Merry Christmas!

These kiddos moved too fast to get awesome pictures.

"Mickee Mowsh!"

A big girl bed!

Paw Patrol and Shopkins water bottles

Band-aids! Because the FSA money hadn't been spent yet...

Paw Patrol cars!

My Little Ponies Twilight Sparkle Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Playset (The name made me laugh)

You can't even tell how sick and miserable Husband and I felt! I should have also snapped a picture of my fancy new trash can and the new Mindy Kahling book Husband surprised me with. I gave husband a quad copter that didn't actually arrive despite me ordering it mid November. It wasn't even stolen off my doorstep like my sister's gift and my much needed continuing education book. You know, because Dec 2015 hates me. But the kids had a great Christmas and that's what matters.

That time we did a Christmasy thing that I forgot about

My friend Rachel was singing at a nativity display. Our friend Diane isn't Mormon but was also going so we went. Diane and I both thought it was an outdoor living nativity thing but it ended up being a elaborately decorated church displaying hundreds of nativity scenes with a very formal concert happening in the chapel. Not something I would bring my active children to because it almost gave me a nervous breakdown trying to keep them from touching and destroying things. And the futile attempt to keep them quiet during the concert. It was stunning though and the music I could hear from the foyer was top notch. 

I almost typed that I was glad we went, but that is probably a lie. I just asked J is she remembered this and showed her the pictures. She just went "uhhhhhhhhhm."  Oh Dec 2015, may we forget you as easily as J has.

Ballet Recital

Mele kalikimaka was wonderful and she was so excited for "stage day!"

If you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will consistently say ballet teacher.

J's Lego Unicorn Party

Before Christmas, we had a birthday party. I felt a little bad because J had been cruising pinterest since November dreaming about what kind of party she wanted. She changed her mind several times but committed to a lego unicorn party. I figured, why not? Then the evils of December happened. I only got about 6 of the super cute invitations made (no pictures) and ended up just text messaging invites to the rest of her friends. Then I find out that the cute invites that were finished five minutes before picking J up from preschool didn't have the last digit of my number on them. Oops. Probably why only one preschool friend ended up coming :)

It still turned out pretty cute even though I'm fairly certain I threw up a couple times that morning. Not my best work, but who the heck cares! We had marshmallow lego heads, lego brick juice boxes, and lego candies in bags fastened by lego barrettes (those were made before December happened).



 I don't know how it happens but her parties are always really mellow despite 15 or so kids. They colored lego guys as everyone started arriving.

We had a pinata and I'm still on a four year streak of no one crying or getting hit with the bat.

We frosted sugar cone unicorn horns and they were a hit.

Cousin Lyla

Brinley G, Lyla P

Adia 

Aiyanna M  and Selene P

Penny B and Riley Z

BFF cousin Ellie

Cousin Kenzie

Miles and Kaleb

Pin the tail in some variation is always a hit. Always. Especially when you can steal back drops from other people's parties and not have to spend a dime on it.

A little curling ribbon was perfect.

We made ice cream cinder cake with some oreos on the top for the legos.

It's important to me that December birthdays get all the fuss they would in a different month. Pair that with my inability to leave anyone out of invitations and this girl makes out like a bandit between her birthday and Christmas.

Happy birthday to the best little girl! 5 has been your best year so far.

Hello again

Well December was rough. Heavier on the awful than I'm used to. The kids had coughs and colds. Husband got bronchitis. Then I got bronchitis. Of course I didn't get to take the good drugs because I'm pregnant and a good cough made me throw up. Then the ridiculous amount of coughing damaged my ribs and made it so painful to breathe that I was worried about getting pneumonia with my half breaths. A good sneeze made me feel like passing out. Seriously folks, the cough has been gone for awhile now and my rib still feels like someone is trying to make me a helpmeet. Oh and I tested positive for strep B and had a second round of antibiotics immediately after the zpac. And then J got the stomach flu. Then round 2, both kids got the stomach flu a few days later. Thankfully J can now puke in the toilet! M can puke on the 12in of carpet not covered by towels and in the crevices of the recliner. After destroying our New Year's Eve plans, I was happy it cleared up in time for our Denver trip (which was lots of fun and will have pictures posted. Eventually.)

I left my positive attitude somewhere around Dec 5th 2015 and it has yet to return. The neighbors did not get treats. We did not see the temple lights. We did not see Santa at Bass Pro. We made no cookies, not even for jolly old St. Nick. We adopted no families. We barely made it to one Christmas party. I'm just going to forget this season ever happened.

