Stand Up like a Big Girl

I don't have a picture for this yet, but Riley is starting to stand up all by herself. She has not taken any steps yet, but I'm sure that she will get to that soon. Instead, she stands up and balances there for a while, then raised both arms in the air and does a body slam on the floor. It is the cutest, yet scariest thing in the world. Every time she does this I worry that she will not catch herself and just nose-plant it right onto the hard wood floor. Well, I guess if she does do that she will learn. I will try to get a video or something to show everyone what I am talking about.

Moving back to Cedar

These are pictures of Dax and Riley playing out in the snow in Delta right before we moved to Cedar.
On January 9th, we moved our family back to Cedar City. We were just getting accustomed to and liking Delta, when we found out that we were going to move back to Cedar. We always knew that Delta was just a stepping stone for us, and that we would not be there for too long, but we never thought that we would move out after just a year. I had so much fun coaching volleyball and getting to know so many people in the town. I also found a great group of women that I would run with training for the St. George Half Marathon. One of my best friends, Shannon and I, would go on our long runs on Fridays in the very early mornings sometimes at 5:00 am. She would drive from Deseret into Delta and we would go run around Delta, mostly on the 40 acre farm roads. I remember one of the first long runs that I went on with her I had no idea of how cold it was going to be so I just wore Jeremy's snowboarding pants and a ton of layers. I finished the ten miles and vowed never to wear those pants again. Another run we went on was about -8 or -9 degrees, and my eyelashes froze, and every time I blinked they stuck together. Even in the cold, I still had fun.
After we moved to our second home in Delta, and finished out the volleyball season, I finished unpacking our boxes and got the rest of the pictures on the wall. Then about two months later at the beginning of December we recieved an email saying that our landlords were needing to move back to their home that we were renting, and that we needed to find another place to live. We were a bit stressed out, but three days later Jeremy's boss called and told him that they were going to move us back to Cedar City. So all in all everything worked out just fine. We are staying with Rene and Teresa until we find a place to buy. They are so great, and so patient with us. Dax and Riley really like living here with them too. We are excited to be back in Cedar. We love the town, and we love being so close to McCall, Jared, and Ryan. We hope to play a lot with them.

Christmas 2008

Christmas was so much fun this year. Our little family packed our bags and Santa's bag, and got in the Pathfinder and drove to Salt Lake on Christmas Eve. We made it just in time to go bowling with my whole family and Justin and John Park. Dax did quite well, taking turns with Jeremy and I. His attention span was stunted by all of the shiny and flashing lights of the arcade room on the other end of the building. He kept darting down to drive the race car game. I think that he has become too comfortable going off by himself here in Delta. I don't worry too much about him when we go out somewhere here, but when he takes off by himself in stores, or bowling alleys in this case, I do get more stressed. When we move to Cedar next week I will have to teach him a bit better to stay close.
For the first time in a long time I have not gotten sick on Christmas Eve. I always find myself hugging the toilet seat around the holidays. Jeremy thinks that I get too excited about the presents, but I'm not so sure about that. As a matter of fact, everyone was healthy this year.
Dax, Grandma, Bree, Ann, and I made some sugar cookies for Santa after dinner. It was so much fun because Dax understood exactly what he had to do for Santa; leave him a plate of cookies and a carrot for his reindeer. He loved using the cutters and did a great job frosting too, but his favorite part was the sprinkles.
After Dax and Riley went to bed Jeremy and I started wrapping all the gifts from Santa. We forgot our wrapping paper, so we used the newspaper. That was okay because when I was younger Santa always ran out of wrapping paper when he got to our house, so he used the newspaper too. I bet that Dax would make a comment about it, and sure enough he said "this is not wrapping paper," but he wasn't disappointed.
Andrea was so cute with Dax on Christmas Eve. She asked him if he would want to sleep in her room for the night. She made him a little bed and let him borrow her build-a-bear tiger since he left his at home. When we were all living at home, before we got married, we would always sleep in the same room together, and sneak and take a peak at our gifts. With Dax there Andrea kept that tradition alive. She said that Dax woke up at 4:00 am asking if it was time to open presents. I was shocked when she told him no. I thought that she would have gone up with him in a heartbeat, but she told him no, and they went back to sleep.
For the first time in the Zollinger home the parents were up before the children. Jeremy and I, my Mom and Dad were up at 7:30 am, and everyone else didn't get up until 8:00 am. Dax knew exactly what presants were his because on one of them I taped a big picture of Po from Kung Fu Panda on the front of one of his gifts. He wasted no time, and didn't wait for everyone to get to the living room. Luckily, Jeremy had the video camera out, and I had my camera to catch the first gifts being opened. We had such a great time watching Dax open all of the gifts for him and for everyone else. To say the least, Santa found our family and spoiled us. Dax got some snowpants, a jacket, hat and gloves. As soon as he could he got my dad to go out into the blizzard and build a snowman, and to shovel the snow. That will always be a classic memory of mine.
After we got Dax and my Dad out of the storm we convinced Dax to take a nap and then go over to Krissy and Dave's home to see Grandma and Grandpa Andrews, and maybe open some more gifts. He was okay with that, but did not like the idea of leaving my parents. When we got to Krissy's, Jason was out in the road with a shovel, trying to dig a spot out for us to park in. What an awesome guy! We went inside, and is was Christmas all over again. Dax did not hesitate opening the gifts that Teresa kept piling in front of him. It was so fun to watch. He even helped everyone else open a few of their presents. We got spoiled, again. After a while, we helped get a delicious dinner ready for that evening. We had a great time visiting with our family, then we had to get back and try to wrestle our kids to bed because they were so wound up from all of the festivities of the day.