These are a few of my favorite things...

...well, Kali's favorite things. They have actually become my nemesis. One of her favorite things is to try and climb up our fireplace stove and pull the thermometer off and carry it around the house. Second, in no particular order, is the toilet paper. As you notice it is sitting on the back of the toilet. We had to remove it from the the wall because we kept on getting piles of unrolled toilet paper onto the ground. Now she tries to reach it from the side and tear it off in little tiny pieces. Or I have caught her often on top of the toilet because she has used Bristol's stool to climb up.Third is this little dip bowl. It is in the cupboard next to the dishwasher, the plate that goes with it is in there too. She loves picking up this ceramic bowl, especially when I am doing the dishes. Every time I say, "Kali, no" and then out of fear of her just dropping it I go and take it from her hands and put it back in the cupboard and shut the door. If I see her before she has picked it up and I say, "Kali, no" she will usually respond by pointing at me and saying, "Nnnoo". This is a daily occurrence in our house.
Last, but definitely not least are the videos. She just loves pulling them all out and spreading them around the floor. They are in one of our cupboards in the entertainment center and she half the time could care less to watch them she just wants them all on the floor and also the rest of the contents of the cupboard.

However, no matter how much these "favorite things" drive me absolutely crazy, I can do nothing but love this little girl.Which by the way she pulled her dress over her own head. I turned around and this is what she looked like.

January Weather

Wow what can I say other than I know we have needed the rain, but you can't beat the weather we had for most of January. The girls and I tried to take full advantage of the sun shining and the warmth. So we took many trips to the park, played in the backyard and front yard, blew bubbles, went for walks, colored with sidewalk chalk, pulled weeds, rolled pumpkins (that I have desperately needed to put in yard wast since Halloween and Thanksgiving are over) down the driveway, and anything else that I could think of. Well the rain is here and we sadly have stayed inside for two whole days. Hmmmm.... I don't even think I know what to do with them inside. We may end up going crazy.Climbing the tree in the front yard.

The Park
Hey mom, why do you have to keep taking pictures of me?
Going down the slide.
Chasing squirrels


Well Bristol has perfected the art of playing with her tea set and drinking hot chocolate.

I guess we should work on not getting the hot chocolate all down her front.

Bristol is a genius...

well at least I think so.

Today she wanted to play on the computer, and in the past that has meant her sitting on my lap while I play the pbs games. Well today she played this game all by herself. I first was impressed that she totally got the hang of the mouse down quick. She knows how to use Nate's laptop, but that is not the same mouse. Then she was playing this game and spelling words by sound and it was just all so amazing to me. She is really growing up.

Our Little Happy Girl

So Kali is our little ray of sunshine. She is usually always happy, unless her sister is picking on her. I took this picture of Kali the other morning while feeding her breakfast. I just could not get over her bed head fro. The kids were playing on the bed the other day, while I was trying to get them dressed, and Kali was doing a hilarious forced laugh when I would put the shirt over her head. Of course they never perform as well once the camera is out, but she still was quite hilarious. Her little smile for the camera is what she does now when ever we pull the camera out.


What can I say other than, I love this little girl.

Christmas

We decided to spend Christmas day at my parents house this year. I was first thinking of staying home so we could spend the morning at home and then head down to my parents. However, my wise husband had the thought, "well we are going to be living away from family for several years so we should probably take the opportunity to spend the time with them while we are here". So I totally agreed and we headed down Christmas Eve and came home on Saturday. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there. I of course did not get tons of pictures, but I know my sister did. So when I get more from her I will post more.

This is the note and cookies we left for Santa. Bristol is really into learning how to write so she wrote most of the letter. I think you can tell where I finished off.

Hanging our stockings on Christmas Eve.
(this picture was really difficult to get a decent looking one. My sister and I kept trying to get her to smile and look cute, but she just wasn't having it. It probably did not help that it was way past her bedtime.)

Bristol in her Snow White costume she got from my sister. I know she does not look happy, but she is really in shock of the great present she got. She wore the dress almost the whole day.

I know we are pathetic with the pictures taking. I hope to get some more to satisfy documenting the day.

The past few weeks

We have been busy the last few weeks, just like everyone else. So I thought I would share a collage of pictures from what we have been up to.

A couple of Saturdays ago we went to the waterfront to have Bristol ride her new tricycle. It was a beautifully sunny day but it was freezing outside. Luckily we got some hot chocolate and then rode back to the car. It is the perfect place for Bristol to ride her bike because it is flat and open.Just some cool pictures of the morning.

Kali took a stroller ride, but really was wanting to get out and run.
Even though it was freezing out, Bristol insisted on wearing a skirt. That is about all she wants to wear these days. I have to convince her to wear pants when I don't have any of her tights clean.
Nate decided to teach the girls how to build a fire. Bristol was listening to every detail. Hmmm I don't know if that was such a good idea.
Bristol loves dressing up. Kali thought she would get in on the action too.
While we were in the other room we heard laughing. We came in and saw this! They had a ball, but made a big mess.So we discovered tonight that if Kali does not have some sort of pants or skirt on, she knows how to take her diaper off. This is the only time that cellulite is cute. It is probably hard to tell in the photo, but she has some serious cottage cheese buns.

Motherhood

I ran across this quote the other day while cleaning out my bookshelf. I picked up one of my books from my college religion class. I must have needed to hear it at the time because it was right what I turned to when I opened the book. I thought any mother would enjoy reading it and remembering that she is like an angel.

"Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."

Boyd K. Packer