Joey tagged me and here I go at trying to think of twelve things...
1. I am with Joey and I really don't like blinking Christmas lights. I bought some solar-powered lights last year. They were not cheap. We didn't put them up this year...they blink:(
2. I procrastinate with this holiday big time. Every year I think" I am just going to get it done early" never happens...I must enjoy the pressure some how...I don't know. I always have so much to do by the time it's Christmas week it is hard to enjoy the holiday.
3. Santa came to Ava's Kindergarten class today! They all got to tell him what they wanted. First off Ava told him, " I really want a REAL American Girl doll, not a fake one from Target." " My mom says I have to be older to have a REAL American Girl doll" Santa's reply..."oh, no,no. You don't have to be older, you just have to be old enough to take care of it. I am sure you would take care of it." Ava was so thrilled to come home and share the wonderful news with me! She doesn't have to wait to get the REAL thing! Well, hip-hip hooray Santa. I'd love to get to talk to this Santa myself sometime.:)
4. I enjoy singing this song to my kids at Christmas time. Have you heard it?
"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny a half-a-penny will do, if you haven't got a half-a-penny...god bless you!" Now the ironic thing is, my mom used to sing this a lot at Christmas time. It used to drive me completely nuts and I thought she did it to torture me. I love to sing it;)
5. I especially love to bake, cook, make candy, all of that at Christmas! There are too many recipes and not enough time! (oh where, oh where, has my diet gone?) don't even ask right now@!~?*
6. The older I get Christmas comes and goes way too fast!
7. I think Christmas is the most romantic holiday. Even more than Valentine's. It is my all time favorite holiday.
8. Santa does not wrap the gifts at our house. He never wrapped the ones at my house growing up either. I know how busy he is and I guess he knows we don't mind:)
9. I collect nativities. I think they are so beautiful, wonderful, and one of my favorite parts of Christmas.
10. I miss my mom more at Christmas time than any other time of the year. Sometimes, I can't even think about her at Christmas because I just will start crying:( I know it is silly because we only live a few hours away, but I just think she should come and live with me for the Christmas season:)
11. The kids always have to have new jammies Christmas Eve. I don't know why...it's just fun.
12. My goal for Christmas this year...No wrapping Chrismas Eve!! I will be done! That is my plan at least:)
Wow! I can't believe I found twelve...yeah!
Now here are a few rules for Katie, Patsy, Wende, and LaRae because I know they want to participate, right?!
1. List 12 random things about yourself that has to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.
5. If you want to -- please give me, Andrea, some link-love as the 'Hoopla-Creator'. I love new blog-traffic
11.
Doesn't this look like a fun project? How did I get so lucky to have a guy who can fix anything? Growing up my dad was one of these guys. It's broken he fixes it. Now, I have my own handy guy:) Doug some how whittled a small piece of wood to take the place of the broken part in my vacuum! Wow... that's just about all I can say... wow!
 Well, it's better late than never! I am exactly two months late in posting, because Nicolette turned one October 12. Beware...there is a mass of photos to come! I have had a hard time admitting my baby is one. Now that two months has passed I think I am used to the idea. (it's a miracle). This picture was taken on Nicolette's real birthday October 12, 2007. This means a lot to me. I have some hangups when it comes to celebrating things on the day that is not technically the event. We were not able to celebrate Nicolette's birthday day on the correct day. This will bug me forever but, it all turned out fine and great so I should get over it:) I was busy preparing food for a stake young womens thing the entire day...into the night...the next morning etc. We did take time out to take these pictures of the official day!
 Janae, Doug, and Nicolette October12, 2007.
 Mom and baby first birthday:)
 We finally celebrated Nicolette's birthday on October 15. She absolutely loved having her party with her sisters. Her sisters also loved having a party for Nicolette. I was really impressed with how much she enjoyed opening each and every gift. When opening gifts she would, take out the tissue paper, peak down inside the gift bag, and then pull out the gift. It was really cute:)
 Nicolette has really gone through a phase of loving dogs. Her only really word at age one was "woof" (if that's really a word). We got her this really cute musical dog, she has really enjoyed that toy.
