Christmas Top 10

Christmas came and went with all of its festive busyness and I didn't blog once.  So now I could either spend a week catching up and giving everything it's own proper blog post or just copy my friend and do a short and sweet top 10 list.  I chose the latter.  So here it goes... In sort of random, sort of chronological order...

1. Santa
It's a Memphis tradition of ours to visit Santa at the Bass Pro Shop.  Free pictures with Santa, candy canes, and tons of fancy toys to play with.  We went early in the month on a rainy, Tuesday evening so we practically had the place to ourselves.

2.  Christmas program
Willa's preschool put on a Christmas program.  They sang 12 or so Christmas songs and then we ate cookies, cookies, and more cookies.  Every child was instructed to bring 12 cookies to share.  Willa was such a ham.  I say it all the time.  I'm not sure where she gets her outgoing personality from.  As soon as the curtain opened, she started blowing kisses to the audience.  She sang every word of every song loud and clear and did all of the motions.  She was funny to watch.  And in the middle of the show, she hollered out, "Make Clark watch me."  Too funny.  Clark was into the show for a few songs and then lost interest.

3. Orlando Temple
Matt, the kids, and I flew to Florida on December 12.  We stayed in Orlando for five nights.  While we were there, we spent a special day at the Orlando Temple.  It was the first time I'd ever been to the temple with my mom and grandma.  Three generations and my hubby.  Like I said, special day.  My sister, Amanda, watched my kids.  Thank you so much!

4. Disneyworld
While we were in Florida, we went to Disney.  We spent two nights at the Art of Animation Resort in a Lion King themed suite and loved it.  We spent the first day exploring the resort.  It was so cool.  There are 4 decked out areas: Cars, Lion King, Finding Nemo, and the Little Mermaid.

 

 

We spent the next day at Disney with my entire family - 10 adults and 5 kids.  Willa loved every ride and rode everything she could.  She was tall enough to ride everything except Space Mountain.  She also loved meeting the princesses.  Clark was sick.  He enjoyed the rides he went on, but also spent a lot of time sleeping and crying.  My mom took him back to the hotel for 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the day to give him a break.

Then the third day we enjoyed the Finding Nemo pool and a late check out.

5.  Florida Family
After Disney, we spent two more nights at my sister's house in Orlando with my entire family.

6. Snow
We flew from Florida to Utah on December 17.  While we were in Utah, I think we managed to take part in every snow storm Utah got.  We just followed the storms around the state as we visited Matt's family.  And when you're on a Christmas vacation with a 3.5 year old and 1.5 year old, that's perfect!

7.  Utah Family

Matt got to see 6 of his 7 siblings and his parents while we were in Utah.  The kids and I spent some of our nights in Richfield, some in SLC, and one in Provo.  Matt went hunting with his Dad and Stephen for a few days.  Unfortunately, Matt, Clark and I got the flu at the start of our trip.  So Matt's hunting trip was pretty miserable for him.

Willa and Grandpa Wetzel after church



8. Christmas Eve and Day

We spent Christmas in Richfield with Matt's family.  Two of his brothers and two of his sisters were also there. We had a traditional Christmas Eve complete with acting out the Christmas story, a ginger bread house, and carols around the piano.

 

 

9.  Temple Square Lights
I really wanted to take Willa and Clark to Temple Square to see the lights and the SLC temple while we were in SLC.  But Matt, Clark and I had the flu at the start of the trip so we weren't up for it then.  And at the end of our trip when we were in Salt Lake again, I was feeling exhausted (see #10) and it was snowing.  I would have skipped it, but Matt convinced me to go and I'm glad we did.

10. I think this picture speaks for itself.  July 20 is the big day.  We actually found out in November, but shared the news with our families while we were visiting in December.  And since I'm writing this so late, we already found out it's a BOY!

And can you believe, Matt was around for all of that.  ALL OF IT.  He had an "elective" month which meant he could "elect to study" or something like that.  He moonlighted a couple weeks and spent a couple weeks with us.



Brown Fam photo shoot

While we were in Orlando, Amanda's friend took a bunch of pictures for us. 

There are so many good ones.  I love my family!  These smiles make me smile.

 

 

ballet

Willa has been taking a ballet and tap class since August.  Parents are not allowed to watch so in December when we were invited into the room, Clark and I went armed with our camera and video camera. 

 

 

It was so fun to watch the girls.  But it was hard not to giggle.  Her teacher did a really good job keeping it on their level.  I can't wait to see the recital in April.

 

Willa loved ballet when she started.  Then she went through a period where she wanted to quit.  She took a few weeks off and the week she returned, her teacher showed the class the costumes for the recital.  That did it for Willa.  She's been a huge fan of ballet since then.  She got her costumes last week and she was not disappointed.  She is really excited for the recital also.

