Christmas Blessings

We had a great Christmas, I even got a new camera to take some fun pictures with! There just won't be any for a little while because our computer got a virus and I don't want to download them onto my father-in-law's laptop that we're borrowing (thanks!).
Anyways, our Christmases are always busy, with both families in town, and even some extended family. So we're always back and forth to parties and gatherings. I was feeling a little tired and frustrated because we have not a lot of money right now and baby #3 on the way. But I was wrapping presents at about 10:15pm when the kids were asleep on Christmas Eve when Dave and I hear this boom that sounds like it's on our front porch. I tell Dave to check it out and he says the neighbor's house is on fire! We ran outside and the neighbors across the street had flames pouring from their front porch! As we went outside, the firetrucks were coming down the street (we live close to a fire station...what a blessing!) They were fast. So we stood there and watched as 8 firetrucks pulled up and battled the blaze...and all I could think is, "What if that was us?" I felt so bad for our neighbors (who I had only talked to for the first time a few days ago), but so blessed that my kids were safe asleep in bed and that we had a roof over our heads, clothes and food, Dave has a job, and we even have some presents and a tree for Christmas. So, even though we weren't able to get all the latest gadgets and toys that we'd love, we definitely had everything that we need. I think God has a way of helping to put things in perspective for us. (And our neighbor has a lot of family around, so she has a place to stay. And I don't think the house is a total loss either.)
Merry Christmas and thank goodness for all that we have!

Christmas Lights Video

Dave found this video and my kids love to watch it over and over. I've never seen anything like this in real life. Maybe we'll try it on our house next year. :)

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is going to the Christmas lights at the Mesa temple. We weren't disappointed. Will and Mckenzie are getting to the ages where they're excited about everything so it was fun to take them. We also got to hear a bell choir rehearsing.


One of our projects has been a Fall garden. Here is our first harvest! We had a salad for dinner with all the spinach I picked.


Dave spent last Saturday constructing a desk for our kitchen. This is going to be the new home for our computer (after a little rewiring). I'm excited to get it out of the baby's room!

Thanksgiving

We kept pretty busy this Thanksgiving. We had lots of family things on both sides so we did lots of fun things. Here's just a little bit:

We went on a little hike on Saturday with the kids. (We decided this is the time of year in Arizona to go hiking.)
Will and Mckenzie with their California cousin.


Will and Mckenzie with Grampa Strong and their California cousins.


Will and his California cousins.


Dave's family has a tradition of a family dance. I had never been before. My family all wondered what kind of a dance you would take kids to. We had fun.
Will wanted Dave to help with this line dance.


Will even got asked to dance by his cousin.


We got Will and Mckenzie to dance together for a few minutes.


A Strong Thanksgiving tradition is the Great Turkey, which leaves a gift for the kids. They just have to unwrap it first. (You can see the turkey-it's small.)


Mckenzie and her cousin in the bouncer. She kept wanting to go inside, even though most of the kids were bigger than her.


This is just a random video I shot of the kids playing together on the swings. I love when they play together happily!

Fall

Will and Mckenzie's cousin, Hannah came over to play the other day. I thought this was a cute pic with Will reading Hannah a story and Mckenzie looking on.


Last weekend we decided to go on a hike in the Superstitions. Too bad it got in the 90's! Dave got to carry Mckenzie. Needless to say, she wasn't very worn out afterwards.



This is a late picture of the kids' pumpkins. (Sorry Mckenzie, I already cooked yours for a pie!) We decided we didn't want to do knives this year with the little ones...but they liked it just as well.


We planted a garden about a month ago and it's actually coming up this time! From left to right, carrots, spinach, and peas. I'm excited to taste them in a little while. But some little creature has been digging in it...it looks like a dog or cat. Not sure what to do about that.

Happy Halloween!

Our kids went trick-or-treating last night to people in our neighborhood, mostly people we knew from church. We also made a stop at grandma and grandpa's house. Mckenzie caught on fast to the idea of getting candy and really enjoyed it, especially the eating part.

