Snow Day!

Wow, we loved all that snow last week!
Hannah slept on my back:

Bethany made lots of snowballs to take "to market, to market" and spent some time "falling off the mountain."

She also invited me to her birthday party (about 5 months early). Apparently, Hannah was not allowed to have any "cake":

How Many Kisses?

I wonder how many kisses Hannah gets each day. Probably about 300,000! Who can blame me?

Here, Hannah couldn't figure out how to crawl forward, so she backed herself under the couch!

Bring on the cheesy grin and fat rolls!

Happy President's Day!

For President's Day, we thought it was time to teach Bethany about the presidents. She loved this book! We sat there for such a long time looking at pictures of presidents, with Bethany asking questions ("What's he doing?" or "Is he dead yet?") What a little history buff!

4 years!

We have been married four years! We did a fun little dinner on our anniversary, then Hiram took Liz, Bethany, and Hannah to the spot where he proposed. We did a little family hike there. It was so fun! 

Hiram blindfolded Liz during the drive and the walk down to the stream. Bethany helped alleviate some of the suspense: "Look, Mom! Here are some roses for you!" (Followed by Hiram saying, "Shhh..." He had to hide them first!)

Hannah was safe in her car seat the whole time...

After our "hike," we went over to Mary's house for dinner. Throughout the course of the night, Bethany got hot chocolate on her shirt and skirt. When we left, she had nothing left to wear:

What a fun day!

Cheap Thrills

Bethany keeps us so entertained!

Here she is after a chair broke in the kitchen. Great climbing apparatus!

Here she is with her toy cell phone, probably calling one of a handful of people saying a couple of sentences, then hanging up.

She made a castle at Lowe's, and it's full of all sorts of fun stuff. It' given her hours of entertainment!

It has a centipede inside! So scary!...

...but don't worry, the princess will give you a kiss, so you don't have to be scared anymore!

And this picture says it all:

Can You Guess the Real Parents?

We've noticed a weird trend in our pictures of Hannah: she keeps appearing to be other people's child!

Here's Hannah with Uncle John and Aunt Amy

Here she is with Uncle Thomas and Aunt Jessica

And then there's proud Uncle Mike.

Just for the record, here's the real family:)

Excuses, Excuses

"My baby ate my homework."

Who would really believe that?

Happy Hannah

We love our little Hannah! Since most of the fun stuff in our blog seems to happen while she's sleeping, we thought we'd include some of Hannah's many fun moments:

Happy Hannah

We love that smile!

What's even better than a Hannah? TWO Hannahs!

Hungry Hannah

This was the first time she tried rice cereal. She liked it so much she had to eat it off her high chair tray!

Helping Hannah

Hannah likes to help put clothes away

Bethany LOVES to help Hannah too:)

Nap Time Hannah

"Deer in the headlights" Hannah

Meditating Hannah

Yay Hannah!

Happy Birthday Liz!

Liz turned 29 again this year- 4 years in a row...:)

Hiram made the  cake. Liz couldn't blow all of the candles out- a sign of old age.Or a sign that she was leaning over a wiggling baby. 

Hiram got Liz a mini foosball table. He admitted that it might have been a LITTLE more for him than for Liz. But we've had a very fun time with it. Even Bethany likes to play- she's always on the winning team. She just picks up the ball and puts it in the goal. Good strategy:)

Temple Square

At the beginning of December, for one of our Advent Calendar activities, we took the [very crowded] train to Temple Square. We brought dinner and a stroller. Bethany still talks about it!

Hannah was all packed up in her baby carrier.

The lights were gorgeous, as always.

There were singers inside one of the visitor's centers, and Bethany had to dance along!

We'll have to do this every year!

The Best Thornton Christmas EVER!

Christmas was so fun this year! I wanted to start some fun family traditions, since Bethany is old enough to sort of understand Christmas. First, I made an advent calendar out of paper bags and magazine clippings:

Each day, we had some sort of activity that would lead up to Christmas. Some days, there was an ornament to put up on our tree, too. And these activities were sometimes pretty mundane, or things we would have done anyway. Like putting up our snowman door decoration. I also tried to get a bit crafty and make the girls each their own ornament. You can sort of see them in this picture: little teddy bears with their pictures in them:

By the way, this was a mini Christmas tree we happen to have, and most of our ornaments were removed from our REAL tree by a certain little girl and placed on this tree instead:)

Bethany LOVED our manger scene and acting out when happened when Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. In this picture, they're all sleeping.

 Bethany found another use for our Christmas stockings.

Here are some pictures of the girls by our Christmas tree(s):

On Christmas Eve, we went over to the Thornton grandparents' house and played a bit.  

WE LOVED THIS CHRISTMAS!

Friends

Liz has been able to pick up some extra shifts at work with the help of our friends Carol and Janelle. They watch Bethany and Hannah while we can't. Bethany LOVES going over there and playing with Janelle's little boy, Ryan, who is Bethany's age. And Carol gives Bethany all of the juice she wants, which is something she certainly doesn't get at home:) Sometimes, Bethany probably wishes that Liz worked more... Here they are: 

Ryan is such a huggy little boy!

Smile, Bethany!

Reading about monster trucks at our house