Eclectic Mom

4 Months

2012-01-19T00:07:00.002-07:00

Baby Nathan is 4 months old!! I really can't believe how fast it's gone. How could he be 4 months old already?

I have been horribly negligent in posting updates on our sweet little Nathan. He truly is a joy. He brings so much light and happiness into our home. He smiles, giggles, and laughs all the time. He loves patty-cake, peek-a-boo, and Primary songs. He loves to watch his older siblings play. Emma and Hyrum love to hold him, entertain him, and give him hugs and kisses.

Nathan is growing so super fast! At around 3.5 months, he started growing out of his 3-6 sleepers. Seriously. My 4 month old needs 6-9 month sleepers! He still wears 3-6 month onesies and such, but he needs the length of the larger sleepers. He's been in size 3 diapers for a month or so now. He's bigger at this age than his siblings were - even his 9 lb 12 oz birth-weight brother!

Maybe he has the random tall gene? [He comes from an exceptionally short family; I'm 4'11" and John is just under 5'5".] He's already got the random red hair gene, so who knows? And yes, he is still a redhead :D His eyelashes and eyebrows are red/strawberry blonde, so I think it's here to stay. I hope so. We love his red hair!

Nathan loves to eat. He smiles at me mid-feeding. He doesn't usually fuss about being hungry until I'm literally pulling his food out. He now gets distracted during feedings. Having 2 older siblings makes his meals interesting. Thankfully, he remembers that he's more hungry than he is interested in their antics and goes back to eating pretty easily.

He is now interested in our food. He watches us eat and it looks like he wants to try some, too. Ha! Not a chance! In a couple of months we'll let him try baby food...

Nathan rarely spits up. In fact, sometimes when he overeats and starts to spit up, he forces it back down. Funny baby. And he drools a lot.

He's a great sleeper! He typically goes to bed around 11 or 12 and stays asleep until like 7-8 ish, then eats and goes back to sleep until around 10. Awesome. The best thing? He pretty much sleep trained himself. I'm not even kidding. As long as his diaper is clean and his tummy is full, we can put him in his bed and he'll fall asleep all on his own without even fussing. All on his own. We didn't have to do anything. In all honesty, all my babies have been great sleepers. At least at night; Emma and Hyrum had to nurse to sleep for naps. And we had to help them learn to fall asleep in their own beds. But this self-sleep training Nathan does? Best thing ever.

Add to that the fact that the boys take coordinating naps 90% of the time, I am one incredibly blessed mommy!

Like his big siblings, Nathan hates tummy time. Once again, tummy time is referred to as "crying time" in our house. As such, I haven't given him enough tummy time, so he's not quite rolling over yet. Any day now. He has great head and neck control, though. Our kids seem to be born with that. And, believe it or not, he's almost sitting up. He can definitely sit supported. He can also rotate himself around on the floor.

But tummy time to help him roll over? Not so much. I try, but his cry is so sad when he's on his tummy that I just can't stand it for long. He's so sweet and sensitive. The tummy time cry is a "you're abandoning me! Please hold me!" cry. How could I resist that?

Overall, though, he hardly cries at all. He's generally content with life. He's more of a squirmer when he needs something. He squirms like crazy when he needs a diaper change - especially if it's poopy. But once it's changed, he's all smiles.

Nathan has no qualms about hanging out in his swing or on his playmat. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he really just wants to be held and snuggled - especially after his 2 favorite entertainers go to bed. He's such a sweet little boy. He loves being a part of everything with the whole family. He likes to look around at everything. I love when he looks right into my eyes and smiles.

Nathan loves to suck his thumb and fist. Looks like we've got a little thumb sucker! He hasn't used a pacifier in like 2 months; he prefers his thumb. We haven't offered a pacifier in awhile because he's just so content that he doesn't need it. He self-soothes with his thumb or fist instead. He's almost gagged himself a few times when sucking on his fingers, though.

Speaking of baby hands...Nathan likes to grab things. He'll grab toys, but mostly he loves to grab hair. I usually have mine pulled back during the day, so Emma is his primary hair-pulling victim. He loves to hold my hand while nursing. So sweet!

Nathan loves bathtime! He really enjoys being in the water. He's so smiley during baths. Sometimes he gets upset when we take him out, but it's mostly because of the temperature change.

Nathan now looks more and more like Emma did at this age. Except, of course, bigger, male, and with red hair. Check out the 3-kid comparisons:

[Poor Hyrum had really bad eczema at 4 months.]

Here's some fun size comparisons: at 4 months, Emma was 9 lbs 5 oz (yes, she was teeny tiny - and still is for her age). Nathan was 9 lbs 6 oz at 2 weeks...and Hyrum was 9 lbs 12 oz at birth. My boys are definitely much bigger than their sister!

And what baby update post is complete without lots of pics? Most are scattered throughout the post, but here are a few more for your cuteness-admiring pleasure.

We love our sweet little Nathan! We are so grateful he came into our lives when he did. Such a sweet, adorable, loving, happy baby!

A New Year: Recaps and Resolutions

2012-01-10T01:14:00.001-07:00

2011 was full of ups and downs, challenges and successes, trials and triumphs. We saw a lot of illness, unexpected expenses, and the death of my grandma. We saw the challenges of toddler-hood, sibling rivalry, and a sooner-than-planned pregnancy.

Despite the difficulties (and believe me, they were hard), we had a great year overall. We bought a van, visited family, and celebrated birthdays. We found ways to serve those around us, however small the tasks performed. We did lots of fun family activities: road trip home, the zoo, swimming at the lake, water park fun, picnics, parades, fireworks, county fair, BBQs, straw maze, pumpkin patch, holiday celebrations, and even a fun camping trip in Yellowstone.

John got and completed his internship. The story behind that is miraculous in and of itself. He was stressing out about finding one when his internship boss contacted him. They met at a "meet the firms" event on campus beforehand and really connected. John loved his internship. He learned a lot and definitely thrived in that environment. I only wish he got paid. But the recommendation letter he got afterward? He could seriously land a job from that alone. It's that good - because John is that good.

But the very best thing about 2011 was baby Nathan joining our family in September. He is such a sweet baby. He is a huge blessing in our lives. We can't imagine life without him.

We spent New Year's Eve at home this year. We invited a few friends and family to hang out, eat snacks, and play games with us. It was so fun! It was a great way to ring in the new year. Of course, I happened to be feeding a baby when the ball dropped...hey, he needs his New Year's toast too, right? ;)

At the end of each year, I like to reflect on my goals for that year. I love looking back and seeing how far I've come and where I still need improvement. So here's a recap of last year's goals:

1. Save money. We really need to start saving more for future expenditures. We get better and better at managing our money, but we haven't been quite as good about saving as we'd like. We want to start putting a set amount or percentile into savings each pay check. In order to meet our semi-long term goals, we need to start putting more of what we get in savings. Which, of course, means better management of our income.
Status: Semi-fail. A sooner-than-planned pregnancy kind of blew that one out of the water. However, the main future expenditure I had in mind at the time was a minivan; we knew we'd need one before adding another child to our family. And we bought one with cash plus trade in. So, that was a success. But general saving overall? Not so hot.

2. Be healthier. Lose weight, exercise, eat healthier. I want to exercise every day except Sunday. I'll still eat some of the not-so-good-for-me foods, but I really need to be better at limiting my intake.
Status: Hahahaha. I did great - for a month. Then I got pregnant and all bets were off. I didn't have the energy to exercise and I didn't have the stomach to really eat healthy. I ended the year weighing 20 lbs more than I started it. But, I did just have a baby mid-September...

