Winter Fun

Here's what we've been up to this month, plus numerous Christmas countdowns, illnesses, delicious treat making, and present wrapping. Oh and non-stop Christmas music.

Eric's playing city league basketball, and we finally went to a game because there was finally one at 6:30 instead of 8:30. My camera stinks.

When he was out for a minute, the girls just had to go squeeze next to him on the bench. They loved cheering for him, Katelyn would even groan and slap her leg when they missed a shot. She also cheered when the other team scored. And shouted loudly several times "Go Eric!" Everyone thought she was so funny. I loved watching him play too, I haven't gotten to see him play organized sports much. He's cute when he's all athletic. :) We're looking forward to a few more games after Christmas.
The girls with their current favorite fruit. Whitney especially loves to peel these clementines. Oh and these are my third and final skirts that I made for the girls. I got all the sewing out of my system for a while. :)
We got a foot and a half of snow a couple of weeks ago, and a few days later it was finally warm enough to go outside and play (28* and sunny).
We made this sweet ramp to sled down off the deck! Perfect size for timid little girls. :)
Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Something I learned today

FYI: If you try cleaning your windows INSIDE your house when it's only 6 degrees outside, the Windex will freeze before you have time to wipe it off. :)

Thoughts

So my little brother Derek's best friend Landon Gugliemana died in a car crash a few days ago. He fell asleep at the wheel driving back to school from Thanksgiving Break. He was a great, Christian kid, I only met him once or twice but I have heard about him constantly from my family for the last 6 years. Derek's in the MTC right now preparing to serve a mission in Denver, so he isn't going to the funeral, it's so sad. But he wrote a letter for one of my other brothers to read at the funeral. So I'm just sad for my brother and my family and Landon's family, and proud of Derek for the testimony he has. He said in a letter to my family that he loved Landon and will miss him for the rest of his life, but he knows he will see him again and he's excited for that day when he returns home to his Heavenly Father and Landon will be there waiting for him.

So I've just been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am for all my family and friends, and also how grateful I am to KNOW that death is not the end! Our spirits live on and we will be resurrected! There is a heaven and a life after this one. I am so glad that Derek and the rest of my family, and Landon's family know this.

Also Eric and I talked about never driving after midnight again! We go to California all the time and we just need to be careful, even if the weather is good. Landon was only 30 minutes from his school when he crashed, he probably just thought he could make it, he was wearing his seat belt and everything, and the girl with him in the car was fine, but he died. And it could happen to us. So please everyone I love be careful as you travel for the holidays this year. I promise we will be too.

Sewing kick

I've been on a sewing kick lately. It helped that I got cheap fabric and patterns on sale at JoAnn's. here's what I've made:

Train pajama pants, seen here on Whitney, and isn't this the cutest picture ever??

And here again, isn't Katelyn hugely tall? Whitney's 90th percentile for her age too, so she's no shorty!
I made these jean skirts from Eric's old jeans, and made up my own pattern from my jean skirt. Knee length would have been cuter I think.
And I made these babies, also with my own pattern based on a skirt Katelyn already had. Love them! And the sweet coats from Grandma Murray!
I have fabric and a pattern for another CUTE skirt for them, and two more pairs of PJ pants. I wish I was this productive all the time! :)

BYU Victorious

Yeah baby!!

Hall's kind of a dork for his extreme comments afterward, and our offense didn't play that great a lot of the game, but our defense was AMAZING and we pulled it off! Go Cougars!

Thanksgiving at the Harveys!

New Christmas dresses and tights from The Children's Place: $13.75

A matinee movie ticket for New Moon: $6.00

babysitters for 5 children: free (husbands)

A fun Black Friday morning with your BFF: Priceless :)

So here are my deal dresses:

I am in love with these dresses, especially because they were so cheap. Even though the girls blend in with the tree. And I had them wear them today even though it's still November.
So we went to the Harveys' for Thanksgiving!! SO fun. Here was our feast (we didn't wake Whitney up from her nap for the meal...)
The kids got along GREAT, they ran around and played all day for two days with almost zero arguments, pretty amazing. Here's Kate and Matt helping decorate the Christmas tree!
4 of the 5 kids, can you tell they're watching a Frosty the Snowman DVD? Kristi got a picture of all 5 of them.
Look for a future wedding announcement photo similar to this next one. James is a year and a half older than Katelyn, but they had so much fun together. She also loved Matt, who's closer in age to her, she thought he was so funny. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of her and Matthias playing tiger and lion, costumes and all. The boys also taught Katelyn a lot about playing Pirates and bandits. So cute.
Whitney and Hannah became friends- mostly they enjoyed looking at each other, and Whitney liked to pat Hannah's head. She loved the boys, saying "boh" all the time for boy and "bebe" for Hannah. The boys played with Whitney a lot too, one time it was so cute I saw James bending down to Whitney and saying "do you want to be on my side?"
Obviously we adults had a good time too-- me and Kristi's Friday excursion, lots of game playing and talking... And the drive was so much shorter than California. Thanks for a great trip Harvey Family!

growing up

Whitney and I have been a little out of sorts these last couple of weeks. Like she has been driving me crazy. Freaking out about everything. Having major tantrums and fits over every little thing. I was thinking maybe the terrible twos had come early and mourning the loss of my sweet little girl. But THEN I had a revelation: We have entered the

Independence and Communication Frustration Phase!!

