Sunday

Maddie

Bella


We have now switched to 9:00 church. Hooray! It is so much better for the girls because they are happy and then can still come home and get their nap. We have a huge milestone next week. The girls can officially go to NURSERY! We are so thrilled! They will be so much happier playing with the kids and toys because they definitely don't like to be quiet or confined in the other meetings. They can last fine through sacrament (with the help of lots of activities, books, toys, stickers etc.) but after that they are ready to play. They are both active little girls and I'm so glad. I hope that they will do well in nursery and are nice to the other kids and such. They are kind of clingy to me, so hopefully they'll make the transition. Thankfully Tobey is a nursery leader and she is like their second mom, so they love her and Addie too.
Scott and I can't wait to see what it is like to sit through all our meetings again. I teach relief society on the second sunday and he teaches deacons every other week so on those sundays we've been able to have a regular meeting, but since the girls have been born church has been a little different! :) We love them though, and are glad they are so full of energy and life!

Utah

I'm so mad at myself for not taking more pictures of our trip. We got to see all of my family and I didn't take pictures!! I don't know what I was thinking. Unfortunately the girls got the flu when we were there so we had over a week of throwing up/diarrhea/and sad clinging babies. We were sad that it happened on our vacation, but it is that time of year. We still had a great time with everyone- even though we got a lot of my family sick :( . We also didn't end up being able to see a lot of our friends this time, because I didn't want to spread the sickness and the girls were sleeping half the days! We wish we could have seen you!

Here are some of our trip highlights:
Going to the Nutcracker with my family - a tradition for years!
Breakfast with the Divas.
Going to Scott and my first movie in the theater since the girls were born! (I know that is pathetic) We saw National Treasure 2.
Enjoying Cafe Rio!
The Children's Discovery Museum at Gateway. (See the pictures below.)
Going to Oakley with my whole family!
Going to the Jazz game with Mike and Chantelle
Eating at the Cheesecake Factory
McKenzie and Chase's sealing by Grandpa Hammond
Learning how to make Sydney's yummy bread
Watching the girls play with their cousins.
and just spending quality time with our families

Christmas in St. George

Opening presents on Christmas morning.


Scott's sisters and Mom

Maddie and Bella with Grandma and Grandpa at McKenzie's wedding.

We just got back from a wonderful holiday vacation in Utah. We loved spending time with family and friends, and as always, it went by way too fast! We spent Christmas in St. George and we definitely got spoiled!

A few more family pics...

Family Pictures

My good friend Tobey took our family pictures just before the holiday, and I've been meaning to post them. She is so talented! We love them!

The Girls

Maddie found a blue marker and wanted to try out a new shade of lipstick!

BEARS! Somehow we have taught our children to be obsessed with bears! They love them and always carry around at least one of their many bears. For their Christmas present this year we got them "Big Bear," who now takes up half the living room. The girls LOVE him and everytime they wake up they run to big bear and give him hugs and kisses. They read with big bear, they watch shows with big bear... he's essentially part of the family! Sometimes I even find Scott studying with Big Bear! Merry Christmas girls!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids at our Thanksgiving dinner- Bella, Maeva, Caitlin, Maddie, Abby, Sarah, Grant, and Liberty.

The boys watching football after a great feast!

We had so much good food that we were all stuffed and had plates and plates of leftovers. We have so much to be grateful for!

More November Pictures

The girls love to wear their fur coats with the hood around the house, just like the Alaskan Dolls from Grandma Sue and Grandpa.

The girls with Dad and Grandpa Randy in beautiful Nauvoo.

Looking good ladies!

Update

It has been a while since I updated our blog. We've had a busy month. Scott had his finals week last week and we are so happy it is done. This 5th quarter of medical school was killer! We are all so glad it is over. After finals Scott's parents came to visit us for the weekend. We loved having them here! We took them to Nauvoo and all the church history sights around here. We spent quite a bit of time in the car, but we had a great time! It is so good to be with family.

This week we have enjoyed a nice break and love having Scott home. We have watched movies and shopped and had fun! We had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner with our good friends here in Kirksville. We are so grateful for them, and getting together for a wonderful meal made all of us less homesick! Scott just went to watch the BYU v. Utah game at a friend's house and he is so excited. The BYU basketball game is also on tonight, so life doesn't get any better for my hubby! The girls are doing well-teething- but good. I thought I'd post some of our recent pictures. Sometimes it is so hard to get a good picture of these girls, but occasionally we have our camera there at the perfect moment...

Hooray for the holiday season! Besides the cold, I absolutely love this time of year. I am totally hooked on online shopping! I've gotten good and finding coupong/shipping codes and find lots of great deals! :) My latest trouble is that I always want to buy things for the girls! I can think of a million things I want to get them and Scott has to keep reminding me to be frugal! I can see how easy it is to spoil your kids! They are just so cute!

We hope our friends and family are doing well. We love you all and think of you often!

Playing in the bath tub! One of their favorite activities! They want to take "baps" all day long!


The girls on their new Schwinn tricylces from Grandma and Grandpa. They were a little scared of them at first but now they love them!!


Sunday Best


On our way to church with Grandma Melanie

Trip to Utah

We had a great time visiting family in Utah for the past couple of weeks. We missed Scott lots while he studied away here! Here are few fun pictures from the trip.

"I love you Sister!"


Singing songs at the piano with Grandpa!


Loving the Leaves!

The girls' first carousel ride at Jungle Jims. (Technically I don't know if it can really be called their first ride because neither of them would sit on the horses! Christine and I had to hold them the whole time.)

Moab

We were so sad that we couldn't go to California for our family trip, but because of all the fires it didn't work out. We ended up having a fun time down in Moab. It was great to be with family.

Dead Horse Point


Here we are at Arches National Park. Delicate Arch is in the background.


The girls loved playing in all the dirt and rocks!


Maddie pulling Grandma and Grandpa along!

Our Sweeties

The girls LOVE animals!! All day long they make animals sounds (the favorites are dog, elephant, duck, tiger, and cow). They want to read animal stories or watch their animal show or play with their stuffed animals constantly.

Okay, so this pictures was posed, but the first time this basket was empty, one of the girls climbed in it and then when the other noticed she got in too. I didn't have the camera handy then, so I had to recreate the moment.

Tobey took this picture the other day of the girls and Addie kicking the leaves at Truman State. It turned out so cute!

Tobey also got this darling picture of Bella. Thanks Tobey! You are so talented!