there for well over an hour walking around and it was freezing cold.

Thank you Grandma Ellen and Grandpa Marv for letting us come ot your house and play.

More fun with Daddy

Anyone who has met Annabelle knows that she has tons of energy and she's not scared of anything. I have a hard enough time keeping up with her all day everyday and then Michael has to come home and introduce this to her:


All day long all she says is "flip, flip". However, that is not my thing. I do not feel comfortable playing with her the way Michael does. But she loves it and now I have to come up with something that is just as fun that she can do with me during the day. But I'm sure glad that Annabelle has fun with her dad.

We also had our first real snow today. I thought we would have had lots of snow already. Hopefully it won't be too snowy and icy during the holiday when everyone is traveling.

Christmas dress

I thought I had gotten some pretty cute pictures of Annabelle in the last few weeks, but nothing compares to the pictures I got today. Annabelle's debut in her new Christmas dress from Grandma Heidi and Aunt Amber in our ward was today. She has worn it once already during Thanksgiving when we were in Wyoming. But today there was a little more to it. We opened a Christmas package from great-grandma Ellen last night and to our delight, we received a cute little purse for Annabelle and matching red hair bows. This was perfect because she didn't have any bows to wear with her dress. So today, Annabelle was decked out in her cute dress, Mary Jane shoes, a red bow, and a styling purse. And where would be a better place to take the photo of her than by the Christmas tree?




Here's a short video of Annabelle twirling in her dress.

Passing on traditions

One thing that my siblings would do at my grandma's house when we were younger is stand at the bathroom sink and play in the water. Annabelle has already done this at my grandma's house, but she hasn't done it yet at home. The other day I was trying to make dinner and Annabelle was being a little bit too helpful. So to get her out of the way without sending her away, I filled up the kitchen sink with water and let her play in it while I prepared the food. She had a blast. Here's a video.

She's so cute!

I was going to put these pictures in the last entry, but I decided they were too cute and they deserved their own entry. My mom and sister saw a really cute dress that they sent for Annabelle. Sunday was her first time wearing it and boy, was she cute. Isn't this a great photo for a Christmas card?

Thanksgiving weekend

Now that we are back in our normal routine, I can update my blog with the events of our Thanksgiving weekend. Annabelle was absolutely delighted by her grandparents, "Cyppy" (stands for Cynthia) and "Baba" (stands for Grandpa). Since we have returned home, she has been saying their names constantly and looking around for them.

Thanksgiving dinner was divine and I want to thank Cynthia for all her hard work. For the last several years, she has been daring enough to make a latticed cherry pie and I (actually Michael) was very desirous to get a picture of the masterpiece. Doesn't it look great?



Sheridan, WY has a very nice YMCA and we tend to spend a fair amount of time there playing pickleball. We were able to continue this tradition this year. In the past, someone has been left out of the pickleball in order to stay home and watch Annabelle. This time was different. Annabelle got to come with us. The Y has a new addition called the Playland for children to play in. It's something similar to what you'd find at a playland at McDonalds. Annabelle had a blast climbing in and out of the tubes through which they're supposed to climb. Adults are allowed to accompany their children on the equipment and I was having just as much fun as Annabelle was. Here are some pictures and a video.





(A special thanks to Robert for being the camera man.)

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Cynthia told me about the annual Christmas stroll that takes place the day after Thanksgiving. Main street is closed to cars and the town's people are invited to "stroll" down the street. All the stores are open and people are serving hot chocolate, chili, and hot dogs. Several members of the ward decided it would be nice to christmas carol to the strollers. Cynthia invited me along. We got there late and eventually only found two carolers. But, we made it work with only four of us.



Annabelle's favorite item to play with was actually a Thanksgiving decoration. It's a wood carving of a turkey that has tootsie roll pops as feathers. She loved to take all the suckers out and put them back in again. We were all amazed at her ability of fitting the sticks of the lollipops in the tiny holes. The tootsie rolls were many different colors and the adults took that opportunity to teach Annabelle some colors. By the end of the trip, she could say and identify the suckers that were pink, orange, blue, brown, and red. I'm so proud to be the mother of such an intelligent child.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. I wish we had this holiday a few times a year. We are so blessed, but sometimes we decide we want more and we only think about the things we're grateful for one day a year.

