Twas the Hectic Day's Before Christmas...

Elfie did finally make it to our house again this year. 

Apparently there were several snow storms in the 

North Pole that prevented him from arriving to our home earlier in the month.

By the first evening the mantle was littered with letters containing questions 

for Elfie to answer that night.  

Whew, our Elf has a lot of homework each night.

On the last day of school prior to Christmas break 

Brinley participated in the 5th grade talent show.

She performed her Slow Treble Jig, Saint Patrick's Day and the Hornpipe.

Cody was off that day and stayed home with the little girls making it possible for me to watch Brinley in the talent show and participate in both of the girls' class parties.

We were allowed to use the "teacher bathroom" to put on her wig and costume, 

which was SO COOL we even took a picture! 

Brinley with two of her best friends in class.

Avery with her class.

 Preparing for the big day requires bringing Santa to life in a bubble bath.

I was able to attend a holiday gathering that 

a group of members in one of my classes has each year.

It was so fun to spend time with these people who I have grown to know and love over the past seven years. We were able to fit several in this picture but not all that were there that night.

I am lucky to have a job where I am encouraged and inspired by those around me 

and hopefully I am able to motivate and enrich their lives as well.

Yoga and Ollie

This is what I like:

Teaching YOGA.

Taking Yoga classes.

Doing Yoga at home.

Teaching my kids to do Yoga.

  Learning about the benefits of Yoga.

Feeling the benefits of Yoga.

This is what Ollie likes:

To place himself in the center of any action at all times.

 This is what I am TRYING to like:

Ollie's stinky puppy breath.

Ollie's overactive puppy teething needs.

 Cleaning up Ollie pee.

Paying to have Ollie's hair cut every 4-6 weeks.

Making sure Ollie is taken outside 34546 times a day to go potty.

Ollie biting me and wanting to play anytime I am near him.

Paying more money to have Ollie neutered this month.
Bathing Ollie.

 

 Signing off with a picture of this happy sprouting yogi.

Reese Turns TWO

On December 21st Reese turned two. 

On birthday posts most parents say "boy doesn't time fly,"

hmmm, nope, seems like it's definitely time for her to be two.

 Reese loves to do absolutely everything her older sisters do, 

from drinking smoothies to wanting to ride a two-wheeler bike. 

As you can imagine we must dash her hopes at times, often in fact, because she 

is too small/young for many big sister activities.

She has a quick whit and likes to speak loudly. 

Reese came to this earth equipped with a fiery personality,

which I suppose is somewhat of a survival skill as she struggles, 

alongside her three sisters, to continually be the center of attention. 

 Reese is a self proclaimed "HELPER!" She is constantly reminding us of her wonderful "helping" skills as she places herself smack dab in the middle of most cooking, cleaning or art projects OR really anything else that happens to be of interest to her at the moment. 

Oh, and she does expect to be given very important and meaningful tasks OR ELSE.

Sometimes when we need to set the table for a meal

 she is a "HELPER" by lying right in the middle of it.

As you can see, we are able to accomplish tasks with great speed now that we 

have such a helper around the house.

 

Reese is continually asserting her power and authority 

when interacting with our poor puppy Ollie, who happens to have a total of five mothers.

 We crack up as she bosses Ollie all the live long day, everyday.

She can't quite pronounce the word "sit" 

so often we hear her emphatically proclaiming  

"shit Ollie SHIT, SHIT, SHIT OLLIE!!" 

as she prances about the house.

 Reese loves nap time and bedtime because Mommy reads books and sings songs with her. She has become proficient at saying "one more mommy." 

 On her actual birthday we invited the Drexel family 

over for dinner and she was able to open a few gifts afterwards. 

 Notice the headband she stole from Aspen and insisted on wearing more like a bandana.

Oh the evolution of parenthood. 

Oh the exhaustion of parenthood coupled with the sweet, priceless joys of raising four spirited girls. These days of having a toddler learning to talk are numbered. This I now know. 

Someday we will look back and wish more than anything that we had just one more day with our children when they were young. I remind myself of this often. 

Happy Birthday REESE!

Aunt Heather's Visit

Aunt Heather arrived home from her mission in Russia one month ago.

We were lucky to have her come visit our family for a week.

Here are some of the fun things we did with Aunt Heather:

Decorated gingerbread houses.

Attended Ksenia's 10th birthday party at the OSU team 

gym with two other families whom we adore.

Rustam, her dad, was an Olympic Gold medalist is 1996 and is now the OSU Men's Gymnastics coach. We love their family. I am friends with Ksenia's Mom Amber. She is an incredible mother! She home schools her four children, fifth on the way, and teaches Brinley, Avery and Aspen art lessons every week.

