Snow

Last week we spent Christmas in Saratoga Springs with my parents. Now we are in Park City for the New Years with Robert's parents his mom's cousin's family. Micah had his first snowmobile ride, into the cabin. He was content being cuddled up next to me under the blanket, watching the scenery go by. Since we came in two days ago he has stayed inside getting carried around by all the girls.

Julia has spent her days sledding, snowmobiling, and playing in the snow. I thought she might get cold and not stay out too long, but I was proven wrong. She comes in only when she has to.

Last of the Pre-Christmas Celebrations

One night for FHE this month we did a "Mini Van Express," an idea straight off of Pinterest, thus the name because we don't even own a mini van. The night we had the FHE we got the kids ready for bed early, and when we went to put Julia to sleep she found a ticket on her pillow, and then one on everyone else's bed. While we were finding the tickets Robert popped us popcorn and made hot chocolate. Then we got everyone to the car, punched a star in the tickets as everyone got in and drove around listening to Christmas music and looking at Christmas lights. It was pretty simple, but Julia loved it. 

Our friends told us about this house in Claremont that goes all out with synchronized lights and music, Julia would clap after every song.

The next weekend we went out to West L.A. and saw the lights at the L.A. Temple.

Then we took the kids over to Steve and Wendy's so they could babysit the kids while Robert and I went on a date! (we don't go on a lot of dates, so it was pretty exciting.) We went to Robert's Holiday work party at the ballroom at Hollywood and Highland.

They had a show during dinner that was Cirque du Soleil-esque with crazy costumes and arcrobats.

Here's a video, kind of long, but you get the idea.

The next day we went over to our friends the Haskins for their annual Christmas Carol Sing-A-Long. They don't look too excited here, but trust me, the boys had a fun time.

And Julia had a great time. She spent the evening running around with all the kids and helping herself to the treats at the treat table whenever she wanted.

Before we left for Utah we opened all the presents under the tree. I love that my kids are both small enough that they get so excited about all their presents even if it's nothing extravagant. All we had was mostly clothes for them, but Julia was super excited for her sparkly shoes and dress and Micah was happy with the wrapping paper :). 

Micah got a board book. He loves to read books with us, it's super cute how he will pay attention for a little while, then he loves to turn the pages.

Julia was being really nice to Micah and letting him help her open all her presents.

Merry Christmas!

The family Christmas "letter" this year. See below or read a PDF copy here.

Eight Wonderful Years

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12•22•12

8 Years. 2 kids. 7 Residences (9 moves). A Whole Lotta Fun

Happy Anniversary to my sweety of eight years today! He makes me so happy and I'm always thinking how lucky I am to have found him. He is a wonderful man, a wonderful husband, and a wonderful father. He never ceases to amaze me with his vast array of knowledge. He could give you advice on everything from plumbing to firearms to finances. And if he doesn't already know about a subject then he will spend the next month, or however long it takes him, researching it until he does know.

2003- At a BYU basketball game in December
 Probably the only picture of us together before we were actually dating. 

He's done a great job transitioning from one kid to two and taking on more responsibility with Julia so I can take care of Micah (and sometimes vice versa). Julia adores him. She says her favorite day of the week is Saturday because that's the day Daddy doesn't have to go to work. She has even broken down in tears on Monday morning when he had to go back to work. Micah also brightens up with a big smile whenever Robert comes home from work and Robert has the gift of being able to put Micah to sleep by just holding him, a gift I wish I had.

2004- Dating, Valentines Day at the Beehive House in SLC

Robert can also make me laugh and catch me off guard with his quirky sense of humor. Okay, so I'll admit that he's not perfect, but he is the imperfect love of my life and I look forward to many more years together   with him on this earth and then onto eternity.

December 2004- Wedding at The Salt Lake Temple. It was snowing, I was freezing, but too happy to care.

For some reason eight years sounds like a long time. Maybe because now we are closer to ten than to five? For us it seems to have flown by, and yet its hard to remember life without each other. Here are some things that I have learned about marriage in the past eight years:

2005- Riding in the rain on top of a minivan in Guatemala because it was too full inside, but also the last transportation across the border to Honduras for the day.

