Happy Easter

A bit late, but here are the photos from Easter last month. When Carolyn asked what Easter was, I told her that it was a day that she could pick out the fanciest dress in her closet. She did not hesitate for a second. It was actually a hard decision; she could not decide between two dresses. In the morning, RJ came over for pastries and coffee. Carolyn had an easter egg hunt in the backyard. Then, we enjoyed the afternoon with our friends Kim, Nick, and Sebi.

Soup's On

In years past, we hosted a Sunday brunch before Christmas. This year, we never found a sunday that worked with our schedule, so we decided to do a soup party between the holidays. We chose a wednesday night. There were four kinds of soup: 1. Beef Barley with Mushroom 2. Potato Leek with Spinach 3. Turkey Vegetable Noodle 4. Split Pea with Ham

The party was supposed to start at 5. At 430, a blizzard came to town. Literally, a blizzard. The streets and grounds were covered with snow within minutes. By 445, I received several text messages from people saying that they were cancelling and not going to try to drive on the roads. By 520, no one had showed up. We thought the party was a bust. We were a little sad, and decided to sit down, pour ourselves a glass of wine, and enjoy the food. We figured we would package up the soup and deliver it to our friends tomorrow.

Thankfully, as we were having our pity party, the first set of neighbors showed up. Shortly after that, another guest showed up after work. Then, a couple more showed up. By 615, the house was full. Altogether, we probably had about 40 people. The final guests left around 11. The house was cleaned up and back to normal by 1130.

For the kids, I made a big batch of mac-n-cheese and corndogs. Several of the adults were jealous of the corndog treats and wanted one for themselves. Several of the adults also wanted bowls of mac-n-cheese, too.

Either we have gained new friends who have kids, or a lot of our friends have had kids in recent years .... because there were a lot of kids running around the house.

The Pink Piccolo

We told Carolyn that Santa Claus grants wishes for little kids who are well behaved all year long. Her wish was for a piccolo, and it had to be pink. She never forgot about it. Whenever she would see a picture of Santa Claus, she would say, "I wish for a pink piccolo." However, whenever we saw a Santa Claus at the mall or the zoo, she was too shy to talk to him and tell him about her wish for the pink piccolo. She would say, "I need to be lots bigger." So we had to tell Santa what her wish was. Thankfully, he got the message.

Before we went to bed on Christmas day, we decided to look through the house one more time to see if Santa left anything for Carolyn. Tucked inside the tree, we found one last package.



She immediately started playing with it. And taught her doll baby how to play too.

She even took it to bed with her, along with another whistle that Grandpa Mike sent to her and the new doll baby that Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Mike sent to her.

Santa really does make wishes come true!

And a sincere thank you to all of our friends and family who shared the holiday season with us and who sent us wishes of Christmas cheer. We miss those who we were not able to be with. We are thankful for those who we were able to share times with the past few days. We feel blessed.

Christmas Day

Carolyn slept in until 1030. When she got up, she slowly wandered around the living room, looking out each window. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was "Just looking." When Iasked "For what?," she sort of smiled and kept looking. Finally, she said, "Where's Santa? Is he here yet?" We told her that Santa only comes when little kids are sleeping, and she forgot about it. Instead, she started to focus her attention on the gifts that still remained under the tree.

We first opened gifts from the grandparents. Thank you Harry and Carol for the golf ornament (for steve), earrings (for me), and the picture frame (for Carolyn). We purchased our zoo membership with the money you sent, which is one of the best gifts that we could get. We use it almost weekly.

Carolyn was pretty funny opening gifts. She definitely knew how to open them this year, and did not hesitate starting right away. She often wanted to open them, no matter if they had her name or our name. And, she almost always wanted to use or wear whatever was in the package immediately. For example, when we all opened up new aprons from Scott, Char, and family, we all had to put them on. When she opened a new plate and silverware set from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Mike, we had to take a break and eat breakfast. When she opened up a new bath towel, she had to wear it, too.

One of her favorite gifts was an umbrella. Grandma Lynn bought it for her over Thanksgiving from the used-kids store. Carolyn forgot about it, so I threw it in her stocking. She LOVED it, and immediately wanted to go outside. She walked around the backyard with her umbrella for about 30 minutes. Thankfully, it was suny and almost 50 degrees.

She was really proud of the gift she picked out for dad. We were in Rite Aid the other day, waiting for a prescription to be filled. I told her that we needed to pick out a gift for daddy. First, she picked up a pair of fuzzy pink socks. She said they would be "warm and fuzzy" and that "daddy would REALLY like them." Next, she picked up a bag of goldfish crackers. Then, she found a bottle of bubbles. She picked up the blue bottle because it was "probably daddy's favorite color." She also picked up some sort of spaghetti fork because "daddy likes to cook." There might have also been a toy car in her arms too. Finally, she found something that really caught her eye ... a lollipop that had an airplane on top. If you pressed the button, the airplane propeller spun and light up. She said, "Daddy LOVES airplanes, and the fan is good in case he gets hot." Before we paid, I told her that she could only get daddy ONE gift, so she needed to pick between the ones she had in her arms. Of course, she picked the airplane lollipop and put the rest of the stuff back away. We put the lollipop in Steve's stocking, but she had a hard time sharing it with Steve on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

Carolyn definitely knows what to do with gifts this year ....