(I went as a pregnant mom.)




Dave also made a sighting of John McCain and Sarah Palin. He didn't have time for an autograph, but did snap a photo. I guess Mesa is turning into a battleground city!

Latest Project

I'm trying out my candy-making skills, since it is Halloween. I was craving candy apples so I got some caramel and apples at the store. Of course, being pregnant, I wanted chocolate and peanut butter, so I melted some chocolate chips and leftover white chocolate, then chopped up some Reese's Pieces (sorry trick-or-treaters, I took some of your candy.) Anyways, it's not super pretty, but I'm sure excited to taste one!





Here's my sweet girl after eating some dirt. I guess she's just not satisfied with my cooking!

I was going to post some pics of a Halloween party we went to, but for some reason they have all disappeared. I have to do some detective work, but these pics will have to do for now.

What I've Been Up To

Mckenzie is now officially in a big girl bed and sharing a room with her best friend, Will. She has been sleeping really well, except for naps if Will is in the room with her...then they like to play! (Will has to now take a nap on my bed.)
We decided to transition her about 2 weeks ago. First it started with her waking up in the middle of the night because her paci had fallen out of the crib. That helped me decide that I was done with the paci, so it disappeared. And while crying that first night without her paci, Mckenzie climbed out of the crib. So we got a mattress for the bed a few days later. Thus, we had about a week or so of not much sleep...but now have a big girl who sleeps well through the night! Yeah for Mckenzie!


Here's our sweet girl with a cute dress I found at my favorite second-hand store. I love finding good deals...especially on clothes that will only be worn for a few months! (Thanks, Hannah, for the shoes...if you have a sister you can have them back!)


PS I found some fun crafty blogs from a friend's blog and put them in my links. I'm sure I'll never do a fraction of what they do, but it's fun to see and get ideas...enjoy!

Ultrasound

It's official! We're having another girl! (I believe the doctor because I saw it too.) The due date is still March 9.

Fun Times at Home

What does a stay-at-home mom do?

Teach her one-year-old to be potty-trained! Just joking. Mckenzie pulled this toilet-training book off the shelf and proceeded to study it for a while. Maybe she'll learn faster this way!


The kids like to help me do laundry. Mckenzie insisted on having a "hat" for a while.



Will's room is getting better... he now sleeps on a big boy bed and Mckenzie will be joining him soon. (I'm sure they'll probably get less sleep, but have more fun.)


Will and Mckenzie helping with the laundry again. (These are their clothes hampers from their rooms...for some reason they really like to do this.)

Utah Trip

We were able to test out our "new" minivan and drive to Utah this past week. We stayed with my grandparents in Alpine. We were able to visit with family and see some sites.

I finally tried putting some video on my post! Here's one I thought was really cute...Will walking Mckenzie around temple square, and her actually liking it! We got lots of comments as they walked by people. (Don't worry, you can't hear anything because our camera doesn't do sound.) What you don't hear is Will telling Mckenzie things like, Don't touch that! Watch out! This way, Kenzie...all things that we would tell Will.

Here's Will in front of some flowers by the library at BYU. They were so beautiful...I miss that about Utah.


We also toured the conference center in Salt Lake. We were surprised to find tons of original paintings inside. This was one of our favorites.


Temple Square was beautiful with all the gardens. Will and Mckenzie went straight for the fountain.


We also drove up American Fork Canyon, which is close to my grandparents' house in Alpine. It was beautiful and the leaves were starting to turn colors already. We found a meadow and stopped and got the kids out for a few minutes. This picture just doesn't do it justice though!


We also went to the Bean Museum at BYU and saw some wild animals.


Thanks Grandma and Grampa Strong for letting us stay with you! We had lots of fun.

Yeah for Will!

For all those of you who have ever potty-trained a child before, you can probably understand my excitement. Will finally went #2 on the toilet! Hopefully this means no more diapers and less messes for me!

