Fair flashback

While stealing pictures off my dad's computer, we found some cute ones he shot when we went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair back in September. Since we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the cuteness, here is a sampling. (To see others, click here.)

Analee and Andrea checking out the tortoise at the petting zoo.

Bekah smiling because she just showed Grandpa Scott (the photographer) her balloon (which is now out of the frame).

Analee feeding the goose doll some straw.

Seth watching as Bekah rides the tractor.

Seth, Andrea, Grandma Scott and Aunt Jessica sitting/watching/waiting for our girls to finish playing.

Christmas Extravaganza 2009

We got to spend some time with my family the day before Christmas Eve, the morning of Christmas and the day after Christmas (again, too lazy to take my camera when I know my dad has at least three within an arm's length at any time), so Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon we spent with Seth's family.

At Aunt Cathy's house, we visited, ate yummy food and reenacted the Nativity. Although Bekah's knows she can't marry her cousin (see this post), she jumped at the chance to play his wife for the production. So Bekah was Mary, Mack was Joseph, Tav was a wiseman, Ana was a sheep/angel (it seemed to me she was a furry angel with a halo that said, "Baa!"), and Baby Cooper was Baby Jesus.

The partial cast (Seth and his cousins filled in the other wisemen/innkeeper/star/narrator parts) before the actual production.

Then we spent the evening at Grandma Susan and Grandpa Grover's house exchanging gifts with Seth's family.

Bekah received a whole bag full of Legos from Grandma Susan and Grandpa Dennis. She's been on quite a Lego kick lately, but with the paltry number of blocks we own, she had to ration out her Legos when building more than one thing. She'll never run out of blocks again.

Analee holding the Powerpuff Girl umbrella she received.

The next morning, the girls got to open the gifts they received from Santa before we left the house to visit family.

Analee (wearing the princess jammies Grandma Scott had given her) playing with the "Barry" doll Grandma Susan had given her on Christmas Eve and the baby station Santa brought her on Christmas morning.

Bekah (wearing the "Daddy's Princess" jammies Grandma Scott had given her) finally getting to dump out her entire bag of Legos she received from Grandma Susan.

To see other Christmas images, click here.

Cutting the Christmas tree

You'd think, this being posted shortly after Christmas and all, that I'd be blogging about that. (Never fear ... that's next.) But instead, I'm going to catch up on our day after Thanksgiving festivities.

I'm super-late in doing so because I was waiting on pictures. I was WAY too lazy to take my own pictures of our adventures, so I relied on my camera-happy father to take care of it. And he did. But I didn't get those pictures until the day before yesterday. Why? Because he didn't know I was waiting for them, and I kept forgetting to ask. So Seth and I simply stole them off his computer.

That being said ...

Thanksgiving day, we spent a lot of time with my family. After a sumptuous feast (99 percent prepared by my mom ... I DID, however, contribute the dinner rolls), we took it easy and attempted to digest all the good food. The girls found ways to entertain themselves.

Analee and Bekah playing with toys in the bathroom sink. They were both soaked after this, so Grandma Scott found some extra clothes to change them into. I'm still amazed at this picture ... with the medicine cabinet mirror and the mirror on the back of the bathroom door, I have no idea how my dad managed to shoot this without getting himself in the shot. Kudos to you, old man!

Bekah enjoying one of the pies Grandma Scott made.

And the day after Thanksgiving, we donned our cold-weather gear and drove to Fall Creek for our annual Christmas tree hunt. Between the nine of us who came (Grandpa Scott, Grandma Scott, Uncle T, Aunt McKall, Aunt Jessica, Seth, me, Bekah and Ana), we were in charge of cutting down four trees (one for Grandma and Grandpa, one for Uncle T, one for us and one for Uncle Jason). It took us quite a while to find four worthy trees, but we did it.

Seth pulling Ana in the sled (since we knew we'd be in charge of hauling two trees down the mountain, Seth brought the sled to assist us), and Bekah walking alongside it. Bekah traipsed all over the snowy mountainside. Ana wanted to, but her legs are so short it took her FOREVER to get anywhere. She alternated between being carried, riding in Seth's big sled or riding in my little one.

