Today, all three girls were playing together. Rebekah doesn't really play with the other two, but she follows them around and entertains herself. I really really like it. I always feel like I'm living on borrowed time whenever it happens. The girls wanted her to follow them upstairs, but she wasn't really paying any attention. So, Jane got some Teddy Grahams and made a trial over to the stairs, like breadcrumbs for Cheeky to follow. And follow she did. Picking them up and putting them in her mouth as she went. I don't think it actually worked all the way though. If I remember correctly, she didn't every actually go up the stairs.

It really was too bad because I was trying to have on of those be productive around the house days. You know, one of those days where you put on your best "do stuff around the house" type clothes and have all these big plans in your head to clean every bathroom, even the floors, the kitchen, including wiping down the cupboards, and to top it all off, wash, fold, and put away all the laundry in the same day. But it didn't really happen. It's going to spill over into tomorrow. But it's all good because I've learned to lower my expectations. Not to say that we live in filth, far from it, (I have definitely turned into my mother), but I've learned that if I can not be so worried about making sure that everything is perfect in the house, then I actually feel much better.

Christmas mani

I painted this tonight. I had the same mani on from yesterday, but only in reds, golds, greens and silver, and believe it or not. I think it looks much better in these more non traditional colors. It's all about the Scotch tape for these little trees. For most cool shapes and designs actually. I really like to paint my nails. That way, even if I haven't showered that day, or I'm in sweats with nasty hair, I can't still look down at my hands and think, "well, at least my nails look good.

Car photos

We took a little road trip to Idaho Falls last weekend. I took about a million pictures of Jeff and myself while he is driving. This one must be from the beginning of the batch because the way I remember it, he was NOT up for a photo shoot. He kept on asking me "what are you doing?" over and over again, even though I never had a really good solid answer. Just taking pictures. But, Dad is the boss, so I finally let him have some peace. But not before I got a few little shots in.

Plus, had to throw a little shot of my latest nail polish polish in there.
Sophi, a little trooper all alone in the back of the mini-van. She had awesome hair that day. All braided up when it was wet to give her a nice crimped look.

What child is this?

Are any of my kids every going to look like me? In general, most people say that Sophia and Jane look a lot like Jeff, I agree. Except that Sophia is totally built like me. Posture, stance, everything. But Rebekah! I guess she doesn't look like either of us. Well, I don't know, but look at this, she certainly doesn't look like me.

Seriously. If you don't know us, would you every look at this picture and think, "yes, this lady is this baby's mom." No. I doubt it.

Santa 2011

I've made it a tradition to take the girls to see Santa every year and to get their pictures taken. I have an Uncle and Aunt that always took my cousins every year to downtown Seattle to the window of Nordstrom to get their picture taken with Santa. Then, every year my aunt would put all the pictures out as part of their Christmas decorations. I always loved that. I decided long ago that I was going to do the same thing.

I only have 5 pictures, but it's fun to see them all out together and see how the kids change each year.
I guess I need to scan the actual official photo. They cracked down this year and said that you couldn't take any of your own pictures, but Jeff is so super sneaky and he took this all down at hip level yo. Pretty good, except that Cheeky and yours truly are missing our heads.

r"Santa" was very nice and read each of their letters out loud and asked them questions about their gift wishes. Its helps that we always go on like, November 29th, on a week day, at like 11am. Try and get that much attention from "Santa" at this time of the month.

Decorating the tree

My favorite kind of tree if a Noble Fir. I like other trees too, but right now, this is my tree of choice. The girls loved to decorate the tree and this year, they were actually helpful. I like to decorate the tree, but I have to say I enjoyed having someone open all the boxes of the Keepsake ornaments then actually hand them up so I didn't have to end up doing, or fixing it later, all by myself.

The girls love that some of the ornaments are theirs. I like seeing all the ornaments that used to be mine. This year my mom gave me some of our old ornaments that used to be her sort of fancy ornaments. She had these cream glass doves that are hollow that you can stick over the lights of the tree and they clip onto the light string. Then the dove glows because it's got the light from the string inside of it. I watched Sophia clipping them onto the tree lights and I could remember myself being the same age doing the same thing. It was very strange to think that that was 25 years ago. But you could have put that image of me from my head next to the image of her, both of us putting the same dove on a different tree 25 years apart from each other. Watching her as she did it, it just felt very familiar in one of those heart warming feel good have a moment while time freezes sort of way.
I think that this year marks a world record for how long it took to get the star straight. I'm very picky, and Jeff is very patient.

