Gracie's Walking

Kenny and I had tried and tried to get Gracie to walk before we went to Disneyland, but she just wasn't ready. It turned out alright. Disneyland was a success despite the non walking Gracie and about a week later Gracie decided she was ready to walk.

On December 3rd I had been having one of my not so good pregnancy days and after dinner I sent the kids downstairs to play while I laid on the couch. Gracie decided she was done playing downstairs and came up to be with me. After a few minutes of crawling around she must have decided she wanted to try walking. She took a few steps from the chair to the couch. Then she walked back to the chair. She tried that a few times and then walked from the couch to the TV. I was cheering her on and it seemed to make her try even harder. She began standing up on her own and trying to take off. It was so fun to watch. The kids came upstairs and we took her into the bedroom where Daddy was working to show him.

Here's Gracie walking for Daddy. She seemed to like walking to Hannah best. She'd walk to me sometimes, but Hannah almost always won.

She improved quickly! This next video is from December 19th, by then she was walking well.

Getting Our Christmas Tree

We found our Christmas Tree

Kenny had a wonderful idea this year to get a permit and cut down our own Christmas tree. As a kid I always wanted a real tree and told Kenny when we got married that we were always going to have real trees. He doesn't like artificial trees so he thought it was a great idea. Then he came up with the idea of cutting down our own tree. I thought it was so cool. It took the real tree obsession of mine to a whole other realm.

We got up the morning of my nieces blessing and headed up in the mountains to find a tree. Luckily there was very little snow on the ground and the ground was frozen so it was easy to drive on. We headed up and found a tree we kind of liked that actually looked like 3 separate trees. We thought about just cutting that one down, but decided to keep looking a little. We drove around and couldn't find any good tree's, but we found a really amazing waterfall. It was cold so the water was frozen, but I think that made it look all the more beautiful.

The Waterfall

A small cave we walked to near the waterfall.

The cave and the waterfall.

After looking for about another hour we decided because of time and boredom of children that we'd just go with the first tree we found. We drove back up, got the kids out, and cut down our tree.

Ben was first to help cut the tree down.

Then it was Hannah's turn.

Then Sarah got a turn all by herself. It was a lot harder than she had thought it would be.

We've decided picking and cutting down our own tree is something we really enjoyed and it's going to be a tradition for future Christmas's. We also thought it would be fun to go up in the spring and plant a seedling where we cut down our tree. That way the kids can not only enjoy getting their own tree, but also helping nature and giving back to nature. That's another blog for the springtime.

Taking the tree down the hill to the car.

We're loaded and ready to go.

Sarah's Christmas Program

Sarah Kate had a Christmas program at school on December 19. Having not done one in Virginia she was very excited for her first program. She talked about it for months beforehand and when the day finally came she asked every 20 minutes or so if it was time to leave. She got to dress up in festive clothes and couldn't have been happier. The program was at the school and each grade sang about 3 or 4 Christmas songs. The 1st graders were the only ones who sang Thanksgiving songs and though Thanksgiving was over, it was still really cute.

Being a turkey in one of her songs.

We thought it was funny that she is nearly the tallest one in first grade and they put her on the front row. Oh well! We were able to see her better.

Sadly we had lent our video camera battery to my father-in-law the weekend before and had forgotten to get it back. By the time I realized there wasn't enough time to charge another battery so we didn't get to film her singing. I took some not so good pictures, but no video. It was still a lot of fun and I really enjoyed watching her sing the songs and do all the actions. After her performance we took a drive to the temple to see if Idaho Falls has any Christmas lights. They don't really, but we got to see a few and the kids enjoyed the outing. It was a good holiday evening.

Carlie's Blessing

The Nielsen Family

I realize they're not looking at me. I was up on the stairs and they were looking at my father-in-law in front of them. Still it's the only picture I have.

My niece Carlie was blessed Sunday December 7th. We headed down the night before and were very glad to be able to attend. We've missed more blessings and baptisms of family members than we would have liked due to the fact that we've lived so far away. It's so nice to be close again and share in these special moments.

I thought this was a cute picture of Carlie (just pretend I'm not there.) She's a really, really good baby and helped me remember that having another one will definitely have it's perks.

Carlie looked beautiful and the blessing was beautiful. Well, Ben and Hannah were just awful during church and I could barely hear anything but them whining during the blessing (I guess that's what happens when sacrament is at 3 and neither one of them have napped all day after being up late the night before.) I felt awful that they were so naughty, but hopefully it didn't distract anyone else. On to happier things . . .

Sarah and Carlie! Sarah was soooo happy to hold the baby.

Hannah and Carlie! Hannah refuses to smile in pictures lately so this is the best we got.

I love going to blessings and watching the Daddy up there holding his little baby in his arms and giving him/her a blessing. Something about it is so special to me. It was wonderful to be able to share that experience with them.

Gracie and Carlie!

These two are only about a year apart and I think they'll be great friends.

I love this picture. Something about the way Gracie's looking at Carlie!

After church we went back to April's house for some dessert. It was very good, but we couldn't stay too long because we had a long drive a head of us.

Make-Up Thanksgiving Dinner

My niece was getting blessed in Salt Lake the weekend after we got home from Disneyland. Being that we had missed the traditional Thanksgiving dinner my other sister-in-law (who also lives in Salt Lake) decided it would be fun to have a make-up Thanksgiving dinner. The night before the blessing she invited us all to her new house for dinner. It was nice to have a Thanksgiving dinner even if it was over a week late. We all talked about how we were finding it hard to start Christmas without a traditional Thanksgiving. It's funny how traditions can mean so much without you even knowing it.

Picture of the gang having dinner.

Kids eating (I didn't get any good pictures so these will have to do.)

The entire family was there, minus Michael and Sarah, and it was nice to be together again. It's good to be near family and be able to go to events like this and like the very important blessing the next day. All the adults hung out, talked, and played games until late (I went to bed early, darn pregnancy.) The next day we hung out some more and waited for the blessing.