Princess

Tessa looked so prety today in her dress she got for Christmas and her hair was wavy from a braid she had slept in. I was admiring her and said "Tessa, you look like a princess!"

Her reply?

"I AM a Princess!"

Hurry, Mommy..I Need You!

Yesterday, I was sitting in the living room working while Tessa was sitting on my bed watching TV when all of a sudden she yells out in a totally desperate voice " Hurry Mommy! I need hugs and kisses and love! I need them NOW!"

Well, what could I do? I had to rescue her from her lack of attention. I went in my room and was immediately attacked with hugs and kisses! What a sweetheart.

Christmas Eve

(I wrote this post at the beginning of January but didn't have my photos ready yet. Forgive me for still posting holiday stuff, but I want it for my family :))

Now on to the night-time of Christmas Eve...

We have a tradition of everyone getting new PJs for Christmas. We do it because it was a tradition in Aaron's family growing up, but I also like Bryn's idea that the reason we do it is so that nobody is wearing holey old PJs for photos on Christmas morning.

We always have fun finding PJs that fit our kids and their personal preferences and personalities. My 2 favorites that we got this year were Ryan's and Tessa's. Tessa's nickname is monkey and we found her the most adorable monkey nightgown and she loved it! The picture says it all.



Ryan was hugging his pajamas too.


Long before, Kung Fu Panda came out Ryan was a huge fan of pandas. His dream is to be a panda rescuer. For his birthday he got a panda from build-a-bear wearing a Karate uniform. So I bought him a white karate uniform for his PJs. He also paints these really cute pandas. I took a couple of his paintings and put them in an emblem on the chest. He would live in those PJs if I let him.



I also LOVE the PJs Aaron got me. I would live in them if I could.They are made of the most yummy microfleece ever! I seriously want sweatshirts made out of this stuff to wear all winter long!















We had the kids take baths, put on their jammies, then we read the Christmas story from the scriptures and sang carols and looked and pictures depicting the story. The final event of the night with the kids is the "Daddy Train!" All the kids line up behind him from oldest to youngest and chug-a-choo-choo their way down to the kids bedrooms. Ryan was exhausted from the day of sledding and I think the train was more than he could handle. Ironically he was still awake at 1am when I went down to check on them!

Books I've Read 2008

I'm starting a new list for 2009 in my sidebar, but didn't want to lose my list for 2008. By far my FAVORITE books I read this past year were The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale.

• December
• Rapunzels Revenge
• **Hunger Games
• *The Thief Lord
• November
• Inkheart (didn't finish--I had to return to the library before I finished stopped at Ch.30)
• October
• *Fairest
• Maggie
• The Dead Don't Dance
• September
• The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters
• August
• *Midnight Sun (partial draft)
• *Breaking Dawn
• July
• *The Host
• **Book of a Thousand Days
• June
• Austenland
• *Goose Girl
• May
• *The Princess Test
• *Fablehaven:The Grip of the Shadow Plague
• April
• *Fablehaven:Rise of the Evening Star
• March
• *Fablehaven
• *Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep
• *The Fairy's Return
• *The Fairy's Mistake
• *Seeing Redd
• The Ultimate Sales Letter
• Alice to Zen and Everyone in Between
• *The Looking Glass Wars
• February
• *Enna Burning
• *Cinderellis and the Glass Hill
• *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• January
• *The Spiderwick Chronicles (Books 1-5)
• The TIme Traveler's Wife