Marly is 2 years old!!

Playing dress-up

I really don't know what happened to the last two years. However, I also can't remember what life was like without our crazy, wonderful, bright, smiley, and beautiful. Marly is such a big girl and had a wonderful birthday with family and friends. 

Here's what Marly is like:

*Marly loves watching Dora the Explorer

*She speaks in full sentences

*Loves to swing on the big kid swings

*She loves all kinds of sweets (cookies, frosting, ice cream, etc)

*Dances whenever she hears music

*We moved her up to a toddler bed a month ago and haven't looked back

*She loves to play with her sister and any other big kids there are around

*Loves to play dress up

*Loves to play with her baby dolls

*She loves to look at and read books

*She is always such a happy kid and we love her to pieces!

Loves to read in bed

         This year for Marly's birthday she said she wanted a Dora cake. So I set to work and made her a Dora cake. Definitely nothing like the picture I was modeling it from, but she didn't care (that is what I love about kids). We had a few friends over and my sister and her boys. It was quite loud for a while, but everyone seemed like they had a great time. We had Mac and Cheese and hamburgers. Then we had cake and ice cream. Marly blew out the candle as soon as Mitch lit it. She knew just what to do, so we re-lit the candle and sang to her really quickly. She blew it out again and went straight for a cupcake. After everyone was done with dessert we opened some presents. She got a dress-up crown, a fleece blanket (just a tie blanket), a 4 pack of princess dress-up shoes, two baby dolls that you can dress up like a panda and a zebra, and a couple outfits. She immediately had to play with everything and all the girls (and, ahem, some of the boys) had to try on the princess shoes. Some truly great friends of ours were moving and the gave us their play house. It's the last picture on the page, and the girls absolutely love it! Marly was so excited and yesterday I let them eat their dinner in it at the little table. Thanks Walton Family!! When the party was over my girls went straight to bed saying how tired they were. We had a great time celebrating the birth of our little girl and we hope she stays happy and completely avoids the "terrible twos" attitude. We will keep our fingers crossed.

Always smiling

Her big girl bed!

The Dora cake and estrella cupcakes

She had to pause to pose for a picture (you can also see the blanket I made her)

Posing with her princess shoes

The play house we inherited

Christmas Festivities, Part two!

This year we had Christmas with Mitch's family and were able to spend quite a bit of time there. Mitch was training the new store manager in Evanston so we had about a week and a half there. Unfortunately much of that time one or more of us was sick. It started with me and eventually Mitch wasn't feeling great and Maddi was probably hit the hardest. Luckily the first day of fun we were all feeling okay. Mitch's parents got us all tickets to ride the Polar Express (also known as the Heber Creeper). Mitch's whole family was there and Maddi and Marly got to play with their cousins. The train ride was fun. We all got cookies and hot chocolate and the girls were pretty excited the Santa Claus was able to visit us. 

    After the train ride we had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon at the cousins' house. The girls played and I was starting to not feel well so I slept. Mitch and his parents had a little extra Christmas shopping to do so they went shopping. The girls wanted to do some gingerbread houses. So we all sat down and made some graham cracker houses. Maddi wanted to do a stable. When everyone got back we decided to go to Scheels (a new sports store) before heading home. Maddi rode the Ferris wheel after a lot of begging and saying she wouldn't be scared. She loved it. She even did no hands on the way down. I think Daddy was a little more scared than she was. The next day I was really sick so stayed home while everyone went to church. Thankfully by Christmas Eve I was feeling better. Unfortunately on Christmas Maddi wasn't feeling well. I gave her some ibuprofen and she felt good enough to open presents and play for a bit before crashing. Maddi spent the rest of the week sick and by Friday we were starting to worry because she wasn't getting better. We took her to the doctor and she tested positive for influenza A. It was too late for any medicine because it hadn't been in the first 48 hours. Thankfully Marly waited until we got home for her turn to be sick. Mitch had a couple days where he didn't feel great, but luckily he had elk hunting to keep him from getting too sick. The day we left was when Mitch was finally able to go out hunting and he thankfully got a cow elk. It put us getting home kind of late, but was totally worth it for him to shoot his first elk. The girls totally got spoiled by everyone and we couldn't have had more fun (minus being sick for the most of the trip). Some of the most fun presents the girls received were a little couch with attached sleeping bag, Rapunzel and Maximus dolls, my little people princess castle with princesses, Cinderella doll, game for Maddi tablet, art easel, swimming goggles for Maddi, a baby doll, and lots more. Honestly though who couldn't spoil these two cute kiddos. We hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday! We have truly been blessed this past year and can't wait to see what 2013 brings us. 

