Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I have to confess that this year I kind of ran out of motivation to finish all the Christmas preparations and traditions we normally do. I think right around the second week of December, I just sort of started to procrastinate...and then all of the sudden it was already Christmas...and I hadn't really finished everything. So I guess this was my slacker Christmas, and I apologize for not posting a family picture with an update or sending out as many Christmas cards to family and friends (like usual) or even finishing the Christmas shopping and baking. There's always next year!

We did start out 2009 with some exciting changes. We decided to move Sophie into a toddler bed yesterday and she loved it. She spent almost all of the day climbing in and out of her new bed and she did manage to sleep in it all night (with only minimal drama at bedtime). She is getting big so fast.

Sydney also had a major accomplishment. She finally started riding her bike by herself. She can only go several feet on her own...but she is getting better each day. We are so proud of her. Also in our defense...we really should have been better with teaching her, BUT who wants to practice any sort of bike skills in the summer here??? And then with Mark being in school and being gone just about every night and weekend, well we just didn't really get around to practicing consistently.

Mark finished his first tri-mester of school and is half-way through the second. Actually ASU is on winter break right now but he was able to get the last slot in an elective course he wanted so he heads back to school next week (including all day Saturdays). However, we were grateful for this small Christmas miracle because the class was full when it was Mark's turn to register. He kept checking back though every few days and right before Christmas one slot opened up. Hopefully, this year flys by. I am very excited for school to be done, history, finished, (oh and paid for as well :)...Mark will graduate when Sydney is finishing up 1st grade in 2010!

I don't really have any very exciting or important news about myself. Perhaps I will post a few New Year's resolutions. I am still serving as the enrichment counselor in Relief Society and I suppose between that and the girls and my long, long, to-do list...I stay pretty busy! Remember, most of the time Mark is really never around so it's just me and the girls. We have lots of fun though!

Have a Happy New Year!

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Gingerbread houses

Sydney had been bugging me for weeks about making a gingerbread house together. Finally I said we would do it and to sweeten the deal, I let her invite a few friends over to make one as well. I figured if I was already buying candy for one house and cutting out gingerbread pieces...I mind as well make a few extra houses. Of course you can see from the pictures, the houses were very small tract homes. Nothing fancy about these gingerbread houses. They didn't even have two car garages! Although, I think they turned out well, since I had never made gingerbread before until this particular time. I found a good recipe online and it worked out well.
Each girl had a TON of candy and frosting to complete their house. I had royal icing in a decorator bag to pipe wherever or however I was directed! I decided to let them just do exactly what they wanted to their house (and eat as much candy in the process as well). I think they had a blast. We had gumdrops, tiny pink, yellow, and green mints, holiday M&M's, skittles, peppermints, candy canes, cinnamon hots, white chocolate chips, and a few other candies that I don't really know how to describe. I also made small gingerbread people for each house with the leftover scraps and then I made my ginger cookie recipe (so the girls could snack on ginger cookies while making their houses, instead of trying to eat the house).

Here are a few pictures of their creations. Honestly, even though it was a bit of work the night before...I might have to start this tradition because I really did have fun designing the houses, cutting out the pieces and icing them together. Plus it was worth the look on Sydney's face when she came home from school and saw all the houses ready to decorate! Sydney loves doing creative activities and this one was fun because she was able to do it all by herself.

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Waiting in line....

...for SNOW! Last Saturday night, we attended a community event that Sydney was performing in. One of the main attractions was the snow. There were three areas fenced off with snow for the kids to play in. Mark and I waited with the girls for almost 30 minutes so they could play in the snow. What's even funnier is Sydney wanted to get back in line after her turn and wait all over again. I couldn't help posting a picture of the line to play in the snow (for those people where snow is abundant and no one would even dream of waiting in line to play in it...much less look at it). Notice there is some guy in the line in shorts and a t-shirt. Typical Arizonans! I still can't get over the fact that I waited in a long line to play in some snow...

Finally it was our turn for the snow. I completely forgot to bring mittens for Sydney (or buy some since we don't have any). She had fun anyway. She observed that snow is indeed cold.
Sophie also liked slipping and sliding around. I was so afraid the girls were going to be all wet, right before Sydney's show. I had to keep picking Sophie up off the snow because she wanted to sit in it.

Here's Sydney with her hat and scarf before we went over to the stage where she was meeting her group for their dance.

All the little girls had to line up and stay together. She did such a good job on her performance. I guess it's a good thing that she loves dancing so much, because she has yet another show to perform in this weekend. Sorry I didn't get any good pictures of her on stage. It was really dark and since this was an outdoor event, the lighting was not the best...therefore the pictures on our camera didn't come out very well.

So just a little bit more about Sydney and dancing. We have noticed that she loves to dance. For example, one Monday night we had just come home from her weekly 2 hours at the studio (where she has dance and acro). You would think after that much dancing she would be ready for a break. But not this little ballerina. She insisted that I put the Nutcracker music on and then proceeded to dance around the livingroom for the next hour. She frequently puts on her ballet slippers to dance...whenever there is music on. We have also noticed that she has a difficult time just "walking" when we are out. She is always dancing and hopping and skipping around (although, that is probably just a 5 year old thing). Also, if she hears a song she likes while we are out, she always tells me to bring that song in the house so she can dance to it. And so because I can tell that she loves to dance so much, I endure going to dance week after week and allowing her to participate in any opportunity to dance!

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Overheard.

Sydney said her prayers tonight and had some specific instructions...she blessed Santa to bring her a cupcake maker.

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