Thanksgiving and Christmas Prep

We decided to start our week out by getting our Little People Nativity out for part of family home evening. S loves Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. We have multiple child friendly Nativity sets, and S loves each of them!

S loves blocks and building. She asks to play with them on a daily basis. She talks about the colors as she builds. S is getting to be quite a good builder, and is balancing blocks well. Sometimes she wants to knock them over herself and then wants to knock over what I've built too :)

We spent a bit of time putting up Christmas lights. S loved to be a helper and watch what we were doing. By the time it was dark and she got to check things out she sat on the front step and repeatedly just said, "wow...wow..." She absolutely LOVES Christmas lights!

S has been carrying around Mary and Joseph all week. She'll call them Mary and Joseph or Mom and Dad. This night she took them, she had them holds hands. She looked at us and said, "Mom, Dad hands." She also had them kiss too. As Brett and I watched it and talked about it, it made our hearts happy that she relates those things to what moms and dads do.

This is one of the only pictures I have from Thanksgiving. I guess I kind of just feel weird getting my camera out at the dinner table. Thus, this was dessert after. We brought a chocolate cake layered with peppermint infused whipped cream, covered in ganache. To say she loved it might be an understatement. I sat by her, and she kept saying, "more....help you...more." This picture was in the midst of that. The arm reaching out toward you is her with her spoon.

The day after Thanksgiving we went up to visit my family. We left early Friday morning. It was probably one of the easiest drives up there ever with all the crazy people that felt they had to hit the stores for Black Friday. S talked all the way there about her cousins, mainly Maci. They loved playing together while we were there. I love how much they love each other and how happy they are together.

While we were there Cami did my hair for me, and she gave S her first haircut too. She was so cute as Cami took a few snips :) I think she does a great job. I'm grateful that she's willing to spend part of her vacation time doing hair for our family.

We wanted to get a Christmas tree this weekend since Brett was home, and we wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible. We have bought them at Home Depot the past several years. This year was no exception. It was fun to watch S walking around the trees and feeling each of them :)

She was so careful to help us with the breakable nativities as we got them out on Saturday. I have one that is similar to "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" book as well as the Willow Tree set.

Family Time

We spent some time making pumpkin bars. S asks to cook with us anytime we are in the kitchen, and loves eating from the beaters. She walks in the kitchen with us and follows us around saying, "cooking, cooking."

 We had to do some errands in Provo this week, and figured we might as well have lunch with Uncle Ben while we were there :) S loves him, and thought it was pretty great to be in the break room eating lunch with him!

We had a neighbor come visit a few times this week. S absolutely loves her. She was so sad when she'd go home. We invited her to eat dinner with us one night. While I cooked she and S read and played together. It was perfect!

"Colors" are some of her favorite things. She asks for them on a regular basis. She is getting pretty good at identifying them too :)

Sometimes we have lunch dates together. S is a great eater with lots of different ethnicities. We had Thai food this week and she gobbled it up :)

Satay chicken

Brett's dad had knee replacement surgery this week. Brett brought he and mom home from the hospital in Friday, and I brought dinner over. Nana was so nice to share a fruit bar with S after dinner. S was in heaven. 

Afterwords Nana was kind enough to read a story to S. It's likely a toss up right now between colors, books, and blocks. They're all asked for on a regular basis around here :)

Visit with Birth-Mom, Crystal

 This week I started working on this project for our ward for Christmas. It was a lot of work, but my brother and his girl friend were kind enough to come and help me. I was SO grateful!! It would've taken me days to get done what the three of us did in one night :) I think they turned out pretty good!

We spend a day up helping S's great-grandma (my grandma). With grandpa passing she had a lot of things she wanted to go through. My sister's family also came to help which I really appreciated because it gave S someone to play with. We were there until after 4:30 and stopped to say hi and have dinner with other cousins on the way home. S didn't get to have a nap, and was out cold within 10 minutes of getting in the car :)

I stopped  a few places looking for Christmas items this week. I found this gem while I was out. I LOVED the chapter book for years, and always read it to my students when I taught public school. I found this as a picture book, and was thrilled to get it for S. I hope she loves it as much as I did.