Santa waiting at the North Pole

Someone was tired after the train ride

Maddi riding the Ferris Wheel

A bear to pose with at Scheels

Marly was a little confused about these stockings

Christmas Festivities, Part One!

This year Christmas was pretty busy and hasn't really slowed down yet. It is almost the end of January and I am finally getting our Christmas posts done. I am going to have to do a couple posts. I started uploading pictures and realized it would be a lot of pictures all on one page if I did it all in one post. We had a family move in to our ward a few months ago and have become quite good friends. Maddi and their oldest daughter are about a month apart in age and they play so well, their youngest and Marly are exactly a year apart (She just turned one and Marly just turned two). We thought it would be fun to do gingerbread houses with all the girls. So we went over and the girls had a great time making their gingerbread house. Marly mostly enjoyed eating the pieces (if you look close at our gingerbread man he is missing part of his head).  

 During Thanksgiving with my family I made Mitch take a little break from deer hunting and we went and chopped down our first real Christmas tree. My sister and all her kids came as well as my parents. It was fun and surprisingly warm. We had to take off several layers. It was fun and we really didn't have to do too much hiking to find our perfect tree. The girls had fun and really enjoyed having a real tree. Now if only I could talk Mitch into making it a tradition. =)

Mitch the lumberjack 

My mom with some of the kids that went

To get it home we tied it to the top of the car, red neck style

The girls liked the branches tickling them, but it didn't make
it very easy to get a picture

Fall festivities!

Pumpkins from our garden

This fall has been a busy time of year! We got a lot of pumpkins from our garden and so of course we had to paint some, put sticker faces on some, and most importantly give some away. We had over 15 pumpkins! Mitch bought a witch face set and a bat set. Sorry about the shirtless girls, but when painting I would rather have them paint their bellies than paint their clothes. Besides painting pumpkins we also went to a local pumpkin patch with friends. Marly liked the horses, but when it came to getting on the wagon for a ride she freaked out, so Maddi was able to ride with her friends and I stayed behind with Marly. We also have a few trees in our backyard and of course that means a yard full of leaves. Mitch and I would rake them into a pile and they would jump in them and throw them all over the place.
     Then of course there was Halloween! This year Maddi talked forever about being a cat for Halloween, but she saw a picture of Tinker Bell and had to be that instead. I found a tutorial on Pinterest for one and set to work. I think it turned out great, and once Marly saw it she wanted to be a "princess" just like sissy. So I bought some material in another color and went to work. I really like how excited the girls were and they really had such a fun time. We got in our wagon and headed to the neighborhood just behind our house. I can't believe the amount of trick-or-treaters there were. It was a little much, so we just went to a few houses of people we knew. We had to go to Maddi's preschool teacher's house so Mitch got the car and picked us all up. Thankfully we didn't need to go to very many houses for the girls to be happy with the amount of candy we got.
    This fall has gone so fast! I can't believe it is already November, and I really don't think things will slow down until after Christmas! I can't wait for all the fun we have coming up in the next few months and hopefully I can keep better up to date on this blog! Enjoy!

Maddi did this one all by herself

They wouldn't look at the camera, they were too excited about the pumpkins

Love this little poser!