That Wedding I've Been Talking About

Hello Dear Family & Friends-

We made it back from our trip to California where my sister got hitched.

Hey look, we took the girls to Olvera street and met up with family for lunch. We pretended we were in Mexico & looked at all the lovely stalls and told the girls they couldn't buy anything because we couldn't fit ONE MORE THING in the car.



Hey look! We walked through Union Station. Ella got all artistic on us and shot lots of cool pictures. Again. And now I'm making you look at them. Again.


She posed her puppy for this shot.


Bet you didn't think it could get any cuter. IT JUST DID.


I'm pretty sure this is my favorite shot she's ever taken. HOW CUTE IS THIS? Seriously.


Nice color & texture.


Remember how my sister Autumn was going to get married? Yeah, we've been excited about that. NOW SHE'S MARRIED! Yay! We met her Friday afternoon to set up for the reception. The light was pretty, so I made Colby take a picture.


Here's what Ella thinks of the Family Statue. (Also, I'm pretty sure that statue-baby was originally nursing & then got censored...)


Sure, we'll help you set up for your reception. Oh wait. We need to tie sashes around 180 chairs and hang lights? Uh, sorry, we're busy... (Thank heavens for portable DVD players.) Do Autumn's eyes look slightly glazed over? Yup. 100 more paper lanterns to assemble, 153 more sashes to tie....


Quit with the picture taking and start with the sash tying!!!


Another of Ella's photography studies, which may or may not have been digitally enhanced in photoshop because I am a nerd.


The morning of the wedding we met Autumn at her friend's apartment (where we might have accidentally stolen a curling iron), and we got The Bride ready. Adrianne made Autumn's hair real hair pretty. Then she asked, "Do you think it's ok if I wear fishnet stockings inside the temple?" Mom said it was ok. MOM SAID IT WAS OK!!! hee hee!


Then they got married and had a lovely reception. Awwwww. In the temple, the helper-ladies were overheard saying, "Wow, she's so low key!" Yup. Once we finally got everything set up, it was a low key and super awesome wedding. (I didn't take ANY PICTURES because Christiana, the Wedding Photographer Extraordinaire is so awesome, I knew I wouldn't need to. I actually stole this picture from Christy. Thanks Christy!)


Ok, I took ONE picture. Of Gretchen loving her cousin. Smooshie!


WEDDING HIGHLIGHTS
-In honor of their marriage, Autumn presented Drew with a replica of the medal that Princess Leia gave her boyz after they defeated the Death Star. She even had a case for it engraved. True love.
-Our super amazing music teacher came & played her Hammered Dulcimer. She is amazing. Did I mention how amazing Patty is? Amazing.
-Autumn's folk band played rousing hits such as the tune from "Legend of Zelda", the theme song from the ORIGINAL Super Mario Brother's game (which is now stuck in my head. Lovely.), the Ewok song (Zub Zub!!!), and more.
-Autumn was gifted with a replica Ton Ton head. It will soon be made into a bear-skin-esque throw rug. You know, to keep her warm on cold winter nights on the planet Hoth.

-I didn't mention the Video Game Themed cookies yet, did I? Tetris shapes have never tasted so good.
-I'm sure there's more awesomeness I'm forgetting. This list is not all inclusive. There was too much to remember. Every turn held new surprises.

Then Gretchen turned two. And Nanna Joy made her a cake. And hung a banner. And was generally "on the ball". Guess who forgot to even GIVE Gretchen her birthday present. (Present, as in ONE. And I still forgot to give it to her. Oh well, one more for Christmas. Get used to getting screwed over on your birthday, poor Christmas Baby...)

"Please don't screw me over! Give me presents! I'm cute!"





We're very grateful for Gretchen. She is silly and sweet. You always know where you stand with her (because if she's mad at you, YOU KNOW.) She's learning that "we are gentle with our hands" and makes better choices every day. She gives nice big hugs and pats your back. She is good at dancing, making silly faces, and singing. She tells funny jokes that we can't understand because she only knows a handful of words. She likes to go "Bye Bye" (even if Mom doesn't always like taking her bye bye...) She loves monkeys and Yo Gabba Gabba and candy. And candy. And candy. We love Gretchen!

