Christmas Happenings...

We have been really busy since our last post. Cameron finished all of his finals and is now halfway through law school- Hooray!!! The night after Cameron finished his finals he got really sick and tore the lining between his esophagus and stomach, he is still recovering so things have been pretty low key at our house. This experience made us really grateful just to be together for the holidays. We did have a great Christmas at our house, we were very lucky to have my mom, dad, and sister Tori come to visit. Aleksandra loved having more people to play with for a few days. We made sugar cookies, gingerbread houses, rode camels and ponies, looked at lights and just enjoyed having family around. Aleksandra was a blast this year at Christmas she loved looking at Christmas lights and especially loved our tree. She would sit by the tree and just smile and wave at the tree, we even caught her patting and kissing the tree on occasion. She learned to say Santa, Hohoho, and Falalala. She also loved to look at pictures of baby Jesus. Thank you to everyone who made Christmas so wonderful this year!

Playing with grandma.

Aleksandra hard at work playing with all those new toys, grandma was such a good sport!

What else could a girl ask for... Disney princess hot pad, mitten and towel, thanks mom and dad... Aleksandra is hard at work playing her guitar.


Aleksandra opening her stocking.

Checking out the toys from Santa.

Poor Aleksandra got stuck under the mistletoe- we love those chubby cheeks!

Aleksandra and daddy after her pony ride.

Visiting Santa on the square.

Making sugar cookies with girls.

Aleksandra made her own cookie and then ate it right away!

Aleksandra on her pony. On the square downtown they had a pony carousel, Aleksandra LOVED it, although we weren't sure if she realised that she was actually on a pony- she was so excited about all the other ponies.

Aleksandra was quite sure about sitting on Santa's lap this year. She loved looking at him before and after just not really during. Santa was very nice to her! Aleksandra made lots of friends while we stood in line, she gave lots of hugs.

Aleksandra had fun decorating the tree with mom and dad!

Mar Edits and Designs

My good friend Ashley Mar has started her own business designing photocards. Her cards are adorable, and even better she is offering a give-away right now for 25 Christmas cards. Visit her blog at http://rogerandashleymar.blogspot.com/ to enter the give-away- if you do enter mention that you heard about it on our blog!

Thanksgiving in Texas!

We went to Texas for Thanksgiving this year to visit Cam's uncle Rick and his familyand Grandma Hoppy. We were going to go last year but everyone got sick. This year though, we finally made it down and an are we glad we did! The food was AH-MAZING- can you say smoked turkey and stuffed french toast.... They have the BEST Thanksgiving tradition ever- that we will be starting next year. They play bingo after dinner is all cleaned up. I cannot even do justice to the world's funniest game of bingo that I have EVER played. There was magic, a little Bing, and a whole lot of stealing going on. Thanks Rick, Stacie, kids, and Grandma Hoppy!I should have tried harder to get a better picture of Aleksa but sometimes it's hard to be one.Here's Cooper....Tyler posing by his FABULOUS drink. He even made star shaped ice cubes.Kylee and Lexi before dinner.The whole gang, compliments of our photographer...B-I-N-G-O!Aleksa just ran wild while we played...She wasn't quite sure what was happening with all the laughing and yelling... Aleksa enjoying the bingo spoils-

You just have to see it to believe it, I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time!

Christmas Presents

I keep telling Cam that it's "homemade Christmas" this year. Here are two advent calendars that I made for two of the special names on our list. (Don't worry the advent calendars are already openned and hopefully being put to good use.) Ironically, I haven't finished our family's yet- maybe tomorrow.... I'm not saying that every present will be homemade this year- because although they are very cute I'm not sure it actually saves us that much :). There are other little homemade treats up my sleeve though- stay tuned. I alternated scriptures and activities for each day leading up to Christmas.

Tiles

Several people have asked to see pictures of my tiles. These are just some of the tiles I did for my last bookstore order. I also just received another order for a young women group, they are going to give the necklaces to the girls for new beginnings- I thought that was a cute idea.

Fa la la la collection

Called to serve

CTR

My sister...my friend- great for visiting teachers

November...

Well, we haven't posted in a long time. We have been soooo busy! Cam is swamped with school- they say the first year of law school they try to scare you to death, the second they try to work you to death and the third they try to bore you to death. Cam says bring on the boredom!!! After this semester he will be HALF done with law school- we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have been so busy with my tiles- they are now in two stores- hooray! I have been busy with custom orders and haven't even had time to get my online store up and started- look for this in the coming weeks. Aleksa is growing like a weed, it seems like she has started to learn things so quickly! Here are some pictures from te last three weeks.

Aleksa loves to stick golf balls in her mouth- she has for quite awhile- what can I say? Hole in one?

