Now We Love The Yankees

Gretchen caught a cold last week that has slowly lingered. We had a slow week trying to take it easy and get better. Just when I thought things were looking up, I got hit with it Saturday morning. (I think it's a combination of not enough sleep and Gretchen's fabulous open-mouth kisses. Thanks sweetie.) Colby took the girls sledding yesterday morning and I slept in. Till one p.m. It was AMAZING. Like I was in college. Also, apparently I was tired.

To make it up to the girls in a way that wouldn't require much effort on my part (three cheers for laziness!!!) I let the girls do my makeup. It started out nice. Then it got a little less nice. Then came the face painting sticks:



I think the mustache was a nice touch. Thanks girls. (See Gretchen's little hand putting the finishing touches on me?)

Don't worry, she wasn't left out:



Remember the days when she was so sweet and quiet?



It's like she & Ella have switched personalities.



While we were in California, Poppa Randy (my dad) gave us a box of amazing old photos. His dad died when he was about 12. His parents divorced before that, so he didn't know his father very well. He looked up his paternal grandmother in the 80's and got back in touch with that side of the family. She gave him a box of TREASURES.

It's amazing that I never knew my Grandpa, but that I love him so much. Look how handsome!



Grandma got married at 17 (right? Correct me if I'm wrong...) Look at this picture. I'm pretty sure this is what she's thinking: I'M GETTING MARRRRRRRIED!!!!!!!! Hee hee hee!!!!


She told me that Billie Dee was a Big Man On Campus. She was sooooo in love. But it didn't work out. And she didn't like to talk about him much.


Finding these pictures is a small miracle. That Dad thought to find his Grandma after 40 years of separation. That she was still alive. That she kept all these mementos and passed on these pictures to him, and now to us. We would never have seen these! (They made Adrianne cry. Ha ha, crybaby.)

Above: I think this is Billie Dee with his Mom, I know they're holding my Dad.

Below: The back of the picture has this cryptic message, "Grandmother on right. Reba (I'm assuming she's the one on the left) married Sleepy." Look at those dresses. Isn't this picture gorgeous????



Adrianne & I have both made goals to do more family history work, so this was all so very fortuitious. We'd gotten onto the excellent church genealogy site new.familysearch.org. You can search for an ancestor (because of privacy, it's got to be someone who's passed away) and it'll link you in to see work that other people in the church have done on that line (if you have other LDS family members, that is). It is FASCINATING. And let me tell you, we have some serious geneology buffs on both sides of my family (Aunt Bonnie has allegedly traced us back to Adam & Eve). A lot of the work that she's done is now being put online by another family member. Just messing around, Adrianne & I followed one line back to THE KING OF FRANCE, circa 1200. Adrianne and I looked at eachother and said in as simpering a voice as we could muster, "I always knew I was a princess!" (Sorry Brooke Shields, we are totally mocking you. Because yes, if we all go back far enough, we're all princesses.) (Did anyone else see that "Who Do You Think You Are" show with her family history?)

Later that night we were telling Dad about it. He said, "You know, you're great great Grandpa was in the NY Yankees."

"What?"

"OMG, that's WAY cooler than being a descendant of Charlemagne!"

"I know, right? That's like the GOLDEN AGE of baseball. Back when they wore knickers. So much cooler."

So now we're totally Yankee fans.



If you are LDS and haven't gone onto new.familysearch.org, DO IT TODAY! (But you need your membership # to get an account. So if you don't have it, see your ward clerk and DO IT NEXT WEEK! Then call you grandma and get some birth and death dates of your great grandparents. Then GO TO TOWN!!! So fun!)

If you aren't LDS, there's also a fabulous family history site called FamilySearch.org. It's FREE!!! And it's amazing. I love our church.

Roundup!

Hello Friends and Family! We kind of dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks. But rest assured, we're alive and sassy (well, Ella and Gretchen are. Colby and I are mostly just alive...)

How was your Christmas? Ours was good. We enjoyed Uncle Aaron & Aunt B's hospitality in SoCal. But we did NOT enjoy the non-stop rain. Or that Adrianne and Mike and the Duffys got evacuated out of the house because the neighborhood was flooding. (Dude!) Ella really wanted to go to the Getty Museum again and I wanted to take the girls to play in the sand at the beach, but alas, neither happened. We were officially rained out. But at least it finally stopped. Just in time for us to pack up and leave.

It wasn't all a soggy mess, Aaron & B's house was super fun (as always) and we watched movies, played video games & played and played and played with cousins.

AND GRETCHEN TURNED THREE!!!!!

