Christmas (updated)

We had an awesome Christmas! It is just going to be more and more fun each year as Elena (and our future children) keep getting older. This year we were able to tell her about Santa Claus and the story of Christ's birth. She even carries around the Mary, Josesph, and Baby Jesus from her Little People Nativity in her bolsa (purse) everywhere she goes. She'll pull Jesus out and say, "This one is my favorite." It has just been a great month and we really loved seeing her learn new things and get into the spirit of it all. Here are some highlights:

Christmas Day
"Santa Claus brought me a little kitchen for me!" (Yes, she said me twice.) We had to explain that although Santa is pretty cool, this particular gift was from Granny and Grandad. Elena loves her Costco kitchen and is constantly asking people to "cook with me." Dan did a great job putting it together and fitting it into the trunk so that we could bring it to Virginia for Christmas.

This gift was from Santa and is another one of her favorites. As soon as she opened the tin of watercolors, she was nearly jumping up and down with excitement that Santa had brought her eyeshadow. I guess we'll wait a while longer to introduce painting because she loves her maquillaje (makeup).

"I need this" is what she is saying in this picture. We are working on using want instead of need and remembering to say please. Why is this such a hard concept?
Aunt BB (Bethany) got her a cute set of pots and pans for the kitchen.

Doesn't he look dapper? Bethany found this awesome clock for Dan.

Christmas afternoon we went to go play at a park and work off all of the calories that were consumed during dinner so that we would have room for my dad's extremely decadent chocolate birthday cake. He makes one each year to celebrate Christ's birthday. This is Elena in her coat at the park.

Christmas Eve

The whole day is chock full of traditions. So many that we can't even include all of them every year. Sometimes we make Grandma Wright's chocolates, sometimes we make plain chocolates, but this year we only did sugar and gingerbread cookies. Then we go caroling on our street. After that, we pile into the van and go caroling to the houses of friends around the city. This year, because of Elena's bedtime, the list of houses was shortened down to about 10. It was the shortest that it has even been, and it was perfect! :)

Making cookies:

The caroling crew:

One of our favorite stops - the DiSistos:

Kathy's wedding

The week after Thanksgiving, Elena and I flew to AZ to see my beautiful ex-roommate get married. The wedding, the reception, and everything was great. We had a fantastic time on our trip. I was also so happy to be able to see Heather and stay with Whitney (two other college roommates of mine). I'm so lucky to have three of my friends from college that I love so much all in the same city!

Whitney was a stellar hostess. My highlight of the second part of the week was when she took me to Buffalo Exchange and we found some great jeans! I've pretty much been wearing them non-stop since then. Whitney is definitely my favorite shopping buddy. As a side note, Whit got engaged Christmas Eve. Yay!

The Mesa Arizona temple. We were blessed with such great weather during the whole trip, but especially on the wedding day.

Right after the ceremony. I wish I had a better picture because her dress is amazing!

The happy couple at the reception: Kathy and James. These are two truly amazing people and I am so happy for them.

Heather finally let me take a picture with her in it. Elena instantly hit it off with Heather when we arrived in Phoenix. It was so fantastic for me to be able to hang out with her again!

Isn't she just glowing?!

Elena, Whitney, and the adorable Angel. Elena and Angel loved each other and had a great time together at Whitney's awesome condo. Unfortunately, Elena is apparently allergic to dogs and spent the last few days there pretty itchy.

Whitney's sweet dad took his whole family and us out to dinner. Unfortunately, Whit's mom was out of town.

We had a great time in AZ! Minus the allergy-thing. :)

Halloween

Look what I found!

A post that I started a few days before Thanksgiving.
Enjoy!

Here are some pics of our different Halloween activities. I thought I'd better put them up before Thanksgiving and my trip to AZ. We went to Trunk or Treat at the church, a playgroup party, and then of course we had trick or treating. I love getting mileage out of a costume. I was bummed that this year after Halloween, I didn't see a cute costume to buy ahead for next year. I love me some sales. Oh well, I guess that means that Elena will actually get to tell me what she wants to be next year.

First step to make caramel apples. She and Caleb did a great job unwrapping the caramel:

Cleaning out her pumpkin:
Our family of pumpkins. Dan's, mine, then E's. She drew on it with crayon and I cut it out.

Will and Elena at Trunk or Treat:

Sadie and Elena the same night:

Playing Catch-up

I guess I will just have to post pictures from various Halloween activities later. I'm skipping ahead to show what we've been up to the past week or so.

I thought I would jump right back into blogging by posting this video of Elena and Dan throwing and catching. We love the giddy/hyper play-time that we have just moments before bedtime. It has to be my favorite time of the day. I taped this one because it is hilarious how she thinks she has to get her face out of the way and reach her belly and her hands out in order to catch. Enjoy.


A couple of days ago, Dan and Elena disappeared into the closet for a few minutes. When they came out, she looked like a football player. She was wearing 5 or 6 of my shirts. This is her "cheese" face:
Elena loves to color with markers. I thought it was cute that she ended up with a bit of a mustache:
At the park today Elena saw an older girl spinning around in her swing and so she wanted to do it too:
Here she is flying her Elmo kite all by herself:

I am on a roll...

