New Carpet

That's right! After seven long years with the most disgusting carpet you've ever laid eyes on (not necessarily in taste, although it wasn't my cup of tea, but in condition. We think this carpet was original to the house) we finally were able to get the last of it out of our house Saturday afternoon/evening. It's really sad when the Stanley Steamer workers, that I'm fairly certain live in apartments with somewhat new carpet, tell you that you really shouldn't hire them anymore because there is nothing they can do for your carpet and you really just need new carpet because yours is disgusting (and that is almost verbatim). Needless to say, we finally gave up after that and quit trying to sanitize our revolting carpet.

Luckily, we were able to get all of it out of the downstairs portion of the house a few years ago but just couldn't afford to get it out of the staircase and the upstairs until now. A small area still remains in our bathroom until we remodel...someday. A reminder of how that nasty carpet is hanging onto our house for dear life. It came in with the house and by golly it wants to go out with it! I don't think there are two people in the entire world who were more excited to get new carpet, ever, than Tripp and I on Saturday.

Removal of the yucky carpet. Abbie asked why it had to go to the dump? Why couldn't it just go to a store for someone else to buy? I guess I've done a pretty good job over the last five years of her life masking it's horror.
The first time in their entire young lives that my girls have been on carpet in their own house and I haven't wondered if a fungus wasn't going to follow....
Cleaning our new carpet not an hour after the installers left when Moses decided to pee on it.

{POTD}

A few weeks ago in storytime Daisy won tickets to the circus. The day finally arrived for us to head out and enjoy her prize. The show didn't start until 7:30 p.m. and the tent was freezing cold. But despite the late night and cold temperatures the girls had fun hula-hooping, balancing feathers, and juggling scarves in the kids only pre-show then watching all the acrobats, clowns and other performers during the main show. Daisy and her dad fell asleep during intermission. Abbie, however, loved every single second of the performance. We tried to leave a few times but Abbie wouldn't have any part of it....even if her mom's feet fell off with frostbite. Circus Vargas was everything she hoped it would be, and more. Just to watch her face watching the show was worth freezing to death for nearly three hours.

Red Rock Field Trip

Abbie's school took a little field trip Friday morning to Red Rock Canyon. A really nice guide, Aaron, took the kids through a short program and walk/hike through the area that taught them about the plants, animals and habitat of the canyon. He did a great job teaching the kids about the plants and animals of the area. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see many of the animals up close...I think they hid as quickly as possible from the group of three, four and five year olds.

How lucky we are to live in this area with such a lovely park to visit. I'm so glad the girls got to spend the morning there learning about their surroundings with their friends.

Holiday Break, Week Two

Week Two of the Holiday Break included Kyle coming home which was a huge relief to his sisters. They are always a little off kilter when their brother is away....always asking how many days until he comes home, wondering what is going on when he is gone (is he going to miss something? Are we?). It's very disquieting to them. So we started week two with a sense of relief in at least he was here, even if that meant things weren't always peaceful anymore (but they are used that).

Abbie got a bike for Christmas so we spent a good portion of the first part of the week (before it got really, really cold) outside working on riding a bike. She still has the training wheels but loves being on a big girl bike. And Daisy is in heaven now that she gets the tricycle. She loves hand-me-downs. The trike is like a dream for her.

We met Paul and his family Wednesday for bowling. There was a lot of playing and even some bowling going on. But tons of fun. Kyle spent the night Tuesday with them then they all met us at the bowling alley on Wednesday around lunchtime. After bowling, we went to Wendy's across the street to use our free frosty coupons (they expired 12/31 so we were happy they were willing to help us eat up!).





On Thursday night, we met everyone at Metro Pizza to celebrate Grandma & Papa's birthdays. They gave the kids pizza dough to play with before all the salad, wings and pizza arrived.