This is how I discovered it: Getting Whitney a drink had become a big problem. She would freak out every time I handed her her cup- throwing it on the floor, crying, if I tried to talk to her and find out what was wrong she would push me away and say "doh, doh, doh". At first I thought maybe she was just mad when it wasn't juice in her cup, but then she did it with juice too. I tried leaving her alone to get over it. I tried hiding the cup and bringing it back out a few minutes later with the same results. A couple of times I put her in her room for a minute when she hit me while I was trying to figure out why she was freaking out. I finally ended up trying to always fill up her cup when she wasn't in the room and then just bringing it to her, but that wasn't always practical. SO, two days ago when I had given her juice and she was doing the usual freak out, it just came to me--- she wants to put the lid on herself!! I had seen her playing with cups, putting the lids on, and I realized that must be it-- and I was right! The last two days we have had zero problems with that because I am letting her put the lid on her cup "by herself". With minimal help from me. Yay!

The best part is, this principal applies to just about everything else we were struggling with- I just let her do it herself, or at least start to, and then if I come in and help since she really can't do it alone she's okay with it. Wow.

The poor girl had just been suffering from knowing exactly what she wanted to do, but not being able to totally do it by herself, and on top of that, not being able to TELL me what she wanted. What a frustrating time for a child. Thank goodness she's learning a couple of new words each day. And thank goodness I am now alerted to her stage of development and can act accordingly. :)

Indian Summer Heaven

Dear Indian Summer,

Thank you, thank you, for coming into my life these past two weeks! I was overjoyed at your arrival and I have loved every minute of our time together. I have definitely fallen in love with you, and we have created so many precious memories! Like a beautiful Halloween evening to trick-or-treat in. Many occasions of running in only a t-shirt and shorts with you by my side. Walking barefoot in the leaves. Picnics and playing basketball and tag at the park. And that wonderful surprise you gave me, a 65-degree evening on Happy Murray Day so we could do our family Olympics after Eric came home-OUTSIDE, in the dark, in November, I will always cherish the memories of that night! You have warmed me inside and out, dear Indian Summer. I know you have to go now, but I am not sad, because you have given me enough warmth to last me through the cold winter ahead. I do not know when we will meet again, but until then, I hold a special place for you in my heart.

Love always,

Rebecca

Marriage Advice

I just heard this quote from a CES broadcast by President Uchdorf last Sunday, and I LOVE it.

“Since you won’t find perfection in your partner,

and your partner won’t find it in you,

your only chance at perfection is in

creating perfection together.

That is the secret.”

So there you go. My words of wisdom for the day.

Whitney 18 months!!

Our baby is 18 months old! So old! She was sick the last few days- like just laying around, not moving or talking, and I missed her! Now she's better and it has been so fun to have her silly little personality back. Here's a video we took of her last week saying some of her words.

She says at least 30 words, including truck "kuck", car, book, cracker, stop, done, down, juice, cheese, Jesus, more, mine, "mo" for Nemo, and many more. Many of them sound similar, but if she says "buh" when she sees a bug and "buh" when she sees a bear, she really is saying each word, right?

She's also started climbing, something Katelyn never did at her age, and she loves to dance, read stories, and do pretty much anything Katelyn comes up with.

We love our little Whitney Mae and we're having a great time with her!

Halloween

Our favorite Halloween pictures.

Kate with her pumpkin. We also cooked delicious pumpkin seeds.

jack-o-lantern mini-pizzas for dinner on Halloween, yum! Kate made them almost all by herself.
We had a monkey and a dinosaur! Wait, do we have two little girls or boys??

Imagine seeing this cute face on your doorstep! Whitney had a death grip on her bucket the whole time, and was very good at picking candy if they offered her the bowl. Kate was our expert door knocker, and she would always say "happy halloween!!" as we walked away, so cute. Whitney even started saying "nah, nah" and knocking on the doors too.

We took this video while trick-or-treating, we kept laughing becasue Katelyn would say 'TOOTsie" with a big OOO sound instead of tootsie normal... anyway enjoy.

Fall Fun

A few random pics from lately:

bucket heads! They loved to run around with their trick-or-treat buckets on their heads! In this picture I think they were actually playing fireman.

Welcome to January! We had our first snow, and first running with snow pants and lots of blankets on.
THis is what happens when Dad's in charge. sliding and....
jumping down the stairs...
into huge piles of cushions and pillows!
Fun with leaves!
helping rake
buried!

Bake-Off!

