Christmas Eve 2008

We had a very fun Christmas Eve this year.  First we went over to Steve and Jane's house to have dinner.  I don't have a camera so I don't have any pictures of that.  It was great though.  Emma had so much fun with her cousins, and Matthew ate about 10 slices of peaches.  We all had a really nice time.

Then, we went over to my parents house where all the kids did a little nativity play.  Emma got to be a shepherd this year.  Matthew was supposed to be a sheep, but he was so hungry by the time we got there that I didn't think he would make it.  Emma was darling though and loved being a shepherd.  She kept her costume on for most of the night.  

After the nativity play, we did white elephant gifts which are always a lot of fun.  While we were doing the white elephants, Dave and Melis made little toy bags with the kids which they all loved.  The toy bags had kazoos in them though and it got pretty loud with about 15 kids walking around blowing kazoos.  Matthew was getting a little overstimulated, so we decided to get him home.  

It was a great night!  The only bummer was that we never did read Luke 2.  I hope we will remember to do it next year.

Emma in her Shepherd costume.

Daniel as the Inn Keeper.  (Yeah, he was pretty excited to do that!)

Emma as a shepherd coming to see the baby Jesus.  She loves the baby Jesus, it is her favorite part of Christmas.

All of the kids who were in the nativity play.  L-R Annika, Emma, Dannan (hidden a little by Seth), Brianna, Lizzy, Brina, Kate, Josh, Ethan, Truman, Holly, Logan, Mieka and Melis (she put the whole thing together.  She is awesome!)

Matthew was pretty bugged by the end.  Daddy was trying to keep him from screaming while I helped clean up a bit.

Emma's Preschool Program

Emma had her first preschool program last month.  It was on the 17th of December and it was so darling.  They sang and did actions to "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."  Each of them also got to say a little line about a letter that eventually spelled out the words "SANTA CLAUS."  Emma's letter was A and her line was "A is for antlers upon reindeers head, that guide Santa's Sleigh while we are in bed."  She did so well.  Unfortunately the microphone was not very close for the first half, so that was hard to hear, but the second half was loud and clear.  

Their last number was with the other preschool class and they sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Silent Night."  It was so cute to see her up there.  She didn't sing the whole time or do the actions very much, but she was so darling.  She is growing up so fast!

Here are some pics:

Emma was a little nervous when she first came out.  She was looking around like, "What is going on here?!?"

She seemed to get a little less worried and got excited about the songs she had practiced after a little while.

Here she is holding her letter A for her part of the program.

She is so cute!  I just love her!

2 Posts in 1 day!

Wow, 2 posts in 1 day, I'm on a roll.  For those of you who don't know Chelle, there is a post that I did just below the one about her.  the chelle-b-lynn post is really long, so you'll have to scroll down for a while to get to the previous post.

chelle-b-lynn

27 Years ago today, I discovered that the universe did not revolve around me.  I was no longer the baby who got spoiled because now my sweet little sister, Tonia Michelle Southern, was the baby and got all the spoiling.  Although I probably was not excited about it at the time, now I am so grateful that I have a little sister.  So, Chelle, this post is dedicated to you!!!

Here is Chelle's baby picture.  I love this picture, she looks darling.

I remember sharing a room when we were young.  The box springs of our bed had broken in the middle from us jumping on it.  We would wake up in the morning all squished together in the middle of the bed where the dip was.

Chelle got to be the angel that year.  Unfortunately I was the ghost, not quite as pretty, but oh well.

I remember late nights staying up laughing.  Dad would come in and tell us to be quiet.  We would try for a minute or two and then we were right back to laughing.  My favorite night memory was a night when I had a bad dream.  I woke Michelle up because I was scared and we started to play with our Rainbow Bright and Cabbage Patch dolls.  We had our shoes all arranged like a house, with our big white roller skates as the front door.  I took the cabbage patch doll and walked it up the skate saying, "da, da, da coooome and eeeeat!!!"  We laughed and laughed about that.  (I know that nobody else will find that funny, but I also know that Chelle will.  Since this post is for her, I'm gonna leave it in.)

"Sisters!  Sisters!  There were never such devoted sisters!

I remember our room would get to be as mither would say, "a pig stye."  Every so often mither would make us clean our room.  I remember we would divide the room in half and each of us would have a side to clean.  I would clean my room right away while Michelle sat on her side singing or playing.  I used to get so frustrated because my side would be all clean and her side was still a mess.  Most of the time she would sit in there forever and never end up cleaning her side.  Then within a day or two, all of the clutter from her side of the room would make it's way to my side of the room and it would all be a mess again.  Then we would start the whole process over again.

