Christmas 2010

This Christmas will forever be remembered as the year of

The "Sing-a-majigs"

The Tools

And the Glass Tea set

The Best Christmas Guest

This year we were honored with a very special guest on Christmas eve. The "real" Santa visited us this year! It was very exciting for us all. Especially Emmie, who was so excited she screamed with fear.

I heard a rumor that Santa would be stopping by for a surprise visit a short while before he came. And I was very grateful he was coming because Ainsley's cousin had told her that our Elf on the Shelf "Jingle" wasn't real. Ains has been struggling with this and I just wasn't ready for the magic of Christmas to be over for her. This was the perfect opportunity for Santa to tell Ainsley that he knew Jingle and had heard she had been good.

The moment when the door flew open, the bells rang loudly, and Santa called out "ho ho ho!" the kids eyes were wide with excitement. But things only got better when he was able to call them by name and recall the report that Jingle had given him. I will never forget the look on Ainsley's face when he started talking about Jingle. It was priceless. He chatted with the kids for a bit. He even told them that Rudolph was a bit naughty. Owen was a little nervous but sat on Santa's lap and gave his Christmas request like a pro.

Santa only stayed for a minute. It was a busy night after all. But the excitement it brought to our night was incredible. I wish we could have the real Santa visit us every year. There's just something extra cool about having Santa in your house.

And here are the kids in their new pj's. Anxious to get to bed knowing that Santa was in the area and they needed to be in bed soon.

And here's our family picture for the night. Don't we all look happy!
And last but not least. A little announcement.

How far along do you think I am? By the looks of it I'd say 6 months. With a food baby. John's amazing photography skills were able to capture my food baby and my double chin. In one shot. I swear I don't look that bad. I hope! At least there's no doubt that I enjoyed the holiday food this year!

(Sorry for the mean trick! But John and I were both amazed at this picture and how I legitimately look pregnant. Gotta have a little fun with the pregnant trick every now and again right?! And for the record, there are absolutely NO babies in the plan for this family. I think we may be calling it quits :)

A few things I may have missed.....

Here are a list of things I should have written about already...but haven't.

Ainsley's Christmas program. Not to brag or anything, but she got a speaking part and got to play the xylophone. Just sayin'.
Not sure why I like this picture, but I do. It's Owen and I waiting for Ainsley's Christmas program. I'm not embarrassed to be trying to clean my shirt with my own spit.
And not that I should have written about this, but I have a picture so I'll share.

The bulletin board that Ainsley's teacher had me make this month. (I made Ainsley stand in front of it after her music performance.) I'm not at all crafty, so when her teacher drew me a sketch and requested a 3D fireplace in 45 minutes, I created this. Kind of weird looking, but huge. And hard to do seeing as how kids were on the computers I was climbing over as I was making the darn thing.
The ugly sweater birthday party I assembled (I can't say I planned it because it wasn't my idea.) But I "coordinated" it. Plus I looked good. Especially because I wore a green jumper and crazy boots. But I still lost the prize to my friend Katie who showed up with a Christmas tree sweater she had duct taped a strand of lights and battery pack to the inside. It was awesome.
Owen's Christmas program. His class sang at a nursing home for people with Alzheimer's. Owen was a little scared of the man sitting next to him. I think Owen thought he looked a little scary. But the performance was adorable. And it even stirred up controversy among our children over whether the old people should be called grandmas and grandpas or senior citizens. Guess who thought each name was appropriate?

Emmie also got a HUGE goose egg on her head. This is the only -sort of- picture I have of the aftermath. The goose egg looked awful. But it was funny that she got it because I put her in her first pair of semi-restrictive pants (jeans) and she had trouble walking in them.

Emmie also sat in a pot this month. It was a big day in our family.

Did I say I wasn't crafty? I guess I meant I was crafty. Because I totally made this. All by myself.

We also had a snow day! I have no pictures of the kids playing in the snow. But I promise we had more than this picture shows. I shoveled over a foot of snow off of our drive way. And when snow like that falls in Boise the schools close. Because people here haven't heard of snow plows. Or rather, no one has bothered to start a business of running snowplows because it wouldn't be profitable to work 2 days every 4 years.

