Christmas with the Underwood Family

Here are some pictures from the party we had yesterday at Lisa's. We had lots of fun playing games, Wii fit and bingo! We missed Mom & Dad, the Dickenson's & the Cartwright's. Jill & Carter loved holding Spencer's snake and Riley had a great time dragging Jillian's stuffed dog around. All the kids played hide & seek outside in the dark and jumped on the trampoline. It was very cold, in the 40's!

Christmas morning

Christmas Morning at Grandma & Grandpa's! We had a great time and were blessed with way more than we needed. The kids had a great time. They got scooters, connect four, a sit and spin, basketball hoop, care bear, tools, a key board, Hulk punching gloves, Potato heads, and a million other things. Carter got a bunch of new batons (Pencils) which made him very happy along with the turkey baster from Grandpa. He knows what Carter likes. We have been so blessed and we are so grateful for all that we have been given!! Grandma & Grandpa Parke always spoil us:)! I know Carter is on the pink scooter in all the pictures but he actually got a 3 wheeled batman scooter but he picked up Jill's and he was so good on it! His balance and coordination are amazing!

Stockings

Santa brought our stockings to our house but he took all of our presents over to Grandma Parke's house. We left him a note asking him to do that so we could go open our presents with all of the Family. Jillian was so excited when she saw that Santa ate his cookies and brought her a stocking. We could have ended right there and she would have been a happy girl.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma & Grandpa Parke's house. The kids made cookies for Santa then opened their Christmas Eve PJ's with slippers. Jillian is right between little girls and bigger girls clothes so sometimes it is hard to find the right size for her. I bought a pair of pj's that looked to small when I opened them so I returned them for the next size up. Well the next size up happened to go from her chin to her toes. She was so funny when she opened them up and held them up she laughed and laughed. Well, we put them on anyway and rolled the waist, touched it into her under ware and rolled the bottoms about 2 or 3 times. Carter's fit him much better! Then we took family pictures and had Family home evening about Jesus' birth. We sang Christmas songs and read the Christmas story in Luke 2.

Big cousin Jill

Jillian loves her cousin Baby Asher. He is 3 months old and I am having a wonderful time holding him and snuggling with him too. Jillian loves to make him smile, hold him and feed him. She is really good at all of it and very gentle with him. Carter likes him too. He loves to tickle him then say "he likes me"! Asher is a great baby. Calm, good natured, and easily contented. He sleeps really well and eats great. We love having babies around!!

Gingerbread houses

Today we got to decorate gingerbread houses. Aunt Kelsey and Grandma make gingerbread houses each year and get tons of candy to decorate them with. The children had a wonderful time and the adults had an even better time after the kids left the table. There was much candy eating and some screaming when people were cut off from the candy (Carter). Jill would never scream, she just sneaks back when your not looking and gets more.

Santa Clause is coming to Torrance

The city of Torrance does a really cool thing each year at Christmas. They bring Santa around the neighborhoods and the kids get to sit with him. A police car comes around a few minutes before Santa and plays really loud Christmas music and flashes its lights to let everyone know Santa is coming. A few minutes later Santa pulls up in his sleigh with Christmas music blaring and a bunch of middle schoolers passing out Candy canes. Everyone who wants to (or will) gets to go up and see Santa. It is so much fun to bundle up, cause it actually was in the 40's, and hear the music and feel the Christmas cheer! Jillian was fine going up, Carter didn't want to. I took him and when Santa gave him a candy cane he yelled "No Thank You"! Cousin Tennyson wasn't getting anywhere near that guy!

It seems like something you would see in a small town but they have been doing it for 30+ years now. There are a lot fewer children now than there used to be. We were the only ones on our street.

Christmas kids

Here's Carter & Jill on Sunday morning before church. They both looked great!

FHE

For Family Home Evening tonight we went to the church and decorated sugar cookies with some friends. The kids had a great time decorating and eating cookies. We also played basketball and other games when they got tired of frosting.

Ward Christmas Party

Friday was a very busy day for us. We had Santa in the morning, preschool party at noon and the ward Christmas party that evening. There were adult narrators who read the Christmas story and they asked the children to act out the story. It was really cute. The kids did a good job and all the little mishaps only made it more enjoyable. I was backstage with the primary so I didn't get to see much of the program but everyone said it was really nice. Jillian was excited to be an angel.

