A Little Warmth..

So it has been pretty cold here in the Buff. And when I say cold, I mean like, there was a day last week where the high was 9 and the low at night was -15. COLD COLD. Hurt your lungs when you go outside for more than 2 minutes cold. So where do you go to escape it? Well, I will tell ya...the Botanical Gardens. It is a tropical paradise in the dead of winter and I love it. The smells, the warmth, the beautiful flowers, it's just wonderful. We took a visit there a couple weeks ago when David and Maia both had the day off school. Here are some pictures from our visit:

I told Maia we were going somewhere warm that day....so she pulled out her short sleeve shirts, excited and ready!
I had to include this one of Maia! She is kinda like her Dad in this area:)

Oh look!! I was there too! David took over the camera business for a bit. AMaZinG!
Maia loved this little frog...reminded her of Tiana and Prince Naveen, of course.
And just a few more cute ones...

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

So I debated even posting about this, seeing how Rach and Steph are so on top of it and have already described our amazing weekend of fun on their blogs, and thinking that not everyone wants to see this again, but then I thought of the friends and family back home who may (or may not :) be interested in our life and what we have been doing, so I decided to go with it. So if you want to skip over this post because you totally already know everything about Toronto, I'm definitely not offended.
With that said...last weekend I was able to go on a quick girls getaway to Toronto with Rachel, Stephanie and Megan. Rach and Steph were the ones who organized and planned everything so I felt really spoiled just going along for the ride. Even though it was a quick trip, we had such a good time and I was so glad that hubby held down the fort here at home so I could get away. He knows how much I need these little rejuvenation things!!
First stop...dinner
After dinner we went to the movie, The Dilemma. It was cute and funny and I liked it! Then we came to our hotel and broke out the snacks for our late night conversations...I about died when Rach pulled out a thing of easy cheese!! I seriously haven't had that stuff since middle school I don't think. Totally brought me back to fun girl times back in the day for sure!
There was lots of fun conversation and a little pillow-fighting, etc. We stayed up til almost 4am!! Can you believe that? I hardly can. I don't think I can remember the last time I stayed up that late. High school? Maybe?? I don't know how I was functioning the next day!
Megan missed out on the action because....
....she had gotten sick earlier in the night and was laying in bed to try and ward off another episode of the throw-ups. I felt so bad for her. I would have been crying for David to come take me home right away, but she was a trooper and stayed up talking with us and did all the activities with us the next day. I would not have been so strong, seriously!
Saturday we started off the day by doing a temple session at the Toronto temple. It seems that temple trips are few and far between these days for me so it was really nice to go there.
Then we did a little shopping at IKEA. This was my first time ever in an Ikea store and I was definitely impressed and a little overwhelmed. I kept thinking I was going to get lost if I let one of the other girls out of my sight!
Then we headed to the mall where I was on a mission to find the perfect fitting pair of maternity jeans.
This is what I found...like 'em? Okay I'm totally kidding, but when we pulled these off the rack, I couldn't stop laughing. And these weren't even maternity jeans!! Do people really wear these things? Sorry if you have a pair:)
So it was a great weekend. It took me a couple of days to get rid of the tired headache I had, but definitely worth it! Thanks girls for a fun weekend. I'm so sad to be leaving everyone here in just a few short months, so this was especially fun for me.

SNOW!

There is something really fun about the snow...so we still try to get outside to play in it as much as we can despite the cold. The routine usually goes like this: Spend 20 minutes gathering snow clothes and getting dressed.....go outside.....play for 20 minutes and then cry because we are FREEZING...come inside...make a mess of the entryway with boots, coats, hats, mittens and melted,dirty snow....drink hot chocolate and snuggle in a blanket...and then everything is better:)

Snow angels are a must
Eating snow is even more of a must
Sled rides...I have to pull the kids back and forth in the field behind our house. They always want to go "FASTER" but my growing body protests a lot!!
And just a random one of Elsie...

Christmas Vacation

So I didn't do a very good job at taking pictures over the break....but as I look through the ones I have uploaded I think, "there are a ton of pictures on here." I guess it's just that we packed so much into the two weeks we were in Utah and I probably only took pictures of half of what we did. I wish I had done better!! Oh well. And as you look through them, you might think,"Was Crescent even there?" seeing how there is a total of ONE picture with me in it. So I will tell you now, yes I really did vacation with the rest of the family and now I just have to train the hubby to start taking some pictures once in a while! Anyway, we had the greatest time in Utah and got to see lots of family and friends. Still didn't get to catch up with everyone, but it's hard to be going, going constantly. It is always just so nice to be able to relax and not have any obligations to worry about. Here are some of the highlights from our trip:
One of the greatest things is we could go outside dressed like THIS (Maia Below) and not be cold!!!
Playing at Grandma Barbara's house with LOTS of cousins!! I didn't get many pictures of cousins, but this is Maia and Grandma Barbara...Maia had just gotten to put her handprint on Grandma's famous dollhouse, a real treat for Maia.
Maia LOVEd playing with Ericka....they would spend hours playing with the dollhouse together. There was constant entertainment for her so the first couple days back here were rough for David and I!! We had to be the entertainers!

Being silly with sister...
Dressing fancy for church...Maia loves to pose for pictures and found this perfect spot for her picture and situated herself there until I came and took her picture.
Opening up Christmas Eve Pj's...
Christmas morning...waiting for everyone to wake up....Maia spent a lot of time the day before, organizing and arranging the presents and making a pile for each person. She got so excited every time another present ended up under the manger for her. I love living the childhood excitement of Christmas again through your kids, it's seriously the best!
The stockings...
Maia got undies in her stocking but Elsie was the one who kept wanting to put them on! Guess we better start potty training soon:)
Elsie and Nana reading one of her books...I love how Elsie would get so excited after each present and stop to read and/or play with it. We would have to hand her another present to open. She was just content and happy with whatever she had.
Elsie's new baby doll, carseat, and diaper bag were a HUGE hit, as I knew they would be!!
Maia is OBSESSED with Rapunzel right now, so she was really excited to get some things from that, especially since she had just seen the movie a few days earlier.
James E. Talmage is my great-great grandfather. David LOVES the man and has been wanting a picture of him for quite some time. My grandparents had said they would give each of us a copy, but that was a few years ago and we still hadn't gotten it. So I refreshed their memory a bit, they did some searching, and found the picture! Yay! David was so excited. He is determined to name our boy Talmage....
More presents...
I loved that we could take walks outside and enjoy the fresh air!! That is the hardest thing for me in the winter time here in Buffalo...it just gets TOO cold for that....although the day after we flew in it was 45 degrees and I was able to go for a run OUTSIDE which was amazingly wonderful!!
We also had a fire at my parents house on Christmas night. The kids loved it.

I got to go see my sister and her new little baby for a couple days with just my mom and Maia. Maia was dying to see her cousin River so we definitely couldn't leave her behind!
Some catch up time with girlfriends... wasn't very good at taking pictures of us with other friends though!
And of course, lots of time jumping on the trampoline!
And lastly, we finally got snow to play in....the kids were waiting and waiting for it so they could go sledding and build a snowman (why I don't know, we have PLENTY of opportunities to do that here!) but the night before we left, it snowed enough for them to have a little playtime in it that morning before we had to head out.

So that about sums it up! Well, there was one other HUGE part of our vacation that I will have to post on later when I get pictures taken of all the projects my mom and I worked on. My mom is amazing and so selfless. She would stay up late every night working on whatever projects I wanted to do. So we were able to get lots of stuff done for this new little baby. I will have to take pictures and post them soon!