Dora the Angel Explorer!

I love Dora. Other than her incredibly annoying, almost unbearable voice, she's an angel. First of all, she's a great babysitter when I need to get something done and don't want Bella's little helping hands. Bella will sit on the couch with a pillow and a blanket and not move if Dora is on. She'd sit there all day if I let her (it's awfully tempting sometimes). But most importantly, she is the reason Bella wants to wear "Dola Panies." And, since we don't pee on Dora panties we are on day two of potty training with only one accident, which was my fault. Thank heaven for Dora!

Wouldn't it be nice if Bella was out of diapers before Malia comes?? Here's hoping!

Back to Normal

The end of December went by so fast! We had a great Christmas (for the most part). The best part was that Ben's Mom, Dad and Collin came to visit us! It was great to have them here. The kids loved playing with Collin and Bella didn't leave Grandpa alone for two seconds!
Ben and Trent went hunting and shot a deer, something they haven't done for a couple of years (shooting a deer that is). We went to see Princess and the Frog. Loved that movie...didn't love taking Bella to the theater. I also got to play Pinochle!! I love that game. It's one thing I miss quite a bit. Jeri Lynn helped me make another turkey dinner. We did it the same way I did for Thanksgiving. It turned out great! I'm definitely going to make my turkeys that way from now on. If you ask Collin our "Thanksgiving dinner" was his favorite part of the trip. I take that as quite the compliment, considering Collin is a bit of a picky eater. We went to Bass Pro Shops to see Santa, and we also spent a day at the Hall's farm.
One sad thing was that Collin was sick for the first part of his vacation. At one point he said
"Why do I have to be sick on the best day of my life?"
Trent also got sick. . .then I got sick. . .then Jeri Lynn got sick, then it was time to go home. :(
We were very sad when they had to leave. Bella woke up the next morning and wandered around the house calling for Grandpa. She started crying when I told her that Grandpa had to go home. She kept saying "No Grandpa go home, no plane, no airport" It was very cute, but also sad. Having them here was a great distraction from the sadness that I would have when I'd think about missing all of the holiday festivities in Utah. The other distraction was that on Christmas Eve Ben had to take me to the urgent care. That was fun. I was very sick, and not getting better. Come to find out I tested positive for strain A flu. They said it's likely I had the Swine flu, but they don't even test to see if it's Swine flu or not anymore. It's the same treatment either way. The reason it hit me so hard is because I'm pregnant. They told me a few different things I could take to help with the symptoms, but basically they said, suffer through it. That was fun too.
Ben got sick on Christmas so we sat around, like stumps, and let the kids play with their toys. They made an absolute mess of the house, but we didn't really care. We couldn't move. :)
It was actually pretty sad. I barely got any pictures of the kids on Christmas. We did let them open one gift on Christmas Eve. It was their new pajamas. I also made them take a picture in front of the tree. They are pretty cute kids!
Other than being sick, we really did have a great Christmas. We enjoyed getting Christmas cards from so many people, my mom sent me a care package a few weeks before with Cinnamon bears (I think it was a five or ten lb. bag from sam's club. . .and it's gone. . .I didn't really share either) and Arctic Circle's fry sauce (Yay!) among other things, and Ben also got me a Cricut!!

So, now that everything is calming down, everyone is feeling better (lucky for us none of the kids got the flu!), Simon is back in school, Ben is back to work, and the house is clean once again, everything is feeling a little less chaotic. Sigh. :) Only three more months until it all becomes chaos again and baby Malia comes! I can't wait!