And last but not least. John and I had our 10 year anniversary. We did a mystery shop for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with Emmie. She really liked the anniversary date. John has some big surprise plan for the week after Christmas, as per my request. I told him a date after Christmas would be much more enjoyable. But for not being flashy, I have to say that I really enjoyed our anniversary. John stayed home because both of the kids had music performances. We had a relaxed morning, watched kids sing, did a little shopping, ate out for lunch AND dinner (who does that if they're not on vacation!?) and hung out with the kids that night and squeezed in a movie. It was the type of day where you just enjoy your family. Which doesn't always happen. So I'm glad that it happened on a day 10 years after we tied the knot. (And I'm posting a picture of Emmie to go along with this because we take pictures of her...not ourselves.)

3 things that have made me smile

1. Emmie and her patting. I love it when I pick her up and she pats my arm with her little hand. It's adorable and always makes me smile.

2. Today as I was rushing Ainsley to get ready for school (there may or may not have been a bit of yelling:) Owen came into the bathroom wearing Ainsley's glasses, coat, and backpack and said, "I'm ready!" Had I not been so annoyed with my firstborn at the moment I would have appreciated the hilariousness of it all at the time, not 10 minutes later.

3. Ainsley came to me very seriously, almost in tears, and asked if we could talk alone. When I asked her what was going on she explained that she had been looking at some presents that Grandma Dinger had left at our house.

(The gifts that were hiding in my bedroom because of a certain one year old who won't leave wrapped gifts wrapped. And apparently this certain one year old had still managed to tear one of the gifts a bit.)

Ainsley explained, while holding back tears, that she had seen one of the gifts to her and was so upset by it that I just had to smile and ask her if it was a good one! At least I know I have one honest child! Because unfortunately the other one that is old enough to talk struggles with telling the truth.

By the way, she loved the gift, but asked that I keep it a secret so that her dad and Owen would still think it was a surprise.

What's up with my kids?

The holidays are in full swing. So much so that I feel like I don't have a moment to catch my breath. Last year I was organized and had cute Christmas activities for us to do every day. This year we'll be lucky if we do more than 2 Christmasy things before Christmas! Whether it's school, Christmas parties, or primary, I seem to never have a minute to catch up.

And then yesterday I was forced to slow down.

I took Owen and Emmie to the doctor.

Emmie has rectal strep. That's about as pleasant as it sounds. Apparently babies don't get strep in their throats...they get it elsewhere.

Owen's tonsils are so large we've been referred to an ENT to see if they need to be removed. What's odd though is that he doesn't have strep. Just big tonsils. Crazy big. It's a little scary. I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks if it's worth taking them out. Our doctor told us that for some reason large tonsils and bed wetting are linked. We've been dealing with bed wetting for quite some time now. So if taking out his tonsils will solve our bed wetting woes....I think it might be worth it. (That's my selfish take on the whole procedure.)

And Ainsley has an appointment this month as well with a gastro-entonologist (that may or may not be the actual word or actual spelling...I'm too lazy to look it up). Although now that we have an appointment scheduled she hasn't thrown up in over 3 weeks. But you can bet that if I were to cancel the appointment she would throw up that very same day. So we'll keep the appointment. Although I'm guessing that they tell us that either nothing is wrong, or that they want to do invasive tesing, which I don't think I'm willing to do.

So there you have it. Each of my kids has a health issue. Which is rare. We're usually a pretty healthy bunch!

Hat

Emmie refuses to wear all hats. Except this one.

It's the top to a shape sorter her Grandma Dinger gave her for her birthday.

I think it's my favorite thing she does right now. I just can't help but laugh when I catch her walking around with it on her head.

A whirlwind of a weekend

Thanksgiving was pretty predictable this year. We did the ordinary. You know, the stuff every family does for Thanksgiving.

Like hang out with the visiting dog.
Wrestle with grandpa before dinner.
Show up to a house with a beautifully decorated table that you had no part in.

Eat and eat and eat and eat. Maybe that is how I managed to gain 8 pounds in 3 days. (Luckily I lost 9 in the following 3.)

Sit idly by while someone else cleans off the turkey carcass. Syd is really good at this. The cleaning not the sitting idly.
And then for the first time in my life...yes the first time in my LIFE....I participated in black Friday shopping. I went out with my mom and sisters. We started around 4 (a.m. in case you were wondering) and shopped all day. I was practically done Christmas shopping so I really had no expectations. So for me the day was a huge success. I didn't buy that much. In fact, I found it ironic that I was the one who dragged everyone out at that miserable hour and yet I was the one who bought the least. After 8+ hours of shopping without food breaks we went to the Olive Garden for lunch. I then came home for a break (by break I mean I came home and vacuumed and did dishes and balanced the check book) and then I headed out again because I realized our checking account was only at -$39 and I thought I could get it lower than that!

