Christmas Magic

Christmas is absolutely magical when you have children who believe in Santa. When the girls woke up on Christmas morning they were giddy with excitement. When they saw that Santa had come every word that came out of their mouths was followed by an exclamation point! It was so fun to watch them discover the magic of Christmas morning.

The first big surprise was a pop up tent with a tunnel. They didn't waste any time crawling in to explore.

Then they dumped out their stockings and it's a good thing Santa put some apples in there because that was all we could get them to eat before they jumped into present opening.

Teya was thrilled with everything she got. Brinley was too but I think she liked Teya's stuff a little more. Good thing Teya is good at sharing.

My sister Naomi made this awesome plaque to hold our running medals. And I made Taber a running collage by scanning in all his bibs and putting them together with race pictures to make this cool running frame. Definitely made me excited about the prospect of getting back into running after baby gets here.

I also put together another Blog book for our family. It was interesting to see how my blogging habits have evolved. The first book I made covered 8 months and was 82 pages long. This book only covered 6 months but was 184 pages long! I'm glad I've preserved our memories and have a fun way to look back on our family history. Now I just need to make books to cover 2010!

After all the presents had been opened our living room looked like a bomb had exploded in there. It was pretty awesome. Here's a before and after shot.

The girls spent the morning playing with their presents.

They also spent plenty of time playing in the boxes, which makes me think next year we should buy less toys and just wrap a bunch of boxes!

I also got to use one of my new presents to make us waffles for breakfast! I LOVE my new waffle maker and seriously want to make waffles every morning now. : )

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas, even though it was our first ever without any extended family. I thought it would feel lonely but the girls made it special with all their excitement.

I'll leave you with a cute video of Teya's first reaction to Christmas morning. I just love how she is so excited about everything and literally follows every sentence with an exclamation!

Christmas Eve 2010

This year we were planning on spending Christmas eve with several other families at one of our friends' homes. Unfortunately our hosts came down with the flu the night before and had to cancel. We were a little lost since those were our only plans so we decided very last minute to host everyone at our house instead. I think Taber was excited because it gave him a chance to grill up a turkey, a tradition we started last year in Minnesota.

Their were a few technical difficulties with our grill but Taber was able to figure it all out and the turkey came out beautifully. Perfectly tender and juicy. We also had ham, potatoes, salad, beans, rolls and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was quite the yummy feast!

After dinner the kids got dressed for a live presentation of the Nativity. This year Teya got to be an angel.

And Brinley reprised her role as a sheep. She was quite adorable. : )

Some of the shepherds with a little lamb and angel.

We also had the missionaries join us and they were able to fill in as the wisemen.

The kids did a really great job and it was nice singing Christmas hymns throughout the presentation. Here's the cast posing together at the end.

After our friends left we started getting ready for Santa. The girls sprinkled reindeer food on the porch so the reindeer would have a snack while Santa was inside.

Then we put out cookies for Santa and the girls opened their first presents,which were the gifts they made for each other.

We finally got them to bed around 9. They were soooo excited! Then it was time for "Santa's Helpers" to get to work. It was so much fun getting everything ready. By the end of the night we were tired but excited for the girls to wake up and see what Santa had brought.

One last picture of the room all ready for a magical morning : )

And here's a sweet video of the girls opening their presents for each other. Their reactions are so loving and sincere. It's moments like these that make being a parent so rewarding.

9 years

9 years ago when I was giddily driving away from our wedding reception with my HUSBAND (it was so cool calling him that!) I didn't really know all that marriage would entail. In my twitterpated, star-struck innocence I thought it would be a never ending eternal date full of movie nights, bowling, horse carriage rides, camping, traveling, breakfast in bed, dancing, snuggling, and romance romance romance, ALL THE TIME!

9 years later I can tell you that marriage is a little more involved than that.

For us it has also meant:

-Managing a budget

-Balancing in-laws

-Deciding on a Career

-Disagreeing on things

-Ups and downs of caring for children

-Organizing a household

-Midnight wakings to calm crying babies

-Trips to the urgent care and the ER

-Relocating to different parts of the country far away from family

All that being said, I've also been pleasantly surprised with the benefits of marriage I hadn't considered when I was a newlywed 21 year old. Things like:

-Having my own personal confidence coach and cheerleader

-Experiencing unconditional love

- Not having to go through hard things alone

-Working together to achieve big goals

-Knowing that someone has seen my every flaw and loves me anyway

-Being able to stay home with my children and not having to work

- Never having to worry about finding a date

-Saturday morning family cuddles with the girls in our bed

-And of course, romance romance romance, ALL THE TIME! ; )

Happy Anniversary to my best friend in the world.

We may have changed a bit in the last 9 years but you're still a perfect 10 to me : )

This week...

1) Monty was a good sport. The girls think he is one of their toys, and for the most part he puts up with their agenda for him.

Today he was their baby. I bet he'll be so happy when the real baby comes to keep them distracted.

Look how submissively he just lays in there. Such a good little sport.

2) Taber picked up some new skills at work. Not really HR related but this week he got some practice frying and carving turkeys. He and his plant leadership team fried up turkeys for every shift, I think they did over 25 turkeys in all.

This is what they cooked them in:
And these are the birds. They do this for the employees every quarter. Last time they boiled lobsters. Sometimes I wish they'd come to my house and make me dinner too!

3) We had to have emergency "tree surgery"to save our tree. A few days ago our tree stopped drinking water. Since we've never had a real tree we had no idea what was going on. Turns out the sap had gone to the bottom and clogged it up. Luckily we had the missionaries over and they kindly helped us move the tree, stabilize it, then saw off the bottom to give it a fresh chance to absorb water. Hopefully now it will last through Christmas!

