Weekends at our house

Olivia wore her first pair of pigtails to church this Sunday. They made her look instantly grown-up and more like big sister. Too bad they didn't even make it half way through Sacrament.
Oh so cute!

Olivia spent much of the weekend talking on the phone; or in this case a calculator.

We had a wild Viking/ballerina on the loose.

Terrorizing Daddy and Olivia.

Luckily, she also does dishes. I came down from a trip to the potty to find Charlotte working on a load of dishes I had started. She did a whole sink full. She's so big!

Finn discovered he really really likes to sleep on the couch. It is hard to kick him off when Charlotte covers him with a blankie and tells everyone to be quiet because her baby is sleeping. She also lent him some of her favorite dinos.

Artists in the making

Olivia has recently discovered the joy of painting. It always nice to find a new way to keep her busy for 10 minutes. I thought these pictures were cute; so here you go.

Look at that focus!

Speaking of artists; I've noticed Charlotte's drawings have made a leap in sophistication lately. Her characters are often wearing patterned clothes or have wonderful facial expressions. Here are two recent masterpieces. She said this one was her and Humpty Dumpty; I like his striped pants.

This is my favorite drawing she's made to date. She told me it was an angry spider. His facial expression make me smile.

Christmas

I hope you are ready for the longest post ever! We had so much fun at Christmas; I had a hard time narrowing down the pictures. We stayed in Flagstaff for Christmas; it was so nice to just be at home and enjoy our girls.

We should have made Olivia the Angel on top; but we decided to stick with the star.

Charlotte and I were given some tickets to see the local production of the Nutcracker. Here we are before the show. We loved it! Charlotte is getting to the age where all little girls want to be ballerinas, but in the end the rat king was her favorite (sticking with her habit of rooting for the villain).

Two excited girls on Christmas Eve.

We tried to set out cookies for Santa, but Olivia kept sneaking up, grabbing the cookies and retreating to the tree where she ate them hastily. Unfortunately Finn also grabbed a mouthful of chocolate covered cookies and ended up with the Hershey squirts for for 2.5 days (sorry, TMI)

Olivia got this adorable stroller from us, and the cute baby doll from Grandpa & Grandma Hoth. They have been inseparable.

Despite the cookie troubles; Finn had a nice Christmas too.

He's thinking, "hurry, can't hold it much longer!"

Grandma and Grandpa Hoth sent this neat-o horse barn and horses for Charlotte. Grandpa made an extra set of fence for her corral, some miniature hay bales and a personalized gate for Charlotte's ranch. It is adorable, and she just loves it.

Charlotte has been arranging her horses all over the house. If you ask her what they are doing she has some elaborate story about Carnotaurs coming so the horses are staying together in their corral while the King pony runs out and pokes them in the eye.

A few days after Christmas Charlotte's T-rex arrived (thanks for the late delivery Amazon). But, she really didn't care. He is quite the character; he likes to play dead and burst to life when you are close enough to be eaten.

I bet you didn't know that Vikings often serve tea with their favorite dinosaur pals.

Happy New Year.

Sedona with Katy

For Christmas I got a rare chance to get together with Katy. We decided to leave the kids at home and make the most of our few short hours. We met in Sedona where we had a hike, ate a delicious lunch (still dreaming of pot-roast and mashed potato sandwiches Katy?), some brief shopping (where Katy treated me to a pair of funky Zumba pants-I'll have to post em) and ended the day with an outback Jeep tour. Needless to say; we had a fabulous time! Thanks Katy for treating me to a wonderful day. I wish I got to see my sisters more often.

This picture was supposed to be last-oh well. This was on our Jeep tour; the sun was setting and putting an orangy glow on everything-gorgeous.

Katy on top (almost) of Bell rock. There really is no clear trail up the thing. People just scurry about like ants; trying to find an easy way up. We picked a goal point on one of the mesas and reached our destination. We were planning an hour of meditation on top (just kidding; but people in Sedona are really into things like that); but there were too many people waiting for our view.

A view from the top

The 7 sacred pools; part of the jeep tour

Our tour guide "Buck" took this picture. He was quite the stereotype of a Texas man in a leather vest, spurs and a gun holster.

Ahh, Sedona (named after a settlers wife-we found out on the tour). It really is such a beautiful place. It felt great to be walking around in a light jacket in December for a change.