"Hey -- DON'T Touch My Hair!"

We watched Samuel a couple of nights ago while his parents were out and about. Here are December and Samuel dancing together (holding hands and twirling around)




Samuel wasn't quite as keen on the dancing as December was, so she decided to dance by herself.

Here is December, throwing a temper tantrum...

Samuel and December are being all cuddly (this is right before bedtime), and they're watching a calming Baby Einstien video

Samuel LOVES hair, so in this picture, he was reaching out to touch December's hair. She did NOT think that was an okay thing for him to do!

Brad's Mom was very kind and sent us a chocolate count-down to Christmas calendar...Brad and I ate the chocolates for first few days, and then we thought we should share with December. Here she is, unwrapping the chocolate.

Being the chocoholic that she is (at such a young age, too!), she shoved the entire piece in her mouth at once. Now I don't think Brad or I will get any of the rest of the chocolates! I had to hide the box so that she's stop begging us for more of them :)

YAY! All Brad's papers are finished! He pulled an all-nighter last night to finish the last one, but they all got turned in on time, and he is officially finished with his classes now. Next week he has a few days for his Reading Break, and then on Thursday he begins his final exams, which continue into the week following...and once those are finished, we go on a road trip! Christmas time is great fun. I can't wait to start wrapping presents because I want to see how December will respond to gifts under the tree, now that she's a bit older. I wonder if she'll know what's going on with all of the shiny, sparkly boxes hanging out on the floor...? It'll be fun to see!

Somersaulting

December's newest trick is to do a somersault -- here she is, getting into the crouching position

Then she puts her head to the floor and straightens her legs

Here she is in the middle of the flip

All finished her flip!

On Sunday, December was wearing her Christmas dress, and there was another little girl at church with an almost identical dress to hers!

The other little girl was doing really well for the camera, smiling and frilling her dress out, but December was trying to run away from her...Brad had to hold her down in order to get a picture of them together :)

After a full morning at church, December fell asleep in her carseat.

It rained quite a bit last week, and then at the end of it, out came a rainbow! It was so pretty! This picture was taken out of our bedroom window.

It has been pretty busy here lately, as you might guess from the lack of posting! Brad has just finished his last days of classes, and his end-of-semester papers are due tomorrow. He has put in some REALLY late nights (or, I should say, early mornings) already, and it looks like he'll be pulling another one tonight. The end of the semester is really rough! Also, Medi-Cal has been giving us grief (but that's nothing new), cochroaches have decided to invade our kitchen (GROSS!), my wisdom teeth have been coming in more and more (which causes GREAT amounts of pain and prohibits me from eating almost entirely), friends' cars are breaking down and desparately needing our help, going to Christmas get-togethers, etc. So there hasn't really been a dull moment!

But MOST exciting of all is what happened last Thursday! We bought a minivan! YAY! I've been wanting one for a really long time (like since before we were married...I have an affinity for minivans), and we're selling our car. Our car doesn't have A/C, so that has been pretty desirable at times here! We have a buyer for our car in Alberta. So w'll be driving our car up in a couple of weeks when we go up north for Christmas, to have Christmas with Brad's family. Soo, we had been looking for a van since before we moved out here, but the right one hadn't come along...until a couple of weeks ago! It was a great deal, and I wouldn't chose any other van! It's a 2007 Kia Sedona, and we bought it used -- it had been a rental car beforehand. I'll put up some pictures of it. We LOVE our van! It's so much fun to drive, although it's still a bit nerve-wracking because it's unfamiliar and new! It's been wonderful to have already.

Yay for Minivans!

Here's our van! We are really exited about it.

It has 30,000 miles on it...and it has air conditioning! YAY! (it has other features too, but I'm thrilled about the air conditioning! It's already been put to good use)

Here are all of the buttons and things...they're fun to figure out!

December likes to play with the buttons, too!

The back bench folds down into the floor in a 2/3rd split. The right two seats are folded into the floor here.

Mosesina Strikes Again

December likes to take the rug from the kitchen over to the carpet and lay on it like it's a bed...she's even grabbed her two special sleep blankets out of her crib to make the sleeping effect more realistic.

She thinks this game is really exciting!

Here is December's doll in a Christmas basket, just for comparison to what you'll see below...

December crawled into the basket...or rather, she shoved and finagled herself into it!

I think she has a future career in being a contortionist

She thought this game was a blast, too

She is shining the flashlight on the ceiling and watching it shine around.

I love Christmas time! Right now I am making my father proud. (Dad loves Christmas time, too.) I am listening to the radio station I created at pandora.com (note: if you don't know about pandora, you should check it out! You create your own radio station by typing in the name of a song or artist that you like, and they find lots of songs that are similar to the song you put down...making the odds very likely that you will like all of the songs they play). It's great fun! So anyway, I put in the name of a Christmas song by Bing Crosby, and now I'm listening to ALL Christmas songs by Bing, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. Right now I'm listening to Frank Sinatra telling me that he's dreaming of a white Christmas and that he hopes all of my Christmases will be white (well, they'll be green and sunny here, Frank..."Mele Kelikimaka" would be much more appropriate). Dad and I LOVE this old tape we had with good ole' Bing crooning Christmas carols. This sounds just like that tape! And listening to these songs makes me really happy.

Tonight we are going to go to a professor's house for dinner. He invited the prayer group that he is in charge of at the seminary to come to his house for dinner, and Brad is in his prayer group. I'm amazed because his wife just had a baby only a few weeks ago, and I'm in awe that she's ready to host a group of seminarians over so quickly! But I'm excited to go. December will like to play with the other children.