Playing On La Playa

California is definitely the place to be in December! Scott sometimes thinks it's sad to not have a "white Christmas", but I'll tell you what . . . Christmas in California is the best! You can actually go outside and play with all the new toys.

The day after Christmas we all went to the park with the new bikes and scooters and baby strollers. The guys threw the football, the girls sat and talked, the kids played and Ava chowed on Cheetos.The girlies taking their new baby dolls on a walk.And California in December gets even better when you get to go play on the beach! The family went down to Santa Monica. It was gorgeous! The weather was sunny and beautiful. We walked along the 3rd Street Promenade and had lunch.

Ava and Evan (who will never smile for a picture).Brie walking along 3rd Street with her "Prince Davin".The fam at Santa Monica beach.
Wave tag!Brie warming up with a nice spoon from Tawna.
Ava - done with the sand!Scott and I headed down the Pier (p.s. our wedding night suite overlooked this pier and beach).Brie and Kea on the pier.At the end of the pier there were a lot of people sitting or standing looking out to the ocean to watch the sunset. It was beautiful.
This guy starting playing the guitar and singing. He was from Argentina and actually really good. Brie heard the music and just had to shake her booty. She jumped down the stairs and danced and danced to the music. All the people gathered around were watching and some were even filming her. She really shook it! We were told we should have put a hat out to collect some money.

(Sorry, we can't rotate it. Please rotate your head.)

After sunset.
That night we all stayed at a hotel in L.A. It started out well, with a pizza party on the floor, In n' Out burgers, movies for the kids, etc. Scott and I certainly had a rough night with Ava though (walking the halls through the night) and vowed we will not take her to a hotel again.
The next day was a VERY long and frustrating experience at Denny's, then a wonderful experience in the hotel pool and hot tub (for us, not so much Laura), and a visit to the L.A. temple. It was fun to walk around the temple and show Brie where Mommy and Daddy got married. She is now planning her wedding to Daddy when she gets to wear a "big, puffy white dress".
The picture spot the day of our wedding. Now with two little girls added. Crazy how that happened!

A Christmas Birthday

Brielle's birthday is Christmas day. So, after present opening on Christmas morning we switched to Happy 3rd Birthday to Brie!

It was a princess birthday, OF COURSE! So, OF COURSE, Brielle dressed up as a princess. She was Sleeping Beauty, Kea dressed up as Belle and Natalie (sister's friend) was nice enough to join in the fun and showed up as Ariel!I made Brie's favorite for dinner - homemade Macaroni and Cheese. Then it was time for princess cake. Notice the "Happy Birthday Brielle" turned into "Happy Happy Brielle".

Brielle opened birthday presents and all of her dreams came true. She got a dress up box of fairy clothes and a box of princess clothes. Nothing could make her happier than dressing up as a fairy or princess. She wore these dress up clothes every single day from that day on. We are now home and Brie has not been dressed in regular clothes since we hit the door. There is no point. She changes from a fairy to Little Mermaid to Jasmine to getting married to all of them together in layers ALL DAY LONG!
This is what Ava thought of the present opening. She just sat with this duck in her mouth watching it all unfold. She must be just as shocked and amazed with Brielle's obsession as the rest of us are.Little Avers even got to dress up. She LOVES wearing the princess slippers.
Happy Happy Birthday Brielle!! We love you!

Christmas in Cali

We're back from our Christmas in Cali. This year we drove to my parent's house in California to celebrate Christmas and New Year's with most of the fam.

We left driving after work on December 23 to go half way, trying to avoid a big snowstorm coming in. Ava and Brie were cozy in pajamas and slept almost the whole way. Yahoo! Ava was in her brand new (purchased that day) forward facing car seat for the first time. It's crocodile pattern to stick with the animal theme.Christmas Eve