Here is Aleksa in the pillowcase dress I made for her. It was supposed to be a Christmas present but a friend of Cameron's invited us to the Razorback basketball game and I had to let her wear it. Because she is still pretty little I was able to stretch the fabric that was supossed to make two dresses into four. So she will still get one for Christmas- just not this one. I made her dress shorter so she could wer it over jeans since it is so cold lately. I was suprised how easy and addictive these dresses turned out to be. I used every scrap!She has enough hair for a ponytail!!! I had to do three little ponys to make it happen but we got it! She is getting so BIG!Yeah, it looks a little goofy but hey she's still so stinkin cute!

Aleksa LOVES shoes- mine or Cam's it doesn't matter, she loves to wear them around the house.

Aleksa is working on eating with a fork and spoon, here is one of her most recent attempts.

VIDEO COMING SOON...

Aleksa LOVES when I do the dishes- (at least someone does) well I finally put her to work the other night and she was a great helper. It takes a little longer but we will get faster. RIght now she helps load and unload the silverware- minus the knives.

Happy Halloween!

Here is Aleksandra at the end of her Halloween night. She trick or treated at seven houses. Everyone was really nice to her. She was very interested in the dogs at the houses. Dogs are pretty much her favorite things right now. She wanted to stay and pet all the dogs.
This was at the end of the trick or treating at Fayetteville Square. Aleksandra had a fun time, there was a pet costume contest so she got to see a lot of doggies. She also got a lot of suckers- which is always a plus for her!

One of the businesses had a bubble machine. She wasn't quite sure what to think of it...

If she was ever allowed to pick a piece of candy out of a bowl she would dig for suckers. If there was a sucker she would try and go back for five or six pieces. If there weren't any suckers she would just grab a piece and walk away.

She did not want to be carried she wanted to walk most of the way and carry her bucket.

She loves that binky!

Aleksandra is picking a piece of candy from her friend Hunter's bowl.

Here are Aleksandra and Sophie getting ready to go trick or treat for the first time! How cute are they?!

Our "Olivia" Day...

One of my all time favorite books is "Olivia" by Ian Falconer In the original book it starts with, "This is Olivia, she is very good at wearing people out.... she even wears her self out." If there was a quote that could sum up our day today, that would be it. We woke up this morning, got Cameron off to bishopric meetings and then Aleksa and I had breakfast. She was very tired but would NOT take a nap. We tried three times but no go (Aleksa is usually very good about taking naps so when she refuses it is very frustrating for all parties involved). We got ready and Cameron came home to get us. She was okay during the sacrament, but today was the primary program. Major plus- Cameron got to sit with us, Major minus- Aleksandra saw all the kids going up to the stand and took off to go with them to the stand. When mommy decided to bring her back to the bench she was OUTRAGED! She was so mad that she could not be up there with the kids. Cam finally had to take her out. She still would not fall asleep. After sacrament Cam was set apart and Aleksandra cried until I put her down. Then she ran around the office shaking my keys that she dug out of my bag. Aleksandra was so tired but still would NOT sleep so we paced the halls all during Sunday school. When Relief Society came, I was hoping and praying that we could make it through because I love the lessons, but to no avail. We made it through the opening song when we had to go back out into the hall. Where she decided that she needed to push the giant can food drive box around the hall. I carried her away from the box numerous times but to no avail she remembered where the box was every time. The box had to be three times bigger than she was but she just pushed it around the hallway. When priesthood separated for their classes I grabbed Cameron to talk to him. I put Aleksandra down for a minute and she took that opportunity to run into the now full men's restroom- oh joy..... Cameron had to run in after her while all the young men giggled. On the way home she finally fell asleep, which brings me to the end of our favorite "Olivia" at the end of the day as Olivia's mom is reading to her she looks at Olivia and says, "you really wear me out but I love you anyway, and Olivia looks back up at her mom and says I love you anyway too." Isn't this true- Aleksa may wear me out and frustrate me but at the end of the day I would rather be chasing her down the hall at church than anywhere else. And Aleksa loves me despite all of my shortcomings too- thank goodness.

During my day I kept thinking of the words from my favorite conference talk by President Monson,

"If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.
Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.”3 We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us."

Now I should mention the tender mercies that I experienced today, starting with a loving husband who, despite being gone all day long came home and cooked himself some dinner and gave me the evening off (hence the HUGE post), I was very upset about missing Relief Society and for some reason- very upset about missing the announcements- but what was in my inbox tonight? An e-mail of all the announcements in Relief Society today. A mother who validated my hard day at church and told me a few of her own stories which actually made mine seem mild- and let me talk her ear off until I felt much better. And the last tender mercy- a little girl who knocked on my bedroom door while I was having quiet mommy time until I came out to read her a story before bedtime. All in all a pretty good day.