My Little Valentine

In February, Rory's Christmas gift from Grandma and Poppop finally arrived! She got a swing set with a slide and Stephen spent one HOT afternoon putting it up for her. She's still trying to figure it out, but we are all super excited to have something so fun in the backyard! I also had to snap a picture because Rory's front hairs are finally long enough to hold a clip! They don't always stay in for long, but we are making progress in the hair department. 

Sometimes I go on Mystery shops where you get to buy something or get a service done for free in exchange for writing about your experience. I took Rory on my shop to Krispy Kreme and she got her own donut. She thought it was awesome. I put her in the car to leave before she was finished eating her donut. She was silent for the first few minutes of our drive, and then I hear, "Mo?" and turn around to see her little hand reaching over her car seat for another donut. She kills me.

I joined a new book group recently and all the other women have children as well. Some of us got together and met up at the Phoenix zoo. Rory LOVES puppies (puppy was her first real word) so I thought she was going to think the zoo was just awesome. She enjoyed eating snacks in her stroller and watching all the other kids and people running around, but I don't think she even noticed the animals. Here she is stealing fruit snacks from one of our new friends so I guess you could say the day was a huge success.

February was also a month of learning new skills. Rory has had this table in her room for a while now, but just recently has started to pull herself up to sit on the stool. She gets up at the table and will just sit there and jabber to herself.
I got Stephen a pizza stone for his grill for Christmas and we finally got to try it out! We made homemade dough and sauce. It was delicious, but very burnt on the bottom so we have more experimenting to do.

I drove up to Glendale and Jules watched Rory while I went in to help Brad pass off one of his dental procedures. She sent me this cute picture of Owen and Rory playing together. Owen is so sweet and Rory just thinks he is the greatest thing ever. It is super fun watching these two play together.

Velentine's Day rolled around and for the first time in our married life Stephen and I were actually together to celebrate it! I started off the morning with a little photo shoot with this girl. 

Not five minutes after we were done taking pictures, I found Rory had gotten into my make up and was covered in black eye shadow. This girl LOVES make up and it is a fight to get it away from her once she's gotten her hands on it. Of course she always goes for my darkest colors, black eye shadow, bright red lipstick... girl's got bold taste! You can tell by her face in these pictures that she was super remorseful for making a mess.

Stephen and Rory went on their first Daddy Daughter date this month. The church threw a daddy daughter date night and had dancing and ice cream sundaes at the church. Stephen and Rory had the best time! He sent me a video of her dancing to the music in her fancy dress and I have never felt so happy in my life. 

And to end another wonderful month here's Rory throwing down some of her current favorite foods, tomato soup and yogurt. We do a lot of laundry in this house. 

Getting Crafty in January

January found us back in our own home and brought Rory back to hiding in her favorite cupboard. She closes the door, talks to herself for a while, and then pops it open intermittently with a, "Hello!" 

She's gotten in the habit of grabbing anything close to her high chair and pulling it on to her tray so I walk into the kitchen and see things like this. It cracks me up because she ends up with the craziest things on there and acts like she NEEDS every single one. 

I have to include pictures of Rory waking up because it is the best part of every day. She is the happiest girl and is just all smiles and babbling when you walk into her room. 

Our biggest project in January was throwing a baby shower for my sweet friend Emily. Emily and her husband Cameron were our neighbors in Dobson Ward and they have been such a heaven send. They helped us move when we bought our house, they watch Rory for us all the time, and they always know the best places to eat or fun things to do. Emily is due with their first baby in April and I was beyond thrilled to host her baby shower that her mother in law put together. 

I got some cute pre-made fan decorations from Hobby Lobby, but once I put them up they just weren't quite enough so I got to work making more to match with them. They ended up taking WAY longer to make than I anticipated, but they turned out so cute that I seriously considered leaving them up year round. I didn't get a picture of all the delicious food Katy made, or of the adorable giant pink bow cake (that was also crazy delicious), but it was so fun to celebrate Emily and I cannot wait to meet her cute little girl! 

Since I've been serving in the Young Women's (beehive adviser) my new favorite thing is handouts. Oh my heavens, do I love a good handout. I think back to the lessons I have seen my mom teach in Sunday school and Relief Society and I definitely get it from her. Anyways, I copied this idea from Pinterest, but I just couldn't get over how well these cute mirrors turned out. Our lesson was on recognizing our divine worth. I found these cute mirrors at Dollar Tree, the ribbons at Target, and I made the handouts myself. 

At the Dollar Tree I also picked up some activities for Rory to hopefully help keep her quiet at church, so here is a picture of her first coloring book. Ever since this moment I took this picture, it has been nothing but trying to get her to not eat the crayons, so I'm glad we got one good documentation. 

A Very Marshy Christmas

When we returned from San Francisco, we were able to spend an extra day in Las Vegas. I stayed with Kacey and her crew and John brought Sienna over for the day to hang out with us as well while Stephen went over to John and Ashleigh's new place to help her with some home projects. After dropping the kids off for school, we went and got some delicious pho for lunch. We decided we had saved just enough room for a gourmet cinnamon roll (I got mint  hot chocolate and I'm drooling just thinking about it) which was a huge success even with our four little crazies in tow. Sienna was a perfect little angel that just chilled the whole time, but if I had a video of her eating pho noodles I would watch it all day every day because it was THE CUTEST. 

We all met up that night for a "Team Dance Christmas Party" at an Asian fusion restaurant. The best part was that one of the waitresses there also worked at the pho place we went to for lunch, so when she saw us there for dinner she was like, "Wow you guys are eating well today! You must really like Asian food!" The dinner was delicious and the company was even better. We stayed that night at John and Ashleigh's where we were presented with incredible onesie pajamas that Stephen and John had gone out and bought sometime during their day. 

