Photo Shoot

My friend, Emily, took these pictures of Charlotte and Emmeline and I think they turned out amazing! Somehow she transformed my house into a little studio. She is so talented, and you can find her website here

December

December 1st we took the girls to go see Santa. I love the "Workshop" that Southcentre sets up, and there were no lines. Charlotte asked for a Tiana Dress and a Cinderella dress.

When I got our the Christmas decorations box, Charlotte thought it was just a new dress-up box. She insisted I put as much of it on her as I could.

Charlotte used my scarves to dress up as Mary for the entire month of December. It was not uncommon for Charlotte to ask me to put all of my scarves over her head at once. Are you noticing a theme of Charlotte's lately? Playing dress-up and using her imagination are her favorite things to do these days. The other day I found her ripping toilet paper into tiny pieces all over the house and calling them her "magic golden band-aids" She doesn't bounce or throw balls, she covers them with a blanket and puts them to bed. This is all a little new to me since I never played with dolls and was more of a tom-boy.

Charlotte had the honor of being Mary for Christmas Eve with all of her cousins at the Low's house. She took it very seriously and did a little improv where she felt it appropriate. Spontaneous singing of Christmas Carols, engaging with the other "actors", and kissing baby Jesus were a few of her interpretations of the role of Mary.

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve program at the Low's and the fact that all of Dave's siblings were there for Christmas this year, made it one to remember!
Charlotte sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for part of the program. When the song was nearing its end, she apparently wasn't ready to give up the spotlight since she dove right into an explanation of how Santa Claus works with all the expression and hand-gestures she could muster. She was quite a ham and it was hilariously cute.

Who knew that all we needed to get Charlotte for Christmas was a couple boxes of treat cereal. After she found them in her stocking she really wasn't interested in opening anything else for a while.

Opening more presents after getting home from an early church service. Santa came through on her wish! This is stage one of the costume...

Stage 2

Dave knocked it out of the park this year for my Christmas present. He secretly booked time off to watch the girls and bought me a plane ticket so I could go to Arizona with my parents and siblings in April. He wrote me a really nice note saying how much he appreciated all I did and that he thought I deserved a break. To be completely honest, there are sometimes during the day when I will just say the word "Arizona" to myself and it makes me feel warm and happy.

I got Dave a really nice new tennis racquet that he mentioned he wanted a while back, and also cleaned out a big spare room and turned it into a little exercise spot for him with some free weights etc. He gets an allowance through insurance to use on fitness stuff, so we're going to buy an exercise bike for the room. He feels like he doesn't have enough time to workout at a gym, so I think he really appreciated it.

Later some of my family members came over for a Christmas Day brunch

Dave's brother, Mike got married to Jessica Smith over Christmas break and we couldn't be more thrilled for them. We sort of like Mike, we love Jessica, and she fits in so well with the family.

I kinda thought I had the cutest junior bridesmaids there :)

Dave had a tux for the wedding and he was looking mighty good-looking in it. I kinda turned into a 16 year old girl again when I first saw him in it. That lucky tux :)

I would have to say one of the highlights of Christmas for me this year was getting to see Charlotte play with her cousins. They are so sweet to play with her (she's younger than most of them). I just wish I took more pictures of them together!

A while back Jordan got Beauty and the Beast tickets through his work, and when it got closer to the event it turned out Dave was on-call that evening. I took Charlotte as my date and it was so thrilling to experience it with her. She cried at intermission because she thought it was over, she hugged me during the scary parts, sang along with all the songs, and got up to twirl around during the dancing scene.

Coming up next, some 2012 updates!

Arizona

Mom, Dad, Amanda, Alison and I, got to accompany dad on a business trip to Arizona. We toured in a cool new rental (cool as a van can get). Mom loved it; as she got to lie in the sun, which is what she does best. I did what I did best, which was running around outside, and running on the treadmill inside. Alison took a few really good pictures, which was an activity she got into there. Here is the tanning order from the greatest time to least time spent: Mom, Amanda, Dad and I, and very much last place – Alison.

As far as “out of the resort activity” there was shopping, riding bikes, and using the other resorts tennis court. We all went on a bike ride together, and a hike. Then Dad and I went on a navy seal type bike ride on pathways filled with small boulders and uphill almost the entire way. Amanda went grad dress shopping with mom, the mall was cool, and Dillards department store is twice the size of Midnapore mall. With stuff close to the same price, but has actual worth.

