Trip part 2

On Sunday morning we hit up church across the street from the Newport Beach temple. Then we started making the trip to Vegas, where we decided to stay for the night so we could hang out with Kristen and Bryan and kids.

 We stopped at Calico, which is an old west mining town that Walter Knott, the founder of Knotts Berry Farm, restored back in the 50's. It was a fun stop and nice to walk around for a while.

 Reese wasn't thrilled about sitting on the railing to get a picture with an OLD fire truck.

 Our favorite traveling buddies - the Christensens!

 Kaylyn was a dang good traveler! For some reason Ivan decided to learn how to yell on that trip, but Kaylyn was a good sport and wouldn't get too upset with him :)

That night we had a TON of fun chatting with Kristen, Bryan, and our friend Glade, who is going to dental school in Vegas. This trip was seriously fantastic!! Thanks Micah, Rach, and Kaylyn!!!!

Newport/Huntington Beaches 2012

About a month ago we went on a road trip with Micah and Rachel to Newport Beach, CA. I'm stealing this excerpt from an email Eric sent to his brother Dan who is on a mission, because I think he summed it up nicely.

"Last week they (Micah and Rachel) invited us to come on a Road trip to California. I got back from Casper Wyoming Friday afternoon and Nakita had already packed our stuff...20 minutes later we were headed down to Provo to meet up with them. Rachel had borrowed her Mom's SUV so we all packed in and headed for the coast. We arrived in Newport Beach on Saturday at around 6am. We parked on the side of the beach and watched the sun come up. Ivan and I went on a walk when it came up and I got to see a Dolphin swimming near the shore as a fisherman was meandering down the beach periodically casting out into the surf trying to catch something. It was a great switch from the frigid coldness that I had just been experiencing out in Casper! 

We stayed in Newport at a nice Hotel and boogie boarded near the pier in Huntington Beach while a surf competition was going on."

The part Eric kindly left out was the fact that he hadn't slept in over 24 hours and had been putting in long days of hard manual labor in the freezing cold for the few days prior to the trip so I was SUPER impressed that when Ivan started squealing as soon as we stopped the car for Eric to sleep a bit when we arrived in Newport Beach, he took Ivan out of the car to go on a walk, so everyone else could get some sleep. I will never forget that. What love!

This girl....

Reese turned 3 at the beginning of the year! She is such a lover doll! I don't know if it is because she spends every waking moment with me, or because she is my blood, but I see so much of my younger, more innocent and naive self in her. This assists me in parenting her because I know what would and wouldn't work for me when being punished, being taught, and being loved. 

She is such a sweet older sister, I'm so glad she is my oldest! She is so motherly, so intuitive, and so responsible and yet only three years old!!

We had lots of family in town over her birthday so we had a big party!

 Reese sang the happy birthday song along with everyone else, since it is one of her all time favorites! She sang it for a few consecutive days making sure to say "dear Reesey" instead of Ivan like she had been prior to her birthday week.

 She was spoiled!!

Last week when we had the first accumulating snow of January, we went outside and built a snowman, with a parsnip for a nose and chocolate chips for eyes and the mouth. Ivan HATED the whole experience. He did not want to be outside! I think it may have been nap time. Anyway, we made the snowman, sang "frosty the snowman" to it, per Reese's request. It was darling, and I decided I ought to get a pic of Reese by it. I told Reese to keep singing to the snowman while I ran inside to get the camera. When I came back out she was frowning and the snowman was toppled over with her hat laying next to it. Supposedly she had gotten to the part of the song that talks about placing a hat on his head and he began to dance around, took her hat off and tried to put it on the snowman's head and knocked him over in doing so. So we quickly re-built him while Ivan screamed with anger at being out there yet again.

 Reese loves dressing up in her princess dress-ups. And although she usually ends up with them on backwards (I actually think she thinks this pink dress is supposed to go like this), she is adorable! She also LOVES her baby dolls, the baby doll pictured is her "chubby baby".

 Reese now picks out her clothes and gets dressed on her own! HOLY MAKE MY LIFE SO MUCH EASIER! I can tell her to get dressed while I get Ivan dressed and we're ready to go in half the time. Sometimes I have to veto outfits, like shorts and tank tops when it is snowing, but most the time she does a good enough job.

I had to snap some pics of this outfit because she pulled the shorts up high AND they were on backwards.

 We babysat Micah & Rachel's baby Kaylyn the other night. As mentioned above, Reese is so motherly! She talked sweetly to Kaylyn the entire time and made sure all her needs were met. She even held the bottle the majority of the time Kaylyn was eating. I'm sure these two will be great friends despite the age difference.

Holidays

Reese likes to bathe in the sink, she'll stay entertained for long periods of time in here.

