A New Chapter

We are starting a new chapter in our lives, we are moving to Utah! Robert will be starting a new job in Murray, Utah on January 27. We are really going to miss all of our friends and family here in Southern California! This week we have especially been thinking that we will be missing the beautiful weather that we always get here.  But we are excited for new adventures in Utah! Julia is especially excited to be closer to grandparents and to play in the snow.

Since we won't have too much time to find a new place to live we will be living with my parents in Saratoga Springs until we can sell our house here in Claremont and find a new one in Utah. Any Utah friend up for a playdate next month?

And did I mention we will miss the weather? Like playing outside in t-shirts in the middle of winter?

Last weekend

Last weekend we went up to San Francisco to watch the BYU bowl game and then headed over to Sacramento to see Robert's Grandma and his Aunt Debbie and their family. The kids had a lot of fun with so many other kids around, and we had a lot of fun visiting and playing games with the adults. Micah was especially good natured because he had so much to entertain him and he even stayed up until 11:00 p.m. one night because the adults were up playing games and he wasn't being grumpy, so I just let him stay up with us.

Here are some pictures from our trip

Year In Review

If you have the Google+ App you are able to back up all the pictures and videos on your phone onto your Google account. This year the Google team automatically made little year in review videos for everyone with your backed up files. I really liked mine so I would like to share it with everyone, even those without Google+, but sadly I haven't figured out how to. So here is a link to the video for those who have a Google account, and if you don't have an account, maybe you should get one!

Year in Review 

Update: Looks like if  you don't have Google + the link takes you to my Google+ page, you'll have to find it on the page.

Update II: Kevin showed me how to embed the Google+ post. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Last of the Christmas Activities

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Just a few more things that we have been doing to celebrate Christmas this year:

We went to a living Nativity at a nearby church. They had a series of dramatized scenes about the Nativity story that you walked through. It was a little long for us I think, but a nice way to remember what the Christmas season is all about. Here is Julia at the end with the living Nativity scene. Baby Jesus was a doll though!

Micah stole my phone during the King Harod and the Wise Men scene and took a bunch of selfies.

We made orange chocolate Christmas tree suckers. Orange because it was on sale after Halloween. Micah learned a new word because of it, "Sucker." He would walk into the kitchen where we had them displayed until they were gone and yell, "Sucker Sucker Sucker!"

Not really Christmasy, but Micah decided one morning that he was going to make us pancakes.

In reality, we had already eaten our pancakes and the griddle was already cold. These leftover pancakes were sitting in a tupperware next to the griddle. So after Micah finished his breakfast he saw everything still sitting out and dragged over the stool, took the leftovers out of the tupperware, put them on the griddle, and started flipping them like he sees me do. He always wants to be "helping" and he keeps a close eye on everything we do so he can imitate. He is very much his father's son in that he always needs to be doing something productive.

Camden's catching up to Micah! Camden is in his 6 mo. clothes, and Micah still wears some 12 mo. clothes (although mostly he wears 18 mos.)

The the Winnie The Pooh outfit that the other two wore at 6 months old.

Making gingerbread houses. Again, Micah watched Julia and followed right along decorating.

And last, for FHE last night we drove around and saw the lights in Claremont, while eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. This house has music to go along with the light display, so we let the kids out of their car seats and they joined us in the front seat to watch the show.

Camden Baby Stats

Camden had his two month appointment last week, and although I don't have the actual stats in front of me, we can just say that he is very big. He was 15 lbs. (95 per), 22 in. (somewhere around 35 per.) I believe and had a 95 per head circumference as well. He is the biggest baby so far, but he is growing at the same pace the other two did, he just had a head start being 8 lbs 13 oz when he was born.

He was the best so far with his two months shots. He gave me the surprised, why did you let them hurt me cry when he got his shots and then was just extra sleepy all day.

He is a great sleeper at night, usually falls asleep around 10:00 and just wakes up once around 4:00 a.m. He is getting better at having one big nap during the day, but usually he just takes little 20 minute naps and wakes up again. He loves it when someone pays attention to him and gets all smiley when you talk to him.

The other two at two months:

Micah's stats

Julia's stats

Julia's Preschool Program

Wherein we learned Julia's pretty short, and loves being in the limelight.

Ward Christmas Party

Some pictures from our ward Christmas party last Saturday. We had a great time. The best part was they started it at 5:00 p.m. so we got home in time to put the kids to bed before their bedtime!

Pretty typical these days, one on each arm.

They both really liked, or at least did not dislike, sitting on Santa's lap.

I just had to throw this in because one day he is going to be embarrassed that he always had his finger in his nose. Well, he is a boy, maybe not.

Julia refused to sit on Santa's lap and ran away and hid behind a Christmas tree. She said Santa is scary. I told her she needed to come tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She said she already did (at the Mar Vista Ward party the week before). So I told her, "okay, let's go make crafts then" to which Julia replied, "NO, I don't want to sit on Santa's lap! Wait, what did you say?"

Micah enjoyed his candy cane that Santa gave him. Micah is crazy about candy.

 Robert helped Julia with all her crafts while I held Camden and followed Micah around as he explored the gym. Here are Robert and Julia in deep concentration making a gingerbread house.

Julia also did not want to go up and sing with all the primary kids, but I convinced her to go up by telling her I would go with her. We stood on the end and I slowly backed away as they started to sing.

It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yay, the Christmas season is upon us. Some of the fun things we have done so far:

Robert spent the day after Thanksgiving installing electrical outlets outside so we could have a place to plug in our Christmas lights. We have never put up lights before because we have never been home for Christmas, but this year we are staying in Claremont for Christmas so we were both excited to put up some lights this year.

Julia and Micah pretending to be Mary and Joseph using the armrest covers from the couches.

The Nativity sets are out, including the ones for the children to play with. I found this scene last night by the Fischer Price Nativity, the shepherd riding a dump truck followed closely behind by a Hawaiian tourist. Julia informed me this morning that she was pretending the shepherd is Joseph because our Joseph is lost and that is how they got to Bethlehem.

We also went to our friends house, the Haskins, for their annual Christmas Carol Sing-A-Long. We used chimes on the last two songs.

Julia stole my phone and took a bunch of selfies while we were there. Mostly we didn't see her at all because as soon as we got there she was off running around with the other kids.

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 We also went to the Nativity Festival at an LDS church nearby where they had over a thousand nativities as well children's activities.

 I think he was about to smile but I caught him midway into it.

We got out all the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but finally got the tree up on Sunday night.

Last Saturday Robert and I went to his work Christmas party at LA Live (Yay! First date night since the baby.) while the Steve and Wendy Wheat family watched our kids. It was their ward party so our kids got to see Santa too. They must have worn Camden out because that night he slept from like 10:30 to 5:00 a.m. and although he hasn't slept quite as long since, he is going five or six hours straight.

And here we are back at Daniel and Amanda's before we left for the ward party.

Micah's not quite sure what to think.