Christmas Eve

I am all about traditions, so now that I have my own family I want to create and keep many traditions. For many families, Christmas is one of those times that there are tons of traditions. On Christmas Eve, as many families do, we read the Luke 2 nativity story and then act it out. My girls love to wrap up baby Jesus and put him in the "manger". After this we open up a present, which will be pajamas, and then a new tradition that we started this year will be to open up a new movie and watch it. This year it was Up. My girls really enjoyed it all, even though we didn't get through the whole movie before it was their bedtime. It was a peaceful and low key night. It was great!

Posing with 'baby Jesus'

Modeling their new pajamas

Emily, as Mary, wrapping up Baby Jesus

They adored their pajamas; here they are dancing with them,

but Ashley never wants to take hers off in the morning.

I guess we did good this year with our pajama selection! :)

Festival of Lights

Last Wednesday we went to see the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork. None of us had ever been before. It was really neat. My girls loved it and kept asking us to go around again and again. It definitely got us into the Christmas spirit too. I think it just might become an annual tradition for the Day family!

Santa and reindeer lights as we were entering

The girls absolute favorite one, a castle!!

Santa Claus was even there!

Ward Christmas Party

Last Saturday was our ward Christmas party. It was really neat this year. When you arrived you had to wait to go into part of the cultural hall as a small group. The theme that night was keeping Christ in Christmas. We started out and saw the angel who declared glad tidings to the shepherds, then to the inn keeper who challenged us to make room for Christ. Then we went from room to room and different people from the nativity talked to us about the Savior and symbols of Christmas. After we were all done, then we went into the gym and ate our dinner. I thought it was really neat. To end the night, Santa showed up (which was probably the girls favorite part of the night, but they're still young so it's okay :-) ) It was a nice night to remember the reason for this Christmas season!

Not the greatest picture, but they were excited to tell Santa what they wanted!

Emily's Story

This was a few months ago, but I keep forgetting to put it on. Emily is quite a good little artist for her age and she LOVES it. She had this little journal and drew the whole Sleeping Beauty story and then wanted to tell us her story one night. It was so cute that we had to record it. I'll admit that it's probably not going to be as neat for you as us, but if you watch at least the first minute you'll hear two of the cutest phrases that she uses. The "clever" princess and a "glittering" gown. (Where she came up with those words, who knows, but it's dang cute!)

I love you, Emily!

Some funnies

Kids say the darndest/funniest/cutest things sometimes. I want to write down a couple before I forget them.

Ashley, my 2 year old: Whenever she tells me she loves me, she always says, "Mom, I love you too much!" No, Ashley, you really can't! :)

She has started this one in the past couple months: Whenever we tell her she is a cutie pie, she says, "no, me is a cutie pie brat!!" Unfortunately, she couldn't be more right!

Emily: It's so wonderful to see Emily grow up and start to learn bigger vocabulary words. The other day she came in and said, "Mom, I'm having a 'situation' with Ashley." I said, "What kind of situation?" She then gave a normal 5 year old answer, "Ashley's not sharing her toys!" What a 'situation'!

At Grandma and Grandpa's the other day, Emily saw a present that's probably hers for Christmas. Grandpa and Grandma were trying to tell her it was something different, but she wasn't buying it. She looked Grandma straight in the eye and said with her arms gesturing, "Grandma, if you would just get it down, I would prove it to you." She's one smart cookie!

I love my girls so much!!

My Birthday Present

Sunday was my birthday. It was a nice day and I got to enjoy it with my family. It was the first year that Emily gave me a present. Here lies the story.

On Thanksgiving, we were up at my mom's house and Emily found this lifesize doll that was my mom's when she was little. Emily loved it and played with it all night. The next day, Kenny and I split up to do some Black Friday shopping. Kenny took Emily and went to Walmart. While they were there, Emily saw some lifesize dolls for sale and exclaimed to her dad, "Dad, let's get one of these for Mommy! She would love it!" So she picked out her favorite one and they got it "for me" :)

All weekend Emily kept begging both of us, "Can we please give Mommy's present to her early? I can't stand it!" But Kenny kept saying, "No." Finally Sunday arrived and Emily's just dying to give me my present. Finally about 3:00, he let Emily go upstairs and wrap it. My mom had come over to give me a gift so she got to witness this too. Emily came downstairs holding the present so proudly and said, "Open it; You're going to love it!" So I proceeded to open the doll as Emily squealed with excitement. As soon as the wrapping paper was off, Emily said, "Mom, can I play with it?"

