On our blog, it's still Christmas!!

We are at the Tuacan Theater in St. George and the girls were so ready for Christmas. They did a lot of posing in front of festive scenes that day:)

I think Kira makes a pretty cute toothless shepard!

Santa Baby!! Brynn took about 5,000 pictures of Alayna in this hat. She wore it regularly during the holidays and you could often find her hiding inside with it slipped down over her eyes.

When we entered Walmart one afternoon Brynn said casually,"hey look there's Santa" I was in a bit of a hurry and said, "Oh really", thinking it was probanly just a big picture of him or something. "He's really there, can we go see him mom?", says Kira. Sure enough there was a Santa at Walmart on a weekday afternoon. Kira was thrilled to see him and ask him for a Doctor's kit. Brynn's looking a little tall to sit on santa's lap, right? It makes me sad. But that girl was bound and determined to still believe in the magic of Christmas and she sure made it special for her sisters too!

Baby it's cold outside! All bundledup in Brynn's coat

The Feast

The grand feast at grandma and grandpa's house in St. George. While we were hiking Grandma Julie slaved in the kitchen. We came home to a yummy meal. This is Grandpa Mike teaching the kids how to play "99". Even the 5 yr. olds were getting into it. Grandpa was having them add and subtract even when they said, "I don't know how". He was carrying on Grandma Ellie's legacy of card games with the grand kids. She taught us all how to play "hearts". Although she beat us every time by "shooting the moon"!

Kira is sitting by Kono and they love to talk about many things. Kira is a real cuddler and can be found snuggling up to anyone at very unexpected times.

Alayna with too much turkey in her belly. Zzzzzz....

The 1st ever Archer/Bailey play. Written and directed by Brynn Bailey. Everyone had a part and they rehearsed and goofed off a little, to Brynn's dismay in the other room while we watched football. The two 5 yr. olds were turkeys, Brynn was the mother and Tyler was the hunter. When Tyler attempted to shoot the turkeys, the turkeys said "please, please don't eat us". The hunter just couldn't do it. So he took the turkeys home and made them their pets. A very good message, I thougtht! Also some great comic relief when Kira backed up a little too far and did a full flip backward over some pillows. I think it broke the actors concentration a bit!

Brynn getting ready for the Holidays, with a little St. Nick outfit she picked out at the Dollar Store. Thanksgiving was a great time for all!

Rock Climbing in St. George

We came down to do Thanksgiving at my parents vacation house down in St. George this year. The weather was beautiful and the kids had a blast, they even went swimming! This was an area for hiking that was only about 10 min. from my parents' house. The hike was easy enough for everybody and it had a lot of fun caves and hide outs for the kids to run around in. It was a fun little hike.

We had to tell these two to stop flashing so many gang signs, they were drawing too much attention to us. But I have to admit they do look pretty cool. You wouldn't know what a graceful ballerina Brynn is, she looks like she could hurt somebody:)

Kira took a while to warm up to the whole "hiking" idea. She thought the ground was going to move from under her feet. She'd take one small step and scream and crouch down low to the ground. Seth and I took turns baby stepping up and down the hills with her. After about 20 minutes some switch flipped inside her and she overcame her fear and she took off flying down the hill. So fast in fact, I was sure our next problem would be clean up a scraped knee. "This place is totally wicked!" That's what she repeated over and over until it came time to go home. Better than listening to whining the rest of the time though, right?

Logan and Kira find a hideout.

Those red rocks sure are beautiful. Utah is a great place to live!

A Teeny Tiny Feast

What a cute Pilgrim!

I am completely aware that Thanksgiving was two full months ago, but I really am trying to catch up to the here and now. This was Kira's "finger feast" at school. The teacher wanted everyone to start eating at the same time, so she kept telling them not to touch their food. So when it was time to really start eating everyone just sat there and didn't know where to start. It was cute to hear them talk about the things they liked and didn't like. Near the end I saw one little boy lean back in his chair, with his hand over his stomach and say, "I'm Starved!" I think he meant I'm stuffed:)

This is Logan Spencer. We have been carpooling with him this year. Thank goodness for his mom, I couldn't have done all this driving with a new baby this year! He is a really sweet boy

See ya cutie!