temple square

Well, I've obviously not made a new year's resolution to do more blogging, but maybe I should have. It took a while for me to get this photo because I never think to take my camera anywhere. But, this was from visiting temple square last summer when my sister Cindy came to the states to visit. It was a miracle to get all four little kids sitting together and looking so cute. I was a little concerned about Ansel falling into the fountain, but as you can see cousin Cade took very good care of him.

ansel working hard

Joseph gave our wooden floor a good scrubbin and Ansel sat on his lap for 10 mins straight. He held the rag a few times and "helped" a little. It was just really funny to see them working together.

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.