(There's a book called "Hands Are Not For Hitting". She got it from Grandma for Christmas. Thanks Grandma!)

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Hanukkah!!!

LOVES!

Hi Y'all

Dear Friends & Family-

This is what we've been up to....

Posing (hey kid, clean your room!)...


Decorating the tree...


Snow days (Gretchen insisted on wearing the Goofy Hat)...


Snow Angels with Dad...


Sledding down the street!!!!


And Ella got a hold of the camera again. Pensive Self Portrait...


Stunning depiction of Grandpa (I'm pretty sure he just finished shoveling the walk)...


Super flattering picture of me...


And Dad (who thinks he got all A's last semester. GO COLBY!!!)...


And me again. Even more flattering this time (we were playing "house" while Gretchen was napping, and she put me to bed, and I may or may not have actually FALLEN ASLEEP. Hence her finding the camera & being all photographic with it...)


Her ceiling & lanterns...


And her bear.


Ok, I'm finally done talking now. We hope you've had a wonderful week.

xo

Our Favorite Things

Hello Dear Family & Friends-

Our Thanksgiving was loud, fun, happy, crazy and loud.
Number of People Sleeping At The House: 14
People Eating Thanksgiving Dinner: 19
Chunks Of Matia's Hair Pulled Out By Gretchen: 3
Time Outs: 5,000
Trips To The Emergency Room: 1 (Baby had a UTI and 104.6 temperature. :( All better now...)
Heard During Ella's Prayer: "Thank you that our family can all leave now." (Not really. But maybe a little bit.)

Tis the Season for Oprah's list of favorite things. But since we don't leave the house (except to mess up other people's houses during playdates), I can't tell you what's in the stores. So our list of Favorite Things is completely random and mostly free.
Ella's Favorites
Favorite Song: Santa's Coming To Town. Because it's my favorite.
Favorite Color: All of them. Green is the best. Because it's my favorite.
Favorite Food: Strawberries. Because they taste good.
Favorite Thing To Do: Play Barbies with Mom. Cause it makes me happy.
Favorite Playdate: Going out to lunch. (But going out to lunch requires spending $ AND leaving the house. So that's an every-other-week kind of playdate...)
Favorite Youtube Video: HORRIBLE QUALITY! They still can't get enough...


Gretchen's Favorites:
Favorite Song: Popcorn Popping, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Jesus Wants Me for a SUNBEAM
Favorite Food: CANDY CANDY CANDY. Candy? Candy? CAAAAAAN-DEEEE! Candy? Candy? Candy? Candy? ........ Candy?
Favorite Thing To Do: Get into things. Assert herself agressively. Throw dramatic temper tantrums. Laugh. Copy Ella. Make Ella Crazy. Read stories. Say, "Momma!" over & over again. Crawl onto my laugh and jump on me. Dance. Laugh again. Make faces. Laugh. Repeat.
Favorite Thing To Wear: "Gabba Shirt!"

Apryl's Favorites:
Favorite Food: Candy. Sigh.
Old Favorite But Still Favorite Blog: Awkward Family Photos. The best kind of voyeurism.
Favorite New Website: imeem.com (Thanks Meghan!) You can listen to almost any music out there FOR FREE. It's even legal. Whole albums. That's right, you can hear the Jingle Cat's album for free. You're welcome. (Pandora kicked me off when I reached my 40 hour monthly limit. Apparently I listen to a lot of music.)
Favorite New Thing To Waste My Time Doing Online: Watch youtube videos of my favorite musicians. Clips from concerts, etc. It's almost like having a real life, except that you don't. Oh Andrew Bird, do you feel the special connection we share? So what if I'm married with two small children.... Watch what he does with the looping violin. I know. I KNOW!!!!


And I'm pretty much ready to move into an Artist Loft in the city now and learn to play the trumpet. Do you think they're zoned for good schools?:


So share with us now, what are YOUR new favorite things?

