Let it Snow!

We love living on the East Bench, where we get the "lake effect."  This causes us to get lots of snow every snowstorm that comes through.  (Not to say it doesn't all melt in the next day or so afterward.)  Last time we had great snow, the girls had colds, and I was sick with first trimester morning sickness and fatigue.  So we got right out as soon as we could today and made a snowman!  

Before we even started, Mouse declared she would give our snowman a hug.

Other Christmas stuff we've been doing:   Watching Mormonad videos online, reading scriptures together, doing our advent calendar (building a manger scene), visiting City Creek and seeing Santa (lack of pictures due to our unwillingness to buy a whole "photo package"), and of course a few parties here and there.  

And for Meimei, climbing underneath the couch cushions...

It's not Fall Break any more.

In fact, it's almost Christmas break.  And Thanksgiving, as always, was fun.

Any other updates I'm missing?

Um, life is busy, especially during finals these last couple weeks.  But we're about half way through, and it's getting a bit easier.  Hopefully no more really late nights (or I could say early mornings) at the library for Mine. We'll see.

I finally finished the Christmas decorating today.  Yay!  It took me a week, but I'm excited how it turned out.

I also finally picked a midwife to see up here in Salt Lake, and I'm super excited.  We're trying a birthing center instead of a hospital this time; it seems like a great environment in which to deliver a baby.  I'm almost 14 weeks - finished with the first trimester!  Thankfully my energy is starting to come back a little; I'm only exhausted for the last half of the day...;)

Fall Break

Instead of going out of town, we decided to do a "stay-cation" and enjoy some of the fun things around here.

The zoo (we finally got to go with Daddy):

Watching a movie together:

Trying out Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point:

We also stayed for a couple nights at Grandma's house and loved playing there together.

Overall, I think the week was a success! :)

Art

I've done a few projects lately, and thought I'd post them.  It's been fun getting back into it again.

In the same house as this baseball room, I painted a scoreboard in another room, but forgot to get a picture. :(  The family has another room they'd like me to paint eventually, so I'll try to remember to get a picture then.

Catch-up

These are a few of the things we've enjoyed over the past month or so:

Mine and I went to the Piano Guys concert at Thanksgiving Point Gardens - loved the concert, but not the rain and thunderstorms so much...  Still, it was a fun adventure! :)

One of the neat things about living in Salt Lake is that our Regional Conference was at the Conference Center.  We loved walking around and seeing it all together as a family.

The girls and I also grabbed the opportunity to attend the Brigham City Temple open house.  When asked what her favorite part of it all was, Mouse answered, "the cookie."  (They had complimentary cookies and water at the end of the tour.)  Ah well. I for one loved all of the peach blossom symbols everywhere in the decor.

Mouse started a dance class at Little Gym.  Through an interesting turn of events, we get the whole season (until the first week of June) for free! Someone in our new ward won the sweepstakes drawing for a season of free lessons, but they were moving to New York soon, so they gave it to us.  It's turned out to be a huge blessing and tons of fun.  Mouse LOVES it.

What we do Sometimes

It's been fun getting to know Salt Lake City a little better than we did before, and we've found some fun places to explore and enjoy together.

The Zoo:

Jungle Jim's Play land:

 (Other than crying, this was her most common expression here...)

City Creek: (sorry there's not more photos! It's become a quick favorite.)

Living Planet Aquarium: (I caught this photo just before they both slipped off the back; it took a few moments of comforting these two frightened children afterward, but I think the picture is kinda funny...)

The Church History and Art Museum (children's section):

And we love just hanging around at home playing or coloring together too!

Waterton, Canada Pictures!

We don't live as close to Grandma (from whose camera these came) as we used to, so it took a while to get these.  But they're here now!  Here's just a sampling of the things we did (and the hundreds of pictures we took!).

Hanging out at camp:

 (Our budding artist - she LOVES to draw.  All the time.)

 Riding bikes:

 Visiting the Cardston Temple: (and making funny faces)

 The siblings (that went):

 Engagement photos:

 Playing on the awesome play set:

 Eating ice cream.  Of course.

 Hiking:

 Sleeping:

 Butterflies on our fingers:

 Polar bear dips in the glacier-fed lake:

 Sharing:

 Cooking (and eating) yummy food:

 Mouse riding home in style with Grandma and Grandpa.  No wonder she prefers that to our car...

 The end of a wonderful, AWESOME vacation together.  :)