Happy New Year!

Happy New Year one and all!

Is it New Years or New Year?  We were having a discussion about this at the New Years party we went to... I don't think we ever reached a conclusion.  

For Christmas Santa gave Logan and I a Ninja blender.  I have been so excited to use it and finally went grocery shopping and got a bunch of stuff to blend.  Something I have really been wanting to do for a while is make breakfast smoothies for our family but we just haven't had a good enough blender.  Now that we have one we have been making smoothies.  Elsy has been loving them and so have I.  I am excited to start trying new recipes to help incorporate some of those nutrients that often don't taste the best. :P

Another thing we got for Christmas was this immaculate cutting bored my brother-in-law Steve made for us.  It is absolutely gorgeous and has been so much fun to cut on.  It is made of walnut and two different African woods.  I really think he should start selling them because he could make a ton of money.  We went to Pike Place Market this week and someone was selling some cutting boards that weren't nearly this intricate or fancy and he was selling them for $115. I think Steve could make at least $200 a pop.

Here is Elsy doing a funny dance move she learned from her cousin Hannah.  Elsy is an absolute hoot  these days.  While she has begun waking up in the night (again! blahhhh!) she has been so much fun to hang out with during the day.  She loves to read the scriptures and will walk around with them open saying "And it came to pass!" and add a lot of other jibberish mixed with "Heavenly Father," "da Holy Ghost," and will sometimes tell the story of Laman and Lemuel beating Nephi with a stick and an angel coming.  "Don't hit your friends!  Dat's not very nice!" She still isn't able to say her f's or her l's and still skips the number five when counting but she is getting so smart.  She has started to find an interest in words and often asks me what something says.  She got a doctor kit for Christmas and has been giving everyone checkups.  My favorite is when she tackles Tommy.  He just adores her and they both laugh together so much.  When he and I wake her up from naps he makes a bee line to her bed and just giggles at her. :)

One of my favorite things she does is she will say "You the best girl everrrrr!" and then kiss me on the nose.  She does it for guys too.  When we were home at my parents house she ran around the room kissing everyone on the nose and saying they were the best ever.  When she does this, it is the best ever.

The highlight of our week was Grandpa and Grandma Bean coming to visit.  They arrived on Wednesday and don't leave until this Tuesday.  The first thing we did when they arrived was have a mini second Christmas.  We had fun opening gifts and enjoying our tree for the last time.  Our tree came down that evening because it was completely and utterly dead.  

The next morning David and Natalie, Logan's parents, took us to the Kids Quest Children's Museum in Bellevue.  Both of the kids had SO much fun.  Tommy surprised me with how much fun he had there.  We could not get Elsy to leave the train table for the longest time.... and then we couldn't get her away from the wind machine either.  I got excited because Logan said we could get a year pass there.  We are moving pretty soon and have been looking at places in Issaquah so it is a lot closer to the Museum.  I am the kind of person who has to leave the house every single day or I get cabin fever really easy.  But when it rains here, and it rains plenty, I never can think of places to go (besides the store where I spend money I shouldn't... or the library).  So I'm excited to have somewhere fun to go on those days.

Oh will you just look at those cheeks?!  Tommy has been cutting his top two teeth and has had a little cold but he still manages to be a raging ball of energy.  Our friend Alyssa babysat him the other day and said "That kid is a work out!"... she couldn't be more right.  He is a regular wrestling match but I love him.  He has learned the sign language for drink (okay in our house the sign for drink is milk... its opening and closing your palm to make a fist over and over) and thinks it is to be used whenever he wants anything.  When he is frustrated he hods out his fist and growls while his arm shakes with intensity.  It is rather cute and funny.  He also does a double drink sign whenever he wants me to pick him up or if I take away something he wants back.

Ever since he was small he has wrestled me while I try to rock him before he goes to sleep.  He will wriggle and punch and squirm until I finally just put him in his crib in exasperation.  I really do like to rock my babies.  But every now and then he will nuzzle into my neck and just sit there quietly snuggling.  Those are my favorite moments.

We are currently working on animal sounds.  He is pretty inconsistant but seems to know  how to growl for a lion, make a horses snort, and sometimes will do a high hum for a cat.  Natalie, Logan's mom, got him whooing like an owl in the car once and that was fun.

We went to the museum on New Year's Eve and they did a New Year countdown at noon for the kids.  They passed out squares of bubble wrap and the kids all stomped on them.  It sounded just like fireworks... and I think I had more fun stomping than Elsy did. ;)

The Beans gave us some Amish pancake mix so we cooked it up one morning on Logan's griddle he got for Christmas.

For our New Year Logan's parents watched the kids while we went out to our friends, the Bullock's house for some food and chats.  Logan pointed out on the drive home that it is fun hanging out with our friends because we just spend the whole time looking for the next fun thing to laugh about.  I thought about how sad it is that some people just get together to drink on New Year when they could be making more meaningful and fun relationships.  We love having so many friends that live close by.

We came home around 11:30 to spend the New Year with David and Natalie.  When we walked in the door David was walking the floor with Tommy.  Turns out he had woken up at 9:30 and hadn't gone back to sleep for them.  They had told Logan but he didn't tell me.  When I got mad Logan said I wouldn't have enjoyed myself at the party if I had known Tommy was awake and not sleeping and we probably would have left the party a lot sooner... which was all true.  I am to clingy, I know.  Natalie said if he had been crying she would have called but since he wasn't they kept me in the dark.  I didn't know if I should be mad or grateful... by the time I got in bed I was grateful.  Logan and I really don't get out without the kids much and it was really nice to spend time with our friends.

For New Years we cracked open some exotic root beers from The Root Beer store here in Redmond that we had gotten David for Christmas.  The pomegranate ginger ale was an absolute flop but the caramel brownie was a hit.

On New Years day we went to Idylwood park.

It was freezing but so beautiful on Lake Sammamish.

Early morning movies with Grandpa!

On Saturday we went to Pike Place Market.  David loves to get fish there so we bundled up and walked around seeing the sights.  The line to our favorite chowder place was longer than long this time so we skipped it and made our own fish 'n chips when we got home with the cod David bought.

Elsy wanted to sit on the golden pig so we put the kids up for a pic.  (Yes those are pink socks on Tommy's hands)

A piggy smooch!

That's it for the week!

Except I did see this quote on the wall at the children's museum that I had heard before and just love.  

"I hear, and I forget.  I see, and I remember.  I do, and I understand." - Chinese Proverb

This has been something Logan and I have been talking a lot about with each other.  I have a cousin named Chelsea who is an amazing example to me.  Her faith is strong and deeply rooted.  She is the kindest person I know with the most sparkly eyes and charming personality.  She really is a friend to all.  Once my sister asked how she knew the church was true.  Chelsea told her that she knew the gospel was true because she tested it out.  She chose a gospel topic, say tithing, and then lived that topic to a T, the way it was taught by the church.  After testing it for a while she would evaluate how that action made her feel.  Every time she would gain a testimony of the specific topic.  As she did it, she would understand it.  She did this with all the aspects of the gospel until her faith became unshakable.  I feel like so often I hear things from the scriptures that I should be doing and I even see people doing things I want to be better at but its not until I do something that I gain a real testimony of it.  The key to 'testing it out' is really allowing yourself to trust the Lord.  To many times I have 'tested it out' with a grain of salt, trusting my own judgments instead of the Lord.  It is when I actually and truly test things out and allow myself to trust God, that is when my heart has been changed. 

Don't just read the scriptures, do what they say. :)