Two extemporaneous entries from two goofy kids:

(We're having some technical difficulties. Videos will be back up when I figure out what broke them. They can be viewed directly here and here.)

The Christmas season is such a busy time with so much going on. From holiday parties, Christmas shopping, decorating, putting together neighborhood gifts, and then all the things we love attending such as the Temple Square lights, the Mormon Tabernacle choir concert (this year a hit with the King Singers there....Ryan was on cloud 9), the BYU/Michigan State game with the Beans. One of the our most cherished traditions is the outdoor Nativity put on by our Stake and a couple of other churches. This year Ryan and I, and of course baby Molly, were the Holy Family. Rex is also pictured below in the children's nativity put on by our primary. Here are some photos of what we have been up to this season.At the Energy Solutions Center to see BYU vs. Michigan State. Thanks to the Beans we had 2nd Row seats!!!

Grandma JoLynn, Anna , Abby , and Nate who came to see Baby Molly as Baby Jesus (shhhh, she is really a baby girl).

Below is Rex the Donkey Rex and Lucy at the Christmas Lights

(see update below)

From the above we may deduce two things: She has very strong ideas about what she wants to wear (though she changes those ideas approximately five times a day); and she's anything but shy about her choices.

UPDATE: Davis has astutely alerted me to a fascinating resemblance based on the top photo. Yeah, it's really weird, but also kind of hard to argue with:

Click here to see the Bell family doing a great Christmas Dance, and then send us the link to your own!

My little sister Eliza Thompson had a beautiful little girl on Thursday. We were told that children couldn't go into the maternity unit, but we headed down to see the baby anyway, prepping the kids that they'd have to wait in the waiting room while Macy and I took turns visiting Eliza and the baby.

So it was a nice surprise when we got there to find out that Rex, Lucy and Molly were more than welcome to come back and meet their new cousin. We spent some nice time with both Eliza and Belle, and everyone loved seeing and touching and talking to this beautiful new little baby, as well as stroking her unearthly soft hair. Belle is beautiful, and we're so excited to have her in the family. Molly didn't pay much attention to her, but we expect those two to be fast friends someday.

Congratulations to Liza, Josh, and Abe, and welcome to Belle!

Yesterday, as part of my birthday festivities, we took the kids to see Enchanted. Despite our hesitancy about taking Molly to a movie, it turned out really well, the kids enjoyed themselves, and Macy and I never even had to leave our seats. (Note: if you don't want to know how it ends, skip the fourth paragraph).

It's never a sure bet taking little kids to a live-action show, given the twin risks of boredom and inappropriate content, but Enchanted mostly passed both tests. Lucy ended up a bit bored in the middle (starting, incidentally, right around the time the lead admitted that she wasn't yet a real princess, I believe). Also, if you've heard any gripes about some barely subtle consumerist messages, you heard right. But overall it's a pretty good flick.

Giselle, an animated maiden who embodies everything the classic Disney Princess stands for (fawning romantic fantasies, scores of loving animal companions, unalloyed feminine perfection, and a set of pipes straight out of Broadway) ends up in live action New York City, with predictable, but endearingly quirky results. Fortunately, the movie skips a lot of the fish-out-of-water tropes (she just knows how to work the shower and the dishwasher, rather than spending time comically oohing over technology). There's still plenty of boring culture conflict, seen mostly in the hard bitten New Yorkers who are so disgusted at the naive fantasy transplants. But this premise sets up one of the movie's big strengths, which is Giselle's ability to live by fairyland rules while in the real world. The animals still come help her clean and sew, and people still know how to join in on her big musical set pieces. That was a great idea, and works really well.

The ending is weak, but the acting is really great, so it's worth seeing if you have any kids lying around that need to be dusted off for an outing. Just be forewarned that there are messages in this movie that your kids will perceive. Both Rex and Lucy learned lessons from this movie, one good and one bad. As you might have guessed for a self-aware and post-modernly droll movie, every effort is made to put Giselle on par with the males in her life, in terms of self-defense and actualization (and yes, I do think that's a good thing, although sometimes these movies seem to wear that a bit more like a marketing device than a nonchalant part of the plot). {SPOILER} To that end, the movie culminates with Giselle defeating the evil queen and saving her prince. {END SPOILER}. This did not go unnoticed. As we walked out of the theater, Rex turned and said "Wow, I didn't know a princess could kill a dragon!" Macy and I smiled to see both Rex's initial notion, and that he was reconsidering it.