3. Read the scriptures everyday. If I can take a photo a day for a year, there's no reason why I can't do this, too! I know it makes a huge difference in my life; I hope I can read everyday. Have better prayers, too. Spiritual growth will come if I do.
Status: Success!! I only missed reading one day. I'm thrilled with that accomplishment. And I'm continuing to do this in 2012 (and hopefully forever) as well. Overall, I think I've grown a lot spiritually in 2011.

4. Be more patient. I need to stop reacting to things that don't matter. I need to be more patient, tolerant, and understanding - especially around my kids. I definitely need to yell at my kids less when they do something that frustrates me.
Status: Ooooh boy. I don't even want to touch this one. Let's just say pregnancy hormones really did a number on me in 2011. But once they were out of my system, I was much better. Not perfect, but better. Life with a toddler boy and daily sibling rivalry tries my patience. There's still tons of room for improvement. This...will probably be on my list every single year.

5. Be a better me. I want to be a better me tomorrow than I was today. I want the me of today to be better than yesterday. I want to continually strive to be better in every way.
Status: Overall, I'd say I was successful. I still have a long way to go, but I think I'm a better me than I was a year ago.

6. Be more loving and kind. I think this will help with goal number 4. I especially want to be nicer to those I love most.
Status: I think I was successful. I certainly wasn't perfect, but I've improved.

7. Be less judgmental. It's so easy to judge others; even random people on the street that I don't even know! I really want to work on judging less. It's not my place to begin with.
Status: I've definitely improved here as well. Again, I'm far from perfect, but I'm better at giving people the benefit of the doubt and not assuming they're "bad" because we don't see eye to eye.

8. Improve my home management. Now that I've figured out what works for me cleaning-wise and cooking-wise, I need to be better at implementing it.
Status: Minus the months I was too tired to do anything but survive? A success. I used my planner a ton for my To Do list and family activities. I did weekly meal plans. Keeping a home clean with small children is pretty much impossible, but I'm trying. A lot of times it's a triage cleaning; I clean the areas that demand the loudest (kitchen and living room) and neglect the less public areas of our home. Our bedroom especially gets neglected. It's currently a total stye...cleaning it is on my To Do list for this week. But...it's been on my list for like the last 3 weeks...so...we'll see if it really happens. I tend to put more on my list than I can reasonably accomplish. What can I say? I'm ambitious. But I don't beat myself up over uncompleted tasks, either.

9. Project 365. I loved doing this in 2010! I'm totally doing it again in 2011. I still have 10 pages to scrap from last year. I'll catch up soon. I hope. I think I'll do 2 page spreads for each month this year. 52 pages (1 page per week) is pretty daunting. Plus, I don't even want to think about how much it'll cost to print my 2010 book. 24 pages (2 per month) sounds much more manageable! I also want to be better at posting the pics (and other things) on my blog. Maybe once a week?
Status: Well...I took the pictures...every day. But...I only scrapped January and I haven't posted P365 pics since April...so...mostly fail in terms of reporting back, but success in the actual picture taking. I have a lot of catching up to do!

10. Be a better CT girl. I want to step up my scrapping...and actually post my pages in the galleries I'm supposed to. I'm great at posting them here and in the CT forum...but I tend to forget to upload them to the galleries. I think cutting back on my P365 pages will help me make time for my other scrapping projects. I still need to redo our wedding book and I haven't really even started on Hyrum's baby book yet - and he just turned one!
Status: Yeah...didn't do so hot here...but I did finish Hyrum's baby book! It's amazing how something like pregnancy exhaustion can throw resolutions out the window!

Ok, so...I kind of failed in several goals. But at least I mostly succeeded in the really important ones. Now onto this year's resolutions! And look, I scrapped them :D

Kit: Almost Midnight, geniaBeana Scraps

I've organized some of these goals already. I'm keeping track of what I eat and I'm exercising daily (minus Sundays). I filled out my planner with daily checklists throughout the year. Each day includes scripture reading (individual and couple - family scripture study is part of the kids' bedtime routine) and exercise. I plan to blog every Tuesday (but with how late I start posts, the post date will often be Wednesday) and scrap something on Thursday. I plan other tasks such as cleaning on a week to week basis. I love planners; they help keep me organized!

I also did some major brainstorming for at-home preschool lesson ideas and put together a schedule. I pretty much have topics for the whole year figured out! I'm going to fine-tune it more, but the basic structure is there. Once I'm satisfied, I'll share it with anyone who's interested :) I'm so excited! We had our first little lesson today on calendars and I think it went pretty well.

2012 will bring some other major changes to our life: graduation!!!! Oh my goodness am I excited. LOL, you'd think it was me graduating. Ha, I did my time. I finished college nearly 7 years ago. But this year, it's John's turn! 3 more months! Finally!! I can't wait! Grad school is his next step, so it's not like he'll be done with school forever yet, but it's definitely a huge step in that direction. Oh how I long for that day.

And...with graduation and grad school...we get to MOVE!! Away from here! No more butt-freezing winters! At least if I can help it there won't be. YAY! And a bigger place to live! No more tiny 2 bedroom apartment, no more sharing walls/floors/ceilings with several sets of neighbors, no more carpeted "dining" space. That's the hope, anyway. Along with a yard and more than one bathroom. And real storage space. And a pantry. Oh I could go on and on and on.

2011 was a great year, despite the many rough patches. We've truly been blessed beyond our expectations. 2012? Bring it!

2 Years

2012-01-04T02:47:00.005-07:00

2 years ago, I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my first son. I was definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore. He, like his big sister, decided to come on his due date. Hyrum John joined our family on January 4, 2010 at 5:18 AM. He weighed 9 lbs 12 oz and was 21" long. He surprised all of us by being so big! Look at those chubby little newborn cheeks! How could you not want to kiss them?

And now, that "little" baby boy is 2 years old!

It's hard to believe how much he's grown.

He's definitely hit the "terrible twos" stage. That boy gets into everything. He's incredibly skilled at foraging for food. He has this innate sense of where to find crackers, cookies, or candy. We have no fear of him starving!

He climbs on everything. Nothing is safe. He recently climbed over the baby gate and face-planted on the floor - good thing it was carpet! Once I even caught him standing on the 3' high windowsill! He loves to explore, learn, and discover.

He throws screaming fits when he doesn't get his way. This typically occurs when he wants a toy he sees Emma playing with or when she takes something away from him. Or when someone tries to do something he wants to do - even when it's something he doesn't really know how to do yet.

He is very much Mr. Independent. He wants to do everything himself, from getting dressed to turning lights on and off to TV and movie use. He is a very opinionated little boy! The words we hear him say the most are no, me, and mine.

Sometimes it drives me crazy.

But he is also the biggest little sweetheart. He absolutely adores his little brother. He constantly gives him hugs and kisses. He's usually the first to hear the baby crying. Hyrum even says baby Nathan is his best friend.

He's also very sweet with Emma, when they're not fighting over something.

Hyrum is a total Daddy's boy these days. He just loves his dad! He always wants Daddy to do everything for him. He gets SO mad when he learns that John is at work or school!

Hyrum is very much a little boy. He loves cars and trains. He is very active; he runs around and throws balls all day. He also loves to play with blocks. He currently has a scratch on his cheek from jumping on the bed with Legos in his hand...

He enjoys coloring, play food, Play Doh, and music toys. He loves watching kid movies and reading books.

He loves all things technology. We're constantly having to get him away from our computers. He moves the mouse around and everything. He loves to bring me my camera or my phone. Thank goodness he hasn't quite figured out how to unlock the phone. He loves to watch youtube videos (kid appropriate ones, of course).

