Christmas

Better late than never, right? Here are a bunch of pics of our delightful Christmas:

The girls holding stars at the Kleven family Christmas party (my side)

Ringing bells at the Hatch Christmas party (Mark's side)

Our little nativity was lacking in children to play all the parts on Christmas eve, so some of the grownups participated. Doesn't little Tommy make the cutest shepherd?

We went and saw the temple lights just after Thanksgiving hoping to avoid the crowds--nope, it was the first night with the ceremonial turn on of the lights. It was packed and we could barely move anywhere. Note to self: do not go on the day after Thanksgiving.

Natalie making a gingerbread house. Mostly it was just eating the candy.

My mom answering the phone when my brother called from his mission in Detroit on Christmas morning. It was so fun to hear his voice!

The big morning finally arrives...

Hannah stopped all present opening to eat her M&M's. All we heard for weeks was, "em nem?"

Natalie had been asking for a Tiana doll for months and wrote a letter to Santa about it, AND told him she wanted one when she sat on his lap. He pulled through and even brought an Ariel doll for Hannah.

This is the only picture I got of the plate of goodies left for Santa--both girls were grumpy at this point and the water for the reindeer (Natalie's idea) had just spilled all over the piano bench.

This one is of the girls opening their traditional ornaments on Christmas eve. Natalie's was a ballet girl and Hannah's a little dog in a Christmas box.

Hannah did NOT like sitting on Santa's lap. We love his expression. And Hannah's belly button.

This is the first year Natalie has been brave enough to sit on his lap and actually speak with him! It was amazing. So they do grow out of some things...

It was a delightful Christmas. Aubri (Mark's sister) had gotten married the week before, so things were a little crazier than usual with wedding plans, etc. Several of my projects got finished after Christmas was over so another note to self: finish projects before December even starts. And do Christmas shopping early! I know everyone tries to do that but this year I didn't really make an effort to do it early and boy did I regret that. It was not so fun.

The girls were super excited about Christmas which made it even more fun for us. They even sang along to Christmas songs (mostly Nat) which was sooooo cute. There is nothing like a little child's voice singing songs, I tell ya.

New years was really nothing too exciting-we didn't even tell the kids about it (we were exhausted) and put them to bed at the usual time, then we watched a movie and went to bed before midnight. Woo hoo! Happy 2011. :)

Annie

So back in November or so, we scored some free tickets to see Annie at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater in Mesa. I had never been there before but we were willing to try it out! Turns out my sister Katie had 4 free tickets to the same show, so we made it a girls night out with me, Natalie, Melanie, Brooklyn, my mom, and Katie. It was so fun. There was a buffet dinner then we watched the show from our tables. Food was delish, and the show was superb. I was especially amazed at the little girl who played Annie. She had a great voice and was a really good little actress! Natalie really liked it most of the way through. It was late for her, she was getting hungry again towards the end of the show, and there was a lot of dialogue in the second half. We had some crying on the way home but overall it was a very fun evening and I'm sooo glad we went!

The girls are so excited to see the show.


Top: Natalie and Katie enjoying dessert. Bottom--my sampling of the chocolate delights they had to offer.

Natalie and me . Don't you love her enthusiasm?
The girls got bored after we were done eating before the show started, so we all hunted through our purses to find them something to do. I happened to have a brand new pack of stickers! They stuck them all to their ticket stubs which occupied them for quite a while.

New Year's resolutions

If you thought this was going to be a bulleted list, you were wrong. I am a fan of goal-setting, and naturally the new year brings this out in me. I mulled over what I was going to resolve to do and came up with a big list of things--if I were to accomplish them all, I'd be perfect! Yesssss. I would keep my house clean, be up to date on my blog, have emergency prep stuff all ready to go, my recipes organized, exercise daily, eat healthy food and very little processed sugar/carbs, be diligent in my preschooling of Natalie, never watch tv again, filing neat and tidy, my garden producing food, work on my genealogy, attend the temple more, and only look at facebook once a week. Soooo with all that floating around in my head I procrastinated the goals. Once my birthday hit last week I had decided to simplify and choose two things to work on personally. They are:

• Read my scriptures every day
• Keep my kitchen clean

Yes folks, that is it. I'm all about tackling small goals and feeling good about doing well at them. My kitchen has been mostly glorious and sparkly since Jan 1 and my scriptures are being opened more than they used to. Feels good. I'll get to those other things here and there, a little at a time.

As for weight loss goals, it's kind of on the bottom of my list at this point, haha. Once this baby pops out, it will become a priority!

Family pictures

**noticed that some were cut off for some reason...now it is fixed**

We took these in mid-December at a junkyard by our house. I took the ones of the kids, Mark took ones of me with the kids, and Melanie (my sis) took the ones of our family and I post-processed them all. It was quick and easy and the kids did great! We love how it all turned out.

unexpected morning activity

In September we were out playing in our front walkway area when our neighbor came out with her camera saying a hot air balloon was landing in our green belt at the end of the street. The girls and I went and watched. Those things look a lot bigger in person than in the air!

