Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Christmas in Virginia and More

So before I begin to tell about our Christmas adventure to Virginia. I just wanted to take a sec and write a little update on each of us, cause it's been a while.  We'll go backwards this time.  

Sarah:  11 months old!! I know, crazy.  When we left for our trip in mid-December she wasn't crawling at all.  By time we came home, she was not only crawling but standing on her own and cruising along furniture.  She talks too!  She can now say Mom, Dad, Go, and Bump (when she falls down or toots :)  And she is such a good imitator of sounds.  She mimicks the older girls' cries and some of their talking.  She sings herself to sleep sometimes and hums "mmmm" when she's eating something she really likes.  She sings along with the O part of EIEIO.  She tries to do the actions for "Popcorn Popping" and looooves when we do Itsy Bitsy Spider with her (unless Rachel is doing it and pokes her in the eye.)  She gets soooo excited and bounces up and down in our arms when she hears music come on, when she's happy to see us, or when she sees or hears Shizzie.  She loves to explore and her favorite place to go is the bathroom when we forget to put the gate up, little stinker.  She loves to play with her sisters and chase after them, cuddle with Mama, and climb on Dad.  We love our little Sarah!

Rachel: 3 years but I'm pretty sure she's actually 7.  This girl loves to learn and be crazy.  She loves the kids in her class at Church, especially a boy named Bradley.  When Anne goes to school and while Sarah is napping we do preschool where she can now write almost all her letters and is on book 7 of the BOB books (meaning she can read sentences like "Dot had a cat.  The cat sat on Dot" things like that.)  She also loves to count and we're starting adding and subtracting.  She loves to color pictures and paint.  Almost every day she builds a tower of some kind either with the big blocks or her new legos from Uncle Loren.  She is doing much better with eating and I think has recently hit a growth spurt.  She and Anne play doctors and dress up for hours and are best buds 90% of the time.  It is amazing to listen to their imaginative play.  They mostly act out either the shows they watch or Zac and I.  With being stuck indoors a lot she gets out her wiggles by dancing, doing kickboxing with me, or just running back and forth across the front room.  Oh, and we've also started violin and piano lessons each week with me which she loves.  Yay Rachel!

Anne: 5 years  Our little sweetheart.  Ok, well I guess not little.  She is currently wearing size 6/7 clothes and I'm pretty sure she's going to pass me up before she leaves elementary school.  Speaking of school she absolutely loves her Preschool.  She comes home every day and tells me all the cool stuff she did and the weird sounds she heard.  She's even now telling me about new friends on the bus besides the bus drivers.  After a lot of talking with other parents, prayer, and thought we've decided to keep her at Provo Peaks next year for Kindegarten.  They have wonderful teachers and facilities and Anne will still get to ride the bus which she loves.  She is making amazing progress and we are so proud of our big brave girl.  At home Anne loves to play with Rachel and Sarah.  Her imagination is incredible.  She lives in her dress up clothes and is constantly changing outfits throughout the day.  One minute she's Ariel, the next a dancer, the next a football player, and the next a doctor.  She feeds and takes care of her baby dolls and loves to help do anything I ask with Sarah.  She is the best big sister and example of kindness to Rachel and Sarah.  She too is learning to play the violin and piano but her love is still dancing.  Anne you melt our heart!

Ilene: 29!! My last year as a twenty something year old.  Sad.  I do have some lofty goals for this year though.  Call it a mid-life crisis.  I am currently training for my first marathon which I will hopefully be running (all body parts staying intact) some time in June probably.  So far everything has felt great.  I also recently chopped my hair and lightened it.  It's the style I've always wanted since I was a kid so I went and got it done.  And to go along with getting old I noticed my eyes were bugging when I was reading for a long time so I went and got my eyes checked for the first time ever and it turns out I need reading glasses, which I am currently wearing to do this blog.  I've also always wanted glass, I know I'm weird, so it wasn't a huge disappointment for me.  Other than that I'm just keeping busy with the kids and working hard and trying to be a good Mom and wife.

Zac: 37  Zac got a new calling at Church and is now the 2nd Counselor in the Stake Young Men's Presidency which he loves.  He is glad to be back working with the young men and is excited for some awesome Scouting activities and campouts this summer.  He is still loving his job at UVU.  He even got offered another job at a different company but after a lot of talking about it and praying about it, it didn't feel like the right thing to do so we turned it down.  He works with some great people at his job and he genuinely loves what he does which is hard to walk away from.  He will be taking a Red Hat certification class in March in Denver which will be a great oppurtunity for him as well.  He says that I am trying to talk him into doing a 5k and he's thinking about it. 

Shizzie: Almost 3 and has not eaten any rocks since last winter!!! Wahoo! She has calmed down quite a bit but still loooooves to play.  She plays catch for a solid 15 minutes, even now during the winter, before she just comes over and wants to be rubbed down and snuggle.  We let her in every now and then and the girls love watching her race around the front room.  I like to just sit with her at my feet and just pet her.  There's something soothing in that.  In the last few weeks we noticed she was in heat which means in a couple months we are going to breed her and have some puppies!  The girls are very excited for that.  We had an incident with one of our neighbors about her barking so we're trying to work with her on that as well.  Other than that she is our sweet crazy dog.

And now for our family vacation to Virginia for Christmas 2013!  It was wonderful to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Russell, Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Gordon, and Uncle Loren.  We all had a blast and were very spoiled by everyone.  Since it is most likely the last time we'll be going back there, I took some time and visited old schools and meaningful places from my childhood and felt like I was able to get some closure.  Virginia is where I grew up from when I was 5 till I went off to college.  What a beautiful place that I'll miss.

Anyhow, the girls and I left on December 16th and had a great two plane rides.  I was bracing for craziness from flying by myself with three little ones but they were once again angels.  They loved flying and traveling.  The only dark spot was when I left my brand new phone on the first plane and they never could find it.  That stunk.  But other than that we made it there in one piece.  Zac flew in on Christmas Eve and we spent another two weeks...and an extra two days because our original flight was canceled due to weather.  We loved every minute of the trip and hopefully all these kazillion pictures will help to keep these memories with us.  Sorry that they're all out of order but that's how it goes with multiple phones and cameras.  These were pulled from me, Zac, Jennifer, and my Mom's cameras.  Enjoy!

Before we left for the trip we had a Fall Festival at our Church where Zac and I were volunteered for the pie eating contest.  We both lost :( 






 Santa's reindeer at the Provo Festival of Lights.

 Zac flying to Virginia.
 New scooter from Santa!
 Baking with Mom.

 Board games with Aunt Jennifer.

 Rainy day fun with their new umbrellas.

 Dolphin Beach park.

 Rockin out with the Uncles.
 Snuggling with Grandpa.
 Bowling on base the night before we left.

 And the feast at McDonalds afterwards.


 Christmas Eve
 Christmas Morning - Santa came!
 Russell tradition of taking a picture of everyone on the stairs before going down to open presents.









 Jennifer's Birthday Celebration!
 Sarah and her Uncle Gordon




 Backyard cookout on an unusually warm night.

 Making bead necklaces.
Playing with Uncle Loren!



 Christmas Eve nativity play.  Anne was a shepherd.
 Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.  Rachel was also a shepherd.






 Hanging up the stockings from youngest to oldest.









 Aunt Jennifer made the girls cute Christmas skirts to wear on Christmas morning.


 She also made these cool Barbie cakes, one for each princess :)
 Just beautiful.




 Swim time!

 It snowed once while we were there so we scrounged up all the snow gear we could fine.  Anne and I are wearing my Mom and Dad's old ski suits.


 Watching the neighborhood squirrel in the leftover Christmas tree eating the ornaments we made for him.




 Trip to Mt. Vernon with my Mom, Jennifer, and Sarah.  Girls day out!







 Sledding!




 I love this picture.  Total Anne :)








 Uncle Loren's House!

 Pretty dresses made by Aunt Jennifer.

 And of course they had to accessorize with Jennifer and Grandma's old jewelry.

 New found love of legos.


Back at Mt. Vernon


 Lunch date for sushi.
 Making ornaments for the squirrels to eat.


 Baking with Grandma.
 A little trip down memory lane.  Went and visited all my old school.  This is the trophy case at Forest Park.  I helped get one of those.

 Lacrosse practice field.
 Stadium.
 The first high school I attended before I transferred to Forest Park my Junior year.  Hylton
 Stadium

Henderson Elementary School.  Looooots of great memories from this place.  When I look back at all my schooling, elementary school was by far my favorite. 

 It was kind of crazy being at my elementary school with Anne now that she's also in school.  Just weird getting older.
 (I didn't get a picture of Saunders, my middle school.  Ooops...that's ok, middle school was weird :)

 Dolphin Beach.  This is where I spent my summers growing up.
 And this part of the beach is where I spent my summers once I was 15.  I worked as a rec guard checking people's tags as they came in.  Basically I got paid to do my AP English reading assignments.
 Back at home in Provo.  My little cleaner.  This time, without being asked, she took a wipe and cleaned the counter, sink, cabinets, floor, and all the knobs on the cabinets.  They literally fight over cleaning.  It's awesome.
 Waiting for Anne's bus.
 Rachel's depiction of our family.  The captions are priceless.
 Making stuff with my new mixer :)

 Now that Rachel is 3 they can both go to the "big girl story time" at the library!  They love it! I've tried to get Anne to go twice before by herself but she was scared.  Now they hold hands and go in together and have a blast. 
 One of Sarah's favorite places to hang out.  I have to sweep after every meal.
 A few more from VA.

Dancing with Grandpa



 What Grandma did with the girls while Zac and I were on our date.  Awesome :)





 Anne is fearless when it comes to sledding and things like that.  She has no fear of heights or speed whatsoever. 
 Loren's House again.

 Rachel's best bud. 
 Loren's lights.  I loved the star allll the way at the top of the tree.
 Blurry but awesome.