Hyrum is such a comedian!! He cracks us up all the time. For example: a few days ago, I asked him if he wanted some banana bread at snack time. He shook his head and said, "No!" Then I told him, "I put chocolate chips in it." He gasped excitedly. I asked, "Now do you want some banana bread?" He nodded vigorously and said, "Nana bed?" He is such a funny kid!

He's been in a "I only want macaroni and cheese or junk food" phase for ages. Well, he'd eat some other foods, too, but he was extremely picky. This coming from the kid who used to eat everything! He's slowly getting better and trying more foods. He still won't touch meat or vegetables much, but we're getting there. He absolutely loved all the fudge and other goodies I made this Christmas season.

Hyrum is learning more and more words all the time. A lot of his words sound similar, so sometimes we can only understand them in context. I love the way he says Emma. He calls her "Memma." Soooo cute!

He's starting to put more words together. Last week or so, Emma told me, "We have a book about a polar bear. I think his mommy died." Hyrum then said, "Book. Mommy. Die." Not exactly sure how I feel about that combination...

We're working on teaching him colors. He calls most things blue. But he's starting to pick up on yellow and green, and maybe red too.

It always amazes me how aware and intelligent he is. Even though he doesn't speak in full sentences yet or always knows how to express himself, you can just see those gears spinning.

He still copies his big sister in pretty much everything. This can be good or bad...depending on what Emma is doing.

He understands that he's a boy and Emma is a girl. He's very big into possession these days. He correctly labels everyone's clothing, toys, or other belongings.

Hyrum is super loud and crazy at home, but he's incredibly shy in public. It's so funny to see how opposite he is when we're around other people!

He gets very clingy when he first wakes up. He's pretty grumpy when he's tired. Hyrum is very expressive of his emotions, even with his limited 2 year old vocabulary. Those same limitations make for some very unpleasant screaming fits when he can't express how he feels in words.

All in all, Hyrum is a very fun, hilarious, and sweet little boy. We love him so much! Happy birthday, Hyrum!

Christmas Cheer

2011-12-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas! The house is decorated, the presents are wrapped, and the cookies are baked. We've seen Santa, looked at lights, and decorated gingerbread houses. We've had lots of fun this Christmas season, despite the unwanted presence of colds, croup, and a suspected sinus infection.

We wanted to mail out our Christmas card this year, but it cost more to print than we could justify spending and we ran out of time with all of us sick. So...here's our virtual Christmas card. Maybe next year we'll be able print and mail.

Our Christmas tree, complete with wrapped presents - and the best gift of 2011 ♥

I'll share more of our Christmas festivities later; I'm going to go spend time with my wonderful little family. ♥ Merry Christmas!! ♥

12 Days of Sickness

2011-12-19T16:16:00.004-07:00

It's that time of year! Christmas is almost here! We love spending time together as a family, doing fun festive activities and celebrating the birth of our Savior. We love this time of year in so many ways.

But there are other things I hate about this time of year.

Tis the Season...for spreading germs. Cold and flu season. The season of runny noses, sore throats, and croupy coughs. The season of tummy bugs, vomit bowls, and high fevers. The season of doctor visits, ear infections, and antibiotics. Oh yes. It's that time of year.

And boy is our family being hit with it. All 5 of us have at least some degree of cold. I'm starting to feel mostly normal again, except for a lack of voice. John mainly just has a cough. Emma is congested with a croupy cough, sore throat, and occasional fever. Hyrum has the same symptoms as Emma, and then some. Nathan seems mostly ok; he has a little bit of congestion and cough. Lucky baby gets my antibodies.

But Hyrum...our poor little Hyrum went to the ER last night. His breathing sounded eerily like Darth Vader. He was wheezing and pulling at his shirt collar. John took him in while I stayed home with the other 2. Poor baby has croup. They gave him a breathing treatment and a steroid shot. He's doing much better now, but he still sounds too much like Vader. And he's entirely too good at impersonating Gollum. He's also incredibly grumpy from being sick and lack of sleep.

Ha, we're all grumpy from being sick and lack of sleep.

In light of the "joy" of cold and flu season, I reworked the lyrics to a well-known Christmas carol. Parents everywhere will understand entirely too well.

12 Days of Sickness

On the 1st day of sickness, my children gave to me a week of quarantine!

On the 2nd day of sickness, my children gave to me 2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 3rd day of sickness, my children gave to me 3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 4th day of sickness, my children gave to me 4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 5th day of sickness, my children gave to me 5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 6th day of sickness, my children gave to me 6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 7th day of sickness, my children gave to me 7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 8th day of sickness, my children gave to me 8 bowls of vomit
7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 9th day of sickness, my children gave to me 9 new prescriptions
8 bowls of vomit
7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 10th day of sickness, my children gave to me 10 croupy coughs
9 new prescriptions
8 bowls of vomit
7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 11th day of sickness, my children gave to me 11 grumpy days
10 croupy coughs
9 new prescriptions
8 bowls of vomit
7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

On the 12th day of sickness, my children gave to me 12 boxes of Kleenex
11 grumpy days
10 croupy coughs
9 new prescriptions
8 bowls of vomit
7 doctor visits
6 ear infections
5 sleepless nights!
4 sore throats
3 runny noses
2 days of fever
And a week of quarantine!

I think I'm going to print that off and give it to their pediatrician next time we go in...

Happy cold and flu season! Try to stay healthy. And please, please - do me a favor and keep your sick kids home. Stop the spread of germs and help them recover faster. I'm all for sharing, but not when it comes to germs. Please keep them to yourself. We don't want them.

Here's to hoping we get better by Christmas. I've pretty much given up on everyone getting better for our 5th anniversary on Wednesday. Yeah, no chance of everyone being well in just 2 days. So much for going out on a date...we'll postpone it for when we're all 100% healthy again. I just hope that's sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, we'll do what we can to get well again.

I think I'll go drink some more orange juice. Or maybe disinfect something.

Tangled Up in Birthday Fun

2011-12-09T03:09:00.001-07:00

When I asked Emma what theme she wanted for her birthday party this year, she consistently told me she wanted a Tangled party. And I started asking like in May. What can I say, I like to start mentally planning early. Since her birthday is so close to (and sometimes on) Thanksgiving, and John's birthday is a week after hers, we usually have her party about 10 days early.

I wanted her party to be special for her, so to the web I went! I spent lots of time brainstorming and stalking the blogosphere for fun Tangled theme ideas. Some ideas I came up with myself, others I found in my research. All in all, it was an awesome Tangled party. See for yourself!

The invite:

Kit: Sweet's Tea Party, geniaBeana Scraps

I did lots of pre-party prep, like make yarn braids for Pin the Hair on Rapunzel, cute themed signs for the food table, and a tower pinata.

I strung up yellow streamers ("hair") and hung yellow balloons from the ceiling ("floating lanterns").

We served the food in frying pans. A special thank you goes out to John for prepping the food while I decorated. Didn't he do a great job? Apparently he has a not-so-hidden talent for presentation.

I hung up a bunting banner around the table. I found a free PDF on Paging Supermom.

We started out with a coloring activity as kids arrived. I printed off coloring sheets from Disney Family's website.

Emma's picture. She's great at coloring for a 4 year old.

Then we released floating lanterns, aka yellow balloons.

We played Pin the Hair on Rapunzel:

Emma went first...

Not bad for having her eyes closed!

I think it's safe to say Emma won that one.

Then we tackled the pinata - with my smallest, lightest, cheapest frying pan.

Present time! We let her choose one of the presents from us to unwrap at the party. She got a lot of great gifts; thanks to everyone who came!

Time for cake!!

