Washington is full of burglars

Instead of going to Washington for Christmas this year, we decided to go at the beginning of December so that we could be there at the same time as Kristen and Rick. It was such a fun little vacation! Luckily Stori fell in love with her cousins and played hide and seek the whole time. (Dan isn't sure that she understands that the twins, Nick and Joseph, are actually 2 different kids). The twins were so cute with her and always asked her to play with them. They even let her play with all their cars and trains! She's a sucker for toy cars!

We were definitely excited to go to Costco! This was Sylvie's first trip, so of course I had to document it! :) Stori enjoyed riding in SJ's carseat, so we let her lay there while we shopped. Then she decided to hold Sylvie. They both loved it.

We had lunch at Bruchi's... Sylvie fell asleep in Marisa's arms right after this photo! She's a perfect aunt!

We also went and visited Santa and his reindeer. Unfortunately, Santa charges $7 just to see him and $20 if you want to take a picture. So we just waved and that was that. 

We also enjoyed many delicious meals and several rounds of Mafia. It's always great to be with family.

We were suppose to head home early Monday morning but we decided to stay one more day. Why oh why did we stay?  Don't get me wrong, Monday night was one of our favorite nights there. We went to Vern and Nicoles for dinner and FHE. We had popcorn and watched "A Christmas Carol." Then we went for a drive to the Temple and to look at Christmas lights. Super fun right? Well we got home late and started the 'loading the car' process. I thought about that idea and asked Dan to wait until morning.

Then Tuesday morning happened.

We got up bright and early to make the 9 hour drive back to Rexburg. Dan walked out to start loading the car and noticed that the back hatch was open and the dome light was on. He tried to unlock the door with our remote but it wasn't working so he had to unlock it with the key. 

THEN the car wouldn't start. Battery was dead. So he went to Walmart with his Dad to buy jumper cables. They got it started and continued to load the car when he noticed his camera bag was missing. We looked for about an hour and even called his sister to see if we left it there. Then we noticed our iPod and his Moms phone were also missing. 

We had been robbed.

We called the police and found out that we were the 12th car theft of the morning. Awesome. 

After we made our statement and gave them the pen the robber had dropped, we managed to get in the car and start our journey. It was a very depressing ride. We felt violated and just plain sad! $4,000 worth of camera equipment was now gone. We only have liability on our car, so our car insurance wouldn't cover it. We don't have renters insurance, so that won't cover it either. Our only hope lies with his parents home owner insurance.

 I sure hope those filthy animals felt good about having to crawl over 2 car seats to take our stuff. 

Any pictures we had taken on our trip are now lost and gone forever. 

all of us were sad^^^

 We have to wait for the police report to submit the claim to the insurance company. Let's hope it get's covered!! Dan had a positive outlook on it though. He's very glad they didn't take the guns---if they took them and committed a crime, they would trace the guns back to Dan. We are also very glad that they were 'good at thieving.' If they would have broken the glass to get in we would have had to pay for that out of pocket and drive home in the cold. So that's good I guess! :)

These last 2 pictures were in Idaho. We took Stori to see Santa and I got this picture before the elf said I wasn't allowed to take pictures. So that's lucky! :)

And I just love this picture of Stori. She has a rough life. 

Kickin back eating her 'white' ice cream cone after an afternoon of playing on the toys at Arctic Circle! :)

 

Hopefully the next time I post, we will have good news to report: both about Sylvie and the camera.

4 months is her age

Well, I don't have any great pictures of Sylvie June Bug on here because of Dan's camera situation---that will take a whole post alone, so for now, my iphone photos will have to suffice.

This last month was kind of a doozy for SJ.
-She stopped sleeping 11 hrs at night and went to waking up every 3-4 hours. I think it has something to do with traveling to Utah, Washington, and Lewisville. Plus she was sick the first part of the month and on antibiotics for 10 days. She has had this swollen 'lymph node' since she was about 1 month old, and it hasn't gone away...so the dr. put her on the medicine to see if it would help. Sadly, no change at all. We go back to the Dr. on Wednesday so hopefully we can find out what it is. He said it could be a cyst, and we will have to have a biopsy of it to make sure it's not a malignancy...Gosh I really hope it's just a really odd swollen lymph node... I'm really anxious to find out.
-Besides that, she is still just the sweetest little girl. She laughs all the time, smiles if you even look at her, a little chatter box, naps like a champ, eats lots, growing like a weed, almost rolling from her back to her front, loves her sister more than anyone, loves little baby toys that rattle, can hold onto her little chains on her carseat, falls asleep if we rock her facing out, and get's squished a billion times a day.
She is our punkin pie, punkin-unkin, punkin-unkin-munkin-chunkin-punkin-chunkin, and june bug.

