Classic Christmas Videos?

So, I was checking out my cousin Robin's blog and she put on her favorite Christmas 80s video from Wham "Last Christmas" (which I recommend checking out on Youtube for a couple of good laughs). We just had to add our favorites that make us chuckle:
Scott's favorite classic is ABBA "Chiquitita". "Chiquitita?" you might ask? Just check out the giant snowman...


The second video we found that has become our favorite the last couple of days (meaning Meili requests we play it at least 10 times a day) is "Do They Know It's Christmas?". This is from a variety of different top 80's artists. While you are watching, see if you can recognize any of the singers. We will see who can name the most singers that they see from only watching the video (no googling to cheat).

Princess School, Week 1

My friend, Sharlee Largey (see Friday Night Club below), had the greatest idea for a little preschool that she does with her sons. She calls it "Monster School". On Wednesday they go to the library and get books on a certain subject and then read about it for a couple days and then on Friday they have an outing where they explore what they have been learning about. So it was just the thing that put all of my ideas that I've had together and I stole the idea and called it "Princess School." So for our first week, we studied dance. We got some books and we went to BYU to peak in on some dance classes. Meili's favorite was clogging (a surprise since she is a die-hard ballerina). We also got invited into a modern dance class and we spent about 15 minutes in a ballet class. Meili thought that the ballerinas were real princesses! (She wondered why there were boys in there dancing, too!) We also saw the Paso Doble in an International Latin Dance Class . Then we checked out the swimmers in the pool, the BYU women's basketball team, and some beginner volleyballers (not dance-related, but super fun). It was such a great success. It was so fun, I love princess school. I think that the girls do, too!

When I told Sharlee that I was going to do Princess School, she showed up with some tutus for the girls that she had made. She is so nice! The girls are so cute in them. Especially since Meili actually has a leotard and thought she was a real ballerina!

Friday Night Club & THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!

First of all, I need to give a gargantuan "THANK YOU!" to our friends the Browns in our ward. They read in our blog that we didn't have a digital camera, and showed up at our house with one for us! Can you believe it? And look at the awesome pictures! I am so excited!

Friday Night Club

We have been having dinners with our friends, the Largeys, every Friday night. I should name it an epicurean club because we love to try out our favorite recipes on each other. We do it to subtley try and get them into our Asian way of cooking, and they are trying to woo us over to the Italian side.

These are their 2 boys, Hyrum and Weston, on our tire swing with the girls. Meili and Hyrum (the oldest) have been engaged for about a month, but I'm not sure where they stand since 2 weeks ago she kissed Hyrum's older cousin, Jordan, and they also declared that they were going to get married, too. EEEEEEEEEEE! I did NOT think that I would be dealing with this when Meili was 3!

Ice Cream Truck!

Meili LOVES the ice cream truck! She loves it so much that we used to have to check out her favorite book from the library called "Isaac the Ice Cream Truck" every couple weeks!

We have an ice cream truck that sometimes comes around our neighborhood, and she FREAKS out! Unfortunately, he often comes around when she is napping, and Scott and I cringe because it ALWAYS wakes her up and she comes running out of her bedroom screaming "Ice Cream Truck! Ice Cream Truck!". When it came by last week on one of our last hot days, I decided to splurge. They both got fudge bars, and here is what happened to the ice cream! It is so fun to be a kid!

Cousins/Primas

Las Tres Amigas. I don't speak Spanish, can you tell? The third little girl here is our neighbor and Scott's cousin's daughter, Lily (did you catch all of that?). Her mother, Priscila, is from Argentina and so their first language in their home is Spanish. Thus the Spanish in the intro.

We love Mac and Priscila, which is why we tricked them into moving in next door to us last year! We have loved having them as neighbors, cousins, friends, and most recently Priscila as a Volleyball teammate (you are really awesome-I'm sad it's over)!

Little feet

This picture doesn't have anything to do with our little update, I just love little feet!

Since it's been a while since we blogged, I will just give you little snipits of our last month!