My mom piped in and asked Emily, "I thought you got this doll for your mom." Then Emily looked right at her Grandma and said, "My mom is big. She doesn't need more toys!!" :-) So, needless to say, Emily has really been enjoying my birthday present for the past week!

BYU vs. Utah

Yesterday was another match in the 'Holy War' in Utah a.k.a the BYU vs. Utah game. Kenny and I have season tickets so of course we went. It was a great first half and I thought we were dominating Utah and had the game wrapped up. Not so!! Utah came storming back in the second half and I got a sinking feeling that we were going to lose. Utah tied it up at the end of the 4th quarter with a field goal so we went into overtime. Utah got the ball first and we held them to a field goal!! So now it was our turn. We had a few runs and passes that moved the ball about 10 yards, then Max Hall threw the ball to Andrew George up the middle and he ran all the way into the endzone for a touchdown!! BYU won, 26-23!! That moment was awesome. It wasn't quite as euphoric as the Las Vegas Bowl a couple years ago when we blocked the field goal to beat UCLA, but it was close. What a game!! Rah rah, rah rah rah, go Cougars!!

Kenny and I enjoying the first half

The final score on the scoreboard

After our victory, about 20,000 fans ran onto the field to celebrate. What a great sight!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year my family went up to my mom's place in Holladay. My brother, Mike, and his wife, Candace, flew in from San Francisco and my sister and her fam came down from Twin Falls so we almost had the whole family. We ate, played games, laughed, played some more games, laughed some more and had a wonderful time together. I love spending time with my family, especially because I don't get to do it enough. It was a great Thanksgiving day. Today, we went over to Kenny's parents and had Thanksgiving #2. It was also great with yummy food. I love spending time with family.

Playing games

The family group shot

Disney on Ice--Princess Classics

For one of Emily's birthday presents we got her Disney on Ice tickets. Last Saturday we went. Emily, of course, loved it, but Ashley was totally mesmerized. She watched every move with the utmost excitement and didn't miss a beat. When Belle came out she asked us, "Where's Beast?" When Sleeping Beauty danced around she exclaimed, "Ooh, meanie's (her name for Maleficent) going to come!" It was so great watching Ashley see this for the first time. What a precious memory I'm going to have. It was a great night!

Posing by the Princess poster

Emily leading and dancing to the music

Ashley watching ever so intently

The first half finale--all the princesses dancing with their prince

Our souvenirs for the night--A Cinderella snow cone cup for Em

And a Mickey Mouse for Ash

Warm Fuzzies

During President Monson's talk during October conference, he talked about warm fuzzies. Emily really liked the idea, but then last week in Primary, one of our presidency members talked about serving others and gave each child a few warm fuzzies to take home. They were supposed to serve others and each time they did we, parents, would give them a warm fuzzy to bring back to Primary and hopefully fill up a big jar by the end of the month. Well, Emily took this idea and ran with it! On Monday she offered to fold some laundry. We were shocked, but very happy. She cleaned her room without being asked. She straightened all her hair stuff in the bathroom without being asked. Helped her Grandpa rake leaves, etc. It was so neat and made us all feel so good! It was also gave us a great opportunity to talk to her about how that great warm feeling inside is the Holy Ghost and how important it is to serve people.

My school was also doing a teddy bear drive this week for the women's crisis shelter and other kids at risk. When I told Emily about it, she was excited to look through our pile of teddy bears and choose some to give away. She even found a frog that she had forgotten about, played with it and really liked it, but when she got to my school she said, "I will give this frog away too!" Needless to say that she earned TONS of warm fuzzies this week. She put them in her own jar at home and to top off the week, she gave a talk in Primary today about serving others and then proudly put all her warm fuzzies in the jar. It's been a wonderful week and I am so proud of my 5 year old daughter! I love you so much, Emily!