Of course, we had to make a trip to Build-A-Bear to use the gift cards that Santa left in the girls stockings....
We also spent some time at the pottery painting studio during Tripp's second trip to the Mac store during the week. We got a new computer so Tripp spent a lot of time over the week at the store, talking to the store, working on the computer, etc. Then Kyle spent the rest of the time playing on the computer. Luckily, the girls and I had other interests.
On NYE, Lindsay, Wes, Sam and Sam's friend Stephanie came over and we played "The Great Dalmudie?" for a few hours. Kyle eventually joined us as well when he discovered that there is more to life than computer games. It's a funny game. Can't wait to play again.

On Saturday, we took down the Christmas decorations (Abbie was an amazing helper) and took the kids to see "Gulliver's Travels". Not my first choice but the only movie we could take everyone to see. Today we started church at 1 p.m....yuck. But it's only for one year and you can do anything for a year. Daisy is officially a Sunbeam now and she is THRILLED. Her teachers are darling (I didn't think you could get cuter than Abbie's Sunbeam teacher but Daisy has this young couple that are giving Sister Anderson a run for her money) and she had a great time and even made a new friend.

2011 is upon us and we are looking forward to what it brings. 2010 stunk for our family and we are all pretty happy to bid it farewell. I know this next year, though it may not be the best ever, could be at the very least a good one for us. Cheers to 2011!

Christmas Day & Post Christmas Day

Christmas morning Abbie woke up at 6:45 and climbed into bed with us to watch TV and wait for her little sister to wake up. Daisy must have been worn out from the day prior as she didn't come into our room until just before 9 a.m. She is usually the early bird in our family (sometimes coming in as early as 5:30), but she needed her beauty rest to meet the fun of the day. Once awake, we all went downstairs to see what Santa left us....

I can't find the photo but Santa thought Tripp had been a good boy this year as well and left him an iPad underneath his stocking.

With Kyle spending the holiday with his mom, we only opened Santa gifts this year and left everything else under the tree. However, the girls had a great time opening their gifts and checking out everything in their stockings. Daisy got her "Baby with a Passie" that she has been wanting for a long time and Abbie got her Barbie and even a Rapunzel princess tower. Unfortunately, the tower fell out of Santa's sleigh and broke so he asked us to return it once Christmas was over and was certain a store would have a new one to give us or send us. He gave us the name of a kind Elf who works at Walmart to check with for help after Christmas.

After some time at home (not as much as we thought...with Daisy waking up late and Grandma calling in the morning to tell us our meeting time had been moved up) we set out for Grandma & Papa's house. There, we opened presents with Grandma, Papa, Lindsay, Wes, Nate, Ryan & Sam.
This photo is of the girls opening presents from Aunt Sam in the Cafe playhouse she made for them. Quite a treat! Aunt Sam had a little time off after nursing school and before she landed her job and made the girls and Nate & Ryan fun playhouses. They also got aprons to serve their guests and really darling skirts she picked up in Budapest. The skirts have been an enormous hit. Abbie wore hers all that day, to church the next day and couldn't wait for me to do the laundry so she could wear it again!
Having a little treat before we all went home for a rest (or to the movies - Grandma, Papa, Sam & Wes). We went home, the girls played with their new toys and Tripp had a nap. I didn't sleep but tried to rest a little before we hit the road for the Festival of Lights. Abbie can't wait to do it again. So many Christmas lights in one place is truly magical (ok, not Disneyland magical but pretty nice).
Kyle came home Sunday night and we opened the presents under the tree. Basically, the gifts to the kids from us, from Grandma Sandy & Aunt Susie and to Kyle from all the family he didn't get to see the day before. Abbie & Daisy had a great time wrapping their own things and putting them under the tree on Christmas Eve. This is Daisy unwrapping her Cookie Monster.
We give the kids a want, a need and a read. This is Daisy opening her need...a ballet bag. I sewed it for her. Let's hope it lasts or we could be tackling it again next Christmas.
Kyle had a few more to open than everyone else, catching up from the day before. He got a lot of books and bookstore gift cards but he also made out with UNLV Basketball tickets and Mystiere tickets.

