The Randalls

I’m not sure how we lucked out but thankfully our kids let us sleep in until 7 am on Christmas morning.  Maybe it’s because we instill fear in our children the other 364 days a year to not come out of their rooms until the clock says 7 am.  Whatever the reason I was super glad it wasn’t any earlier since I was down with the 24 hour stomach bug on Christmas Eve.  Totally missed out on the  Christmas Eve party at Jeff and Alison’s.  Lame.

But, as Mark would say, it was a “Christmas Miracle” and I was pretty much back to normal Christmas morning.  We woke up to find that Santa came.  Thank goodness he did.  Dobby (our elf on the shelf) had been dutifully watching the girls all month long and reporting back good things. 

Téa was super excited to get socks in her stocking.

Piper and I both got electric toothbrushes in our stockings.

Mark was happy with his stocking.  I see lots of M&M eating in his future.

That’s it for the Christmas day pictures.  Once we started opening presents we completely forgot about the camera.

Since we had another “Christmas Miracle” which involved lots and lots of snow we decided to go sledding with all the cousins.  So. Much. Fun.

Here’s Grandma and Téa racing down the hill.  And if you are wondering…yes, Mark’s parents still go sledding with us.

We found the best sled for Piper.

Eric ‘snowboarding’.

Markee getting ready to go down.

Gotta love Tamsyn’s face here.  Tamsyn, Marin, Megyn and Téa.

Mark had to try ‘snowboarding’ too. 

After a while things got a little crazy.  We were trying to see how many people we could get on one sled.  Then two sleds.  Then three.  Attempt #1. 1 sled, 4 grown men.  Worked well.

Attempt #2.  2 sleds, 8 people.  Not too bad either.

Although the landing at the end didn’t turn out so well.

Then the craziness came out with 3 sleds, 12 people. 

The result…lots of flying limbs.

Somehow Piper sweet talked Markee into pulling her up the hill in a sled.

And then convinced Mark to do it, too.

Such a fun day.  Hopefully the snow sticks around and we can do it again before the kids go back to school.

We finally took advantage of public transportation here in Utah.  The new Frontrunner started up on Dec. 10 so we decided to give it a try and head up to Salt Lake and see City Creek and the lights at Temple Square.  We’ve decided it’s the way to go when heading to Salt Lake…although it was pricey.  The nice part was not having to find parking. 

The girls waiting patiently at the station.  Don’t let the sunny picture deceive you.  It was freezing!

On the train!  The girls were disappointed that the upper level seats were all taken so we had to settle for level 2. 

After dinner in the food court at City Creek we walked passed the holiday candy windows of Macy’s.  I never knew it was a tradition since we only started coming to see Temple Square lights for the past 4 or 5 years and during that time ZCMI was closed due to City Creek construction.  It was cool to see all the ornaments made entirely out of candy.   

Here are a few pictures from the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.  I’m so proud of Téa for sitting by the window this year.  I think she’s slowly trying to grab hold of her fear of heights and teach it who’s boss.

Inside the Tabernacle.  Don’t worry about Piper.  She just didn’t want to acknowledge me when I said smile.

Sometimes, sisters like each other.  Or maybe it’s because I threatened their life if they didn’t pretend to like each other for the picture…

After Temple Square we headed back to the train station on Trax.  We got there with ample time to spare before the next Frontrunner train South showed up.  Piper thought it was a good time to ham it up for the camera.  I swear she did every pose on her own.  This kid might be a handful sometimes but she sure does make me laugh.

The ride back home on the train was great since the kids were able to get up and move around.  And we didn’t have to do the driving.  Bonus! 

Every year when we get the Christmas decorations out there are 2 things the kids fight over.  Who gets to put the Christmas tree topper on and who gets to start the advent calendar.  Luckily I blog and so I can just hop on the computer and look at last year’s pictures of tree decorating and find out who did the tree topper the year before.  As for the advent calendar…that one was more difficult.  So, for posterity (and my sanity next December) Téa got to start the calendar this year.  Next year, it’s Calista’s turn. 

The reason for the fighting is that the person who starts with Dec. 1’s ornament gets to also do Christmas Eve’s ornament which is a the coolest one (Santa’s head).  I know.  Sounds exciting, right?  But I have fond memories of fighting my brother over the same thing every year growing up.  Although there were only 2 kids in our family so I got to do the cool Santa ornament every other year.  Our poor kids have to wait longer.  It’s the coolest advent calendar.  My parents picked it up while we were living in the Philippines forever ago. 

OK, moving on.  Here’s proof that we decorated for Christmas.

We got so lucky a few weeks back.  The morning after Téa’s piano recital we woke up to tons of snow!  The girls were so excited.  Who am I kidding?  We were all excited.  We hadn’t had this much snow in at least 2 years.  So after we graced our ward with our presence at the Ward Christmas breakfast party we hurried home and put the snow gear on. 

