Merry Christmas

 Claire

She was asking all week to open presents and we had to keep telling her, "not until Christmas" and she was almost able to resist. When she was finally able to open them, she brought one out of a hiding place that was a little ripped and asked to open it. It wasn't hers but she didn't open it all the way so I'm pretty proud that she had so much restraint. It was funny to see her wanting to continue to open presents instead of play with the ones she just opened, and I made sure she said thank you. The rest of the week has been fun for her too because of all the cousins and family she gets to see ad play with, even though it is tough for her to not be the center of attention and share all the toys. I'm so grateful for all the things we've been able to do and even though she can be a little cranky and picky sometimes, she says she loves people when saying good bye and blows kisses which is cute. She has a lot of time to love and terrorize animals around here since there are cats at the Bells and a dog visited from the Cox side. She constantly asks to bring the cat in or goes to the window to see the dogs in the back yard, but she likes the animals that are smaller than her

Shay

We made sure to let Shay open her present and even though she is slower, she did some all on her own while Claire was distracted with her own. She doesn't seem to get as excited, but she likes new toys and enjoyed it for a little bit at the time. She has had some good times being able to play with some things on her own and it is fun to see her so interested and smart. Her favorites make me think I should get some of our own, but then of course she wouldn't be as interested! She doesn't like drawing and we should get her some safer ways to draw so it doesn't get all over the walls when she starts to be adventurous. I hate to talk about it but she has already hit her terrible 2s but 3 months early! She has been throwing tantrums and screaming at bed time and testing us while things are crazy on vacation. Partly she was sick some nights

Sweets

My one sweet I made this year was Almond Joys because I was in the mood for them and found some coconut flakes in the Bell's kitchen. There were actually a few different options I could have done but I went for round truffle size that ended up being a little too big and I will do it smaller next time. Once they got covered in chocolate, they grew in size, but they still taste good and they all got eaten. The girls loved 'helping' with the chocolate and pretzels when I was finishing up the dipping chocolate after the balls were done. There were enough sweets around that I didn't need to make any more than those and we still have plenty to share and ruin our dinners.

Christmas Day

I remember when we were growing up, my mom always doing puzzles while we watched our new movies on Christmas day and we got to do some this time too! We were able to borrow a Christ puzzle, and Claire and I both got puzzles as present from our friends. We saw the new Soul movie on Disney as one of the movies we watched but mostly it was playing games, puzzles, and talking. I got my parents a game we played and my brother brought a lot of his fun games we were able to play together.  I mentioned them before but the girls loved that they finally got to open their presents and I got a good present of getting to sleep in!

Shooting

Chris's favorite part of visiting Idaho is going to the dessert and shooting his guns. It has been a long time since I did because I'm usually at home with the girls, but this time we made sure I could go! We used the rest of the old OLD tannerite from when we announced Claire's gender and did a nice explosion, much better than the first one 3 years ago. 

Vacation Has Begun

 Finals and Driving

Chris had two finals, one on Monday and the other on Tuesday. He did really well on them while I worked on getting the house ready for us to leave and packing for our trip. We were able to start our vacation on Wednesday and drove all day to get to Grandma and Grandpa Bell's before bedtime. Although the drive was long, we were glad to be done with it in one day and the girls stayed entertained with movies we downloaded on the iPad. We've had some very fun days since because there is a treehouse with slides here and we were able to borrow some kid snow cloths for the girls. But more on those in the rest of the sections

Claire

She was very excited to see snow and has already learned how to through snowballs and eat some too. It was cold without proper snow cloths the first time we went out but now they get so bundled up we can stay out and play in the backyard for an hour at a time. She's been able to see most of her cousins already and loves all the toys that she remembers from when we were here in July. It is cute when she yells "nana ganpa" when either of them come home and there some crazy sounds that come when she sees new people and can't hold in her excitement. I regret not teaching her to sit and eat at the table during meal times now because it really shows now that we have people to sit at the table with. 

Shay

Another very excited girl to see snow and everything at the house that I'm not totally sure she remembers from 6 months ago. She seems to understand things but I'm not sure it is her remembering anything from before but she definitely handles the stairs much better. She also enjoys the backyard playground that they have with slides and swings and the trampoline that was covered with ice and snow but still bounced a little. She looks like a little marshmallow in her snow cloths and I burst into laughter every once in a while watching how she waddles around. It is harder for me to stop her eating the snow and even when she started she went to the dirt instead to see how well they mixed....silly girl. She is always worried about the dogs because one likes to come right up to her face and smell or lick her, so she is blocked from going some places.

