Lounging

Why is it that babies love to lounge with their feet up? This is how Ruby had a leisurely snack the other day, but most of the time, both feet were on the table.

Pirate Grace

Grace got invited to an awesome birthday party a few weeks ago, wherein there was a pirate outfit to wear to the pirate party attached to the invite. She made such a cute little pirate!

Thanks to the amazing Tamera Young for taking this photo!

Nashville Zoo

  Last week we went to the Nashville Zoo with some of our favorite adventuring friends, the Meek's.

 

 

 We love hanging with the Meeks because our kids are each just weeks apart in age. Don't these two look like they could be twins? I'm pretty sure most everyone who saw them thought that they were!

 Grace and Eli are hilarious together. Often, they would look at the map together to see where we are and then try to direct where we should go. (Note: neither one can actually read, so it was a futile, though cute, attempt.)

One of the coolest things was seeing this joey peek its head out of it's mama's pocket!

We ended the day playing on the amazing play fort/Swiss family Robinson tree house ever. Then the kids promptly crashed on the way home. It was a great day for all :)

Sickies

Valentine's Day

I love celebrating holidays and having something really fun to look forward to, especially during these cold, bleak months. We asked our friends and family to send Valentines to the girls. Grace made this box to keep the Valentines in until the big day. 

The day of, Grace had Joy School where the kids made Valentines for their parents. Grace's said that she loves her mommy and daddy because we help her to clean. Haha. Apparently we need to work on being more fun :) We also made Valentine cookies and took them to our neighbors.

Finally, we had Grace's favorite dinner, Italian Chicken, rice and lima beans and opened all the awesome Valentines that everyone sent.

 Ruby enjoyed the sucker that Grandma sent!

Christmas in Utah, Part III

 Ha, I'm slow at posting. Sorry, y'all! Here's our final Utah vacation post.

Next up in the Christmastime excitement was the big day itself!

 The girls woke up at their normal time around 7 and were so excited to get the opening party started (well, Grace was anyway, I don't think Ruby cared much). Aunt Katie and Uncle Scott spent the night, so it was extra fun having them around for the Christmas morning fun too!

Grace was a helper and found everyone their presents for them. She even got to choose the order of the present opening. She chose for every other person in the room to open a present before she did. Now that's something that makes this little mama's heart go pitter patter! She got a her very own camera so she wouldn't have to keep borrowing mom's iPod all the time and a big girl bike (that was left by the tree at home) and helmet. And Santa brought her the Ariel barbie that she had asked for. She was one happy girl!

Rob tied the ribbons around his head and pretended to be a Lamanite and sang the "Book of Mormon Stories" song. He's pretty much awesome!

 Ruby was pretty happy to be able to tear into some paper and got mad when she'd have to give one toy up to open another. Next year will be a bit more successful on the getting the whole present concept front.

 Annette made this shirt for Jeff, who once upon a time made the mistake of joking and saying that he'd had enough of this family. Too bad for him, no one has forgotten. Now he can wear it emblazoned across his chest, so everyone will know how he feels without him even having to say anything :)

The highlight of the day was getting to talk to Rob's brother, Mikey, who is currently serving a mission in Chile. We got to Skype and it was so fun to get to see him and for everyone to talk at the same time. (Except for having to help the kids keep quiet...)

 This picture is priceless. It is Annette seeing her baby for the first time since he left in August. Can you tell that she was just a teensy bit excited? Here's the set-up.

 Afterwards Grace and Grandpa took a nap. Well, Grace took a fake nap on Grandpa while he legitimately tried to sleep. Try being the operative word here.

The next big event was Monday when the whole Gwilliam/Easton family got together for a family picture. It was pretty amazing that the only people that weren't in the picture were the four missionaries serving far, far away.

After the picture was the White Elephant Party at the Martins. Which was fun and hilarious as usual. 

We started with Kid Bingo. Jackson helped Grandma with her sweet BINGO turner-thingy.

Next up was Teen White Elephant. Those guys are so funny. Sorry no pictures. Then finally was Adult White Elephant

  Grace was right there to help everyone open their gifts, but with all the laughter, it got a little too loud, poor girl! It sure was fun to laugh so hard and have so much fun!

 Our gift to Dave and Annette was a new window seat. Rob cut the foam and entertained the kids while I sewed up a storm to create the seat and pillows.

Another highlight was the VHS player we got Annette from the DI. She got out her gigantic boxes of videos and Grace loved watching all the movies she'd never seen before. Cinderella was her favorite.

 Henry and Grace had so much fun playing. They were hilarious little partners in crime.

We also got to visit with Grandma Millie for a bit.

Finally, New Year's Eve was so fun to hang out and play games with family. Grace got her celebration on before bedtime.

What a great trip we had! I didn't take too many pictures, but we had a great time with all the family we got to spend time with. We were so happy to get to celebrate the holidays with the family we miss most of the year!