What’s the first thing you do when you play in the snow?  Well, the second (after making a snow angel)?  You make a snowman.  Téa and her friend Tiffany got a little carried away…

Not sure why, but they decided to steel our snow and then they wanted help moving this huge ball of snow across the street for Tiffany’s front yard.  It took a lot of work but we got it across the street.  The only help the girls had was getting each ball of snow on top of the snowman.  You can see how big it was with Mark next to it for perspective.

Téa and Tiff did a great job.  We didn’t get a picture of the finished project until the next morning when things started to melt. 

Not to be outdone, Mark started making his snowman with help from Calista and Piper. 

Once you start seeing a few kids outside playing in the snow all the kids from the street start coming out.  And where do they all congregate?  In our backyard, of course, after Mark built forts. 

And here’s the final product of our snowman.

We haven’t had this much fun in the snow in a long time.  It was awesome.  Piper thought eating the snow was the best part.

This Christmas season we had two recitals to go to.  First up was Calista’s dance recital.  She worked so hard to get the dance routine down.  She loves to dance and you can see it on her face whenever she’s at practice.  She is always grinning ear to ear every Tuesday night when I pick her up.  Unfortunately, Piper and Téa came down with the stomach flu the day of the recital so Mark took one for the team and stayed home to clean up vomit while I took Calista to her recital. 

Calista did a great job.  I did a horrible job of recording the dance so I’m mad about that.  She was super excited to add yet another medal to her collection. 

The next weekend was Téa’s turn to shine.  Thankfully everyone was healthy for this one.  Camille Lewis, Téa’s piano teacher, decided that all her students needed the opportunity to perform in front of an audience to give them experience and to show off, of course.  Téa was excited for the recital and had been preparing for months.  She only started taking piano lessons in March but she has shown she has her Grandmother’s (from both sides) talent for the piano.  After only 9 months of lessons she was able to play “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid and “ Angels We Have Heard On High”.  She even memorized both songs for the recital.

Her first song was “Kiss the Girl” and after a bumpy start she found her groove and made it through the song and did a great job.  I was so proud of her for not letting her nerves get the best of her and give up.  Her teacher new exactly how to help her by telling her to start from the beginning again.  After that she did brilliantly.  She totally nailed her Christmas song.

Here’s Sister Lewis and all her students.  She gave each of them a red carnation. 

Téa and Sister Lewis.  Téa adores her teacher.  I’m finding that Téa and her teacher are a lot alike after having multiple conversations with her.  They are a great fit together as teacher and student. 

Gotta have a picture that captures Téa’s true personality.  Part angel/part wackiness. 

I love that my kids are trying new things and working hard at them.  I love that they are learning how to mess up, start over, mess up again but continue on and still have fun during the whole process.  It’s a great way to build their self confidence and I’ve loved seeing their progress and the change in their countenance as they are on this learning adventure.  I love even more that they can do these ‘dainty’ things like dance and piano but come Spring my girls will be out on the soccer field kickin’ butt! 

These are just a few things I wanted to document.  The day before Thanksgiving we took the kids to see Wreck It Ralph.  Mark and I actually enjoyed the movie and the kids loved it.  When we took Piper to her first movie she was probably about 2 years old and we found out the hard way that she does not tolerate loud noises.  So, this is how we ‘movie’.  Yes, I just made up a new verb.

Dr. Dre’s Beats are awesome.  Just the right amount of noise canceling to make my baby happy.  And here’s proof that we took the rest of the kids, too.  See…we are good parents.

And lastly, I wasn’t sad to see the end of November because it meant “Movember” was over as well.  This lovely fuzzy thing growing on Mark’s face finally got shaved off.

Mark is so going to hate me for posting all these.  But his group at work actually made a little money this year to donate to the cause.  So, I guess I can live with facial hair 30  days out of every year.

We hosted Thanksgiving this year.  It was actually a pretty stress-free day filled with yummy food and lots of gaming.  The day before I made the kids do some cleaning.  I had to take a picture of them cleaning since it doesn’t happen very often.  And the fact that they were all in the small space together and didn’t fight was a pretty big accomplishment.  Apparently Max thinks he is a doorstop. 

I am the worst at remembering to take pictures so there aren’t many of Thanksgiving.  I did make everyone wait for a minute before grabbing plates so I could take a picture of everything all set up. 

Téa was so proud of her new napkin-folding skills she learned at Activity Days the week before Thanksgiving.  I even went out and bought cloth napkins so she could fold one for every person. 

Hmm…food…

I couldn’t convince my parents to come up from Mesquite, so it was just the usual crowd of Jeff’s family, Leslie’s family and Mark’s parents.  It was a great day of food and gaming.  What more could you ask for?