Temple Square

With the Ziebarths in town, we spent yesterday evening up in Salt Lake.  Erich was kind enough to babysit the girls at home and Darlene was generous enough to treat the rest of us to dinner at The Roof.  After dinner, we braved the frigid cold to walk around Temple Square for a few minutes and enjoy the lights.  I wish the Christmas season didn't have to end!

Snow Day

I have a feeling we are going to be in for a fairly high snow year, so we got Leila some new snow clothes (which are ginormous with the hope that she can wear them next year too) and she got to try them out today.  She LOVES the snow but really I think she loves anything that gets her outside.  I need to be better at letting her get out.  After all, just because I hate winter doesn't mean she should.

Ancestry Christmas Party

Ancestry held their Christmas party at the Living Planet Aquarium this year with a tropical theme.  It was a fun night out but it made us both really miss Hawaii!

Negligent November

I've been fighting a nasty head cold off and on for several weeks and I'm afraid that leaked over into the limited number of pictures I took.  Better luck next month!

November 13
Leila doesn't typically nap during the day anymore but is pretty good at having quiet playtime in her room while Ellie sleeps.  Today though, it got REALLY quiet and I found she had put herself to sleep under her table.

November 16
What baby doesn't love pushing buttons?

November 18
We actually did some Christmas lights this year, even if we did go the lazy route and just put up these laser lights.

November 20
A momentous occasion: we ventured out as a family for dinner for no other reason than because we wanted to get out of the house.

November 21
Chilling with Daddy

November 24
Introducing Princess Blue Unicorn

Thanksgiving in Eden

I'm sure something else has happened in the last couple weeks, but somehow this next post is another trip to Arizona.  Because we are crazy like that sometimes.  But this time we went down to my grandparents' house in Eden for Thanksgiving.  A long weekend of family, limited tech access, animals, and fun.  Oh, and very VERY little sleep thanks to Ellie.  Who also decided she was done with baby food day one of this trip.  Fun stuff.  It also took us over 15 hours to drive home due to accidents, traffic, and weather.  We may not be going anywhere else for a while but I'm still so glad we made the effort!

Halloween in AZ

Jason took a couple days off work and we made a long weekend visit to my cousin in Arizona for Halloween.  And despite the fact that Ellie seems to be following in her sister's footsteps of not sleeping on vacation, we had a blast!

We drove as far as Mesquite Thursday afternoon then continued to make our way to Phoenix on Friday.  We caught up with Alicia for a couple hours that afternoon before it was time to get ready for the Sorensen Halloween party extravaganza!  Aunt Janae and Rachel spent so much time making this an awesome Haunted Mansion themed party.  I wish I'd taken more pictures because the details were incredible!

The next day we made our way to Carefree where a famous pumpkin carver (who knew there was such a thing) had bunch of his sculptures displayed.  And I just thought that I was a decent pumpkin carver!

Once we wrapped up there, we headed back to get ready for trick or treating in our family costumes.  I was Peter Pan, Jason was Mr. Smee, Leila was Tinkerbell, and Ellie was Wendy Darling.  This may be my favorite group we've done thus far.  So fun!

Sunday was just a fun, relaxing day and we let Leila play with her cousin friends so much that she wore out all 3 of them by the end of day.  That girl has so much energy, it is ridiculous!

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and we had to drive home yesterday.  I sure wish we lived closer to the Perkins and Sorensens because we always have a great time together!

Offbeat October

October 2
Turns out otter pops make pretty good teethers!

October 3
Uncle Jared was sweet enough to paint Leila's fingernails for her.

October 4
For our traditional Conference gathering, we had all of the great-grandchildren in attendance and had to snap some pictures.  Of course getting that many littles to look in one place and smile is another challenge entirely!

Ellie with two of her cousin baby buddies.  Would you guess that she's actually the oldest of the bunch?

October 11
Leila insisted on bringing her Lucky Duck game to Grandma's so that she could play with all her friends.

October 15
These two girls sure do love their dad.  As soon as he walks in the door, he's lucky to find any alone time.

October 23
Just hanging with my smiley baby (who LOVES looking at herself on my phone camera).

October 25
The blanket fort I made for Leila.

Pre-Halloween Activities

This week we've been busy getting all set for Halloween.  On Monday, we went over to Mom's to carve pumpkins with everyone.  In keeping with our costume theme for this year, I carved Captain Hook while Jason helped Leila paint a pumpkin and decorate some sugar cookies.

Then I carved this Disney Love pumpkin the next day because we had an extra pumpkin.

This morning, Leila got to dress up in her Tinkerbell costume for preschool.  She loves everything about it, except for the fact that her wings don't let her fly.