 Here she is woofing at the new dog.
 still woofing at the dog...
 This was her feeling very serious with the opening of packages.
 Nicolette loved these new boots. Ironically, my mom and I both unknowingly bought her the same exact boots! Also, she has already outgrown them:( they were so so cute!
 This was a book my mom gave Nicolette. It is her favorite book to look at.
 The cake...yum...yum...
 I love this picture because it shows her very dainty little hand just trying a bit of cake.
 Vivien helped Nicolette blow out her candle...of course.
 And...the first piece of cake goes to the b-day girl!
 Here is the first cake picture...notice how nice and clean and tidy everything is. Notice how she is even trying to use the spoon...haha!
 Oh...yummy, yummy, this baby was loving her first cake experience.
 The ice cream is better eaten with fingers:)
 The face is starting to show signs of the tidy eater not feeling so dainty in her eating.
 She finally just threw the spoon down...she had had enough of dainty eating!
 The final mess! Oh, it was a great party! Happy birthday baby:)
Well, my broken camera has really put a crimp in my blogging of late! I have old pictures I could be blogging......yet, I'm not! Blogging has helped my picture taking so much. I feel like I need a picture of everything to document what's going on. I REALLY miss having a working camera.
The good news...I spent almost $70.00 on a new camera battery today and I have hope this will fix the problem. Unfortunately, I have not had one spare moment today to try out the new battery.....maybe tonight:) Today was just one of those days, phone calls not returned, laundry not done, things not checked off the list. When did I turn into one of these kind of not-get-it done girls? Oh well, I keep on trying:)
Things have been busy around here since December hit! School, primary, and Christmas shopping seem to take up the time. Little Nicolette has a horrible cold right now! I hate it when they get so sick when they are this little. It has been hard. I am listening to her trying to breath over the baby monitor right now.....really sad:(
I will be posting on the camera situation soon.
 This is Nicolette looking and feeling REALLY BIG! I could not believe she has enough hair for pigtails! (Sorry Katie) anyway, it's not like she left them in all day or anything, but while they were in they looked really cute. My neighbor Tana suggested I don't do her hair and then she won't look like such a big girl. I like the idea, so we are mostly keeping baby hair around here...nice and messy! Not to mention, I really don't need one more hair of head to be responsible for at this point in my life!
 Nicolette is striking her pout face for me here. She was no longer thrilled with my picture taking! I do believe it is one of the cutest pouts I have ever seen:)
 Yes, we have graduated to the front facing car seat! Can you believe it? I truly can't believe we are here with her...our baby!
I just had to share my excitement over our new trees! After being in our house over six years we now have every flowerbed planted. It's very exciting! Doug worked into the pitch black night last Saturday, and the weather was beautiful and now it's done...Hooray:)
 Vivien gave a wonderful performance for her Halloween program. All of the preschoolers wore their costumes and gave us a spectacular show! Vivien's teacher told her to make sure she was singing because she was the star singer with her great singing voice:)
This picture is with Carson. Vivien's one true love:)
 Grandma, Ava, and Vivi, enjoying the yummy program refreshments.
 Here is a group shot of the kids in costume.
This is a fun little video blip of Vivien doing part of her great performance!
 Here is our Halloween group. It was about 5 years ago to the day that I had a different Halloween, Wizard of Oz group. Lexi was Glinda, Lilli Dorthy, and Ava Toto. Now Ava is big enough for the Glinda? What? There is always so much Halloween anticipation at our house. We had a fun Halloween group even with the cheerleader:) she was a very cute cheerleader:)
 Lilli as a cute little witch. Lilli did agree to the witch part of my theme she just didn't want to be the ugly witch with the green face. I don't blame her for that. She made a darling witch.