Last week, inspired by my awesome friend Nicole, we had our "first annual" Mom and Child Bake-Off! It was a BIG hit! The whole point (besides an excuse to hang out with other moms) was for the kids to be in charge. So katelyn helped me make and deliver the invitations, make decorations, we even colored Halloween pictures on plates and cups! Then the kids were supposed to do as much of the baking as possible, and at the party they voted for the Best Tasting and Best Looking treat awards.

Katelyn with a sample of the treat we made- rice crispie jack-o-lanterns! So fun to make!

The treat table mid-way through the party- everyone had such great and delicious ideas!! The winners are both at the back left though. Best tasting- "Party in the graveyard", an Oreo/brownie/pudding/whipped cream delight! And Best looking- "zombie eyeballs", peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate with a realistic m'n'm pupil and red lines, wow!
This is the last of the punch I made, witch's brew, after most of the sherbet had melted and the ice-cubes-with-gummy-worms-frozen-in-them had all been taken. It was delicious and cool-looking. :)
We are DEFINITELY doing it again next year!!

Kate's first race!!

Katelyn ran her first race today! It was a 200m race for 1-4 year olds, part of the BYU Homecoming festivities. It was SO FUN. She LOVED it, even though she didn't realize she was supposed to start and ended up in the back. And she didn't want me to hold her hand like many of the other parents so she didn't have that (I think unfair) advantage. :) We were so proud of her, and I guess she's just a steady long distance runner like me, not so much a sprinter. :) Here she is at the starting line, see the video at the end too.

It actually ended up being a REALLY exciting day for us: We met Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Katrina and Phillip at the race, they wanted to cheer for Katelyn! And then we walked over to the BYU stadium where they were taping ESPN college game day! It was super fun, and we got 2 free $1 gift cards to Home Depot, enjoyed the exciting atmosphere and all the funny signs, and accidently met up with our cousins Kendra and Jeremy! We love that they're hardcore BYU fans, and that Kendra and I were both running the 5k race. So I ran my race and did well, it was great. The girls love to cheer for me. :)

THEN we decided to watch the Homecoming parade, and it was awesome! The weather was great and the girls got TONS of candy and a balloon and the music was fun. I left my camera in the car, sadly. I could have gotten some great pics of Katelyn "sneaking" out into the road to get some candy. THEN after seeing their pirate ship float in the parade, we decided to go out to lunch at this new restaurant called Pirate Island, it was so fun!! Great atmosphere, good food, pirate hat kids menus, and a guy making balloon animals for us at our table. Wonderful.

Kate got a parrot, she's staring, enthralled, while the guy makes Whitney's monkey.

We finished off with a productive trip to Kohls, and the girls fell asleep on the way home. Great times. Now if only BYU hadn't gotten it's rear kicked by TCU, it would have been a perfect day. :)
Here's the video, she's wearing green. I think you can hear Katrina laugh at the beginning :) and Katelyn is smiling THE WHOLE TIME! She had so much fun. :)

Enjoy at your own risk- do not watch if you have problems with motion sickness! I was running while taping! It gets better after the first little bit...

Enjoying MANY of my favorite things in one day (racing, FAMILY, beautiful fall leaves, BYU, going out to eat, parades, good shopping trips) = HAPPINESS!!

Hansen "family reunion"

This is the last California post. Let me just say that it was WONDERFUL for my entire family to be together, for the only time in this 4+ year period when 4 of my siblings have served/are serving/will serve missions. There were several times when we would all just be sitting around talking, it was so nice. And we did my favorite thing, sing together, for about an hour Sunday night. We made some great memories, to last us until we're all together again!

So here are my favorite pictures from the trip that I haven't posted yet. Right when we were leaving our house, I turned around to the girls and asked if they were excited to be going on our big trip to California. These were their reactions:

Love them! Katelyn kept saying "California here we come!!"
Katelyn and Whitney love all their aunts and uncles. Kate keeps talking about funny things she did with them. Here are their goodbye pictures with Uncle Derek, we will really miss him!!!
Derek is so much fun.
Jonathan is so sweet to the girls.
We got to see Melissa play water polo, and she even scored a goal while we were there! She's so awesome.
We saw Jenae race too, and she does a great job being the closest-in-age aunt to her nieces.
Eric and the girls during picture taking.
cousin fun! I love that they all have the same color hair.
even more cousin fun at our picnic after taking pictures.
Whitney loves to hang from things, she's so funny.
Kent and Allison brought Rock Band for us to enjoy, and let me tell you, it was a hit! They set it up in Derek and Donny's room, and the band Eric-Derek-Donny-Kent played for hours! It was HILARIOUS to listen to them taking turns being the singer. My family was amazed at Eric singing loud and crazy- obviously I've seen him like that many times but it was still funny to me too. This was when me, Dad, and Katrina tried the instruments for the first time and Derek was singing "Spirit in the Sky", SO funny. Man we're going to miss that kid.
Donny and Eric concentrating seriously, and Katelyn and Natalie with their own instruments singing and dancing too, it was great. I love that Eric is so comfortable with my family! I guess we have been married for a while now...
What a great trip. I am so grateful to be sealed to my family and know we'll be together forever.