The Denver Aquarium

Saturday we went to the Denver Aquarium in down town Denver. It was a blast. The kids loved it. Zoey was running all over the place, and she loved the otters. There was one that kept doing backflips off the wall in the water. She laughed and laughed. The colorful frogs were also a favorite, and the tigers. After she was all done at one tank, she'd day, lets go find more fish, or lets go to the next one! She ran the whole thing. Liam loved watching the fish swimming and couldn't figure out why he could not touch them. He'd poke the glass and then look at his finger like it was broken. all in all, a very fun family outing!

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! Zoey and Liam are on over load. Zoey woke up at 7:30 this morning and ran into our room. "Santa came! Santa Came!" We let Liam sleep a little more and went out to see what Santa had brought. Zoey was thrilled with her princess scooter, sit and spin, and Princess art kit. Damon loved his replacement wedding band ( he lost his other one about a year ago), and large supply of jerky and cashews. I was thrilled with a kate spade diaper bag that I had been eyeing for months, fabulous knee high leather boots, and a ton of new make-up. It was agreat chirstmas. Both kids had too many presents, we actually snuck 6 away for a later date. It was wonderful to have Christmas with our little family. I am calling this christmas the attack of the Barbies and Sports Balls.

Christmas eve we went to farrish by woodland park and went sledding, and had hot chocolate, and played in the snow with our friends the Ovards and the Nixons. It was a blast, and a great way to spend the day. That night we opened our christmas jammaz, ate sausage and eggs, and watched the luke two, and Zoey was facinated by it. I have been letting her play with the nativity and she gets it all but the wise men. Pretty good for a 3 1/2 year old. I can point to different figures and she'll say, baby Jesus, baby Jesus's Mommy, ect. Her favorite was baby Jesus, and the sheep. After Liam went to bed, we watched the grinch with Zoey. After she went to bed, we got to talk to my brother Max in Estonia on his mission. He sounded like he was still adjusting. Then Santa came! It was a great night.

We are so blessed. It was wonderful to celebrate the birth our our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you all had wonderful christmas as well.

Zoey's Christmas Message

Love to you all.

Damon, Rachael, Zoey and Liam

Cody's visit to Colorado

My brother Cody is here for the weekend! It has been so fun to have him all to ourselves. We haven't really hung out since he got home from his mission. He is really enjoying hanging out with one of my former young women, Brealle Taylor. They seem to have hit it off quite well. Look at me, I'm a matchmaker. ;) They are cute together. We went on a double date last night to dinner at Wahoos and then went to the Broadmor and walked the grounds. It was beautiful and quite romantic. There was the coolest black guy and his wife there and he was complaining about how cold it was. He said they had been married 45 years. I told him congrats, and he said, "Awww. We're still datin'." That impressed me so much. You could tell that they really loved eachother. I hope Damon and I will be like that after 45 years. Then we drove around the beautiful neighborhood around the hotel. That is where I would like to live someday, if I ever become massively wealthy, have 8 kids, and want to clean that big of a house...

Zoey is really anticipating Christmas this year. It is so fun to see her wave hi to every Santa figure she sees. I am going tell her about Santa's elves tonight and have cody be outside with jingle bells so she can hear them. I love Christmas.

Liam is officially mobile. He can army crawl with the best of them. My presents under the tree are needing to be relocated. He has a new love of the circus animal cookies.

Merry Christmas!!

The Polar Express

We are hangin' out in Durango, Colorado. The drive here yesterday was crazy. The wolf creek pass had so much snow that it was higher that the pacifica. In some places the snow was so high that you could not see the speed limit signs! Damon found out that they got 7 feet in a 24 hour period. Wow. My brother Cody is dying to get here to snowboard. He will be here on thursday!

Today was really fun. We went swimming, and played at McDonalds, went to fuzziwigs candy store, and serious texas bbq. If you haven't been there, its worth the trip to durango just to eat there. They have the best ribs. By far and a away the best thing was riding the polar express train this evening. Zoey and Liam's eyes were like saucers. Zoey has never been so excited about something except when grandma and grandpa come. She kept asking all day, "lets go ride the express!" or " Lets see Santa!" She even broke out in to song a few times. "Santa clause is coming to town!" This is the first Christmas that she really understands whats going on. It is so much fun for me. Zoey was so excited to see the train pulling up to the station, with all the steam and the whistle blowing. She loved the hot chocolate and Liam loved the rice crispy treats. Liam could have cared less until Santa showed up with a bell for him. He just gawked at him and then grabbed that bell faster that you could imagine. They both looked so cute in thier jammas and slippers. That is a really fun Christmas tradition. The best part for me was how many compliments I get on my kids. The driver of the train and the conductor both stopped us and told us what beautiful kids we have. I want to make a shirt that says, "My kids are cuter than yours!" I think I will and only wear it around my house. I am such a vain mother.

