A child's prayer....

Well there is still about a half inch of snow on the ground so we are enjoying yet another snow day! Hooray!

Aleksa said her first prayer completely by herself today! We were so excited! She asked to say the prayer and when Cam tried to help he was told NO! This is how it went,

"Heavenly Father....Bless.... Thank you.... Jesus... Amen...."

We still apparently have some work to do but we are getting there- It was the highlight of the day.

Since we are trying to clean out the pantry I'm sure Aleksa's prayers helped the Vienna Sausage sandwiches go down better... wouldn't know though- I refuse to eat them, so I dug a freezer burned lean pocket out of the freezer and I am sure it was infinitely better.

** UPDATE** Aleksa prayed again today by herself. This time she expanded by blessing mommy twice, daddy and grandpa. Alright.

Put your hands in the air....

Tonight Cam and I were playing a game I got for Christmas- BLINK. We gave Aleksa a handful of her different cards so she could play with us. After a few rounds the following conversation took place:

Cam: "Leks do you have a good hand?"

Aleksa: "Yeah I got hand wight here (points to her hand)"

Cam: "Oh..."

Aleksa: "An I got nother hand wight here!" "Mommy gots hand too daddy!"

*As a side note Blink is a really fun two player game- we always need a good two player game.

Creating Traditions and Memories

Aleksa's ornament is truly a masterpiece, she did the bulk of the painting herself- Cam helped her paint the "A" and I put an '09 on the back.

I figured I better clear out my backlog of Christmas pictures since neither set of grandparents has been able to see any pictures yet. Liny and I decided that we wanted to paint our own Santa plates this year for Santa's cookies. We took Aleksa with us to paint pottery- she did well for a 2 year old- I'll leave it at that. But it was still a really fun girls night out and our plates turned out pretty cute. I forgot my camera when we painted so you can just see the after effects.

Best Day Ever

For Aleksa's Christmas present Cache and Liny took her on a "day of fun" to Build A Bear, Aleksa was in heaven. She picked out a puppy that looks just like her best dog buddy Mia. She even got a leash so that she can take Puppy on "walks". She loves Cache and Liny so much and is always excited to do anything with them.

The day Puppy came home to our house Aleksa took her on a "walk" around our living room, to the potty in the corner and demanded that I give Puppy a food and water dish. After which I was told that Puppy had spilled her imaginary water all over the floor and I needed to get Aleksa a towel so she could clean it up- such a responsible pet owner. Puppy also came with us to the Post Office where Aleksa "walked (dragged)" her all over the fabulously clean floor there.

New Year ..... New Plan?

I came across this challenge while mindlessly surfing blogs tonight, I think I'm in. Our pantry is full of things that we need to eat and we could always save some money. Once I figure out exactly what our specific family goals are, I'll let you know. Check it out on the blogs above and sign up if you want!

Arizona Photos

I took some family photos while we were in Arizona, there aren't very many because we were all complaining about the cold weather. Reality hit hard and cold when we arrived in Tulsa to a balmy 30 degrees. Enjoy!

End of a Decade

This past decade has been a pretty crazy decade for us. For half the decade we weren't even us yet. High school graduations, Miss Utah competition, mission to Russia, college graduations, marriage, 5 states, 1 country, a baby, a business, law school and too many other milestones to count.

So what other way to welcome in the new year than a sick baby on an airplane? We flew home from Arizona and Aleksa got sick before we even got on the first plane and lets just say after several outfits and some handy airsick bags we made it home.

All I can say is thank goodness for Cache and Liny- if it weren't for them we would not have done New Year's Eve. They had dinner waiting and got us excited for the New Year by playing games. Cache was also there to help Cameron give Aleksa a blessing. So all in all a pretty good New Years. Even if Cam had to wake me up for midnight for my kiss (I struggle with New Years I am just too sleepy by midnight!)

So while the end of 2009 wasn't quite what I imagined, I can't wait to see what the next decade brings.

End of the year review

This year I decided to make these little tags to kind of sum up some of our year this year. I couldn't even come close to documenting everything so I opted for just photos of Aleksa during those months. Consider it our "holiday newsletter" Enjoy!