Christmas Around the Corner

Well, Christmas is right around the corner.  It's pretty crazy how fast this month has gone.  Here are some highlights from our week:

Our Christmas Sing-a-long & Treat Potluck is now the stuff of legends.  Or, at least, people seemed to enjoy coming over and we had some great times visiting, singing, and sampling various treats.

We upgrades our phones with Republic Wireless -- now we're saving money, AND have fancy phones.  If you are interested in republic wireless, use this link so you get a discount.

Ella has started some sleep training.  We didn't particularly want to, but it got to a point where either we were endangering her by holding her while we were extremely tired and could easily dose off and let her fall, or we could start helping her learn to sleep on her own.  She seems more well-rested, Elissa seems more well-rested.  We think it's been working, but it's not exactly easy.

And now for what you all clicked on our link for -- Ella!
Picture 1
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Picture 3

Getting Ready for Christmas

It seems Christmas time is a busy time every year and this year is no exception.  We've been trying to make sure to only spend our time on things that are worthwhile though -- our goal this year was to do something (or prepare for something) that would make other people's season better each day.

As members of our church choir, we've been practicing some Christmas pieces to help those of our congregation reflect on the life and mission  of Jesus Christ.  We have already shared 'One Small Babe' this last Sunday, and soon we'll do 'Oh, Come Emmanuel' .  Also this morning I got to sing 'The First Noel' as part of a men's quartet.  We feel like this fits right in with our goal of brightening others' season.  Ella even started trying to join in on the singing.  We didn't manage to get a video of her singing (and she's still practicing so she probably wouldn't want to be posted on the internet) so here's a cute picture of her anyway.

As we were thinking about how much we love singing Christmas music, we decided that we would like to invite people over to celebrate with singing and potluck Christmas goodies (by the way, if you're reading this, you know us personally, and you're in the area on the 21st, call us/email us for details and we'd love to have you come).  We've been decorating in preparation for that, as you can see by our nativity set on the mantle (sorry for the poor picture quality).

This year we decided we'd like to make some origami Christmas ornaments for a few friends.  I started out doing these ones that imitate one of the classic Christmas tree bulbs, but found that I had another option that was easier for me and arguably cooler ornaments.  I hope people like them!  Admittedly, on days where we didn't feel like we'd necessarily accomplished our goal to help other people's seasons be better, we counted me working on these origami ornaments.

Of course no Christmas season is complete without treats.  We shared some thumbprint cookies with people at our ward Christmas party and plan to make some pumpkin brownies and ginger molasses cookies as well.

(More Pictures):

Ella thought she might like to wear Mommy's glasses.

Ella and me hanging out (Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3).

Ella with her new friend "Miss Ruff". (She caught us taking a picture)

Ella at 4 Months

Ella at 4 Months

Sometimes I smile for Mommy.

Sometimes I smile for Daddy. (Mommy calls that flirting!)

Sometimes I even smile and make cute noises! (I can coo up a storm, and I even laugh sometimes!*)

I play on the floor (for more than 3 seconds!)

Even though my life is good, I sometimes make this face.

I can be silly with Daddy! (Or really, Daddy can be silly with me!)

I even wear "big girl" outfits. (And some little girl outfits too!)

*This has been a month of sounds for Ella, and since we can't take pictures of sounds you'll have to imagine the sounds from the pictures!