Christmas Eve Delights

It was a fun and funny Christmas Eve this year. Following is a slideshow.

It was fun to see Maddie eating dinner at the "Kids' Table". A first for her.

Gotta love her shirt! Can't read it? It says, "Dear Santa: Define Good." It so applies!!

It was funny to watch her try to put Max to sleep.

Here are the cousins, preparing to act out the nativity. Pool sticks for shepherd's crooks. Awesome.

The cutest of the shepherds.

Littlest shepherd throwing tantrum because Mary wouldn't let her take the Baby Jesus from the manger. She must have known that Baby was special, because the "sub" she was handed was not acceptable.

After the Nativity re-enactment, it is common for our family to then have a talent show and/or singalong. Ethan was the first act--doing magic tricks.

And one of the final acts was Rachel dancing with Oliver accompanying. It was one of those moments in life where you can't believe how lucky you were that you decided to film it. I love how both babies try to steal the show! (I sure hope I can figure out how to get this to upload!) Here is the YouTube link for now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9i9FP0p1nY

Mad TV

That's what I like to call this.


The best $99 I've spent on a baby accessory.


Madeline is the world's lightest sleeper. I can't go in to check on her without arousing the little busy-body. I can't quietly reassure myself that no, she really wasn't choking after all. Or, did she ever even fall asleep?? You know, those questions we parents have. If I enter her room after she's been put down for a nap, but before she's actually had one, or if she's already asleep, its all over. She'll want to get up right then, even if she's only slept for a few minutes! I'm telling you, she doesn't stop. (We'll not talk about how the neighbor girl is "really no longer interested" in babysitting her. -Sigh- Maddie. Doesn't. Stop. Ever. I know, I know, she's just doing her job!)

But anyway, its so fun to watch her while she sleeps or afterwards when she wakes up and plays in her crib, via the monitor. My friend tells me that now I'll be able to check up on her this way for at least another 8 years. Instead of a Nanny Cam, its a Kid Cam. Awesome.

So where was this, my intrusive, spying device, the other day when Maddie took it upon herself to "change" her poopy diaper herself, while still in her crib? Where was it when she then smeared the poop ALLL OOOOVER her crib, and its contents?? In a room upstairs, far away from me. This Kid Cam only works if you check it every 2 minutes instead of every 15 or so, like I'd been doing.

Moral of the story, if you have a little person that needs extra tracking, suck it up and invest in the $180 Kid Cam that has the portable monitor. That way you can easily take it to the basement with you. Can you believe it costs that much more?? So pricey, but I imagine its worth every penny.

[Babies R Us, you can pay me later for this free advertisement.]
Here she is with her tights on her head, post-church. This is a preview for the next post, which will be entitled "Head Gear".

St. George

This is late, but I wanted to post some pics from our Thanksgiving holiday in St. George. It was fun to stay with Paul and Michelle (Ray's sister), and their family. It was also great to see Ray's youngest sister, Jessica, who is also down there attending Dixie College. Maddie loved seeing her aunts, uncle and cousins, and I believe the feeling was mutual. Besides all the great chats with everybody, highlights of the trip for me were:

-Seeing all that red rock.
-Visiting an amazing, state-of-the-art park nearby. It was a bit too old for Maddie but so neato! (The pics below don't do it justice.)
-Discovering the joy of Bajio's, my new favorite fresh-mex locale. Get the taco salad with their spicy ranch. Sooo good!
-Having Thanksgiving on Wednesday evening instead of Thursday. This was Michelle's great idea to have a free day (Thurs) to sit around, eat leftovers, and have the cooking part of it be a distant memory! I hope to do this in years to come. (Incidentally, in telling my other family about this idea, they all say, "So what do you do on Friday, then?" Shop and sleep, of course. And eat more leftovers.
-Actually enjoying (not just tolerating) pumpkin pie for the first time in my life. Obviously I'm getting old. But long live Marie Callendar! (Or is she dead?? Well, she lives on somewhere else anyway!)
-Playing the Wii for the first time.
-Watching Flood, a film made on the Santa Clara river overflowing down there a few years ago. The flood took out 18 homes, some of which were about 2 blocks away from Paul and Michelle's house!
-Laughing the loudest during Kung Fu Panda, after trying so hard to get us all to NOT watch it! There's nothing like having extremely low expectations of a movie, eh?

Here are some pics of everybody.

All Dolled Up

Maddie is fascinated by watching me put on mascara. Here are some shots after I caught her trying to do the same with a marker! The photos don't show it but she has it on her upper lids as well. Actually, upon a second look, she didn't do half-bad for being 19 months-old. Its nice to see her manual dexterity and fine-motor skill development coming along!

Hair Today...

I'm one of those people who puts off going to the hair salon as long as I possibly can. But once I decide to cut my hair, I usually need it done immediately. [And just in case you somehow missed them, note my ends in the photo above. "Yikes" would be the best response here--maybe even "Holy Cow!"]

So I cut my hair myself. It turned out OK, but wasn't short enough. So I went into a place in the mall that took me immediately. The girl did a terrible job (after me making several objections to what she was doing/had done, she still couldn't get it right.) So my neighbor tried to fix it. Then my sister-in-law tried to improve it...twice!

Well, long story short--in sheer desperation I ended up at Great Clips on a Saturday morning. Crissy there did a great job. She also gave me some great tips for the next time I or Melissa try to cut hair on our own!

Gone Tomorrow!


I don't love the front, but am happy with the back. Its about 15 inches too short by Ray's standards, but I feel FREE!

Backpack Baby

We're pretty into backpacks these days. Madeline seems to prefer them over the stroller, and it hasn't been too bad on my back. She'll usually take me by the finger and lead me over to the backpack when she wants a ride. I usually comply. This is us off to the post office one day.

Below are some pics with her own backpack. She's sticking out her belly in the first one, but still! What a belly!