Aurelle's One Year Pictures

We were able to go and get Aurelle's one year old pictures taken just over a month ago, and they all turned out so cute!

This is the picture we actually ended up going with, mostly because it is just so classic Aurelle. She is always makeing this face, and I love it and wanted to remember it forever!

Just thought you might like to know that...

Today, at exactly 16 weeks, we were able to find out that we will, in fact, be having another beautiful baby girl!

Since it was just a really short genmder check ultrasound, we decided to bring the girls along with us, especially considering how excited Minnette has been about "Mama's baby-tummy" lately, and on the way to the ultrasound, we were asking Minnette whether she thought it was going to be a baby boy or a baby girl, and she just kept responding, "A baby boy girl!" So I am pretty sure that she didn't really get it, but I thought it was funny, anyway. And when we were getting the ultrasound done, Kyle pointed at the screen where there was a perfect image of a little baby profile and body, and asked Minnette what it was, and she excitedly responded, "A turtle!" Sorry, Minnette, no turtles... just a baby sister! :)

We are so excited for Minnette and Aurelle to have a little sister, especially considering they will all be so close in age! They will be our little three amigos!

Jovi Aloa will be arriving in just over 5 months, and we can not wait!

These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

"And that's just what they'll do..."

Well, actually, they are made for the snow... but Minnette and Aurelle like to pretend that they are for walking around our apartment. It makes me laugh to watch them try and walk wearing my monstrous snow boots, but Minnette is surprisiingly good at it, while poor Aurelle can barely even lift up her feet with them on!

"One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you!"

Pigtails

Aurelle's hair is finally long enough for pigtails!! So now she has been officially added to our daily hair routine. We now have three girls who have to have their hair done before we can leave the house... makes for a late start some days! ;)

Check out those little piggies!

Hair done? Check. Mouth full of cracker? Double check!

Minnette is so funny. She gets so excited whenever I do Aurelle's hair, and starts yelling "Row peetows!!" (traslation: "Aurelle pigtails!") over and over again, and is constantly requesting for mommy to have pigtails, too... maybe next time, Minnette...

Kangaroo Zoo

Now that Utah weather has officially cooled down beyond my liking, the girls and I have had to get creative in finding indoor activities to participate in, that can take up either an entire morning or afternoon, are inexpensive, get us out of the apartment but are still close! One such place that we recently discovered is called Kangaroo Zoo. It is about a 20 minute drive from our apartment with traffic, but totally worth it! It costs about $5 for a huge warehouse filled with at least 15 different inflatable bouncers... seriously, this place is AWESOME, and it provides hours of entertainment for Minnette and there is even a walled-in baby's corner full of toys for Aurelle. Though, when we first arrived it took over an hour to get Minnette actually on any of the bouncers, because for some reason they scared her... she can be so funny sometimes!

Here is the view from the front door:

For that first hour, this is all Minnette would willingly participate in... the baby corner:
Crawling through the tunnel:
Aurelle's turn:

She eventually warmed up to this particular bouncer, and once she did, I couldn't get her to leave it:

Our little Kangaroo:

So if you are ever in Provo to visit (and you have kids, of course), we are so-o taking you to Kangaroo Zoo! It is the perfect get-out-of the-house activity for those way-too-cold-out-for-an-Arizona-girl days!

Salt Lake temple lights

Last Monday, we took the opportunity to head up to Salt Lake for family home evening and walk around and see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. Kyle and I have both gone to see temple lights every single year for Christmas, but never at Temple Square. We were really excited to see what it was like, and since Minnette has recently fallen in love with all things temple and Christmas related(seriously... she can spot a Christmas tree from a mile away, and every time we get in the car to go somewhere, she asks to go to the temple... I'm not entirely sure why... but she is completely crushed and devastated every time we have to tell her that we are going to the grocery store and not the temple... it is so sad and cute! Anyway...), we were so excited for Minnette to see the TEMPLE and CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. She absolutely loved it, and was talking about the temple for days. Aurelle, on the other hand, was not such a happy camper... but that was probably due to the fact that it was about 20 degrees out when we were there! It was so cold!

It definitely got us into the Christmas spirit, and excited to go see the Mesa temple lights while we are in Phoenix (in less than 2 weeks! Eek!), when it will most likely be in the 50's and NOT the 20's! :)

Anyway, here is our little family at Temple Square:

Here is a picture of the Salt Lake temple surrounded by Christmas lights... absolutely beautiful!

Black Friday

These pictures display the extent of our Black Friday shopping. We headed to Wal-mart some time around 10:30 am (the sale ended at 11) and we grabbed some pj's for the girls. You can tell what kind of bargains we're interested in... flat-screen TV? nope. We wanted Pajamas! Woohoo! And that about sums up our life at this point, and we love it!

Here the girls are modeling their matching Sponge Bob pj's... these were technically boy pajamas, but who actually cares, right?

As you can see, it was slightly difficult to get a picture of both of them holding still:

Eventually they both cooperated:
How cute are these two?? Oh boy, do we love these little Sponge Bob twinners!!

Thanksgiving 2010

This year, our little family went solo for Thanksgiving, which means that Kyle and I got to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal by ourselves for the first time! I can't say that it was a complete success, but most of our spread turned out great, and for everything that didn't, we definitely learned a lot for next year! We made waaaay too much food for just the four of us, and just barely threw away the rest of the leftovers that we didn't even want to think about eating after over a week of eating almost nothing but Thanksgiving food!

Here is our little family sitting down for our Thanksgiving meal:

This isn't even all of the food... like I said, way too much! We will definitely be cutting back next time!

And a picture of Kyle's greatest accomplishment of the year: his very first home-made apple pie!

I think it looks beautiful, and it tasted really good, too!

We really missed spending the holiday with family, but over all, it was a great time for our family to reflect on all of our many blessings and eat a lot of really great food! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Oh my...

I'm not even 15 weeks.... and just check out that baby bump! That definitely wasn't there a few weeks ago, I swear! And this picture doesn't even seem to do it justice! Non-maternity clothes already aren't hacking it anymore!

Leaves!

About a month ago, our ward had a playgroup to play in the leaves. Playing in a pile of leaves was one childhood experience that I had never had, growing up in Phoenix and all.. so this was something entirely new to me! Minnette had fun and Aurelle didn't quite know what to think about it.

This picture was supposed to be an action shot. Minnette had just thrown a huge armfull of leaves in the air... you can kind of see them all falling:

Like I said, Aurelle didn't seem too sure about what she was experiencing:

Typical Minnette: standing and watching the other kids play:

And between a giant pile of leaves or a rake, she cooses the latter as her entertainment activity of choice... what a silly girl!

O, Christmas Tree!

Though the date of my finally getting around to posting these pictures may be decieving, we have actually had our Christmas tree up since November 1st! That's right, folks... I love Christmas, and everything about Christmas, and I couldn't live another day without it! And yes, we have been blasting Christmas carols everyday since... and I am still not sick of them! :)

Anyway, we decided to make a family home evening activity out of setting up our Christmas tree, and while Kyle and I were setting it up, Aurelle was being very helpful by moving around our tree supplies, and Minnette was our personal photographer! I must say, she shows a lot of promise! :) Take a look at some of her best work:

These last two, I hate to admit, were my pictures... I know, Minnette could teach me a thing or two! hehe...

Notice how all of the decorations have been hung out of sticky little finger reach!

Oh, how I love Christmas! And guess what?!? There's still a WHOLE month left! ;)