The next day we made our way to John and Lucina's house. We were the first ones there for the break so that meant that Stephen got a lot of golfing in and Rory and I had Lucina and her food all to ourselves. Rory loved playing with the toys, drinking grandma's breakfast smoothies, and hanging out with grandma. Stephen loved golfing and I kept myself busy recording every new Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. 

Rory got to spend a lot of time with cousin Tanner and it is so fun to see these two together. They are so similar in looks and mannerisms. We spent a day with Linne and the kids playing at the Kid's Museum and then had lunch at Chick-fil-a. 

Rory spent a lot of time exploring outside and was especially enthralled with the rocks. Stephen taught her how to longboard and how to dunk so it was pretty successful all around. 

John and Lucina watched Rory for us one morning so we could go to the temple together. Then we all went back later that night to see the lights on the temple grounds. St George will always be my all-time favorite temple. 

It's always special when Christmas Eve or Day falls on a Sunday and not just because it means church is only one hour (wink, wink). It was so nice to be able to get dressed in our finest and turn our minds and attention to the reality of who and what we have to celebrate. I am so grateful for the birth of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and I am so grateful for all the miracles that preceded and followed His birth. Because of the gift of His life and ministry, I get to live with these miracles of mine and learn and grow with them forever. 

These were the highlights of the church meeting: Hearing Poppop and Grandma sing in the choir and listening to Jackson sing, "Go away Jesus, go away" to himself. (*Jackson learned a little song at Halloween that says, "Go away spooky monsters, go away" so now anything that gets in the way of what he wants to do gets put in the song. The aforementioned rendition was the result of Rebecca telling him he needed to reverent because it was Jesus's birthday." 

The Marsh's have a lot of awesome Christmas traditions and this year did not disappoint. We had Mexican food for Christmas Eve dinner (not sure if that is a tradition, but it was delicious), we made scones for Santa (and I ate more than my fair share) and we played the gift game. I came away with a bag of Lindt so it was a roaring success. We got the little kids dressed up in their new Christmas jammies, and thanks to John and Ashleigh, Stephen and I got to join in on the fun too. 

This series of pictures is one of my most favorite ever. Rory went through this phase where she really loved to hug other kids, but she doesn't really know how and she squeezes to hard and then ends up tackling them. Then when they get sad, she gets sad. And yes, I was able to document the entire exchange when it happened with Samara. 

That night there was a MAJOR power outage all over the surrounding area, so we got out the flashlights and had a Taylor Swift dance party with Kenzie and Preston. It was one of my all-time favorite Christmas Eve's ever.  

Christmas morning was nice and chill. Through the first week we were there, Rory and I hard started getting sick and Christmas Day right as it was getting really bad for us it began to spread to everyone else so I think that helped with the "chillness" of it all. Rory was OBSESSED with Preston, which was a miracle since I was feeling too crummy to be much help to her most of the time. 

We opened gifts together once everyone was finally roused and able to make it to the family room. The best gift of the day was from Preston to Makenzie. He got her a pack of Descendants dolls with two hard to find characters and she was SO happy she cried! Makenzie has the best gift reactions ever, which is awesome since Rory was still more interested in the wrapping paper than in the gifts. 

Grammy sent some presents for us from Washington so we had to send her pictures of how much we like them, a puppy for Rory, Golf shirt for Stephen, and I got a cupcake carrier. 

After opening presents we spent the rest of the day playing, napping, eating, and silently cursing whoever got everyone sick (me). That evening we went and played on the golf course that was open to anyone for the day. The kids all loved it and it was a gorgeous day to be out and about. 

I was unsure how our present for the kids would go over, but turned out they were all a success! It helps that all the kids in the family are so sweet and easy to please. The girls loved the unicorn masks and bath bombs and the slime we made for the boys was a major success. It was a relief and it made for such a fun Christmas.

Rory was OBSESSED with the dogs that were there. Scooby and Jackson stayed at John and Lucina's for almost the whole time we were there and Vienna came for a day or two. It was tricky trying to keep Rory from getting into the dog food. After several close calls I figured that if we just let her taste the dog food she would realize that she didn't want it, but that backfired because it turns out she loves the taste of dog food. Who knew? We were pretty vigilant the rest of the week, but she was so determined she still managed to eat a piece or two. 

On the 27th when we had everyone in town together, we did a musical tributes night like we had done with my side of the family the year before. It was so much fun and there were a lot of creative ideas. Our tribute to Linne and Nathan's family included a song about his recent vasectomy to "Look What You Made Me Do" so rest assured it was a thing of beauty.

On the drive to Las Vegas weeks before, I got a text from Curtis that he had found a good deal on Ebay for a new iPhone. I ended up buying it on the spot and spent the next several weeks at odds with the post office in St George about where the phone actually was and when it would make it's way to me. It finally came 8-10 days after I was expecting it but at least it made it before we left for home. At this point I was feeling pretty miserable and was in bed for most of the day. I finally got my new phone and managed to make it  out of bed for a trip to Mavericks for some hot chocolate. 

I got so sick that if it weren't for Lucina, who watched Rory for most of the day, and Hallmark Movies, that kept me entertained while I lazed away in bed, I would have gone insane. By the time we left for home I had a double eye infection to go along with my sinus infection. It was ROUGH. 

Luckily, a few rounds of antibiotic later, we all survived and ended up having a pretty memorable and happy Christmas. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!