And We're Back, in 3...2...1...

Welcome back to the White Pages, my friends. Welcome back. Several wonderful things have occured in our lives during our short absence in the blogging world. Namely:

* We moved into our new house. Our very own house. A house where I can paint the walls red with yellow plaid if I want to. Not that I want to. But I could! It's a great feeling.

* River turned 3 !

*Sariah got her first tooth and has learned to crawl and walk along furniture. She says momma and dadda, and signs the word 'light' whenever she see's a pretty chandelier or such. She loves chandeliers.


*We had Christmas in Roosevelt, and it was great. and we got to see Grandma White for a whole week before she had to go back to her Washington D.C. Temple Mission. Here she is with Sariah and Macee. (Macee is Sariah's cousin. They are only a month apart...so fun!)

I'm planning on posting more pictures of Christmas, Sariah walking and crawling, our snowman, River's birthday and more about our new house, sometime soon. Stay tuned, it's good to be back!

Vintage Ornaments!

I'm going to an ornament exchange party this week. To get ideas, I've been perusing ebay for vintage ornaments. I LOVE vintage ornaments. Here are a few of my favorites.

Indents are my favorite vintage ornaments. My grandma used to hang some like these on her tree and I would study them for hours. There is something magical about indents, it's like a little world inside each ornament.

Icicle ornaments. Love how long and colorful these are. Love the fruit. Whimsical, no?

Ah, and here are the birds. I've become rather enchanted with the idea of bird ornaments after I saw these.
Real tail feathers!

I'm smitten with these modern birds. I found them on Amazon.com , and they come in purple, gold or red. I'm smitten. Did I say that already?

Okay, back to vintage. How cute are these little elves?

I can't get enough of the plaid pants!

I think the praying child is so sweet. The others, not so much.

Vintage Little Mermaid. Complete with a sting-ray! I don't know what The Little Mermaid has to do with Christmas, but still.

Bulbs with stems so you can stick them on your tree in bunches.
How pretty would that be?

So. Basically, I spent alot of time on ebay and not ornament making. Don't worry, I'll come up with something.

I hope.

We've Got a Talker

Oh Christmas Tree!

Well. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Christmas tree hunting, cookie baking and LOTS of Settlers of Cataan. It was SO good to see my Mom's side of the family, we had a great time hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Hicken's house with everyone. Christmas tree hunting is one of my favorite family traditions. Hiking through the woods really works up an appetite for Thanksgiving turkey. Especially when you are carrying a 15 lb baby, or a 26 lb two year old. I like it!
This is our Christmas tree all decorated and lit up. River was so excited to hang the 'celebrations' on the tree. She had a few special spots she liked to hang all the ornaments...I think there were at least 15 balls in this spot.Yeah, then our tree fell over in the middle of the night. Sadness! When River woke up and saw the tree, she was so confused. "Mom! What happened? All the celebrations fell off the tree... ...Wait! Some are still on! I see some, I see some! Yay!"

Sariah surveys the damage. All that hard work for nothing.

(She's really thinking, "Now, how can I get over to all of those pretty shiny things? She's started crouching over from sitting position to her knees, but can't seem to figure out what to do after that. Crawling is so complicated!)

Anyway, we have yet to re-decorate the tree, but we did finally get it set in the stand straight. One thing at a time! ;)

We thought this was funny and wanted to remember it, so I'll stick it at the end of this post...

When this picture came up at the beginning of the movie we were watching River yelled

"Hey! What's Nephi doing?"

I guess it could be Nephi... a feminine version of Nephi.

Someone Get This Girl Some Legos

I was busy making dinner. River was climbing on the counter, jumping off, running into the living room, climbing up, scampering down, climbing up....you get the picture. I was distracted so I kept saying, "River, quit climbing up and down. You'll fall! Geesh!" After a while River yelled, "Mom, mom! I made a train." Sure enough she'd used books and muffin-tin liners to constructed a 2-D train with a smoke-stack and wheels. She was pretty proud. The next day. ANOTHER TRAIN. This time out of crayons and plastic coins. I find little creations like this all over the place. Bugs, spiders, trains, people. Thank goodness Christmas is coming because River needs some real building materials. One other funny thing. River came to me the other day and asked. "Mommy. Do you want to see my pretty reds?" I said "uh,sure..." and she pulled down her bottom eyelids. "See?!"

Someone has been looking in the mirror too much.

SpOOky Stuff

I took this picture out of our car window as we left for Roosevelt to spend Halloween. The fog hung thick and low on the mountians, it swirled around the car windows, fogging them up. River asked,"Mom, who came and put that white stuff on my window?" We prepared for Halloween all week by carving pumpkins, hanging decorations, and making cookies. Once in Roosevelt we headed over to the farm to visit with the Hickens. We played football on the lodge lawn and ate lunch with Shawn, Aunt Nerry and Grandma and Grandpa Hicken. Halloween night we got the girls dressed up and took them to the ward trunk-or-treat, then went knocking on doors.

