Daddy Daughter Dates

During the Christmas season Shane and I wanted to find a way to teach the girls that Christmas is about giving.  They are a little young to understand giving to others they don't know even though I tell them all the time when I clean out their toys that they are going to other kids that don't have as many toys.  I've also been wanting to get the girls to have some one on one time away from each other every so often.  Except for occasional doctor appts. or things like that, they are never apart.  If I take one of them to the store, I usually just take both of them.  Also, Aria has been pretty demanding of me lately and not letting dad do anything for her.  If she needs something, Mom has to do it.  It's frustrating for me and for Shane who can't help out with anything.

So...we combined all 3 of these needs and told the girls that they were going on a date with Dad.  Aria went one night and then Siena went the next night.  The purpose of the date was to buy gifts for everyone else in the family for Christmas.  The girls were sooo excited.  They know Shane and I go on dates all the time so just the thought of a date had them talking about it the next 2 days.  They knew who was going when and couldn't wait.

While they were gone I planned a little fun night of tunnels, forts and books by flashlight.  Shane said they had a good time and each got an ice cream cone after going to buy gifts.  They are so funny because each of the things they got were something they wanted for themselves.  So when Aria walked in the door, she said 'I got you a treat mom...Skittles!'  It was so cute.  They were both excited as they went upstairs and wrapped their gifts and brought them downstairs.  Both of them as they handed their gift to each other proudly proclaimed what was inside 'It's a Frozen matching game!' or 'Here's your present, Elsa socks!'  They were just as excited to watch them open it on Christmas morning and were so proud they were able to participate in the gift giving.

It was fun for them to get out alone and we plan on keeping up the tradition and going on more 'dates'.

Meeting Anna and Elsa

In the middle of all our Christmas events we had going on, I happened to look up at our library to see an event that caught my attention 'Family Movie Night, Frozen sing a long'  Now normally this is not something I would go to but then I read that there would be 'visitors' there.  I was hoping that meant Elsa and Anna would be showing up but wasn't positive.  That day I almost didn't go, we had a lot going on and I was positive it was going to be so crowded that it wasn't even going to be worth it.  But we decided to check it out and I thought if it's too crazy we can just leave. 

We got there about 10 minutes early and NO ONE was there.  I thought I must have had the wrong day but when I looked it up it said it was right then.  So we walked in and I was shocked when it started there were only about 10 kids there, including my 3 and my sister Michelle's 3 kids.

It was such a fun event.  They had Frozen karaoke going on which I never thought my girls would do but they totally did.  We have a video of Siena singing 'Let it Go' and Aria singing 'Do you want to build a snowman'  They had little coloring pages, and a craft to make a little Olaf.

Then of course the main event was when Anna and Elsa showed up.  The girls were a little shy but I could tell were so excited.  Anna and Elsa were so cute talking to the kids.  My girls were so excited they were in their Anna and Elsa dresses to match Anna and Elsa.  Anna and Elsa played a few games, read some stories, gave out some bracelets and then posed for pictures.  The library even gave out little goody bags for everyone.

I was so shocked that it wasn't crowded but as I talked to the library ladies they said they were afraid to advertise but fear it would be so crazy. I'm sure they regret that a little bit but seriously it was such a fun night and made it even better that we had the place to ourselves.

Christmas Month

We had such a fun Christmas season this year.  Probably one of my all time favorite Christmas years I've had.  The kids are at such a fun age, we had a warm December which allowed us to get out and do so many things that I otherwise would've skipped over, and I had most my shopping done by Thanksgiving which made December so much less stressful.  I won't bore you with all the details but wanted to remember all the fun things we did leading up to Christmas.

The kids each wrote Santa a letter then we took it to the mall where they have a special mailbox for letters to Santa.  I was also pretty proud that with very little help from me, both girls signed their own name on their letter.

We visited Santa for our annual Santa picture.  Since the summer when they saw a Strawberry Shortcake episode with a candy cane on it, they've been telling me they want a candy cane for Christmas.  So when they sat on Santa's lap and he asked them what they wanted, they both said a candy cane, to which he pulled out candy canes for each of them right then.  They then asked for a trampoline and he said he would see what he could do.  As we were leaving Siena turned to me and said 'Mom, Santa forgot to give us a trampoline!'  It was so funny.  I think since he gave them their candy canes right then, she thought he would just pull out a trampoline as well.  No one cried sitting on Santa's lap, well Jaron did a little when the girls got up and he was by himself but didn't do too bad.

Jaron is obsessed with sugar, he eats way more then the girls ever did at this age.  If he sees his sisters eating candy, then he feels he gets to as well.  We had advent calendars and each day as soon as his eyes spotted his, he started begging for his chocolate 'peeeees' as he would say.  He's too cute to resist.

We made and decorated Gingerbread men.  The girls had been begging me to do this as well from the same Strawberry Shortcake show.  It was fun and they loved all the sprinkles and candy they got to eat.  We then took a few and delivered them to Jennifer's house with a little round of caroling 'Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is coming to town' which were the only 2 songs they knew at this point. 

