January 2010 Update

So here is what we have been up to this month:

MARY

I've been working on my new year's goal to work out 5 days a week. I was doing really well until we all got sick with the swine flu last week, but plan to get back on track now that I can breathe through my nose again. In addition to exercise, Jared and I have a lot of goals for home improvement projects this year. Here are some pictures of some curtains I made for the kids' rooms.

I plan to re-paint the girls' room and do some art and crafts to put on their walls--then at least the kids rooms will be done. Most days I just cover the basics and on a really good day I can get a small project done. I guess there is a time and season for everything, and right now this is my more-than-full-time mommy season.

JARED

Jared bought some woodworking tools and is excited to use them. He is currently building some end tables for our living room (I'll post pictures when he finishes them--right now they look like glorified tomato cages). When he finishes those, his next project is to redo our master closet. In addition to work and woodworking, he stays busy with his callings and giving the kids lots of daddy attention--which it seems they can never get enough of.

ABBY

It seems that we have finally found the thing to motivate Abby to get potty trained--ballet lessons. She has been doing much better with this new incentive.

Here is Abby in her leotard, "practicing" for her ballet lesson next week.

Abby loves her new doll house, but was disappointed that she doesn't have a mommy and daddy bed yet. One day I went to crawl into bed only to find that she had tucked her doll family into our bed for the night.

Since starting Sunbeams this month, one thing that has really impressed Abby is "the stand" in the Primary room. She came home after her second week of Sunbeams and drew a picture of it for me and burst into tears as she told me how sad she was because the teacher never called on her to come up to it. Abby is one of those kids that always wants to be in the lime light. So one day I came into the bonus room to see that she had built a pulpit for her toy tiger.

MADDY

Maddy is still our sweet, smiling happy bear. She is learning so much everyday and is starting to use longer sentences and can now count to 10. She loves books, music, building things, and copying just about everything that her older sister does.

Poor Maddy was the most affected by the swine flu. She got it first and was the last one to recover. She had high fevers, vomiting, and an awful cough that kept her up every night for a week. She is finally getting better, but it was hard to see our little bear so sick.

NATHAN
Nathan continues to be our sweet, happy baby. He started solids this month and is continuing to grow at an amazing rate. He and Maddy now wear the same size diapers and he has outgrown his baby bathtub.

Bath time is probably Nathan's favorite time of day. He loves to kick and splash around.

One of his second favorite things is rolling around on his blanket and playing with all his toys. We love our cute little man cub.

I'll Be Home for Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful vacation visiting our families for Christmas and New Years. Here are a few highlights:

We had a movie night at Jared's brother Eric's house. The girls loved dressing up like princesses with their cousins, and we enjoyed their new projection theater room.

We made it to Utah on Christmas Eve. Here is Abby pouring "tea" (apple juice) for her cousins.

My parents cooked us a delicious Palestinian dinner--probably Jared's favorite meal of the year.

Here Nathan and I are with my little sister and her 5 week old baby Christian.

On Christmas morning the girls got an e-mail from Santa with a picture of their doll house (because it was too big to transport in our car) followed by squeals of excitement.

Here is our jolly little elf enjoying his first Christmas.

Maddy riding on Clifford.

The day after Christmas we went up to Salt Lake and enjoyed the Donaldson family Christmas party. It was nice to see all the relatives again, especially great-grandpa Donaldson.

Here are the girls in the cute purple "princess" dresses from their grandma Collett.

Nathan with his Grandpa Donaldson. Don't they look like they could be related?

We all enjoyed spending time with my sister Sarah and her wonderful family.

On Sunday we were able to attend Christian's beautiful baby blessing.

My mom took the grandkids up to Salt Lake to enjoy the Children's museum. As you can see they had a great time.

Abby loved shopping and dressing up as a cow-girl.

Here the girls are with their cousins acting out an interesting version of Robin Hood.

On the 28th we got to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday with a nice dinner at Thanksgiving Point followed by a melodious trolley ride to see the lights. The girls also enjoyed seeing the live Reindeer.

We enjoyed meeting up with our good friends from Philadelphia who were also in town visiting family.

We had a nice time catching up with a few of my old roommates from BYU.

One fun thing about Utah was the snow. Here are the girls all dressed up to go sledding at Rock Canyon Park. So fun!

We drove back to Boise to spend New Years with Jared's family. The girls loved watching Hi Ho (Snow White) with their cousin Courtney.

Maddy and Abby loved the new pink bedspreads for their big girl beds from their Grandma Collett.

I'm sure Nathan will enjoy his train when he gets older. Right now he is busy trying to figure out how to put his whole hand into his mouth.

We had a nice New Years dinner and a great time with Jared's family but unfortunately don't have any more pictures since our battery on our camera was low. So Happy New Year everyone and thanks for the great time.