Uncle T watching as Seth gets our tree down the very steep hill and I follow by sliding on my bum.

Analee and Rebekah enjoying the taste of the great wintry outdoors.

I should say it's about time to get this post up. The Christmas tree we worked so hard to find, chop down and carry home it about to be dismantled and discarded tomorrow. Sigh ... such is life when you're a pretty pine.

To see more pictures of Thanksgiving/cutting Christmas trees, click here.

What the elf?!?

This is Andrea's doing. (The audio might be slightly out-of-sync with the video, which is my doing. They don't make it easy to rip this thing.)

Christmas 2009 newsletter

In case you didn't get on the mailing list, here is the 2009 edition of the Grover Christmas newsletter. Click on the image to view it in a non-microscopic size.

Bekahism #23

Talking to her cousin, Mack, while playing at our house.

Bekah: "I love you, Mack, but we can't get married because we're cousins."
Mack: (Blank stare.)

Mack, Tav, Bekah and Ana (my kids are on a dress-up kick ... Bekah is Raggedy Ann and Ana is a princess) during their playdate.

Santa Claus is coming ... to the Idaho Falls Public Library

I don't know if you have to pay money to have your kid sit on Santa's lap at the mall. I'm sure you have to pay for the pictures, which is dumb, considering the number of cameras we have in our household. So, being the cheapskate I am, my children do not sit on the mall Santa's lap.

But when Santa makes a scheduled appearance during story time at the library, you can bet I'll be first in line ... with my own camera.

Right after lunch today, I told the girls we were headed to the library for story time. This is unusual because we normally attend the morning story time, but with Bekah in preschool, that's not an option. So we made an exception to the "naps right after lunch" rule to go to a special story time.

I didn't tell the girls who would be coming to the library. I wanted that to be a surprise. So we settled ourselves down on the rug and waited for the Big Man himself.

The look on Bekah's face when she saw Santa and Mrs. Claus enter the room was priceless. You can judge for yourself:

I'm thinking she likes it.

We sang a few songs:

Ana doing the actions for "Once There Was a Snowman."

Bekah banging her sticks during the "Kris Kringle Band" song.

Ana and her sticks.

... and then the girls lined up and patiently waited to sit on Santa's lap. Keep in mind, Bekah didn't have the guts to sit on his lap until last year (when she was 3), so I carefully explained to both girls that they only had to sit on Santa's lap if they wanted to. But with big sister leading the way, Ana wasn't at all concerned.

Bekah telling Santa and Mrs. Claus that she would like a music box.

My kids are too concerned with their candy canes to look at the camera.

Mrs. Claus, Santa and Ana.

Again, the candy cane is more interesting.

Sleepy turtle

When I came up the stairs from working on Christmas cards, this is what I found:


In case you can't see what's in there, here's a close-up:


My little two-year-old was ready for a nap! She had made herself all comfy in her shell with a pillow, her blankie, and a baba. So I promptly took her upstairs and tucked her in bed.

A very cold and snowy trip

I had a follow-up with my oral surgeon in Salt Lake on Thursday (boo!), so we decided to make it fun by taking the whole family south on a little vacation (yea!).

On Thursday, we drove down on dry roads and enjoyed blue (albeit cold) skies. After my check-up ("Everything looks great. See you again in two months!"), we went to our hotel and let the girls go crazy in the pool. After getting cleaned up, we utilized the microwave in our room by heating up the dinners we had brought from home, ate them on our couch, and then bundled up and drove to downtown.

We knew we'd be going to Temple Square the next morning, but the main reason we wanted to see it in December was for the lights. So we took a quick trip to see the bright decor.

After spending too long looking for free parking ("It's a Thursday night; it will be EASY to find parking in downtown Salt Lake." HA!), we finally found a spot between 100 and 200 S, loaded the girls up in the double stroller, and booked it for Temple Square. Apparently December 10 was the coldest day Salt Lake has had this year, and we took our babies out in it.