This 'photo shoot' is a lot less glamorous than her 3 month one, but she's so cute and cozy that these will work just fine! :)

 She loves to suck on her little fingers when she doesn't have her binky. I think it's so cute and dainty! :) She also started doing this ridiculously funny face. I tried to capture it in the above photo. She fills her cheeks with air and pushes out her lips. She will do this face to Stori all the time and we just laugh.

Stori actually took this picture. She was so proud of herself so I had to post it. :)

Stori loves to be "best friend twins" with Sylvie. I try to get them to match any chance I can.

We are so blessed to have these 2 cute little girls in our lives. Dan always says, "What did I do to get the most beautiful gals ever?!"  I agree, we must have done something right! Love my family.

Some things don't change

like this for instance

Thanks of '13

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in the great land of Clarkston, UT. We just love all things to do with that little town.
//I love it for it's beauty, its size, the people there, great running trails, and the fact that it's nestled up to the mountains.
\\Dan loves it because there is a gas station close by with soda, he can literally mountain bike/hike right out the front door, he can drive 1 mile and be able to shoot his guns, and his un-official BFF lives there! ;)
//Stori loves it because of cousins, pianos and toys.
\\Sylvie loves it because she never get's put down and get's invited on the "no kids allowed" shopping trips.
It is also great because it's just 20 minutes from Logan, which happens to have Hobby Lobby!

So we knew before we went for Thanksgiving that we were going to have a blast.

We got there Wednesday night---Stopped at Aleisas house for pizza and visiting.
Stayed at Meg's house.

Got up Thursday morning for a run/jog/walk/run away from dogs adventure. Meg and Amanda were kind enough to go slow for me. I was so sore from running up and down the hills, and I definitely realized how out of shape I am. Those 3 miles felt like 12!! Didn't I just run the 1st Dam Run 5K while pushing Sylvie? And didn't I just run 4.5 miles with Alicia? sheesh, I think my body was already in post-dinner-coma-mode.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the morning sharing the oven while making sides and pies for dinner. It was sad that there were 2 houses to make dinner at because we weren't able to bake and talk and snack together. Lot's of Christmas music though.

Then over to Aleisas house for the feast. It's weird, but on Thanksgiving I never actually eat that much. I think it's because I spend the whole morning snacking. It was all very tasty though, of course.

For Black Friday we only had 3 places to go, and ZERO of those places required us to get up early and  fight with strangers. The one thing that I did want, however, was a pair of leggings from this little boutique. Long story short, Dan came shopping with us and made me miss them. The very last pair went to the lady in line right in front of me. Literally. I was so sad.

Went to a few more stores and then headed back home after lunch at Sam's Club. Classy.

Dan went shooting and Mt. Biking with Joel. The girls crafted. The kids played (and occasionally had screaming contests. I think Stori won).

Saturday all the girls went shopping again and almost finished Christmas shopping.
Later that day some of us ate at Cafe Sabor and then saw Frozen. It was so much better than I was imagining! We loved it! And I love that it was a musical like Tangled. Stori loved it but kept asking for popcorn. :) Sadly we lost Sylvie's bow in the theatre... 2 day old bow that I made. Ah well, at least we didn't lose Sylvie!

We left Sunday morning and spent the day decorating Christmas Tree's at my mom's house.
All in all, a FABULOUS weekend!
The very worst part...not a single picture was taken on our real camera and only 6 pictures on my phone. Talk about lame!

1. cuddles with meg. say wha??? 2. her shirt=duh, the bow=lost. 3. "I love to see the Temple" stori style 4. three of us share a twin bed. 5. the shortest mark on the wall (hair had to be pushed down for accuracy). and 6. naked oatmeal eating.
and bonus info---it snowed about 5 inches today. Just in time to drive to Washington on Thursday.