'Tis the Season

Claire

She has transitioned really well to being in our new house and still finds new ways to make a mess in our kitchen cabinets and drawers. She likes to be in whatever room mom and dad are in and is learning new things like how to high five and say please. We can get her to pray with us in her own cute way and its really fun to see her learning and finally growing out of some of her cloths! She loves drawing so we bought some ultra washable markers for Christmas but let her use one already which she used on paper for about 2 minutes then started looking for other things like her legs and face. I learned just how washable the markers were and was impressed with how well they came off of everything.

Fitness

We have signed up for a gym because Chris's work gives a discount and if you know us, we are a family that works out together. One HUGE bonus about our gym is the child care they provide that makes it possible for me to do work outs! Chris was originally the only one to sign up because we didn't know about the discount and thought it would be too much for our budget to handle if we both signed up and paid for their daycare. I am so grateful we discovered we only pay $30 instead of $60 and I've been able to work out 3 times this week with Claire getting to play with other kids, an added bonus! She loves getting out of the house and going to the gym and I love it too since its too cold outside to just go to some parks. It's the small joys in life that really make each week great!

Holidays

It is a little sad not having many presents under our Christmas tree because most of our presents are with grandparents. We did get our first present so we could match for our hour of church this last Sunday because my best friend knows how much I love to match. Claire has a new dress that matches a very comfortable pencil skirt made just for my huge pregnant stomach, and Chris got a pocket square for his suit (that he never wears...). He hasn't worn his suits since his mission when he wasn't working out as much as he has while we were married so it was tight around his shoulders. If only ties were easier to make...but I wish he wore suits more often because he is so handsome all dressed up. We will definitely be wearing this outfit next week since I'm sure not many people saw it since we were only there for sacrament. We will be going to Chris's parents for Christmas then seeing my parents later in the week when they come down to Utah for Andy's wedding events. 

Temple Square

I haven't gone to see the Christmas lights at the Salt Lake Temple in a long time and wanted to this season since we lived so close. Some plans fell through so we didn't get to go with our friends like we wanted to, it was just us and the tons and tons of people that had the same idea...I would highly suggest not going on a weekend, especially the one RIGHT before Christmas because it was packed and inconvenient to push a stroller through the crowds. We did find out that it only takes us $15 and half an hour to get to Salt Lake using the front runner which means we didn't deal with traffic and parking. It was a good date night for sure.

Reading

As predicted, I finished before Christmas! As soon as I finished the book of Ether, it was easy to just read all of Moroni in one sitting because of how short some of the chapters are. I hope everyone who planned on doing this challenge is able to complete it in the next couple of weeks and continues to find the joys of our Savior in the Book of Mormon.