Party

We already had a small Christmas party with family and the girls loved so much about going to another new house with toys and cousins. It was hard to keep up with all the places they wanted to go and all the things they wanted to do. They played with stuffed animals, dolls, blocks, Christmas decorations, and even some of the other kids. They were among the younger ones and it was hard to play the big kid games downstairs in the dark (I think it was ghosts in the graveyard...), but they never once complained! It is so easy for kids to not be bored, especially in new houses.

Model

I helped out my sister-in-law by modeling some of the cloths that are from her business and even though it was cold, I had fun. We haven't gotten to know each other as much as I would have liked in the past and getting some one on one time was really nice. She is lucky enough to live close to family and I'm glad we are able to see her while we are in town, but it makes me miss the rest of the families I won't be able to see while we are here. Family is so important and I hope we can live closer after we are done with school in California!

We basically live in PJs

 Claire

She came up with a new game when we were looking for something that I had lost and we hopped around the front room on the couch cushions for a while the other night. There was a bedroom for sleeping and a kitchen for eating in, and I taught her how to think of the ground as lava and not fall off. Then the next game this week was to have a tale and she originally just stuck it down her pants but kept getting upset when it would fall out so I safety pinned it to her so that she could be a kitty. We like playing with our flashcards and she has really gotten into practicing the letters so she can start making the sounds too. She has some lispy sounds with 'v' sounding like 'b' and 'q' sounding like 'k' but she's getting better. 

Shay

My little stinker loves to draw and use the crayons on paper when we do it together but has recently started on the doors to our TV stand and back door. I tricked her into drawing with straws this week and trying to enforce not drawing on the walls because it was hard enough to get it off in our other apartment. She loves popcorn these days and askes for it all the time so I treat myself to a bowl every once in a while and she thinks mine is much better than hers. You can see in the picture how she is opening her mouth and saying 'ah' for one of my pieces while her bowls sits full behind her.

Crafts

I'm still sewing and doing all my Christmas presents and will post pictures when they have been given, but it has kept me busy. Between Chris studying for his finals and my sewing the girls are constantly wanting to get into our rooms to terrorize...I mean help. Between the PJs that I made for the girls, the pillow cases for our service project, and all the Christmas gifts I'm using my sewing machine more than I have in a very long time. It makes me what to do more and have a reason to use it more like an etsy shop or something!

Starting December

 Claire

I've noticed her having a lot of fun with all the leaves in the back yard and she comes up with some fun games to play like being mommy and making dinner for me. She has an imagination that is focused on family and making everything around her into families. We received our first Christmas present and were directed to open them early since they are technically decorations that the girls can play with so they don't ruin our nativity scenes. It was a precious homemade set of nativity blocks from their Grandma and Grandpa Bell, and they are constantly all over the floor in our walking path because she likes to set them up or build towers. 

Shay

She has such beautiful hair! We were playing at the park and I was walking behind her just admiring the amazing, natural curls she has going on. Speaking of which, she always has to carry around her water bottle whenever we are at the park like it is her stuffed animal or something. She does drink it every once in a while, but mostly just goes down the slide with it and drops it on the ground. With how much she adventures around the park and walks all over the place even in our back yard I know she is excited about the world. She points at all the animals she sees as we walk to the park and loves to see the squirrels in our back yard.

Chris

We are coming to an end of the 2nd quarter and he has now been doing school half of the year! He reflected back on our time in Rexburg at BYUI and commented on how he misses how easy it used to be compared to now. It is a much more accelerated learning and even though it is all online, the Zoom classes keep him pretty busy 4 days out of the week with his weekends still having some studying here and there. Whenever our bedroom door opens and he comes out on a break or something, the girls love to attack and get as much attention as they can. Claire even gets really sad sometimes when he has to go back to class and has full blown cried once, it even made her mad when I tried to comfort her and I just had to wait for her to calm down. I can't really blame them for loving him so much when he gives them such a fun time when he plays with them!

