Family Pictures

We've been trying for a while to get a good family picture, but with kids, it's always a challenge. Here are some of our latest attempts:


Before Bribery


After Bribery


Here are a couple good pics of the kids:

Zade's 1st Christmas

Christmas

GRANDPA'S BIRTHDAY
We got together with Tara's family to celebrate her dad's 67th birthday. We had a great meal at Chin-Wah (I love saying the name of that restaurant) and then had cake and ice cream afterwards.


SNOW SHOEING
Tara and I went shoe showing with her siblings while her parents watched the kids. It was a beautifully foggy day.



CHRISTMAS EVE
As was tradition, we re-enacted the Christmas story, with Tara's family and her aunt Marjorie's family.



CHRISTMAS MORNING
We all gathered at Tara's parents' house with all her siblings.


Aria was excited to receive Barbies, a Dora doll, and most especially, little Tinkerbell fairies. She also was really into the outfits she received, and tried on multiple ones before the morning was over.




As expected, Zade was most excited about the wrapping paper.



This was my favorite present that Zade received from my folks. :) Go Beavs!


GINGERBREAD HOUSES
Aria had fun decorating a gingerbread house with her Aunt Shara.

Swinging and laughing

This is reminiscent of how Aria responded to Tara yelling "boo". (see blog post "Grownling Mommy" on 10/10/2008)

Holiday fun in the desert

We went to see the Christmas lights at Winterhaven again this year.


Zade is wearing the same outfit Aria did last year to this event. He's growing like a weed:


Aria was in love with this display of Disney princesses.


When we tried taking her picture in front of that display, she freaked out for some reason and this is the pic we got:


RANDOM MOMENTS

Funny faces when eating:




Kids being kids:

Zade Live

Here are a few fun video clips we took of Zade recently.

This one in the tub reminds us of little Aria. (See Aria at similar age in blog post "Splish Splash" on 11/23/2008)

Here's a clip after the ward Christmas party. Zade had suckered us into sharing our hot cocoa with him, which made him pretty zippy.

Mineral Oil

About a month ago we purchased something second hand, which apparently came with the free bonus of bed bugs. Yeah :( After dealing with the situation, we put little bowls of mineral oil underneath all our beds to ensure that any bed bugs that we missed would die if they attempted to come upon us in the night. Interestingly, even though mineral oil is lethal to bed bugs, our cat Mira thought it was delicious. We kept catching her licking the stuff up. Little did she know that mineral oil serves as a laxative. :) When cats have discomfort, they often lick themselves profusely, which soon commenced. Apparently Mira was hooked, because even the adverse affects didn't stop her from consuming her drug of choice, so we eventually had to stage an intervention and removed the temptation from each room. :) Her fur is now starting look normal again.


BABY PICTURES
We also took Zade in to have some baby pictures taken, but as luck would have it, he decided to be cranky for once in his life, and refused to smile. Considering how freely he gives out smiles all the time, it's ironic. We may have to settle for taking pictures of him at home, like this one.


And here's a nice pic we got of Aria: