Christmas 2013

We had a really fun Christmas this year.  Cosette loved the Christmas lights, decorations, and presents.  She also really enjoyed decorating our gingerbread house with grandma.

We went down to my parent's home in Springville for Christmas Eve.  The grandkids acted out the Nativity story, and this year Cosette was Mary.  We had our traditional feast of snack food (like deviled eggs, rolls, and chips and dip), and we also opened up Christmas crackers.

Mary (Cosette) and Joseph (Darren)

Shepherd (Miriam), Joseph (Darren), Mary (Cosette)
Angel (Adriana), Sheep (Clara, off camera)

Snuggle time with Grandpa

We spent Christmas at home.  Here are some before pictures.  Unfortunately, I only took videos on Christmas day, no photos.

Cosette loved all of her presents.  In fact, she was perfectly content to open one present at a time and then just sit and play with it.  Jeff and I, eager to see her reactions, kept encouraging her to open more presents.  Her two biggest gifts were a doll house and play kitchen.  I knew that they would compete for her attention, so I hid the kitchen and play food in the toy room with the door shut, and she didn't find them for several hours.
Cosette was so excited by her new toys that she didn't want to sit down and eat anything all morning.  I had made her favorite breakfast of muffins and a smoothie, but she only ate a few bites before she was back to playing with her toys.  We only managed to get her to eat lunch after closing the door to the toy room and promising that she could play with her new toys again after lunch and a nap.
All in all, it was a really fun Christmas this year.  We hope everyone had a great Christmas as well!

Trip to Temple Square

Tonight for Family Night we spent the afternoon at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  Jeff worked a half day so we could go earlier and have time to visit museums before the lights were turned on at night.

We saw the Christus statue, sat in the Tabernacle, briefly looked at some Church art, and went to the children's exhibit in the Church History Muesuem (definitely Cosette's favorite part).  We then ate dinner at the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building before walking around to see the lights.  All in all, it was a really fun family outing.

Sitting on benches in the Tabernacle

The next few pictures are from the Children's Exhibit at the Church History Museum.  Cosette's favorite part of the whole evening was the play kitchen and food.  It makes me really excited to see how she'll react to the play kitchen and food we got her for Christmas.

Sitting on Nephi's boat

Driving with Mommy

Driving with Bear

Cosette's favorite exhibit

It was pretty cold, so we didn't look at the lights for very long.  I was really glad we brought the stroller and were able to just push Cosette around.

Looking at lights

Oooo

Happy family

I'm glad that Cosette's getting older and is able to appreciate outings like this.  We might make this a family Christmas tradition.

Playing in the Cave

Cosette has started hiding inside of cupboards and closets, telling me that she's "playing in the cave."  

These pictures also show that she enjoys being naked around the house.  There have been times that she's been doing something really cute and I didn't take any pictures because I don't want there to be a lot of naked toddler pictures that may embarrass her someday.  But I felt like these pictures were ok enough to show.

She really cracks me up.

Upside-down Turkey

We had a really fun Thanksgiving.  For the first time in our married lives, we spent it with Jeff's side of the family.  My parents were down in Texas for the baptism of my sister Marie's oldest child, Evelyn.  So we went to my sister-in-law Rachel's house.
There was one funny moment when we put Cosette down for a nap in their study, thinking it would be out of the way, only to realize that the closet in the study is where they store their extra chairs.  So we couldn't finish setting up for dinner until Cosette woke up.  Fortunately, her nap ended at just the right time.
We spent the morning after Thanksgiving with Jeff's family, too.  We invited his siblings and their families to our home for a brunch, and it was a lot of fun.  His brothers Ben and Kelly hadn't seen our new home yet, so it gave us a chance to give them a tour.  Our nieces and nephews spent most of the time in the toy room (I was surprised how much fun they had playing with the train table) and having a Wii Sports Resort tournament.
Well, let me get down to the title of the blog.  We were given a turkey from Jeff's work, and I decided to cook it today and have a second Thanksgiving meal for the three of us.  Unfortunately, I managed to both undercook the turkey AND cook it upside down.

Maybe one of these days I'll manage to successfully cook a turkey.  But hey, at least I didn't pay for it.