This was at Christmas time a year or two ago. 

One of my favorite Christmas memories of Chelle was when we were 7 or 8.  Dad used to put a sheet up over the door to the living room and we would line up youngest to oldest.  Dad always used to let Michelle and I go in first because we were the youngest.  This particular year, we walked in and Michelle said "we got bikes!"  and then, "Seth and Adam got bikes too!!" thereby ruining the surprise for Seth and Adam who were not in the living room yet.  Good times!

We went to the Homecoming dance in the same group together.  It was a little awkward because both my date and Chelle's date were madly in love with Chelle.  Oh well, it was fun to be in a group with her.

We used to hang out in high school together.  At first I was bugged that Michelle always came to hang out with me and my friends.  However, I got over that and realized that it was actually a lot of fun to have her there.  We were in drama together and for one of the showcases we were in a group that learned a detailed clapping/kicking/slapping routine called "Will Rogers Follies."  It was so much fun that we taught it to Jan and Jen and we all did it for one of the talent shows for the Spendlove family party.  It was so fun.

The four sissies.  We always have so much fun together.  

I remember for 3 or 4 years in a row, we all went to Oregon together for a vacation.  We had a lot of fun getting chased by fish guys, getting flat tires, getting knocked down by enormous waves, and getting asked to go to bars with other random guys.  Ahhh those were the days!  One of my favorite memories about Oregon was on the last day of the first trip.  We had spent an hour or 2 trying to do a movie line from "The Fugitive."  It was so fun and we were all laughing about it as we knelt down to pray for the night.  Janice was telling some story really fast before the prayer when she stopped mid sentence and said, "I found something with my toe."  I don't remember what she found, but we all laughed so hard are tummies were sore.  It was great!

This was a picture of Chelle and I just before we got married.  

Chelle and I got married 1 month apart and it was so fun to do all of the pre-wedding stuff together.  Thanks again Chelle for not being bugged about me getting married first.

"I loved you too much to just be your friend, so God let me be your sister."

Thanks Chelle for all of the fun times throughout the years.  You are one of the most thoughtful people I know.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Catching up!

AAAACK!  I am so behind.  I have so much to catch up on, so this is going to be a really long post.  Here goes:

On Friday, September 5th we had a Sinterklaus celebration with Dave & Melis and Jan & Jen.  Sinterklaus is part of the Christmas holiday in Holland.  Here are some pics.  (Thanks Jen for giving the pics to me.)

Annika was doing all kinds of dancing before we got started, it was so cute.  This is one of her ending poses.

Emma and Annika listening to a little story about Sinterklaus.  They were enthralled.  Then when Sinterklaus left presents at the front door and knocked, Emma was terrified.  She wouldn't go to the door because she was scared for some reason.  She did like getting presents though.

Dave and Melis gave Janice a "How to Catch a Man Like Dan" kit.  It had a box, a maple donut, and a stick with a string attached to it.  The idea was to prop the box up with the stick and put the donut under the box.  Then when the man came to eat the donut, Jan could pull the string and box would drop on him so she could catch him.  For those of you who don't know, we're always joking about how Dan is Jan and Jen's "substitute husband."  He does things like carry heavy boxes and stuff that husbands would do.  He really likes maple donuts, thus the maple donut in the box.

Daniel made a sphere out of butter for Dave.  Then he cut out the continents and put them on, thus answering the eternal question:  "What would it be like if the world were made out of butter?"  The perfect gift for all those deep thinkers out there.

Jen gave the infamous Christmas horn to Daniel.  He of course gave the honors of ringing in the season with the horn to Dave who gladly blew it.  It never quite feels like Christmas till Dave blows the Christmas horn.

Dave and Melis gave me "The Official 'Dancing Queen Kit."  It had wings, a tutu a crown and a magic wand which was made out of a toilet bowel cleaner.  It was hilarious.  There was a picture of me in it, but I can't find it.  Anyway, we laughed a lot.  It was a very fun night.