I am not a cake decorator. I can bake a delicious cake, but decorating it prettily...not so much. So I let a local bakery do it for me instead ;)

And that was her Tangled party! It was such a blast. Now I get to plan a Cars party for Hyrum in January ;)

Emma's actual birthday landed on a Sunday, so we spent a good chunk of the day doing church stuff. I did snap a picture of her exactly 4 years from the moment of her birth. Since she was born at 12:59 AM, she was asleep when I took it.

All dressed up for church:

We had a small family party with Tori and Adam. We had pizza for dinner, opened presents, and ate cheesecake for dessert.

Surrounded by presents:

She was super excited about the Rapunzel doll and dress she got from my mom!

Emma requested lemon cheesecake for her birthday cake. She saw a picture of one when I was looking for Thanksgiving dessert ideas and decided she had to have it for her birthday cake. Good choice! It was delicious.

Emma had a fabulous birthday!! I can't believe she's 4! She had her 4 year check up today and she's still very tiny; 29 lbs and 37" tall. 6th percentile for weight and 5th for height. But developmentally she's right on track or ahead. She's such a wonderful little girl. I love her so much.

4 Years

2011-11-27T00:56:00.003-07:00

4 years ago, I was preparing for one of the most monumental moments of my life. I was in the hospital, hooked up to a fetal monitor, blood pressure cuff, IV, and an epidural. And I was trying to push a baby out. Emma Rose joined our family at 12:59 AM on her due date. She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 20" long.

4 years ago, I was officially inducted into motherhood. I had a sweet, cuddly little baby girl. A little girl to love, nourish, teach, and be responsible for.

That tiny 6 lbs 11 oz baby is now 4 years old.

I think I'm going to cry. Has it really been 4 years?

I have a 4 year old. I have a 4 year old. I have a 4 year old!

And she's still tiny...for her age, at least. Most 4 year olds can't fit into 2T clothing...mine can. Granted, they're a bit short on her, but she can technically fit into them.

But she's 4! We've had 4 wonderful years, full of hugs, kisses, and cuddles. 4 years of hilarious Emma-isms, occasional tantrums, and girliness. We've seen her become a big sister twice; watching her love her little brothers is one of my absolute favorite things in the world. She is so sweet with them and such a great helper.

She loves all things girly: princesses, dolls, babies, fairies, clothing, jewelry, make up, bows, nail polish, and more. Her favorites include Tangled, Hello Kitty, and Tinker Bell. She loves every single Disney princess movie.

But she's pretty well-rounded; she likes the "boy" movies and toys as well. She also loves to color, paint, and draw. She's very artistic and creative.

She continually amazes us by how smart she is. We constantly hear her using big words we didn't realize she knew! She can also read a few words (her name, her brothers' names, and a few easy words like cat) and is learning some basic addition and other math skills. I'm sure she knows more than I realize she does.

She makes so many connections and she has an amazing memory. She remembers things that happened over a year ago - even things John and I don't remember in full detail.

She says some of the funniest things! She cracks us up all the time. She's absolutely hilarious. She can be such a goofball.

She loves to sing. She knows the words to sooo many songs: Primary, VeggieTales, Disney, and more.

She's grown and changed so much over these 4 years. And yet, she's still that sweet baby girl I gave birth to 4 years ago:

Now:

And a cute video of Emma blowing out her candles at her Tangled birthday party:

For the record, see that shirt? She wore it for her birthday last year. It's a 2T. Seriously.

She is such an incredible little girl. I am so grateful to have her in my life. It's an honor to be her mother. Happy 4th birthday, Emma Rose!

New Name and Comparisons

2011-11-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've wanted a new name for my blog for ages. Like, at least a year and a half. I'm still into digital scrapbooking, but my blog has evolved to include so much more. But I could never come up with something that really fit. I didn't want anything with our last name or our location, which simply added to the challenge of finding just the right name.

I think I have finally found the right name for my blog! Eclectic Mom. The URL is still the same, but the overall name has changed. I like it. I think it fits me well. Whenever someone asks me to describe myself in one word, eclectic is always my answer. I am a very eclectic person; I have so many different roles, talents, and hobbies that one adjective alone isn't sufficient. I'm LDS, a mom, a wife, a writer, a musician, a digital scrapbooker, a cook, a baker, and an amateur photographer. I have an English degree. I love to plan and organize fun activities for our family, as well as my tasks throughout each week. How else could I capture all that but with the word eclectic? And so, my blog now has a new name! Finally!

In a previous post, I mentioned that Nathan looks a lot like his big brother Hyrum. So much so that we frequently catch ourselves calling Nathan by his brother's name! Just for fun, I put together a couple of comparison pics.

I swear they are 2 separate babies! Really! But they really do look a lot alike, don't they? Case in point: Emma saw the 2nd set of these pictures up on my computer and said, "that's Nathan and that's Nathan." And she sees both her brothers all day, everyday. No wonder we keep calling our baby Hyrum!

Emma frequently says, "he's so handsome, just like his brother." ♥

I love that they "just happen" to be in the same outfits. Ok ok, so I kind of did that on purpose...but still. They could totally pass for each other! Thank goodness for technology that keeps track of the dates for me. Although Nathan's red hair helps as well ;) It's fun to have an idea of what Nathan will look like in a couple of years. We love our adorable kids!!

Newborn and Family Photos

2011-11-10T10:08:00.001-07:00

My awesome friend Vicki took newborn and family pics for us. We went up to the campus apple orchard. Emma and Hyrum loved playing with the apples and the cute props Vicki brought.

I love how they turned out! If you like her work, check out her Facebook page here.

And on to the pics! These are my favorites:

I love his red hair!!

Family pic! I wish I was skinnier in this pic and that I'd had time to straighten my hair. But I had just given birth 2 weeks prior, so I should give myself some slack ;)

I ♥ this!!

I seriously ♥ them all. I didn't comment on most because my comments would all be about how much I love each one! Thanks Vicki!! You're the best ♥

Fall and Halloween Fun 2011

2011-11-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

We've had a lot of fun this fall! Now that it's pretty much winter here, it's time to share our fun. Seriously, we've had snow on the ground for days already. Bleh. We'll likely see white out our windows until just before we move in April.

As always, I have lots of pics. I really try to limit them, but it's soooo hard. Especially since I have the cutest kids ever. I can't resist the cuteness!

I didn't edit most of these; the more pics I have to share, the less inclined I am to go through and edit them! I did remove red-eye on the ones that played nice with the auto red-eye remover :)

I already posted a straw maze pic, which was a total blast. We got seriously lost. They had an awesome tunnel towards the end! I'd have enjoyed that part more had I not been carrying a crying, hungry newborn while trying to keep track of Emma. But all in all, it was lots of fun.

We went to the pumpkin patch. So fun! We rode the kiddy train, went through a kid-size straw maze (which was MUCH easier to navigate), climbed the pumpkin pyramid, and, of course, picked out our own pumpkins to take home.

Riding the train :)

He kept picking up straw, tossing it, and saying, "staw, staw!" So cute.

John's being translated!!

He loved picking up the pumpkins. He made this little pile.

Super Dad!!

Look, his hair matches the pumpkins!

Then we carved our big pumpkin for FHE.

Our pumpkins before the pumpkin massacre.

After the carving, on our front porch.

We went to our ward Halloween party. We dressed up as cats and dogs. Emma decided months ago that she was going to be a black cat for Halloween. Then she said the girls in our family should be cats and the boys should be dogs. Since I didn't have anything else planned at the time and it was cheap and easy, why not? So that's what we did! Most of the pics I took were pre-party getting ready pics since I spent a good chunk of the party feeding my baby.

