Abundant Recompense Copy

Addison turned five on the first of December! Every time I think about it I'm still surprised. How'd he get so big so quickly? How did we go from the baby that totally turned our lives upside down to a big helper who is ready to start kindergarten? No idea, frankly, but here we are.  He really, really  wanted a birthday party with friends this year. I am not the most creative or energetic mother in the world, and secretly hoped that he might forget or change his mind, but he asked consistently (and politely) over several months, so with lots of pep talks from Nate and several friends who excel at such things, I decided we'd do it. He chose an "ocean" theme. I scoured the internet looking for fun, cheap, easy, and Addison-appropriate ideas and felt my eyes bulge out a little farther with each cutesie, 12-course-fish-themed-food-with-laminated-labels party I saw. Luckily, I finally happened upon one that looked like a great time, was very homemade and nothing fancy...

At the beginning of this month the kids took a trip to the dentist to get their teeth cleaned. It was Bryn's very first time and she was very excited and also extremely brave. It's old news to Addison, but he was excited too and sat very still. And both cavity-free, as luck would have it. I thought they were so cute in the gigantic chair that I had to take a picture.

We spent Thanksgiving in St. George this year and had a great time hanging out with the fam, trekking to Vegas for Nate's extended family's Thanksgiving dinner, and helping out here and there with Nate's youngest sister's wedding. It was chaotic, we ate way too much junk food, and we all suffered from sleep deprivation, but it actually was a great time. We visited a Casino in Vegas that had a free aquarium. There were pumpkins in it (presumably seasonal).The kids were transfixed.  We stayed at a hotel to give Nate's folks a little breathing room with all the wedding prep. It was so fun. The kids love hotels. One morning Nate braved the cold temperatures to take the kids out swimming. The heated pool apparently wasn't heated enough, so they hung out in the hot tub for most of the time. Somehow Grandma made time to make a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. I am aware that this is the crummiest picture ever, but it's the only one I got on our camera of...

More on the Mingledorff family Christmas extravaganza later, but I'll whet your appetite. We spent a lot of time around the piano singing and playing, and it was all kinds of fun. Here's is a recording of the song Michelle and her sisters Rebecca, Megan, and Brianna sang in church on Sunday. It sounded beautiful - several people at church used the word "angelic." Don't miss the bonus goofing around footage at the end of the song.

See that baby? Yeah. The one looking cute with beans all over her face. Just thought you might be interested to know that she started crawling yesterday. Between that and the tooth she's working on, she's feeling pretty pleased with herself.

Decorating for Christmas was item #1 on our priority list after we got back from Thanksgiving in St. George (more on that later). We splurged and got a pretty Christmas tree this year, and we're loving it. Addison and Bryn tried to be patient while we did all the plugging and branch-fluffing, and they were very eager to decorate when the time came. At the beginning of the tree-putting-up process, Bryn ran upstairs and got all her dress-up jewelry and sat on a bin patiently while we got the tree put up. Then she got right to work decorating with all her finery. It's so stinkin' cute that I can't bear to take it down. "Hmmmm, where to put my princess car keys?" A dainty high-heeled shoe.  In the end, everyone chickened out on putting the star up because it was so high, so Nate manned up and did it. Ta da! You can see roughly how tall our kids are by looking at our decorations. Leah is lovin' it. She really enjoys back-scooting her way under it and giving the...

Little Leah will be seven months old tomorrow! Where does the time go? Here's the latest. She loves to be outside. This girl loves to eat solids. Especially when everyone else is eating solids. She does not like to be left out of mealtimes. She's still nursing, and doing quite well at it. Now if only she'd sleep through the night instead of waking up once or twice to eat still. I see crawling coming in the nearish future. And she can sit up all by herself. (Very cutely). She likes grits. No teeth yet, by the way. Addison got his first one at five months and Bryn got hers at six. Maybe seven will be Leah's magic number. Enjoys sitting in her walker. She hasn't quite caught the "scooting around" vision, yet, but she likes being able to help in the kitchen. And she likes dehydrated apples.