Merry Christmas!

We hope yours was happy too! Jopes took our video from Christmas morning and made a shorter video of the highlights. My favorite is that families are forever... "YEAH!!" And Joseph finding the camera. And the gorilla. And his "HO HO HO"s and "Merry Christmas!" Oh, and the picture at the very end. Okay, so it's all favorite. Enjoy.

And P.S. I watched it before posting this with Everlit on my lap and she watched her brother just like she does in real life. I love and am so grateful for how much they love each other!

No More Binki

Really?? Yes. No more binki. Joseph has managed just this week to lose not only his binki, but his sister's as well! Okay so, Everlit had two and we lost her first one at the dedication of the BYUI center. Then Joseph lost her second one. Now all the binkis are gone, and we're not buying any more! As exciting as that sounds, it's kind of bad news. At least until Joseph learns to sleep without one. He keeps waking up all sorts of upset. And since the binki used to be all he needed to go right back to sleep, I find myself in all sorts of trouble in the middle of the night. BUT. It's okay. I'm positive that it'll only take a little while for us all to get the hang of this and then we'll be golden!

Tonight is Christmas Eve. Jopes is not quite home from work yet, but he should be soon. Joseph is asleep on my bed because he had one of those waking-up-upset episodes and so I laid down on my bed with him and sang him Christmas songs until he fell asleep. Everlit is asleep in her bed. We finally caught her laughing on video today. It's a little hard to tell when she's laughing and not her brother, but here it is:

Tomorrow is Christmas day and I can not WAIT to see my kids' cute little faces tomorrow morning. I love my family. I love my Savior. And I love this time of year. Merry Christmas everyone!

My Wish List

Once Upon A Time {November 2010}, I told my husband that what I wanted for my birthday was a day to clean. For him to take the kids for a few hours so that I could really clean the house and make some sort of dent in my someday I'm gonna get that done list. He laughed. He thought I was kidding. "If anything, I should make you leave so I can clean the house for you for your birthday." Don't get me wrong, that's very sweet of him. BUT. Seriously, I have this mental list of things that would make my heart SO happy to get done. And I think my home would feel happy too. So here it is. My new wish list.

Dear Santa,

For Christmas and New Years and Valentines Day and St. Patrick's Day and Easter and Summer Vacation and the 4th of July and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas next year etc., I would like time and MOTIVATION to get these things done {in no particular order}:

1. File all those papers that are stuffed on the top of my bookcases

2. Organize the random junk in all the drawers of my house

3. Purge my closet of all the clothes I never wear because they are the wrong size, or I don't like them, or they make me feel boring and frumpy {my husband says I'm not allowed to use that word regarding myself, but it's just true-so don't tell him}

4. Scrub and scrub and scrub the bathroom floor. About a million times, because I know that one section can be cleaner than it gets when I just mop it {Ugh}

5. Take things to D.I.

6. Decorate my kids' room and make Everlit's sheets for her crib

7. Go through the kids' clothes and put away the ones that are too small

8. Move the TV to our bedroom so my son will stop asking for a movie EVERY minute of EVERY day

9. Deep clean everything

10. Get my hair permed so I can have non-frumpy hair {4 hours, 30 bucks, and a prayer that the student I get does a good job-Blah}

To sum things up, Santa, if you'll just make me NOT LAZY so I can be a better wife and mother, I think I can handle the rest.

Thanks,

Elizabeth

It's beginning to look a lot like...

WINTER!!

And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, too!

And that is something like a 360 degree tour of our front room. We're staying here for Christmas and doing our own thing... whatever that may be. Ha! We're actually really excited to have our own little Christmas. We want to blend traditions from both our families, as well as start some of our own. It'll be interesting to see what we come up with in the end. I'm sure it'll change a little each year. But honestly, the part I'm most excited for is focusing solely on spending quality time with these beautiful persons...

What are you looking forward to this Christmas season?

Really, I wanna know! ;)