I am SO beyond lame, I took zero, yes zero! pictures of Christmas and New Years! I keep thinking pictures are going to show up somewhere because that is so unlike me to fail to take any pictures of fun events like these. I could kick myself. So a summary:

Christmas Eve:
- Went to my grandparents' annual German breakfast and gift exchange.
- Annual Messick shepherds' meal.
- Opened PJs: Reese was in LOVE with her Yo Gabba Gabba jammies.
- Spoke to Daniel over video skype; was kind of weird because it was all of the families and no one seemed to want to say anything in front of everyone else maybe, he looked good though and it was fun nonetheless.

Christmas:
- Reese wanted to open everyone's presents. Loved that this year!
- We opened 1/2 the presents, went to Christmas sacrament service, opened the other 1/2 (except Ivan who wanted to nap instead and opened the rest of his presents a few days later).
- Reese woke up at 2 in the morning and stayed a wake for over 2 hours, she was that excited.
- Headed down to Provo for a prime rib dinner with my family and gift exchange.

New Years Eve: 
- Showed up at mom's while Eric finished working at Emily's house. Mom gets tight chested feeling and calls Dad (who is at work), Dad tells me to call 911 and have paramedics come. They come, dad and mom head to the hospital where they find out mom's gallbladder is filled to the brim with stones and the pain is radiating into her chest and shoulders. Surgery follows a couple days later.
- Met up with friends for dinner at Cafe Rio, which was a bad idea considering that we had planned for a lot of food at the party that would follow, and no one was hungry.
- Had our annual friends New Years party, this time at Lindsay Graulings house, the majority of the attendees were our family members (Emily, Jacob, Rachel, Brian, Kristen, and all their kids, David & Nicole,+ Micah and Rachel).
- Played XBOX Kinect, which is so totally fun.
- Missing the countdown like EVERY year but luckily (like every year) having DVR so we could rewind and pause while we filled the glasses with Martinelli's in preparation for the countdown :)

New Years Day:
- Attended Lindsay's sacrament meeting in our jeans, because we weren't originally planning on going to her ward.

Our holidays were FILLED with family, which was SO fantastic! Everyone was in town helping out on Emily's house, and thankfully that time overlapped with all the holidays, so not only did we get to spend a lot of time with my family but also with Eric's side of the family! We feel blessed for such good family, for good health, for the gospel, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for the many blessings we experience constantly!

A Christmas Picture

I was looking through the pics on my other camera and found that I DID take a picture on Christmas. One picture (below) and a video of Reese opening a present. So I'm not quite the loser I thought I was, still bad, but a little better :) Reese in her cute princess dress backwards by our Christmas tree that has be re-decorated multiple times by both my kids (mostly Reese putting ornaments higher when Ivan knocks them to the ground and Ivan pulling the tinsel stuff down.)

Dream

My kids make me seriously happy! Yes, things are a bit crazy around here, but that's what I love about my life. I'm living the life of a wife to a wonderful husband and a mom to 2 youngsters and I don't wish for anything different. This is what I've always wanted. I'm living my dream.

This year I am BEYOND excited for Christmas. It is so fun to see Reese start to grasp ideas. We went to Temple Square last weekend and Reese could see the Christus through the window (the building was locked because it was getting late). She told me what she remembered from last time we visited, "Jesus has spots, they're owies, he died, he's alive, he's wearing his jammies (the robe he has on - haha)". We had a little talk about Christ again and a couple days later I heard her telling my dad, "Jesus died for me, now he's alive."

My thoughts have been turned to the Savior more this holiday season then I feel they have been in past years. I'm grateful for that. I feel my heart growing with love for others, finding love in my heart that I didn't know would or could ever exist.

On a 'worldly' note :)...When I ask Reese what she wants for Christmas from Santa she tells me, "a mermaid toothbrush". I think Reese is going to be really into opening gifts this year. I have butterflies thinking about Christmas morning, I'm so excited for her to have her first "exciting" Christmas morning.

 Ivan's a charmer! He MELTS me with his sweet personality, quick smiles, and the way he instantly starts playing with my hair when I pick him up. These days he looks so much like his daddy I can hardly stand it!!

update

Lately my schedule has been so skewompous (sp??). This is by my own choosing. Eric is working in Orem, so many days of the week I'll go down with him and go to families' houses to hang out, help out, or whatever else. Lots of evenings, especially when Eric gets off late, we end up bunking up at my parents house since it doesn't seem worth driving all the way back to SLC just to go to sleep and head back the next morning. I spend at least 1/2 my time at our house, but since it isn't 95% I feel like I'm so crazy with cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc on those days that I don't get around to blogging and such. I probably ought to figure out a better schedule.

I'm excited to be at home today. I'm excited to take the kids to the "fish place" (Living Planet Aquarium), switch out our books and DVDs at the library, and get some Christmas presents wrapped. Ah, I love being a mom!!