Catching up for January and February!

January first we went to Koby's parent's house to watch football and hang-out. We had fun visiting and watching the kids play. We got to have Emi's friend Jane come play a few days because Jane's mom is pregnant and had to stay in bed. Emi had tons of fun having her little friend over and was sad when she had to go home. Emi decided that she wants to dance on the stage after watching Emi's cousins dance on the stage at their Christmas recital. In order to start dance she has to be potty trained. So January we jumped into that. She has done surprisingly well. We had tried a little before December but it wasn't a happening thing. Now that she had something to motivate her, she started doing really well. We've had our share of accidents, but in all she has done so good. She is even going number 2 on the potty.













After Christmas Emi had a really hard time sleeping. We had lots of sleepless nights so we got her a night light and had to put a child proof lock on her bedroom door. She has been sleeping much better since we did that. I turned 25 the end of January! It was kind of a hard birthday for me. I know 25 is not old, but when I was younger 25 was a long way away and all of the sudden-BAM!- it's here!! I am very happy with all that Heavenly Father has blessed my life with. We went bowling for my birthday and my family came with. We had to wait for forever to get a lane, but we had tons of fun!

















In February we went to a Utah basketball game. We had fun but it was hard with Reese wanting to crawl. We mostly just hung around home. The girls love to play the piano. Emi is even starting to "sing" while she plays. Reese is loving that she can get around by herself and that she can eat some of the food that everyone else is eating. Reese's new favorite thing is to crawl up the stairs. Most of the time she waits on the bottom step until she hears me coming. Then she crawls as fast as she can up the stairs, giggling the whole time.

 

Koby had meetings in Logan that went over two days, so the girls and I joined him. We watched Koby play volleyball before we headed up to Logan. We had lots of fun with my grandparents and M'liss and Kate. Emi filled one of her potty charts so she got to go out for ice cream. It was super fun to let Kate and Emi play especailly since they are moving soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas time!

We had a really fun month of December. Honestly I'm having a hard time remembering everything we did, but I do know that we had fun:) Emi got to go to her first movie in a theater. I guess Reese did too, but Emi might actually remember going. Koby's work party was at Jordan Commons and they rented a theater and we watched Elf. They gave Emi a Snow White barbie and Reese got a toy remote control. They both loved their gifts. Emi got to pick a treat and get her own bucket of popcorn. We had really comfy seats and had lots of fun together.

We got to go up to Logan and celebrate Kate's 3rd birthday. Aunt Amanda let us borrow their princess dress-ups. Emi was Aurora and Reese was Snow White. Emi was a little bit sad that she didn't get to be Snow White but she still loved dressing up. Emi got lots of dress-up shoes for her birthday back in June, so she had shoes to match. Emi had tons of fun playing with her cousins at Kate's ball. Thanks Aunt Amanda for letting us borrow the dresses!

Next we had our ward party. It was a breakfast and then Santa came. Emi was not really scared or worried about Santa until she actually saw him. Her cute little friend Jane waited in line with her and they "posed" for some pictures. When we got close to the front Emi started to get a little nervous. Jane went first and did fine. Then Reese went and burst into tears! Emi was so worried about her little sister. Emi would not go see Santa. She was shaking and crying so we didn't have her sit on his lap. He gave her a candy cane anyway. Later that day we celebrated Landon's 6th birthday! I can NOT believe that he is 6! After Landon's party we had the extended Bawden party. After dinner Santa made an appearance. Reese cried and wouldn't sit on his lap and Emi would not let go of me. I felt awful. I don't care if she sits on Santa's lap or not, I just don't want her to be scared or sad. She was shaking so bad and crying so hard. Santa stood up just to hand her a treat and she screamed "NO!!!" and turned into me so that he wouldn't take her. Everyone was shocked and amused, but I was just sad for her. Ever since then when we put her to bed she said "no Santa come" or "no Santa come house". We reassured her that Santa was not coming to our house.









 After our ward party I was preparing things in the kitchen and Koby was at Home Depot (or so I thought). A guy in our ward knocked on the door. He said that Koby had texted him and asked for his help moving a piano. I told him it must be at someone else's house. He then read me the text and I realized Koby was getting me a piano! Koby called and texted me and I didn't know how to act. I didn't want to ruin his surprise but I didn't think I could act surprised enough. When he actually arrived with it I didn't react well at all. Now I love the piano and that I don't have to wait to play my mom's. I still don't get to just sit and play as often as I would like, but I'm so glad that my girls will have the piano in our home growing up. For me to get a piano is a really big deal to me. Koby had always said that we would never get a piano. I told him that we would but he insisted that we wouldn't. I hadn't given it a ton of thought because our front room isn't huge, so I could wait til we moved to a bigger house. Anyway, he had told me that he got the piano because he saw how much I loved playing at my mom's house. Just knowing that he wanted to get me a piano meant so much more to me than ever actually getting a piano. Playing the piano does bring me a lot of joy and stress relief though, and I'm grateful to Koby for getting it for me.

We had our normal Christmas Eve with my family on Sunday because M'liss and Tim weren't going to be there on the real Christmas Eve. We had fun acting out the Nativity and enjoyed watching the kids play and just spending time together.













The next day we headed back out to WVC and had Christmas Eve with Koby's side. We have breakfast for dinner and then we send up our red balloon to someone in Heaven. This year Koby's parents asked that we try to think of some kind of service that we can do to give to Jesus. Emi did not want to let her balloon go. I finally got her to and then it got stuck under the edge of the roof.  Koby's did to and his was were he could reach it so she got a balloon back. After opening gifts we went over to my parent's house to play games.







Emi asked for a kitchen this year. Emi kept telling us that Reese wanted a ball. Everything was from us this year because Emi was so scared of Santa. Koby bought a play kitchen at the Black Friday sales, but after opening it, it just seemed small and cheap. She would have loved it either way, but we decided to re-purpose an old entertainment center. Lucky for us Koby's sister had one sitting in her basement that she wasn't using. We had fun fixing it up and couldn't wait for her to open it on Christmas morning. Emi has loved her kitchen and plays with it just about everyday. Christmas morning was fun this year! Emi helped Reese play with her things and then she would look at her own stuff.

We are so grateful for the Christmas season and that we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.