The Randalls

Well, if any of you are into video games and such you will know that Guitar Hero is the hottest thing on the market right now. A few weeks before Christmas my sister-law let me know what our gift would be so as to give me a heads up on what I could get for Mark. Mark was VERY surprised Christmas morning to open up Leslie's gift and find a PS2! Later that day my mom came over and he opened her gift...yup...Guitar Hero III. Ahhh, Mark was in heaven. He has been rockin' out with his nephews the last few months at their house every chance he could get. Needless to say, he was very excited when he opened that gift. After every song the the phrase "you rock!" flashes on the screen. Now the kids always say it to Daddy after he plays each song.

It was just two days after Christmas and Téa was getting hooked. Here's how Tea and Mark play together. Téa watches for one color and pushes that colored button down when it's the right time. Mark does all the strumming and the other colors. She's actually quite good.







Here's my little bass guitarist. We broke down and bought another guitar so Mark and I could play together. Yup, I'm getting hooked too! Calista likes the one I have better because it's smaller and more her size. Maybe in a few years I can teach the girls how to play a real guitar!

A little late in coming but I'm having a not-so-sick-at-the-moment moment. I figured I'd get some blogging done while I could. We had a wonderful Christmas at our house this year. Mark's parents were able to stay with us a few days, including sharing Christmas morning with us. I'm so looking forward to possibly celebrating our first Christmas in our own house next year. As we were putting the decorations away both Mark and I commented on the fact that next time we take these boxes out of our storage unit we can put them back up in our own real home. Can't wait.

Anyway, back to Christmas. The kids slept until 7:30. They are still at that age where Christmas is exciting but they don't realize that they can wake us up early. Phew! We had a great time watching the girls get so excited over presents and it only took about 3 gifts until Calista got tired of opening and just wanted to watch everyone else. Téa was our gift passer outer. I love that she is learning to read and was able to read all the labels and knew who got which present and did a great job of passing them out. I think she's trying to score points for next year and show Santa she's very nice. The day was spent hanging out with family and having a visit from Nonna and having Christmas all over again when she brought the gifts from her and Papa to us. As usual, we had dinner and games at Mark's sister's house and the girls were able to play for hours with cousins. Unfortunately I forgot to whip out the camera and catch all those moments while each kid is opening presents and the wonderful looks on their faces as they play with each new toy. Yeah, I'm pretty much the slacker of the year. But at least Mark video taped almost all of it.

So it was about 30 minutes before our ward Christmas party was to begin and I was feeling guilty that the girls wouldn't be dressed up for it. Our ward has a great activities committee and they sent out a "decree" to all in the ward saying it was time for all to be taxed and to come to Bethlehem. It also asked everyone to show up in costume of that time period. I wasn't at all interested in doing that so I let it go for the week and then realized that the girls would probably love to dress up for the party. So, here is what I came up with last minute. Not too shabby, I think. Téa started out in a bathrobe and looked great. Calista didn't have one so I found a shirt of mine for her to wear. Of course once one girl is wearing my clothes the other has to too. So, I was lucky enough to find another "green" shirt for Téa to wear. The party turned out great and I was glad the girls were dressed up. The entire cultural hall was decorated with tons of white Christmas lights strung overhead. When you walked in each person was given a bag of "money". When you walked into Bethlehem there were 8 stalls where each person was selling different types of food. The decorations were amazing and a lot of thought went into everything, down to the "wells" in different locations for the water. It was a fun night and the girls had a great time.