Diapers, Dancing, Big Girl Bed, and Polly Pockets

Here's a collection of fun pictures from the past few weeks.  Well, the first set of pictures is from August - I forgot that I never posted them on the blog, so I thought I'd just stick them in here.

Cosette started getting really interested in putting diapers on her animals and dolls.  I thought it was pretty cute, so I snapped a few pictures.

Cosette has started dressing up in a tutu and loves to dance around to music from the piano.  She calls it having a "dance party."  She also has a second tutu that she sometimes has me put on bear, or a friend can use it when they come over for a play date.

Cosette recently discovered my Polly Pocket toys that I saved from when I was a little girl.  These are the original, itty bitty, no longer sold because they're a choking hazard toys.  But she's old enough now to know not to put them in her mouth, and she's spent hours and hours playing with them.  They were one of my favorite toys growing up, so it's been a lot of fun watching her play with them (and getting down on the floor and playing too, of course).  We refer to them as "Mommy's special toys," and they stay in Mommy's room so they don't get mixed up with other toys in the toy room or get broken or lost.

We took the side off of Cosette's crib to make it a toddler day bed, so she's now sleeping in a "big girl bed."  She really enjoys being able to climb in and out on her own.  But she still won't get up in the morning or after a nap until one of us comes and gets her.  She still sleeps with a book in her bed, so sometimes she'll just lay there reading for 10 or 20 minutes before we get her up.  She totally spoils me.

So there are a few fun things that our big girl is up to.

Our Garden

I wanted to post some pictures and stories about our garden this year.
It was certainly a learning experience.  I look forward to future years of experimentation and delicious produce.
We were amazed at how large the plants got.  We took this picture at the end of July, and the plants got even bigger after this.  Not much taller, but they did spread.

One of Jeff's co-workers kindly gave us a few basil plants for a housewarming gift.  They came really close to dying, but then ended up flourishing and spreading.  In fact, they turned from green to a really pretty dark purple.  At one point we gave a bagful to my sister Suzanne, and our car smelled like basil for several days afterwards.

We ended up having so much produce lying around the house that Cosette started treating them like toys.  She liked to balance on top of large zucchini, line windowsills with tomatoes and green peppers, and carry squash around the house.

It was really crazy for a few weeks when our peaches were ripe.  We were outside almost daily picking rotten peaches off the ground so the flies and worms didn't get too bad.  I also enjoyed climbing the peach tree to reach the good peaches before they fell.  I froze several bags full of peaches, canned 7 jars (my first time canning!), and also made peach cobbler, syrup, sorbet, and fruit leather.

Accumulated peach pits

In addition to freezing peaches, I also cut up and froze green peppers and zucchini.  Some of the zucchini was blended up to be used in baking breads and muffins, and some was sliced and blanched for use in smoothies.

Freezing sliced green peppers

Frozen zucchini chunks for smoothies

Cutting up a few giant zucchini for blending

Five zucchinis blended up for freezing

Put freezer bags over an empty yogurt container 

5 zucchinis = 29 cups to freeze for future muffins and breads

Here are some pictures of our pumpkins.  I tried to account for all of the pumpkins we gave away, but I gave a few to my mom that I didn't get a picture of.  I estimate that we had around 30 pumpkins total.

Our neighbor Elsie picked the first pumpkin in our patch

Pumpkins selected by my nephew and nieces
Olivia, Jonathan, Audrey and Madeline

Cosette choosing her pumpkin

These pumpkins at my sister's house came from our garden
(all but those on the top step)

Jack-o-lanterns we made with our own pumpkins,
along with a bumpy yellow squash for decoration

When our garden was peaking in production, we were harvesting several grocery bags full of produce every day.  Towards the end of the season we were able to let one or two days pass in between harvesting, and the numbers started dropping off.  We took a picture of our last day of harvesting produce before we started ripping out the dead and dying plants.

Our last day of produce

So there are some highlights of our garden this year.  Next year we hope to plant a larger variety of vegetables, as well as start a berry patch.  I'm excited for the years to come, but I'm also grateful for the break from gardening that we get in the winter.