Little Cougar

This girl cracks me up. Julia's been really into having me spell words out for her recently. Our conversation today before our nap:

Julia: How do you spell "me"?
Me: M-E
Julia: How do you spell "you"?
Me: Y-O-U
Julia: How do you spell "BYU"?
Me: Umm, Julia that is...never mind. B-Y-U.
Julia: How do you spell "Go Cougars!"?

A fitting picture would be one with her BYU shirt on, but I don't have one handy, so here she is pretending to be a princess. She was feeling very girly with her tiara, pink glow necklace and ruffled pink shirt and asked me to take a picture of her being pretty.

A little more Christmas and New Year's Eve

Since we went to the Sandberg's house the day after Christmas they just waited for us to exchange gifts.

My sister-in-law Ashley just had surgery so we all went over to their house to celebrate Christmas with her. She wasn't up to taking any pictures so we didn't take any pictures of the in-laws.

For New Year's Eve my parent's had a lot of family members over for a party at their house to celebrate New Years East Coast time so Robert and I wouldn't be up too late and could catch our flight back home the next day. We had a pinata for the little kids. I love seeing Julia's changing reactions to the pinata's throughout the years. This time, the first candy that fell out Julia picked up and put back in the pinata =).
Julia made it to about 9:20 pm and then asked to go to bed. We ended up staying past midnight anyways playing games.

The gang:

Some fun with the Wheats

Just a few more random pictures of our time over Christmas with the Wheats. Above, Julia and I also went sledding together a few times (down a very small hill).

Mostly I did a lot of snowshoeing. I was really proud of myself for going for a walk every day we were there. The trend didn't last long after we left Park City though.

Robert and I enjoy a sunset. Do I even look pregnant under all those layers?

We still did a lot of snowmobiling even though the snow level was pitiful. Still, there was just enough snow that we could. We were probably one of the few people who had a white Christmas this year.Here's a couple videos of the snowmobiling. We had fun making this one of Kevin and Ellen's close call on the snowmobile.


In case you're wondering what was going on, it's made with an iphone app.

Robert has been wanting to come down this steep hill with the snowmobile every year, so finally he did it this year. This is actually video of his second time down. He got a little cocky and went faster the second time, resulting in decreased steering ability and he ended up going through a bunch of branches and scratching his nose rather than staying on the path from the first time because he couldn't turn in time.

Would you have even been able to tell something was slightly amiss if you hadn't just read it?

Temple Lights

This Christmas we went to see the Christmas lights at three different temples. I already posted about Washington D.C., so here are Los Angeles and Salt Lake.

We went with Steve and Wendy and family to hear a Bell Choir performance at the Los Angeles Temple Visitor's center and then saw the lights (It was our first time hearing a Bell Choir so that was pretty neat too.)

We were only in LA for a few days and then we went to Utah. After Christmas with the Wheat family we spent a week with my family. Robert and I got to do a session in the Salt Lake Temple, and then we waited for the rest of my family to join us with Julia.

So here's me alone while we waited for my family.

Then my parents and a bunch of cousins and aunts showed up and we saw the rest of temple square together.

Then to warm up we went to the Church History Museum across from temple square and Julia had fun in the new(ish) children s discovery area.

Playing in the play kitchen.
Knocking down the prison walls?
Fishing on the boat on the way to the promised land.

Poor Julia will never be mistaken as a Mexican even though she actually is 1/4 Mexican.

Christmas Morning

Looking down at the Christmas tree, stockings, presents, and lack of cookies. "I think Santa ate the cookies!"

"Santa knew I wanted a train!" (He also left some larger gifts for her at home in Arlington that she found when we got home. Santa knows big tubs of legos don't fit in suitcases, but small train sets do.)

After playing with her train a little she moved on to her stocking, and then my stocking, and grandpa's stocking, and Robert's stocking.

She took everyone's candy cane they got in their stockings and put them on the Christmas tree.

Steve and Wendy got us pillow cases and Julia was really excited to use them right away.

Everyone got kisses in their stockings. Julia wanted to eat one, but before she ate it she said she had to read a scripture first (because we used kisses in our advent calendar and we always read a scripture before we ate the candy.) So grandpa read her from Luke on his iPad.

Fun with Dad

I don't even know where to start with posts about Christmas. So from Christmas afternoon, here's Robert and Julia playing around on the snowmobile and sledding. Julia loved both but only for about 5-10 minutes each.

Earlier in the week when we first got up to the cabin and we had to get ready to get on the snowmobiles I had to wake Julia up because she had fallen asleep in her car seat. I told her we were going to ride up to the cabin on the snowmobile. She wanted to know if we were going to ride the pink snowmobile. When I told her we only had the yellow snowmobiles she looked out the window and started to cry "but I'm not a boy!"

So after that we made sure she got to ride her pink snowmobile whenever she went out.