Ready for Christmas!

We are excited for Christmas in this house. The kids call everything we do lately a Christmas party.

We made probably 5 dozen sugar cookies, and out of that barely got 3 plates of edible cookies to take to our neighbors. We had lots of fun and made a huge mess.

Busy Boy

William is good at being a toddler. He's so much fun, but we have to keep right on top of what he's doing to keep him safe!







I love his adorable face and wild baby hair.

All I want for Christmas is my 4 front teeth

Poor Micaela seems to lose her teeth 4 at a time. Well, she has them pulled 4 at a time. She has plenty of room for those adult teeth to grow in now.

Before, baby teeth intact:


After, admiring her new space:


Also, in the past 2 weeks Micaela has gotten very into playing the piano and has learned a bunch of new songs. She practices (very briefly) at least 20 times a day. It's amazing what kids can do when they (all of a sudden, mysteriously) get motivated!

Crazy trip

Jason and I went to Europe! Crazy, huh? He had job interviews in Switzerland and Hungary, which we nearly missed due to most of our original flight plan being cancelled because of plane malfunctions, stupidity, etc. But we got everything rearranged and he narrowly made it to both interviews. It was a crazy few days, though!
In between red-eye flights and trains, we got to see parts of Zurich and Budapest. (Jason served his mission in Hungary and lived in Budapest for several months, so that was a fun little trip down memory lane.) My mom and sister were so nice to take care of our kids so we could take our first vacation alone since our honeymoon! (thanks, Mom and Holly!)

Here's a pic of us near our hotel in Zurich:

(you'd think I could have gotten someone else to take that instead of taking it myself at that great flattering angle..) :)

Our hotel sat on this lake:


This was the view from the train station in Zurich. Most of the buildings there looked pretty similar to this one:


And one of us in Hero's Square in Budapest: