the talent portion will be worth one-fourth of the final score

aaand more from the tietjen christmas party- the talent portion! carson and shellena made up a tietjen 12 days of christmas, klayton sang, all of the kids performed, and, the piece de resistance, mandy, spencer, klayton and carson performed the california raisin's rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (i have seen the video of all of them doing this when they were really little- i can't believe they still remembered it all!). enjoy our nerdiness!

last christmas i gave you my heart

Monday night was the Tietjen Family Christmas Party at Ma and Pa Tietjen's place in Rexburg. We had lots of fun singing songs, eating, watching the kids reenact the nativity story, chatting, and even opening presents (the grand kids did a present exchange). Here are some of the highlights...

Here's Avery's Christmas dress that my mom sent a few weeks ago. Klayton, Avery and I leave for Las Vegas on Friday afternoon for our Clark Family Christmas. Mallory and Josh won't be there and I'll miss them lots, but I'm excited to see my brothers and Grandma Clark and Mom and Dad. And it will be Avery's second Christmas! Should be holly and jolly.

doppleganger

I always tell Klayton that he is going to look exactly like Anderson Cooper when he's older(which I'm really excited about!). Thinking about it always reminds me of that scene in The Wedding Singer:

"I always just envisioned the right one being someone I could see myself growing old with. And Glenn would be a really good-looking older man. Like Blake Carrington." -The future Mrs. Julia Guglia.

Anyway, he got his haircut just like him and I think it looks awesome, like he-should-be out-there-covering-news-on-CNN awesome.

snow thank you

It snowed a couple of days ago and Avery is in love! At least six times a day she goes in her closet, digs out her hat and mittens and shoes, and comes to me and says "'side" (slurred like a drunken sailor), which means "mommy, please take me outside right now!" so i bundle her up like Ralphie on The Christmas Story and we play for 10 minutes, until her nose looks like a teeny tiny tomato. Then we go inside and take off all of her winter stuff and she sucks the dirty snow off of her gloves.



I need to start storing her shoes and outer-wear up high so she can't reach them.

Just teasing (kind of). But this did inspire Klayton and I to slip Santa some extra cash so he could buy her a sled for Christmas. We're headed to my parent's cabin in the mountains outside of St. George, UT for Christmas, so she'll definitely get to use it before we even get back! She's going to love it.

just the other night

i took this one last night. it was right before avery's bedtime ritual of picking up her room, saying a prayer, drinking her baba and kissing mama "night night".

and another

this was also taken in France, in Troyes.

as promised

i promised Mallory that i would post some videos of Av since i haven't in a while (sorry Mall). here they are. this first one is really short- it was on our first day in Paris while we were waiting for Klayton to get directions somewhere...