The Meaning of Christmas

This is a beautiful video. . .
Good Tiding of Great Joy: The Birth of Jesus Christ

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

     For those of you who heard we moved to Arizona and started picturing sunshine and desert and lizards you were right.  But you were also wrong.  At 7000 ft Flagstaff isn't your average Arizona town.  First off, we have trees.  Next on the list, we get snow.  A lot of snow.  Despite the fact last year was supposedly extremely mild, according to history we get an average of over 100 inches per year.  That is more than Salt Lake's average of 70 inches.  It is even more than Rexburg, ID, also known by some as "the snow globe".  This weekend we got our first storm.  Just in time to really get in the Christmas spirit.  I will admit I actually love snow up until January. Then I would be fine never seeing another flake until the next December.  Also, I prefer to sit inside in sweats drinking hot chocolate, knitting, and watching it rather than playing in it.  I know, I am 29 going on 200 years old.

      No surprise that Dan is awesome about getting out and shoveling (he is a hard worker after all)  and playing with Shad.  After yesterday's horrific news in Connetticut Dan came home early and played with Shad all afternoon.  After hearing of such an enormous tragedy all we can do is pray for those dealing with the ultimate loss and hold our loved ones close.  He picked up a kids size shovel and sled on the way home.  Seriously, he is the ultimate dad!  They shoveled our driveway, then the back deck, then built another snow house.  Except this one has a window apparently. (I didn't venture out to the other side of the yard yet to see.)  Pretty awesome.  This morning, they got up had breakfast and were headed out to shovel again before I even got out of bed.  They are now taking Solo to go hiking and sledding.  Glad Shad has one parent that is the ultimate in fun and making memories.  

Loving it, even if he probably makes shoveling harder.

We don't have tall bushes.  That entire pile is the snow from the driveway from less than 24 hours.  Luckily, they are great about plowing here so the streets are pretty clear.

They shoveled the deck yesterday, but it looks like this now.

The doorways were much bigger before it continued snowing all night.

The view out our dining room.  Not exactly cactus and palm trees.  Fortunately.

Dads are SO much more fun!

      All of my in-laws are great organizers and planners.  As a result of this trait they were all prepared to send us home from Thanksgiving with our Christmas gifts.  Great thinking, and I am sure it made it more fun to be able to purchase gifts without having to worry how much it would cost to ship it.  The only down side to this scenario is that Shad is old enough this year to understand about Christmas presents.  From the moment they were loaded into the car he was asking to "mopen" them.  Despite a few days of telling him no it was not getting better.  Leave it to Dan to think of the genius idea of making a count-down chain to help him understand that three weeks is a LONG time.  Dan brought the construction paper home from school ( I know, super mom, I didn't have any.)  and helped Shad make it and explain what it was etc.  He also made some paper snowflakes and hung it all up in Shad's room. So incredible.  Shad was ecstatic. 

I am not sure if he likes it or not.  

 After this super Dad move I shouldn't have been surprised when on Saturday while he was cleaning up the garage he actually built Shad a house with the box to the water softener that had just been installed and another empty box.  Ironically, I actually had thought of using the softener box for something like this.  But Dan is so much better about actually doing things and obviously got around to it rather than just thinking about it.  Not to mention the fact I would have simply handed Shad a Sharpie and told him to draw a door and called it good.  I came out to the garage to find Shad playing in his house and riding his bike as happy as can be.

Yeah, it even had a functioning window.

Climbing in.

Looking out the window.

Happy Baby

Okay, so I am terrible at taking pictures.  Every time I do actually get my camera out my pictures are really bad and kind of discourages me from bothering.  Especially when I have several friends who are amazing child photographers.  I use to love photography but I realize that was back before every thing was digital and so complicated. . . and when I primarily took pictures of flowers.  So much simpler.  Seeing as I never have pictures I have a hard time convincing myself to update my blog since I know from reading other blogs that pictures make it so much better.  That being said, I am vowing to do better and actually get out my amazing massive camera and overlook the fact that all of my bad pictures are due to user error.  So, finally pictures of Bailey for everyone's enjoyment.

Bailey is a super happy, content baby.  If she isn't okay playing on the floor or in her booster seat you can bet she is hungry or tired.  Like Shad she is amazing about going to sleep by her self.  I lay her down with her binky and pull her blanket up to her face  ( she pulls it over her eyes.  Ever since I quit putting socks on her hands she likes her blanket over her eyes) and she rolls over and goes right to sleep.  She is finally sleeping through the night too.  She still wakes up around one sometimes but if I give her a binky she goes back to sleep.

Of course the one with her smiling AT the camera was taken on the wrong setting. . . seriously.

Any time I try to take pictures of Bailey Shad joins in.  I love that he loves his sister, but sometimes he loves her a little too hard.
 

She gives very sloppy kisses, or considering who we are talking about, she may be trying to eat him.

She is getting very smiley and laughing out loud now.  As cute as those squeal laughs are it is more rewarding to get a belly laugh.

She definitely wants EVERYTHING in her mouth.  She wasn't really interested in solids but then something clicked on Thanksgiving.  I ground some turkey and sweet potatoes and she hasn't stopped eating since.  She tried to eat the plate at outback and was literally shaking and biting me for more bread.  Typical girl.

Yes, she is wearing tiger stripes.  Fitting considering she looks just like Aubrey in this picture.