All the teddy bears she was willing to give up :)

Carrying them into my school

Ashley got into it too

Getting ready to put them into the bin

Emily's 5th birthday party

Last Sunday, we invited all of our family over for family dinner and to celebrate Emily's birthday. We love having the family over for dinner. Then it was time to PARTY! We did (surprise, surprise) a princess theme. The girls wore crowns, Emily was sung to and got to blow out her candle. Then it was present time. Some of her favorites are in the pictures below. It was a great night to celebrate our beautiful girl's birthday! We love you Em!

The girl cousins in their crowns

The classic smile by the birthday cake pose

Blowing out the candles

A Cars coloring book--anything to color is a huge hit with Emily

Tinkerbell doll--Hurray!

Cute purple sweatshirt from Grandma R

Emily's favorite present of the night, Ariel with a horse from Grandpa and Grandma Day

My mandatory pose with the birthday balloons--to me, no party is complete without balloons!

Halloween

Emily wanted to be Giselle (from Enchanted) for Halloween. We had a pretty white dress for her and curled her hair and put on a crown. I thought she looked gorgeous and so did she! Ashley was Tinkerbell and looked so cute with her big wings. We went up to my mom's place and my grandmother's who's in an assisted living center. They were both very excited to see the girls and loaded them up with full sized candy bars! Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house and trick-or-treated there. Then it was finally time to go trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. They had a great time and came home with their buckets full once again. That makes 3 full buckets each! We'll be eating Halloween candy for a long time to come. What a great Halloween season we had this year!

Emily looking gorgeous as Giselle

Tinkerbell and Giselle

Great Grandma A with the girls

Grandma R with the girls--love Ashley's face!

Grandma and Grandpa with the girls

Halloween Carnival and Classic Skating

On Wednesday, Oct. 28th Kenny's parents' ward had a Halloween carnival and a trunk-or-treat. They invited us to come so we did. As if the girls didn't have enough candy, their buckets got filled up again. Some of the cars gave away full size candy bars and the long thick Pixy Sticks. The girls were in heaven. For the carnival they got to make candy necklaces, paint their faces and make marshmallow mummies. It was a lot of fun.

The same night was my school's Classic Skating Night. That's where you get in free to Classic Skating and anybody from your school can go with their families. I had never been, but my students always talked about how fun it is. This year since we were already in Orem and dressed up, we went over there for awhile. Emily had a blast! She loved riding around on her scooter (sometimes the wrong way--oops!). It was fun to see some of my students and Kenny got quite the workout on his roller skates chasing after Emily and pushing Ashley around on her little trike. It was also a lot of fun and as we were leaving Emily said, "That was so fun! Can I come back here again?" Yes we can!

Ashley's marshmallow/fruit by the foot mummy. On her elbow you can see her candy necklace too.

Emily's mummy and candy necklace

Most of the cousins that were trunk-or-treating

Emily having a blast on her scooter.

Ashley loving being pushed by Daddy!

Boo at the Zoo

The last few years we've started the tradition to go to the zoo around Halloween when they do their Boo at the Zoo. It's where kids come dressed up in their Halloween costume and a bunch of businesses come and give out candy. It's fun, especially this year because the weather was so nice and it wasn't very crowded. The girls loved it and came home with a basket full of candy.

Posing in their cute costumes

Riding the carousel

Meeting Miss Utah and Miss Teen Utah. Emily loved their crowns

Sliding down the snake slide in the play area

Ashley being a turtle; this is extra cute to us because up until this trip Ashley was afraid of going into this shell.

Posing in front of the cute baby giraffe and his mom. There was also a tiny cute baby elephant, but we didn't really get any good pictures of it

Fall Break

During our Fall Break this year Kenny's sister and her family invited us up to stay at Park City for a couple of days. It was fun to get away for a short trip and relax. While we were there we made bead necklaces, made picture frames, painted pumpkins, went swimming, roasted smores, went on the Alpine Slide and Coaster and watched the BYU football game. It was a fun time for all.

Decoupaging a picture frame

Emily starting to roast her s'more

Ashley preferred to just eat the marshmallows

And boy did she eat marshmallows!

The girls playing together and eating their graham crackers (they were fans of all three items used in s'mores, just not together)

Daddy liked his though! :-)

Getting ready to go down the Alpine Slide

Ashley preferred to ride in the slide on the way rather than walk :-)

Ashley loved being with Grandma and Grandpa who also came up for the day

Making our bead necklace

The finished product