The 36 Hour Talk

About three weeks ago, I (Sidra) got a surprising call from a member of our Stake Presidency, asking if I wouldn't mind speaking in the adult session of stake conference, which happened to be the next day! The original speaker ended up with emergency surgery, and I guess I was the runner up (if that's what you call it?) on their list. I was very blessed for saying yes, because in the next 36 hours, I was able to prepare a talk. Which any mom can say is a miracle with 2 small children. Part of my little miracle is having an amazing husband who let me hide away for half of Saturday so that I could prepare the talk! The other part of the miracle was having 2 babies who slept in that morning 2 hours past when they usually wake up!

The talk was on becoming child like, lessons from our little ones. It was a great experience for me to reflect on lessons that I've learned from my girls' examples to me. Here are a couple of examples that I used:

1. Over labor day weekend, our family hiked up squaw peak. During the hike, we were explaining to Meili that we were very proud of her for being able to hike for over an hour nearly all on her own. Then, as we needed to help her by pulling her up an especially steep part, we told her that sometimes we still need others to help us. We pointed out that just like we were helping her up the hard parts, Heavenly Father helps US up the hard parts, too, in life.

She quickly replied, "Yeah, 'cause Heavenly Father is REALLY strong!" She continued on by explaining that Heavenly Father was "Even stronger than Daddy!". And she didn't stop there, but went on to demonstrate Heavenly Father's large muscles and what He could do with those muscles, like "Lift a mountain, move the trees", etc. and how that was WAY more than Daddy could do!

How often are we this submissive to God and His power? She has learned a valuable lesson early on to rely on Heavenly father because she knows of His great strength to help us in our uphill battles.

2. Our girls are great examples of being full of love. Sophia is quite wise, though she speaks only a little, she shows us her wisdom by timely hugs and kisses and excitement after not seeing us for a while. Meili, too, often tells me, "I still love you Mommy". The still is the key part. Children see us for who we really are. And such christ-like charity of still loving us, it is "No wonder... in certain moments we feel children are our spiritual superiors, "willing to submit" to [all that has] been inflicted upon them (Mosiah 3:19)." (Elder Maxwell, Becometh As a Child, Ensign, May 1996)

Good Distractions

Scott and I have been stressed the last month trying to make big decisions for our family, so we both jumped at the opportunity to have some of our favorite distractions; sports! Of course, we have loved the BYU football season starting, which means going to the games with Scott's Dad who has season tickets, but we have also loved this season so far with some tailgate parties, and also some friends over to watch the away games at our house!

But BYU football wasn't what I meant by sports. I meant INTRAMURALS! Intramurals are a strange phenomena at BYU. The same, perhaps, as ward teams are a strange phenomena in general in the competitive world of sports. Competitive sports are the LDS version of mardi gras, where we think God perhaps will forgive us of our outbursts of anger, and our general unchristian behavior, in the name of "the game".

So far, we actually haven't witnessed this yet this season in Scott's flag football games, nor in Sidra's Volleyball games, but we love to joke about it. Especially since last year we saw WAY too much of it. For a sad example, some of Scott and my acquaintances that Sidra played against last year (and beat), haven't been too keen on saying "Hi" back to us in the halls of church this past year because they thought my team cheated last year, which secured our win over them. Sad, huh!

Luckily there haven't been any such incidents this year, so when I say, "good distractions", I actually mean it!

The Moments You Live For

Don't think that this is what happens everyday, but I seemed to catch one of those rare moments that make being a mom totally worth it. I came into our living room and caught Meili reading to Sophie and ran to get my camera. Meili, for the most part, is very motherly by nature. However, this tenderness is more often saved for her Teddy Bear, "Teddy", and not for her little sister. Still, they are fairly good at playing together and Sophie can handle herself quite well when Meili gets a little rough. In fact, Meili is sometimes the one crying after their wrestling matches!

If you are Meili or Sophie, the best part of playing outside in the garden isn't actually getting super duper dirty (though that is pretty awesome), it's actually the bath you get from Mommy or Daddy when you get back inside! They love picking vegetables (Sophie obviously wants me to make Fried Green Tomatoes because she keeps picking me some beautifully green tomatoes), they love digging in the dirt, and they love making rock piles, but the BUBBLES are the BEST!