We did not smile at Lucy's response to Giselle. For all her perfection, Giselle is missing one virtue: Modesty. Her wardrobe in the climactic scene was a pretty revealing little strapless number more at home in New York than in fairy tale land. Macy and I discussed that a little bit on the way home, noting that Disney was trying hard to look innocent, but modesty is apparently not important enough to parents anymore for Disney to make much fuss about it. Soon after we got home, some nearby families came over with their kids for my birthday party, and Lucy ended up playing dressups with her best friend Jane. Sure enough, Lucy ended up in her frilly mermaid dress, only instead of putting on the sleeves as usual, she left them hanging at her sides, with the dress neckline staying at her armpits. It was our Lucy's first strapless gown. We tried to ignore it for a minute, but it became so painful to think how quickly she had integrated that message and was now acting it out, that we had to force her to put the sleeves on and cover up. I sure hope that's the last battle we have on that issue, but my gut tells me it's not.

Monday night I had a basketball game in a league I entered with some friends, so I got home after the kids were in bed. Macy was still up though, so we went downstairs and chatted for an hour or so. From the very beginning, Macy and I haven't had tons of common hobbies or other activities we both like doing together, so sitting around talking has always been the basic core of our relationship. That's perfect for me, because there's nothing I like more than good conversation, and she's always got some take on something that is completely new for me.

Anyway, we chatted for a while that night about everything- how my day had gone, and how her day had gone, planning for the holiday weekend, what the kids had been up to. But after all that, she never asked the one important question that was hanging in the air that night. Finally, we got up to go to bed, leaving that one topic still unspoken.

Before going to bed, I ran up to check in on Rex and Lucy. They are really bad at staying under blankets while they sleep, which is a constant frustration to me, so I always remake their beds with them sleeping in them, to get them sufficiently covered for when the night turns cold.



While I did this, Rex sort of yawned, and then opened his eyes. I sat down next to him and said hi. He blinked a few times and then said "Hey Dad. So did you guys win?"

"Yeah, we won."

"Good." And then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sometimes, it's nice to have another boy in the house.

(From left: Heavenly Father, Rex, Jesus)

(Lion, above, tiger, below).

Finally, during Sacrament meeting today, Rex was getting antsy. In desperation, I asked if he could draw a picture of Andrei Kirilenko dunking a basketball. You can see the results below, which I think are none to shabby. Note the careful attentiveness to the fingers, which, combined with the infinitely long and skinny legs, denote Rex's acute observation of that famous Russian lankiness:

(Andrei Kirilenko, pictured here with his fingers)

P.S.- Sorry, Ryan wrote this post, but I'm signed on as Macy and have no idea how to change it!

After Rex went to bed one night, Lucy was sitting up with Ryan and I while we were watching tv. She saw a commercial of some transformer robot thing, and yelled, "Oh, Rex would love that!" So sweet of her to always be thinking of her older brother. It is so interesting how kids get so wrapped up in their sibings. Their little lives revolve around each other. I remember feeling that way for quite awhile about my older sister, Amby. So cute.

Rex was sleeping at Oma's house awhile back, and Oma had a Halloween decoration out (this was in September mind you). Rex said, "Oma, is this for Halloween?" Oma replied, "yes". Rex said, "yeah, I don't really like when people put Halloween stuff out too early."

One night Lucy came in from her room playing with Babes and said, "Dad, Babes doesn't have any friends." Rex replied, "Well you are her friend , Lucy". Lucy said, " Ummm, no, I am just a mom, Rex."

A few days ago Rex came downstairs after having slept in, and was a little groggy. The first thing he said was, "Mom, I really can fly!" I said, "Really?....like Superman?" He said, "Yes". Then a couple hours later he came into the kitchen kind of bugged and pouting, "Mom, I guess I can't fly......it was just a dream!" He was really torn up about it, and talked about it the whole day, asking why he can't fly, and how he could learn. He asked if maybe alien clothes would help or a ghost sheet, then maybe he could just float. Because floating would be sort of close to flying. It was really funny.

Rex went to work with Ryan a few weeks ago, and spent a while staring out the window at the street below, where State Street and South Temple intersect. He noticed the eagle gate and asked "Dad, why does that tunnel have a balden eagle on it?

We went for a Sunday drive a while ago, and Rex wanted to stop at the 7-11 and get some drinks. We reminded him of a recent lesson about the Sabbath, and said "Rex, remember, it's the Lord's day?" He went quiet for a minute, and then said quietly to himself, in a sort of grumpy way "It's all of our day." Rex's religious instruction continued yesterday when he accidentally tripped Lucy and hurt her, but seemed unconcerned about showing any sympathy. Ryan asked him "Rex, if Jesus hurt someone, even accidentally, what would he do?" Rex thought for a minute and said: "He'd regive them." ( We think this is a reference to a lesson a while ago on forgiving, which, despite its merits, does not seem to have conveyed the definition of its topic word).

Isn't Oma a good sport? Here she is racing the kids.