December

December was filled with lots of memorable moments!  It's always a fun month, getting ready for Christmas, but this year it felt especially busy!  The kids all had a lot of fun decorating the Christmas tree!  Even Scarlett loved to help, and just kept saying "pretty pretty"!  It was cute.

 The beginning of December also marked the return of our special Elf, Kandy Kane!  The kids were MORE than excited to see him again, and they sure had fun finding him each morning and laughing at the silly things he did!  Some of the most exciting were when he turned our milk green, had a date with Barbie sipping Syrup out of the bottle, made a snowman out of marshmallows, had a tea party with toys from around the house, and the best was when he stole my Iphone and left a note saying, "Check out the pictures from my adventure last night!" Apparently he had snuck into all the kids' rooms while they were sleeping and took pictures of him with them sleeping!  The kids could hardly believe that he had done that and they didn't notice him in the night!  Griffin was especially funny with the elf each day - no matter where he found him, it was always the funniest thing ever to him!  He just couldn't get over how fun Kandy Kane is!

 Another very exciting thing that the kids got to do this month was to skate on their very own ice rink in the back yard!  Lee spent hours and hours trying to set it up and make it just right.  And it was worth it!  So much fun for them to be able to learn to skate and practice whenever they please.  It's been amazing to see how much each child has improved at their skating.  Even Scarlett loves to slide around on her boots out on the ice!

 I also got to take Dakota on a date to the Nutcracker!  It was a lot of fun and the show was really well done!  We enjoyed seeing a couple girls from our ward dancing in it too!  And we went with Dakota's best friend Laura, her sister, and their Mom.  It was both our first time seeing the show!

 By coincidence, December also marked a few "firsts" for Scarlett!  We finally got rid of her soother, once and for all!  She was really addicted to it, and I was getting sick of running all around the house searching for one every time I wanted to put her to bed.  They were always lost and it was quite a chore to find one!  So one day when I couldn't find one, I just decided it was time!!  And she actually did pretty well, she only asked for it a few times and I was able to distract her with something else.  She definitely doesn't sleep in as well anymore though, since I think she used to like just laying in bed with it even when she was awake.  We also moved her into the bottom bunk bed, and out of her crib.  She had figured out how to climb out of her crib by herself and she also really just wanted to be a big girl, so it seemed like it was time!  Now she often comes in our room in the morning though when she wakes up and just stands beside the bed without saying a word, or else she climbs into bed beside her Daddy.  It's pretty funny actually.  Lucky for me, he gets up with her!

 

And on a more minor note, I curled Scarlett's hair for the first time in her life!  May sound like not a very big deal, but knowing her attention span and unwillingness to let anyone do anything to her, it's actually a pretty big accomplishment to get her to sit through the entire curling process!  She's getting more into looking "pretty" so that seems to work in my favor!  Every time she gets a pretty dress on, she has to watch herself twirl in the mirror too.  Pretty cute.  She's still a big stinker though! (As you can see by her "usual outside 

attire!)  She very often wants to go outside with just a diaper!  It's actually lucky she is even wearing boots in the picture!

As tradition would have it, we also built ourselves some gingerbread houses - in fact, it was a gingerbread village!  The kids had fun although we had to quarantine Scarlett into the basement because all she wanted to do was eat the candy by the mouthful!!  I wanted her to help us do it as a family, but as we watched the candy quickly depleting, we decided we had to opt for Plan B, and put a movie on to distract Scarlett.

And of course no Christmas season would be complete without some Santa photos!  These were done at our ward party!  And might I add, I am pretty proud of the one of the girls! Ha ha!  It's a classic.  Who else has a photo with one of their daughters wearing a mustache?  And we captured Scarlett's excitement to sit on Santa's knee PERFECTLY!  She was absolutely terrified to see him!