The Advent house

Rebekah looks like a teenager here! Not really, but you know, she looks so old and chill, like, "hey there folks". She does not seem this poised in real life. She is still a toddling falling little 16 month old.



The girls love this little house. I think it's mostly because they each get a Hershey Kiss from it everyday. Even Rebekah, she's one of the kids now, no, I take that back, she is still "the baby". But she does get included in the House this year. Trust me, she wouldn't have it any other way. She would scream at the other two while they ate the candy and to us it would sound like baby screeches, but to her it would sound more like, "what the @@@## do you think you are doing!? Both of you! That is MINE! How dare your eat that in front of me! I will make you pay for this you good for nothing ****^$^%$#%!!!!"

And of course, because she is my baby and I think she is so rotten precious, I think it's cute.
But so are these two little girlies o'mine.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving here at our house this year. A first. My family came, minus my sister and her husband. It was her first holiday away from home all married and grown up, so she put on a brave face. I was VERY surprised how smoothly things went, food wise, not like, arguing family stuff. The closest almost bad things was me and the sweet potatoes. I was halfway done when I realized that I had doubled the butter, milk and sugar parts. Luckily I had more sweet potatoes that I could hurry and peel and cook.

We had lots of leftover food, but in my opinion, that is a good thing. I only ate leftovers for 4 days. I'm hardcore, I mean ONLY leftovers, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"See me suck my fingers, hear me suck my fingers"
She does this smile, so cute and silly at the same time. It looks even better in real life.
These are the men of the group. My big brother, my husband, and my Dad. We realized we didn't have a bottle opener, but they figured it out.

Christmas is coming

A few weeks back the girls and I went outside on a nice cold day to do a little bit of decorating. As you can clearly see, it looks like it is morning because they are all in their pajamas, but, I'm thinking it wasn't...

The thought it was pretty cool that we put ornaments on our outside trees, that seems to be the thing right now, at least around here. I was really lucky and my mom didn't want these so last summer she gave them all to me when she drove down for a visit. Thanks Mom!

I can't believe how old they look in some of these pictures! What is happening here? This is my baby yo!

For those of you who have been wondering what my hair looks like.

Plus, I cute Rebekah's hair, and it is bad. She looks like a cross between a medieval monk, and Jim Carey on Dumb and Dumber. I guess you win some you lose some. At least it's hair, it will grown back. I think everything was looking fine until I had a backseat hair cutter step and in and give me his opinion...then everything went downhill and I wished that I could turn back time. But here are a few pics taken pre-haircut.




And some taken during the haircut. Sadly, I can't blame this one on her wiggling too much or something like that.

Her cute little jeggings. Baby clothes are so cute. But then, here is the haircut.

I was looking at some of the old photos that Jeff had from his phone. I can't believe how much hair Jane had! She looks funny. At the time I thought it was cute, but now...

I've usually had pretty short fingernails, but a few months ago, I thought that I would try growing them out and keeping them all polished. I thought it might make me feel "fancier" or something. I guess I haven't typed much in the last few months because I can totally feel a difference right now. It's weird. I'm like the primary pianist I remember having in my ward as a kid, Sister Walker, she had really long nails, probably fake now thinking back, and I remember every week when she played her nails would tap like crazy on the piano and I always thought it was weird. Or at least, I thought something about it, because I remember it. So, I guess I'm like her, only not exactly.

I can't believe that my baby is 1! I still call her my baby. Obviously, she liked her cupcakes.
She is a little thing, but just physically, she's got a big personality. She likes to cuddle, follow her sisters around, eat crackers, (off the floor or from the pantry), and sort of suck her thumb. She is our little blue eyed girl.

We love our little Cheekylishious girl.

Here she is! First day of school. I'm very lucky that she school is in our neighborhood so it's a short little drive or a slightly longer walk to get there. I think Sophia would like to walk more, but carpools, plus a slightly lazy me prevent that from happening as often as she would like.

She is very lucky to have her two best friends in her class with her. She goes to PM kindergarten and is starting to like it more and more. She wasn't too sold on the whole idea at first and gave me lots of moments of worry when it seemed everyone "loved" going to school but her.

I think that she just likes me so much she doesn't want to be anywhere else. Can you blame her?

This picture was taken right towards the end of summer. Right before Sophia started school. I thought that I would like her going to school more than I do. I remember when she was a newborn, I'd think about how someday she would go so school and it would be great.

But, it's not so. I miss her when she is gone.