Our family is spending this wonderful holiday in Sheridan, WY with Michael's parents. This morning, I ran the Turkey Trot with Michael. Michael's brother, Drew, ran it. The entry fee is three cans of food and instead of racing against everyone else, you race against yourself. You have to guess the time that you'll finish and the one who gets closest to his guessed time wins. I was glad that I was able to run it.







I'll have many more pictures and videos to come, but for now, everyone enjoy the rest of the day.

The snorting gene gets passed on...

As many people know, I snort when I'm laughing really hard. I'm not ashamed to admit it. My mom snorts occasionally and my younger sister does as well. I always wondered if snorting was a genetic trait passed on from mother to daughter. I'm now convinced that it is. My own daughter who is not yet two years old had her first laughing attack in which she snorted several times. I was holding the video camera while this was going on and trying not to snort myself while attempting to hold the camera steady. I only wish you could hear Annabelle's snorts more clearly; however, they are there and you can certainly her most of them.



This second video actually took place just prior to the snorting video. Annabelle loves to jump on the bed in her room. She can jump pretty high and has fallen off the bed several times, but always climbs back up on the bed and jumps some more. She is very coordinated for her age and just shows how fearless she is.

Heartbreak

After BYU's heartbreaking and sad loss against Utah, I was not in the mood to post anything about it. I was so disappointed that my beloved Cougars were not able to play better than they did. I have cooled off a bit and will post what was going on during the watching of the game rather than what was happening in it.

Our home was only one of two in the ward that would be getting the game. Word of this spread and Michael and I were not sure how many people would show up to watch it. We spent all day cleaning and even had a backup plan to move the piano out of the living room and into the kitchen to make more room. We had a variety of snacks and figured we were about as prepared as we could be.

In the end, we had two families, and three guys come over. We had just enough seats for everyone and fortunately, some of the guests brought pizza so we had plenty of food. One guy even brought over his big screen tv to allow better viewing of the game. The number of kids totaled 6. Our house couldn't have fit much more.

It was fun to have friends over and I'm sure if it had just been our family, some of the items in our living room would have been lost as casualties.

The kids watching Ratatouille upstairs in our room on our bed,


or jumping on the smaller bed.


The spectators, one of whom is behind Michael and not visible. (Might I had that we had two Utah fans in our midst.)


Game food.


Michael's homemade Little Smokies- they were really quite delicious.


The borrowed big screen.

Stickers

Several months ago, I saw a book of stickers was on sale and decided to purchase it. Annabelle loves getting stickers from stores and I thought she would enjoy lots of her very own stickers. I was right. She loves to stick them everywhere and I often times, I have to remove several from the carpet.

A few weeks ago, Annabelle and I were playing with the stickers and it kind of got out of control. We started out by sticking them on paper, but then that wasn't enough and we switched to our cheeks, stomachs, and belly buttons. We were quite a sight to see.




I took this video a few weeks ago, and finally decided to post it on my blog.

3D

Last weekend, after Michael had returned from Dallas, we rented the movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth. We knew that it had some 3-D effects, but imagine our surprise when we opened the DVD and found 3-D glasses to wear while watching the movie.


We out them on and watched the first few minutes of the show with the glasses on, but decided that we could enjoy the movie better watching the non-3D version with no glasses. Don't we look smoking awesome with our BYU shirts on and 3D glasses?

New do

I've been thinking about getting my hair cut for the last month, but finally decided to stop thinking about it and do it. My hair has always bothered me. It is straight and heavy. Curls don't usually last and my hair does nothing but just hang.



Here are some of the things I used to be able to do with my hair before I cut it:





This is me now (notice not only the shortness, but also the sweep away BANGS!):



I like the new style, but it's going to take some getting used to and I'll have to learn how to style it. Because there wasn't too much I could do to style it when it was long, I usually didn't do anything but let it hang or put it in a ponytail. Now I get to experiment and see if I can really dress it up. Yea!