We had a huge change in temperatures this week. S asked me to turn on the fireplace have have blankets on more than one occasion. Then I, of course, had to sit there with her and enjoy the fire :)

Sometimes dads are just so much more fun than moms. Brett came home from work early on Thursday with donuts and we made hot chocolate and sat by the fire. I had started dinner earlier in the day, and was finishing up homemade bread for dinner when Brett got home. It was a pretty great end to our day :)

We have been working on learning colors for the past little while. I love this toy I bought while teaching preschool. You use giant tweezers to sort colors into bowls. We killed many birds with one stone: sorting, coloring, and fine motor skills. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she was able to use the tweezers. 

We were able to see S's birthmom, her husband,  and half-biological sister on Friday to have lunch together. S absoluetly loves babies. She kept saying "hold her, hold her" during lunch. I love that we were able to catch some of the cute moments with her!

S with her birth-mom, Crystal.

Birthday Week

I have tried so hard to post weekly. I usually make that happen on Sunday afternoons. Last Sunday we had time with extended family when my nephew spoke before leaving on his mission this week...thus my late posting :)

We have had absolutely gorgeous weather around here. Gorgeous like we feel like its still September in the first week of November. We wore short sleeves and played at parks most of the week. I'm grateful that we have been able to enjoy such nice weather.

We had a fun outing this week to story time at the library.

S loves being outside so much that we took a walk and invited a few friends to go with us. She loves sunglasses and has finally started keeping them on once they are on :)

We spent some fun time at Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove and the American Fork Amphitheater just playing. I love that we have had such great family time :) That's how Brett wanted to celebrate his birthday. I made a cake for him that I had found on Pinterest. It's not quite the same, but we were happy with end result, and Brett really appreciated the effort :)

She sure loves being with dad!

Leaves!

Learning how to roll down hills

Run towards dad with the camera as fast as you can!

She has a thing for hats.

Watching the leaves fall from the trees.

Brett's birthday cake.

Halloween Week

I have known since February that my sister and her family are going to move to Idaho. Her husband has been living there since March. They finally got someone to sign a lease on their house and this was their last week here. I went up Monday-Tuesday to visit them and help her packup. It has seriously been heartbreaking for me. Her daughter is only 4 weeks older than S and they seriously love each other.

As soon as we got there these two held hands and walked around talking for awhile. I'm sure going to miss having them close!!

Cute cousins!

Five cousins in a tub....only missing Avery (of the ones who were here).

We were there helping till around one on Tuesday. Scarlett napped for a sum total of 30 minutes in the car on the way home. That was it. Oh well, that's just life some days. All of the sisters met up that evening for one last hoo-rah with Cami. We ended up doing dinner and bowling. We had a great time with lots of laughs together.

I had to make refreshments for our piano recital on Thursday and S loved being the "helper". It's amazing how happy sugar cookies and frosting could make a kid.

On Halloween we went to pick a pumpkin from Nana and Papa's house. S loves being outside, and always has fun with Nana outside.

We took time to carve pumpkins together after naps. She loved sticking her hand in the pumpkin and also tried eating some of it raw.

S was a monkey for Halloween. She loved doing her monkey "ooo" to people she saw. She said, "trick-or-treat" and "thank-you" to the houses we went to. We didn't go to many people because she's little and doesn't last long, but she had a great time! I had to take some pictures. Possibly a picture overload, but I just couldn't pick.

I have to explain this pumpkin. We are typically a bit more original, but Scarlet LOVES the book "The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything". She knows a lot of it herself, and says parts of it together with you as your read. This is the same pumpkin that is in the story. I think Brett did a great job. S loved it and kept saying "boo! boo!" because that's what the pumpkin says in the book.