Abbie and Daisy are pretty obsessed with Build a Bear (thanks again Nikki). Grandma Sandy and Aunt Susie were happy to oblige. They outfitted the girls with new clothes, bear beds and a bear closet. This is Daisy's bear (as Sam likes to say, her little sister hand me down) in the bear bed.
Christmas was good to us. Family and friends were good to us. We enjoyed celebrating the holiday and learning more about the Savior during our FHE sessions each week in December. We LOVED putting together our care package for Elder Clark. He probably won't get it anytime soon but it was fun putting something together for a missionary now that Trey is back home again. It was fun delivering gifts to our family friends (Abbie kept saying "I love doing this!"). She got a huge kick out of caroling at the Boyle's house and told me tonight that she wants to learn to sing like the other moms. I asked her what she meant and she said, "You know, like Sister Boyle." I'm not sad to see the craziness of the holiday go but I will be sad to see the sparkle of it leave, especially in the eyes of a little girl.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a busy day...last minute errands to run, the grocery store to visit before Christmas Day and Sunday. I thought we'd have some time to rest and watch Christmas movies together but no luck. The only movies we watched took place while mommy wrapped presents.

Christmas dinner at Grandma & Papa's house was Mexican themed again this year. No complaints from our family. The girls loved filling up with chips. Santa visited the house before we had to go home and had an early present for all the kids. Abbie sat on his lap but Daisy would only go up with Daddy. Even then she wasn't too sure. But after she opened her present she was happy to chat with him, just not sit on his lap. Abbie, however, hopped right back on his lap to sing carols and tell him more about what she wanted for Christmas and just have a chat.

We came home really tired from a really busy day. I hope we can avoid that next year. We only had a few errands but they really took a lot out of us. Better planning is in order for sure. We went to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads anyway.

Holiday Week One Activities

Our Christmas Holiday started with rain. It hampered some of our activities but we still got in dinner with Kristen and a little caroling to the Boyles (all Abbie's doing).

Tripp took the two holiday weeks off (although some folks at Aggreko didn't seem to get the memo...too many calls and partial work days for my liking) so we had some time to spend with daddy. We ran some errands and spent time at home having fun with our toys and Christmas movies. I even got to have lunch with Tara.

Kyle spent a couple of the days with us while his mom was at work. We grabbed the Butler kids and went to our favorite new spot (Thanks Uncle Paul!) for bowling and pizza. The big boys especially have such busy schedules now that we rarely all get together anymore. It was a lot of fun. Can't wait to add Nikki and Rich to the group and have a Thompson vs. Butler bowling night.
Tripp and I even got to spend one night out with our friends, the Boyles. We tried for dinner and a movie but between our scheduled church cleaning duties and their scheduled missionary feeding duties we could only fit in the movie. Rachel suggested True Grit and I'm so glad she did. I would have never picked it myself but I loved it. It was so nice to get out with Tripp and friends (haven't done that in well....forever) and see a movie that I didn't have to choose but absolutely adored. Perfect evening.

On Thursday morning we decorated our Christmas cookies.

And finally, after three nights of rain we made it to the Springs Preserve Christmas Celebration. The girls had their lists ready and visiting Santa was the first stop of the night. They weren't super interested in the "Big Slide" or "Reindeer Rides" so it was a shorter night than usual but we had a nice dinner upstairs in the restaurant (Daisy's choice) and enjoyed the evening gazing at the lights. Daisy was so pooped by all the Christmas fun that she fell asleep on the drive there. She was wide awake on the drive home.

Some of the most fun we had this Christmas season, and perhaps any season ever, was the 12 Days of Christmas that was gifted to us by an extremely generous and loving mystery family. Our doorbell rang for 12 nights straight with wonderful gifts and notes. Abbie knows the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and was particularly excited each night to see what would be left to go along with the corresponding day. We had a really rotten year. 2010 won't be missed by anyone in the Tripp Thompson family so ending it with such a wonderful surprise was more than we could hope for and definitely more than we deserve. Thanks mystery family for bringing us so much joy this holiday season! Two little girls, in particular, will never, ever forget it.