And then the next morning, after a long night of restless kids, I finally got a nap. I was exhausted...do I look exhausted????? (Also, feel free to use this picture as a clue for something I might need for Christmas. And not to sound picky...but they have to have soft soles...no rubber....just in case you were still trying to decide what to get me.)

If you look closely you can see that I still look exhausted in this picture. It might be that due to the shopping. Or the sheer craziness. Or possibly the haggard look remained because I had placed priority on attempting sleep rather than showering or doing anything else to make myself look pretty. Or perhaps is was because getting out the Christmas decorations always ends up being a much bigger disaster than it should. We may never know.

But several days later I am now back to my normal tired self. And we're back on schedule. Although I'm already looking forward to Christmas break. I really enjoyed having the kids home and getting to go do a few fun things without having to worry about a schedule.

Gross!!!!!!

Today we kicked off our Thanksgiving break. I still can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that the kids will be out of school for 10 consecutive days. And all in the name of Thanksgiving?

Anyways, for our first (and possibly only) outing I took the kids to Bounce with some friends. A play area with 8-10 bounce houses and a velcro wall set up. The kids loved it and we spent 3 hours there. I thought the highlight was going to be Owen jumping on the velcro wall in his velcro suit and sticking high enough that he fell down into his suit and was stuck to the wall, completely engulfed in his suit, until he was rescued. But Emmie wanted to be the star of the show.

She wasn't to keen on bounce at first. I even carried her through the obstacle course thinking that might be fun. She didn't like it. She was clinging to me for life.....

Until she started to feel comfortable in her new surroundings........

Then she started acting like herself. Wandering around the entire area. Assuming that everyone there loved her. Which most of them did. She's just so happy that random strangers would all comment on her adorableness when I would retrieve her. She wandered into the party room several times. I'm sure she was just trying to figure out why she hadn't been invited. So, my point is, everyone in the place loved her. And there were a lot of people there.

Until...............

She met the lady sitting at the table next to us. And while most people are forgiving of Emmie because she's so darn cute. This time Emmie pushed her boundaries. Not only did she dig in this poor strangers diaper bad SEVERAL times. She ultimately (within seconds I might add) walked over to her bag, grabbed the binky that was laying there, and stuck it in her mouth!!!!

Can you say gross!

I was appalled and embarrassed. This poor woman had a crying baby but didn't dare put the tainted binky into it's mouth. And Emmie could have possible made her first enemy.

At least the kid she shared binkies with looked relatively clean.

And just for fun, here's a picture I found of Emmie with her binky.

Mystery

We have had a mystery on hour hands for several months now. The mystery resides in Ainsley. Most likely in her stomach.

Here are the facts:
It started around the beginning of the summer. She would complain about her stomach hurting. A lot. We mostly disregarded her.

In an attempt to ease my conscience I took her to the doctor in August.

Blood and urine were tested.

She was tested for a UTI, Celiac, and a myriad of other illnesses and diseases.

All tests came back negative.

I thought it might be constipation. We gave her mirilax.

Slowly her stomach aches went away.

Then suddenly about a month ago she started throwing up about once a week. She'd wake up in the early morning with a stomach ache and throw up until her stomach was empty and then she'd keep going, just throwing up bile.

This has happened every week for the last 4 weeks. Ironically 2 were on a Sundays. And then yesterday she complained that her stomach hurt again and John ended up bringing her home from church. She was fine all evening. Woke up sick. And threw up all of this morning.
_______________________________________________

I'm not sure what to do! We just had to switch to a new doctor and I'm not sure that I trust her completely yet. (We had some issues with our last round of testing and about fainted when we got a bill for $900 for the lab work that she said was basic and inexpensive.)

I don't know if anything is even actually wrong with Ainsley or what the medical field will do for her. So far there seems to be a big question mark above all doctors heads....not to comforting.

I wonder if it's something she'll grow out of.

Would someone care to solve our mystery or tell me what to do?!?!?!?

A little too much

6:15 Get up

6:30 Arrive at the gym and work out

7:30 Walk in the door to an overwhelmed husband
a boy with wet hair from a bath
and Ains complaining that her stomach hurts

7:40 Get John out the door.

7:45 Emmie wakes up crying.

7:50 I try to make Ains eat
thinking her stomach hurts because she didn't eat hardly anything yesterday

8:00 Ains starts puking

8:01 Kids that aren't puking are complaining that they're hungry.

