My First Scrub Hat...

So this is my friend Lindsey who is in the anesthesia program with me. Her and her husband Bryan came over to give us some apple butter that she made and also brought us some pretzels and chocolate chips to make cute reindeer cookies with our kids.



For Christmas I gave her this scrub hat and of course had to buy one for myself as well. Here we are in our very first scrub hats!!


Here's Lindsey and Bryan in our hats.

Another Snow Day...this time in shorts!!

The weather is just sooo crazy here. It snowed yesterday a pretty fair amount and now the kids and Blake are outside playing in it while it's almost 60 degrees outside!! Blake and Gage are out there in shorts! We had Alyssa and Brendan Crowther over to enjoy in the snow fun. If you look close you can see the snowball Blake threw at Max and Brendan flying through the air.




Are we ghetto or what?? Somehow we didn't bring any sleds or tubes with us and poor little Eliza is trying to sled in a garbage bag and even on a cookie sheet! So sorry looking, I know...but she still seemed to have fun trying to get down the hill tube or no tube.




Gage is trying to join in the cookie sheet madness. We found they don't slide to well even with a little pan spray so Blake was trying to give him some speed! That didn't work out so well either though.



So he decided to try his luck with cookie sheet snowboarding. First with two pans...


...and then one. Neither method was as easy as you might think. Needless to say he ended up on his bum and knees A LOT!



Max ran around throwing snowballs and just having fun, but he never wanted to get in on any of the cookie sheet action. He was having to much fun just doing his own thing and playing with Brendan.

Tiffany Came To Visit - YAY!!

My sweet, dear friend Tiffany came to visit me! It was very touch and go for a minute because of course the weekend she is coming it decided to snow the day before her arrival. Well I already mentioned how crazy they are about snow here and flights were all grounded until further notice. It was sooo upsetting, but the next day was sunny and clear and her flight made it in and even on time. We had such a great time catching up. We went out to eat, watched movies, she helped me shop for and wrap Christmas gifts, and just hung out having fun. It was a great time and I can't wait for summer when she'll hopefully come out for another visit!! Good thing she's such a great friend and is willing to always come out here. I definitely couldn't make a trip back to Utah right now. I'll have to do some major paybacks once school is over!

NC's first snow of the season

Today was the very first snow of the season! It is so weird, mid December and just now getting snow. Our kids were still wearing shorts just last week! I mean no one else was, but our Utah kids were. If it's in the 50's they feel like it is warm enough to wear shorts and a sweatshirt. Crazy kids! Anyways, they were excited to see the snow. They all had a snowball fight while I was at clinical, Blake included. Then Max and Eliza made a snowman. Unfortunately, Blake didn't bring out the camera until after Gage had already gone inside.

I do have to at least mention how crazy these people are here when it snows. I was told ahead of time that we better get to the store because just the mention of snow and all of the milk and bread get sold out. Well I thought they were exaggerating, but Blake went to the store for these amazing sandwiches we occasionally get from the deli and the bakery was closed, and all that was left of the milk was 2% and 1/2%. Not exactly sold out, but pretty close and I've never seen the bakery closed before. Not only that, they let school out two hours early because it was supposed to snow in the afternoon. It hadn't even started snowing yet! On my way home from clinical, it was snowing and had started sticking to the roads. There was maybe an inch of accumulation and people were driving 15 mph!!! I kid you not! I was passing people when I could and I am always the one being passed in Utah. The next day I can't even tell you how many cars I saw pulled over on the side of the highway. It was just crazy. Our neighbors told us that this was a big storm for them and I think we got about four inches - haha. I have to say, I'm not really missing all of the Utah snow yet. When it snowed in October and it was in the 70's here, I was loving it!

Rudolph, is that you??

Eliza's class went caroling and they had all of them wear these cute little Rudolph noses that light up and we bought her some antlers to go along with it. She was sooo cute and loved walking around the house with it on, making that little nose blink.

She also decided, much to Blake's dismay, that she wanted her hair cut short. She was adamant that it just had to be done and there was no changing her mind. Not that I really tried, but Blake did. It's not even really short by most standards, but compared to what it was it was a big change. We cut off about seven inches and I think she looks absolutely adorable with her new do! She feels pretty fancy with it too because we often curl up the ends and we all know how she just LOVES her curlies!!

Christmas Activities

So after we got all two of our Christmas boxes out that we brought with us, I realized that one of the wrong boxes made the trip out to NC. We had our box with all of the Christmas tree decorations, which was definitely a good thing, then the other box was filled with random things. Unfortunately, amongst all the randomness there were no stockings to be found. Well, the kids had also been telling me that they wanted to do some Christmas crafts. I asked them to wait until Saturday and that we would go get some then. Well Saturday came and first thing Max asks is when the store is going to open so we could go buy some crafts. Then a little later he tells me that Eliza loves me the very most, but that when it comes to crafts Grandma Jan is better. Okay so how do you argue that one?? If you know Grandma Jan, she is amazing at having crafts for the kids to do. They love it! Well, I couldn't just let my poor kids down and not get them some fun crafts to do so I got online and saw that Michael's was having a free Saturday craft, which so happened to be....you guessed it, making stockings!!! How perfect! When we got there I knew I would have to end up buying some, they were sooo small. That's okay though, they really enjoyed it and it definitely got them even more in the mood for Christmas crafts. Not that they needed any extra enthusiasm. Okay well maybe Gage did. In his pics he is laughing because he definitely did not want to be there. He came along because he didn't want to be without a stocking, but when he saw how small they were he gave me those eyes of his letting me know that he wished he hadn't come. We both were laughing about it though, it was actually pretty funny. He was trying to act enthusiastic because he didn't want to be rude to the lady that was running the activity, but I could tell he was just trying to get through it. Needless to say, he had enough crafting fun at Michael's and didn't want to make snowflakes and candy canes with us once we got home. Little stinker! Why do they have to grow up??

Are these two twins or what?? Concentrating hard, mouths open, tongues out...yep I think they are.




Max and Lize having a fabulous time...


Some of their handiwork....

Max is so funny! He sometimes gets in the mood for picture taking and had decided that when we got home from church he wanted to take a picture in front of the Christmas tree with his church clothes on and he definitely wanted the tree Grandma Jan made us, the tree that goes in his room, and his gingerbread house in the picture.

Decorating the Christmas Tree...

This is our first year ever having a fake Christmas tree. I can't say I've been converted to having a fake tree from now on though. I still love having the fresh pine scent in the house and going out as a family to pick one out or even better cutting one down. We were trying to be frugal though and when our friends offered to let us have this one, Blake just couldn't resist. It actually worked out really well for us though since this house is hardly big, quite small really. The kids of course didn't seem to mind, they were just thrilled to be able to put up the decorations. I love how into the holidays they get! I hope their enthusiasm for them remains with them forever.



Max and Eliza taking a bow....