December

December was great. We started it off right with a trip to Salt Lake to see the Nutcracker with all the Johnson women. It was probably me and Mim's first real mommy-daughter date that was designated as such.

{All the daughters}

{My big girl}

{Intermission}

It was so fun; I can't wait to go next year. Mim talked about how she was going to go to the ballet to everyone for a full week before. Seriously. Cashiers, people in line at the grocery store, her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles, all her little friends...they all heard about how she was going to the ballet and she was going to wear her new Christmas dress that is PINK! She almost always yelled that part. I gave her those little sparkle ("farkle") shoes the day of the ballet and it put her over the top. Anyway, we went and it was just about the right length for her. She got bored during the first half, but I'm pretty sure everyone does, not just 3 year olds. During the part with the Russian dancers she was bobbing up and down and back and forth in her seat and grinning. Watching her do that was probably my favorite part.

Another new tradition for us this year was the elf on the shelf. Mim couldn't wait to find him first thing in the morning and once when he was in the same place twice she told us that he liked that spot a lot and that's why he was there again. She also asked him to move the next night. I love Scout. It was like magic. All we had to do when she was being the slightest bit naughty was remind her that Scout was listening/watching and she was right back in line. Fantastic.
To make sure we didn't focus too much on her negative behavior, we also had her report good things she did throughout the day, like "Oh, Mim! You finished all your dinner and have been so polite! Go tell Scout so he can tell Santa how awesome you are!"

 Our elf wasn't very naughty. We decided to hold off on that for a few years and wait until Mim would think they were really hilarious. I was also a little worried about confusing her- I mean, why really would one of Santa's elves be naughty? Anyway, he brought Mim and Eleanor little ornaments a few times.

I wasted no time this year and got the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and while it was there we always read Christmas bedtime stories in front of it. And Mim also started ending her prayers by saying "Christmas" instead of "Amen." Just remembering that makes me chuckle.

 Eleanor helped decorate for Christmas, too.

 Taking presents to my grandparents was fun; I'm so glad my girls will know their great-grandparents. (I totally forgot to get a picture of them with my Gramma Harper-boo to me.)

 Oh, this next one makes me laugh. It's the girls in their Christmas dresses the Sunday before Christmas. Eleanor was due for a nap, but I wanted a picture before I changed her. She was angry, Mim was sticky and messy and no one was smiling. This is really the best picture I got by far. Yep.

I forgot my favorite part of September!

It was this:

Sunday drives up the canyon to see the leaves. They were beautiful and it was super fun to hear Mim's thoughts about the fall. She was excited about every color and would exclaim almost nonstop sometimes. She also kept repeating how fall was here because the trees were all different colors.

Another favorite fall picture of mine:

Yeah, sometimes I coordinate what they wear. It's adorable.

Thankful pictures in November

I tried to do a thankful picture a day on Instagram during November. Here's what I did, in no particular order (except the first three).

{Mike, of course}

{This sweet girl}

{Mim really wanted to pretend to be asleep for this picture}

{Good books to read}

{Good music to listen to/play. Like the Downton Abbey theme.}

{Washing machine}

{Thankful for this country and the right to vote}

{Our garden and the technology to preserve it, too}

{Naps}

{Danger the cat}

{Bathtime. Also bubble beards.}

{Family dinners}

{Date nights}

{My dad and all the great dads around me}

{My sisters. These ones, and all the ones I married into.}

{Thankful that the DMV guy didn't make me retake the test, even though I technically should have.}

{My mom. And my mother in law. And my grandmas.}

{My brothers. All of 'em.}

{Fires in the fireplace}

{Christmas decorations and the holidays}

{Our cars}

{Our home}

{My health and my family's health}

I missed a few days for sure, but I am so grateful for all the wonderful things in my life.

Sooo, October, I guess and some September

I really just want to post about Christmas stuff, but the thought of going non-chronologically makes me crazy, so here we go.

October was great. We had a lovely, long, warm fall and Mim got to play outside a bunch. We all went bowling together as a family for the first time, too. (I actually think this was in September.)

Mim thought it was pretty great. Mike and I took turns chasing down Eleanor when she would make a break for the doors. (Also, Mim picks her own outfits. She's been doing it since before she turned 3, so it's not new, but I definitely didn't want any credit for this ensemble.)

Mim also started preschool this year. She was looking forward to it for months and was thrilled when we got her new backpack (that she helped pick out online) in the mail. I have a cute picture of her on her first day of school that's on my laptop, so I'll have to post that another time, when I'm not on Mike's monstrous work computer (which is necessary because of house rearranging, which I'll get in to later).

 Sometimes they snuggle when they watch a show. It's pretty cute.

 This one of my dad makes me pretty happy.

I was trying to catch Eleanor in a "jump." This is the closest I came. Now when she jumps she actually gets off the ground. Jumping around in her crib and on Mim's bed are a few of her favorite pastimes. Around this time is when she would say "What?" in response to her name. Pretty adorable.

Mim loves hide n go seek, and plays it sometimes even when I don't know we're playing it. She got me pretty good with this one:

Here's a good October story- I kept hearing this weird noise one day while I was doing dishes. It was coming from our front door and I couldn't pin it down, so I turned off the water and went and got the door and there was Leeroy Jenkins, my favorite chicken. She's awesome. She follows people all around and apparently wants to come hang out in the house.

