House of Crazies

Ever feel like you live in a house of crazy people? I know I do. Check out these examples.

 

This is Sophie, my mom's very funny, weird dog. Apparently she thought the house was a little too cold and wanted to sit in front of the space heater. I should note, there were sometimes I caught other various members of the family doing the same thing.

 

What? You talking about me?

Sophie also has a new game where she runs over and tries to lick Sammi's face without being caught by either Sammi or a big person.

 

This is JT, my sister's boyfriend. He is a great toy for kids. Although he has this habit of buying random toys and gifts for kids. (Every kid needs a JT.) One night, he tied Ellie's blanket around her neck like a super hero cape. Then he helped her fly. You can't tell from the picture but he is throwing her super high; vaulted ceiling, a 6'8" guy on his knees and her flying above the ceiling fan. 

 

Wee! Do it again.

 One night while making dinner, I returned to Sammi's chair and found this.

Too tired but must eat.

 My mom found this really soft fabric and Ellie begged her to buy it. Then my mom made this pillow for Ellie. (After her cousin saw it, they had to have one too.) After it was finished, Ellie and Sammi had to try it out. Sammi only is allowed small stints of repose, unless she licks the pillow then she's off immediately.

When Ellie picked the pillow up, she grabbed it, shook it and yelled, "It's so fluffy." (She had been watching Despicable Me a little bit.)

Silly sisters.

 Once Sammi started climbing, she was climbing on everything. A couple of times she stood on the dinosaur's head to reach the toy Tupperware and tipped back and fell into it. She cried for help and the first thing daddy did was take her picture.

Help me.

Seriously daddy. I'm stuck.

Occasionally Ellie is not in a good mood when she wakes up from naps. A few times she has gotten mad when I have asked her to do something at which point she yells, "Mom, I'm so ornery."

Ellie loves singing and dancing. She is starting to sing, or try to sing, with songs she hears especially when they come on the radio or on the i-pod. She also is subject to dance moves from her mom, grandma, and Aunt Stef. One time in the car "All the Single Ladies" came on. From the backseat I hear, "Mom, watch this." I turn to see her waving her hands and turning them just like on the music video. (FYI I have only saw the video to compare with the SNL Justin Timberlake/Andy Sandberg version).

We had a very risque version of "I'm sexy and I know it" by a little girl ready for bath time.  Ellie thinks that Winnie the Pooh sings "when I up, down, touch the ground, take me to the moon."  Right now, her favorite song is "Pontoon" by Little Big Town. She knows almost the whole chorus. It makes me laugh to here her sing it.

Sammi is also learning animals sounds. Whenever Reagan (Stef's cat) comes wandering around, Sammi says something that sounds like kitty and then makes an "aaahhhoooww" sound like the cat. She calls Sophie "kitty" as well. When we read the animals sounds book, she "quacks" and "whos".

I love my house of crazies. They are crazies I can handle and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Advertising works

We found out how advertising really does work. The other night the TV was on during dinner. A Quiznos commercial came on for a lobster sandwich of some sort (I wasn't really paying attention). Ellie turns to Jake and asks, "Daddy, do want a sandwich from Quiznos made from... mom what was it made from again?"

Me - "Lobster"

Ellie - "Daddy do you want a sandwich made of lobster from... mom what was the thing with the lobster?"

Me - "Quiznos"

Ellie - "Do you want a sandwich made of lobster from Quiznos?"

Sammi is 9 months.

 I love this little girl. She makes me laugh so hard and I can't believe that she is already 9 months old. 

Sammi's cheeser smile.

She weighs 19.1 lbs and is 29.5 inches long. We have to move her to a convertible car seat soon because she's so long. She crawls, well, you've seen the video. But she does that up and down the hall, to the back room, follows me to the bathroom, etc. The only thing she pulls herself up on are the rungs on the kitchen chairs.

 

She plays with any toy that Ellie is playing with which only makes Ellie upset.  

 

Sammi rolling up in the rugs.

The teeth have started coming in also and she's a cute jack-o-lantern. The front bottom 2 are in, the top side 2 and the left top middle tooth. The right top middle tooth will break through any day now and I can see evidence of the top right, canine.

She is already working hard at communicating. She says "hhhhiiii-yyy" when I walk in to pick her up from nap time. Stef loves her "happy clam" wave. If you're really special, you get the wave and a super cheeser. Sammi jibber-jabbers all the time. Some days it feels like its none stop. Then other days, she replaces the talk with screaming.