Isn't he the cutest little puppy ever?!

And the cutest kitty and big puppy ever!

All made up and ready to go!

One of our friends wore gigantic glasses as part of her grandma costume and Emma got to try them on. This picture cracks me up!

And then, of course, the real Halloween! We went to a kids' party at our friends' house. We brought mini donuts to share, fished for candy, played with friends, and made haunted houses.

Homemade mini donuts! These were a huge hit!

I built our haunted house and Emma decorated it all by herself. What an artist!

What a fun Halloween! It's been a great fall. I have some fabulous family/newborn pics to share in the nearish future, so come back soon!

Hyrum's Baby Book

2011-10-27T02:44:00.002-06:00

I finished Hyrum's baby book!! I wanted to get it done before Nathan was born, but someone decided to come 6 days earlier than I expected. I totally could have pulled it off before my due date otherwise. Oh well; I'm definitely not complaining about having him a little early! It just meant that Hyrum's baby book didn't get finished beforehand. And that's ok. I was close; I only had 6 pages (or, 3 2-page spreads) to go when I went into labor. I knew I'd still get it done soon. And I did! Haha, it only took me 6 weeks (rather than the 6 days I had before).

Anyway, without further ado, here is Hyrum's baby book! I blurred out all personal info like last names and locations. Can't have the whole internet knocking at my door ;)

Credits are posted every other page, as they are designed to be 2-page spreads.

Kit: Country Caramel, Kimi's Kreations

Kit: Hoo's My Boy, Kimi's Kreations and geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Doodlebug and Doodlebug Add-on, Kimi's Kreations

Kit: Oh Boy, geniaBeana Scraps and Nikki Epperson Designs

Kit: Dood, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Lil Dude and Lil Dude Add-on, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Summer Cookout, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: My Darling, Kimi's Kreations

Kit: Little Man, Kimi's Kreations

Kit: Out of this World, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Summer Cookout, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: School Rules, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Play Ball!, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Verdant Splendor, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Hoo's My Boy, Kimi's Kreations and geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Haunted, geniaBeana Scraps
Spooktacular, geniaBeana Scraps and Snowflake Beach Designs

Kit: Shabby Fall, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: A Quiet Moment, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Merry and Bright, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Playball, geniaBeana Scraps
Alpha: Markered Up, geniaBeana Scraps

Phew! I just love love love how it turned out! Now all it needs is a table of contents and front and back covers. And for Artscow to have a free 39 page 8x8 coupon again ;) I'd love to print this as a Christmas gift for grandparents...just sayin' ;)

Adjustments: Life with 3

2011-10-19T22:27:00.010-06:00

It's been awhile; life with 3 is definitely interesting! Especially when they're all under 4 and the younger 2 are only 20 months apart. Or when the older 2 fight over toys. Or when I finally get the baby to fall asleep and an older child wakes him up. Or when the toddler misbehaves while I'm feeding the baby. It's like he knows I can't put him in time out easily. I swear, that boy gets into everything. We caught him standing on the windowsill last week... Never a dull moment!

And yes, I have pics to share :) I think my parents would hound me if I didn't.

I can't believe it's already been 5 weeks! My little baby is already 5 weeks old! How did that happen?! And yet, it feels like he's always been part of our family. He was meant to come to us when he did. It's amazing how that works out, even though we weren't planning to have another baby when we did. But Heavenly Father did plan it that way and His plan is always much better than ours.

Learning to manage life with an almost 4 year old, a 21 month old, and a newborn definitely has moments of insanity. And yet, this transition has been easier than the others. I think it's mainly because we had a lot of help. My mom came to help for 10 days and then friends from church brought us dinners for a week. Also, I haven't had any major health issues this time, unlike the gallbladder nastiness after Hyrum's birth. Or any car totalling stress like after Emma was born. Yeah, let's not do that ever again, ok? At least with gallbladder surgery, there's no way that will ever be an issue for me again.

We've found that dinner and bedtime is the hardest time of day for everyone. The big kids are hungry, tired, and grumpy, and the baby always wants to nurse at some point during the dinner and bedtime process. It didn't take long to figure out that I can't handle that part of the day on my own. Trying to get the big kids fed and ready for bed by myself while feeding the baby just doesn't work. As such, we've decided that we all need to be together at that time of day. LOL, John has a 6 PM curfew ;) Haha, just kidding. Mostly. Sometimes we're all out and about at that time of day, but at least we're together. At this point, we all need to either be at home or out in public together. No more meetings or appointments or anything else during dinner/bedtime unless we're ALL there.

Late at night, like between 11 and 1, is hard, too. Nathan is super tired then, but has a hard time staying asleep. He'll fall asleep nursing or when we rock him, but he frequently wakes up again. It's frustrating for John and I because we're tired by then, too! And after taking care of 3 kids all day, I'm in some serious need of time to myself. Thankfully, I married a saint; he takes the baby for awhile (after a feeding) so I can get a break. Then, when I'm ready to go to sleep, I feed him in bed and we fall asleep together. Co-sleeping isn't my ideal way to spend the night, but during the early newborn days, it's the only way we can all get some sleep.

Nathan is such a sweet, cuddly baby. He loves to snuggle. He'll nap in his swing a lot during the day, but not so much at night. He takes at least one nice long nap during the day - usually when Hyrum naps. Yay for coordinating naps!! Mommy's mid-day sanity keeper.

And of course, Nathan loves to eat. He certainly has no problems gaining weight. He was already 9 lbs 6 oz at his 2 week check up. That's more than a pound over his birth weight! Granted, it was the day before he hit 3 weeks, but still - he dropped down to 8 lbs even, so he gained a pound and a half in a very short amount of time. His head circumference was 14.5 inches. He was 23" long, which puts him in the 97th percentile for length! Crazy! Maybe he has the random tall gene? Haha, wouldn't that be funny? Unlikely, since Hyrum was 22" at his 2 week check up. It's hard to compare, though, since Hyrum's was at 14 days and Nathan's was at 20 days. But Hyrum was 24" at 2 months...and he's a shorty now, so...we'll see!

Like all newborns, he goes through about a million diapers a day. Literally, as soon as I change him, he goes again. But it's better than when he goes while I'm changing him. Yuck. Although I think he's starting to consolidate the poops. He hates having a wet or poopy diaper.

Nathan loves baths! He gets mad when I take him out of the tub and dry him off, but I think that's more of a temperature thing than anything else. It's hard to regulate your temperature well when you're little :)

He's starting to coo more and it is just so cute! He smiles in his sleep a ton. He even laughs in his sleep sometimes! It's adorable. I swear I saw a real smile already. Emma says he smiles at her all the time, but he doesn't really. He grabs my fingers all the time. I love it! So sweet.

Poor little guy is starting to get baby acne and cradle cap :( He has a little strawberry patch in the back where his head meets his neck. Emma and Hyrum had them there as well. I didn't notice Nathan's until last week. I didn't think to look for it until then. Plus, with his red hair being a bit of a mullet back there, I had to make an effort to see if he had it.

We think Nathan looks a lot like his big brother. Seriously, he's like a smaller, redheaded version of Hyrum. He even has the same newborn hairline! It's especially noticeable when comparing newborn photos. I'll have to post some comparisons soon, but this post will have plenty of pics as it is.

Emma and Hyrum both adore their baby brother. They are so sweet with him. Emma says, "oh he's so cute!" and "he's so little" about a million times a day. They love to hold him or bombard him with kisses. They talk to him during diaper changes. Emma tells him, "Mommy will be right back" when I go to wash my hands. I love the way she talks to him! Hyrum likes to throw the diapers away. He doesn't quite get the whole being gentle thing yet, but we're working on it. He likes to "help" me feed the baby...uh, not so much. I try to redirect his "help" by asking him to rub Nathan's back instead. Hyrum also loves to burp the baby...but he's a little rough with it. Both big kids bring Nathan toys to share. Emma wants to teach him how to play and Hyrum tries to share sippy cups with him. They just love him so much! I love watching them with him.