Now I have very mild placenta previa and have been ordered rest and no exercise. I negotiated with my doctor to still teach my yoga classes, but I am now 6 days without getting a solid sweat going.  How do people get anything done without the energy boost from exercise?! Without it, pregnancy fatigue is twice as bad. And cutting my classes also means cutting my money.

The struggle is real my friends!

Let's see what pictures I actually took that can misrepresent the month and put it in a cheery glow.

My sister made sugar cookies with the kids while I complained on her couch for 5 hours.

Grammy babysat and made a really cute gingerbread house with my kids.

Birthday presents from Aunt Chris were very well loved.

 One day I found her like this.

I made an ewok scoodie for my secret sister gift exchange

J rocked her part in the preschool program

We road the mini train by my inlaw's house. M had his mind blown.

I colored my hair "dark golden brown"

We still made the most amazing Bo Ssam even though the party never happened. Seriously, make this recipe.

Now time to sort through the fancy camera pictures and look for some Christmas morning magic.

Life according to my cell phone

We went back to Riverview park again because J requested to go "to that park that we brought food to when you went to buy clothes with Uncle Justin." Yes, she remembered bringing Chick-fil-a to this park a YEAR AGO when I took Justin black Friday shopping. That girl. Anyways, M can scale any height and gives me regular heart attacks.

I will never tire of seeing this boy in this frog costume.

Our pogo passes expire in March so I'm trying to go to all the places before it expires. That means Friday is now field trip day. We went to the zoo with our friends the Weidmans. The highlights ended being the fish in the pond near the parking lot and the ducks around the exhibits. Thankfully they got a kick out of the monkeys too or I would give up on these children.

M has also grown out of his clothes without telling me.

I tried to get a picture of him passed out on this chair but he woke up and hid.

We've enjoyed two full weeks of these two playing well with each other. Horseys!

We had a lovely time with amazing food down in Tucson for thanksgiving. My brother told me to put together the veggie tray so I had some fun with it. Without pinterest even.

They went to a Mexican food wedding rehearsal dinner and got these hats. They came out the next morning wearing them and singing, "We are the taco men" over and over and holding hands.

I took the pictures after the sealing and pretended I was a real photographer. After being super nervous all the pictures would be terrible, I had to send a screen shot to my sister to tell her she was right, they did turn out fine. (A black mark has now shown up on my cell phone camera lens and is not actually part of this photo)

Makutu's Island is another pogo pass place the kids love. I sort of hate it because you can't keep track of your kids in the tunnels unless you climb in with them. It wears me out, but it wears them out too. This time we met Husband for lunch at a park after and made it pretty much the best toddler day ever.

He was sitting there so smug, eating peanut butter from the jar for breakfast (not sure how this came about) that I had to take a picture. I mean, that grin.

For an early bday present, I finally made the Tesla test drive happen that was supposed to happen last year on his bday. Ladies, this is a really easy, cool, FREE thing for the people in your life who buy their own presents. And you can book it online :) We spent an hour in the car trying out the autopilot (I had the hardest time letting go of the steering wheel and letting it drive but it is COOL) and they even set the route up so we could floor it from a complete stop on the freeway onramp. I appreciated the warning the associate gave me to put my head back on the head rest because gets up to speed as fast as a roller coaster. Another plus, they don't talk sales to you AT ALL. It used to be illegal in AZ for them to mention prices because Teslas aren't sold through a dealer and blah blah blah business model,  blah blah archaic law. If someone wants to buy one, you have to do it online so the associates are really just information and have zero interest if you are purchasing or not. I'm pretty sure I'd rather buy a house with $150,000 but maybe someday we'll be stupid rich and buy one. 

Halloween

Who needs Christmas when you can relive Halloween?

Seriously, folks couldn't tell who I was. That's what I get for wearing weird make up on a regular basis :)

Here was the whole fam for context

That was for the church Halloween party and minds were changed by the time actual Halloween came about. As long as I don't have to do any extra work, they can pick anything from the dress up box. M chose Peter Pan.

J chose Fever Elsa (the summer dress from the short sequel before Cinderella. The sleeves aren't as itchy). Obviously, she chose her own fancy pose.

M has asked to trick or treat every week since. They got more candy going around the single loop of my neighborhood than I did after two hours of trick or treating when I was a kid. It pays being some of the only kids on the block because everyone just gives them handfuls.