Recently Sammi decided that she really doesn't like baby food so she spits it. But since she has only recently got teeth, things were tricky for a little bit. She really has a mind of her own.

I really love this girl. Both of them. They make life so happy and carefree. Some of the best things in my life.

Christmas

Oh how I love Christmas. Although I don't necessarily love the preparations for it though. Scheduling, shopping, long prep time tradition food, etc tend to try my patience so I try to focus on the real reason behind these tedious tasks. Even with the stress I always seem to enjoy the holiday.

 

Christmas Eve we enjoy a quiet dinner at home with some Christmas activities like Nativity bingo. The girls got new matching pj's.

 

The next morning we woke up, got ready, opened a few presents and took off to Wanship for Watterson Christmas.



 

Sammi is excited about her new farm. Can you tell?

 There we had some breakfast and opened presents.

Ellie had to put this on immediately and wore it the rest of the day.

 Some of the kids received new guns for Christmas so we had to go break them in. After shooting some 22's, we moved to the shot guns for clay pigeon shooting. Beware clay pigeons.

Merry Christmas Wattersons.

 After that we came back home for Gledhill Christmas. We ate dinner and opened more presents. Even with Ellie's excitement for her Tinkerbell dress, I think Jake's (and my) excitement for his gift won for the day. Devin made this awesome hitch cover for Jake with the Watterson family crest on it.

Christmas Day was the most relaxing one I have had in a long time. I love my family and am so grateful that Christ was born, lived a perfect life, and completed the Atonement so that I can live with Him and my family again after death.

Families are Forever

I love my family. All of them. We had both sets of family pictures done this year.

 

My family had theirs done just before my brother Jeff left for his mission. My wonderful sister-in-law took the pictures for us up in Wanship.

 

At the beginning of December, we took pictures with the Watterson side. Would you believe these pictures were taken within 50 feet of each other.

 

Are we a great looking bunch?

I am so grateful to know that we are sealed as a family so we can be together for more than just this life. We can be together forever as long as we do our best to keep the commandments of God and allow the Atonement of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from our sins.

Pre-Christmas Celebrations

 

Here I am again, playing catch up. Christmas is almost a full month celebration for us.

First comes the house decorating. Ellie helped Stef put the ornaments on the tree. Ellie actually put Jeff's ornaments since he's not here to do it.

 

Ellie's finished product.

Girls in Santa hats. Sammi really hates stuff on her head.

Later, we decorated gingerbread; a house and a train. Actually Stef, Ellie and I worked on the house while JT took the train on himself.

 

 

Finished house

Finished train

We also made it out to the Festival of Trees. This is almost become tradition. One of the board of directors was one of Jake's professors while he was completing his undergrad. We stopped by to talk with her and she told us that there are similar festivals all over the country but the one here in Utah is the only one run and supported completely by donations; trees, decorations, everything. Other places have tried to figure out how ours work but can't duplicate the results. Yea for Utah.

Next on the list was making candy with the Wattersons. We made it a little late this year cause everyone was sick the first time we tried to get together but we did get together at Kristine's house and made pretzels out our ears. I am so glad I married into a family that I like and that we can spend time doing things we enjoy.

Because of schedules and sickness, we weren't able to head downtown for lights until after Christmas. We still made it. City Creek was gorgeous and Temple Square had more lights than I remember seeing in quite a few years. Sadly, we were short on time and walked them in faster time than I thought was possible. I still loved it.

One thing that really made my holiday season was something Ellie said. A while back, I decided to make some blankets for Primary Children's Hospital. When Ellie asked about the fabric I told her I was making blankets to give to children who were sick and needed them.  Since that point up until the day we delivered them, she kept asking when we could take the blankets to the sick kids. She really helped me stay motivated to keep working on them. She still talks about the time we went to the hospital to give the sick kids blankets.

I love Christmas and family and mixing the two together.

Just for Jeff

This post is specifically for my younger (not little) brother Jeff who is currently serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Michigan. Here is a special shout out to you. Also, I will try really hard to keep my blog updated but in return you can't complain about my lack of letters. I don't have that much time between hearing Ellie say, "mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama" and  chasing Sammi around the house and keeping her from rolling up in mom's rugs or chasing Sophie out of her bed. Besides, not like you wrote me much while I was out.

P.S. I have been trying for the past 20 minutes to add some pictures and add another post or 2 but the site is acting funny. Hopefully by next time I will have something more interesting to read.