...Except when they wake him up...

Overall, life with 3 is great. It's definitely crazy, busy, and stressful, but that comes with the territory. Newborns require a lot of time, regardless. It is 100% worth it. We have the cutest, sweetest, best kids ever! I love them!

That said...I'm certainly in NO RUSH to do this again! I want a larger age gap next time. A 20 month gap is hard because Hyrum has a long way to go with his communication skills. He's perfectly on track, but 21 month olds aren't exactly proficient in speech ;) That, and toddler boys get into EVERYTHING. No, we're not doing this again until after grad school. I don't even want to get pregnant until after that. Having 3 kids during grad school will be hard enough; I don't want to add crazy pregnancy hormones and extreme exhaustion into the mix. Not to mention insurance issues. Grad school is only like 6 months away anyway and it'll take about a year and a half. So, 2 years from now and we'll be DONE with John's schooling! YAY!

And of course, what post about kids is complete without pictures?

First, I made a birth announcement :) I blurred out our last name for web posting.

Paper: A Quiet Moment, geniaBeana Scraps
Ribbon (darkened): Hazy Shade of Winter, geniaBeana Scraps

Someone decided the swing was for him...and only a week in!

Sleeping on Mommy's bed...

2 weeks!

My awesome friend Vicki took family/newborn pics for us at the campus apple orchard. I took this pic while we were there, but I'm sure hers turned out way better. I can't wait to see them!

Apparently toy bins are for climbing in...oo, and you can see my cute toy labels :)

First time going to church!!

Emma in her Halloween costume. She decided months ago that she was going to be a black cat. I made the ears and tail out of felt and a cheap elastic headband (8 for a $). The skirt isn't technically part of the costume, but she insists that it is...oh well, it's super cute!

At the straw maze :) That tire was seriously gigantic! We ran into some friends there and Emma insisted on staying with them the whole time.

1 month old!!!

At the nature park. You should have seen how crazy the ducks were when they saw us with bread! Seriously, we had like 60 of them going after it.

Dressed up for church again.

*squee* I love this!!

Thanks to the generosity of awesome family members, we were able to buy some cute new clothes for Nathan. Yay, he has some non-hand-me-downs! We also got the big kids some needed new jammies and I got a new purse to use as a diaper bag. In the almost 4 years I've been a mom, I've found that most diaper bags are ridiculously poor quality and fall apart within a year - unless you're willing to shell out $70 minimum. Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather buy a decent quality purse; they last longer. Plus, diaper bags are generally just too big for my daily needs. I only need space for a few diapers per diaper wearer, wipes, a foldable potty seat, nursing cover, possibly a change of clothes, my wallet, small lotion bottle, camera, and phone. I don't need a gigantic bag. I don't want to carry a gigantic bag. And most diaper bags just scream baby. I'd rather have something that looks like an actual purse. So...that's what I buy instead. And it only cost me $20 at Ross.

In one of his new outfits :)

So, that's how it's been :) Good overall, but with lots of crazy busy-ness and stress. It's hard to find time to do things like clean or do any hobbies, but that's part of life with a newborn. We're loving our little family! It's so right for us to have 3 adorable children. And there's no question that they're adorable :) They all drive us crazy sometimes, but they are definitely the 3 cutest kids ever. We love them all so much!

Nathan's Birth Story

2011-09-20T23:15:00.003-06:00

He's here!! We have a new baby! Little Nathan Daniel joined our family on September 14th at 12:33 AM. He weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and was 20" long. And he has red hair. We have a redhead! He's sooooo cute.

It's funny to think I'm posting his birth story on my due date. Heh. No due date baby this time around! I'm definitely not complaining about him coming 6 days early ;)

The birth story itself may be TMI. If you're like me and like to read all the gory details of giving birth, read on. If not...well, just scroll to the pictures ;)

I started losing bits of plug 3 days before I went into labor. I had a few contractions here and there, but nothing consistent or painful. I woke up around 6 AM on the 13th with timeable contractions. Most of them were pretty mild, but they definitely built in intensity as the morning wore on. We knew we'd be going in that day.

Our baby's name changed on us during labor. We planned on naming him Benjamin Luke, but it was very clear to us that his name is Nathan Daniel. It was a special spiritual experience for our family; one that I'm not willing to post all over the internet. I haven't even fully explained it to some family members yet. Not that I think they'd be rude about it or anything, just...it's kind of hard to explain and I'm not sure how accepting they'd be. If that makes sense. Most of my family doesn't have the same beliefs as we do.

The name change totally surprised us. Neither are names we would have chosen on our own. Not that they're bad names; we just had reasons not to use them. We have a brother-in-law named Nathan and a nephew named Nason. And...I almost married a Daniel who turned out to be a major loser. So, yeah, not exactly names on our list!

But when it's that clear that that's his name, who are we to argue?

The night before I went into labor, we discovered that our babysitters would only be available during the evening/night. Understandable, since they're both in school, but it was definitely stressful to look for a day babysitter while in labor! Thankfully, our awesome friends Ben and Vicki were able to watch Emma and Hyrum for us until Tori and Adam could come over.

We finally got to the hospital around 1 PM and I was miserable! Oh how I hate contractions. They didn't even put me through triage; they just put me in a regular labor and delivery room since it was my 3rd and I was so unbearably uncomfortable.

Ha, they don't know how long my labors are. But that's ok; the sooner I get in, the sooner I can get my epidural ;)

I was 4.5 cm dilated when they checked me. I got my epidural around 3:30 and life was good! Kudos to the women who do it without. I...am a wimp. I don't like pain. I like drugs that take the pain away. I have really long labors, so drugs are a very good option for me. Sure, it might be faster if I didn't get an epidural, but I'm not willing to find out. I don't think that it would in my case. I'm exhausted by the end enough as it is.

I was thrilled to find out that my doctor was the one on call at the time. I'm not really a fan of the other OB at their office. He's rubbed me the wrong way every time I've met with him.

I got stuck at 7 cm for a loooong time. I always get stuck somewhere! So annoying. I experienced a bit of karma with this one; my son decided to float back up - just like I did to my mom when she was in labor with me. Little stinker. Things sped up after I changed positions (I tried to nap a little before) and used the bed pan (I warned you ;)). I quickly went to a 9 after that.

But then I got stuck at 9! Aaagh! He did not want to move back down! It seemed to take forever. It's funny; every time the nurse mentioned trying pitocin, my body decided to behave and have some mega contractions. LOL, she even brought in a pitocin drip and purposefully left it there (but not hooked up) since the threat alone seemed to work.

Even so, we had to do some less-than-pleasant things to help me dilate the rest of the way. Like attempt pushing while being checked. Can I say ouch?! Even with an epidural, that is just awful!

That alone exhausted me. By the time I was finally dilated enough to push for real, I was sooo worn out and ready to be done. I had a bit of an emotional meltdown. "I can't do this, I just want him out, I just want to be done" crying kind of thing.

Thankfully, the nurse said I only had to push for 30 minutes and if that didn't get him out, we'd get my doctor in and try the vacuum. Phew! Well, 30 minutes of misery later, we got my OB in and tried to push for a few contractions before he pulled out the vacuum.

