Christmas, Cars and Cousins

All the family waited until after naptime to come over for our Christmas get together this year, so it was already getting dark, but of course everyone still wanted a ride in Lily's new car!

Audrey, Lily, and Isaac

Auji and Audrey had the most adorable giggles every time Audrey pushed on the gas.

Auji and Evie

Evie was a little too big to feel comfortable riding for long, but I got a cute picture of her with her little sister!

Lily loving her Teddy Bear from Uncle Alex

Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and the warm thoughts behind them! We love you!

All the kids converging in our room after opening presents.
They were watching Strawberry Shortcake and playing with Strawberry shortcake figurines.

Evie and Lily by the tree

Aujinay

Lily

Evie and Isaac

Audrey

I'm so glad Lily is so close to so many of her cousins. They have so much fun together. We are very blessed to be able to live here right now. Feeling very grateful to our Heavenly Father for the wonderful family we belong to, and for all our many blessings! Sometimes I feel down about our situation, and that we aren't living on our own yet, but I know it could be much worse! We are so lucky to be in such a nice home with people who love us!

Christmas morning

Actually posting about it in the same month too :)

Lily has been waking up at 6:00 or 6:30 regularly for a few weeks, she calls over the monitor "Daddy, daddy until one of wakes up enough to go get her. She is going through a phase where she doesn't want to go anywhere even in our house without accompaniment. She didn't want to use the froggy potty in the far corner of the room we were all hanging out in last night without one of us 'coming with her'. She's scared. Hello, we're all right here! So ready for this phase to pass. So anyway...Christmas morning we got up early to see her face when she first came down the stairs. Of course she slept in over an hour! I can never sleep in Christmas morning anyway, or even Christmas Eve morning :)

We were excited to see how she liked her big surprise. Mike's parents got her a motorized car, and Mike painted it pink. Wide eyes coming down the stairs she asked: "Is that car for me!?" "Who else would it be for, silly!?" I replied.

She strapped herself and Lamby in right away, but her dad told her she couldn't drive it in the house. On to the stocking. I love how she's so excited over every little thing, even each small piece of candy. Which she pulled out and exclaimed over one at a time. Mike got impatient and made her dump it halfway through :)

She was also super excited to see a little La La Loopsy doll hanging from her stocking. It wouldn't fit after I put in the fruit, and I am determined to always have fruit in the stockings!

The one thing that was consistently on Lily's wish list when people asked was a La La Loopsy doll. That's what you get for letting your kids watch any TV with commercials. Her uncle Blaine and Aunt Courtney got her the Treehouse playset which she begged to be able to buy at the store with her piggy bank money. She plays much better with these little playsets than she probably would with the big doll. It's so fun to hear her made up conversations as she plays.

Mike playing Barbie with Lily. I didn't really want to get her the Barbies since she already has my Heart Family dolls - I just wanted to get her some more furniture for the dollhouse we made her and each set came with a doll. She got the kitchen and laundry set. I made her some beds and a couch recently - which I guess I should post some pictures of, but I didn't think I could do other things as easily. I knew she'd like the store bought ones better, and they are smaller and easier to store, too.

Lily doing a little ironing.

My cute little girl.

We were doing a little Christmas shopping and Lily wanted to buy some little Christmas gifts for a couple of her neighborhood friends with her piggy bank money. One of them got her this cute ducky in return! Lily actually threw Lamby out of the passenger seat and strapped in the duck (Ducky)...but Lamby still has the #1 spot in her affections.

Ready to ride!

Lily really stuck with driving the jeep longer than any other vehicle she's tried - of course it's motorized. We have yet to find her a bike that's the right fit for her to pedal well and not tip over. We're thinking Big Wheel next time. But it's good for her to have another reason to want to play outside! It was so much fun to see her happy face zooming round and round, and hear her and the other kids laughing and having a good time (she can steer a pretty mean circle - cause she doesn't really get steering yet).

Lily met up with her friends on our street for a little while and they all took turns. Above is my favorite picture of her in her Jeep - with her little friend Kianna in the background - Kianna's the one who gave her the ducky.

