The Doldrums

January has been freezing, filled with polluted air, and generally yucky and slow. Sadie and I both have this unrelenting cough that refuses to die. I just want it to be March! Give me some sunshine! All I want to do is eat and sleep. Come to think of it, we really haven't been doing much more than that.

Movie night

Eating chalk- Elise hides behind the easel to sneak it. She won't stop.

Coughing. Like I said, it refuses to go away. I think Daniel is happy to be gone this weekend so he doesn't have to share a bed with someone who hacks up a lung every couple hours.

Visiting teaching- 3 hours of visiting teaching in one afternoon. I don't recommend that while dragging 2 toddlers along. Sadie resorted to taking pictures of the plants during one of our visits.

Couch snuggling/trying to get Sadie to take a nap.

Sliding- on Thursday we got freezing rain, which formed sheets of ice on the roads. Daniel managed to spin back and forth across I-15 without hitting any other cars, but sadly, bouncing off the median caused enough damage that we have to file our first car insurance claim ever. The girls were with him in the car but seem to be fairly unaffected by it. Elise didn't notice and Sadie has no sense that it was actually a dangerous situation.

Painting our nails. Sadie and I have matching purple toenails and glittery purple fingernails. Nothing says professional like glittery nails!

Misc

Other things we've been up to

A new dance class 

Watching Daniel's city league team

 Making messes. Elise is a human tornado.

Taking advantage of Sadie being sick/taking a nap by wearing her new dress-up

Playing in the basement

 Attending Hunter's superhero 4th birthday party

 (the younger siblings played on their own)

Oh, and since I dedicated an entire post both to Sadie going to primary and nursery for the first time (when she was 18 months), I should probably acknowledge that Elise has been in nursery for a couple months now. It took her a month and a half to not scream bloody murder. Now she cries for about 5 minutes and then plays. I worried that she would struggle more when Sadie left, but it's been the opposite. Crossing my fingers for continued nursery-going success today.

Lifestyle Photography by Sadie: Basketball Game

The girls and I have attended a few more of Daniel's afternoon games lately. They do well for about 1/2 hour and then Elise decides she needs to go to the top of the arena steps and Sadie thinks it's hilarious to go with her. Then they run around the the courts behind the seats. I would just let them do this, but there are exits and I don't trust Elise. So I end up standing and trying to watch the game while constantly turning around to a)take Elise away from the exit or b)tell Sadie to stop hurting Elise. 

On this day Sadie took pictures with my phone for the 1/2 hour they stayed in their seats. Enjoy.

 So glad Sadie documented the score in a close game that went into OT (UVU pulled out the win)

 The sole reason Elise sits still for a half hour is to eat and drink. Once she's done snacking she is done sitting.

Only 4 home games left!

Primary Girl

Sadie looked forward to her first day of primary for weeks. She is all for anything that further delineates her as a big kid. She chose her whole outfit, including one of my necklaces and red boots. She even let me french braid her hair. Adorable.

 She came home and jabbered about primary a lot. The most common declaration about it all is that nursery is for babies. Unfortunately, she hasn't been back because last Sunday she was sick. We are hoping this week goes just as smoothly. 

PS- We now have church at 12:30 PM with Sacrament Meeting last, which is pretty much terrible. Elise has never had to leave Sacrament Meeting before and the first Sunday we were in and out the entire last 1/2 hour. I know, I know, I live a hard life.

Holiday Hangover

 We've had a fun time hanging out in our pj's and living in the mess of all our new Christmas presents. I only worked a few days over the past 2 weeks so we had lots of family time. We relaxed and had no routine. 

 Yes, that is a nude 3-year-old running wild with a firefighter hat. 

We've had lots of dancing around here. 

 There's Brizzy and Sadie breaking it down in Disney princess dresses. It was fun to spend an evening with the Cottle fam. I'm still angry we weren't able to find a babysitter so we could go out on New Year's Eve with them. PS- Why do all teenagers think New Year's is going to be such a fun night with their friends? Isn't it always a letdown? Isn't hanging out at our house alone while our kids sleep just as fun?

 More dancing.

 Playing in their aprons from Mimi. 

 A rare occasion when she didn't want me to take a picture.

A day we actually put real clothes on.

Christmas

 The build up to Christmas was fun this year. Every time a package would come in the mail Sadie squealed with excitement. Here are the girls with the box from Mimi and Paco. 

*If you open the picture in a separate window you will also see all the eye boogers coating Elise's lashes. A couple days after the ear infection trip to the doctor, Lou got conjunctivitis. She didn't act like it hurt much, only cried when we wiped the crusties out of her lashes. I waited it out over the weekend, thinking it would get better. But when her eyes were stuck shut on Monday morning and she was feeling her way around like a blind child I called the doctor and somehow convinced them to send a prescription in without us coming in on Christmas Eve. Yay for reasonable doctor's offices! 

Because of Elise's pink eye we just had a quiet Christmas Eve at home. Sadie would jump around with her hands up every few hours and yell about Christmas. It snowed off and on most of the day. 

 We ate a delicious dinner and put the kids to bed early. Apparently Sadie hasn't hit the age yet where she has trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve. 

Daniel and I got everything put together relatively easily, thanks to Whitney wrapping the presents weeks before. Shout out to my little girls who did not rip one present open in the 2 1/2 weeks they were under the tree before Christmas.

 The loot from Santa took up a lot of room this year.

Sadie came in our room at 5:30 AM on Christmas. She kept opening our blinds and trying to convince us it was light outside, since that was the threshold we set for going downstairs to see what Santa brought. At one point she told us that we got a new car from Santa because our neighbors had parked in front of our house where Daniel normally leaves his car. Around 7:15 we went downstairs to check it out.

 This is what the house looked like 3 hours later. 

Sadie's favorite present, and the thing she asked Santa for, is this princess castle. Her second favorite is probably the 2-seater cozy coupe that Elise got. 

It has been snowing on and off for a few days now.

Sadie ran around yelling "I love Christmas!" all day yesterday. Sadie makes Christmas so fun. Hopefully Elise will grasp the concept a bit more next year. It will be that much more fun with 2 kids loving it. 

While I think I bought the girls way too many presents, Christmas 2012 was a success for sure.

A Good Week

It's been a fun week leading up to Christmas. We all love it when Daniel is home more than an hour a day no matter the season. 

We spent a lot of time making and delivering treats to neighbors.

Sadie had a play date with Claire. 

They dressed in costume and danced to Christmas songs on Pandora 

I got the rest of our Christmas cards sent out. That's always a relief.

Daniel brought the girls outside to build a snowman. Sadie has been begging him to make a snowman with her for the past month. He was finally home during some daylight hours to do it. The best part was that she didn't help at all. Elise spent the entire time laying face down in the snow, licking it. Sadie went over to her every once in a while and smashed her face in it more. 

And on Thursday I left work early to get the girls because Sadie was crying, saying she wasn't feeling good. As we were waiting to see the doctor Elise started to feel warm to me. I asked them to take her temperature after they took Sadie's. It turned out both of my girls were running fevers (Elise's was actually higher at 102) and both had ear infections in both ears. I thought Sadie had been waking up 10 times a night all week because she was just being a jerk.

Yep, there's another notch on my mother of the year belt.

I got all the presents wrapped and under the tree. I think I am almost as excited about Christmas as Sadie is. Christmas is so fun with kids who understand what is happening. The anticipation is so fun.

Can't wait for Daniel to get home again tomorrow so we can start our 3 whole days off.