quintessence of snerrskinism: 'Tis the season! December!

December was incredibly busy. We were in New York for a couple of weeks then I took the kids by myself on an airplane to Utah for a month. I highly recommend not taking two young kids on an airplane if possible. They were both quite good but it was a stressful time. I was quite surprised at the kindness of people around us. I was nervous about getting people sighing/eye rolling/requests to move, etc. but people were very generous and the only people that looked me in the eye had kind looks. People would hold Ash while I took my coat off, took Kate to the bathroom, and watch Kate while I changed Asher's diaper in the tiny airplane bathroom. I think Ash got more bored than Kate, oddly enough. Poor Kate had pretty bad ear pressure pain on one of the flights and threw up after the crying and trying to get the pressure to equal out. She's a trooper!

New York is cold. Very cold. So sometimes cabin fever gets to us. One day Kate decided to use her princess stickers - on herself. This was the ensuing situation. Taking them off was a little less fun than putting them on...

In New York we had some fun in the snow and Kate made a little snowman. She called it a "fairy unicorn" snowman. I'm not sure what that entails, but who am I to say otherwise. :D We didn't have traditional gear to decorate the snowman except a carrot which was too large for a nose on such a tiny snowman, and it found a use as a horn. We used candy, of which we always have plentiful supply, for the other bits. Asher didn't exactly play in the snow but as it was cold outside he had to put his snowsuit on to watch his sis. He didn't seem to have too much fun but he was a good sport. I love his red hat.

Kate loves this hat...

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a pose.

The fairy-unicorn snowman.

Little man's red hat

Just a cute happy picture of little in his sailor onesie.

Kate's dance recital was entertaining to say the least. They danced to a nutcracker song and dressed in little soldier costumes. I feel like trying to describe it in words would never do it justice, you just have to be there to see one girl pushing another girl's bum to help her somersault, watching kids just play around while waiting for other kids to do their somersault, etc. Kate was really cute and did a great job.

At Kate's dance recital with the two boys in the class.

Pre-dance play on the stage with a couple of friends in her dance class

Words are not needed.

In Utah we did a lot of fun stuff, mostly things with family. We went bowling, Kate went to her first movie in a theater with her Grandma Janet and daddy, we had a great time with the holiday celebrations, and of course, good food!

We went bowling with Jon's family. It was, to my knowledge, Kate's first time bowling and I couldn't miss the chance to see that... Kate is funny to watch, she chose her ball based on color (pink, of course) and it was hard to convince her to choose a lighter ball... we had the side rails up and the kids used a ball roller. It was fun to watch.

How many people does it take to roll a ball?

My adorable little girl

Waiting for the pins to come up with her cousin Sam

Melissa was nice enough to take me to her pottery place and show me how to do some basics. It's definately something I'm going to have to get into when I get back to Salt Lake. The pottery place, called the Red Kiln, is awesome. I suck at it but it does take practice. Melissa is a great teacher.

At lunch with Essie. Note Asher's fingers - he's making the sign for "I love you" :)

Asher just LOVES his sister!!!

We had a party for the Skene family. It was fun to see everyone again and my favorite is the white elephant exchange. There have never been better white elephant gifts than the Skene family comes up with.

My beautiful kiddos

A moment of peace

Aunt LaRisse and Little Man

Ninj

Grandma, Kate, and Asher

Asher sucking on someone's white elephant - a used 1980s phone.

Lovely little lady

Jon's family had pictures taken at the JS Memorial building with siblings. I took some shots between shots. Keeping the kids in line and happy was a challenge. At one point Hudson ran around the balcony and pushed the elevator down button before anyone could catch him. Eventually they got some great shots.

Little pants

AJ and Alicia

Kate and her daddy

Chillin' with uncle AJ

My little man and his giant cheeks

Look at that smile!

Kate and grandma made a gingerbread house. It turned out great and Kate really did do some great designs and didn't even eat too much candy. Nick and LaRisse came over as much as they could which meant a lot to me. It was wonderful to see them.

Kate's finished gingerbread house

LaRisse and Asher

Grandma and Kate hard at work

Christmas Eve Nathan's family came over. It's always so good to see them and Kate just ADORES her cousins and begged over and over to see them. They had a blast opening their gifts and playing with each other.

Opening their gifts to each other

My great sister-in-laws. Couldn't ask for better!!

Christmas morning was entertaining. Kate walked upstairs and saw her pile of presents (she'd been asking for a JoJo and a Unicorn pillowpet for a month), looked at the JoJo in the package and said, "Hey, that's not what I wanted." We had to explain that she just had to take it out of the package... She liked seeing that Santa ate all the cookies and going to Jon's family for the day.

Santa left Kate a thank-you note for the cookies.

Kate at grandma Janet and grandpa John's house. Sam or Hudson (I can't remember which) kept taking the tags off her presents and she was having fits over it and decided to shield her gifts with her body. :D Little man and grandma