At Chuckee Cheeses. (As she'll tell you if you ask her age. "I'm three at Chuckee Cheese's.")

What I love about this picture is that Super Fun Uncle Mike is holding Gretchen upside-down, and Grandma Diana is trying so hard not to freak out! Look at her hand. "Uhhhhh...Mike???!?!?!" (Love you Mom!)


High Fives for blowing out the candles.



Awwww....



This is the Cinderella Wedding Dress (as seen on clearance at the Disney Store after Halloween). Gretchen's new nickname is "Bridezilla".


Nana Joy totally won the horse race.


Sisters doing sister-things together. (I couldn't tell you what they're doing, but they're entertained...)


Clifford!


And apparently we didn't get any Christmas Pictures. But rest assured, Santa came, the voice-changer toy he brought was a hit, we all laughed at Ella and Gretchen's Robot Voices, and then it was promptly hidden so that we didn't go crazy. They also got other stuff. I'm hoping we'll remember it all to do Thank Yous. If we don't and you're reading this, "Thank you for the present! That was so nice!" (So heartfelt, I know. Also, as my extended Christmas Gift to you, don't worry about sending me any Thank Yous. I gave you a gift because I love you. Lets just leave it at that...)

Poppa Randy brought the girls GIGANTIC GINGERBREAD MEN to decorate. There may or may not still be one on our kitchen counter.



Colby asked for and got a bunch of camera equipment for Christmas. Merry Christmas to both of us! He gets new toys, and I get lovely photos of our girls. Just messing around he got these two gems.




Happy 2nd week of January Friends! Love love love!

BIG SIGH OF RELIEF

I'm so happy. We made it through last week with it's massive To-Do list and the four Christmas parties. Now I can sit back and relax (and course you know by "relax" I mean run around and finish everything I need to do before we leave for Uncle Aaron's on Friday, right? And figure out how to fit all of Christmas + four suitcases into our trunk.) Still, this week was pretty good.

-I got another freelance job from my favorite client, a Hidden Picture puzzle of kids in Singing Time. And it's a puzzle proposal that I sent to them November of last year. So it's totally an Apryl Stott Original, written and illustrated. Hooray for me!

-I've listened to the Christmas Mix cd so much this week that the girls know the words to the songs (now it's time to make a NEW mix cd!) And Colby got to listen to it every time he was in my car. In case anyone ever thought that we share the same taste in music, apparently we don't. And apparently all I like is, "Lame emo crap." Whatevs. He's the one who said "Our Song" was Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". That's like the ORIGINAL emo.

-The First Graders at Ella's school had a "Winter Performance". We showed up 5 minutes late. It was over 5 minutes after that. It was only TEN MINUTES LONG!!! This should be the new standard for school performances. Except we should get there in time. (Poor Ella was so nervous about the performance. Did she have a speaking part? No. She was supposed to sing "Jingle Bells" with the rest of the first grade. That's it. And stand there. Apparently she does NOT have a stage career in her future.)

-Our new Family Performance Art Project (what, you don't have one of those?) is to put pictures of Colby into unsuspecting friends picture frames when they're not looking (you know, when they invite us over for dinner & are nice and naieve enough to leave us in a room unsupervised). Our friends had a frame hung up in their living room with the original model-family (the picture the frame came with). We replaced it with a nice 8x10 of Mr. Stott. It's been 24 hours. Apparently they haven't noticed yet. I'll give it a week.

But the best thing about this past week? It's DONE!!!

So what's YOUR Family Performance Art Project?

and so the holidays begin....

Ella made us this handy little map for our Thanksgiving trip. We totally followed it too.



The drive was so cold. How cold? When Colby went to wash the back window at McDonalds/Gas Station stop (as seen on map above), the water froze before he could clean off the window. That, my friends, is too cold.

We enjoyed a stay at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Baby Skye & Baby Kait are BFF-Cousins, and Gretchen loved them so.



(My favorite part of this pic isn't Gretchen's "Intense" face, it's Kait jumping on the bed inches from Skye's head.)


We had a few fun activities, the coldest being a trip to Temple Square. Here Grandpa holds the babies, who are probably wondering what possessed us to drag through sub-freezing temperatures to look at....Christmas lights.



Ella's Primary asked for a picture of her for a craft they're making. I can't find a good one! She's constantly doing stuff like this:


Grandpa, Thanksgiving is SO AWESOME, right?


Yes, yes it is.