8:10 Ains still puking

8:15 Feeding kids

8:20 Changing diaper

8:30 Make the phone calls
School, carpool, cancel volunteering, cancel babysitter

8:40 Toilet gets plugged

8:42 Bathroom floods

8:42-9:30 bathroom gets cleaned

9:30 Towels from flood get washed

9:40 Pee soaked sheets finally get removed from bed

9:50 Ains still puking

9:51 Kids not puking whine for food

9:55 Kids eating or puking

10:00 6 piles of laundry on the floor (and it wasn't supposed to be laundry day)

10:30 Ains finally stops puking

10:31 I go into recover mode.....shower, clean, wash, scrub, sanitize

12:00 I'm exhausted........

I'd take a nap but I'm babysitting in an hour and I still have 4 loads of laundry on my floor.

Boo.

Our latest

John took some pictures of some friends of ours last weekend. And while the pictures were okay, it was the edits that saved them. Photoshop is an amazing thing.

In the family picture we lightened a super dark shadow on the dad's face. Before you couldn't see his left eye. I extended all the trees on the right side of the picture, and then we played with the coloring and darkened the edges.
This picture was really cute as is. So we just changed the coloring to match the family picture. John also took shots of each of the kids individually which also turned out really nice.

Not to toot my own horn or anything....but I think with our combined efforts...we're getting pretty good. And by pretty good I mean good enough to take pictures of people for free (so that there is no expectation) and if they do happen to turn out nice it's just a pleasant surprise!

This birthday was a bust....

Poor Emmie didn't have the great first birthday that we were hoping for. Unfortunately she was sick. And pretty lethargic. It was so sad. She just wanted to sit and be held. There was none of her spunky running about. She was calm and not very excited. As is demonstrated in the following picture.

Luckily, what Emmie lacked in enthusiasm was made up for 10 times over by Ains and Owen. They both decorated and worked hard to make sure that Emmie's birthday was done properly. Even though I was just trying to keep them calm in order to keep Emmie happy.

We opened presents. And by we, I mean Emmie stared blankly while I tried to get her to tear paper while simultaneously fighting off her older siblings who were ready to tear into everything. Seriously, you've never seen a 4 and 6 year old more excited by stacking cups.

If it looks like I'm trying to distract Emmie from puling her hat off her head in this picture, it's because I am. She will learn to wear and look cute in that hat this winter if it kills me!

We had special rainbow cupcakes this year.
And Emmie thoroughly enjoyed her cupcake...and her spoon. I'm still not sure why she had that, but she did.

Her happiest moment of the night! She was so excited for her cupcake that she wouldn't let us get through singing happy birthday without grabbing for the cake and her candle. I was worried we were going to experience her first burn on her first birthday.

And like all birthdays at our house, this one too ended in tears. Ains and Owen got in trouble for getting a little out of control and crumbling their cupcakes all over themselves and the floor.
Ainsley chose to mope and cry, Owen chose to strip down and run thr0ugh the house while waiting for a bath.

Their different personalities never cease to amaze me.

Hopefully Emmie will be feeling better for her second birthday. It seems like she needs a birthday do over. Lets all cross our fingers for a more fun filled birthday next year.

Happy Birthday Emmie!

A year ago today I was in the hospital with this little one. While sometimes I miss the little newborn that would let me hold her and would sleep so soundly in my arms for hours, I love the fun spunky toddler that Emmie has become.

Here are a few fun facts about Emmie....

She loves to eat cardboard, paper, and cotton balls.

She never sits still.

She's not much of a snuggler, moments where she wants to sit on my lap are rare.

She loves to follow around Ains and Owen. When they are chasing each other she giggles and runs along with them thinking she's apart of their game.

She still loves her binky and is happiest when she has one in her mouth and one in her hand. I love it when we'll be missing her binky and then a few hours later she'll suddenly be walking around with the darn thing in her mouth.

She can wave good bye.

The closest thing to a word she sporadically says is "uh, oh"

She loves to laugh and is very silly.

She is the type of baby that loves all people and assumes all people lover her (which they usually do:)

I don't know that she has a favorite food, her pallet changes daily. But she will almost always eat sweet potatoes or graham crackers.

She has 7 teeth poking through her gums at the current moment.

She loves Ainsley dearly.

She loves to climb on the banana chair.

She likes to listen to music and dance.

If we ever can't find Emmie it's likely she has shut herself in a room and is getting into trouble.

Her favorite toy is my tube of gel. And I'm pretty sure she's eaten a good amount of it. She's very sneaky and will sneak into my room and get it if we ever forget to shut my bedroom door.

She is finally sleeping through the night...usually.

And now in true Emmie fashion, here is a video from a couple weeks ago with Emmie walking around with her finger in her ear.