The weather was very nice, and the resorts and vegetation were incredibly unique and beautiful. A lot of the buildings and houses are made of a red-brown rock. There were cactuses that were bigger than we thought possible; some were at least 30 feet high.

Dads 54th

Dads 54th. I asked him how old he was turning to get it right...it took him a little bit to figure it out.

How Cute is This Girl?

Emmeline at 8 weeks old

I have a goal to catch up on my posts and from then on to post more regularly. What better way to end my blogging hiatus than with a post about this cute little girl.

Emmeline is such a great baby. She is currently 10 weeks old and for the last 3 weeks I've stopped feeding her at night. Her last feed will be around 9:30ish and then she doesn't eat again until between 8:30 -9:30 am. She still wakes up at night but she usually goes right back if I pop her soother in her mouth. She takes a great morning nap, and we're working on stretching out her afternoon nap to get 2 solid hours of straight sleeping. I follow a baby sleep schedule and start training from super early on (like day 3 pretty much). I swear by it, and it makes my life so much more manageable a predictable.

Emmeline is so happy, calm and smiley. She is especially charming and talkative right before bedtime. It takes so much will power not to keep her up and play with her. It's like the little stinker knows it's bedtime.

Oh and for those wondering, we've stuck with the pronunciation of EmmeLINE. We went back and forth for a while, but her great great grandmother pronounced it that way, and we love it, so we're keeping it.

Life has been feeling back to normal lately. Charlotte went through a difficult and emotional phase and luckily it seems like she's rounding the corner on it because she seemed like a completely different child. We've been getting out a lot and I've been getting back to the gym which I absolutely love.

This post is feeling all over the place, but maybe that's a reflection of how busy we've been since Emmeline was born. Dave's schedule is so crazy. If he didn't love what he was doing I swear he would require some meds and counseling (and maybe me too). This last month he's averaged close to 100 hours of work per week which doesn't include study time. Also about 1 month ago, he got called into the young men's in our ward which occupies at least 1 night per week away as well. He is pulling at least one 27+ hour shift at the hospital per week so catching up on sleep is almost impossible for him with all his responsibilities. He's had busy weeks likes this during other times in our marriage but I have never seen him this tired. Never. I feel like I can't allow myself to feel tired because the girls need at least one parent functioning on a healthy level.

You would think that a crazy schedule like ours would make things pretty tense around the house but it's been just the opposite. It's like we both recognize that the other is working as hard as they possibly can to keep this family afloat so there is really no place for judgement, criticism, or discussions about division of responsibilities. I've noticed that Dave does whatever he can to help me, whether he has 5 minutes or 30 minutes, and I try my hardest to keep things going at home so he doesn't have even more to worry about. Truthfully I have never felt so appreciative of him. He's like totally the guy of my dreams. Not even kidding.

That's not to say that we haven't had our moments of frustration. After a 4 day stretch of Dave being either out of town or on call and I had been juggling the girls at home completely on my own I sent Dave the following facetious email

"Please scan the list below:

maintained, clean home
regular meals
clean clothes
girls tended to
wife not in sweat pants
bills paid
errands run

Now choose 3 of the above."


For the record, Dave doesn't have certain expectations for me for any of the things mentioned above. I had just stepped in cracker crumbs one too many times that day.

Despite my moments of frustration, I can honestly say that I am relishing this special time in our family's life. I have made it a point to enjoy each day and soak up as much as my girls as I can. Our life is busy, yet simple, tiring, but fun, difficult, yet rewarding.

Happy 29th Birthday Jordan!

Jordan’s birthday was last week on the 8^th of November. It was a fun event. We celebrated first the Sunday before at Jordan’s parents with dinner and cake.

And then on Tuesday on the actual day we went to Ruth’s Chris steak house with Jen and Dave, and Jake and Renee. It was a pretty fun night with great food, great company and great service. Jordan has wanted to try it out for a while and we were pleasantly pleased. However we definitely paid a lot for it.

Jordan's free birthday dessert which was massive

Crunch Time

After months of taking a course and studying for the GMAT test, Jordan has finally set a date to take it! October 27, 2011 at 1pm.

So the real dedication starts, daily studying because there is no longer any excuses not to.

It can’t wait till it’s over. So we can relax! Well,mostly him.

And so he can apply to schools and we can know what and where he will be going next fall!

We are leaning towards Calgary. But maybe BYU. Maybe Harvard.... that’s a far distant dream. But you never know. Jordan is a smartypants.