Happy Birthday, Dan!

This year for Dan's birthday, we spent it in Woodland and Park City. Dan spent the day napping and watching his new present...Star Wars!

Then we all headed to Park City to go out to dinner at Red Banjo Pizza.

We had quite the crowd there!

Anne had so much fun hanging out with her cousins!

Sophie was really hungry!

It was a fun night! Happy Birthday Dan!!!

Christmas...part 2

Since Daddy was working night shifts and Christmas was on Sunday, we decided to wait to do family gift exchange on the 27th. The wonderful thing was the girls didn't even know and they were quite content with all they got on Christmas morning. What does that tell you? Anyway, so we got to wake up the girls for presents a second day!

Anne was super excited and Sophie just wanted to play with more paper!

Sophie working on opening her present.

So, this is the gift Dan got from Trav and Laurel except he didn't see the gift card on the underside of the lid. He was busy looking at the random phone book and hard candy corn trying to figure out what his present was! I was laughing really hard!!!

The girls got a play tent from Grandma and Grandpa Rea. They LOVE it!

Anne even slept in it one night!

Playing in the tent! Anne also got some dress up clothes so we dressed up little Sophie!

And from Nana and Papa...a princess table and chairs! Also very loved and very much used! It was a great Christmas this year!

Christmas!

The night the girls had been waiting anxiously for was finally here...CHRISTMAS EVE!!! After taking a nice bath, we read a Christmas story together next to the Christmas tree.

And then we hung up our stockings!

And sure enough when we woke up the next morning...Santa had been here!!!

Santa stuffs all of our stockings, leaves us each our favorite box of cereal and gives the girls each one present! We love Santa! =)

Priorities...Anne went right for her stocking and Sophie went right for her bottle!!!

Daddy was so disappointed in the Toblerone size this year! (Mommy made it up to him when she found the large size in Park City. Santa should have checked that store on his way here!)

Sophie ready to open her present from Santa!

Hurray...she got a Fisher Price farm!

Anne with her present from Santa...an Ariel doll that can also go in the tub with her!

Then we got ready to go to church!

RIGHT after church...Anne had to play with her new doll!

It was such a nice relaxing Christmas morning.

Snowflake

We had so much fun with Snowflake this year. Here is a little recap of a few things we found her doing!

She would get out treats for us or leave little gifts for the girls!

She loves to play and explore!

Ane she didn't let us forget to make cookies for Santa!

Anne wrote a note to Santa thanking him for letting Snowflake come stay with us and asked if she could come back next year!

Christmas Eve we left Snowflake by Santa's cookies and holding his note.

Olympic Oval

I think this was the most fun thing we did during the Christmas holidays! We first took the girls to Sizzler for dinner.

We then went to the Olympic Oval in Kearns to go ice skating. They allow strollers on the ice so all of us were able to go at once! And it was great for me so I would have something to hold on to at all times!

Anne is doing so well! She is daddy's little buddy out on the ice!

Anne and Daddy with the big Christmas tree behind them as we were taking off our skates and getting ready to go home. This is definitely going to become a family tradition!

Merry Christmas!

2011 has been a busy year for the Cartier Family!

DAN has been busy facilitating at work. It gives him extra hours each day and he is enjoying it! This summer he also put in a garden for our family. It was great being able to enjoy the fruits...actually more vegetables...of our labors!

ALISHA has been extra busy this year going from one thing to another! She was released as the Relief Society President only to find herself busy with a new charter school coming to Magna. She was recently named a member of the school board. She is also busy serving as a primary teacher and was just called as the YW camp leader!

ANTONIA has been busy learning! She started preschool this year and just loves her teacher! She is learning how to write her name and is just such a smarty pants! She also took her first ice skating class, which she loved! Anything that involves interacting with other kids is her favorite!

SOPHIE has been busy growing up! We can't believe she is already one year old! We call her our little scooter because she loves to scott on her bum rather than crawl!

Lights at Temple Square

We decided to bundle up the kids on Sunday and go see the lights at Temple Square. Sophie wasn't very thrilled about being bundled up!

But we still were able to get smiles out of her!

Those eyes just melt my heart!

And of course Anne keeps us on our toes and laughing!

Sophie just loved looking at all of the lights!

We took our friends, Patrick and Kathy! We just love these two!

What a family photo! But we sure do love each other!

And Dan never disappoints with his photo skills!

We also went into the Assembly Hall to listen to a little bit of a concert but the girls got restless. We had such a great time!

Day 4 with Snowflake & decorating the tree

This morning when we woke up, Snowflake had the camera and tripod all set up! When we looked on the camera, this is what we found!

She had gone around and taken pictures of herself playing upstairs! My favorite is the one of her on the top of the doll house looking down the chimney!

The girls are having fun finding her each morning!

And then tonight we decided to get the decorations up on the tree! Sophie was SOOOO helpful...too much!

Anne handing daddy the ornaments

These are the ornaments we got for the girls this year. It has their names on them.

Santa's little helpers once the tree was decorated!

Thank goodness for friends who give you their tree fences! It is a must need this year!

Proof that it works! Sophie was so sad she no longer had access to the tree and then wandered away to find something else to destroy...I mean, play with!