My neighbor took these and sent them over. It was soooo exciting to see! They eventually deflated it and got picked up right there in our neighborhood.

Hannah's birthday

Hannah turned two on November 30th!! I can't believe my sweet little baby is two. That's like, not a baby anymore. Sheesh.

This is Han when she was really a baby. Seems like yesterday. Sniff.

Anyway, we had a family birthday party for her. Everyone but this grump enjoyed the party. heh heh. She actually had fallen asleep a little before the party and we woke her up instead of moving her to her bed so she wouldn't miss anything. Both kids had colds and needed rest. She cheered up eventually though.

Opening presents. She really got into it this year.

She also loved the singing.

And she loved the cake, just like her mommy. :-)

Some things about Hannah at age 2:

• She is putting two and three word phrases together like, "mama, hannah, bye bye." and "dada stay home." She loves to shout up the stairs, "dada! Eat!" when dinner is ready.
  
• She loves to color on a piece of paper and then roll it up.
  
• She hops everywhere like a bunny and loves to jump off the bottom step.
  
• Not even close to potty training.
  
• Sleeps with a little polar bear that she calls "baby."
• Follows Natalie around and does whatever Natalie says to do.
  
• Still has a shrill scream that she pulls out whenever anything chaotic or noisy is going on, which makes things even louder.
  
• She wants to do everything herself. "me!" is what she says to let us know.
  
• Blows kisses and says, "hi!" and "bye!" to everyone.
  
• still signs quite a bit and says "heeee" when she wants us to look at the sign she is making. For the record, she signs milk, juice, water, help, please, red, orange, brown, green, purple, pink, yellow. Probably more that I don't remember right now.
  
• She almost knows her colors. Probably gets them right 85% of the time.
  
• She's in the 10th percentile in weight and 80th for height.
  
• She is very loving and the feel of her little arms around my neck is the best every! We love her so much and couldn't imagine our family without her!
  

the fair

So, back in November I took the kids to the AZ state fair with my awesome friend Emily and her kiddos. It was free so we thought we'd might as well! We chose November 3rd as our date to go in hopes that the later in the year, the cooler it would be. Nope. It was 95 degrees and sunny. But nevertheless, we were determined to have a good time.

The kids all packed in and ready to go. They are soooo excited!

We got there before the rides opened in hopes that we could look at the animals, etc before the rides opened and the day went by. The kids were super excited about the rides and wanted nothing to do with the animals. Oops. Note #1 to self: next time arrive with the rides open. 11am finally arrived and we rode the carousel first.

Here we are on the ferris wheel. Both girls were scared and tightly clinging to me when it started but ended up enjoying it so much!

Emily and her kids, Heidi and Nathan. See Heidi's look of intensity? That is a common look for her. I've never met a more intense 3yo. :) She and Natalie get along great though! Both girls are very smart and have great imaginations.

Heidi and Natalie riding an airplane. They never got the hang of rising it off the ground.

Enjoying a super overpriced ice cream cone. Before they could get through the giant pile of ice cream on top, the cone disintegrated. It was soooo much fun having ice cream all over everyone!

Another ride. Good thing we went then cuz I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to squeeze myself into that car now.

This was an obstacle course thing. Natalie didn't realize that before she got in-she thought it was just a bounce house. The fair workers and I encouraged her to go on up the rope ladder and through the tunnels, etc. She and Heidi both climbed up but got scared and lost and started screaming. One ride attendant lifted Heidi over a barrier so she could go down the slide into the arms of her mommy, but Natalie for whatever reason went back into this tunnel she was next to and the fair guy couldn't get to her. Of course she is terrified of strangers in general so this was not helping. Add to that a bunch of bigger kids crawling through the maze and me holding Hannah while trying to shout instructions at her. Uh, not working. Finally some bigger girls helped Natalie get back to the rope ladder (behind her in the pic), I handed a screaming Hannah to Emily and climbed over to the ladder where I coaxed a crying Natalie back down the ladder until I could reach her. It was quite traumatic. Note to self #2: Make sure kids know what each ride entails before getting on. After that we decided on one more ride and then we would go!

Hannah trying out this riding toy. I know it has a name but I can't think of it right now. This was in the "toddler zone" which we stopped by on the way to our last ride.

Can you tell how thrilled everyone is at this point? Hot and sweaty and traumatized from that last ride. ha.

After that it was time to go. I didn't have a double stroller at this point (I have since purchased one) so I put Natalie in the stroller and carried Han. Both were tired and sweaty and hot and fell asleep within 2 minutes of walking. Note to self #3: Never go to the fair without a double stroller. Unfortunately we were at the very back of the fair, furthest away from the entrance. It took us a good 15 minutes to walk through the fair, winding around people and then we were parked sooooo far away. Pushing a sleeping kid with one hand while balancing another sleeping kid on your shoulder is not easy! While 5 mo pregnant, too. Emily was very patient with my slow walking and finally we made it to the car. All in all it was a fun day, but exhausting. Glad we have the memories, but glad it's over!