School pictures

Christmas stuff

My girlfriend shared this idea with me several years ago, and I have been keeping it up ever since. I bought a fun red photo album, put one of my favorite Christmas cards in the front, and I fill it with all the pictures I get from my friends and family around this time of year. I also add wedding announcement photos and place the newsletters that come with the Christmas photos right behind them in the book. I keep the book with my Christmas decorations and pull it out when I decorate. It is SO fun to look back at all the pictures, remembering times spent with dear friends, and see the changes families have made through the years. My friend Jamie is brilliant, I thought I would share her idea. :)

The kids had a cute Christmas musical presentation at school last week. Josh was SO excited to sing "I'm gettin' nuthin' for Christmas"
Jade's grade sang "We're goin' for a sleigh ride". I have to say, I love her style too. :)

Here are more bookmarks from orders I have taken. Thank goodness for "word of mouth". It has kept me busy, but the extra green stuff is nice to have this time of year. :)

My list of "JUNK" and a few pictures

1. I decided to pass on 95% of my Christmas gifts and cards this year, I am only giving to my assigned family members, and I still feel overwhelmed with just that little bit. I really do miss making and giving gifts, but this is just one of those years when it's simply not going to happen.

2. I am going to do something I swore I would never do, send out an email Christmas card instead of "real" cards. I know it's a tacky thing to do, but again, it's the best I can do right now.

3. I am really starting to feel "at home" here, and so are the kids, they tell me how this place feels like a home, FINALLY, and they do not want to move again, but just travel around the world on vacations. :) That's easy enough.

4. I have been busy selling some of my crafts, and I got a part-time job in the evenings, I'm actually excited about it. It just means I will be even more busy. But the kids and I have come up with a saying to help us avoid the beast "stressed-out". If we see any of us getting all worked up and bogged down with stress, we just chant; "remember the chub-chubs in the google-tree forest....poor little things". I know it sounds odd, it is just some random phrase we came up with to remind us to smile and not let stress keep us from feeling joy. :) I'm sure you can imagine the voices that go along with such a phrase.

5. Bill and I went to his work Christmas party on Friday at the Grand American Hotel, and it was such a HUGE change from military banquets, but I still liked it. VERY stimulating conversation to say the least. (and a FABULOUS dinner)

6. My very brave cousin, Jon, babysat for us while we went to the Christmas party. He changed a horrible diaper, I think he said it was the second one in his life. He deserves a medal for doing such a kind thing for his bossy cousin. (a cute girl he is dating came over to help him, she showed up right on time to miss the diaper trauma, but I think he got major kudos for it anyway) :)

7. Saturday was busy, we started out with our church primary nativity play, Josh was the most amazing donkey I have ever seen, and Jade was as beautiful of an angel as they come. :) That was followed by Jade's first basketball game. (we took her out of swimming just for the basketball season, she found another sport she loves) After the game we went to the "Happy Sumo" for a sushi dinner. (THANK YOU ANDREA!!! that was the COOLEST gift!!!) Followed by a movie treat to "The Golden Compass". Overall, it was a really fun night as a family.

I had Eddie in the wrap, and I used my scarf and sweater-wrap to add extra warmth for him. It's kind of fun to get strange looks from people. I think more moms should "wrap" their babies to themselves in all forms they can. This picture was right after dinner. I'll tell you, there are very few meals that make my kids happier than sushi.

8. I will close my long rambling "list" with some brilliant words of wisdom from my neighbor Alyse, (the one who helped me decorate my house). She has a check-list of qualifications for "Super-Mom". If you can check these things off, then you too are a "Super-Mom".

*1* Has the bleeding been stopped?

*2* Have all unintentional fires been extinguished?

*3* Has something healthy been offered?

And that's it! I love it! She is a blessing to have as a neighbor and friend. I will need to devote a long post just with "Alyse-wisdom". She has some great ideas for being a functioning mom, and has sure been a big support through our adjustment here. Hurray for "Super-Mom's"!!!

Big-Boy Eddie

So my little baby is officially a "big boy", (at least in my eyes!). He is 9 months old, and his doctor told me to feed him whatever we eat, as long as he doesn't choke. He LOVES creamy herb sauce pasta, pancakes and yogurt (shown), and marshmallows. Stinky diapers have taken on a whole new meaning! :)
He is bit below average with his weight and height, it concerns me a bit, but I'm sure he will catch up to expectations. And if he doesn't, and my short little grandparent's genes hit him, he will still be adorable either way! His head on the other hand, is in the 80th percentile!

