Merry Christmas!

I think these stockings are one of my favorite Christmas decorations.  It made me happy to add the 5th one to our mantle this year for little Evy.  (I am really not super good at crocheting, but I am rather proud of these stockings I made for our kids!  It's about the only thing I've made that I feel I can brag about...)

We had a fun Christmas Week.  We had a fun talent show and party with the Stouts a few days before Christmas, then Alan and I sang in our annual production of Handel's Messiah, and then we had a fun Christmas Eve party with my side of the family.  Christmas Eve night Jared and Maggie participated in the live Nativity with some of their cousins.  We tracked where Santa was on the internet and then left him milk and cookies before bed.  It was all wonderful.  

This video is a glimpse of the first few minutes of Christmas morning in our home as the kids see their presents from Santa. We were actually able to let Maggie sleep in til almost 8 am.  Jared woke up around 7:30 but quietly played Angry Birds Star Wars, a free app of the day for our Kindle, while we let her sleep.

Fairy wings for our little fairy.  She also got a crown and wand.  

A robot was a last-minute request from Jared a couple of week before Christmas.  Unfortunately, Santa couldn't bring a really nice one because he had maxed out already on his budget.  So Santa brought this cheaper one that unfortunately had a burnt-out motor when we put it together.  Luckily, I told Jared that I could order a replacement from the store.  We are happy to say that the replacement works great and Jared loves it!  He named it Spritey. 

Jared was sooooooooooo excited for us to open his present that he brought home from school.  It had four ornaments that he had made!  I love adding these special ornaments to our tree each year!

Jared got a fancy remote-controlled car from Grandma Curtis.  He loves to play with it at our church while Alan plays with his new remote-controlled helicopter (Thanks, Mandy!)

New movies!

Evelyn participated in our Christmas morning, too.  She mostly tried to eat all of the wrapping paper...

New Tinker Bell dress!

I forgot to take any pictures of the rest of our Christmas.  We had a wonderful time with Alan's family and got to talk to Mason on his mission in Mexico.  We opened some wonderful presents from Alan's parents.  Then we had a delicious ham dinner at my mom's house in the evening.  It was a perfect day.

Jared's Christmas Program

Each year Jared's school has a Christmas program where all the grades sing for their parents.  The first-graders sang "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth."  

Jared is on the front row near the very center.  It's a bit tricky to see him.

Afterwards, all the grades sing their school's original Christmas song. Each grade has a special part: "The Christmas Spirit's startin' down in the kindergarten.  The boys and girls in 1st are just about to burst. The children down in 2nd are hopin' and expectin'..." It was fun to come and see Jared.  He's a good little singer!

(In this video of the whole school singing, you cannot see Jared.  I just had the camera aimed at where all the first graders were standing.)

Also, here is a cute little video of Maggie singing "Jingle Bells."

Princess Haircut, "Part of Your World," and Baby Squawks

Before I get into all the Christmas posts, I thought I'd put a few pictures and videos up from the beginning of December.

Maggie loves all things princess, fairy, mermaid, etc. and she knows the entire "Part of Your World" song from The Little Mermaid.  I could only get part of it on video, though.

Maggie also got her hair cut!  I did it myself one evening after getting so sick of it being tangled all the time. After I was done she said, "Mommy, is it a princess haircut?"  YES!

Jared got a new haircut, too, the same evening

Here's a few cute pictures of Evelyn:

This video is of her squeals and squawks.  I love them!

Wow, I love this girl.  She is about 8 months in this photo.

She looks like a little Eskimo with this car seat cover

 Trying hard to get a good picture of Evelyn in her "My First Christmas" dress (taken a few days before Christmas.  Maggie wore this dress, too, when she was a baby.)

"Sisters, sisters! There were never such devoted sisters..."

Snowman cheeseball I made for a Christmas party.  It looked cute, but only about half of it got eaten.  I think the rest got thrown away...

Talent Show

This past weekend our ward had its 3rd annual talent show.  Although NOTHING can ever compare to Alan's Napoleon Dynamite dance last year (watch the video here), we did participate a little bit this year.  Alan had quite a few people tell him how funny his dance was last year, and wonder if he was going to do it again.  Yeah, right.  

This is a video of a men's quartet singing "Stouthearted Men." No, Alan did not organize this, but the 80-year-old tenor standing to the left of Alan did.  He had a lot of fun learning this.  (By the way, I'm the accompanist for this song.  I have to give myself credit, too.)  :)

This is a video of a bunch of our Relief Society sisters lip-syncing to Weird Al's "Eat It." I was dragged into participating in it since I'm in our Relief Society Presidency. I think it turned out quite funny.  It was fun to learn some dance moves again; I haven't done that in a while.

Jared has been diligently learning to play the piano (from me) these past couple of months.  I am really proud of the progress he has made so far.  He really wanted to play in the talent show, so he and I played "Old MacDonald" as a duet.

And here is a cute video of Evelyn giggling. This was obviously at home, not the ward talent show.  :)

Halloween 2013

Several days before Halloween we had our annual Curtis Pumpkin Carving party, which we always love. We eat yummy food, carve our pumpkins, and sing pumpkin carols.  Maggie decorated her pumpkin with stickers, and Alan carved Jared's Angry Birds Pumpkin (Jared had decided he would rather play with cousins than help Daddy carve his pumpkin.)

Grandma and Evelyn

Alan's pumpkin is the one 2nd from the right.  I wish I had gotten a better picture of it.

 These next few pictures were taken on Halloween.  I helped with Jared's classroom party during the day (which he LOVED!!!!!), and then Alan took Jared and Maggie out trick-or-treating.

Spiderman, Pumpkin, and Sleeping Beauty

All three of my kids have now worn this pumpkin costume.  

Happy Halloween!  (Now on to bigger and better holiday festivities, like Christmas....)

First Taste

Here are a few pictures from early October:

 Evelyn started solid foods just before she turned 6 months old (I really hate starting my babies on solid foods, so I wait until closer to the 6-month mark instead of trying at 4 months, as some moms do.)  Below is the (in my opinion) hilarious video of her first taste.  Ha ha!

 Aren't my girls adorable?

Evelyn is super easy-going.  She just lights up when I walk into a room.

Family Pictures 2013

One of my friends took our family pictures a few weeks ago, and I finally got them from her computer.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I still need to work on cropping and some coloring issues, but I'm excited to get them printed and on my picture wall!

Maggie has turned into such a princess

This was the one and only picture we got of Evy by herself where she is sort of smiling

Jared is looking so grown up to me!  When did he get so big?

Maggie looks so adorable in this picture!  I think it was the only genuine smile we got out of her the whole photo shoot

I think this picture above is my favorite family picture (despite Jared's cocked head), but I need to tweak the coloring so we don't look so washed out.