We made our annual trip to Temple Square and this year we planned it on a not so busy night and actually got to see the Christus which we had never done before with the kids.  Last year the line was over an hour long.  They loved the manger scene as well.

We watched Small One, family tradition, and Aria was obsessed with Donkey's the rest of the month.  We have a little nativity scene at our house that I allow the kids to play with (as opposed to my nice one that they don't touch) and it was fun to see them play with them all, arrange them and talk about them throughout the month.  The first presents that showed up under the tree was also a huge hit.  They were really good about not opening them but I did catch Jaron carrying his around a few times and then he came over and said 'peees'  Funny boy.

With the warm weather we even made it to Gardner Village to see the Elves on display.  Brigitte, Holland and Tagg joined us and Bostyn and her mom from dance class.

Our Elf from the north pole, Sparky, showed up this year.  He stayed up high each day and all the kids, especially Jaron loved finding him each morning to see where he ended up.  You should've heard Jaron's squeals each morning when he spotted him, it was so funny.

We talked about the true meaning of Christmas a lot so the girls at least understood why we celebrate Christmas and they at least now know that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birthday.

Even though we did a lot, there were also a lot of nights we just stayed home listening to Christmas music, doing little crafts and playing.  To me it was the perfect combination of enjoying and being together but not being overly busy.  Fun, fun month.

Fall Round up

I have got to catch up.  So here is my fall round up of things happening in our lives.  We had such a nice and warm fall season.  We went to the park several times and did lots of things outside when normally it would've been chilly, it was down right, nice, perfect weather. 

The girls have been begging to go on a train ride.  We pass the trax train a lot when we're driving places and they always point it out.  I've also been trying to teach them their letter sounds so one week we did the letter T and talked about trains and other T words.  So for our activity that week we went on a train ride.  The girls were soo excited.  They stood looking out the window the entire time.  They got a little concerned that our train wasn't on train tracks when they look down and saw the tracks for the train going the other way.  It was quite the fun adventure for them and they keep asking when they can go again.

We went to our favorite pumpkin patch with Whitney and her boys one day.  They loved it.  Their favorite part was the corn maize.  We got little pumpkins and sat on all the tractors.  It was a fun morning and it was nice cuz it was in the middle of the week and wasn't crowded at all.

We also went to Gardner Village for our annual Witch Fest.  The girls got to ride a pony again and we had fun looking at all the witches.

And of course we had to do our annual Snowbird tram ride for customer appreciation days.  We went up the first Saturday and they were already sold out.  We went up the following Saturday earlier and had a great ride up and back.  The girls thought the tram ride was pretty cool.  "Kind of like a train with the tracks on top"

I also signed the girls up for the first ever swim lessons.  I was worried Aria, or both of them would cry because they are not big fans of water (unlike their brother)  But they did great.  They had a great time and were very brave.  They learned to put their face in the water and by the end they were jumping off the side to their teacher.  Next set of lessons start next month.

First Dentist visit for Siena and Aria

The girls finally had their very first dentist visit right before Christmas (I'm so nice like that!) 

The did pretty good.  Well, Aria did amazing.  Aria used to be the nervous, scared one at things like this and in fact up until her 3rd birthday doctor visit, would scream at the doctors when she had to stand on the scale, have the doctor listen with her stethoscope, etc.  All of the sudden she snapped out of it and now it's Siena who's the nervous one.  Siena whined throughout the visit but luckily didn't get hysterical.  We got x-rays of both girls and the dentist thought their teeth looked great.  Aria jumped up into the dentist chair, put on sunglasses and her headphones and thought it was so fun she got to watch Frozen from a TV in the ceiling.

They were most happy they got balloon animals when we left and a certificate for a free ice cream at Artic Circle for having no cavities.

Thanksgiving 2014

All month leading up to Thanksgiving we talked to the girls about what it means to be thankful.  We made our Thankful turkey where we wrote on the feathers what we were thankful for.  We told the story of the first Thanksgiving and now they know what Pilgrims and Indians are and even what the Mayflower is.  It was fun teaching them all about it. 

We had Holland, Max and siblings over for a little Thanksgiving preschool morning.  We learned a song called '5 Fat Turkeys' which Jaron can even do the hand motions for.  We made turkey headbands, which my girls refused to wear except for one picture.  And we played the what we are thankful for game, which was quite entertaining with Four 3 year olds.

For Thanksgiving we went to my parents.  This is the only picture I took of the kids. They took early naps and woke up not happy.  Luckily they snapped out of it by the time we got to my parents.

After dinner Shane and I had our first ever Black Friday shopping experience...even though it was on Thursday.  And with the help of our personal shoppers (Jennifer, Kali, and Lori) we scored quite a few items and were out of the store 10 minutes after they opened.  The lady behind me in this picture was quite the serious black Friday shopper and only told me what she was in line for because I was behind her.  It was cracking me up.

We had a great Thanksgiving and I don't even need a holiday to realize what great blessings I've been given.  My cute little family makes my life complete and of course I am grateful we are all healthy and thriving.  What more could we ask for.