Back for an encore (from christmas 2007)

(not-so) Green eggs and a our little man

Isaac is learning some important "guy things", like giving "five" and eating eggs by the fistful. Notice in the middle when I tried to get him to say "Dada" and he says "mama". 

We don't buy soda pop. Maren bought some 7-up for our sick girls last week, though, and picked up a "diet" soda, too. Apparently Brinley had asked for some of it and Maren must have explained that little girls don't drink "diet" drinks. Then, we received a 2-liter bottle of A&W rootbeer from some friends as part of a Christmas treat. I opened it and gave some to the girls as we were eating some late dinner (after some shopping). Maren walked in and began to poor herself a small drink. Then: 

Brinley: "Mommy, are you still on a diet?" (in a sweet and reminding sort of tone)

Maren: a smile at me

Brinley: "Mommy, don't you want some of your diet pop?"

Maren: giggles with a guilty look on her face

Brinley: "Mommy are you not still on a diet?" 

Little stinker! 

I have to add that Lainie and Brinley sang a duet in Sacrament on Sunday. They did great. Lainie, of course, sang out beautifully. Brinley began the song, then kind of looked around, and almost walked away, before joining back in for the last few lines. They sang "Fairest little Jesus child" (not sure if that's the real title). 

We leave for Idaho soon. We are so excited to see our family! After I explained who all we would be seeing on our trip, Alaina proclaimed (this morning) "This will be the best Christmas of my life!!" See you soon! 

The wisemen brought gold, and ...Frankenmuth (?), and myrrh. 

Frankenmuth is the German Christmas town 30 minutes north of us. They have the (as they claim) largest Christmas store in the world. I think it must be. They have it divided into zones so you don't get lost. 

Brinley now loves to pretend that our couch is the train on the "Polar Insprect." 

As I write down a few updates here the girls are watching "My Little Pony" the movie. So here I am. 

We are missing our ward's Christmas party right now. Alaina kicked-off the vomiting last night at midnight and Brinley joined in at 5:30 tonight. Why does Brinley always have to do whatever Lainie does. Anyway, I'm sure Santa is grateful that we spared his beard and lap of any early christmas treats...if you know what I mean. Hopefully they will both feel better by Sunday. They are supposed to sing a duet in Sacrament meeting for our ward christmas program. 

Isaac began officially crawling this week. He had to pass several time trials before I could make the public statement. He trained very hard and we are so proud of him for sticking with it. Maren is now trying to baby-proof any decorations below our knees. 

Maren and I went on a fun date last weekend. As a residency we have a new moonlighting position as the team physicians for a semi-pro (like minor leagues) hockey team. They are the Flint Generals. It was a blast. Free tickets to the game with great seats (and the best date) and I still got paid to do it.  I had to send two spectators with nasty injuries from two stray hockey pucks to the hospital, and treat one home team player for a bruised nerve. Not a bad deal. We became fans in one night. To those whose names we drew for christmas, we hope you all like hockey jerseys. :)

We send you all our most heartfelt Merry Christmas wishes. We are so blessed and grateful to have such wonderful friends and family.  

-LOVE,

The Higbees

Putting up Christmas decorations is more than worth the while and the work and the mess when you see the excitement on little faces. The girls were asking for 3 days to put up the nativity scenes. The most anticipated moment is the placing of the baby Jesus in the nativity scene, and we have to keep close track of whose turn it is from year to year. We thought we'd have the girls explain the story of the first Christmas as they put up each piece this year. It was really fun! 

Our guest for Thanksgiving: Old Man Winter

Happy Thanksgiving to all! After a snowy Turkey Bowl football game with a surprisingly large group of fellow ward members we had a very delicious and filling dinner at Ryan and Judy Leonard's home with several other families. I think I counted 13 children there. The Leonards are brave. Someone brought macaroni and cheese (a local tradition) and, of course, that was more than okay with our girls! It went so smoothly and we had a great time. Wish I could say the same about our preparations to get there. I went to grab my shirt from the dryer as we were leaving, and found that a pen had exploded in the dryer and left ink all over an entire load of clothes. Maren quickly went to work spot spraying with Spray and Wash, and placing those clothes to soak in water. As she did that I loaded the 3 kids into the car and got the 2 pies and a super good raspberry fruit salad (Judy introduced us to) that Maren made for our contribution.  Isaac was upset at that point so I went back to see if I could quiet him down. I had left that yummy raspberry salad  on the middle console in the front. Suddenly I saw movement in my peripheral vision and quickly grabbed the pan, saving it from toppling upside down (it was on its side when I caught it). Just as I was thinking that my quick reflexes had saved the day  a third of the surface of the raspberries and jell-o separated off and slid down in a sweet red avalanche of disaster onto the leather seat, continuing its trail of stickiness down to the carpeted floor of our Honda Pilot. I quickly shut the door and cursed the dessert for not holding it together under pressure.  Then, I grabbed towels from the laundry room (where Maren was still working away). I think she suspected I was having some difficulty based on my growls and moans. As I cleaned the red goop off the carpet, I heard Lainie mumble something under her breath. "What was that Lainie?" I asked.  She hesitantly replied, "Oh, I was just saying to myself that I don't think that was a good place to put that." Not the comforting words I had hoped for, but it made me smile for a moment in spite of myself and my misfortune. When Maren finished and we were on the road we began discussing the chain of events that had delayed our departure, and as happens, realized how humorous it all was. It's funny how we get so caught up in all the details of the Holidays, like whether or not the raspberry fruit salad has a complete covering of raspberry. Thank goodness for those moments we have to take a step away from the details and enjoy the spirit of it all. We have so much to be grateful for!

Below are some pictures of putting up our tree Nov. 29th. We bought a cheap 15$ tree from Home Depot since we are going to be in Idaho for Christmas. We were proud of our tree, until we got it home and realized it had a 30 degree curve in it and it wasn't really shaped like a christmas tree. Well, at least we haven't found any squirrels living in it. Oh, and Isaac was not dressed like Rudolph for the occasion. His orange nose appears to be storing carotene for the winter. I figure he's gonna have great vision. Below are also a few pictures from our backyard Dec. 1st with 5-6 inches of snow. Every school district around us, except for Lainie's,  called it a snow day. What dedication!