 The cheerleader, very anxious to be off with her friends!( "Mom enough pictures already, I'm leaving now, really I'm leaving") oh, the joys:)
 Oh this little group...Toto even smiled. How lucky is that?
 Toto with the classic...dog sticking tongue out. Dorthy, with her fun "kickin up her heels pose"
 Glinda, Glinda, Glinda. Ava was very excited to get to school and discover that her teacher was also Glenda for Halloween! It was so fun and Mrs. Flannery looked beautiful as Glinda. Unfortunately, mom was coming down with the germ from you know where and couldn't' think straight! No, cute matching picture! Uggh! This causes me pain;) I'm a blogging mom, I know what pictures I need to get!
 The end of the night loot check.
 Grandpa and Ava...(a picture says a thousand words) what a nice grandpa to play along:)
 I loved this witches hat we found for Lilli. We got it on sale for $2.50! I thought that was a great deal!
 Dorthy and her donuts. It's not Halloween without donuts at grandma's! Yeah Grandma!
 The truest donut appreciator I've ever met.
Well, I have to admit, my lack of blogging lately is yes, because like all of you I'm busy, but I have been avoiding this post!! I can't believe how hard it has been on me to realize my baby is a One-year-old! I know, I know, as if blogging it will make it not so! I can clearly remember her just being born and me tormenting my anesthesiologist, and now this...my baby turns one!
Wow, I love this little Nicolette. She has brought a tremendous amount of joy and love into our home that I will forever be thankful for. She is the light of my nights and the icing on the cake. I will miss her babyhood. I have realized, now that I am older ( it's true I am now admitting I am heading towards my mid-thirties, boo hoo boo hoo). that babyhood is such a small slice of the start of life. When Lexi was a baby I was sure she would never grow up. I thought she was a newborn for an eternity. (poor Lex) and Nicolette's newborn life slipped by in the blink of an eye. What I have also realized is, once that baby grows up, she is gone! She turns into someone else. A wonderful sweet child, independent, busy, and full of energy and life. All wonderful things...just not my baby anymore.
So, I just want to make sure I always remember my baby Nicolette. She is truly a blessing to this family. She is the 5th daughter and just as important as the first. Nicolette is fun and sweet and loves every sister unconditionally. She loves her mom and Dad and thinks were the greatest. She is a wonderful explorer and thinks the toilet is the best. The bath tub is second runner up. She loves to say "whoof" and the doctor says this counts as a word. She loves to eat fruit and cheese and loves to throw the food she is not in the mood for on the floor. Her spirit is pure and amazing. I can still feel how close she was to our Heavenly Father, not that long ago. I have so much gratitude for her, and that she exists not only in my life, but in our family's life. Happy Birthday Nicolette!
Now, this post turned into drama, poor crying mother, etc. Now, because Nicolette is so sweet and loving she will understand and not be annoyed with me. I realize the poor child does need a second post that is a happy birthday one....so, that is soon to come!
We had just picked Vivi up at ballet class. The girls always love to have the windows down on the way home. Ava thought this completely wonderful today and this was her reply, (while letting her hair blow out the window) " HELLO BEAUTIFUL WORLD...HELLO". She repeated this a few times. This just made my morning. It was a purely sweet and happy girl, enjoying our beautiful world.
Vivien and I spend a lot of lunches just the two of us. Sometimes I only have time to feed Ava and get her off to school, get Nicolette down for a nap, and then focus on Vivi and her lunch. This was a little bit of our conversation today...
Vivi: "Mom, how old do you think I will be on my birthday?"
Me: " Well, Vivien, I am not sure, what do you think?"
Vivi: " Well, probably 17 or 16 or 15"
Me: " Well, honey probably just 4"
Vivi: "oh..........(sigh)"
My poor little Vivi thinks she should be a teenager already? She does seem to be a 15 year old stuck in a 3 and 1/2 year olds body, in many, many, ways. Bless her heart:)
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