Crafts

I saw this on fun and super easy way to give a new toy to the girls on Pinterest this week and since I just opened a new butter....it happened. They had a lot of fun when I first put it up and although they sometimes fight over the little puff balls I got out for it, they are able to share most of the time. I'm still working on all the Christmas presents around playing with the girls, cleaning, and cooking. I don't want to post pictures but now that people have them I can post one that I did finished a few weeks ago. I had teasers but now I see them being used by my nieces and nephews :) 

Thanksgiving

 Claire

This week has been jam packed full of fun things and reasons to take pictures. First was the fun hair style Claire got from braiding her hair while it was wet one day and letting it loose the next when it was dry. I was so in love with the crinkly hair it gave her! It is nice to see how excited she is about playing with Shay these days and wanting to join her when she does fun things like riding daddy's big army bag through the back yard, or letting her join on the bike as she rides them. There was one morning that when she woke up she was so excited to see her sister that she gave her a big hug. When ever one gets hurt they often give each other kisses and hugs and still give kisses every night when Shay goes to bed. So much love towards each other makes me happy.

Shay

She had a really funny falling asleep position this week while we were cuddling, or at least I thought that was what we were doing and then all of a sudden she was asleep. She takes really good naps and is great at going to bed at the same time fairly easy too on most occasions. She likes some of the funniest games when daddy plays with her like trying to get away while he holds her shirt, she also likes climbing on the table and getting caught. One day after lunch she started licking the ketchup off her and Claire's plates and it was entertaining to watch her go back and forth with such attitude. There is so much desire for communication when she looks and tells us things and makes sounds trying to hard to copy the sounds I'm making. She loves reading certain books and is really good and finding balls, books, elephants, dogs, and a few other things that are in her favorite ones. But the cutest thing that happened all week was when Shay started tickling Claire.

Crafts

I've been doing a lot of sewing this past week and realized how much I am now my mom because I am watching the show I remember her watching all the time when she would sew. It was partially because I saw a lot of fun projects I wanted to try on Pintrest while looking for a specific pattern for Christmas presents and partially because I get satisfaction when they turn out so good. I feel really luck and love having my own room that I can close the door to and have a little peace from thing one and two. I tried my hand at applique and I think it turned out pretty cute so I hope to do more in the future to personalize gifts and make my homemade gifts more special.

Christmas Decorating

It has always been a tradition to decorate on Black Friday instead of shopping and I enjoy not leaving my house when there will be crazy stores. Claire enjoyed helping set up the tree, holding the lights as we went around and around and then putting the ornaments all over and telling Shay not to take them down. They were both excited when we plugged in our lights and it brightened up our living room and now they have new Christmas stuffed animals to play with. There is a snowman that plays jingle bells but Claire thinks it is singing the happy birthday song and will say happy birthday to daddy after hearing it. At first I was confused why she thought it was Chris's birthday but then one morning it was right after she played the song in the snow man and then the other morning it was Shay's birthday so that is fun. 

Thanksgiving Prep

 Claire

I definitely shouldn't have waited so long to teach her how to go to the bathroom on the toilet because she caught on really fast and throughout the week we only had 3 or 4 accidents. The sanitation issue of her trying to touch and clean herself worries me and we are going to go through a lot more soap but it is worth it. She likes to tell daddy when she poops so we can all jump up and down and be excited together still. I have noticed how creative she is becoming with the games she wants to play  from hide and seek, to reading a book to my pet hand (inspired from Bluey). She has been taking a nap again almost every day this week but I can't tell if it is because she is going through a growth spurt or Shay is waking her up too early. She does get grumpy and tantrums really bad when she wakes up or isn't able to rest so we've decided to let her take her naps. 

Shay

Now that it is colder, we have to force her to wear cloths so she can stay warm especially in the mornings instead of just when we are going to play outside. We are able to keep her warm at night with a heater because she doesn't stay under her blanket, or stay on her bed. She always asks to read our books and even though she will look at them herself she likes cuddling in our lap when we read to her much better. This week at the park was her first time trying the bumpy slide and she ended up loving it and went down with Claire over and over! Sometimes she doesn't something so random that cracks me up and this week she started growling at theses blocks when they would fall over as she was stacking them. At first I didn't know it was her but she did it enough that I was able to find the source and get it on camera! The other time was when she came into our room going "mom, mom, mom"  because I had gone in to get something and her show had ended. She might have been saying more but I'm going to continue to think she was saying mom. 

Chris

There is only a month left of this quarter and Chris has found great ways to study the content from the courses and it seems like I'm always catching him using his spare time to go over his flash cards or take the practice test on his phone. We are really excited to get this Christmas break and get to see family, but he is so good at continuing to focus and do what needs to get done. He also takes time to watch movies with me, spend time with the girls in the morning so I can work out, and play with his brothers. We have a great balanced life right now and I'm grateful we have time for everything we want to do because he does what needs to get done when it needs. I was able to finish some of my crafts and get a lot organized and ready for the snow globe ornaments for family to have for their Christmas trees.