December, Part I

Something we've really enjoyed since moving out here is having the missionaries over for dinner each month. They are such awesome young men! You can just feel the spirit that they bring into your home - we love it!

 December's dinner was a little different than usual. First off, they had their zone leaders with them (the ones in the front) and so the girls were even more hyper than usual. (Our girls get super hyper and show-offy when ever guests come over.) And instead of a regular dinner, we had breakfast for dinner. The type of breakfast you never have time to make in the morning - waffles, pancakes, eggs, sausage, hash browns, juice... mmm mmm!

I remember one time having the sister missionaries over at our house when I was a little girl. My mom forgot they were coming over and we were having pancakes for dinner that evening. My mom was pretty embarrassed because she usually goes all out for those sort of things. But the sister missionaries said how much they loved it, so 20 years later, I thought I would give it a try!

Ellie, Elder Young (front), Wekesser (back), Woodruff (front), Nordin (back), Carly, me, and Aaron.
Sadly, Elder Nordin is being transferred soon - he is a great missionary!

Don't these two girls look so sweet and innocent and lovey?!

 Don't let it fool you! For a couple weeks it seemed they were fighting non-stop! Seriously, I was going crazy (still am going crazy some days).

So, I decided to try out this idea I saw on Facebook - zipped them up in my coat. Aside from Ellie peeing her pants, it worked! They started getting along and thought it was so fun to be zipped up together.

(Aubree, what are you doing in thin cotton shorts and t-shirt in December?! Silly girl!)

 Aubree and some friends ate lunch at our house last week and afterwards Aubree lined them up to wash their hands in the bathroom. Well, I kinda' forgot about them and went about doing other things until a few minutes later when the little boy told me they were washing their hair in the sink with soap! Sure enough, they had bubbles all over in their hair (and had a great time in the process).

 Ellie in front of our advent calendar. Angela gave us this beautiful quilted advent calendar about 6 years ago and I love it ....  and kind of hate it. I hate it only because my girls expect either candy or some super-awesome activity to be in one of those pockets EVERY day! We put candy or a ticket for some fun activity in there occasionally, but my girls are always (overly and dramatically) disappointed when it's just our Christmas scripture for the day in there.

And last but not least, (and I'm really kind of embarrassed about this even though I shouldn't be) - Ellie got lice a couple weeks ago! We were getting ready to go to a friend's house for dinner last Sunday and Ellie wanted me to redo her hair. So, I do the part and see something in her hair - maybe lint or a fuzzy or something - but it MOVED! So, long story short (even though Aaron doesn't think I'm capable of making any story short), we spent three hours in her hair alone and quite a bit of time in everyone elses and did lots and LOTS of laundry, and we are now lice-free! (Luckily and miraculously no one else in our family had any.)

Here the girls are with coconut oil in their hair to aid in the lice-combing process.