We showed up on my parent's door step just in time for the Christmas Eve festivities. I LOVE Christmas Eve at home. In the past it has been an evening to read about, sing about and bear testimony of Jesus Christ as we celebrate His birth. This year is was a three ring circus! We ate and then did the traditional reading of the Bible as we acted out the nativity story.Brie started out as Mary. When she saw Kea in my mom's wedding dress though, she immediately jumped on wanting to be an angel with her. I took on the role as Mary. Brie then became the star standing on the dining room table. Meanwhile, Ava was taking every single ornament off of the tree one by one and I was trying to get all the breakables from her. During the singing of O' Holy Night a fist fight broke out because the other kids were touching the Wisemen from the nativity displayed on the table and Brie "had put them to bed". They were supposed to be sleeping. Then Davin and Blake started kicking and throwing the stuffed sheep across the room. Crazy! Three ring circus!We also sprinkled "Magic Reindeer Food" on the lawn for Santa's reindeer and frosted cookies for Santa.Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning Scott and I woke up and were all excited and then had to sit and wait. And wait. For about an hour. Until finally everyone else woke up.From Santa, Ava and Brie both got new strollers and new baby dolls. The fought so much over the one baby stroller we had that it broke. Now they each have their own and Ava has a tiny baby that fits her and Brie has a doll that dresses up like a princess and a ballerina just like her. Scott got a new Utah sweatshirt. And I got an 8 man tent!!! Sweet! I am so excited to go camping this summer.The present opening began and lasted for hours. A good time was had by all!

More Christmas

1. The Nativity

Brielle and Ava play with our Little People nativity set all day, every day. It's always scattered everywhere. I tell them the real story as we play "Baby Jesus", but you should hear some of the stories Brie has come up with when she's the one telling the story.

One morning I came to find everyone set up like this. She has added all the Disney Princesses to the story. Everyone was surrounding the baby Jesus staring down at him. Brie keeps turning off every single light in the house and closing all of the shutters so that no light comes in. I tell her no, to turn the light back on when I am in the middle of loading the dishwasher or something else and it is suddenly pitch black, but she tells me, "Shhhhhh! Baby Jesus is sleeping!".

2. A New Tradition

I am so excited about this. I have been wanting to find things that will always be our family traditions at Christmas time. Scott's dad is from Scotland and always made Scottish Shortbread. I thought this would be a great tradition for us to start. So, we decided that is what we will bake each year and take to all of our neighbors and friends.
I baked 6 batches of shortbread and still need to make some more. It is delicious and I was thrilled when Scott told me it tasted just like his dad's. Yahoo! Even without a spurdle. I made the fork marks around and in the center of my circle shortbread, but didn't know why I needed to do that other than it looked pretty. When I went to make the little tags I discovered why those marks where made by reading about Scottish Christmas traditions. So, this is what our tags said. I was so happy with how well this tied into Jesus Christ.

"We wish you a Merry Christmas with traditional homemade Scottish Shortbread from Clan Buchanan.

Scottish Shortbread was anciently called Sun cakes. Sun cakes were baked with a hole in the center and symmetrical lines around, representing the rays of the Sun. This pattern is now found on the modern Scottish Shortbread.

We hope you feel the warmth and light of the Son as we celebrate His birth!

With love, Scott, Alicia, Brie and Ava"

Yesterday, we all went out around the neighborhood delivering our shortbread. Scott wore his kilt and all!

3. Another Letter to Santa

Brie and I made a Reindeer craft using paint on her hands and feet. It was cute and fun. When we were done she got out a marker and pretended to write a letter to Santa. She was talking and talking, telling him everything he should know and asking lots of questions. I thought it was funny, so I started recording. Of course, that is when she got shy and didn't know what to say anymore.

In this video she asks Santa - How is your wife? How is Rudolph?. I prompted her on the reason why she was telling Santa she had been naughty - of course, because of Ava. What makes me laugh so hard though is that when she tells Santa she has been good, she says it's only been in privacy! So that explains it! That's why I haven't seen her be good. She saves that only for privacy! Hilarious!

It Was Hilarious!

We had a perfect Christmasy winter day on Saturday. Scott woke up early to play football with the guys from the ward in some CRAZY cold and windy conditions. As soon as they were done, the snow started and it REALLY started. It came down so hard all day. It was certainly a winter wonderland. Even though it was snowing, we headed out to our ward Christmas breakfast. It was fun and then got really exciting when Santa showed up. Brie was in shock. She was so amazed and so excited to sit on his lap and talk to him. Ava . . . not so much, until he gave her a candy cane.

We came home and snuggled up inside for the rest of the afternoon while it snowed and snowed and snowed outside. Scott made us all hot chocolate. This started Brie into telling us all about "the Hot Chocolate song" from Polar Express while we drank our own hot chocolate. We were DYING listening to her. Luckily, the camera was sitting on the table and Scott turned it to record without her or any of us knowing and got a little snippet of her story. It was hilarious!

That evening we got a babysitter and went out to dinner and to see Gloria with some of our friends. Dinner was delicious. Gloria was fabulous. And it has definitely been a long time since I laughed as hard as I did on the ride home. We had so much fun!