Love the little purse stowed in the back. Man did Lily get the princess treatment this year! I never imagined having a mini car, or getting one for my kids, but I always wanted one, too - so how could we say no? This is the perfect age to get it because she can fit in it for several years. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa! Lily is one lucky little girl :)

It was such a nice Christmas just relaxing and being with family. I still need to go through my photos of the evening, but wanted to post something up before the month was out and while it was fresh in my mind. I hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas too!

Flashback to Halloween

I know it's almost Christmas, but I still hadn't gotten around to posting some of our cute pictures and memories from this Halloween. The Nightmare Before Christmas mixed up Halloween with Christmas successfully, so I figured - why can't I? No point until waiting until after the New Year...the pictures aren't getting any newer, but they are too cute not to share. Next year we will have 2 kids to costume! Craziness!

I did already post a few pictures of Lily early on trying out her Rapunzel costume, but here are the pictures from Halloween and trick or treating and with her cute cousins: (Be prepared for an onslaught)

The Ghosts Lily and I made to add to our decorations this year

Isaac's Preschool Carnival:

Isaac as the dashing Pirate Jake, from the popular Disney show.
Little kids were following him around adoringly asking:  "Are you Jake? Are you Jake?!"

Audrey and Lily hiding behind some bushes along a building.

Audrey was pirate Izzy with her bag of pixie dust.

Isaac being a gentleman and returning his friend Ella's shoe.

Trunk or Treat 
We planned to go to our own ward's trunk or treat this year, but Lily was too sad to miss out on going with her cousins! Evie and Auji and her mom and dad dressed up as a bee family, the worker, queen, and honey bees :)

Our ghosts decorated the trunk of the (now former) Squeaky mobile

Lily's hair kept slipping back off her head as we walked around, so
by the end of the evening she just went as an all natural beauty.

Audrey triumphantly displaying her red lollipop. Just the candy she wanted!

Candy faces

The annual family Pumpkin Carving Party:

"Disgusting!"

Evie's less squeamish about gooping around in the guts :)

Decorating cookies is more to Lily's taste.

Aujinay liked the taste too - Love this face!

The kids playing Starfall on Grandma's computer - a favorite thing :)

Aujinay posing with the pumpkins!

Holy muscle shirt, Batman! Isaac looks tough!

Starting to get sleepy...

I think some of us have had enough pictures.

Lily hugging her pumpkin - she picked out the face and actually helped carve it a little this year!

Lily loved her pumpkin

Evie and Isaac getting in on the pumpkin hugs! 

Dazzling smiles

Our Family's pumpkins 2011

Andrew's cool 'Angry birds' pumpkin

Mike's upside down one was our coolest, I think.

The Ghosts spooking up our front entry

Rapunzel, Rapunzel:
Letting down her hair... I fixed Lily's wig up so it wouldn't slip around for Halloween night, but after the trunk or treat slip offs on Saturday - Lily did not want to put her long wig back on. (Of course she waited until after I had it all up and pinned in place before telling me that - after I asked her before even attempting it, too.) So here's our lovely Rapunzel the morning of Halloween.

Halloween morning at preschool:

Auji and Lily

Pirate Audrey

Auji Bee

Princess Lily

Trick or Treat Time!
All the cousins met and Emily and Matt's for dinner and a not so scary Halloween movie before Trick or Treating. Ready to hit the streets! Or, should I say - treats!

Two princesses

One of all of them! Evie and Aujinay decided to wear some different costumes to Trick or Treat.
Evie was Princess Tianna, and Auji wore a goldfish costume Evie wore when she was little.

Audrey and Aujinay were cleaning up! - They looked so cute , and said Trick or Treat so cute
 - they were usually the last ones to the door and they would keep holding out their bags after
they got candy so they got two or three times as much as everyone else!

A lot of the houses in Emily and Matt's neighborhood had their lights out, so we decided to
 go out a little bit more by Grandma's house. We got there just in time to join up with some
of Lily's friends from our neighborhood who were just coming home from a party. 

Auji was cracking everyone up in the goldfish costume, dragging her big bag of candy around behind her.
By the end of the night it was worn full of holes.

Auji and the dancing Frankenstein Lily has been sort of scared of
- Auji was treating it like her lovely baby doll.

That's it, promise! Now I can move on to Christmas with a clear conscience. If I can just clear my throat properly (and really kick this cold) to devour my chocolate truffles Christmas morning - I will be one happy woman! :)