Goodbye November

I’m fighting the clock here as I try to get this written before one or both of my babies wake up from a nap. It took us about a week to get Adri back on a normal sleeping schedule after our trip to Utah. Very few naps were taken during our visit and bedtime always ended up being very late. We’re back on track now and Juliet has joined the rest of the family in sleeping through the night! Adri took a lot longer to get to this point so I was very surprised and happy when Juliet took to sleeping up to 10 hours in a row.

Excersaucing

(FYI: the babies DID wake up and I am now finishing this two days later than when I started.) She also rolled over for the first time. Apparently she decided that one time is all she needed and has yet to roll over again despite our encouragement. She continues to grow new fat rolls and is just as happy as can be. Every time she wakes up from a nap she gets an enormous grin on her face as if she had forgotten just how wonderful it is to be alive. It’s another one of those things that makes me forget how gross it is when she spits up on my clothes.

Who's the big sister?

Adri has followed Juliet’s lead and has finally started eating more. She’ll ask for a peanut butter sandwich as soon as she wakes up in the morning and will usually eat the whole thing. Then we’ll sit down for an hour long tea party where she’ll make me drink cup after cup of water, while she continues to pour her own drinks and munch on our tea party cookies. Besides tea partying, Adri is becoming more girlish by becoming obsessed with Disney princesses. She recently watched Sleeping Beauty for the first time and then Jason bought her Cinderella. She can’t get enough of them and can often be heard singing the Sleeping Beauty Waltz or “We can do it, we can do it, we can help our Cinderelly . . .” I let her wear my old wedding shoes, she now believes they are the glass slippers, and my veil and asks me to dance around the house with her. I always thought it was stupid when parents would buy their kids all sorts of Disney stuff but watching my baby girl be so in love with it just makes me want to go and buy her every princess related toy I can find. She is just so adorable when she watches the movies and yells at the prince to go kiss Sleeping Beauty, or gets so excited for the Fairy Godmother to sing Bippity Boppity Boo. It makes me enjoy the movies almost as much as she does.
Jason has started his new position at Vangaurd. I think I mentioned last month that it has something to do with bonds and banks, and funds . . . well, that’s still about all I know. The important thing is that he really loves it. He is excited to learn about the new systems he’ll be using, he likes the people he works with and he’s happy to work late if he has to. The best part for me is that he has a phone now so I can call him if I need to. He has also been busy being a good home teacher by chinchilla sitting for some of our friends, Melissa and Thayne Cullimore, over the holiday. Melissa and Thayne are some more of our friends who have deserted us and gone back to Utah. We threw them a going away party and had them over for dinner just before they left. We'll miss them for sure, but I'm really going to miss Melissa taking Juliet during church and even volunteering to change dirty diapers. I guess that gives me two more friends I get to visit the next time I'm out there!

Melissa and her favorite fat baby

Adri and Thayne stealing each other's noses

My other good news is that I now have a car! When the Cullimores moved back to Utah we bought their old car. It’s an expensive Christmas present but I think it will be worth it. I have also started attending a weekly mommy group. Some of my friends from the ward get together with their kids and just hang out. It’s really nice to have some adults to hang out with every once in a while – other than on Sunday. And now that I have a car to get there it will be even more fun!

As a family we had a lot of celebrations this month. Our Hindu neighbors all celebrated Dhuali on the 9th. We didn’t really celebrate it, but we did enjoy watching them light their candles and leave them on the doorsteps. We did however get to join in the fun at an Indian birthday party. It was held at a local Indian restaurant where an Elmo character came and danced and made balloon animals. There were cakes and birthday hats and lots of cute kids. It was Adri’s first real birthday party and she had a great time. Jason and I enjoyed our friends and the food and laughed at the fact that we were the only white people there.

Adri at her first birthday party

Annie with Juliet and Sirisha with the birthday girl, Abhigjna

We also enjoyed spending time at Gramma Nancy’s house during Thanksgiving. Nancy got us presents from her trip out West and Alixa gave Christmas presents early - and happened to have my name this year - so I got all sorts of gifts. I also attended Jason's sister's bridal shower. Jamie looked lovely and it was interesting to see just how many people I met (and remember) since I first saw them at my wedding reception in Delaware five and a half years ago. We had a great Thanksgiving vacation and had lots of fun spending time with the family. Adri had a good time helping Gramma Nancy eat cookie dough . . .



Thanksgiving baby

Once Thanksgiving was over we dove right into Christmas. We put up decorations, we visited a “Christmas Village” covered in lights and decorations, and we attended a Christmas party for Jason’s work (where Adri got her face painted, got some balloon animals, drank hot chocolate and we watched synchronized ice skating).

Jason and Juliet waiting for ice skating to start

Adri having the best day ever

Is it just me or were we wearing too many stripes that day?


Now all we have to do is finish all of our Christmas shopping. I’m sure that will get done more quickly now that I have a vehicle but I’m not making any promises.

Bathing beauties