Happy Tortilla Chip Day

Happy Gumdrop Day

Happy Valentine's Day

I can't believe it but this is our 6th Valentine's Day together. Actually, 2-14-2006 was our second date. I remember being so nervous because we were still getting to know each other. I didn't want Spencer to feel obligated or weird. But he took me out to the Blue Bird and we went back to his place to watch a movie. He gave me a card with a picture of a donkey on it that said something funny. I still have it somewhere. Everything was new and exciting- the way it is at the beginning of a relationship. Since our first date we have hardly gone more than a few days without seeing each other (except that first summer when I went home.) I think about the day we met, when he called to ask me out, our first date, our first kiss and I can remember so much about how I felt and how much I just enjoying being with him. It was definitely different and better then anything else I had ever felt and I knew from the beginning that it was different. Now, 5 years later, I still consider myself so lucky to have married that first date. It was my last first date, but I have never once been sad about that. Now I have the best partner in the world to share all the rest of my 'firsts' with. Including this one:

Reese is the second love of my life- Spencer's too. She makes me smile and laugh everyday. She has brought back that sense of newness because every day with her is new. She is learning and growing and changing. Our love for each other has grown through her and she makes both Spence and I better people.

So Happy Valentine's Day to all of you and especially to my two Valentines- I love you both!

Spencer's Tribute to Honest Abe

I think he looks pretty cute, but I definitely prefer a baby-face Spencer.

Funny February Holidays

I was recently inspired by my friend Sara. She is super creative in the activities and parties she plans for her and her hubby, their one year old and their friends. This year they celebrated Groundhog's Day. This is from her blog (which is private or I'd send you all over there right now.)

"And yes we celebrated Phil this year by watching one of our all time favorite movies Groundhog day. I could watch that movie today and the next day, and the next, and the next.... We also enjoyed some delicious Punxsutawney Phil Pie. I first attempted to draw a groundhog with the chocolate syrup but that ended in disaster. So I quickly watercolored up this picture instead. The pie was topped with grasshopper cookies because groundhogs occasionally eat grasshoppers."

Spence and I pretty much do the same things every night- watch a show, play a game, workout or read (and of course play with Reese.) So in an effort to be a little more creative, we are starting to celebrate the totally random holidays in each month. For example... did you know today is White T-Shirt Day? All three of us are participating. How easy was that?

Tomorrow is Abraham Lincoln's birthday and we will be celebrating it by reading a picture book about his life and cooking his favorite meal- chicken fricassee and biscuits. We were going to make pretzel log cabins but I think we will wait until Reese is a little older.

Here are a few more days that might be fun to celebrate with your kids:

Feb. 14- Valentine's Day, obviously
Feb. 15- Gumdrop Day- We will be making sculptures with gum drops and toothpicks
Feb. 17- Random Acts of Kindness Day
Feb. 20- Love Your Pet Day- Reese and I will take Bicho to the dog park and visit Petco
Feb. 24- Tortilla Chip Day- nachos for dinner!
Feb. 26- Tell a Fairy Tale Day- a whole day of fairy tale books and games
Feb. 27- Polar Bear Day- we will visit the library to read some books about polar bears
Feb. 28- Tooth Fairy Day- maybe Reese will be nice and let me brush her teeth without screaming


Hopefully we can get some pictures of these celebrations to share. Let me know if you do anything fun for these special days!

More Christmas Fun

 So this year we did a lot of fun things to celebrate the season. We took Reese to get her picture with Santa (which reminds me, I need to scan it so I can post it- so stay tuned.) We went to the Festival of the Nativities at our church building. It was amazing- there were nativities from all around the world. They also had a live nativity (someone in our ward asked if we had volunteered. We laughed so hard- not only is Reese huge now but she is so noisy. It would not have been spiritual at all.) We went into Seattle to see the gingerbread competition they do at the Sheraton to benefit research for juvenile diabetes. We took our good pals Brett and Jenna Alvey with us. It was fun to take this picture because Reese was smiling and drawing the attention of everyone standing around waiting. She is such a babe.

We also went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens again this year. They recreate the plants they have there in the Spring out of Christmas lights. It is amazing. This year they had a scavenger hunt to find all the animals throughout the gardens. It was for kids, but we had fun looking for them anyway.