It was SO NEAT to hear  

Heather speak fluent Russian to Rustam and Amber.

During her visit we asked Heather to say prayers in Russian several times. 

It was so beautiful to hear the language roll off her tongue as if she were a native.

The kids run like crazies bouncing off the walls in this larger than life playground.

Even Mommy tried a freestyle trick or two.

Begging Rustam to do a trick is clearly a must.

After gym time and a yummy birthday dinner, the Sharipov's actually sent US home with a lovely gift basket containing an art project and shiny rocks for each of the children. 

Heather has some serious hair talent!  

She created these beautiful Russian inspired braids in the girls' hair. 

Aspen loved the braids so much that she requested Heather  

re-create them each morning in her hair.

Can I just say what an awesome relief it was to not have to do Aspen's hair for days on end.

Aunt Heather provided hours of entertainment which included:

-giving piggy back rides

-teaching the girls the "pizza" dance

-creating a play and performing it with the girls

 -playing games

She even wrote "geek" on her forehead and made a silly face during a challenge phase of a game she was playing with Brinley. This officially makes her a very cool Aunt.

She brought gifts for our family all the way from Russia.

The big three girls received a puzzle, Reese a little elephant, Cody and tie and for me she brought back a beautiful pair of earrings which
I am wearing in the photo above that Brinley took for us.

Heather attended three of my classes (Barre, Body Works & Yoga) while she was here.

It was such a DELIGHT to have her smiling face there with me! In Barre she met a fellow instructor at Lifetime named Olga (pictured above) who is from Russia. Heather and Olga struck up a wonderful conversation in Russian and because we wanted that conversation to continue on, we invited Olga and her husband Marty over for dinner Sunday night.

We enjoyed getting to know them better and  
listening as Heather and Olga talked about life in Russia.
We finished off the evening together with our December 25 Days of Christ tradition.

(Eating dinner at our favorite local restaurant)

I hosted my monthly visiting teaching luncheon during Heather's visit so that she could be a guest speaker and share some of her mission experiences. 

She did a great job and inspired us all.

The annual chocolate pudding bath takes place at the Young home every December.

This tradition was born in my childhood.

Of course we wanted to let Heather experience the chaos and delight this tradition brings!

It was certainly helpful to have an additional adult involved.

As we pulled up to the airport Heather handed each of the girls a  

sweet letter she had written to them. 

Reading the letters helped greatly as I pulled away with four girls in tears.

Thank you Aunt Heather for sharing your time and love with our family.
Thank you for sharing mission stories with us each night, we loved hearing them.
Thank you for being you. 

We LOVE you!

Household Happenings

Here are some recent goings on around our house.

I am attempting to do yoga with the children. 

This was encouraged by the girls dance teacher 

because Brinley has been dealing with ankle issues.

Practicing yoga with four children and a puppy is somewhat challenging. The most difficult part is finding time in a typical day between dance practice, homework, school, meals, gymnastics, chores, teaching and the like, but we are TRYING.

Avery is a natural and VERY flexible, Brinley is quite tight and needs yoga the most and Aspen jumps in here and there but has a very short attention span for yoga at this point.

 

The other Saturday after chores were completed Avery and Brinley built an "art fort" 

by the front door and spent quite a bit of time creating various pieces of art work.

 

 Bless her heart, Aspen has a gift for stretching her chore of emptying all the household garbage's into what seems like a half a day. Consequently she was unable to participate in the art fort fun until her chores were accomplished and by that blessed hour the other girls were done.

For Thanksgiving we went out to eat.  

A first AND last for our family. 

The day was simple and nice without massive cooking and clean-up efforts, 

but it just didn't feel quite right.

 

 We have a somewhat extensive manners talk before  

taking the children out to dinner.

Reese took the manners lesson to heart and used her utensils the entire meal, 

even successfully stabbing each of her soda crackers with a fork before carefully lifting them to her mouth. We were ever so thankful that her fork eating soda cracker routine took up a good portion of the meal time.

Brinley didn't eat one bite of her dinner and the poor girl  

threw up the rest of the night. 

 Reese on the other hand ate a great deal of food and 

even licked her plate clean at the end.

 

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is making pioneer taffy together. 

It turned out SO delicious and chewy this year. 

We make peppermint and coconut flavor.

 

 

 The day after Thanksgiving = Family Christmas decorating day. 

 

Ollie makes a good sick child friend... 

sometimes when he can sit still for longer than three seconds.

He is mostly potty trained now, thank heavens,  

but he chews on nearly everything in the entire house. 

 Apparently this can last an entire year??!!

Here are the little girls watching the 

David Archuleta's & Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas broadcast. 

It's really good, you should You Tube it.