Here she is on my knee, just hanging out.

Speaking of chickens, sometime in September Mike and I ran this little experiment:

The two on the top are organic cage free eggs from the supermarket, the bottom middle is from one of our birds, and the two on either side of that are just normal supermarket eggs. Kind of cool, huh?

In October we got crazy in the basement and cut some giant holes in the floor and walls. We hired people, actually. Paid people to demolish our house.

They had to do quite a bit of jackhammering to put in pipes for the new bathroom downstairs as well as a new floor drain in the utility closet. It was such a mess. Way worse than the basement usually was (and it would periodically get pretty terrible). After the pipes were all done, we could then hire the people to cut giant holes in our walls. It was crazy. It was a major step in getting some awesome windows down there, though.

 Egress windows shown here:

 Mike and his dad installed them and it made a huge difference in how much more livable the basement seemed.

Mid-October, we went on a trip to Vegas with Kaid and Jenny. Kaid had been planning on taking Jenny for her birthday, and I wanted to take Mike for his birthday/belated 5 year anniversary, so we decided to all go together. It was super fun.
In the car on the way there:

 We rented a Charger, which was pretty awesome. We also got stuck in traffic for about an hour, half of which was spent stuck next to a pig truck. Gross.

We loved our room. We stayed at the Trump Hotel and it's definitely up there as one of the nicest places we've ever stayed. The bathroom mirror had a tv in it, which I totally loved for some reason.

The first night we were there we went and ate at Mesa Grill- one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. Such a good steak. Oh wow. It was some good food.

The next morning we went out to look at hotels along the strip. I finally saw the lighting fixture at the Bellagio, which I have always wanted to do. Ever since I found out about Dave Chihuly, at least. Now I want to go to one of his museums. Anyway, it was beautiful.

 Giant flower poms at the Encore. Also gorgeous.

 Also that day we went to the Mirage and saw the dolphins and the tigers and lions. I just kept wondering what happened to the tiger that attacked Roy.

Later that night we tried to get into the Bacchanal buffet at Caesar's Palace, but the wait was so long that we ended up going to Serendipity so we could get to our show on time. Frozen hot chocolate did not disappoint. And neither did the show. We saw "O" by Cirque du Soleil and it was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Wow. The stage was crazy- a ton of different sections that moved up and down and filled with water. It was sooooo cool. People were on swings, then would jump off and get maybe 30 feet in the air and flip like crazy and then end in a perfect dive, 5 or 6 feet away from someone else who was flying off a swing in the opposite direction. I have been wanting to see Cirque du Soleil since high school, when my French teacher first showed us a clip.

Since we were at the Bellagio, we caught a few fountain performances, including "Time to Say Goodbye," which I think is one of the most beautiful songs ever. It was just a WOW night. It's probably good that we didn't get into Baccanal that night- it would have been too much awesome. Oh, we also had a crazy cab ride that night. I feel like my first cab ride ever definitely lived up to all the crazy tv clichés that I've ever seen. Foreign cab driver, lots of honking and sudden braking and accelerating, there was even a smell. Not terrible, but not great.

The next day we went out, did some more looking about, some shopping, Mike and I had a nap, then we went to dinner and David Copperfield. It was so cool. He made AN ENTIRE CAR disappear. Also a motorcycle. And he walked through a fan and appeared in the audience (which made me feel like I was in the Prestige). Also, I read an article a few weeks later about one of his stage guys getting really injured by a fan blade during a show. I think it was during a show, at least. I don't remember and am too focused right now on just writing all this stuff up to get detoured and find out what happened for sure.

Also, before David Copperfield, we went early to dinner and waited in line for about 2 hours to get into Bacchanal. It was amazing. And delicious. (Thanks to Uncle Andrew for the recommendation) Mike had an entire plate of crab legs, so he was in buffet heaven. Everything they had there was amazing, at least of the stuff I tried. We spent a good hour and a half eating before we had to leave and get to the show.

The next day we drove home. I was getting pretty anxious to see the girls and find out how they were doing. We hadn't had great contact while we were gone because for some reason we didn't get great cell phone reception in our hotel room and it was just so LOUD everywhere. It was wonderful to see them. This was the first time I'd ever left them overnight and it was pretty weird, although I think I let go of my mom anxiety enough to still have an awesome time. Anyway, seeing them again was great- we gave them some stuffed tigers that we picked out at the Mirage.

The day before Halloween was Mike's last day at Access Data. He quit to devote himself to Decipher Forensics full time and it's been really awesome so far (kind of tricky right now since he's temporarily lost his dedicated office space) and I'm really excited that he's living his dream and being his own boss. And being awesome.

On to Halloween. This is the best picture I got of both the girls in costume. A princess and a little baby girl dragon. I made Mim's dress and added the bow to Eleanor's Costco dragon costume. Mike took Mim trick or treating for the first time and she just loved it. (Eleanor was at home in bed, so I was also home, so this is second hand from Mike.) I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get our whole family theme done, like I had planned (and did in the past here and here), but Mike was crazy busy making the transition to working at home and full-time self-employment. Since he was going to be too busy to go to any parties, I nixed even starting a costume for him (he was going to be a knight). Since he wasn't dressing up, I wasn't going to either. I was going to be Mim's lady in waiting/serving woman. Maybe next year