By that point, I had nothing left. I was sooooo exhausted. Although technically I only pushed for 30 minutes, I really pushed a ton more because of all that time we tried to help me dilate. But my OB told me I still needed to push with the vacuum and that he had a limited number of pulls. He didn't tell me how many until after (probably a good thing - sometimes ignorance is bliss).

While we waited for a contraction to use the vacuum, I prayed with everything I had. I had no strength of my own left to give; I needed help. I prayed as hard as I could.

He came out with only one pull.

I did end up needing an episiotomy (again - 3rd time's the charm!) and then tore a little beyond that. 2nd degree again, just like with Hyrum. Still, it's better than the 4th degree I had with Emma. I wonder what it'd be like to not need stitches after...

Afterwards, my doctor said he was amazed by the strength I found at the end. I told him it was because I prayed for it; it totally wasn't me at all.

We were all astonished that baby Nathan had red hair. My OB is a redhead, so of course he thought it was awesome. We love his hair! My grandpa (Dad's dad) had red hair, as did one of John's great uncles (I think?). So it's not impossible...just a bit unexpected.

We thought we'd get another blonde or a baby with John's really dark brown hair. But nope, not this little guy! He likes to surprise us. Like by changing his name during labor...or by coming a week early...or by being a boy...or by this pregnancy happening when it did...yeah, he definitely keeps us on our toes already!

He had a hard time learning to latch at first, but a very astute nurse noticed that the poor little guy was tongue-tied. Once we got that taken care of, he learned to adjust and can now latch better. He's still a little lazy about opening his mouth enough, but we're getting there. Good thing I have as much nursing experience as I do!

Now we're all home and adjusting well. I recover amazingly well so I constantly have to remind myself not to overdo it. I've done too much a few times already anyway. Like walk to my favorite craft store...with stops at the consignment store and the grocery store on the way...with 3 kids...yeah, that's a LONG walk. Don't worry; my mom was with me so it's not like I went by myself with 3 kids. Sooo not ready to do that! We had John pick us up after so we wouldn't have to walk home :)

Emma and Hyrum just adore him. Emma keeps saying, "he's so cute! I love him." Hyrum says "baby" all the time and tries to give him toys. He helped me burp him today, too. They both love to hug and kiss and hold him. They also love to help with diaper changes. Such sweet, loving, good older siblings!

My mom is here to help and it's been SO helpful. I'd be lying if I didn't say we've had our disagreements...anyone who knows our relationship would know that we can't spend that much time together without some sort of issue popping up. But she holds the baby, changes him, cooks, cleans, etc. After being so spoiled, it will be tough to adjust to not having her here when she leaves!

And now, for the part you've all been waiting for: pictures!!!

Just after birth

Brothers ♥ Hyrum kissing baby Nathan ♥

LOL, Emma looks annoyed, but she loves the baby and was rocking him. Tori's comment on Facebook was the best: Emma's like, "I know how to hold a baby."

Aaaaaaw ♥

Snuggled up with Grandma

"No more pictures, Mom!"

The big kids all dressed up for church; obviously I stayed home with the baby!

And this is why we walked to the craft store; to get supplies to make this cute name sign for Nathan.

All 3 name signs together ♥ It's on a built-in shelf in their room.

Grandma hard at work ;)

Yay, he likes the swing!!

And that's our sweet little baby ♥ We just adore him. He's so cuddly and sweet. He's sooo cute! Everyone loves him ♥

Calendar Brag Book Blog Hop

2011-09-09T00:00:00.004-06:00

It's time for a CT blog hop!! A bunch of us on geniaBeana's creative team put together some super-cute calendar brag book pages with her kits and brag book templates to celebrate her anniversary as a designer. This is her 3rd year of designing and her 1st anniversary at ScrapMatters.

If you grab them all, you'll have an adorable brag book for the whole year! I did the August and November pages:

Both images link to the zip; I put them together to make it easier. You can click on either one :)

Your next stop is Chel's Scrapping Creations.

Please keep in mind that we're in various time zones. Please check back for missing pieces :) If you get lost or stuck, please go back to geniaBeana's blog for the full list.

Don't miss out on all the other anniversary festivities! GeniaBeana is having an awesome sale (image linked to her ScrapMatters store):

She has lots of way cute new releases - trust me, you don't want to miss out! There's also an anniversary freebie on her blog :)

Not only that, but geniaBeana is having a CT call! She's a fabulous designer to work with. Don't miss your chance to apply!

200th Post!!

2011-09-07T19:48:00.001-06:00

This is my 200th post!! Yay! So exciting. I should have some sort of free giveaway or something for it, but...I don't. I've got more than enough on my plate as it is. I'll have a fun and free download on Friday, though; a bunch of us from geniaBeana's CT are doing a blog train. My post is scheduled and ready to go :)

I haven't posted any new pages in awhile. I've been super busy scrapping away at Hyrum's baby book, plus a few other pages on the side. His baby book warrants it's own special post. I have 24 pages done so far. I still have a ways to go, though; his baby book will have 40 pages, just like Emma's. I'm trying to scrap 2 pages a day. I want to have it done before the new baby comes...and I'm due in 13 days!! Eeep! So much to doooo! Slowly making progress...at least I finally started packing my hospital bag today. Kind of important...;)

I'm in the market for a new blog name. It's been awhile since this has been solely a digiscrap blog, so the name doesn't really fit. But...I have no idea what TO call it. I don't want any identifying kind of info in the name, so it can't have our last name or location or anything like that in it. I've been wanting to change it for like a year now and still have no idea what to call it! Suggestions welcome!! In fact, please give me suggestions because I'm totally drawing a blank.

Here are a few pages I've scrapped recently-ish with some of geniaBeana's newer kits!

Swimming at the Lake using Flamingo Beach:

Love to Learn with School Rules:

I realized after that the journaling isn't accurate. The drawing is really of The Lion King. Meh, I'll fix it later.

And a sneak peak at Hyrum's baby book since I used one of geniaBeana's newest kits, Out of this World:

More to come soon! I'm frantically trying to get caught up on my blog AND on scrapping Hyrum's baby book before I go into labor. Not to mention all the other baby-related and household chores that need doing first. Life is definitely keeping me busy these days!

Our Yellowstone and Tetons Campout

2011-09-02T00:16:00.012-06:00

We went camping in Yellowstone. We'll never live as close to Yellowstone as we do now and since this is our last summer here, it was now or never. John had never gone, and I only went once when I was 13.

We originally thought we'd make a day trip out of it, but after looking at maps and researching all the sites we wanted to see, it just wasn't practical. Not for a family with young children like ours. We'd be too rushed and stressed to enjoy it.

So we decided to turn the trip into an overnight campout. It was SO fun! It took a lot of planning, but I just love planning fun vacations. I had the whole trip planned out 6 weeks in advance.

LOL, John loves the fact that I love planning things. Because he doesn't.

We drove in through West Yellowstone. We saw this sign just before we drove into the park:

Here's a little family history story for you. Many eons ago, my dad worked at the old inn at West Yellowstone. He was there, staying in a dorm, during the earthquake. His aunt, uncle, and cousins often camped at the campground that got destroyed. They stayed in West Yellowstone to visit him that night instead...which probably saved their lives.

First thing we saw when we got into the park...

We drove down through the fountain paint pots, mudpots, and geysers.

Clepsydra Geyser

Then we saw the Grand Prismatic Spring and its neighboring springs. I just LOVE how blue they are!

Boiling water from the Grand Prismatic Spring flowing into the Firehole River.

I can't remember the name of this spring, but it's beautiful!

Grand Prismatic Spring

And of course, no trip to Yellowstone could be complete without a visit to Old Faithful. We got some ice cream while we waited for the geyser to go off. The waiting crowd:

Old Faithful

I wish we were at a better angle from the sun, but it was way too crowded on that side.

