Christmas Dresses

It was impossible to get any pictures of my girls together with their matching dresses. We were lucky to get any of Kenzli...she was not in the mood to cooperate.

But she gets away with being a stinker, because she is so dang cute!!!
Sariah on the other hand, was totally cooperative and would have let me take 100 more pictures as long as she got to pose.
Seriously...she is such a ham!

She loved her Christmas dress!!!

Trains!

There is a really cool railroad park up in Scottsdale and every year they decorate it for Christmas. This year, we went with some friends on opening night. It was lots of fun. They have a big room with a whole little village set up with train tracks going through it. You can walk through inside and see it all. It really is incredible. You can also see it through the window. Sariah loved watching the trains go by as we waited in line to ride the actual tree through the lights display.

On the train...ready to go!
Sariah absolutely loves riding carousels...luckily there was not a long line to ride.

On opening night, they have lots of characters there...she loved Elmo and Cookie Monster!!!

My good friend Julie is the one who invited us to go ... we had gone last year but opening night is so much more fun!!!

Dance

Sariah loves to dance. Here she is with her teacher, Ms. Lissa at her recital in December. She was so cute in her little costume.

She was so excited to get flowers aferwards. Seriously, I love this girl...she is absolutely ADORABLE!!!

Tree & Santa

Sariah absolutely LOVES Christmas time. One of her favorite things to do is decorate the tree. She strategically places each ornament and trust me, she knows if they move. One night after she went to bed, I added an ornament that I had just gotten. It only took her like 10 minutes the next morning to notice it and ask where it came from. I love her excitement and it makes the holidays all that much more fun.

She got to sit on Santa's lap at the mall and then again at our ward Christmas party. She was sure to tell him what she wanted and what to bring Kenzli.
Kenzli on the other hand, was NOT a fan of Santa this year!!!

First Piggy

Kenzli had her first piggy tail on Nov 16th. She is growing up so fast. Isn't she just adorable!?!?!

Halloween

Sariah had so much fun dressing up three times this year. She wore her costume to dance class on Thursday, preschool on Friday, and again to the ward trunk-or-treat on Saturday. She wanted to be Sleeping Beauty and was absolutely adorable.

Kenzli was a little piggy. Too cute!!!
SISTERS

At the trunk-or-treat, Sariah did not even finish going to all the cars because she said she had enough candy. What kid does that? Kenzli did not understand the concept at all and refused to even walk up to the cars with Sariah.

Dentist

As much as I hate to admit it, Sariah had her first (yes, first) appointment with the dentist in August. She was not at all scared and was actually pretty excited about it. Here she is playing in the waiting room to be called back.

Chillin' in the chair waiting to be seen.
It was a good experience and she did great. She has asked several times since then, when she gets to go back. We already have her next appointment scheduled. :)

Uncle Brian & Aunt Becka

Back in August, Brian and Becka came down for a visit. Sariah absolutely adores them. She was so excited because they came over to our house and she got to show them her room...it seriously made her day. She was so sad when they left that day but luckily, we were headed to my parent's for the weekend and would see them again.

That weekend, we all headed to a baseball game. Sariah was totally attached to Brian. She was pretty bummed because Papa couldn't come and so she stuck to Brian the whole game. She sat on his lap or next to him the whole night.

She also adores Aunt Becka!!!
Kenzli got to experience her first baseball game (although she won't remember it). She did clap for the first time while we were there so she must have had a good time.

Mommy and happy Kenz

Aunt Becka pitching to Sariah and teaching her how to bat.

It was so fun to spend time with them and can't wait to see them again for Christmas!!!

One Year Old (plus a month or so)

I cannot believe that Kenzli is already ONE! She is growing up so fast. Her birthday was an adventure...we decided that instead of having family come over to our house that we would celebrate her birthday at my parent's house so they did not all have to drive so far. Her birthday was on a Friday so I decided to head over as soon as Sariah was done with preschool so I would have time to decorate the cupcakes. On the way over, my car overheated so we got stuck in the middle of downtown Phoenix. My mother-in-law met us there and we got some coolant and got it all worked out and I ended up getting to my parents later than anticipated. Since Kenzli had missed her nap and all of us girls were hot and tired, we decided to postpone the birthday celebration until the next afternoon.

So the next day, we had a little party with pizza, presents, and cupcakes. She is fascinated by dolls...whenever we go to the store, I always go by the dolls that make noise and she just laughs and laughs. She loved her new cabbage patch doll and of course her new blanket.

Then it was time to sing and blow out the candles.
She dug right in and got all messy but loved every minute of it.

I was impressed with how much of her oversized cupcake she was able to eat. I am sure she would have kept going but I decided she had had enough.

She loved walking around with her new toy!!!

She is such a joy to have around and is always so happy. It has been a fun year and I can't wait for more!

Stitches!!!

NOTE: PICTURES AHEAD ~ LOOK AT YOUR RISK :)

Sariah is our rough and tough, girly girl. She loves to run, jump, play hard yet is so sweet and tender at the same time. She usually falls hard and then jumps up and reassures us that she is okay. When she falls and cries, you know to react because it either REALLY scared her or it HURT!

A couple days ago, she was playing around and fell off a kitchen chair and smacked her chin. It hurt her pretty bad and she cried pretty hard. We talked about how she needs to settle down and be more careful so she doesn't get hurt. It didn't slow her down though. She is always running around the house. Since she learned to walk, she has RUN pretty much non-stop.

So...now to the story...this morning while watching conference, she was running out of her room carrying princess shoes in one hand and a princess dress in another. She must have tripped on her dress and since her hands were full, she could not brace for the fall. She smacked her chin on the tile and INSTANTLY started crying HARD. Jake went and picked her up to console her. Once they sat down, he wanted to check her teeth (naturally) to make sure she didn't hurt anything and noticed that she was bleeding. She didn't bleed hard but the gash was pretty deep. We got her calmed down, put a bandaid on it and started getting ready to head to the doctor. She was so sad about not getting to see President Monson that we let her finish watching the morning session and then headed to urgent care. After a fairly tramatic doctors visit (of which I will spare you the details) and three stitches to show for it, she wanted to head to Target for a new toy. Of course, we were happy to allow it and off we went. She wanted me to take a picture of her new fairy and new cool-pack for any future injuries. We also took a picture of the HUGE bandaid they put on her for her "scrapbook" (she loves to look at her scrapbooks and all the pictures).

We had to clean the cut and put on a new bandaid tonight so she got to see the stitches. She looked at herself in the mirror very seriously and we talked about how the string would hold her skin together until it can heal so it doesn't keep bleeding. She just stayed serious for a minute and then started laughing and said, "It looks like I have a spider on my chin." She just kept saying it and laughing harder and harder. It was so cute. Hopefully she will sleep good tonight and won't have any pain. She endured enough pain at the doctor's office. It was one of the moments as a parent where you feel so helpless and bad for your child. I was glad I was able to be in the room but it was really hard to watch her be so upset and not be able to do anything about it. I hope we don't have to go through anything like this again for a VERY LONG TIME!!!

"The wound"

Her new fairy, Rosetta and cool-pack
HUGE bandaid
The "SPIDER"