My Christmas Gift to the Savior

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love the way cities light up, the way people come together giving to others; I love the hustle and bustle of shopping in the crowded stores. I love sledding (when there's snow...), making ginger-bread houses, the smell of my Christmas candle. And I love the music. Ah, the music. But there is one thing in particular that makes Christmas the most special time of year to me.
Each year my family gets together on Christmas Eve. We spend time together eating dinner, acting out the nativity scene, and each of us gets to unwrap one present. But my favorite part of the evening is when we give our "gifts" to the savior for his birth (like the three wisemen). We sit together, and, as our gifts to the Savior, we share our testimonies of the gospel. It is truly my favorite night of the year. This year, my heart is very full, and so I would like to share my testimony of the Savior with all of you. I know that my savior came to this earth as a tiny infant in the most humble circumstances. He lived a perfect life, and set the perfect example to follow. I know He suffered in Gethsemane for our sins. My sins. It hurts me to know that he suffered because of me. But I am thankful that He did. He lived and died for us so that we may repent of our sins and come to Him. And because of Him we may return to live with our Father in Heaven once more. I am so thankful to Him for all He has done for me. I know he knows each one of us. He knows our needs and our trials. And He is there to comfort us.
He is my Lord, my Redeemer.
I am so thankful for this knowledge, and to know that I am a daughter of God. I know He loves us and wants us all to return to Him someday. I pray that this Christmas season, we may all take the time to remember why we celebrate Christmas.
Merry Christmas, everyone!

So Sweet

I was just putting the kids down for their naps. I went downstairs and I could hear Cassidy crying in her room. As I walked back up the stairs to see what was the matter, the crying turned to screams. I went in and asked what was the matter. Cassidy said very sadly, "I love you, too." I always say, "I love you" as I walk out the door, and apparently I had shut the door before hearing her response. Isn't that so sweet?

Keepin' up with the Keepers!

Okay, so this might sound very lame to some of you...but I am bored of our blog name: Keeper Life. The other week I was telling some friends how we already had our Christmas tree up (yes, this was before Thanksgiving). My friend said, "Ooh, we need to keep up with the Keepers!" And I thought it was SO funny and catchy. I thought I had heard it all. At the hospital people would say about our baby girl, "She's a Keeper!" and "You should 'Keep 'er!" I didn't realize that our name could have any more puns.
Long story short--I want to re-name our blog "Keepin' up with the Keepers", because it's how our friends and family "keep up" or current with our lives. But Joel thinks it's offensive and will make people think our blog is a big show-off or contest...you know, "keepin' up with the Jones." Believe me, I know my blog is not the best, nor do I care for it to be. I just want to re-name it. So I figure, if I can get you guys to take the poll (it's anonymous), then we can settle this once and for all. (Don't worry-our marriage is not suffering due to this difference in opinion). Thanks in advance!

He has a tooth!

Today is November 10, which means Baby Ethan is now eight months old! Wow, time goes by quickly. A couple days ago I noticed that if you look in his mouth, you could see some little white teeth on bottom (still inside the gums). Then today I reached in and there is a tiny tooth poking through! This explains all his fussiness lately, and makes me feel bad. He kept waking up from naps early and screaming, and I didn't know what his problem was. I was frustrated, so I even let him cry himself back to sleep this afternoon (he only cried a few minutes). But still! The poor guy was in real pain, and I just let him cry. He's over it by now, if you can't tell from his picture below:

I will post tooth pictures once the tooth gets big enough to catch on camera.

The video below I took last week. He had been laughing even harder before the camera came out (of course).

If you are wondering how my teaching is going...it's a roller coaster. Planning lessons and correcting homework, quizzes and tests is like doing laundry. It is NEVER DONE!! And as for my students, they have good days and bad days. Sometimes they drive me up the wall and I can't wait for that bell to ring. But other times we have so much fun that the bell rings with out me even realizing that class is nearly over. I recently went to a Foreign Language conference, and got tons of ideas, so right now we are on the fun side again. Hooray!

I guess a good way to measure how well things are going would be to not ask me (since I'm too negative about myself), but rather ask others. For example, my students often tell me French is their favorite class (yay!), my administrators often tell me what an excellent job I do (yay!) and my mentor usually has only good things to say (yay!). Plus, they have put me on as Jing's mentor (the Chinese teacher who I share a room with), so that says something, right? A first year teacher mentoring another teacher? I was flattered.

Ha ha, do you like how I tricked you into reading about my teaching with pictures of my baby?

Yes, I have my moments!

pea in a pod

We had a fun fun Halloween season, and are sad it is over! We went to a corn maze/pumpkin patch with some friends and had a blast. Cassidy and Ethan got to ride the cow train. Cassidy's friend Emma was such a big girl and held Baby Ethan on the train.

They had a huge "sand box" filled with corn! Brilliant idea; Cassidy loved it! I thought about putting one in my back yard, but it smelled kind of funny. Plus, where do you find that much corn?

We all had fun making our pumpkins. I am anti-guck so I painted mine and so did Cass. Joel's pumpkin got a little hungry and ate Baby Ethan's pumpkin.

Cassidy was a cheerleader for Halloween and I thought she was SO cute! But she didn't think that was good enough. She insisted that she was a "cheerleader princess."

Baby Ethan was a pea in a pod!

After trick-or-treating to our neighborhood for a while, we went to a fun Halloween carnival by my sister's house.Showing off her cheerleader skills!"Forget trick-or-treating!

This is WAAAAY better!"

This has nothing to do with Halloween, but I thought baby Ethan looked so adorable in his little suit that I had to post it!

Happy day-after-Halloween, everybody!

top ten

I thought I would write about my kids' top ten favorite things/things to do. This is probably just as much (or more) for me than it is for you. But enjoy:

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Baby Ethan:

10. pretending he can't sit up on his own...we know he can; he just won't!

9. car rides...they still put him fast to sleep.

8. mornings...he is always smiling when I go in to get him.

7. breakfast, lunch and dinner...he gobbles them up! We even made up a silly song about how much he eats. It goes:

He eats when he's happy,
he eats when he's sad...
and when he's not eating, he gets really really mad.
So we feed him when he's happy;
we feed him when he's sad;
we feed him when he's really really really really mad!

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6. sucking on things...toys, fingers, his toes, our toes (we don't let him, although he's tried), mommy's necklaces, etc.

5. snuggle time in the morning with Daddy, while Mommy races off to work.

4. Momm'ys hair...he loves how it tickles his face. He gets so excited.

3. the Jumperoo...he loves to jump!

2. peek-a-boo...what baby doesn't love that game?

1. Cassidy...he loves his sister the most; she can make him laugh so hard!

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Princess Cassidy:

10. singing silly songs all day (see example above)

9. teasing her baby brother

8. going to Elizabeth's house (her sitter)

7. going pee in potty while we are out and about (and while the cart is full to the top)

6. her "princess movie" (Enchanted)

5. riding her little pink "bike"...she needs a new one; she has totally outgrown that push bike.

4. shopping...go figure

3. playing with friends or cousins

2. her princess dresses

1. dance class...she will do ANYTHING to get to go to dance class!

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Baby Ethan recently started growling the word, "dadadada". Last week Cassidy said, "Baby, say 'dada'," to which he replied, "dadadada." Cassidy then said, "Good job. Say 'Elizabeth'."

La famille

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