Doctor's Visit

I finally got to go to the doctor! I know, going to the doctor is not my favorite thing, but I've been waiting forever to get in, so it's exciting. I'm actually 14 weeks along. My due date is March 9, so I was pretty close. The doctor did a short ultrasound and the baby looks healthy. We'll find out next month if it's a boy or a girl. (And there's only 1 baby!) Anyways, just thought I'd keep you all posted, since I've complained to most of you already.

A New Room

I just thought this was a cute picture. Will and Mckenzie like to snuggle together when they watch cartoons. :)

I was ambitious this Saturday and decided to paint Will's room. We ordered bunk beds for Will and Mckenzie and are going to move Mckenzie in with Will so the baby can have his/her own room. Dave is nice enough to let me experiment with decorating.




Here's what the kids did after they woke up from their naps. Will asked me at least 50 times if he could paint too.


And here is the finished product. A little brighter than I was expecting, but I think it will end up nice. I'll take more pics after we get the beds. Then we'll paint the doors and baseboards white after it cools down enough to sand some outside.

School Time

Will had his first day of preschool today. We were all excited for him to be a big boy! He wanted to take a picture with Mckenzie too. She was just as excited as he was. When I dropped him off, she was ready to go right in with him. She was sad that she didn't get to stay. Will also kept his undies dry the whole time! (Until the car ride home...I'm just glad he stayed dry at school!) And it was surprising how quiet it is with just one at home.

We're so proud of our little preschooler!

I just thought they were cute the other day, looking at the fish together on a chair. It's fun to be friends!

Doctors

This is for all you women who have had babies out there. Is it just me, or is it impossible to get a doctor's appointment?! I'm with Dr. Russell Beck, but am thinking of switching since I'm having a nearly impossible time getting an appointment. Any suggestions? Which doctors do all you experienced pro's like? I'm hoping I can stay with him, but I'm getting very frustrated!

P.S. I called and talked to the receptionist. I'm already 11 weeks! So...yeah...she's squeezing me in next week! So, I'm planning on not switching (I hope!)

Globe

Will got in big trouble! We decided on Saturday morning that we just had to get out of town. So we went to the most happening place we could think of...Globe, AZ. It actually was fun. The drive wasn't bad, the weather was great, and we were able to see the historic district, which was a lot of old buildings with stores, the old courthouse, and this old jail that was in use until 1988.

We also saw this great monument on the main street of the historic district. It was about the hanging tree. The next picture shows the story, but basically it's a tribute to their grizzly past when they hung two outlaws from a tree. It was the only monument we saw. You gotta love small towns.

This was the famous indian ruins that they had signs for all over. We finally drove there and you had to pay money to get in, so we just looked from outside. Will was so excited to go the the indian houses...I think we were all a little disappointed. But it makes for a pretty picture.

And if you're still reading, you get to learn some news, if you haven't heard already. We're going to have another baby! I haven't been to the doctor yet, but the unofficial due date is March 6. So I'm not really fat, just preggo. We'll keep you updated when we find out more details.:)

What I believe

Well, we finally sold our Honda :( It was just too small for our family, especially going on trips. So we bought my mom's Astrovan (since we borrow it anyways whenever we go on a trip...thanks mom!) So we've finally made the big switch to a "family" car and I am officially a minivan mom.

This is the best picture we have right now, I'll have to post another one later.

Camping

We went camping this last week with Dave's family for their annual family reunion. We had fun, but it's definitely tougher with two little kids. This is us waiting in the Walmart parking lot for Dave to pick up some things for his family. (This year we had cell phone reception at the camp site.)

Here's our lovely campsite. Dave had a nice setup, with a little porch and chairs in front.


Here's the glo-stick the kids all got one night. Will would not take his off. In fact, he still wears it.

We had a major thunderstorm on Friday afternoon. There was tons of rain, some hail, and of course, some lightning strikes, some very close. Here's the tree that was hit in our campsite, which just happened to be feet from our tent and car (it's the one in the middle with the mark on it). Dave and I were actually right by the tent getting some jackets when the lightning struck. I could feel the electricity and heat, and smell the burnt wood. We also had wood chips fly on us from the tree. Very scary!