Matt was working and I was a little nervous to bring Clark.  But he did great.  I was surprised how much he liked it.  He sat on the floor like this for the entire 45 minute class and watched the girls.

Here are two little videos...
I have some better ones of just Willa, but I recorded them sideways and I don't know how to rotate them.  And when I uploaded these two, they got really grainy.  So you can barely tell who is who.  I'm not sure how to edit or upload high quality videos.  Sorry.

Willa is second in line in this one:

Willa is in the back row, in the middle, tall and skinny:

ho-ho-ho

We visited Santa at the Bass Pro Shop again this year.

A few days after visiting Santa, we had this conversation...

Willa: Why does Kate (her cousin) get to live near Disney World?

Lindsay: Her mom and dad decided that was the best place for their family to live.  Your Dad and I decided the best place for us to live was near Dad's work, your school, our friends, the zoo, the temple... (I was trying to rack my brains to come up with something half as cool as Disney World to a 3 year old.)

Willa: and Santa's work shop

Lindsay: true

We've got a big Santa believer in our house.  She really thought we met the real Santa and went to his work shop.  Too sweet!

 

Clark and Willa loved playing with all of the remote control trucks. 

Too bad they cost a million dollars.

 

 

Halloween Costumes

Clark Wetzel Kent

Here is Clark thinking he is one of the big kids and dancing at the Trunk or Treat.

Cinderella

with Sallie at the Trunk or Treat

with Elora trick or treating on Halloween

crazy wig man and a witch

at Matt's residency Halloween party

you can see a little more of my witch costume in this picture

We had a busy Halloween again in Memphis.  I don't know if it's the city or just the age of our kids, but Halloween lasts for two weeks, we get ridiculous amounts of candy, and by the time October 31 actually rolls around, I am ready for Halloween to be over.  I hand washed Willa's Cinderella dress in the tub after Halloween and the water turned brown.  Grody.  She wore it and wore it and now it's a perfect dress-up dress.

Priddy Farms

Priddy Farms is always fun!  We've visited the farm every fall that we've lived in Memphis...4 years now. It really feels like fall and Halloween after a visit to this farm.

Willa was into posing this year.  I've got over a dozen shots like this one.

Clark wasn't. He did his own "thang" and explored.

We went with a group of resident wives. Oh, how I depend on these ladies for support.  I am going to miss them when we move.

book club

These are most of my very favorite ladies in Memphis.  This picture just makes me smile seeing everyone! I love my book club.  Everyone is so good about reading the book and we have such wonderful discussions that lead late into the night.  There are 13 in our group right now (2 aren't pictured).  Six of us are resident wives.  Thank you ladies for one kid-free night every month full of
girl talk and food!

Oh, and if you are looking for something to read, I do keep a list of our books on the sidebar on the right of this blog below my list of blog links.  My favorites are marked with a "+" but almost all of them are worth reading.

Brown Fam Fall Trip

 

My family on our recent trip to Savannah.  Good times!

new bikes

I can remember every spring in Ohio when the warm weather would finally arrive after the long, cold, gray winter ended and I would want to spend every free minute outside.

Well, it is the opposite here.  Memphis is so hot in the summer that everyone hibernates during the summer and when fall hits, you see people outside again.  It is the perfect time of year to learn how to ride a bike... with training wheels of course.  

Clark loves his hand me down trike, too.  It has a handle in the back for us to push.  Everyday he walks up to it and asks to ride on it.  I've been known to push him around the garage when it's raining out.

2012 birthday recap

Matt - turned 32 in March

We really do love him even though we celebrated with a half eaten cheesecake from the freezer.  In my defense, Matt wasn't going to be home to eat the cake (He left to moonlight in Arkansas for a week right after his birthday) and I was still nursing Clark so I was on a very strict dairy free diet.  I felt bad though and bought him a cake when we visited him in Arkansas... that no one ate much of and was eventually thrown away.  (Moe - like his shirt? haha)

Clark - turned 1 in March

He loved his brownie cupcake and ate the entire thing.  I can't remember what else we did for his birthday.  But I'm sure it was stupendous.  

I turned 31 in September

Matt had to work late on my birthday, but he came home with cake and flowers.  We let the kids stay up until 9 or 10 celebrating.  Earlier in the day, my friend, Brittany, took me and Clark out to lunch while Willa and her son were in preschool - which was so lovely!

Willa turned 3 in January.  I actually did blog about it.  You can read about it here.

That was kind of a depressing birthday blog post.  Now I see why I didn't bother blogging about any of our birthdays. We need to do better in 2013! Our 2012 birthdays were so low key because Matt pretty much works everyday.  Not an exaggeration. Between his residency shifts and moonlighting, he maybe has 1 or 2 days off a month.  In September he had 1 day off the whole month.  We see very little of him these days.  Less than 9 months to go...