November 2015 - haircuts and turkey

We had a fun visit with Grandma Sweeny in Utah. Alexa went around Granny's house practicing her photography skills while we played together. Here is a picture she took of Granny Gran on my phone.

Alexa's big news this month is that she cut her hair! Ahhh! It has taken almost 5 years to get hair to her shoulders, so maybe it will grow back out by the time she's 10. The best part is that she would stop and admire herself in the mirror or any reflection she found afterwards--just stroking her short hair and smiling. So much for it being a bad thing that scarred her to the point of never doing it again! It has set in now that she can't have "Elsa braids" and she says that she misses her long hair.

Here is her "I'm in trouble and just got caught face" that Kyle texted to me at work, in the middle of her haircut, and the after picture holding a drawing she did of our familia.

Someone at church said to me that the haircut is so cute and just think, we never would have done it otherwise. I guess that's true.

Both kids got to participate in their first Primary program at Church this month. Tyler sang "I Am a Child of God" with his nursery class of 18 month - 3 year year olds. He knows every word of the song, but he and every other kid his age just stared at the conductor while up on the stand to perform. Alexa, on the other hand, had no problem belting out the words to every single song for the next 45 minutes. I would classify it as more screaming than singing, but there was no doubt she knew the words and had no issues being up in front of the entire congregation. Craig and Chelsea, my great-aunt June, and Grandma Sweeny all came to watch. Kyle and I were crying we were laughing so hard at our cute girl up there singing her heart out.

We also got to use Grandma and Grandpa Ludlow's basketball tickets to take the kids to see a BYU game. They now associate any basketball with shouting "B-Y-U Cougars!!" based on what the cheerleaders taught them. Tyler had his hands over his ears for about half of the game, but he loved it nonetheless.

It has made such a difference to have siblings out here in Utah over the holidays. We loved getting together at Emily's for Thanksgiving dinner and games. We were also able to swing over to Granny's for dessert, which was the last time we saw her before she went to the hospital the next week.

I took Alexa to work with me on Black Friday, which was a lot of fun. She hung out in my office for a couple of hours and then we made juice and raspberry sweet rolls and took them around to employees in the office and Distribution Center. Our culinary team had the perfect little apron in their stash for her to wear.

Then we got to go together as a family to pick out a Christmas tree and decorate it. We figured we better get it up early since we were going to take it down before we left for Indiana before Christmas.

To close, here are some silly pictures and stories from the month:

Family Home Evening success:

Kyle: "What do the scriptures teach us to do?"

Alexa: "To be nice!"

Tyler: "I have a belly button!" (proceeds to lift up his shirt and show us with a huge smile on his face)

I went with Alexa to a dance recital and Tyler was sad to be left behind. Kyle tried to cheer him up with a treat and asked if he wanted ice cream or a popsicle while we were gone.

Tyler: "No thank you."

Kyle: "What do you want instead?"

Tyler: "Asparagus."

Kyle: "What?!"

Haha. He loves his crunchy Thrive asparagus.