The Runner, The Stripper, & The Chinese Speaker

First: The Runner
I finally did it! I finally ran my Second Half Marathon! After training 3 seperate times and stopping for 2 pregnancies and a winter, I finally pushed through a summer of running and ran the Spanish Fork Half Marathon last Saturday! Even with a slight touch of the stomach flu, I cut nearly a minute off of each mile! (I definitely paid for it the rest of the day, though!) But now that it's been a couple of days, I am really proud of myself and I'm ready to even get out and run a couple of miles tomorrow.
Second: The Stripper
It was just a normal morning. I went downstairs to get Sophie up from sleeping and I was shocked to see a completely naked baby standing in her crib waiting for me to pick her up. Sometime either when we put her down or when she woke up she had taken off both her pajamas AND her diaper! So of course I also had quite a yucky mess in her bed to clean up, but I could not stop laughing for about a half an hour! Now that was something I wish I had a picture of, but to avoid future blackmail material, I decided that I would just let my memory keep that vivid image alive!
Third: The Chinese Speaker
After a two year hiatus from the language, Scott is taking a Chinese class again! He is so excited that he has been only speaking Chenglish (Chinese/English) for the past couple of weeks since he started. He decided to pick it up again because we are thinking of doing a PhD in Chinese Literature instead of English Literature.

One thing in Provo Never Changes-US!

One huge benefit of still living in Provo is that tons of our friends who move away are still somehow drawn back once in a while and we get to see them! Here are some of our friends we've gotten to see this summer:

Nate, Heidi, Kezia, & Ivy

Jeremy, Nadia, Beckham, & Ravi
(Burke was there, but left before picture time. Next time, Burke!)

I know there are lots more, like Brett and Brooke Wilson and Nate Cox, but we didn't get a picture of you! For the rest of you who come, but don't call because you think for sure the Morrises have moved on-we haven't!

Fourth of July!

I am trying to catch up on our blog! We are some of the only people left in this whole country (and world) who still don't have a digital camera (except on our phones and on our video camera). So our blogs are a little dated because our pictures are dated by the time we develop them!

Here is our Fourth of July pictures. I had to show both because they showed 2 things that are common in our house: Meili chugging milk and Meili being super funny! We were watching the awesome Provo parade. We couldn't believe how people had started camping on Sunday for the parade on Wednesday! Luckily we got a sweet spot on Tuesday. The girls loved the balloons and the jugglers and the big fire truck. Meili tried so hard to get a flag that she could wave, but we just kept missing our opportunities. Both Mei and Sophie loved the bands the most, though. Sophie kept stealing treats from the family who were sitting next to us. We were sitting so close to them that I hadn't really noticed until she had a handful of dried mangoes and I thought, "I didn't bring dried mangoes!".

Later that day we had a BBQ at South Fork Park up Provo Canyon where I made Spanikopita turkey burgers that were way too awesome to not be naughty.

And, of course, that night the fireworks at Stadium of Fire woke the girls up around 10:00, so they got to see those, too. It was one of the funnest Fourth's I have ever had. I love my family!

Sidra's 5K

This is a 5K that I did at the beginning of the summer with Priscila (Scott's cousin-in-law) and Vicki (A friend in my ward). It was my jump start to begin training for my Half Marathon that I am doing in 2 weeks. This past Saturday Vicki and I did 9 miles! It was great to run that far because it has been forever since I have been able to do it! Yeah! So this was me about 8 pounds ago! Double Yeah!!! (Love the action shot at the end? If you notice the time, you know how slow of a runner I am. So if I can run a race, just about anyone else can, too!)

Kool-Aid For Sale!

Earlier this summer, Meili and Sophie helped some of our neighbors run a Kool-Aid stand. Sophie was more interested in playing with the sign and slathering more sunscreen on her alabaster skin. Meili found an unwanted success when instead of saying, "Kool-Aid for Sale!" she started saying, "Kids For Sale!". Luckily, there weren't any takers!

The Gobbler and the Sampler...

This is one of the girls' favorite meals, which Scott and I title "Sneaky Spaghetti Sauce". The sneaky part? There are a ton of veggies! And the girls still gobble it up. But, really, can you tell who "gobbles", and who actually just "samples"?

Zion's National Park

Here's the family at Zion's National Park in May. We were only planning to hike a little bit 'cause of the tiny tikes, but Meili surprised us and just kept hiking higher and higher all by herself for about 3 hours! If we would have let Sophie, she would have hiked up (on all fours), too! Mommy and Daddy are going to have to work out more to keep up with our kids!