Christmas Lights.

Emilia had a checkup with her cardiologist yesterday. Her heart is perfect! Not only that, but she weighs 12 pounds, which puts her in the 25th percentile. For my babies that is gigantic! She is "talking" a lot, and is very social. While Dr. Womack was listening to her heart she was talking his ear off. He had a hard time hearing her heartbeat because of the disruption. We finally put up a crib for her and she loves it. It is nice for her to have a protected place where she can move around without getting mauled. She is still the favorite kid at our house.

Up to this point in our married life, Shelby and I have never put up Christmas lights outside. We have always had the best intentions, but then the season gets busy, or it gets too cold outside, and we just let it slide. We were not able to get away with that this season. Our neighbors put theirs up the other day, and it was all Rachel and Lilly talked about for days. "When are we going to get Christmas lights like Amber?" or "I wish we lived at Amber's house." When we finally did put them up Rachel said "I want them on every last tree just like Amber." Darn neighbors. They are up now, and I think they look great. Every night when we turn them on Carson about has a heart attack. He looks out the window and yells "mismis ligh, mismis ligh!" I love that my kids are at the golden age for Christmas. Everything is so magical and exciting, yet their expectations are still pretty low as far as gifts go. Rachel is starting to want a little more expensive gifts, but Lilly and Carson still want very little. This point was illustrated by the following conversation I had with the girls.

Me: Rachel what do you want Santa to bring  you for Christmas?
Rachel: An iPhone and a computer!
Me: Umm..Santa doesn't bring a lot of those to kids.
Rachel: Why not? He knows how to make EVERYTHING!
Me: Lilly what do you want for Christmas?
Lilly: Umm...a coloring book!

We put up our Christmas tree last night. Rachel was telling me not to forget the star. She said, "I know! The person who didn't say the blessing at dinner gets to put the star on top (pause for effect). Hey, I didn't get to say the blessing!" I think Lilly giggled throughout the entire process. Carson spent the evening trying to put his own lights on the tree because that is what Shelby was doing. At the end of it we all sat down to hot chocolate and rice crispy treats, and Shelby and I told them about our own Christmas memories.

For the life of me I cannot remember if I have mentioned Rachel's boyfriend. His name is Walker and he is very sweet. She refers to him as her boyfriend, but I am not sure that he is aware of this. His mom does boot camp with me, so they spend a lot of time together while we are exercising. The two are joined at the hip when they are together. Last night Rachel told me we should do boot camp every day so she could see her friends. I asked her which friends she was referring to and she said "Walker.." "Is that it?" I asked. "Umm, yep."

Ok, two quick funny stories. I was watching Lilly bite her nails with a rather disgusted look on my face. When she noticed me she said "I eat my nails." I told her I thought that was gross and she said "Not snails. Snails are gross. I eat NAILS."

We have really stepped up our family scripture reading lately, in part due to Rachel's insistence. On Wednesday night Rachel and I came back late from karate, and Shelby was on a conference call. It had been a long day, and it was bedtime. Rachel reminded me about scriptures and I told her we were going to skip reading that night. She said "No mom, scripture power! You have to be strong for the family!"