Friday was the last day of Preschool before winter break so after school some of the children and parents had a pizza party at the schools park. The kids had fun playing for a few hours and the parents had fun visiting. It is a really nice group of kids and parents. Here's Jill & Carter enjoying the park and the pizza!

Santa comes to Preschool!

Santa came to Jillian's preschool on Friday. Each child got to sit on his lap, tell him what they wanted for Christmas & he gave them a candy cane. It was really cute.

Friend reunion!

We had a fun day! We met up with Darci & Gwen and Sara, Drew & Emma. Darci, Sara & I were elementary school friends. I have seen Darci recently but I haven't seen Sara in 8 years. I can't believe we are that old. Anyway, we met at Cal State Long Beach and went to the Japanese Garden. It is small but really pretty. The kids loved running around, climbing on the rails to see the Coi and scaring us by getting too close to the water.

They ran until the mom's got tired of chasing them and then we headed up to the food court area. It was so busy with everyone getting ready for finals. We got some food and ate in the courtyard outside and let the kids play. The boys got along really well and had a lot of fun. Jill was a good helper with the little girls, Emma was an angel and Gwen had to stay in her stroller because she ran away. I feel for you Darci, my kids were runners too. Thank goodness they have mostly grown out of it. Sara and Andrew let Carter keep a toy airplane which he loved. He kept telling me on the way home, "I get to take this home" he loves it, thanks guys!!

Thanksgiving with the Underwoods!!

We had a fun time at Grandpa & Grandma Underwood's house for Thanksgiving. Even though Gma & Gpa are in Uruguay on a mission, we got together with my siblings and the kids cousins. The kids loved playing with their cousins! It wore them out so much that Carter fell asleep at 4 for a nap and didn't wake up till 3 in the morning. At that time I let him watch Little Einsteins and then he was ready to go back down until 7 this morning. It was very surprising a pretty nice. Jillian fell asleep at 7 on the way home and was out for the night too. We had 25 people so we used the dining room table, brought in the kitchen table and used a coffee table for the little kids and another behind the couch table for some of the boys. It was quite the set up & Brett, Sarah & I spent lots of time arranging it down to the table cloth under the little kids table. We had a great day! Thanks for having up Brett & Gaby!

Meet Leo!!

Meet Leo, as in Little Einstein's. Here he is with his baton which he uses to conduct. For about a week now Carter has been calling himself Leo. He loves Little Einstein's. It is the show he always asks for and the one I put on when he wakes up too early and I want him fully occupied while I try to get a little more rest. He and Jillian played as though they were the Little Einstein's for a few days, running around freeing rocket from aliens, and singing and conducting. Jillian started out as Annie but decided she wanted to be June. Now I am Annie, Carter is Leo, Jillian is June & Christian is Quincy. It is all pretty cute and very imaginative right? At least it started that way. Carter now corrects anyone who calls us by our real name and tells them our Little Einstein name instead. When I say Carter I hear "I am just Weo (Leo) mom". When I say Jillian I hear "No She is June" When Jillian calls me Mom we hear "no she is Annie" etc, all day long!!!!!! I can't even call him buddy or a boy without him telling me he is not he is Leo. At the store today a little girl came up to Jillian & Carter and Jillian introduced her self and then Carter said "and my name is Leo".

Christian is afraid he will start to believe he really is Leo and lose touch with reality. Grandpa Parke suggested he might have a split personality. Who knows, all I know is I am tired of being corrected and never getting a straight answer for all the "No, I am Leo's". Also, he carries this pencil around as his baton all day long everyday. If I ever happen to get it away from him it is only a moment before he is saying "Where's my baton". It is funny that he likes it so much he wont even set it down to eat, he has to have it back right after the bath, and holds it while he plays with toys. I think someone has an addictive personality. It went from Binky, to his stuffed dog chocolate to his baton. I have started making him give it to me while he runs around the house or jumps off things but we are fairly sure he will have at least one major puncture wound before he gives up his baton. At least it is unsharpened and the eraser and metal were chewed and removed.

Jillian's Ballet Performance

The top left picture is the theater where Jillian performed.

Jillian had her first Ballet performance last night, Tuesday the 18th. She did a great job!!! They danced to Heffalumps and Woozels from Winnie the Pooh. Since it is about a crazy dream pooh has they wore bright colors and we did crazy hair! Jillian performed with her friend Hani girl. They love being together. Here they are showing off some of their great ballet moves. Hani girl's grandma even brought a flower for Jillian too! Hani girl has a hard time keeping her eyes open in pictures because of the flash. She has her eyes closed in most of the pictures I have of her. She found a new trick though to keep them open, use your fingers! Carter is eating some cake after. He really liked watching the program and made it to the 10th out of 12 performances, then Grandma & Grandpa took him home. They were also nice enough to watch him and bring him to the performance with them. It started at 7 but we had to be there by 6:15 & Carter would have been a nightmare.