We tried to take a family picture for Great Grandpa. Here's the best one:


And here's the 2nd best one:


Now we get to prepare for this:


And friends, let me tell you, it's been a little crazy here. Yesterday BEFORE NOON we'd:

-Had a major temper tantrum on the walk to Breakfast With Santa (Ella! Not Gretchen! She doesn't do it often, but when she does WATCH OUT!!! I promptly dragged her home and left her with Dad. Why was she so upset? She didn't like how baggy her new tights were. I understand that baggy tights can be frustrating, my darling child, but REALLY!?!?!?!?) And so....

-....Gretchen and I enjoyed Breakfast With Santa with our peeps. Donuts and OJ, Booya!

-Did the free craft at Home Depot

-Went to the church for a baptism

-Ran to the store because there were no refreshments and theYW were supposed to provide them! Ahhhhhh!

-Set up refreshments.

-Sighed with relief and checked to see when we could all go to bed.

But we didn't go to bed, instead we went home and cleaned and watched Doctor Who and cleaned and went to a church Christmas Party. And how many church Christmas parties are there this year? Three. THREE!!! Next up, the Relief Society Christmas Dinner. Oh my word, people! This is not keeping things simple! Plus on Friday is Ella's school Christmas program, plus Girl Scouts party, plus the school's "Holly Fest". No one can accuse us of letting Christmas get away un-celebrated.

This week I'm trying to ship out my Christmas Mix Cd-Presents, Christmas Cards & Christmas Mailers. WISH ME LUCK. What are YOU trying to get done this week. Because OMG, we have 20 days left!!! (Don't worry, it's really not that bad. This is the last bit of stuff I have to do & then I'm DONE! Yay!) (And yes, I realize I do this all to myself. I can only blame myself. It's all good.)

PS - I have to tell you what Gretchen did yesterday. She was wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress (of course), and as I tucked her in for her nap she said, "No mom! No blanket. Like Sleeping Beauty."
"Doesn't Sleeping Beauty use a blanket?"
"No. Like this," she said, covering only her feet. I obliged and then she said, "No Mom. I need flowers." I handed her some silk flowers we have (they have a very girly room). She grasped them in her hands and laid down the sleep, looking just as dramatic as this:

(And yes, this is a screenshot of Anne of Green Gables, where Anne reenacts "The Lady of Shallot". The drama runs deep.)

GOOD LUCK this week! Lets all try real hard to say "No" when anyone asks us to do anything else, and spend more time at home. Because really, we don't NEED to do all this stuff, right? Ok! (Yeah, like I'll really listen to my own advice!)

Dancy Pants

A wonderful thing happened again. Ella's school threw another dance!!! Hooray!!! Remember last years? Watching kids dance to Michael Jackson is so entertaining, they should make a TV show about it. I would watch that on hulu (and not just because I've run out of things to watch and have moved onto teen Korean soap operas.)



And yes, there was another Conga Line. Woot!





With staying up dancing till the crack of 8:30 pm, you'd think Gretchen would want to sleep in a little. But no. She woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning. Which means I got to take a SUPER CRABBY KID with me on a DAY OF FUN! Ella's girl scout troop had gathered supplies for the animal shelter. We dropped all the donations off and got a grand tour. Usually the shelter is full of an overwhelming amount of pitbulls, pitbulls and more pitbulls, but this time there was an actual variety! There was even a weiner dog (that had lost 21 lbs since being rescued. Dude! That was one fat weiner dog!) and a dalmation. Awwww! (Nothing against pitbulls. They just seem to be the dog that needs the most rescuing. Poor things.) Here's Gretchen communing with the puppies:



And Ella literally jumping up and down, she's so excited about the dogs. (I made her stop, don't worry.)


After the shelter tour, we went to an indoor inflatable toy place. (Does that even make sense? You know what I mean, don't you?) Gretchen really enjoyed the ball pool. It was just a baby pool filled with balls, so it wasn't as scary as the 3' deep ones where nasty grossness can get lost there. Just after I took this picture, guess what she said:

"Mom! Where's my gum!"

Don't worry, we found it. And I made sure all gum was properly disposed of. (I didn't even REALIZE she had gum in her mouth! Surprise!)

It snowed on Friday night. The weather reports had prepared me for a foot of snow on the valley floor. I think we may have gotten two inches. It was nice. Pretty, but quickly melting. We got to walk around in it a bit. Ella observed that when you walk on snow it, "...sounds like someone is farting." That's right, sweetheart. Now lets go make some hot chocolate.

This week we're making the trek out to Grandma & Grandpa's house. I'm attempting to finish all the Utah Stott Christmas Presents before we leave. Part of that is my annual Christmas Photo Ornament gift for Grandma & Grandpa. I'm not going to show the REAL one, just the ones that didn't make the cut:



Oh for cute.



