Tag! You're it!!

I have been informed that I have been tagged. I can barely think of 1 random fact about me that would be remotely interesting for everyone let alone 6 but I will try my best.
1. I love reality shows. It really doesn't matter what it is about, I'll watch it. I've always been a people watcher so to be able to do that in the comfort of my own living room makes it oh so fun for me. Sometimes on Saturdays when I don't have much going on I can get sucked into the reality marathons for hours on end.

2. I recently came to the realization that I am indeed a control freak. I have a hard time when things don't go according to the picture perfect plan in my head. This definitely includes how I expect things to go with my kids. I think of what I want them to be doing, like napping, and if it isn't going as planned I get extremely grumpy. You think I would learn that after 3 years of having very little control over most things in my life, I would chill out a little. However, I have yet to learn that lesson in life.

3. There is one little random fact about me that Nate absolutely hates. When I get stressed, or just extremely bored, I tend to pull out my hair. I'll sit and play with my hair until I find one that has a different texture and I will pull it out. I can get lost in my thoughts while doing this and before I know it there is a pile of hair in my lap. Now can you see why Nate hates this? It is surprising that I'm not bald by now. Even Taylor will see me doing it and tell me to stop or just taddle on me to Nate.

4. When I was in 6th grade I joined up with the Girl Scouts of America. Now before you picture me in a brown and green uniform I have to explain that I wasn't that kind of girl scout. I was on the double dutch team. Yes I was a double jump roping fool. I got involved through my friend Erica Houston and we even went to a national double dutch tournament at Lagoon. We would practice once a week while listening to New Kids on the Block and Bobby Brown. Ahh, those were the days!

5. I think I am a sleep-a-holic. I can take a three hour nap during the day, go to bed at 9:30 at night...and yes I still groan when Taylor comes in my room at 7:00am. Nate is totally opposite from me and so I tell him that my over sleeping makes up for his lack of sleeping.

6. I love to blog peep. This goes back to my love of people watching. I can spend hours reading people's blogs. When I go through my lists of family and friends blogs and find there is nothing new I tend to check out their (or should I say your) family and friends blog. Now if only I could learn to make my blog all fancy and cute like some of yours!

So there you have it, 6 random and fairly useless bits of information about me. This has been interesting reflecting and examining myself as to what makes me unique. This is the point where I believe that I have to do some tagging, so Ashley, Laura H., and Brooke M. you're it!!

Christmas 2007

We had a wonderful Christmas in Utah at Grandma Ricks' house. Most all my family was there, minus the Turscanski's who were missed. We left the Saturday prior to Christmas day and got stuck on I-80 in Rawlins, WY for over 2 hours due to blowing snow. So after spending 12 hours in the car we finally arrived in Salt Lake City. We prompted Taylor with the saying "it's a Christmas miracle!" which quickly became a theme at Grandma's house. Sunday Great Grandma Yospe had all cousins and great-grand kids over for food, catching up and fun. At one point Taylor discovered that dancing attracted attention from everyone so she put on quite the show and milked it for all it was worth. She is such a drama queen. Christmas eve was filled with lots and lots of yummy food, thanks aunt Christine and Grandma! Taylor and Grandma made sugar cookies for Santa and everyone enjoyed the falling snow making it a white Christmas. We sat around the fire and reminisced about past Christmases to remember Grandpa Ricks. We even heard the bells on Santa's sleigh! Christmas morning was filled with many new toys and fun things from Santa. Taylor loved her new kitchen and little people and made sure that everyone had a chance to play with her. Kennedy just loved playing with all the ribbon and paper. I had to include this picture of Kennedy on Christmas morning. She is so sensitive to the flash on my camera that as soon as I would hold the camera up she would squint and close her eyes completely. As a result pretty much every picture of her on Christmas morning looks like this one. She is such a funny girl!

Thank you to everyone for making this Christmas so fun and memorable. We wish we were closer to family but it is times like these that we cherish!

Gingerbread Houses

We had some friends over the other night to make the good ol' gingerbread houses.

Taylor and Crew enjoyed eating all the different kinds of candy while the adults "creative" side took over.

These activities are always meant for the kids enjoyment but as always I think we enjoyed it the most. Here are the highlights of the night.

Each house had something unique about them. Nate thought for ours it would be nice to have a noose and a gummie bear in the back...interesting.

Naughty or Nice...

Today Taylor and I were practicing her letters with a dry erase boad and marker. She loved that she could erase what she wrote and try again. With a slight distraction on my part that was seriously less than 1 minute this is what happened. When I asked her what she was doing (in a somewhat stern voice mind you) she immediately said "it's okay, I will erase it."

O Christmas tree

We have put up our Christmas tree and we are enjoying have everything so Christmasy around our house.

These pictures were taken after church while we were hanging out and dancing to Nate's piano playing. Kennedy didn't give us much to work with as she was

anticipating the flash everytime.

Which of these things IS like the other

Okay so I couldn't resist posting this. I was looking at old pictures and came across ones of Taylor's first Christmas when we went to see Santa. I always thought that Taylor and Kennedy look totally different but then comparing pictures, the resemblance is a little uncanny. I think they look so different to me because their personalities are completely different. But as my mom commented about the picture in the previous post that with their hats on they look so much a like, well take a look at these pictures side by side. Pretty crazy.












They are about the same age and wearing the same hat helps a little.
On the left is Taylor and Nate 2005 and on the right, Kennedy and Taylor 2007.

Here comes Santa

It has become one of our favorite things to do to start the holiday season off right. Our
community holds an annual holiday celebration where there is caroling, rain deer, food, and of course the main attraction...Santa. Kennedy did very well and gave us plenty of smiles. Taylor was so excited all day long to go see Santa and sit on his lap. Every time we asked her what she is going to ask Santa for she would say an elephant, where that came from I don't know. But the day we saw Santa she had been taking her toy dog everywhere we went. While at Old Navy she spotted a dog leash that she really wanted for her puppy but I wouldn't buy for her. So when we sat her on Santa's lap that night and he asked what she wanted to my surprise she said a dog leash. Only 2 and she's figured out how to work it already, should I be worried? Other than Santa Taylor's other favorite thing is the train. Last year we actaully had to grab her and run to the car because she loved it so much. This year she decided the warm car sounded like just as much fun. She got a few rides in, including one with her friend Crew. It definitely helped us all get into the Christmas spirit.