Steve made a delicious dinner for us for Christmas Eve: Arugala salad with pancetta, Beef Brisket, brussel sprouts, quinoa, and homemade cookies. We washed it down with a special bottle of wine from the Zimmers. Carolyn's favorite part of the meal was her special cocktail: bubbly water with frozen berries.

Zak & Tess gave her a wagon with four little animals. THANKS, guys.

We spent Christmas Eve with RJ, our next door neighbor. We are thankful to have her so close to us, and we were honored to share the evening with her. She showered Carolyn with several pink dresses, stuffed animals, and an ABC book that she could not get enough of. THANK YOU.

Throughout the evening, Carolyn and Steve had to keep checking the computer to see Santa's progress around the world. If you have never seen it, check it out ... http://www.noradsanta.org/

Oh yes, and we had matching pajamas again this year. Even Leo got a set.

Ginerbread Houses

I have never made one before, not sure I will ever do it again. It was a mess. It was hard. And, I had sticky gooey icing everywhere!

Though, all complaints aside, I bet I will do it again next year because we all laughed pretty hard and had a lot of fun doing it. Carolyn kept licking all of the "gooey" off. She liked the "sparkles" on all of the gumdrops, too. (gooey = icing & sparkles = sugar coating on gumdrops). As she was going to bed that night, it was no wonder she said she had a belly ache.

Every morning since we made it, she has asked to see it. She acts like she opens and closes the door, so the gingerbread man can go to school, or to bed, or to make dinner.

This last picture cracks me up. At one point in the decorating process, Carolyn ran off to go potty. It was not until I uploaded these photos that I realized that she had failed to pull up her pants after going to the bathroom.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ....

The tree is up. The lights outside are up. All gifts are bought, shipped, and wrapped. Christmas cards are printed and mailed. We are ready.

For those who have been asking for some photos of the railing, stairs, and concrete work that we did to the front of our house this summer... you can see them (kind of) in the picture below. I will remember to take some photos in the daylight, too. Stay tuned.

The Toy Prince

The obsession in our household right now is with the "Toy Prince" ..... Thanks to her favorite television show called the "Little Einstein's," Carolyn referes to the "Nutcracker" as the "Toy Prince." She sings the songs from the Nutrcacker suite, she dances, she can't think of anything other than the Toy Prince (well, other than the color pink and wearing dresses -- she's obsessed with those right now too. Ugh.)

Given this obsession, we really wanted to take Carolyn to see the Nutcracker, but we did not think she would have the patience to sit through a 2-hour ballet. Then, I found a version hosted by the Children's Ballet Theater. They do a show called "Molly Mouse's Sugar Plum Debut." All of the dancers are between the ages of 4 and 18. All are dressed up like mice. The lead is a young mouse named Molly who daydreams about dancing the lead in the Nutrcracker ballet. It was cute. It had all of the music that Carolyn loves. The costuming was bright and colorful. And, the best part, was they did a 30-minute half, followed by a 15-minute intermission, then a 30-minute finale. It was perfect for a squirmy little toddler who does not have much of an attention span.

Here we are at Carolyn's introduction to the ballet. After the show, we stopped at a bakery where she go to pick out a special treat .... she chose a chocolate "pup-cake"

What a fun way to start the holiday as a family!

Happy Halloween

Carolyn went trick-or-treating for the first time this year. She was a chef (thanks T-Bone for making the costume). She ran from house to house with her friend Elise. She quickly caught on to the "trick or treat part of Halloween when she realized that she got candy after saying it. After getting a piece of candy in her bag, I could hear her saying to many of the neighbors, "Just one more piece, OK?"

Here she is admiring her loot.

In the second picture notice that there is a lollipop in her mouth as well as a lollipop in her hand. Lollipops were definitely her favorites.

Although that night she was obsessed with her candy and could not get enough in her mouth, she completely forgot about it by the next day and has not asked for another piece since. After pulling out the reeses cups and snickers, the candy hit the garbage can earlier this weekend.

At school, there was a parade and party. Here is Carolyn with one of her classmates.

Here she is in the chef outfit yet again ...

at a friend's birthday party the weekend before Halloween.

There was another Halloween party at the Staley household, but I did not take my camera.

Too bad because there were some good costumes there.

Finally, one of the highlights of the Halloween season was a family trip to Red Butte Gardens' "After Dark" celebration. We and five other families from daycare went. The kids painted pumpkins, made magic potions (see the little bottle around Carolyn's neck), mexican masks covered with flowers, japanese lanterns that floated in the pond, and Australian "mimis" that supposedly scared away evil spirits. There were storytellers and fire barrels and large images projected on the mountains. Very cool and creative event.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

2010