Liam is so funny. Zoey always plays with him and pretends she is a monster. She growls at him and he smiles and laughs. Yesterday he started growling back! It is the funniest thing to hear this 8 month old growl at his sister.

Zoey is still not asleep, its almost 10:30. She is making train noises in bed. She is on overload for sure.

Snowbound in Colorado

Its snowing. I swear it has snowed every day for the past 2 weeks. OK maybe not every day, but close. This week was fun, and cold. Sunday was scary. The shootings here happened 5 minutes away from our home. We call that church "the great and spacious building", but it is terrible that that happened, and really frightening that it happened so close to us. Sunday night we had a stake christmas music fireside, and I got to play violin in a few numbers. It was really sweet, and now it really feels like Christmas. I love playing the songs and singing the hymns of Christmas and our Savior. Music makes me feel the spirit more than anything else. I am so grateful I got to play. Tuesday was a big snow day. We got about 5 inches. Zoey's pre-school was cancelled, and we had a fun day inside making and wrapping presents, and making cookies. Snow days are going to be fun in the future. Tuesday night Damon and I went to Damon's first cycling class. I got him a road bike for Christmas, and am a little miffed that he wanted to use it before Christmas, but oh well. It was quite fun to totally kick his butt, but he did much better than I thought he would. He really enjoyed it and I am so glad we found something that we can do together, that we both love.

Liam is so so close to crawling. He is getting a bit frusterated, he spins in circles and can't quite figure out how to move forward. He is such a happy boy, and calls me all the time. "Mamamamam" He loves me most. He eats like crazy, and has recently developed the habit of what we call 'night pooping'. He always always always poops between 2-4 am, and during nap time. Not fun to walk into that room and be floored by the smell. Yikes. He rolls right over to the presents under the tree and plays with the ribbon, and Zoey promptly tells on him.

Zoey rocked gymnastics again this week. Mr. Zach is her favorite person in the world. She finished her christmas shopping, and was very disappionted that she couldn't get Liam the barbie island princess doll for a present, and Dad a bride dress up. She has started asking to go to bed when Liam does, so its been a very nice week for us. She showed us some major attitude when we sent her to her room. She stomped down the hall, yelled something that we couldn't understand, and then slammed the door, then repeated this 5 or 6 times. It was so funny, we couldn't stop laughing, which, I think, made things worse. what a doll. Zoey is really starting to notice phrases. Yesterday I was getting the christmas cards ready and she plopped down and said, "Whats up mommy." I am constantly taken back by how fast she learns. I taught her how to use sissors, and now my poor vacum it constantly sucking up zoey confetti. She has figured out how to dress herself, and she love to help me put on makeup. She is growing up way to fast.

We made a gingerbread house yesterday. Zoey thought she had died and gone to heaven. It was a free for all candy. I knew that things had gotten out of hand when Damon started squirting the frosting directly into Zoey's mouth. Lovely. The house turned out great, and Zoey was buzzing all night.

I finished christmas shopping yesterday. I am done!! Now the christmas cards go out today, and I can relax. Whaoo! The cards turned out cute. I love that picture of the kids. I am so blessed to have such beautiful children.

Today we hung out with the petersons. Jen and I went to culvers for lunch witht he whole crew. Its sad when the kids out number the adults 2 to 1. Andy is Zoeys little boyfriend and they always kiss goodbye when one of them has to go home. So cute.

We leave for Durango on Sunday. We go to ride the polar express. Should be fun.

Update

Its been a while since I wrote and update.

Its been a wonderful week and a half. Liam's baby blessing was on December 2, and Damon's parents, and my family was up to visit. Friday we decorated the tree, Saturday was our "Christmas", and we all exchanged gifts, and had a big turkey dinner. I still can't believe we crammed all 10 of us around the table. Zoey loves her pair of Chirstmas dresses that both Grandma Eddington and Pullman gave her. She calls them her fancy dresses. The blessing was wonderful and we have had so many people comment on how cool it was the Liam was blessed with a sense of humor. Damon bore is testimony which was also so sweet to hear. It was so nice to hang out with our family.

Max is in Estonia now! He seems to be doing really well, and enjoying himself. It was really cool to see Damon on the phone with him in the air port chattering away in Russian.

Grandma Eddington gave Zoey an advent calendar, which a few days ago I found empty with a very satisfied Zoey looking up at me. She said in a very triumphant voice, "Look Mommy, I ate it all!!" I guess I didn't really explain the whole concept very well.

The countdown to Christmas has begun! I am so excited. I was able to play in Church and at a Stake Christmas Music Fireside. It always feels more like Christmas after things like that. Friday was our ward christmas party. They had so much food. It was a lot of fun to hang out with friends and be all christmasy together.

I'll continue the update later today, I have to go to playgroup!