Jade is the best big sister in the WORLD!!! She is right there whenever I need an extra hand with Eddie. (Josh is ALSO a BIG help, I have to remember not to forget him when I am praising Jade. He gets pretty sensitive about that, they are both wonderful siblings to Eddie, and I feel SO blessed to have them!)

Goodbye Wayne Sushi!!!

Last night Wayne went to a new family, they have no children, and another cute little white dog whom Wayne loved to play with. He is in a better place with not babies to bite. (He bit Eddie's hand a few days ago, and that was it, we no longer tried to sell him, we just gave him away to the best family who called)
The kids said they will miss the way he looks out the window as we drive away like he wishes he could come with us. We love the way he greets us with his happy face and wagging tail, and how he goes crazy in circles after a bath. :) He was a super loving pet, just content to lay on the floor in whatever room we were in. What a sweetie!

We still love him, he can't help his nature, he was my baby before Eddie came. Josh took this last picture of my Waynie cuddle bug. We will miss him, but at the same time, we won't. Eddie is better!

Poor Josh

First off, this is just a silly picture of Josh. He took the hat off his very warm snow jacket, had his flip-flops by the door, and tried to convince me he was ready for school on a snow day! 5yr old crack me up.
I had to get over my "bad mom" self-talk with this one. He just had two visits this last week to the dentist because of my neglect over the past 6 months, he tried to be as brave as he could.

This picture shows his true concern over his situation. It just broke my heart. I am going to be on top of his oral health from now on. And after this whole ordeal, I think he is going to be as well.

One thing I am grateful for, his dentist is his best buddy, Josh N.'s dad, as well as his soccer coach, and an overall nice and dynamic guy Josh gets to see every sunday at church. That really helped a lot with minimizing his fear of dentists.

***SNOW***

Well, this is the second day of snow. I went out several times each day to shovel the walks, (I had fun too! Bill was out of commission due to minor surgery, just so you don't think he was wimping out on the job). Wayne liked the snow, had fun eating it. :)
I love how quiet it gets when in snows.

More snow came after these pictures, we ended up with a pretty good amount of the stuff. It's supposed to snow again tomorrow and Sat. :)

It's hard to tell, but it's over a foot deep on the grass and roof, and piled almost as tall as Josh where I was shoveling. I don't know if the romance is going to wear off or not, but I really am liking it here, so much more than I imagined I could. :)

Ugly Elf??? What do you think??

Well, for those of you who do not get this little guy passed around your neighborhood with goodies, this is what he generally looks like................

Bill cringed when I showed him the elf we had to put on our window, I kind of thought he was a little lame myself. So I went online, found another elf I liked, redrew and modified him a bit, (I know Lindsay can do a WAY better job, but I had about 20 min before we wanted to leave and we needed a new elf). Here we are with another version.........

I also retyped the instructions that go with the elf. I thought with the boring font and type errors on the old one, that needed an update too. If I was brilliant with words, I would have thought of a better way to write this out, but I'm not, so I just copied what was done before. :)

Hopefully those of you who are interested can just click and copy these images and print them out for your own use. Get the "Cooler Elf" (as Josh put it) out in circulation. :)

Jade had SO much fun dropping off the goodies last night and running like heck so the neighbors wouldn't see her. :) It's a fun idea.

Painted rooms and Christmas

OK, here are the final paint jobs, as well as the decorating job the kids and I did. It's not major, we have kept it simple this year. But it does feel like home for us, finally!

Matt and Josh in the kitchen. Josh just bought himself another Webkinz, (the new BIG thing around here), and he is SO proud since he worked hard to earn every penny for these things.

Also, for paint, we continued the 3 shades of brown thing we were doing in the joining living room. I still think it's alot of brown, but next year when I get around to it, I think we just need to revamp some of our decorations to add more color. :)

Our favorite part of the paint job, the stripe that wraps around the wall and is finished off with distressed black moulding. (I LOVE having a neighbor who is an interior decorator, sure comes in handy! THANK YOU ALYSE!)