4) And lastly, my good friend Darby came over the other day and noticed this random spot in our family room that I have no idea what to do with. She told me she had a big nativity display that would be perfect for it and asked if I wanted to use it.

She brought it over the other day and tonight we set it up.

I LOVE it!

Seriously it is the cutest thing ever, and I'm happy to finally have a useful purpose for that spot!

Thanks for the loan Darby, and that is the end of my random ramblings for this week. : )

A change in perspective

So I'm down to the last month or so of my pregnancy. I have 5 weeks until my due date and I'll admit, some days I really struggle. I've been trying to be upbeat and positive but the truth is, by the end of the day I just really hurt. My back aches so bad, my stomach feels stretched to the max, bending over is hard, picking up my kids is hard, walking up the stairs is hard, everything just feels hard. A couple of days ago I was trying to get dressed and I burst into tears because nothing fits. Nobody wants to buy more maternity clothes in their last month of pregnancy but I had to go out and buy 2 new shirts because I've outgrown everything else.

Then the other night I was having a pregnancy pity party and feeling quite miserable when Teya came in the room and asked to see my belly. I reluctantly lifted the bottom of my shirt so she could see "big baby." She began to rub my tummy and lovingly talk to "cutie cutie squishy big baby." To her delight he responded with some major rolling movements and a couple of visible kicks that made her giddy with laughter. She put her ear right against my tummy and begged him to do it again. "bump!" he nudged her ear and she erupted in laughter again. "He kicked me mom! Big baby kicked my ear!"

Her excitement was contagious and I forgot all about my pity party and got caught up in the miracle that is pregnancy. I guided her little hand to where I knew he would kick next and bump after bump she was rewarded with his energetic movements. We were both laughing so hard, it was exactly what I needed. When the movements settled down, Teya gave my belly once last hug then went to get ready for bed. My back still hurt and I still felt big, slow and tired, but I was smiling again and felt renewed energy to get through the next month carrying a very important load.

I'm grateful that my body is healthy and that I've had a healthy and safe pregnancy.

I'm grateful for my children who give me fresh perspective when I need it most.

I'm grateful for my husband who goes out of his way to make my load lighter.

And most of all I'm grateful that in a few short weeks our lives will be blessed with a baby in our home.

Thinking of that alone makes all the aches and pains seem worthwhile.

Kicking off Christmas

Over the last week we have really enjoyed getting into the spirit of Christmas. I've always loved this time of year but having kids makes it 10X's as magical!

Last Monday we went out in search of a Christmas tree.

Growing up, my dad was allergic to trees so we never had a real one. After we got married we always spent Christmas with our families so we never bothered to get a real one either. This year will be our first Christmas with just our little family so we decided it was time to get a real tree. After examining several lovely pines this was the winner the girls wanted to bring home.

Once we brought it home it was time to decorate! We turned on the Christmas music, popped some popcorn and warmed up hot cocoa to get us in the mood.

It took longer than we thought to decorate (especially with little hands "helping out") but once it was finished and we turned out the lights, the girls' eyes were sparkling with awe : )

Later in the week we bought some gingerbread houses to decorate. A lot of the decorations ended up in Brinley's and Monty's mouths, but I guess that's all part of the fun.

And here are the girls with their masterpieces.

We set them out as decorations and every once in awhile Brinley likes to stop by and pull off a candy or two for sampling.

To cap off our Christmas kickoff week we took the girls to the mall to see Santa. We went right when it opened hoping to avoid a line but we still waited over 30 minutes. At least they got to take a little train ride to pass the time.

Choo Choo! Off to see Mr. Claus!

When it was our turn Brinley ran up to Santa and gave him a HUGE hug. Such a contrast from last year when she was crying her eyes out.

They each took turns whispering their Christmas wishes to Santa. Teya asked for a Tangled Rapunzel tower and Brinley asked for a mermaid.

Santa told them to be good little girls and the nice thing is, they have been : )

Papa Rigg's 80th Birthday Bash

One of the highlights of being in Colorado for Thanksgiving was celebrating Taber's Dad's 80th birthday. It was wonderful to see how many people came to celebrate such a great man and inspiring to see how active and vibrant life in your 80's can be!

It was the first time in a LONG time that all of Papa Rigg's children were together. Bob has 6 children from his first marriage (one who has passed away) and 3 from his marriage to Taber's mom. Here's a picture of both families all together.

And here is a picture of Papa Rigg with 18 of his soon to be 26 grandchildren. (There are also 6, soon to be 7 great grandchildren not pictured)

Grandkids from Karen and Bob (minus baby Rockwell)

And a big group shot of all the relatives who came to celebrate

It was nice for the girls to be able to hang out with their Rigg cousins who they don't get to see very often. Teya, Skyla and Brinley Rigg.

More cute cousin pics.

The party was at the Bookcliff Country Club. Mama Rigg worked VERY hard to put together a wonderful celebration. Papa Rigg is know for the Pith hats that he wears everywhere. As part of the decorations everyone got their own little pith helmet to decorate with duct tape electrical tape just like Papa's.

Each table was also decorated with popping eyeballs since Taber's Dad is an eye doctor. The boys had a BLAST with those! (and not just the little boys ; )

There was also a really neat display table with scrapbooks and pictures covering Papa Rigg's life over the last 80 years. It was really neat to look through them and see all the amazing things he's been through and done.

And of course it wouldn't be a party without a cake!

We spent the evening eating, laughing, and talking about our favorite memories of Papa Rigg. Taber's mom put together a powerpoint with pictures and each of the children got to go up and talk about memories with their Dad. It was a very sweet and special night and I just feel so blessed to have such an amazing father in law. Happy 80th birthday Papa Rigg!