So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Movin' On Up

Hello Friends!

Remember how we moved and I had to scrounge around for kitchen supplies because ours were buried in the back of the storage unit? And how we've been eating with plastic silverware for eight months? WE NOW HAVE SILVERWARE!!! I know. Don't be intimidated by our awesomeness. I threw away all the plastic knives and most the plastic forks (you served us well, but now you must leave). But I kept the spoons. They are at a premium. We always run out of spoons. And, get this, we have a SILVERWARE DRAWER ORGANIZER! I know, we are so fancy. No more kitchen towel-lined drawer full of random plasticware. Ella opened the drawer in search of a spoon and said, "Wow!!!" Yeah. It is pretty great. Every time I eat cereal I get a little thrill now.

A couple months ago Auntie Amber & Uncle Dan gave us their old TV. And by old TV, I mean 62" flat screen behemoth. It wasn't completely working, but rather than throwing it out they offered it to us if we wanted to deal with fixing it. It's finally fixed (Colby is awesome), and it literally takes up half our living room. It is MASSIVE. But let me tell you, I've never had so much fun watching TV. Who says that things can't bring you happiness. TV has totally brought our family together this week. Ella & Colby were bonding over the 4-wheeler racing game. We watched the first four episodes of Doctor Who, Season Five. It is lovely.

Our little apartment just keeps getting fancier and fancier.

So what are you excited about? Thanksgiving is so soon, can you even believe it? I know!

Fire Station Private Tour

Hello family and friends! How was your week? Ours was pretty good. The obvious highlight in our lives was the fire station. Julie, mother of John John, set up a Private Tour for us. (Does that sound exciting? Oh yes, it WAS exciting. And Gretchen was doing a lot of flirting. What can I say, she likes a man in uniform. Especially a super friendly man who can cook her mac&cheese in his Fire Station Kitchen.)

I took over 150 photos, but edited it down to about 80. One thing you may know about me, I am EXTREMELY picture happy. But I can't help it. Cause look at how cute they were. Awwwwwwww! (Aren't Gretchen & John John the sweetest thing ever when she's not trying to sever one of his fingers with her teeth? I know! His fireman outfit is classic.) (Don't worry, I'm only going to make you look at 4/80 fire station pictures.)



Oh yeah. She liked driving that engine.



The firemen were so great with our loud, rambunctious children. They let each one "drive" an engine, put the headphones on them and talked to them through the mouthpiece (until Gretchen & Cora thought it'd be fun to scream in it. That game didn't last long...), dressed up in all their gear and had the kids hug them. So sweet. (Did you know that we're supposed to tell our kids to give fire men hugs if they see them in a fire? Kids get scared of the firemen when they're decked out in all their gear & will hide in a burning house to get away from them. That makes me want to cry just thinking about it. That's why they do so many tours and school visits, to teach kids that they're not Darth-Vader-Breathing-Monsters when they have their masks on.) Turns out that TWO of the firemen were single. We're totally sending Auntie Krista over there with a plate of Thank-You-Cookies from us. (You can thank Becky for finding that tidbit out. She casually asked, "Y'all are so great with kids! Do you have kids of your own?" That sneaky, clever Becky... Krista, get on it.)

Here's the whole group getting cute with the fire fighters. Gretchen was really into making that awesome face.



See? She did it in every group picture I took of her.



It's not that she doesn't want me to see her face...



It's that she thinks she's hilarious.



Lest you think we ignored our other child this week, I will share that Ella had a sleepover with her BFF while her parents went to something called "Fantasies In Chocolate". I don't know what exactly that is, but I want to go to there. We didn't go to there, but we still had fun. But we were too busy painting nails and watching movies to take any pictures.

Colby and I finally sat down and made some decisions on local issues so we could vote on Tuesday. It made me so proud when we left the junior high with our "I Voted" stickers. I've been reading "Little Bee" for my online book club and that's put some things into perspective. We are really lucky to live in a democratic country. What a blessing. Even if things aren't overwhelmingly great right now, and by no means is our country perfect, it's still pretty much amazing. And no matter how crazy I think my life is sometimes, it could be SO MUCH WORSE! (I'm not sure if I can recommend Little Bee to you yet or not. I have to finish it first. It's given me two nightmares already. It is intense. Beautifully written, but intense.)

Can you believe Thanksgiving is in a few weeks? Did you remember to change your clocks this morning? Share with us! We want to hear!

xoxo