the kids

These are just some of the latest pictures of our kids. Little Ansel in our giant bean bag chair and Isabel with her new Dalmation puppy (which was a last minute buy at DI that turned out to be her favorite Christmas present).

Christmas 2007

We had such a fun Christmas! We went up to temple square Sunday evening to see the billions of lights and neat decorations they do. There were SO many people. It was fun to see all the different large nativities from around the world. Isabel was so excited to see everything. Ansel was also very well behaved and laughed at Isabel a lot. We had to wear a lot of layers, but we didn't get too cold.

Monday evening we went over to the cousin's house for the Spackman family party. We ate a lot of good food and all the kids acted out the nativity which was too cute. Isabel was an Angel.

On Christmas morning we discovered a beautiful, thin blanket of snow on the ground. (Which made sneaking the air hockey table out of the garage by myself a little tricky.) I put our stockings right outside the doors of the kids rooms because that was a fun tradition in my house growing up. When Isabel came to wake us up, we asked her if she found anything by her door and she said she didn't. (She literally had to step over the stocking to get out of her room...) So, she ran back to check and happily went through it on our bed with us. After opening our presents we went sledding down a hill by the bell tower on BYU campus. We were happy to be the only ones there. Of course the first two times I went down I ran into a bush and then a tree, but after that it was smooth sailing. I think Joseph and I enjoyed it even more than the kids did. There is something about going fast downhill with the wind in your face that is SO exciting and fun for me. (I just love skiing and mountain biking and now sledding.) The rest of the day we just relaxed, ate ham and all our goodies. Of course, I ate the first of my 6 six ounce tri tip serlion steaks from omahasteaks.com. Well, that is the low down on our holiday. We hope you all are having a lot of fun and enjoying the season also!

chopsticks and the poinsettia

Some leaves have fallen off our poinsettia (that we won at Joseph's work party) and Ansel was trying to put them back on for us.





Isabel found some chopsticks in our silverware drawer today and so I showed her how to use them. She did it in her own way and we were eating chicken nuggets...

funny stories

Ansel really likes the light switches in our house. He will turn them on and off so many times. Well, he has discovered that he can reach the switches at the bottom of our stairs all by himself if he goes up about three steps. The other evening he started climbing up the stairs, stopped and turned the light on, then continued up the stairs. It was so funny to see him acting like an adult thinking....."it's pretty dark up there, i better turn on the light."

I got Isabel a used white puppy with black spots (stuffed animal) and wanted to wash it before giving it to her for Christmas. I was careful to do it in the machine after she had gone to bed so she would not suspect a thing. After it was clean I just left him sitting in there to dry. Well, the next morning I hear Isabel's excited voice coming from the laundry room. Mom, wow, look at this dalmatian, he wants to play with me, please get him out for me. We were about to leave for the store and I just explained that he was a surprise for Christmas and she would just have to wait until then. Well, after our errands, I had to hurry and get lunch for us and Isabel was the first to finish lunch. I few seconds after she left the table I heard her saying, "Well, I know you want to play with me, but you are a surprise and we have to wait until Christmas." I peeked over and she was sitting by the washer with her feet dangling in, just trying to console her little puppy that wanted to play with her. It was funny stuff.

I've seen a lot of people to the elf thing and I have to admit I think it's pretty funny. So, I finally did our family: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1677133462

working away in the kitchen

Isabel sure likes to be involved in EVERYTHING. She is actually getting really good at helping in the kitchen. She cracks eggs all by herself and knows how to work the mixer (she will even spin the bowl with her left hand like I subconsciously do). She loves to make toast with peanut butter, but usually asks for a little help spreading it to the edges of the bread. I remember once in our old apt (before Ansel was born) waking up to the sound of the microwave timer going off. I shot out of bed and apparently Isabel was making some corn. She got a baggy with left over corn out of the fridge, got a bowl from the dish drainer, poured the corn into the bowl, put it in the microwave and cooked it for one min. Joseph and I thought it was so clever that she just decided to cook something up because she was hungry. Of course now, she usually comes in to wake me up and ask for some breakfast. Anyway, it is so fun how fast these kids grow up and become more independent.

ginger bread house

We had a lot of fun making a ginger bread house this year. I'm very glad I decided to get the kit at costco; it was very simple. Isabel had so much fun putting candy all over the house. At first I wanted her to make it uniform and neat looking (like I would make it.) After about one minute I realized this was for her to decorate, not me. The kit came with way more candy than we needed, but we found a place for every piece!

we made it!

Just a little update with our car in case anyone is wondering....we got it last Friday! Hurray! It ended up needing a new transmission and a new clutch. The mechanic walked us through his shop to the back parking lot so we could smell it. He said it stunk up his garage like no other broken part had ever done before. I didn't know if I should feel embarrassed or proud. We were planning to get it on Saturday but the weather was predicted to be very bad. Joseph called me from work Friday morning and said he thought we had better get on the road as soon as we could. So I called our babysitters to see if they could come sooner. We were supposed to be Mary and Joseph in our ward's Christmas Activity that evening, so I called people to make other arrangements. I also had noticed a leak in Ansel's room, so I was getting estimates on a roof repair. (Turns out we need a new roof.......which they are putting on right now.) I also finished getting our secondary beneficiary paper work finished for our new life insurance policy (If we were going to die on the trip, we wanted the guardian of our children to benefit from the policy.)

There was a little snow and poor visibility in Northern Utah and part of Idaho, but the roads were not real bad. We made it to Pocatello 30 mins before the shop closed and then headed to Rexburg to return Bekah's car (they generously lent it to us for 2 weeks!) After dropping off the car we stopped in Idaho Falls to surprise Kate working at the hotel, but she had the night off. It was then that we realized we did not return Bekah's car key to her. (And they do not have a spare.) We were concerned about the weather and she said she could come pick it up at the hotel. So we got on our way back home. There were only 45 mins of the drive home that we were extremely stressed and concerned we might die. There was a lot of snow/slush on the road that would push the car around a little and the main concern was drivers who were driving too fast or not staying inside their lanes. I'm glad Joseph was driving and not me! Anyway, after our 10 hour trip we were almost home and we got pulled over. Joseph has never been pulled over in his whole life and is a careful and mathematical driver (it's not real logical to speed), but we thought it figured. A brake light was out and he noticed it when we picked up the car, but we were going to fix it when we got home.

Anyway, we feel very blessed to be back home nice and safe! That was our crazy adventure. On a positive note, it was kinda like a super date. We got to spend so much time chatting, hanging out and not being interrupted by the kids with anything.

Hunter

This is my new little nephew Hunter. This cute yawning picture is when he was 17 hours old. I think it's adorable so I had to include it in my blog. (I think all newborns have this sort of alien/weird look to them that prevents them from being their cutest, even my own children.....but not Hunter.)

SNOW!

On Saturday we woke up and there was beautiful snow all over the ground. Isabel was very excited. So, was I. We love to play in the snow. We got all our warm clothes on, made snow angles, a snow man, ran around and tackled/wrestled, and tried out our new sled. Joseph pulled Isabel and ME all around the backyard several times and it was SO much fun.