So we ran through the Square, ducking into buildings to catch our breath and warm up a bit. Despite the frigidity, I think the girls enjoyed it ... at least, part of the time.

Analee, Seth and Rebekah outside the Salt Lake Temple's doors.

The awesome "floating" nativity in the middle of the reflection pool.

Analee looking at the lights and nativities.

After a good night's rest at the hotel, we again packed up and happily paid for parking close to Temple Square since we knew we'd spend most of the day there. We started out futilely trying to get into the Conference Center for a tour (apparently they don't give tours during the day of a performance), then headed over to the Church Museum of History and Art. The girls ran past many of the exhibits, stopping only to look at something that really interested them.

Bekah peeking out over the Tabernacle's old podium, now on display at the museum.

But we spent at least an hour in the children's room.

Analee dressed up as Mary in the children's room. She had to wear this costume the whole time we were there.

We then spent some time in the North Visitors' Center ...

Analee and Rebekah next to the "gigantic" (as Bekah put it) Christus.

... before boarding Trax (the girls were very excited at the idea of riding a "train") to go to the Gateway for lunch. After our return trip to the Square, we watched "The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd" in the theater (which we had to ourselves), looked at the Assembly Hall and Tabernacle, and tried the Conference Center one last time before calling it a day.

The girls were excited about taking another dip in the pool. Two days of swimming in a row! A dream come true!

Bekah (and her five layers of flotation) playing in one of the pool's fountains.

Analee (our water baby) lounging in her tube.

Then we took it easy that night be ordering a pizza, eating it in our room and watching "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure" on the laptop before bedtime.

On Saturday, we took a quick trip to Provo to see the Monte L. Bean Museum, which the girls loved.

Seth about to be swallowed whole by a hippo.

Analee, Rebekah and Seth looking at a butterfly mosaic made up of ... butterflies.

We tried to see BYU's new Museum of Paleontology, but apparently they're too good to be open on a Saturday. But I shouldn't complain. It's a good thing we left when we did, because we encountered all sorts of bad roads on the way home: slushy roads, icy roads, snowy roads and roads where the traffic was at a standstill forEVER!

Gratefully, we pulled into our lovely driveway less than an hour before we had to be to the church for the ward Christmas party. Seth was all for skipping out on the festivities, but I assured him that it wouldn't do to have Mary and Joseph absent from the program. I'm still trying to figure out why the activities committee picked the tall blonde chick to play Mary, but I guess it all worked out.

To see more glorious images from our trip, click here.

the story of your birth

"Mommy Ariel" (Bekah): Baby Ariel, let me tell you the story of your birth.
"Baby Ariel" (Ana, in a high-pitched squeaky voice): Okay!
MA: Well, a long time ago, King Triton and I weren't married yet, we were just best friends. But then, the ship that Prince Eric was riding in crashed into me and I died. But later, I was resurrected. You weren't born yet, but King Triton and I got married and then he put the seed in my tummy and a baby grew in there, and then you were born! What do you think of that?
BA: Oh!

Festivities with the hubby's fam

So as not to interfere with others' Thanksgiving plans, Seth's grandparents opted for a family dinner at their church in Rexburg the Saturday following the holiday. Smart move in many ways ... the church has a nursery with lots of toys, a gym to play in and a kitchen for serving food.

The girls had a crazy-fun time with their cousins, especially.

Bekah coloring ornaments that Aunt Anne had brought to share with the young'uns.

Ana was reunited with her long-lost teddy bear. Apparently she had managed to shove it under Aunt Cathy's chair while she was baby-sat there weeks ago.

The next night, we invited Seth's parents over for dinner and to watch us decorate our Christmas tree. After the trimming, we had a little photo shoot.

Ana, her teddy bear, Andrea, Bekah and Seth posing in front of the tree. Bekah sure does take the "posing" part seriously.

Then the girls got a little crazy.

Bekah doing a really tricky pose.

Ana the ballerina.

Bekah leaping off the couch.

Ana demonstrating her 1-inch vertical.