Snow and Sew

What a beautiful day! It snowed all morning and afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it pile up. It makes me want to get out on the slopes! I wonder if they have ski's for 5 month old babies. :) This was my view today from my parent's home.

Since I've been in Utah, I've been busy trying to revive my sewing skills. It's been a while, but I had a good time making skirts for my nieces, my sister, Katelyn and myself. There definitely was a learning curve to the whole project and some improvising, but I'm excited to say that they're done! I bought the fabric in Samoa, with the help of my stylish sisters-in-law. Thanks Alicia and Jenny! Who knows... maybe I'll start sewing all our clothes. Dave, what color tie do you want? :) Now I just need to learn how to knit...

We took these photos at Sarah's birthday party. She's 2! We have the two extremes in size in our family, Sarah is very petite and Katelyn is very tall. You can see how she's already up to Sarah's shoulder! I think they'll be great friends.

I'm so excited for Dave to come home this week! He sent some pictures last week to give us a taste of what he's been up to. Here he is climbing up the very steep stairs of the Great Wall of China. I wonder if Rocky could have run up the whole thing during his training. (I know... haha)

From tropical paradise to snowy hills

SLEDDING!
We had a great day today sledding with Shannon and her kids while we're here in Utah and Dave is in China! It was Katelyn's first sledding experience and since she didn't cry, I think she must have liked it. :) We bundled her up in a couple sleepers, a hat, and a little pink snowsuit (thanks to Shannon). I was pretty nervous to take her down the hill the first time, so I decided to dig my feet in the whole time down the hill as well as drag Tom behind us. It worked out just perfectly. Check out the little video.



PLAYING WITH COUSINS
After sledding for a little while, we borrowed little Sarah's (almost 2) sled and pulled Katelyn around in the snow. Mary (4) wanted to pull her and I thought it was adorable. They are all so cute with her. Mary wanted to pull Katelyn up the hill in the sled and I could just imagine it toppling over (that's my paranoid mother side). I decided to carry her instead and just prayed I wouldn't slip. That would have been ironic. :)

And this picture is dedicated to my cute Dave because both Katelyn and I miss him.

Our Samoa Surprise

We are just thrilled that we were able to surprise Dave's mom with our arrival in Samoa last Wednesday! We've been trying to keep our plans quiet for a couple months now and the planning paid off. I'll try and post the video of our arrival in Pago Pago as soon as I can get it. It was priceless. We love being here and have had a wonderful time so far! It's so hot! We've had to pull out our summer clothes again and Katelyn is trying hard to adjust. She gets too warm and sticky sometimes which she doesn't like, but she's doing wonderful. She wore a cute little red dress and a onesie to church today, but even the 12 ceiling fans in the chapel didn't keep her cool enough so off went the dress. She was much happier in just the onesie.

This picture shows the Pago Pago Harbour where they hid 9 submaries during WWII. Crazy. It was really beautiful from this point.
We flew from Pago Pago in American Samoa to Apia in Western Samoa last Thursday morning. I thought it was going to be a pretty rough ride, but it was nice and smooth and only took about 30 minutes. Katelyn even loved it.
Here's the view as we left Pago Pago.

And here we are as we were flying on the little plane.


















On Friday, we made it to the beach! We went to the Materava Beach (something like that). You have to pay when you go to the beach, so luckily we just had one car. We all went snorkeling and saw some fish, a blue star fish and a big crazy looking worm. The water was so warm and as you can see in the pictures, it was just beautiful.

We wanted Katelyn to have her first experience in the ocean, so we first tested her out by dipping her feet in with her normal clothes on. She passed, so here she is in her swimsuit enjoying the ocean in Samoa. She did really well and we love this little picture of her smiling!


And today, Sunday, after dinner, we went for a little drive up to Papapapataitai Falls. The name might be hard to say, but it's worth the drive. It was beautiful!


It was so green and beautiful and actually falls quite a bit further than you can see here. We couldn't climb down to it because just behind us is an enormous drop off. We just got to enjoy it from this look out spot.

Today, we prepared some gifts for some of the member families for Christmas and tomorrow we get to go caroling and deliver them. This will definitely be a Christmas to remember!

Our Strawberry Shortcake

Our little Katelyn has been growing so much these past couple weeks! Last Friday (Dec. 12) we found out that she is in the 95% percentile for her height and 70% for her weight. Whoa. I'm not sure if she was just trying to stretch out when they measured her (she likes to do that) or what, but she has basically skipped right to 6 month old clothing. I have a feeling she'll grow out of this adorable jumper before I get the chance for her to wear it again! She just gets cuter every day and loves to look around and stand up (with our help) and her favorite new discovery is her tongue. She thinks it's the neatest thing ever. If she's not sticking it out, she's holding onto it. What a cutie!

Katelyn's Christmas Greeting

Katelyn wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone! Here she is, but you'll notice that she got distracted by the sweets we were giving to the neighbors. You know how kids and sugar go. At 3 1/2 months she's starting early, but I guess she learned to love it even before she was born. Just wait until we give her some ice cream. She's going to go nuts! :)

She's 3 months!!

Last Sunday, we dressed Katelyn up in a cute little red dress that my sister let us borrow. Thanks Shannon! We had so much fun taking pictures and she cooperated so well with her cute little smiles. Oh how fun it is to have little Katelyn with us!

Katelyn's New Trick

Yes, Katelyn is getting more and more talented every day. :) Dave and I just love to watch her, which is why this post is exclusively pictures of her. She's so cute, I can't help it. The little video shows her new trick that she's been working on. If I put a rattle in her mouth, she grabs on to it for a second. I've read about teaching babies cause and effect, so I put the rattle in her hand (she usually holds her hand in a fist so it works) and she waves her arms around and can hear the rattle. The point is so that she can figure out that she's the one making the noise. She's not there yet, but it's coming! :)