River loved trick-or-treating, but I think she was more intersted in all the spooky costumes. At one door, the homeowner asked for a trick, so River roared her loudest ROaR at him. It was so funny. After River's candy bag became too heavy for her to carry, we went over to Grandma Giles house to eat and help her hand out candy. Grandma made us ham and beans, and warm rolls with butter and jam for. It was divine.

My Grandma and Grandpa's house gets tons of trick-or-treaters. Whenever the doorbell rang, River would shout, "Kids!" and she ran with Grandma to the door to help hand out the candy. Some of the older kids had scary costumes, so when she saw them she backed away a couple of steps, then said, "I'm not scared of anything" and ran up to put the candy in their bag. After she braved the monsters she ran back into the house and told everyone, "I'm not scared of anything scary." "I'm not scared of Alligators!" "I'm the scariest!" It was sooo entertaining! She had much more fun handing out candy with Grandma than she did going trick or treating. Sariah couldn't eat the candy, but that didn't stop her from playing with it. Crinkly sound? Check! Fits in one hand? Check! Brightly colored? Check!

Hope your Halloween was as great as ours!

Six Months Ago

Six months ago, Sariah lived in this belly.

(yeah, I know I'm huge. This picture was taken a week after Sariah was due. ) We waited and waited for her arrival, but the day came and went, and no Sariah. A week later, we couldn't wait any longer and told the doctor "we want a baby already!" So we went to the hospital and waited, and waited. Then, finally, in the late afternoon, BAM. Sariah was born. Welcome sweetie! I love this picture of her sucking on her fingers right after she was born. Even a month before she was born we went in for an ultrasound and she had her whole hand inside her mouth and was sucking away. At one month old she was sweet smelling, cuddly and pretty in pink. She gained weight her first week, and was a content little darling. Cameron and I would take turns bouncing her on an exercise ball and she'd quiet down and fall asleep. At 2 months old Sariah got a bad case of baby acne, yet was still adorable. How do babies do that? At 3 months old she became way too cute for clothes. At this point life was great. Sariah was sleeping through the night and we were all used to having a baby in the house.At 4 months old Sariah comes to love hanging out with her River. Her eyes would follow River all around the room and she'd smile when River came close.

5 months old....too cute for clothes, again. She loves her tummy, in fact she won't even sleep on her back anymore, she just keeps rolling over.And a half-year old! Woo hoo! I think her shirt says it all. Cutielicious. And those cheeks!Wow. Just wow. It's hard to tell who she looks like with those cheeks in the way.

6 MONTH STATS

24.5 inches.....25%

15.4 pounds....25%

We were surprised that Sariah is only in the twenty-fifth percentile for weight...she seems so darn chubby. Not saying that we don't love the chubbiness. We do! It's a nice change from River's chicken legs. (which we adore too.)

Some great things Sariah is doing.....

*saying da da da da, ah da da da!

*rolling over one way

*sitting up by herself

*scooching on her tummy

*passing object from one hand to another, and grabbing anything she can get her hands on.

*eating! squash, cereal, sweet potatoes, green beans!

*stealing our hearts
*smiling, smiling, smiling. And laughing once in while...

*she does this thing were she waves her right arm up and down, up and down when she is excited. so cute.

**favorite toys are toothbrushes, paper, and any plastic that makes a crinkling sound

*splashes in the tub, but then it might be the hand waving thing...

Point is, we love you Sariah!

I Guess I'm the Zookeeper

We went to the White's annual Halloween Party this weekend. River dressed up as a very fierce tiger and Sariah went as a giraffe. The adults never dress up for the party, but I wish that they did. Cam and I could have been the zookeepers for our two little animals.

The best thing about the girls costumes are the tails. Sariah's costume has a tiny, spotted, detachable tail. It's velcroed on, for some reason. I guess so you can use the costume as pj's? It's all good though, because we used it to play 'pin the tail on the giraffe'. River thought it was a hoot.

All the cousins were there, and it was a blast. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows outside in Kim's fire pit and then decorated pumpkin cookies and played games in the basement.

We also went and picked our pumpkins at a neighbors pumpkin patch this week. River walked right up to the tiniest green pumpkin sprout and had to have it. We told her it wasn't done growing yet, so she picked out a slightly bigger and partially orange one.

My friend Eirene knitted Sariah's leg warmers. Adorable, right? What can I say? I have talented friends.

In this vid River prances around in her costume. By the way, don't even think about calling her 'River' when she is dressed up. She answers only to 'tiger'.




And here she is again singing "Book of Mormon Stories." The end is the best. She always sings "given this land, if they live, just rightly." Instead of righteously. But if you think about it, righteously means living rightly...so it kinda makes sense!