The Frosting Incident and Other Stories

Hello dear Family & Friends! Last week was spent feeling mostly overwhelmed and with too much stuff to do. I may have been heard saying, "Dude, if anyone asks me to do ONE MORE THING, I'm going to loose it." And when I reached my limit & started saying, "Sorry, no," then I felt guilty. And then I overcompensated. Which explains how children ended up with frosting facials. I was making "Value Colored" cupcakes for a special meeting with the youth at church. I was also wondering if swearing under your breath while trying to be of service takes away blessings. Especially if the theme of the meeting is:"Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:9; italics added). Well, shoot.

But all my commitments are almost ALMOST finished, and then we can concentrate on the PARTY THIS WEEK! (Eight more people in this house? Really? And two of them are Gretchen & Matia? Should be an adventure...)

Pretty Princesses

Today was Stake Conference, so instead of regular church (where Gretchen's reign of terror in the nursery is slowly morphing into an easy dictatorship) we had a two hour meeting with all the local congregations. You sit on folding chairs* in a darkened room (cause there are so many people there, they use a projector & extra TVs so everyone can watch the talks) for TWO HOURS. What do you do in a dark room with two small children and hundreds of witnesses? You do a lot of coloring. And then play with some dolls. And then eat some snacks. And then draw some more.

Here's Ella as a princess, eating a tortilla chip. Then Ella drew some princesses too.



Huh, what's that on the princess?



Um, it's the PRINCESS SLEEVES. (Gross, what did you think it was?)



There was a girl in front of us coloring this month's coloring page from The Friend Magazine. It just happens to depict Lismarie and her sweet family pushing an old lady in a wheelchair. I so wanted to say, "Hey little girl! I totally drew that! And that's my BFF Lismarie and her family!" But I knew what would happen. She's look at me all weird and think, "Ok, strange lady. I'm going to turn around now and grab my mom's arm." So I refrained. But I couldn't refrain from telling you, dear friends and family. THERE WAS A GIRL IN FRONT OF US COLORING MY COLORING PAGE! IT WAS SO COOL! And I've only got one more picture left before my reign as Official Coloring Page Artist is over. Sigh. It was a good two years.


*Technically, people at the front in the chapel get to sit on nice upholstered benches. But to get those seats, you need to be early (overachievers!). And then when you inevitably have to get up in the middle of the program, the hundreds of people there get to watch you try to wind your way down the aisle while balancing a gyrating, screaming toddler, trying to keep her flailing feet from kicking everyone's heads.

Christmas Gift Assignments

Sorry to our friends reading this blog, this is purely a bizness post. Here are the Stott Family Gift Assignments for this year's Christmas Exchange. Our budget is $30. The theme is "Awesomeness".

Angel is buying for Dan
Shea is buying for Ian
Colby is buying for Meghan
Apryl is buying for Krista
Amber is buying for Shea
Dan is buying for Angel
Tyler is buying for Amber
Meghan is buying for Apryl (ha ha! Two years in a row!)
Ian is buying for Colby
Krista is buying for Tyler

You can trade with your siblings if you don't like who you got. But we'll all know come Christmas if you don't follow your assignment.

REMEMBER TO RESPOND BACK WITH WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOUR PRESENT IN THE COMMENT SECTION.

Autumnal Splendor (en backyard)

My so-cheap-it's-practically-disposable-digital-camera is giving me issues this week, so I only have 5 pictures to share. (Collective sigh of relief.)

To start out, here's a Gretchen Classic:



If you visit our house between7 am - 10:08 am weekdays (6:30 am - 3pm on Saturday), this is how you will find Gretchen's hair. We wait until JUST BEFORE WE LEAVE to fix it, because it will inevitably revert to it's "natural state" within 30 minutes. However, she looks really cute when it's back in a pony tail. Maybe one day I'll get a picture of that.

Last week was SO BUSY. We had a playdate EVERY AFTERNOON. So this week we took some time off of playdates (plus, half of our friends are sick or have sick siblings. Not "SWINE FLU 2009 duh-duh-DUH!!!!!!" sick, but we'd rather not get anything thank-you-very-much, so we've become extreme-handwashing-anti-social agoraphobes. It's quite liberating in a never-leave-the-house kind of way.) Our lack of outside stimulation has allowed us to enjoy some of the simpler pleasures.