This week

Carter decided the Halloween storage boxes were dirty, which they were, so he found some wipes and cleaned them off for me then told me "there Mommy, that's better". He can be a good helper when he wants to. While Jill did a little baking in high heels, Carter found the Mr. Potato head eye patch, moustache, and sword. Of course I only got the moustache in the picture but I still thought it was funny. Then Jillian decided it was time to put him to bed so they made up a bed in the hall, read some books and then went to sleep (I wish). It did keep them busy and quiet for a while. I remember making beds all over the house when I was little.

Primary Program

We had our Primary Program today. It went really well. It is such a relief to have it over. The kids were well behaved, did really great on their parts and sang very loud which is a must with only 24 kids.

Jillian invited her preschool teachers to come. Miss Tanya dropped off this beautiful bouquet for Jillian last night with a nice card saying how much she would love to come but she had a family commitment. Jillian loves her bouquet, it makes her feel so special. I told her Miss Tanya was wishing her good luck and she later came in to say that Carter had stolen her "Good luck bouquet".

Jillian was a narrator so she had six little parts. She was nervous at first but did a really good job. My favorite song was "A child's prayer." It has always been one of my favorite primary songs and I really liked the arrangement we did. The children stood and sang the first verse, then the teachers and presidency stood and sang the second verse, then we did it together. It was really neat having the adults answering back to the children. We passed out comment cards to the congregation with the program and asked them to write a message to the children about the program. We had such wonderful support. We read the messages to the children during sharing time and they loved hearing all the kind words and what a great job they did. They especially liked it when a few people told them they sing better than the adults.

Getting in a little lasoing before church. The cows aren't going to round up themselves.

This is our little primary with our pianist and chorister! They are good kids. Our chorister, Auntie Mo, made lais for all the children and teachers.

Field Trip

We went to the Redondo Beach Sea Lab for a preschool field trip this morning. It is a small place right by the beach were we got to see and touch some neat things. We saw crabs, baby sharks, sea slugs, sea cucumbers, sea stars and halibut. The Halibut were so cool. I didn't realize they were the fish that lie on their sides with both their eyes on one side (like on Nemo). They are weird looking. They bury themselves in the sand and we couldn't see them very well until they started feeding them. It was really cool.

We also heard stories, sang a song and colored our own sea stars. Carter loved using the magnifying glass to look at the sea stars. And they both liked using them as glasses!


After the Sea Lab we went to McDonalds for lunch with a few other kids from the class. We arrived at McDonalds only to find that their power was off. It was kinda odd. We let the kids play for about 15 min. and then it came back on so we had some lunch and played some more. All this fun meant good naps for everyone which means a late night for everyone too except poor Daddy who didn't get a nap and is working a long day:(.

Persimmon picking

We started picking persimmons this afternoon and it turned into a big sword fight. These are from our garden and they have turned into horses and swords and anything else you can think of. Jillian is using her's as a persimmon whacker to get the old one's off the tree.

Christian and Carter squaring off.

2 against 1 sword fight. Carter has some good moves! Nice lunge.

"On Guard" says Carter!

Good form!

Picking persimmons as a family. We have a big tree packed with the fruit, too bad we don't know what to do with them.



We also took Carter to have his blood taken this morning to see if we can figure out why he has so many sinus infections. I was concerned he have a hard time but he was great! He didn't cry, scream, kick or anything. He sat real still and just watched then went back to eating his fruit snacks when it was done. I was so impressed and very grateful. I had christian sit with Jillian in the waiting room just in case we needed some extra muscle. Thank goodness we didn't.

Late Witches!

So apparently I miss labeled my Halloween file as you can see at the top of the pictures.

Halloween may be over but there are still witches around our house. Jillian called me in this morning to see the "cute little witch." I grabbed my camera first because I was sure this was gonna be good, and it was! There was Carter in witch hat, beaded necklace, high heels, holding a wand and flying on a bat. He looked so cute! He is always doing stuff like that, it is so funny! Next it was Jill's turn and she made a beautiful little witch too!