3 posts in 2 days! I guess our lives are more "blog-worthy" when we have family visiting. Soon I will be all caught up.

A few days ago, we picked out our pumpkins for this year. It made me think about last October.

Here are 2 pictures of Elena at the pumpkin patch this year:

2 similar poses in 2007:

Thank goodness she grew some more hair. Seriously though, the time flies. Below are some more 2008 pumpkin patch pictures. It is always great to spend time together and it's especially nice to have traditions. I LOVE holidays!

The Fair

We had so much fun at the fair last weekend. My mom (Granny) and dad (Grandad) and my sister (Bethany/Aunt BB) came to visit and we headed out with Dan for an afternoon of fun! It was my first trip to a country fair and I loved it. We never even entered the main part that has the rides for adults, but we had so much fun with Elena on the kiddie rides.

Everyone's favorite parts (I think):

Grandad: Eating good stuff. Our ice cream was made by the John Deere motors pictured below. He also loved the chocolate covered key lime pie.

Granny: Seeing what quilts, art, decorated gingerbread houses, etc. won blue ribbons

BB: She got to milk a cow!

Elena: the petting zoo, the giant slide, and the tractor pull competition

Dan: Getting to spend time with the family (especially Elena)

Me: the tractor pull, the giant slide, and getting to see that 2 of my former students had artwork on display in the Education Center. I can't believe that my first group of kindergarteners are in 4th grade now!

It's a shame that the video stopped when it did because immediately after the slide, Elena hopped off my lap and tried to climb back up the purple side saying, "Again?"

Here is a video of us at the tractor pull. Let me preempt this by saying that we are suburb/city folk and are therefore ignorant in all things country as you will hear by our various comments. Regardless of our ignorance, it was loud and fun and if you listen you can hear Elena's squeals of excitement. I loved seeing how souped up the tractors were. The competitors knew a lot about what they were doing and they took a lot of pride in their work/skills. It made me happy to be American.

Side note: Two minutes ago, I was googling "souped up" and "suped up" to see how to spell it when I came across a thread from the UK where everyone was wondering whether the phrase meant the same thing as "drugged up" or whether it was just a misspelling of the word "supped" as in: "ate dinner". Hilarious.

Here is the biggest pumpkin (612 lbs):

Aunt BB and Elena on the Carousel:

Granny and Elena:

A fancy tractor. The guy is even wearing a helmet:

Dan's 30th birthday

Dan turned 30 on the 5th, so this post is a little late, but here are some pictures from his surprise party (Friday night) and his actual birthday (a very laid-back Sunday).

We had the party at a park close to the hospital (where Dan really lives). I had been stressing about every detail for over a month: where to have it, what day, what time of day, am I inviting everyone that Dan would want, will I be able to talk him into leaving the hospital to come be surprised, etc. Well - it turned out that everything was great, everyone had a good time, and Dan was surprised. We missed those who couldn't make it (on-call/away rotations/working late), but such is life I guess. The kids had fun, the adults had fun, the food was great (pot-luck), and Dan was happy. Yay! Thanks everyone!

At the Party
This is everyone before Dan came:

An action shot of Elena:

The only picture I took with Dan in it. Oops! :)

On His Birthday
Here he is "trying on" a new shirt.

Elena got to help me by licking the card in order to seal it, so when Dan was about to open it, she thought she would help him by licking it some more.

Dan's birthday pie (chocolate chip):

Getting Caught Up

I am so far behind in my posts - it's ridiculous. I'm just going to caption these pictures (in no particular order) and then click on the publish button. Here we go:

Elena is helping Dan to sharpen the lawn mower blade. She loves to help and Dan is so patient with her. I love it!
The ward (congregation) that we were in before we started attending the Spanish branch did their annual luau. As always, Jonno and Tonya did an awesome job! We will be so sad when they are not here to be MCs/dance teachers/performers next year. Jonno will most likely be doing his residency elsewhere. That's him in the middle below.
Elena had a lot of fun watching - in this pic - and dancing (my batteries died before that).
She enjoyed getting to sit in the fire truck after the "Buddy Walk" (more about that later). She LOVES trucks, tractors, buses, etc right now.
Elena and cutie-pie Aiden. Aiden's mom invited Elena and I to do the local "Buddy Walk" a couple of weeks ago. Their neighbor has a child with Down syndrome. The purpose of the walk was to raise money in order to "benefit national education, research and advocacy initiatives, as well as local programs. These funds enable NDSS and local groups to offer services that support and enhance the quality of life for individuals with Down syndrome and their families." I pasted that info at this site. We had a lot of fun eventhough it rained and we enjoyed all the free food and entertainment (an awesome and inspiring talent show).
She loved wearing her "Buddy Walk" t shirt and didn't want to take it off. She now wears it as pajamas (with the sleeves rolled up a bit).
Elena's cute friend Sadie really enjoyed watching the luau:
I love this picture because I am so happy that Elena is old enough this winter (not crawling) that she can wear cute tights and have them last more than one day:
Thanks for checking up on what we've been up to. Stay tuned for a belated birthday post for Dan and pictures and videos of Elena's first trip to the fair!