last weekend i went to washington d.c. to visit my annie (sans emma, lucy and shane)! we had a great time...we did a lot of tourist-type stuff, as it's been many years since i was schlepped around the city as a child. thanks for the awesome weekend, annie! let's do it again soon! maybe when the weather is less hideous (seriously, colder than utah when i was driven to purchase the ghetto bomber for lucy). we sat in more starbucks drinking cocoa than i can shake a stick at.

this shot was for emma, who requested a picture of mommy in front of the white house (and no, i did not go inside and give bushy a swift kick in the shin).
breakfast at trist (or i think that was the name of the place...if not, it was something close to that). best darn fruity granola i've ever had and excellent company.

we had so much fun at the zoo with our friends, the maas's! here we are, feeding the birdies...lucy wasn't so sure about the birds landing on her. she wasn't feeling a lot of love for them at all.

our good friends

it was so much fun to see maryanne and emily lara! they recently moved to st. george and we had a fabulous afternoon catching up now that they're living in the u.s. again! england's loss is our gain and we are thrilled to have some good seattle friends to visit when we visit the family in st. george.

archeologists

okay, nobody is allowed to judge these girls by their clothing. their silly mother thought, "oh, southern utah, it's probably pretty mild." we're talking 40 degrees. i had to go and buy what i could find at kid to kid. emma's is fine, but poor lucy's is iridescent. truly a ghetto bomber jacket. poor baby...she's too young to have any idea what she looked like, but i'm sure her future therapist will be shown copies of the following photos as evidence of a crazy, crazy mother. at least she was warm.

grandpa took the girls on a walk to see some native american petroglyphs. they were very impressed and thought that this was very, very cool.

really, the only proper thing to do is start an official dig. all they need is a chisel and a tiny paintbrush for dusting off their amazing finds.

the girls took a walk with grandpa through the hills of st. george.

emma got back and told me, "i did some posing and we got some excellent pictures." she gets funnier and funnier.

i had red, dusty dirt everywhere. i don't think their shoes will ever fully recover. they had so much fun that it was worth it, though.
i would like to give the disclaimer that no children or animals were harmed during this photo shoot. they seem really high, but i am assured that they were, in fact, quite close to the ground. yes, we braved the freezing (read: FREEZING) cold weather and went swimming. mommy was not a happy camper and had the blue lips as evidence. the girls had a great time. i just kept finding warm spots in the pool (please don't let me find out they were peepee spots) and loitering. i do believe the source of the heat was the water jets on the bottom of the pool. i hope. anyway, every time we visit utah we must make an appearance at the "frog pool." so here's lucy in her bathing suit and her furry boots. freezing...i kid you not.

happy new year!

we had a great time on new year's eve. we drove out to a nearby city named hurricane (pronounced hurr-ih-cun...don't ask...utahns pronounce many words in ways that don't make sense in any language in the world) to see 4 houses decorated with amazing lights and choreographed to the same songs and then went to st. george's new year's celebration called "first night." the girls had a blast!

quite possibly one of the coolest ideas ever. the city provided really, really big rolls of bubble wrap that you could jump, run and roll on. huge hit with the wee ones and they just kept rolling out new layers when one would lose its sound qualities. lucy agreed to go on a ride...amazing. emma's always been a thrill-seeker, but lucy usually likes to keep her feet planted firmly on mother earth. preferably next to mom and dad.
the st. george tabernacle. amazingly beautiful building and every prophet of our church, except joseph smith, has stood at the pulpit.

christmas!

stockings!
autumn attempted to start a "true meaning of christmas" lesson before the presents. we'll see if it sticks next year. mom is determined, though, and everyone put on a good game face.
finally!!! emma has her own pair of "footie" pajamas. thank you, grandma nelson! she loves them!
our darling neighbor found this at jacadi and got it for the girls. so, so sweet. they have a real tea set now! let's see if their psychotic mother will ever let them play with it (it's real china...yikes).
the heavens smiled down on the girls...new dress-ups! yay yay yay!

christmas eve with shane's family

we celebrated christmas eve with shane's family at our house. it was a great evening and confirmed my suspicion that my children are the most spoiled kids in america.