A bit of Christmas

 Showing off our newly finished office.

Elizabeth playing with our cute neighbor.  Dress ups all around.

 Lizy with her pile-o-gifts, Barbies seemed to be a theme this year.  :D

 Andrew wanted a remote control car all the time as a kid and never got one, so I got him one this year and Elizabeth and Charlie had about as much fun with it as Andrew did. 

We were hoping to head to St. Maries, Andrew's hometown, for Christmas, but we have been renovating the house and there is so much to do and we wanted to take advantage of the time that we had off.  We did get a lot done though and have 2 rooms completely finished.  We spent the morning with just the 3 of us instead, which was pretty fun.  We have never done Christmas here before, so that was a first.  We were able to Skype with Andrew's family and my sister in Michigan and had a fun chat.  Our close friends were also in town with just the two of them, so we had dinner at their house and then frosted sugar cookies and had pie.

Elizabeth loved all her gifts, she cleaned out her room the other day and made room for the new stuff.  (She got rid of all the Wendy's toys she has been hanging on to, ha ha).  She said her favorite was the bag that her daycare lady gave her, but the bubble bath is already gone and she has wanted to spend an awful lot of time in her room playing.  Partly why I was quick to call the neighbor gal, so she wouldn't have to play alone. 

 Andrew with Elizabeth after her Christmas program.  She was pretty cute.  We watched her pick her nose only twice and tried to lead the music (which seems to be a recurring thing for her) with her teacher.  (Probably because I am the choir director for my ward - church - )  Otherwise, she was one of the cutest kids on the front row. 

 I love it when she does grown up things.  She loves to quilt with me. 

 A bit about when we went bowling the night before Thanksgiving, she was so cute.  She would hoot and hollar and give everyone in the whole group high 5 before she would go again.  This was quite the feet because my family took up 4 lanes. 

This is us visiting the Logan temple.  Such a fun night and these beautiful fluffy white snowflakes were falling when we came out.

Christmas Program

Bowling

Fun Saturday

Halloween

We couldn't talk Elizabeth into anything else.  She wanted to be a princess.  This is the tangled princess dress.  We have a trunk-or-treat in our neighborhood.  If you haven't heard of it, they have all the kids meet at the church and everyone gives out candy from their trunks.  They do this because there are so many kids that live super far from the other houses and there are no sidewalks and unsafe places for the kids etc.  (I think it is a little lame, but some people love it)  She loved walking with Dad while I gave out candy at the car.  I had some good music that I prepared for my 3rd graders so I turned up the volume and we provided music for the crowd. 

Lizy found some friends of hers from church and school and walked around with them too and had a good time.  She came back and danced at the car with me and would then go back out to the cars that showed up late.  It only lasted an hour, but it was pretty fun.  She got a few interesting things...a donut, string cheese, a gift bag with cereal, marshmallows and some cutesie quotes or something.

She says she was the only one in her class that was a princess and the others were like witches and stuff.  Halloween lands on red-ribbon week at our school, so she had fun this week with hat day, crazy hair day, wear red day, backwards day and Halloween. 

Family Pictures

My little sister is a photographer and took a bunch of pictures for us a few weekends ago.  These are the first real pictures we have had with Elizabeth....come to think of it, it may be the only ones we have had ever. 

Late Night

so after I texted you I realized 2 things.  1.  I was hungry and craving my favorite chocolate milk and toast.  and 2.  I really really shouldn't have taken that drink of Dr. Pepper at 7:00.  Caffeine has the strongest affect on me.  I really only had like 4 swallows and yep, I'm awake.  Therefore, I thought I would type this up for you.

Nicknames:  Sponge-Elizabeth Triangle pants (I don't know where Andrew gets all of these).  Munchkin, Biff, Terd-bird-mallerd.  Stinky-butt. (even though she isn't stinky).

She remembers things so quickly.  It surprises me everyday when she gets home from school and she learns a new song and she sings the whole thing and remembers all the words.  We were listening to the radio the other day and it said "If your gunna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle and a band...."  (Do you know the song?).  She was singing forever after "If your gunna play in Texas, you gotta have a little rubber band"... I was very disappointed when Andrew corrected her. 

We went to the Shaw family reunion in Northern Idaho this summer and she met all of Andrew's family for the first time.  It took her about 4 minutes before she disappeared with her new cousins and was playing.  She has been practicing this evil laugh Mwa ah ah ah.  and Uncle Nels would laugh his head off every time she would do it, so of course, she kept doing it.  By the end she was getting pretty good at it and as loud as she could.  The other cousins would laugh because Nels would laugh.  It pretty much became the "theme" of the reunion and I won't think of it without the laugh.  I will see if I can find a video of it....and I found it (thanks to my reorganizing today I found it quite quickly actually)  Nels is in the yellow shirt.

We have some good friends that come over a lot that have fallen in love with Lizy.  They, along with Grandma and Grandpa were the only ones she called over for her birthday this year.  Tom, was the only one able to make it because Mateja was out of town.  He bought her some really cute outfits and that cowboy hat you see in the video.  She began practicing her cowboy impersonations. 

I don't know if she did that with you, but she has impersonations of us.  Andrew, she puts on his hat and in a low voice says "was-up"  just like he does when he answers the phone.  She only has done me once, but in her high voice she says "hi sweetheart, come here please". Lol, she is pretty funny.

I mentioned to Andrew that maybe we should go on a date with the two of us, because we hadn't since we got Elizabeth.  He said "what for,  it is way more fun when she comes with us".  I had to agree.  Her excitement over getting a knife and 2 FORKS in her napkin was not only entertaining to us, but the waitresses as well.  She even whooped I think. 

She apparently told my parents at the Lee family reunion "I'm pretty much part of the family now".  I guess making it to the reunion meant she was "in" :D.  I keep waiting for things to calm down where she isn't the center of attention everywhere we go, but it really hasn't yet.  She is going to think the world revolves around her.  Actually at our house, it kinda does, but we try not to let her know it. 

 Grandpa Shaw made birdhouses for all the grandkids to paint at the reunion.  It w

Fall

My picture she copied

Her  version so stinking cute

Waiting for my little sister to get home to let us in...I just realized Kenny (my lil bro) is flipping her (my sister) off (he's joking) what a punk.

Filling her boots with dog food? 

Sneaking into bed with me (I love that)
Her new puppy Penny

Playing with cousins ( josh, Duncan, jazzy, Kiera, Ian, and Garrett, Libby is somewhere too)

Swinging with grandpa lee

Summer Fun

 Dance recital meeting her new cousins in Michigan

 Visiting the temple grounds in Logan

 Talent Show at the Lee Reunion, she was singing for us all.

 Looking good :D

 Wellsville Slide or "redneck water slide"

 Dad tricked her into going by herself

 This is better

 So happy about her special pancakes that made a face with eggs and bacon

 Meeting Marcus and Christa in Missoula

 Shaw Family Reunion.  Grandpa made all these bird houses for the kids to paint and take home

 Getting ready to float the st. Joe River in St. Maries

 Bear Lake with the Lee cousins

 Stupid wasp sting.