-Learning how to get your OWN PICKLE out of the fridge! (Good job Ella! Still only one a day. And not before 10am.) (You have to put your foot down somewhere...)

-Colby taking awesome new pictures of Ella in the trash can for photo class. Proof will be forthcoming. His next project may or may not reference this fun pop culture dramatic-sunglass-removing phenomenon:


-Teaching plastic princesses, pirates & goofy the joys of literacy. (Education is power, people. Also, Ice Age Squirrel is a really good teacher.)



-And playing with leaves in the backyard:




Oh my gosh, you guys. Don't you just love taking super-duper cute pictures of your kids in the autumn leaves. And then realize you've actually just documented your slothful mothering because there is SNOT DRIPPING OUT OF YOUR KIDS NOSE? Yup.





PS - Please don't ask why Gretchen is wearing a Sponge Bob Square Pants pajama top.

The Required Halloween Post

So what did y'all do last week? Oh, Halloween? Yeah we did that too. Pretty much all week. And because you know how much we love to dress up, today we went to Target and bought 5 more costumes on clearance for our dress-up-stash. But how smart am I? I'm saving them for Christmas presents. Ha ha! (I know. Genius.)

So remember how much I love Ella's kindergarten teacher? Yes, she is fabulous & amazing & wonderful. They had the most amazing Halloween party on Thursday. I'm pretty sure I heard 3rd graders walking down the hall, complaining about how lame their parties were compared to the awesomeness that was Ella's class party. They decorated pumpkins (that they got at the pumpkin patch on their FIRST FIELD TRIP EVER on Monday. Bus ride and everything. They even had matching tie-dyed shirts, though since they wear a uniform anyway, I wasn't sure why they needed matching tie-dyed shirts.....but still fun.) They made spider hats. They put chocolate pudding and gummy worms in cups and ate them. They played musical chairs. And they had a DANCE OFF. Seriously, I love her teacher. Kindergarten dance-offs are just as amazing as 5-year-old-birthday-party dance offs. One kid even tried some break-dancing moves. (TRIED.) Love.

Also, I did catch Gretchen stealing treats off kids plates at the party. How many times? THREE TIMES. (I was "helping" with the pumpkin painting station and otherwise occupied. 5 year-olds wielding paint is a dangerous thing. But so is Gretchen...)



We got a picture of Ella with her teacher in costume. Even though this is only what Ella was for her first Halloween party. There were 4 costumes in all this year.



For our SECOND Halloween party, we went to the church's Trunk or Treat. Everyone (well, in this case, about 10 cars. Bad turnout.) shows up in the parking lot and the kids go from car to car and collect candy. Wham bam, thank you mam, thirty minutes later you come home with a bunch of candy. Short & sweet.

Gretchen is powering through her tears in this photo to smile for the camera. Shocking, but I don't remember what was upsetting her. I probably took away yet another piece of candy that she somehow aquired. This kid has Mutant-Powered-Candy-Sense. It's her super-power.



For Ella's 2nd Halloween appearance, she was a cat.



We finally got around to carving our pumpkins 2 hours before Halloween. How cute is this? She drew that "scary" face all by herself.



She's actually only kidding about being mad in this picture....



...but not in this one. (I took away the blue sharpie. Blue sharpie + Gretchen = BAD IDEA.) But Ella was happy.






Dressing up as a kitty is the easiest costume ever. Kudos to Aunt Terry for giving me the MOST AWESOME leopard print coat ever. I love you Aunt Terry!



We went to our friends house for dinner and Trick Or Treating.



Their oldest son, "Hank", earned his keep by scaring small children. And a lot of moms. We didn't have to wait for the doorbell, we just listened for screams of petrified trick-or-treaters.



Did anyone notice that in none of Ella's Halloween Appearances, was she Casper The Friendly
Ghost? Yeah. So much for planning ahead.

Gretchen Extreme Closeup.



HAPPY HALLOWEENIE!!!!