Dress Up

Here are a few photos that my friend Dawn took while babysitting my girls. According to Dawn, Anna really loved playing with her wig.

November 18, 2011

Snapshots from the end of 2011

September 8, 2011

We went to the firm's summer party at the beginning of September and Anna had her face painted like a butterfly. She also added a little chocolate brownie to her makeup.

September 11

September 11

Costco had several Disney princess costumes this past October and I figured they'd make a good costume for Anna. I decided to take her with me to pick one out. She found the Barbie costume and picked that one, much to my chagrin. Don't ask me why I'm okay with the Disney Princesses but not Barbie. I'm sure it's not rational. I decided to buy an Ariel costume on the off chance that I could talk Anna out of Barbie. We tried the costumes on and Anna was even more convinced that she loved the Barbie costume and so the Ariel costume became part of the Christmas dress up present.

September 23

October 1

October 26

After lots of research and many hours of negotiating with Dan, we finally got a park for our backyard. I payed for delivery and assembly and so the girls had their faces glued to the backdoor while it was being constructed in our backyard. They were so excited when they finally got to play on it.

The very next week it snowed, and I thought we would be done playing on our swing set, for the season, but we've had plenty of nice weather and the kids like playing on it in the snow as well as the sunshine.

November 5

first snowfall

Speaking of nice weather, the very next week I decided to potty train Evie and in the middle of it all, she begged to go swing. So I sent her outside in her panties. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also confess that Evie is now back in diapers. Around the first of the year, when it became obvious that she could care less whether her panties were wet and I cared very much, I decided to stop the fight and put her back in diapers. 

November 11

November 14

We decided to meet up with Heather the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I thought the girls might enjoy exploring Temple Square, so we decided to meet there. It was so nice to be there when it was so empty. I'm sure everyone else was waiting to go after Thanksgiving to enjoy the lights. 

November 19

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I wanted to go scope out Toys R Us to see if it would be worth going back for their Black Friday sale. Evie kept saying, "I love it!" She especially loved the Furr Real cats and I had a hard time dragging her away.

November 23

December 19

Phew! I think these are the last of the photos from 2011. I hope I didn't have too many repeats. Now if I can just catch up to March, then I will make a resolution to stay on top of blogging this year. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Preschool in October and December

I got to teach preschool on the Thursday before Halloween, so I invited the kids to wear their costumes. 

 Seth, Rachel (she didn't want to wear hers), Andrew, Anna, and Will

 The kids have laminated mats to sit on for circle time, and Evie was devastated that I didn't have one for her. It's hard to be the tag-along.

In December we went on a field trip to the Sweet's candy factory in Salt Lake City where they make my favorite: chocolate covered cinnamon bears. Of course, while we were on tour, we couldn't take any pictures and we had to wear these awesome hairnets. We got to see them making jelly beans and pulling taffy. We also got to see how they make the jelly candies like the cinnamon bears and how they cover the candy in chocolate. It was lots of fun, especially when they let us sample the candy.

Gingerbread (Graham Cracker) Houses and Christmas Eve Cookies

I have been wanting to make gingerbread houses for the past few years, so when Cami invited us over a few days before Christmas (Dec. 22) to make some, I was stoked. (Does anyone even use that word anymore? Still I was excited.) Since it was only a few days before Christmas, we kept it pretty simple, sticking to graham crackers, but even so, without Cami's expertise, we would have had gingerbread piles. Cami did most of the actual constructing. Anna and Evie mostly wanted to eat the frosting and the candy, so I admit that I did a lot of the decorating on Evie's house, and I helped with Anna's house. She didn't have much of a design going, but she did a great job covering the graham crackers with candy.

As per our new tradition (i.e., I started it last year), we made sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. If I remember right, we ended up speed decorating the cookies since we finished baking them not too long before we needed to head to my parents' house for Christmas Eve dinner.

In addition to green and red frosting, we also used some of the leftovers from our gingerbread decorations. Anna followed the same decorating philosophy that she used with her gingerbread house: more is better. Since my kids never really make it past the frosting to eat the actual cookie, this seems to work well for them, but for Dan and I, these cookies send us into diabetic shock. 

Farm Country

Here are some photos from a family visit to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point back on Saturday, September 17, 2011.

We weren't sure that Evie would enjoy riding the horses, so we initially just put Anna on. But then Evie wanted her turn. We should have known that she wouldn't want to be left out.

Of course, then she didn't want to leave the horses. Oh the heartbreak!

Not my favorite picture, but I figure that we need some proof that I was around at some of these activities.

Preschool 2011

This year for preschool, Anna and I are doing a co-op with four other kids and their moms. They have preschool every Tuesday and Thursday and I get to teach every fifth week or so.

 The first day of preschool with Seth, Julianna, Rachel, Andrew, Anna, and Will (September 13).

We have a field trip about once a month. Our first field trip was to Bridal Veil Falls on September 29. Mostly we just let the kids run and explore.

Evie has enjoyed tagging along on our field trips. It's not too unusual for her to cry when I drop Anna off at preschool. Sometimes it's extra hard being little.

Rachel, Evie, Anna, Andrew, Seth, and Will

In October we went to an apple orchard for our field trip. We got to take a hayride around the trees that make up the bulk of their profitable crop. They also keep a cluster of Golden Delicious trees because I guess the blossoms attract bees and help encourage polination of the other trees. We got to pick apples from the Golden Delicious trees and then pay by the pound. It was so fun to pick apples that I couldn't stop. I think we ended up with seven pounds.

The cider making facilities. Unfortunately the apples were late this year so there was no cider to try.