Aubree's Playlist

Aubree is such a musical being. Which is pretty amazing to me since her name is based soley around music. She loves listening to songs and has slowly grown a fondness to certain ones. We listen to them OVER and OVER. So Dave made a playlist on his phone to plug in every time we're in the car. This is it:

Hey, Soul Sister by Train

Time After Time by Quietdrive

Mad World by Adam Lambert

Adelaide by Anberlin

Take What You Want by Mesa Drive

Fireflies by Owl City

Elderly Woman behind the Counter in a Small Town, by Pear Jam

The Fixer by Pearl Jam

It fun because some she know by song title (Soul Sister, Adelaide)

Some she knows by band (Pearl Jam)

Some she has nicknames for ("clock" song which is Time after Time, "Marc's Band" which is in fact our friend Marc's band-Mesa Drive, dying song which is Mad World)

And the rest she just asks "Just put that song on that I love" which is very helpful :)

**on a side note I am VERY excited to say that the last tooth we have been waiting on for Soph to get...the one I was very nervous would never come, the one I prayed would be here before she turned 2 SERIOUSLY...has made it's appearance. She will now have a mouth FULL of teeth before her second birthday. It is about time.**

Dashboard Confessional

Chelsea, again, bought me a ticket to see Dashboard with her for Christmas. Her good friend, and missionary companion Denise, came with us also. Needless to say we had a blast!

There was some drama with my ticket (it ended up in Tennessee with my sister. How? I have NO idea...) And we had to figure some things out, but we made it. We were late, but we didn't miss any of Dashboard. Sadly we did miss most of Chris Conley's set who is my ALL TIME favorite. I had no idea he was opening, so it was a bonus to even hear a few songs. We came in as he was playing "Jessie and my Whetstone" and we caught the last half of it. Then he played "At your Funeral", and lastly "Shoulder to the Wheel". I haven't seen him live forever. And never solo as an acoustic set. It was an AMAZING 2.5 songs. He looked really good too. Last time we saw him he had long, nasty hair, glasses and had gained some weight. Which is all fine..but he looked nice and clean cut now. Like I remember him 10 years ago. And it was really fun because on the last song he grabbed three people from the crowd to help him out. One guy played the guitar, and the other two sang with him. They all looked star struck to be up on stage with Chris, being his pseudo band. As I would have :)

Then came Chris Carrabbas. Who gave a lot of shout outs to Chris Conley. I had no idea they were friends outside of music. It made me happy :) So this was the 10 year anniversary tour for Swiss Army Romance. I can't believe it was 10 years ago we were there, it makes me feel old. Especially when I think about all the younger crowd. That were only 5 or 6 last time they did this tour! Weird. And there we were rockin' out. It was of course amazing. I was laughing a lot because Chris kept going off on his own screaming, harmonizing, changing lyrics, because EVERYONE in the crowd was singing along and it was his chance to actually be heard :) This was the set list:

Screaming infidelities. Sharp hint of new tears. Living in letters. Swiss army romance. Turpentine chaser. Plain morning. Age six racer. Again I go unnoticed. Ender will save us all.

(When he sang Plain Morning, it was the most beautiful arrangement I've ever heard him do. I hope he records it that way...but probably won't.)

When he was done with that set, he said something to the effect of, I'm just going to keep playing and not do a fake leave, with an encore. Lets just keep going till curfew. So his "encore" with out leaving was :

Good fight. So impossible. Carry this picture. Places I have come to fear. As lovers go. Cover cuckachoo. Get me right. Saints and sailors. Brilliant dance. Stolen. Remember to breathe. Best deceptions. Vindicated. Hands down.

We decided that concerts are very therapeutic. And it is so true. I always feel so much better after going. I wish I could go more often.

Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam....

Aubree became a Sunbeam this past Sunday. It was a proud moment to look through the little glass window and see our baby sitting up in the front row of the primary room. She resisted at first ( I mean REALLY, who wants to SIT for that long and listen to lessons instead of playing and having snacks?) But once she was in, and on the lap of her teacher...she was just fine. She keeps growing up too fast...

New Year's

We don't do much to celebrate New Years. In fact the past two years Dave has been asleep at midnight so I toasted to myself. :) This year we got invited to a few celebrations. So we decided (based on who asked first :) to spend this New Years at our neighbors. We live right next door so we could still celebrate at midnight without having the kids suffer. One of my resolutions is doing better with diet and exercise (I know REAL original) so we all totally binged as our last night to eat sugar. Doughnuts, licorice, soda, (my mouth is watering...) we played a lot of Wii and hung out. We toasted (Karen and I hurried to drink our bubbly BEFORE "1" hit, so we still started the new year with our goal) watched Ryan Seacrest laugh at Dick Clark who made a drunken fool of himself, and left. It was a fun, simple night. And much more festive than we've done in the recent past!

Christmas!

We had a fun Christmas this year. We tried to cram a lot inot the last week we weren't sick. Movies, dinners, family, LOTS of hot chocolate, 16 dozen cookies, deliveries, lights, and music. Then came Christmas eve. We decided to go out with the girls. We made the last of three delivery trips, and headed out to Chili's.

Afterward we headed out to the lights at Thanksgiving point. Unfortunatly they closed early Christmas Eve and we missed it :( I was more sad than the girls. They took it like champs and we drove around different neighborhoods to look at lights. On the way back, I gave the girls a little treat of chocolate. This is what we found after a few minuets....