The last thing we did (after Christmas actually, but that's ok) was go down to Tacoma to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium for Zoo Lights. It is similar to the Botanical Gardens but they have lots of animal scenes. They also have an old antique carousel that we took Reese on. It was so fun- we picked a tiger that didn't go up and down just to be safe. But she loved going round and round and waving at all the people.

 Here is a short little video of us on the carousel. Enjoy!

Annual Thorpe Family Gingerbread Competition

 Sorry for all the Christmas posts but I need to do some catching up and we have done lots of fun stuff. Every year my family does a gingerbread competition- it is our favorite tradition and we look forward to it all year. We buy (and eat) way too much candy and make a huge mess but we all love it.

 Mom usually goes for a mosaic style- very cute Santa this year.

 Kara and Josh made a Christmas tree out of frosted mini wheats. There is also a sleigh on there.

 Dad always says he has no ideas and then does something awesome. This is his ski village. the little condos had windows and front doors with shoveled walkways.

 Al made a helicopter pad with Santa's sleigh coming in for a landing.

Another mosaic. It was cute, colorful and kind of random- a lot like Selina :)

 

My tribute to the Nightmare Before Christmas. Notice Jack on the left behind the graveyard. The Oogie Boogie Man (made of a green Air Head) is on the right by the Christmas tree. I'm not going to lie- I was pretty excited about this. Nerdy... I know.

So where is Spencer's contribution this year? It's right here...

Yes, even though Spence loves doing the gingerbreads, he sacrificed himself and took care of Reese while we all played. It was really sweet of him because he usually dominates us all with his awesome creations.

Christmas

We had an awesome first Christmas as a family. On Christmas Eve we spent the day at my parent's place. My sister Megan and her husband Boone were in town and we really enjoyed being with them. The Elders came over and had lunch with us and played dominoes and Chinese Ping Pong. Mom had made sugar cookies so we decorated those (we stole two to bring home and leave out for Santa.) We spent the rest of the day watching How to Train Your Dragon (loved it- seriously), eating way to much, and playing some games. We opened our siblings gifts that night- thanks to Josh and Megan for our gifts! We read the Christmas story in Luke 2 as well as some other scriptures from the Book of Mormon. We have a little baby sized plush nativity so we let Reese play with the pieces as we told her the story of the Savior's birth.
Once we were home as a little family we put out Santa's cookies, milk and some carrots for the reindeer. We put Reese in her Christmas jammies and read a story.

On Christmas morning Spence and I got up so we would be ready for Reese when she woke up. She woke around 8:30 (our baby is awesome) and we brought her out to see what Santa had brought for her. She loved her stuffed Elmo in her stocking and liked her car from Santa but is still figuring it out.

Her favorite thing of the morning was a blue bow from one of the boxes. She crawled around with it stuck to her hand and then she would sit down and just look at it. We opened our gifts from Ed and Lorie and Dallin and Morgan (thanks guys!) Before heading back over to my parent's house.

Everyone was up and waiting for us so we got to dig right in. Reese had the most presents out of anyone, so we were all helping her open her new toys, books and clothes. Presents are so fun- to get and to give. My favorite presents I got were a Whippy Cake head band from Spence and some bird pictures from my parents. My favorite presents to give were surprise Adidas to Spencer, a new rug for my parents and Reese's new Elmo. Christmas day was spent eating again (turkey dinner- yummy) and watching the Madagascar Christmas movies (so funny!) We played more games and really just enjoyed being together as a family. We Skyped with Ed and Lorie- we sure did miss the Watts side of our family. We are truly blessed to both have awesome parents that we love and respect. Our first Christmas with Reese was a total success and we loved every minute of it.

 

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

 Even though Reese is crawling all over the place, we still wanted to get a Christmas tree. This is the 5th Christmas that Spence and I have spent together. Every Christmas- even our first one being married 1 month and living in a hole of an apartment that was $280 a month- we have named our Christmas trees. Petree (like on the Land Before Time), Steve (the name of the hedge on "Over the Hedge"), Mr. Norwall (like the weird whale on "Elf"), and Shaq ("ahhhh... the greatest in the universe"). We would like to introduce this year's tree: Mahem. Have you seen that Allstate commercial? If you haven't, here it is. It's hilarious.



