First ride

I had to go to Cale's elementary school the other day and Spencer had the car, so I had to take my bike with the bike trailer. Danielle is only 8 months old, but what the heck! Why not? So, I put her and Carli in and put Danielle's infant helmet on, but it was way too big. It kept sliding down onto her face and she couldn't see, so she would start fussing. Carli would try to lift it up, but she only succeeded in choking Danielle and making her more mad. So Carli would then try to make her feel better by putting her arm around her, but that didn't really help either, because she would put her hand on Danielle's cheek instead of her shoulder and pull hard. It was a long ride, but Danielle was a good sport and Carli was definitely a big helper!

Holy long hair!!!

Well, Stacey (Spencer's sister) came to visit us and decided to straighten Carli's hair. She looked so different to me, I had to do a double take everytime she came into the room. I thought straight hair made her look older. She loved it because it was so much longer like Paige's hair (her cousin). Cale came home from school and said, "I don't like it. Mom, when can you wet down Carli's hair again?" I don't know why he had such a problem with it, it was kind of funny.
Spencer tried straightening it once, but it was right after a bath, and he just tried blow-drying it straight. I came into the room to find Carli's hair looking like a fluff ball. We had to leave for church right then, so I gave Spencer a dirty look and then wet it down and saved the day.

So, we go to the bus stop everyday to take Cale to school. And the same van is in the parking lot everyday, but just the other day, Carli finally noticed it and said, "Oh my goodness, Mommy, I just found a car for giraffes!" I thought it was pretty funny.

So, we spent Christmas at home with just our little family. Karen and Mark came over for Christmas Eve, which was really fun. Karen is pregnant, so there is a picture of her posing with Carli, both pretending to be Mary. It was cute.
We thought we would have bought a house by now, but we haven't, so after we'd opened up all of our presents, we sat there, pondering where we could cram everything into our already too tiny home. I have to be very creative in where to put things and how to organize things. Actually, my favorite way to organize is to just throw things away. But I usually get in trouble for that later on by all the pack rats that I live with. I think that is the best part about Christmas! I love trying to organize and figure out where all the new toys will belong. Anyway, I'm kind of weird that way.

We left for Denver the day after Christmas. I have two sisters that live there (Donna, the eldest, and Debbie who is 2 years younger than me). They both have amazing houses, so they were able to host us and my parents and 3 other sisters from Utah. It was so much fun. There were also 2 other little cousins that came as well. All the cousins had a great time together. Cale has informed me that we need to move to Denver, and I heartily agree. Spencer just smiles. I don't really know what that means, but it couldn't be good. Carli of course got a fever and threw up for 3 days. She does that everytime we go out of town. It's really fun. We just hung out, played games, watched movies, and went to the museum. Oh yeah, and I learned how to play GUITAR HERO for the first time! Holy cow, that was addicting. If anyone knows me, I pretty much think video games are a waste of time. But I couldn't stop playing that thing. The kids were crying and fighting in the background, but I didn't care. I just wanted to play again and again and again.

So we went to Denver to play in the snow, but can you believe there was no snow at all??? Not even in the mountains. We were going to go sledding, but there was no snow for a 2 hour radius. That happens everytime we go to Utah and Denver in the winter-no snow. We are bad luck. But, Flagstaff, (only 2 hours from home) had 5 feet of snow. So, we stopped and played in the snow on our way home. Cale and Spencer built an igloo while Carli just sat there and ate snow. Cale's favorite thing to do was to stand under a tree and have Spencer shake it and make all the snow fall all over him. We'll have to go up to Flagstaff and sled one of these weekends. Kellianne, can you play with us??? (I will post those pictures later, they are on Spencer's cell phone).

So, now Christmas is over and we can get back to our normal routine. I still have to return/exchange a bunch of stuff to the store though, because I think I'm probably one of the worst gift-givers ever. Here are the terrible presents I got for Spencer:

1. Dress socks that were WAY too big
2. I bought him a camping chair, only to find out it was a kid sized chair
3. I bought him some sunglasses, only to find out they were women's fitness sunglasses with orange on them. (how did I not see that?)
4. A belt that broke after one use.

Well, as you can see, I'm kind of a hasty buyer. But who isn't when they have 3 children running all over the store, fussing and whining and asking 100 questions a minute? I've got to get in and out of the store between feedings and naps, piano lessons and school. It was a miracle I bought anything at all. Amazon is definitely my friend.

Christmas 2008