Andrea, Hailey, Emi and Joel's Not So Typical Adventures: December Randoms in no particular order. Just all in December!

Picking lemons from the garden, juicing them, and freezing them.

Oh the story of the gate..

There was a period of 2 weeks or so that the girls would wake up early in the morning and wreck havoc in the house. Usually in the mornings they would play quietly and eventually put on a VHS movie. I was ok with this arrangement. Then the deal exploded. I woke up to Hailey poking me and saying, "Mommy there are eggs on the floor." I didn't quite know what she was talking about so I got up and followed her to the kitchen. I didn't know who threw them, but they were locked in their rooms for 2 hours while I scrubbed the eggs out of Emi's hair and then cleaned up the kitchen and family room.

The next few days I woke up the empty lifesaver wrappers all over the floor. The gum from the pantry unwrapped and piled up in the family room. Cheese under my presser foot on the sewing machine. They thought it'd be fun to sew some cheese. I'm sure there were other things, but the barrage of all these was enough to send me to bonkerville. I told Joel I was going to build a gate and went out and got the wood and hardware for it. Joel got home and said, no let's do this right. He stepped in and said that he'd build the frame for the gate. It was supposed to be done Wednsday night after classes but it took him longer. It wasn't perfect like he wanted it but I was beyond fried and didn't want to know what else their little minds could cook up to get into! I told him that gate had to go up!

The first morning the gate was up I heard unusual noise and woke up to Hailey on the outside of the gate and Emi standing on the potty stool trying to climb over the gate. They both received a harsh talking to about not climbing over the gate. That was the last time they did it. They have plenty of toys and books in their room but don't want to play in their room, so they play in the spare bedroom. I'm ok with that arrangement.

The nutcracker.

I was online when a friend posted that she had extra tickets to the nutcracker. I said I was interested. It was ironic that it was Emily Ellsworth who had the extra tickets. Joel has met Erinn and knows Kent. I tried to explain how Emily was both a Thomas and an Ellsworth. I didn't know how Joel would react to going to see a Ballet. We were on the 5th floor balcony. It made the stage look more like a dollhouse set up than a real set. They were so tiny. We actually had to use binoculars if we wanted a close up view. Most of the time though, when we used the binoculars we both were focused on watching the orchestra pit vs the ballet.

Ah hah moment, I never put it together that the sugar plum fairies were actual fairies. Give me a break though, the last time I watched this I was probably 10. I always pictures little plums dancing around the stage, not flying fairies!

Playing outside even if it's raining and cold. Sometimes we just spend too much time in the house.

THE STUPID TRUCK

We finally got things fixed with Joel's truck engine and transmission and it was time to Haul the beast off our the front patio and into a garage to be assembled. After that Ryan came over to help power wash all the oil and junk off of the front driveway. Emi had a good time putting her crabbing boots on and walking in the water without getting wet.

We purchase cocoa at the store and made home made brownies from scratch. To say the girls enjoyed them would be an understatement. But you always have to have that picture eating the batter off the beater.

Aunt Sharon coming to visit.

Joel's Aunt Sharon was in Vegas for the weekend to watch her son compete in a rodeo event. The first night she stayed in a hotel. After a fun and mostly horrible experience with the neighbors next door she asked if she and her grandsons could stay with us for the night. It was a good time. We all had tacos for dinner, then Joel and Sharon stayed up late into the night talking. The next morning we all got up and ready. Sharon and the boys were still tired, so we fixed breakfast and they woke up in time to eat. Sharon needed to get going so we said we could drop the boys back off at their parents hotel room. This gave us time to show them the garden. The loved it.

After Sharon left, we stayed for a little while to help set up for the Christmas Party that was that evening. The Christmas party was a typical Mary and Joseph set up. The special thing was that the garden is finally starting to accomplish one of the goals. We hope that the garden can be a place that the nursing home residents can come to enjoy. There were probably 10 or so residents that came out in the freezing cold to enjoy some dinner and the nativity. We had heat lamps set up and plenty of blankets to share. The girls were dressed up as Angels. Hailey even let me put Christmas curls in her hair. You'd never know that her angel outfit was just a white sheet with a couple holes cut in it and a bead waistband to tie it all together. Joel disappeared soon after we arrived. When I found him we had been sent to jail for not paying his taxes. His penance was to help heat and serve food. He got to play with the newly constructed brick oven. He claims this is not true...

Kelly coming to visit.

Kelly likes to stop through Vegas on her way to Cali from Provo. We enjoy having her. We lose lots of sleep but have lots of fun. When she stopped through on her way to Cali we made gingerbread houses and lots of gingerbread cookies. Dad and I put together a traditional house. Hailey and Kelly were in charge of the other house. I was curious to see how Hailey was going to do putting together a gingerbread house. A traditional one required patience. Well, problem solved. Hailey not Kelly could put together a house house so they made something unique and perfectly fitting for both of them. Hailey loved "trying" all of the different candies. The gingerbread was pretty good as well.

Papa's adventures.

Dad flew into town on the 17th of December. His plans were to stay a few days to get the house in order and finish up all the small things. He originally was going to stay at my place because it was a hassle to take all of the bedding, food, etc over to his house just for a couple days. By the middle of his stay he was staying at his house, he had my microwave and toaster and food to fill his fridge and enough dishes to run a full load of dishes in the dishwasher... just no dish washer cleaning tabs. :)

The girls enjoyed when Papa would come over for dinner. He would eat and stay and visit for a while. They built castles, read books, ate gingerbread cookies and had a pretty good time.

He finally left almost 3 weeks later. I'm not complaining because it was nice to spend the time with him and Joel and I even got to go on a date while he put the girls to bed.

MEZZOS!

The Singletons told us about a restaurant called Mezzo's Italian Bistro. I had looked it up and it was pricey, but I had a coupon. :) We went on an evening where my dad watched the girls. Life has been stressful for us as a couple and this was a good way to go out and be able to talk while enjoying a good meal. Actually good would be an understatement. Everything we ate there was amazing from the salad to the balsamic house dip to the main meal. My favorite remains the salad.

Emi's Tooth Adventures

Emi had a rough week or so. She became the accident prone child that always seemed to get knocked in the face somehow. First, while Kelly was here, she fell off the kitchen chair and bit through her lip on the way down. Then while jumping on the trampoline at Papa's house she landed face first on a rock that Hailey had thrown on the tramp. She chipped a couple teeth, but we didn't notice it till the next day.

Frozen strawberries aren't her friend currently. Then while Kelly, Joel, the girls and I were out at Sushi, she tripped over something and banged into the side wall, biting her lip again.
Lemons from the garden. Lemonade. Zest. Lemon ice cubes. The girls really enjoyed helping me juice them. Hailey face when she took a spoonful of the juice was hilarious. It's not tomato, pomegranate that's for sure!

Kelly came back to visit for New Years

On her way back from Cali to Provo, Kelly stopped in and spent a couple days instead of just an evening. We had a good time. Kelly and I were able to go to the temple. Then after the temple we picked up Joel and the girls and went out for sushi. She enjoys sushi but had never been to an all you can eat, and Joel had been craving sushi for a month but I kept saying no.

So we all went out. It was a good time. We had a large booth all to ourselves and it was nice having an extra set of hands to help with the girls so they weren't always climbing on me. When we got the bill Joel totalled up the number of items we had ordered, from rolls to salads to tea and ice cream. 23 items. 18 rolls of sushi. That's a lot of food...