There are lots more Mayhem commercials- check them out on YouTube.

 

We had talked about going to cut down our own tree, but then realized it would be me and Reese  standing in the cold while Spence worked the axe. So we went to the Home Depot instead. It was really kind of a non event- we walked in, Spence picked up a tree and said "how about this one?" It looked pretty good so we bought it. Reese and I left so the sound of the saw wouldn't scare her. We were done- easy.

 In true Watts family tradition, we decorated our tree and then sat on a blanket in the living room to eat doughnuts and drink hot chocolate. Reese loved the doughnut, but wasn't crazy about the tepid semi-chocolate flavored water we gave her in a sippy cup. That's how Spencer's family has always done it, so we are happy to carry out the tradition.

 After four years of marriage we finally found an angel we both like. Well, I like it and Spencer tolerates it. As you know angels don't have wings but we have never found a 'doctrinally correct one.' He tried to rip her wings off, but it wasn't worth the hassel. The only other problem is that she is HUGE. She looks like a dinosaur angel on top of our  tree. Oh well, we will just have to get a 12 footer next year.

Happy Thanksgiving

 We headed south for Thanksgiving this year as it was Spencer's family's turn. The Watts clan does Thanksgiving in St. George with Ed's family, so not only did we drive 12 hours to Logan but then we pulled an extra 5.5 to St. George. It was worth it though. We were do happy to stay in Logan with Ed and Lorie for a night. They usually don't put up their Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but they had it all up as a surprise for us. Reese had to get her picture with Santa in their living room.

 Reese and Mimi (Spencer's mom, Lorie)

Spencer's brother Paul and his family came all the way from Texas. Reese loved her cousins- especially Ruby, who is almost 2. She would just watch her walk around and crawled after her all the time. All of their kids were so sweet to Reese and we were thrilled they were with us. Dallin and his girlfriend Morgan came too. We are all excited for that to become more official sometime soon.

 Reese and Ruby

Thanksgiving night we got a big surprise. Ed and Lorie always give us a gift that night to start the Christmas season- usually a book. But then they gave us a box to all open together- even Spencer's sister Lisa and her husband Ken were on the phone with us. Inside the box was a little piece of paper that read "We are going on a mission." We were shocked! They have been called to preside over a Spanish speaking mission, but we won't know which one until early March. We couldn't be more excited for them, but we will of course miss them tons since they will be gone for 3 years. We are already saving our money in case we need to visit them in Argentina or something. 

 Reese's first Thanksgiving

Spencer had to drive home Monday, but Reese and I stayed in Layton so I could see my 2 grandmas and my sisters. When I lived in Logan, I spent a lot of time at Christmas with my Grandma Edna. She and I would put up her tree and decorations, go to Temple Square, watch Christmas movies and make holiday candy. She loves Reese so much, so it was fun to do some of these things just the 3 of us.

 Reese bundled up to see the lights in Layton Park

 Reese standing up and trying to climb the stairs- which she did successfully several times

My sweet Grandma Edna reading Reese a book

So Thanksgiving was awesome- full of family and food and fun. We love Spencer's side of our family so much- Paul and Glory, and Dallin and Morgan are so awesome (we of course missed Ken and Lisa too.) Family is a special blessing, and I couldn't be luckier when it comes to my in laws. I don't even think of them that way- we are sealed, so I love them just as much as my own brother and sisters and their spouses too. And we are incredibly blessed to have so many living grandparents. We both have wonderful examples to follow. I hope your Thanksgivings were just as awesome.

Circus Freaks

We decided that for Reese's first Halloween we wanted to have a theme to our costumes. We had several ideas but decided to be a circus family- The Ringmaster, a Lion and the World's Strongest Man. Spence did want Reese to be the Bearded Lady, but I said no. Reese and I dressed up for work and then we all dressed up for the Ward Halloween party where everyone asked Spence why he wasn't wearing a costume. He didn't really need the muscle suit, we just wanted him to be modest. Spence and I used Reese as our excuse to get some candy, which was nice but I ate way too much. We lit our pumpkins and enjoyed having some of the kids from the ward come Trick or Treating to our house Saturday night as we enjoyed dinner with some friends. All in all, it was a great Halloween. Now on to Thanksgiving!