The colors did not come in that great with our camera, but the blue is kind of like a very muted slate-dusty-teal, and the yellow is a very pale khaki. It actually picks up the bricks and the grey grout pretty good, the picture doesn't really show that.
Also, another brilliant Alyse suggestion was going to DI and picking up a bunch of super cheap vintage suitcases and using them as toy storage instead of the plastic bins. With the plastic bins, Bill felt like he was in a pre-school room instead of our playroom/family entertainment room. :)

I wasn't too sure this would be enough color, I originally wanted a deep red, but Alyse assured me that in a basement room, with all the red decorations, this would be enough color, especially once we get our big paintings put up. It's just as fun as I had hoped it would be, while not being too "kiddish".

Yay, house painting is over until next year! (or maybe I can get my brothers to make my Christmas present, a service gift of completing the bathrooms on their visit) *hint, hint* :)

Random past pics

Kids are helping me unwrap all the Christmas decorations, while listening to Mitch Miller and the Band, that's our tradition. :)
This was a week ago, early in the morning before the sun came up, it was so quiet and still, I tried to capture that in the picture, but it turned out dark.
*btw-we have about 3 times this amount of snow right now as I type, and it's still coming.......

Temple Square visit. We went to see Mica's Matt perform in his singing group there, and had a nice time walking around and seeing the lights. It is so beautiful there this time of year. (It's always beautiful at Temple Square)

Josh and Alyson being silly by the pond.......

I was SO cold!!! But Eddie was bundled up in layers and layers, he just fell asleep.

I will sometimes find Eddie with this in his mouth, I thought is was cute.....

This is one of the Christmas Card picture rejects, so I don't feel bad posting it. For those of you whose addresses I have, you will get the good picture in a card. And thanks to Bill helping me to simplify Christmas this year, I might ACTUALLY get cards out on time after all!!! :)

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Bill's sister, Diane, and her family, at her in-laws home. It was a nice, cozy gathering, not huge at all, and very relaxing. I made my first deep-dish pie, it was HUGE, so they gave me a HUGE knife to cut it. Eddie was asleep in the wrap, and I think I look like the mother of the year...........

Diane's oldest, Hannah, is one of Eddie's favorite people, he ALWAYS goes right to her and is a happy little boy.

Chillin' on the couch with cousin Hannah........

Sorry, that's it, I didn't take many pictures. I wish I had taken more of the other kids, I will have to do that next time. :)

Just for fun, because I was thinking about this while blogging. :)

The next post is about my friend Jamie's visit. After I posted that, I just got to thinking, and found these fun pictures from the past.
This is Jamie's mom, Pam, and my mom, Alex, who are still best friends to this day.
Jamie and I around 3 yrs old, I think. Our moms met when we were just a year old. We are more like family then friends.

I think this was a fifth BD for one of us at Chuck-E-Cheese right before they moved away.

In the next post, I explained our children-connection, but here we are with our number 3 babies. I had just moved into my in-laws house waiting for Bill to finish military stuff in Vegas and join us.

Fun memories. I feel very blessed to come out of my childhood with a few very dear, life-long friends whom I can say I have known nearly my whole life and kept in close contact with. Jamie is one of those friends. I am so grateful for friends and love all of you I have met throughout my life and through our travels, thank you for adding so much to my life and inspiring me, each in your own way.

Pre-Thanksgiving visit!

One of my oldest and dearest friends, Jamie, and her family, stopped by right before Thanksgiving for a quick and much-too-short visit. The longest we have been able to spend with them was in Japan when they came for a visit before she had Jordyn, (we were both prego at the time).

Here is the scoop on our kids......She came to visit us in Idaho a few days after Jade was born, (that's our only connection with my first). Then we were both pregnant at the same time, due only a few weeks apart, (she with her first, and I with Josh), but Jordyn decided to burst into this world nearly 4 months early, so then she had a beautiful red-headed daughter who is 4 months older than my blond son. Next she had lovely Lexi while we were in Spain. Finally we were both pregnant again, both with our third child, and again, she had a beautiful red-headed daughter who is 4 months older than my blond son.

Here they are.......

Jamie's sister stopped by as well, so Alyson is with the group. Jade was a SUPER babysitter during the whole time so we could visit and go over some of Bill's China videos, reminiscing about some of our adventures in Japan together.

Jay and PeyPey, (Peyton) in the office looking at the fun stuff Jade was doing with the kids. Surprisingly, we didn't get any pictures of Jamie's husband, Tucker. (He is one cool dude, and gives us hope that "normal" people can be raised in Utah and our kids have a chance :)

Love you Jay, we will try to make it a longer visit, one of these days, right? :)