The following Monday, the 7th, we went to see a live nativity.  It was so great!  Emma loved it and I really liked it as well.  Matthew was really bugged at first.  We had to stand in line for a while waiting for a trailer to come pic us up and take us to where the barns were.  Then we had to walk up a long hill to get inside.  That all took a while and Matthew was bugged the whole time.  I finally got him calmed down by wrapping him in a blanket and rocking him.  My arms hurt a lot the next day from holding him for such a long time.  It was worth it though because it was really cool.  The first barn had a camel, donkey, sheep and a bunch of people dressed up and making things that would have been made back when Christ was born.  That was kind of cool.  Then the next barn was awesome.  There were men standing up in the loft area above the door you walk in.  They were singing Christmas hymns.  Then we walked in  and there was the little manger scene.  A man and woman dressed up like Mary and Joseph and a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  There was really an amazing spirit there.  Mary was holding the baby because he was a little fussy, and it was just so neat to see what it might have been like.  Mary put the baby in the manger for a minute and I could see that he had a binkie in.  I thought that was pretty funny.  The best part though, was to see Emma looking at the baby.  She absolutely loves the baby Jesus in all the manger scenes she sees.  She was so reverent looking at the little baby portraying Jesus.  I love that she loves Him so much.  It was wonderful.  (Thanks Melis for the pics especially since I lost my camera.)

Matthew all cuddled up in my arms.  I was so glad he finally calmed down.

Our little family with the camel.  I know you are all jealous because you want to have a picture of you family with a camel.  :)

Emma looking at Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.

Mary putting the binkie back in the baby's mouth.

It was incredible and made me really appreciate all of the blessings of our day, and most especially the love that the Lord has for each one of us.  I cannot comprehend how much He must love us to do what He did for us.  What an incredible blessing.  I love this time of year to think and reflect about the Savior.  I hope I will do more to serve others to show my love to Him.

300,000+ Twinkling Lights

We went up to Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights on Dec. 3rd.  (Yeah I'm way behind on blogging.)  We had a lot of fun.  Jan and Jen came and we were able to park under the Church Office Building since Jen works there, so it was really close and we didn't have to walk far to get there.

First we went and got some dinner at the Lion House Pantry.  Jen was leading us there and telling us how she is so savvy about Salt Lake because she works there now.  We kept joking about that all night because anyone who knows Jen knows that she is not that great with directions at times, especially when she hasn't eaten in the last five minutes!  :)

Emma was so excited to see  the statue of Christ, which she of course loved when we finally did see it.  She liked seeing the manger scene as well, especially the baby Jesus.

Matthew was fine just being bundled up in the stroller most of the time, but towards the end he got bugged, so we got him out and held him.  He did quite well the whole night though.  What a good little boy!

Here are tons of pictures:

Matthew kept doing his cute little tongue thing.

I love the temple at night, especially with Christmas lights all around!

Our little family.  Emma was bugged because she wanted to be with Janice.  Feel the love!

"You are the love of my life.  Baby put your arms around me."

Daniel loves too see the Christmas lights.  Well, he loves being with his family anyway.

Emma with her favorite aunt.

I love Matthew's face in this pic.  It reminds me so much of some of Daniel's childhood pics!

Emma was bugged that we made her take a picture of her touching the temple before we went to see the statue of Christ.  I'd say that is a pretty standard face for her.

We finally made it to the statue of Christ!  Emma loved it and was so sad that she couldn't give him snugs and kisses so one of the missionaries gave her a picture of Jesus.  At least that helped her not to cry about it.

Emma loved the fountain.  She got to drop some money in and of course wanted to keep doing more.

Matthew all bundled up!

Emma all bundled up!

Setting up the Christmas tree!

We set up the Christmas tree on Saturday Nov. 29th, the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately I have been a little busy and so have not written about it until now.  

I was excited to set up the Christmas tree with Emma this year, because she was getting really excited about it this year.  Of course the thing she was most excited about was that she would get to play with her "Little People" manger set.  We actually ended up decorating my Mother's tree the day before and Emma loved it.  She helped put a bunch of ornaments on (which I surreptitiously moved after she put them on) and played with my mom's "Little People" manger set.  So, unfortunately she was not quite as excited to put our tree up.  She spent most of the time playing with her manger toys.  Oh well, it cute to hear her playing with the baby Jesus and we had lots of fun!  Here's a bunch of pics.

Emma playing with her "Little People" manger set

Bubbers was not so sure about the tree.  He did like it a little more after we got it decorated but has been surprisingly good not to touch it.

Emma did help put some ornaments on at the end.  She really liked putting the icicles on.

Putting the Angel on the top.  I wish I had waited and let Daniel help her, but I didn't think about it at the time.  Oh well, maybe next year!

Emma wanted to take a picture, and this is what she took.  Maybe being a photographer will have to wait till she can hold the camera straight.  :)

The finished product.

Matthew was not very excited about wearing the Santa hat!

But Emma loved it!

Emma was getting board at one point and decided to give Brother snugs.  Unfortunately, Brother was not in the mood to snug so it turned out to be more of a wrestling match (as usual).