Back in the saddle.

I was looking back at some old posts and found this one. Where I finally gave up on my workouts. I'm proud, and a little apprehensive about the gym membership I've just started up again. It's been over a year. I've forgotten the great way I feel after I work out. All I feel now is dread about going to the gym. I guess that's the true sign that it's time to get back in shape. Hopefully regaining the muscle that was lost will be easy. Ya, right!

If at first you don't succeed.

I had so many pictures of all of our Halloween festivities lined up to blog about. I attempted uploading them about 9 million times. Failing each time. I don't know if it was my problem or not, but I'm choosing to think not. And when I thought, "Aw, to heck with it!" A small miracle occurred and now generations to follow will be informed of the amazing Halloween of 2010....just in a condensed form because I didn't even attempt to add the hundreds of pictures I had planned on sharing.....That being said......Happy Halloween!
I love this picture because they all look worried. Owen was having such a hard time holding his "big and honkin' " pumpkin.

This year we had a Mulan. Who kept being mistaken for a geisha. And that kind of creeped me out. Maybe it was that she wanted to be in full costume. She was recreating the scene from the beginning of Mulan where she gets gussied up by the match maker. But really, isn't it more fun to have hair and make-up done for Halloween?
Owen was our little storm trooper. Hopefully this will be our last year with a mask. He realized about 2 minutes after putting it on that while a mask looks cool, it is a pain to wear.

And Emmie was our cute little chicken.

And last but not least....

This year I had a moment that caused me panic. When I was helping with Ainsley's class party and the kids lined up for the picture below, she was standing against the wall when her "boyfriend" Lane (he's the boy dressed up as a nerd in the back row) came up and put his arm around her.

We have found several love notes from Lane in Ainsley's backpack. And I caught Ains writing what I assume is a song about Lane. I need to scan it. But for the time being the gist of it was, 'Oooo Lane, do you see me? Oooo Lane do you hear me? Do you even know my name?" Etc.

So, I knew that she and Lane had something special. Although then never talk to each other in class or outside. But for some reason, when I saw him put his arm around her. It freaked me out a little. I could just picture her as a teenager with boys and boyfriends. I'm just hoping we can avoid those years altogether. because I'm thinking I won't handle it well.

Even though the events surrounding the taking of this picture freaked me out....her class still looks pretty cute.

When the cat's away the mice will play.

I had the opportunity last weekend to go on a little road trip to St. George with my mom and Syd to go to my cousins wedding. And not that I don't care about the cousin who's wedding we attended, but my motivations for going were slightly selfish. First of all, who can turn down a weekend of being child free? Even if it does involve 24 hours in the car in 3 days. And secondly, it got me out of speaking in church, and sharing time. (I'm currently not in good standing with the rest of the primary presidency that I abandoned. But I'm sure they'll get over it in time.)

My mom and I left Boise Friday morning, picked up my sister in Provo, and were in St George that night. I got to see aunts, uncles, cousins, and a grandma that I hadn't seen in a LONG time. It was so fun to catch up. We helped with the wedding on Saturday. Although I wasn't much help due to my poor choices the night before (I took Excedrin, a muscle relaxer, and drank a ton of caffeine on the drive....it took a while to get that out of my system.) But that didn't stop me from riding around on my grandma's scooter. I'll have to get a picture. I really want one of those things!

After a day of working and hanging out we piled back in the car and were back in Boise Sunday night. Long weekend, but worth it.

And while I was gone, the kids and John had a bit of fun on their own. They went to a Soc Hop at the school where they ate tons of junk food. Went to Little Caesars and McDonald's. Played their last soccer games in the rain. And John even woke up to a puking Ainsley in the middle of the night early Sunday morning.

My weekend away was made completely worth while when John called and told me that my job was way harder than his and he would rather take the bar over and over than have to be with the kids all day every day. I didn't want to rub it in, but he had pretty easy days....all the work had been done, food bought, clothes and house cleaned, he just had to maintain. But I didn't. I just smiled.

Seriously though, he did a great job with the kids and I'm so grateful to have a husband who will let me leave and do things like this without ever complaining. He never has a problem with me getting out of the house and even volunteers to watch the kids at night to give me a break. He's amazing.

Scary!

Halloween is here! Therefore our house has been transformed into a pretty scary place.

We leave Indiana Jones Legos up on our TV screen all the time to make it scarier.

But the scariest decoration at our house is right on our front door.
Made and placed by Ainsley.
I'm not going to lie, we've had several people run away in fear rather than knock on our door.