Be My Valentine

My friend and I are currently serving out our time in the nursery at church and we are loving it! These are the little valentines that we came up with to give them today. It couldn't be more simple- cute cellophane bags filled with goldfish crackers and a handmade tag.

December Randomness

This is basically a photo dump from the month of December.

Shopping for cold weather gear.

Lo didn't love Santa this year. Ha!

J took his turn being sick and our of school, Lo thoroughly enjoyed all of the cousins getting sick this December!

FaceTime between the sick kid and the little cousin.

The cousins that snuggle together stay together?

This year she was enthralled with the Christmas lights. She would say "Wow!" Anytime she saw them driving around.

Random selfie.

Lo got sick with sinus congestion. Our sweet friends brought her Christmas present by as a little pick me up.

There were many naps in Mama and Daddy's bed that week, a rare treat to cuddle my girl.

She is very in to playing on electronic devices these days.

Selfie with my little.

Days out of school for the girls+end of the year annual leave taken by Pappy=Lo's dream date!

Christmas cutie in pigtails.

Our ward Christmas party. We had an amazing nativity scene that involved Santa kneeling by the manger...I wish I had recorded it.

Matching cousins!

Hammock time!

Lo in her cow ears.

A night with Santa cow at chick-fil-a.

Pajama story time at the library. Our attention span isn't quite there yet!

Christmas Parade

We had the opportunity to go to the Christmas parade downtown this year. We had the girls for a sleepover the night before so we took them and met Babs and Roc down there. We also got to see some friends while we were there.

Lo's favorite part was the suckers that they handed out along the parade route.

Bab rocking out the elf hat.

One of the many floats.

Selfie!

Two cuties.

J want feeling so swell so he hung out in Lo's stroller for a bit. We specifically bought the stroller because it was rated to carry a 5 year old...it handled the almost 11 year old rather well.

Cousins working the buddy system. No kid is getting kidnapped on my watch!

We finished off with lunch at a little French bistro and headed home for nap time. I love being able to start traditions with my family, so fun!

Washington D.C. 2013

Our resort that we stayed at was only 2 hours from DC so we decided to seize the day and go see the Smithsonians with the kids.First and foremost, Lo took a nap somewhere other than her crib. She knocked out in her stroller for about 45 minutes, it was a Christmas miracle!

Some of the adults waiting on the metro.

Cute girls waiting patiently.

I just can't get enough of the metro tunnels. They are so cool! Can you tell we don't have public transit where I live? Haha!

The Washigton Monument under construction.

The Capitol building

My two loves strolling the Mall together.

We were able to go to 2 Smithsonians that day. The kids really enjoyed seeing the gems and minerals, the fossils and other miscellaneous exhibits. We grabbed lunch in one of the cafeterias in the Smithsonians and the Hubs ended up with food poisoning and it was immediate. Our trip home includes lots and lots of vomiting which worked out okay since traffic was at a stand still. It was a terrible drive home, horrific even!

Christmas Eve 2013

My family decided to go on a little vacation to Virginia over Christmas this year. Even though it will go down in history as "the sick trip" it was still a lot of fun. We paired down a lot this year since we were traveling but I think we got all of the important parts-

Ali and Summer sang a funny Christmas song to us on Christmas Eve.

The kids white elephant gift exchange. Lo insisted on keeping the coveted Barbie camcorder/microphone toy. The nieces were good sports to let her keep it even if they wanted it!

The adult white elephant gift exchange- the Hubs got really excited for the pistachios but Roc stole them. Haha!

For the regular gift exchange J Man was Santa's helper this year and his helper in training was Munchie. You can see our little tree that we brought with us in the background. You can't have Christmas without a tree, you just can't! Even when the backs of the vehicles are packed to the brim...a tree is a must.

The annual Christmas play. This year the play was "Nut Dynasty", a spin off of the reality show Duck Dynasty that the family has closely followed. It's tradition that the play is squirrel related and it didn't disappoint.

Oh, and I got the flu right before we left. Fun times! But I wasn't the only sick one- we had stomach bugs, car sickness and the Hubs took the cake with the worst case of food poisoning I've ever seen. More on that later!