We got home, read the Christmas story in Luke, and opened their Christmas Eve present. They didn't get jammies this year since they own a million pairs, but they did get a new ornament to hang. Aubs got an Aurora one, and Soph got Ariel. Then we got some treats lined up for Santa on his special plate, and of course some milk. Aubree felt so special to pick out the spot where Santa would be able to find it. She decided (again) that right by the fireplace would be best. Then it was bed time. Aubree was itching with excitement. She couldn't hold her body still as she was getting in bed. Dave had to stomp around and let out a few "Ho-Ho-Ho's" to enhance their experience.
Christmas morning:

8:30, no word from the kids. We snuck in Aubree's room and she was calmly lying down, fully awake. She was too excited to even come down stairs. It took a few minutes to convince to get out of bed! (Soph was still out cold, so we let her sleep) Aubree feels emotion a lot stronger than most people. When she's overloaded (with excitement, anger, surprise, it doesn't matter) she doesn't know how to handle it...so she usually breaks down until she feels the emotion less strongly. It's taken us a while to figure this out, but now that we have life is a little easier. Anyway...she had a hard few minutes, then it got fun. We brought Sophie down and she was all about her new car Santa left. In fact she wouldn't leave it. Dave had to drive her in by the tree and she was presented with her gifts through the window!
Aubree was super excited that Santa knew how much she loved Polly Pockets, and brought her a HUGE set.
We all scored big! It was a fun morning.
Dave got:

A Jazz jersey, a set of his favorite hair care items, I-tunes gifts card, his favorite movie of the year How to Train Your Dragon, a San Francisco Giants hat, President Monson's biography, and $.

I got:

Beautiful albums of the girls made by Dave, necklace, perfume, gypsy (and accessories), cuttlebug, a bunch of new cartridges, embossing plates, A book my Dad wrote an excerpt for, a couple beautiful ornaments, and $.

The girls got:

polly pockets (lots and lots), books, blocks, new blanket, velour outfit, big stuffed doggie, car, $, new hair care items, beautiful temple pictures, princess memory, barbies, doctor kit, squinkies, zhu zhu pet, Tinkerbell, Bolt, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Toy story 3, fairies, stacking blocks, hat, gloves, candy, princess phones, princess silly bands, squishies, sippies, a new table and chairs, baby accessories, craft accessories, and probably more that I'm forgetting whew!!!!

We spent the rest of the day up at Grandma's..

with a delicious brunch including the famous cranberry bread his Mom makes.

Movies, and lounging..
and most of all PLAYING!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tangled

**Spoiler Alert** If you haven't seen the movie yet**

Now that we're all better and cooped up, we decided to take the girls to see Tangled. I honestly had no desire to see it until I heard reviews from critics and friends. It's a good thing we did! We all LOVED it. Both girls sat through the whole movie with out any complaint.

Aubree really feels emotion, and this movie was no exception. During the lights scene she kept looking back up at me and had a huge grin on her face. She'd turn around and hold my face and smile, say I love you, and look back at the screen. She did that many times during that scene and I could just see how strong she was feeling the movie. The other scene was when Rapunzle healed (what's his face?) with her tear. When he woke up and they kissed Aubree had a look of sheer and complete joy on her face. I'm not sure if I've ever seen that look before. She talks about the movie all the time and we can't wait for it to come out on DVD.

Sophie enjoyed it just as much. She gasped, laughed, made sure they weren't too sad...and my favorite, when Rapunzle's hair got got cut off she said "Oh, no...hair go?" She was totally absorbed throughout the whole movie. It's a fun stage to be able to take them to a movie, watch the whole thing, and still not pay for either one!

I LOVED, LOVED the movie. The story, the music, the humor, emotion. Classic Disney. It was a little weird that Mandy Moore was the princess because I know her (as an artist, not personally :) But she did a really good job, so it didn't ruin anything. I just had to keep images of "A walk to Remember", "Princess Diaries" and various music videos out of my head so I could see her as Rapunzle and not as "Mandy Moore doing Rapunzle" if that makes sense...any way AWESOME movie and fun night out with the family.

Proud Mom

Aubree has really enjoyed her first month at pre-school. She has a cute new paper to bring home every day. And a fun advent for this month. Already I can tell she is learning. She's better at her shapes, spelling her name, and she now writes the letter "A". She has a crush on a boy in her class named Sawyer. And I finally got to meet her teacher and class yesterday (my friend Laci takes her every morning) and saw cute little Sawyer. He's totally the pretty boy of the class, he has golden curly hair and bright blue eyes, basically a boy version of Aubree. And she told me that he was going to grow up and be a handsome prince! It's so fun that this is my life now. School, stories, teachers, friends, and programs. She had her first program! And it was a proud Mom moment. She was too scared to sit up on the stadium, so I joined her for the whole program! But I was not the only Mom up there! They are all three and four so this is their first exposure to these things and they still need Mom, which is fine by me. Since Dave couldn't make it, I was sitting up by Aubree and her teacher with Sophie on my lap. And I was SO proud of both of them. Sophie happily sat on my lap the WHOLE program (which lasted an hour) and Aubree did really well. She was a cute little elf with a hat and a scarf. She stayed in her seat the whole time and participated. She didn't want to sing :) but she did ring her bells, and bang her sticks at the appropriate times. I couldn't get ANY pictures or video...but I kept her program for her.

That was proud moment one. Number two is this:

I have been getting so tired of the same movies OVER and OVER with being sick, and the other day I told the girls I was putting on a Christmas movie and that was what we were watching...so I got out my favorite one: ELF! And both girls LOVE it. They now request it in their list of favorite movies! It makes me so happy :)