Merry Christmas!

A few quick pictures of our holiday celebration:

Our family last night in our new PJ's.

Time for bed! Santa's coming!

Avery- not quite sure how she feels about her awesome new hat!

Camryn definitely wins the prize this year for most photogenic. Here she is sneaking the paper off a Symphony bar.

Another funny Avery face - this is the doll Santa brought her.

Camy with her Santa present - a walker/car.

We hope you guys had a great day too! Merry Christmas!

Let it Snow?

A few facts about our current weather conditions for your enjoyment:

Current temp: -3 degrees (that's negative)
Feels like: -21 degrees
Inches of snow on the ground: 12+
Times I left the house yesterday: 0 - Church was cancelled due to -35 degree wind chills!!

Merrick did the patio shoveling on Friday after we got 12 inches of snow in like 8 hours.

Hoping you are all a little warmer and less snowy. Remind me again why we're living in Wisconsin?

White Christmas

This is how I feel about snow and sub-zero weather:

Except for on Christmas Day, of course. There can be snow that day.

Oh and by the way, my last post about going private was deleted because I'm not ready to do that yet. I'll revisit that topic sometime early next year. Thanks!

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

Camryn is turning 9 months this week! She has two bottom teeth but those top ones have yet to make an appearance! She had her doctor's appointment early because of the holidays. She was 19 lb and 28 inches tall. Getting close to growing out of her infant seat! She's cruising and crawling and clapping her hands. It's really a fun time to be around her because she's so happy and trying all new kinds of foods and really getting around. She also thinks it's funny when I tell her No. Oh we found out that she has a wart on her thumb so the doctor tried freezing it.

Yesterday at church I picked up Avery from nursery and went and got her coat on. Then Merrick showed up and was going to take her out to the car when he said, "Are those her shoes?" I look down and she's wearing the same style shoes as she came with but they were navy blue instead of black! So we went back into nursery and found her shoes on the counter. Good thing we didn't take off with someone else's shoes!

Then we go outside and Avery doesn't want to get in the car so she runs away from me, straight for a patch of thick ice and slips all the way into the air and lands on her back. Ouch! She was fine after a minute, but we definitely need to work on that!

One more story: I was wrapping presents for extended family last week and Avery was helping me and putting them under the tree when I finished. After a little while she was like, "Umm... Mama, how about one for Avery?" I told her I couldn't wrap in front of her because they had to be a surprise but then later I snuck down and put a present in a box and wrapped it for her. She was carrying it around all day enjoying her present. Did she unwrap it? No, but guess who did? ...Yep! Little messmaker #2- Camy! She's managed to unwrap TWO presents so far. I guess she won't be needing any help on Christmas morning.

What Child Is This?

My very own little "Pippi Longstocking" (Avery's first braids ever).

It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like Christmas

... when you even get a Christmas card from your Garbage Men ("G-Men"), dirty fingerprints and all! Check out what I found on top of my garbage can after it was emptied this morning:

Pretty awesome, I think.

O Christmas Tree

Last night we put our our very first Christmas tree. (We actually borrowed a little 3 foot tree from Merrick's mom last year but this one is much more authentic - although it is artificial.) I was worried we would have to go out and buy a bunch of things to put on it but we actually had a lot more ornaments than I remembered. When I was around 10 or 12 years old my family started a tradition of getting an ornament on Christmas Eve night (in addition to our PJ's). Sometimes they applied to us personally like I have a "I Graduated in 2001" ornament for that year and an elephant ornament when I had an elephant collection. Sometimes they were just pretty or fun ones. So when we went on our own, we had a little collection of ornaments started for our trees. Since we've been married, we've continued this tradition and we get each other ornaments every year for Christmas Eve too. Merrick decided that his twist on it is that he's going to get me a round ball ornament every year. So it was fun to open all the ornaments last night and think of all the memories they bring. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we were able to fill up our little 7 foot tree quite nicely with my collection. Thanks Mom and Dad for this tradition- it's one we intend to continue!

What are your special Christmas Eve traditions?

Crazy Arms

A few days ago we discovered that Camryn would mimic us if we waved our arms. We called it "crazy arms" but it's really just Camy learning how to wave. Here's a little clip:

Can you see her two cute little bottom teeth in there? :)

If You Won't Eat It, I Will!

I have a hard time getting Avery to eat very much because she's so distracted by toys, art projects, and TV shows. As a result, there's half eaten food all over the house. And who eats most of it? Not Avery, but Camryn! Yesterday I caught her sneaking Avery's bagel and cream cheese! (Are 8 month olds supposed to eat cream cheese anyways? I think it's ok.)

And why not wash that bagel down with a swig of water from Mom's glass? Another one of Camryn's favorites.

Elder Wirthlin

2 December 2008 -- Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, the oldest living apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died last night, age 91. Elder Wirthlin had gone to bed at his Salt Lake City home, and died peacefully at about 11:30 pm of causes incident to age. His oldest daughter, Jane Wirthlin Parker, was present. A member of the family had been staying and caring for Elder Wirthlin, whose wife, Elisa Young Rogers Wirthlin, died in 2006. He had continued to work at his office right up until the Thanksgiving holiday.
Funeral arrangements will be announced.