Marriage is not about always being right. Sometimes even if you still disagree with your spouses about something, it's not worth arguing about.

2006- Melarie graduates from BYU

Marriage is about treating the other person how you would like to be treated. If both people are focused on making each other happy, then they will both feel appreciated and happy. Marriage doesn't work if both people are focused on making just themselves happy and ignoring the needs of the other person.

2007- "Surfing" in Hawaii. Robert also graduated this year, but this picture was better : )

Marriages have their ups and downs. This may be shocking, but sometimes, I like my spouse less than other times (like during the first three months of pregnancy when I can't stand the smell of him.) But that's okay because I know that we can work things out, push through the down times, and come out even more in love than we were before.

2008- Machu Picchu

Learn to love your spouse for who they are, a child of God, and not who you want them to be or who you thought they were. Robert and I dated for about a year before we got married and felt like we knew each other pretty well. I remember looking back after our first anniversary and realizing we didn't know each other at all back then. Each year we find out new things about each other. I think the important part was that we know each other's character and the rest was just filling in the gaps. I also think that seeing your spouse as a child of God helps you to forgive them for things they have done wrong and realize that we both need to be in on this whole striving for perfection thing together.

2009- We welcome Julia into our family. Here we are on top of the Seattle Space Needle.

Okay, I could probably think of more, but I hope I haven't bored you yet.  Now you can just enjoy the rest of the Melabert (Melarie and Robert) pictures.

2010- Living in Virginia. In front of the Statue of Liberty during a  trip to New York City.

2011- Hiking in Shenandoah National Park. Pregnant with Micah.

2012- We welcome Micah into our family

December 2012, nine years from the first picture- A family of four (also the year Robert became a mountain man)

December Christmas Celebrations

First off, during the month of November, Robert's group at work (Financial Services) did a Movember (growing facial hair for the month of November) competition for prostate cancer awareness. At the end of the month they all got together and judged who had the fullest growth for the month and who had the most creative growth. Robert toyed around with shaving his beard into some weird mustache and beard combination, but ultimately decided he wasn't quite ready to part with his beard. Shaving it all funky would mean he had to shave it off the next day. So instead he just decided to go for the fullest growth price...and he won! He got a $50 gift certificate to Starbucks.

Then on December 1st we had our ward Christmas Party and Julia and Micah got to sit on Santa's lap. Julia wasn't really excited to sit on this strange man's lap, but she figured she had to get it done so she could tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She got up on his lap and told him she wanted a tea set. Micah wasn't so sure about the whole thing. He kept looking at Santa like "who is this guy?" and not really sure what to think. But his lower lip kept sticking out farther and farther as he got closer and closer to crying. Before he burst into tears though we had taken his picture already so I took him back.

The kids and I also went to a Creche Festival at the Upland LDS Stake Center. They had something like 1,300 Nativities, which was cool to see for a while until Julia got tired of it. Since we went during the day it wasn't crowded at all (there was like two other people there besides the volunteers) Julia had the run of the place. They also had a kids area with Nativities the kids could play with, where kids could color, do a puppet show, make Christmas cards and dress up with a large nativity. Julia liked it so much we stayed there for an hour.

We dressed Micah up like a sheep and Julia like Mary.

And Micah played with puzzles while Julia did other things.

Julia tried out the sheep costume as well.

Here are the Nativities. This one was Julia's favorite. After we looked at this one a missionary came up to us and told us that they put this on so we can remember Christ during the holiday season. Then he asked us if we knew who Christ was and Julia said, "Woodstock!" He was a little confused by that.

And here's a video of us there.

Micah Crawls

Something clicked in Micah's brain this week and he has figured out this whole crawling thing. Now nothing is safe from his reaches and he immediately starts moving for something he sees as soon as we set him down. Also, he hates sitting on my lap now, he would much rather he moving!

He just crawls a couple feet here, but he can go for much farther as long as he sees something he wants. He just got what he wanted here.