Mom... why are there socks in the fishtank?

This was hollered down the stairs by Serayah earlier this evening.

"What?!?!" I yell.
"Why are there socks in the fish tank?" pipes Serayah
"Socks...like you wear on your feet?!!?" (I'm clearly not getting this)
"Yeah"

Huh. I run upstairs to her room, and sure enough, there are two single socks... one beige, and one hot pink one (which float rather nicely about mid depth), one pair of red and white socks folded up from Cam's sock drawer (which sink), 2 of my ponytail holders (which sink), about 15 of Serayah's itty-bitty ponytail holders (which float), and a blue car (that I found later behind the fake frog on the bottom).

She's got 4 fish in there, 2 bigger white fish, and 2 smaller red fish. One of the red fish is pretty dumb and tends to swim into the side of the tank on a regular basis... I'm pretty sure it was the one trying to eat the beige sock. On a positive note, fabric softener doesn't appear to be overly toxic to fish. I'll let you know if there are any fish fatalities in the next few days.

"DANG IT!" I yelled (I was seriously proud of my verbal restraint)...to which Serayah started running around with her hands on her hips saying "Dang it! Dang it! Dang it!..."

"What on earth happened???"

One word... say it with me... "Camden"

Christmas Eve

Well, as is our tradition, we opened our gifts from family and friends tonight after we went out for some Chinese food (don't knock tradition!) and looked at Christmas lights.

After eating, we were setting out on our Christmas light adventure, and lo and behold, a low-flying red light glowed in the sky and flew right over us, and away! We pointed this out to Serayah, who was thrilled to have the chance to see Rudolf in person. We kept our eyes and ears open, but I guess Santa had made an early stop, because there were no more Reindeer or Sleigh sightings over Northern Utah.

After we got home, we opened our gifts, and Serayah and Cam both got new jammies, among other things. Their favorite things seemed to be a new WALL•E table and chairs, as well as a plastic food and pot/pan set. Who knew? Cam especially was thrilled with the play food, and proceeded to gather up all the food and plunk it down on the table and have at it. We had to tear him away to get him to finish opening up his gifts! Here are a couple of pictures of the kids in their new PJ's playing.







Now, I've explained to Serayah that Santa only comes when you're sleeping (because children's dreams are the key to his magic), so she knew that she would have to go to sleep for the big-guy to make his appearance. After everything was opened, she looked at us and asked about bed time. I reminded her that she'd have to go to sleep for Santa to come, so she took one look at me and proceeded to book up the stairs. We had to call her back to get kisses and hugs! (If only Santa came every night, and bedtime could be this easy). I read a couple of books to her and turned out her light and a little voice called out "Mommy... am I dreaming yet?" The excitement did keep her up for a bit, but it didn't take long before she drifted off.


Well, I'd better go, so I can get to my dreams too... Maybe Santa will leave something for me as well.


Merry Christmas to all... and to all a good night.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Well, the snow gods have decided to finally hit Utah. It's been pretty dry up until now... we've had a little bit of snow here and there, but today we're getting hit by a doozy. Art doesn't have to work today (& he's SOOOO happy!), and went to go to the store, then hollered at me to come and take a look at the trooper. I knew that it had been snowing, but I hadn't really looked to see how much we'd accumulated. Wow! We've got between 10-12" in the yard, and it looks like it could continue through the day. We all got dressed in our snow clothes, and had at it. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or their daddy. Thanks to Grandpa for taking most of the pictures for us.

Cookie Mania!

Well, the other day, our wonderful friends Ellie and Tanner came over to decorate cookies with Serayah... They even brought their mommy, MaryAnne. We had a terrific time, and fun (and loads of frosting) was had by all. Here are a few pictures of the day.

Here's Tanner enjoying herself
Serayah with a prize-winning cookie


After the cookies were all decorated to everyone's satisfaction, the Cookie Fairies appeared!

Well, today was the annual "Here comes Santa on the fire truck" day here in Eagle Mountain. It's actually really neat... the firetruck hits every street and Santa throws out bags of candy to all of the children gathered on the sidewalks in front of their houses. You know that Santa is close, 'cause the firetruck has the siren chirping the whole way.

Serayah doesn't like loud noises so headed back inside (and looked through the window) while Santa came by, but Cam was thrilled about the whole experience.

I thought you might like to see the pictures...

Christmas Dance Recital

Well, I finally got the pictures of Serayah's dance recital downloaded. Her class performed to "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas". It rocked! They all did such a terrific job, and (no surprise) Serayah was front and center for the entire thing... No one was going to upstage her! There's not really a shy bone in her body. As soon as I got home, she was asking if she could go back on stage the next day. These pictures are from rehearsal (I figured things would be too chaotic to snap pictures during the concert). Enjoy!

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Out of the mouth of babes....

Well, as we all know, there are differences between boys and girls. This has a tendency to lead to gender stereotyping. Girls like flowers, dolls and princesses. Boys like bugs, slime and farts (we call them "toots" at our house). I thought we'd avoided all of this around here... sure, Serayah loves all the girly things, but bugs and slime work with her too. Cam loves make-up and tutus, as well as trains and other many pursuits. Well, both of them came up with new phrases the other day.

Serayah's new word:
Serayah saw a Santa/Christmas light display and said "Look!!! It's Cute-iful". This is one of her new favorite words... Personally, I have to admit... it's a pretty good word... and very ladylike.

Cam's new phrase:
The other day, Cam let out a huge burp. He looked and us... started cracking up, and said "I toot in my mowf!". He thought it was hysterical, and now "mouth toots" happen on a regular basis. Sigh.