Christmas Tag

I've been tagged so here goes...
First, list some of your most memorable holiday traditions from your childhood that just make you go all warm and fuzzy because they were just so much fun or made you feel your Savior's love. Secondly, tell about your holiday traditions now, because we frequently will pick up new traditions from our other half when we get married, or drop old ones because they don't fit with who we are now.
Growing up we had a lot of Christmas traditions, most of which we did on Christmas Eve, but I'll try and get a variety.
-doing the 12 days of Christmas for another family (or giving them a piece of a nativity each night with a scripture until they had the complete set on Christmas Eve)
-reading Christmas stories from the big Christmas book and always reading Luke 2 on Christmas Eve
-giving a gift to Christ on Christmas Eve. We write down our gift to Christ and put it in a little lantern ornament that each of us have. We also read the gift we gave Christ the previous year.
-giving sibling gifts on Christmas Eve. We either drew names or rotated and that is the one present we opened early.
-each getting a box of cereal for Christmas and then eating it for breakfast that day.
-getting a new ornament each year. Mom usually picked them out and they represented us or something we had done that year.
I know there are more but that's all I can think of for now.
As for the second part, I don't know that Jon and I really have any Christmas traditions yet. We have only been married for 2 Christmases and have spent each one with family. We have fun decorating and we've done gingerbread houses each year but that's about it. I'm excited to see what everyone else's traditions are so that we can get some ideas for new ones for us!
If you're reading this consider yourself tagged!

It stuck...baba

This morning Emma and I were eating breakfast. All of a sudden she looked up and said "It stuck...baba(bottle). I had no idea what she was talking about or if it was just jibberish and I made it sound like something but I looked down and sure enough her bottle was stuck between her leg and the table. I was so excited because this is the most words she has ever put together that made sense. I can't believe how fast she's learning to talk. She's been able to say several words for a while but in the last couple of days she's started talking nonstop. She will name all sorts of random objects she sees or hears and loves to say her name. It always catches me off guard because half the time I had no idea she even knew what something was called. It just goes to show how much stuff little kids pick up. I really have to be careful about what I say around her now!

Thanksgiving...a little late

Well, we are back! It was SO nice to have a real vacation last week. We spent a week in California and came back Friday. It was fun to see family and it was so nice not to have to worry about school and work. But real life has returned and Jon is in major crunch mode now. There are only 3 weeks left in the semester and he is trying to finish up several projects, but isn't that how it always goes??? We will be glad when this semester is over, especially since it's his last real semester. Next semester he'll just do his 2 online generals classes and then we'll be done with the student life!!!
Anyway, enough about school. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

We decided to go to the zoo before we flew out to California because we didn't leave until evening. They had this sign up outside the apes/gorillas that we thought was kind of funny.

Jon wanted me to put a picture of at least one animal and our Emma Bear doesn't count. So, in the BYU spirit we picked the cougar. Go Cougars! On a side note, I watched my very first BYU football game on tv on Saturday (the BYU vs Utah game). I remembered very quickly why I don't ever watch football. It got off to a very slow start, but I hear the end was pretty exciting and we did win. And now I can say that in my 4 years at BYU I have seen a football game.

This is at a lake we found at Tillden Park outside of Oakland. We hiked all the way around the lake. It was really pretty and very short...my kind of hike. :)

We love this picture of Emma walking with Jon's dad. She loved sitting and cuddling and playing with him while we were there.

Our little princess. Emma has just recently started getting into the "dress up" thing. If you can't tell, she's wearing a crown and a necklace and holding a purse.

We went into San Francisco for a few hours one day to do the tourist thing. It's always fun to go into the city and explore.

Emma went on the merry go round at the Pier.

Jon loves playing with our new camera and seeing what kinds of things he can do. This picture was taken out the airplane window on the way home. There was a light on the end of the wing so he kept the shutter open and moved the camera in the shape of a heart to make the line. I hope that all makes sense...

And that was our trip. It was fun to visit and HOPEFULLY we'll be back out soon for good. We should find out about internships this week. If Jon gets an internship we'll move right before Christmas. We'll keep everybody posted!

Any Suggestions?

I've wanted to ask for a long time if anyone has any suggestions of good books to read. I am on a book reading kick again and really need some ideas. I really like historic novels, church books, that kind of thing, but after reluctantly reading the Twilight series and liking it, I am open to pretty much anything.
While I'm asking for suggestions, here goes another one. Does anyone know of foods that help with nausea or that were good to eat while you were pregnant? I haven't really been sick but I just have a hard time finding foods that look/sound/taste good. I would love to know what you all found helpful. Feel free to suggest away.

Ups and Downs

Wow, this last week has been rough. I've had every intention of updating our blog, but there has been nothing to write about and I haven't taken a single picture in over a week. Emma has been sick and I feel like it's been all I can do to just get up in the morning and get through a day. She spent almost a week throwing up every night, and then on Friday she got diarrhea that we are still dealing with. On top of that she has a horrible diaper rash that won't go away. Ahh, the joys. So, after doing 10 loads of laundry between Monday and Saturday I am really hoping we're towards the end of all of this. I know she's miserable and it makes her really grumpy during the day. I just want her to feel good and be happy again. Anyway, I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. Even though it has been rough, I know it could be worse and I'm trying to remember the good things that happen. I am SO grateful to Jon for stepping in and helping so much. I could not do it without him.
The highlight of my week was that we found plane tickets to California for Thanksgiving for $58! We are spending Thanksgiving with Jon's family and were planning on driving. But now we don't have to and it won't cost us any more than gas would have. We are all so excited. Yeah for Southwest specials.
Another good thing that happened was that we got a new camera. Jon is taking a photography class and had to get a professional camera. It was really just a good excuse to spend money that we don't really have to get something that is not necessary but is really nice to have. So, we are happy with it. Anyway, since I didn't take any pictures this week, I thought I'd post a few of the pictures Jon took with the new camera.

A picture of our new camera

We love this picture of Emma

Well, that's all for this week. We leave for California on Saturday and are SO excited for our week of vacation. I love the holidays!

A Day on the Farm

On Saturday we took Emma to a place called Hee Haw farms. They have a corn maize, hay rides, and tons of other farm type activities. The weather was perfect and we had a lot of fun.

Emma got to ride this pony. She was laughing the whole time. It was great.

Petting the pony after the ride.

They had pig wrestling...no we didn't participate...but Emma thought it was funny to watch the pigs running around.

Jon and Emma rode together on the animal train.

I love this picture.

She couldn't reach the steering wheel but thought it was fun to sit up so high.

Playing in the corn box...like a sandbox but so much better.

I would totally recommend this to anyone around here with kids. It was inexpensive and kept Emma busy for a couple hours.

On a side note Jon has his interview with Pixar today! They also took him out to lunch today so it's looking promising. Hopefully we will find out soon what we're doing.

Family Pictures!

Well, it's been a year but we FINALLY got new family pictures. Emma was so distracted by everything going on that we didn't get any of her smiling, but that's what Photoshop is for.
The first one is probably our favorite of us as a family.

I just think this one is funny.

For those of you who have never seen it, this is Emma's surprised/excited face. We have never been able to capture it on camera so we love this picture for that.