Clara's 3rd Birthday

Clara turned three years old on January 6th. On her birthday, we celebrated as a family by going out to eat at Boston's pizza and then to Boondock's to play in their indoor playground, ride some of their small rides, and play games.




That Saturday, we had Clara's birthday party at Three Little Monkeys, a toy/book store in Kaysville. Clara was so excited to have a birthday party with her friends. Three Little Monkeys did a great job with the party. They had activities, games, and stories for the girls.



Clara loved sitting in the big "princess chair" to open her presents.



And of course, there was cake and ice cream for everyone.

Christmas

This post is a few months late, but never late than never. We had a great Christmas. So much fun, in fact, that we forgot to take very many pictures.

We spent Christmas Eve at Jeff's parents' house. In the past, we have celebrated Christmas Eve with the extended Gittins family, but this year we started a new tradition with just the immediate family. Clara and Ashlyn were both glad that Santa Claus took some time out of his busy schedule to stop by for a visit.



Christmas Eve night was pretty difficult. Ashlyn went to sleep a little early, but then woke up around midnight and would not go back to sleep. Jeff was up until 4:00 in the morning trying to get Ashlyn back to sleep.

Christmas morning was spent opening presents. The girls had a blast opening all of their presents. They must have been very good girls this year, because they got a truckload. We also went to church with Jeff's parents. It was nice to celebrate Christmas with songs and messages about Christ.




Christmas afternoon was spent with Aubree's family, with a delicious lunch, more presents, and lots of games.

Clara's Dance Recital

On December 10th Clara had a dance recital. She did so good! I went to her rehearsal the night before and she didn't really do the dance, so I thought she didn't learn them very well but when the recital came she did most of the moves! They danced twice in a row and after the first dance she saw me and I waved to her and she came to the edge of the stage to talk to me. Luckily there was a little helper to put her back where she needed to go.
This picture is hard to see, but we saw her peaking out behind the curtains at the other dancers.
When all of the dancers came out at the very end they were supposed to bow and then move to the back so the other dancers could come on. Clara was so concerned about finding her little sticker that she wouldn't move back.
Also there were so many people on and around the stage afterward that we couldn't get to Clara right away and I think she got scared and went looking for us and we couldn't find her for a minute so it was a little scary for both of us.
Jeff's sister Wendy and her husband Chase came to congratulate Clara on her first dance recital.

Ashlyn got a little flower for herself too.

Catching Up

We haven't been very good at keeping up on our blog in the past few months. But we finally got around to doing 6 posts below. Enjoy!

Santa Claus

Last week, our ward had a Primary party with Santa Claus. Both girls were happy to sit on Santa's lap, and Clara told him what she wanted for Christmas.

Windstorm

On December 1 - 2, we had a crazy windstorm in Davis County. Wind speeds were nearly 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately, our house suffered some damage. We lost two big trees, a lot of shingles, part of a fence, pieces of rain gutter, and had a lot of garbage blow into our yard.

Anniversary Trip to Vegas

For our 9th wedding anniversary, we took a trip to Las Vegas. Jeff's mom was nice enough to watch our girls for three days so that we could go. We didn't take a lot of pictures, but we sure had a lot of fun.

On the first day, we flew down to Vegas and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Aria Resort, which was AMAZING! We ate at the Aria buffet, and ate so much crab, lobster, and other delicious food that we could hardly move.

The second day we went to the M&M store, the Coca-Cola store, an arcade, and walked around a few hotels. At the Coca-Cola store, we did the "Around the World" soda tasting, where you get 16 different sodas from around the world. Some of them were really good, but some were terrible. There was one drink from Italy that was by far the worst. It was fun to watch other people around us take a drink of it and almost throw up. That night, we ate at a really nice Spanish restaurant in our hotel, then we went to the Venetian and saw "The Phantom of the Opera."

A Jelly Belly Statute of Liberty at the New York, New York hotel

The "Around the World" soda tasting at the Coca-Cola store

Outside our hotel

Of course, we had to stop by the Bellagio for the fountain show

On the third day, we walked around some more hotels, went shopping, and ate lunch at Bobby Flay's restaurant Mesa Grill. It was amazing! That night we saw Cirque de Soleil's "Ka" at the MGM Grand. It was a spectacular production.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. Ashlyn dressed up as a ladybug, and Clara was a "poodle skirt dancer" (as she told people). Luckily, we had good weather this year, so we were able to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood for over an hour. Clara was really loving trick-or-treating, and was sad when we finally had to quit.

The girls went trick-or-treating at Jeff's work