Saying goodbye to fall...

It's been a warm November. And a cold one. But mostly warm which means our leaves have been hanging around with gusto in St. George. I love our neighbor's tree. Mom says it's a fruitless mulberry and man, are the leaves big. They fall all over their yard and ours. We have LOVED it. We have been raking and throwing and jumping with gusto. This was our last play session and Mommy only got a few pictures.

Where am I in this picture?

Oh there! In the big pile of leaves!

Little Miss Sicky

Guest by Mommy:

So...Iva hasn't been herself entirely since her 1 year check up where I found out she had an ear infection. She went on antibiotics that she finished up just before Thanksgiving. I swear she got worse every day of those antibiotics! While we were up at the Preslars for Thanksgiving, she even broke out in a full body rash. It was so weird. She was happy enough, but more whiney.

And she just got whinier. My family thought she didn't cry and the last two weeks they were wondering if she ever stopped crying! This last week was the WORST though. She would get random fevers and be really clingy, but perk up just enough and I kept thinking that every morning she would just wake up and be better!

She would survive our outings and then crumble. See?

But then she would perk back up....

And I just kept waiting. I mean, her appetite was weird. Somedays all she would eat was chocolate. I swear. It was so strange or she wouldn't eat hardly. She would DRINK like crazy. Lots of water. FINALLY, I got the message that she wasn't getting better on her own and we were running out of ibuprofen. I took her to see my dad at work really quickly on Saturday and what do you know? She had a DOUBLE EAR INFECTION. Her ear drums were bulging. It all made sense and I felt so guilty. I should have had her checked earlier! My dad gave us some stronger antibiotics and this is her little face just after three doses!

My happy baby is back! Hurrah!!!!! She even plays on her own again!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Wow. It took us until the first weekend in December to get our Christmas tree and that felt like AGES. Mom kept waiting for the Costco trees to arrive and Saturday morning she drove over knowing that they shipment was supposed to be there and she saw NO TREES. As it turns out, their shipment was lost and once they found it and opened up the trailer they discovered BROWN trees. It hadn't been plugged in! Ah well so Daddy ran over to Lowe's and found us a much more expensive, but quite possibly our best tree ever!

Iva was very interested...

And if you look closely, we have no decorations on the last 6 inches or so! We did that intentionally, but it still looks a little funny!

These are our favorite new decorations! The singing heads from Haunted Mansion!

Here she is all lit up! It didn't feel like Christmas without the tree!

Gingerbread House

This year Mom actually got us "prefab" gingerbread house to decorate! I think we even got it BEFORE our Christmas tree! It wasn't super pretty but it was the first time we had used one and it was a much better success than any other previous years. Sadly, none of the cookies are still around and most of the candy is now gone from our house, but hey it's almost half way through December and we did this WAY back in the first week!

And one quick photo of Iva and me at the piano. Iva LOVES to play the piano with me. I'm getting better and even learned how to play "Jolly Old St. Nicholas"!

Girls Trip!

Guest post by Mommy:

So a little out of order, we will go back to the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving when I snuck away with some of my friends to go up to SLC! A few of my very dear friends all moved away within 6 weeks of each other two summers ago. We had gotten together here and there but not with everybody since they left.

My friend, Kathryn, got us all going and we booked hotel rooms at the Marriott at City Creek. It was a lovely weekend and far too short. We spent a lot of time talking. Not so much time sleeping. That's the kind of friends we are!

And of course, we didn't get many photos! Oh well!

So...Thanksgiving happened...

Yeah. I don't know if you noticed, but we are into DECEMBER! And my mommy hasn't helped me work on this blog in forever.

How about we finally tell you about Thanksgiving?

Cara had her Thanksgiving feast at preschool where she steadfastly refused to eat "chicken".

My school had its annual Turkey Trot and Mom and the little girls came and joined us!

And then we packed up into our trusty two wheel drive sleigh known as Mozzy and drove north to be with the Romneys!

Mom and Dad tell me that nobody slept really well the night before, but Thanksgiving morning we all headed out to watch them play football with Uncle Troy and his ward!

And then we headed to Bucca Di Beppo where we got what they tell me is "The Pope Room". It was very funny!

Until I threw up. In the restaurant. Despite the fact that I ate almost NOTHING. I had been complaining that my stomach hurt and Mom did try and give me medicine, but to know avail.  So with that fail, I dubbed this "THE WORST THANKSGIVING"

Iva enjoyed her Apa despite my illness.

And I proceeded to sleep 20 of the next 24 hours. AT MY FAVORITE HOUSE TO PLAY. I was sick.

They did rouse me to try and go see the church history museum's kids area and fun Christmas decorations at the temple.

The candy windows at Macy's!

Unfortunately, the church history museum was CLOSED for massive renovations. I was devastated and began sobbing. I had been putting up with VERY frequent bathroom breaks to deal with diarrhea. So I went back and hibernated with Daddy.

I rallied and made it to Zoo Lights at the Zoo as well!

Aunt Rachel said hello to a bear...

We went back to the zoo the next day however because you don't see as many animals at night as you would hope! Iva LOVED the seal lions!

I finally felt better as we drove home to St. George, but we will all just be grateful no one else in the family got sick!

The Rest of our Disney Trip

If we had to rate our Disney trips thus far, we might actually put Iva and Daddy's birthday trip at the bottom. The parks were crazy busy and it felt like we just didn't get anything done! It was really weird. It was fun to ride Haunted Mansion a bunch of times but we always needed fast passes and the Jingle Cruise was neat, but Daddy and the little girls were the only ones who made it on Small World because of how packed it was.

We still celebrated plenty!

We met Tigger, Eeyore and Pooh again. Iva did NOT want to walk up on her own!

This is her reaction to Pooh.

I did all the bravery challenges in Redwood Creek. She's very good at bouldering!

We met Santa and told him that I wanted a Furby, Cara wanted an Elsa doll and Iva just wanted to get away from him.

We also met, Donna. She had this fun dog on her arm and she was very silly to talk to!

We came back on Sunday (we were naughty) and got in a few more rides before heading home.

Daddy being silly with Iva and Cara.

Notice Cara's sleeveless dress with all the Christmas stuff. So silly!

The thing we really loved though was getting to meet Baymax and Hiro from the movie Big Hero 6!

Now Mom knows that Daddy has some great photos on his phone so we will have to add them on at some point!