After we left Old Faithful, we headed over to our campground. We reserved a campsite at Bridge Bay, right near Yellowstone Lake. We got a later start than anticipated and our stops took longer than planned, so it was dusk by the time we reached our campsite. But we still had a blast!

At our campsite near the lake :) The kids loved their kid-size camping chairs. We cooked hot dogs and s'mores.

It was really COLD that night. But we had 3 blankets apiece and the kids wore double layers of fleece. Our little campers playing in the tent the next morning:

Breakfast time! We baked muffins the day before we left so we wouldn't have to cook breakfast.

Our campsite. The campsites were small and clustered together - but we were near the (flushing!) bathrooms :) Perfect for a 3 year old and a pregnant lady.

Emma picked the type of muffins to make: chocolate chip and blueberry.

They loved this little tree at our campsite. It's just their size! They also loved the dirt...they got SO dirty!

A rare photo of me. It's not too horrible. I straightened my hair the night before our trip so it'd be easier to deal with. Camping at 31 weeks pregnant :)

View of Yellowstone Lake from our campsite.

Packing up camp. Emma was such a great helper!

Hyrum, on the other hand, kept getting into everything and trying to run off, so I stuck him in his car seat while we packed up...with an Oreo...

After we packed up camp, we headed up to see the Upper and Lower Falls. It took longer than we thought it would (doesn't it always?), but it was definitely worth it! We drove by gorgeous scenery and saw lots of wildlife on the way.

Yellowstone Lake

Buffalo! We saw tons of them near the lake and river.

Another buffalo. I later realized I'd left my camera in night mode...oops. I think that's why the grass is so vibrant.

Someone was interested in this bike pack...

Our little tourist ♥

She put her bear up her shirt and said she had a baby in there...

Upper Falls

Lower Falls

We got the kids these cute little camera key chains that show pics of Yellowstone. They LOVE them. Emma kept saying, "I'm taking pictures. Of Yellowstone!" $2 souvenirs for the win!

Then we drove down through the Tetons. First we saw Jackson Lake:

We stopped at Jenny Lake for awhile and walked around.

Totally out of focus, but it was too cute. Emma put her bear on her head, like how Hyrum was on John's shoulders.

Walking around at Jenny Lake:

Jenny Lake. The sky was a gorgeous blue, but the sun was right above the mountain so it looks white in the pics :( We dipped our feet in the water a little. It felt SO good!

Next, we stopped in Jackson for dinner. We ordered burgers to go. John waited for the food while I took the kids over to the park. They were too antsy to stay in the stroller! They were so sick of being in the car by this point that they just needed to run around like crazy.

Horse-drawn carriage in Jackson.

Antler arches in the town square.

We drove home after dinner. That last part of the drive seemed to last forever! The kids were so super tired and Hyrum cried most of the way back. They did not want to be in the car anymore. DVDs can only do so much ;)

Despite the frustration that hit all of us towards the end, it was 100% worth it. We all had SO much fun!! We loved it. Emma keeps saying, "I want to go to Yellowstone again sometime." Or, "I want to go camping again sometime."

John and I decided that we want to go to on a family vacation to Yellowstone again someday...but in like 10 years when all of our kids are completely potty trained! And during this trip, we learned that you can rent an RV...so that might be the way to go when we do!

Summer Fun 2011 - July

2011-09-01T23:30:00.002-06:00

July definitely kept us busy! We had tons and tons of fun.

We ran through the sprinkler and played in a kiddie pool at Nathan and Jessica's after Victoria highlighted my hair (and Jessica's, too):

We went to the 4th of July parade, enjoyed the festivities at the park, played in the water at Nathan and Jessica's, had a BBQ with them (including my flag cake of course), and watched the fireworks show at the fairgrounds.

We went to a ward campout (but didn't stay the night - John had to work the next day):

We had Noah and Anna stay with us for a few days while they got a new baby sister. It was absolutely insane to have kids ages 3.5, almost 3, 18 months, and 17 months in a 2 bedroom apartment. It was like having 2 sets of twins!! Not to mention I was 30 weeks pregnant at the time. The kids had a blast playing together, but John and I were very relieved when life got back to normal!

Noah and Anna meeting their brand new baby sister Helena ♥

We celebrated Adam's birthday with a BBQ and water fun at Nathan and Jessica's:

We went to a super-fun stake BBQ activity at the park. There was a bishop/high council watermelon eating contest, tug-o-ward, an obstacle course, and more:

We kicked butt at tug-o-ward. Until we got to the grand finale. They killed us as easily as we did everyone else!

We went camping in Yellowstone and drove through the Tetons. That fun trip needs a post of it's own, so stay tuned for pics :)

We completed the summer reading program at the library! The kids got all sorts of free stuff, including several free carousel passes (hence why we've rode the carousel so much this summer). Leaving the library with all our goodies:

Wow this is getting long. Now I'm splitting our summer into even more posts! Stay tuned for Yellowstone and August (with a smidge of July). Don't forget to check out our May and June summer fun post below!

Summer Fun 2011 - May and June

2011-09-01T01:27:00.032-06:00

I've been meaning all summer to write about the fun things we planned to do. Or have done so far. And now, summer is almost over and I haven't posted anything! I know, I'm such a slacker.

But, that means I can post pics of all our fun activities while I tell you about them :) Lots and lots of pics, in fact. I trimmed it down as much as I could...but you know how hard that is with a summer full of fun activities and super cute kids! And I even broke it up into 2 posts!! So...sit down, relax, and enjoy tons of pics.

I made a nice long list at the beginning of the summer of fun activities we wanted to do. We've managed to cross off almost everything on that list! And the things we haven't done yet, we either plan to do soon or aren't as high of a priority. Some activities we've done multiple times.

It took the weather awhile to warm up. By June, it was finally nice enough to really plan our activities out in advance. Mostly...our first attempt at an FHE picnic got rained on... But we penciled at least one fun activity per week on our calendar. We moved things around a lot, but at least we had them tentatively planned out. Planning out our summer definitely helped. We've had an absolute blast!!

We played with sidewalk chalk:

We went on walks:

We played at Nathan and Jessica's while working on the dresser:

Going "fishing"

We played at the park several times:

We went to the farmer's market a few times, including for kid's week where they released a bunch of ladybugs. We got balloon animals, sat in the firetruck, sprayed the fire hose, drew on the sidewalk, and Emma even won a prize!

We went to the zoo:

We spoiled John on Father's Day (which landed on Mom's birthday this year):

We had a picnic at the nature park and fed the ducks:

We went swimming at the lake:

We rode the carousel and played at the spray park:

And that's our May and June!! Stay tuned for July and August! We've definitely had a busy summer. More to come soon :)

My 3rd 3rd Trimester

2011-08-30T23:01:00.007-06:00

I should probably post a pregnancy update while I'm still pregnant, yes? It's weird to think this is my 3rd 3rd trimester. And no, it's certainly no more fun than it was the other 2 times.

But at least with this one I don't have to deal with carpal tunnel, swelling, or unknown gallbladder issues. Definitely an improvement from last time! My wrist only hurts if I spend too much time at the computer; but it would do that anyway. I'm still rocking the wedding ring at 37 weeks. And I no longer have a gallbladder ;)

But I have plenty of other discomforts. Oh yeah. Heartburn. Oh how I hate heartburn. And the waking up every 2 hours to use the bathroom. Yeah, that can go away now, thanks. Granted, I'll be up every 2 hours to nurse soon, but at least I'll be able to fall asleep again.

I have a huge belly that makes it hard to do things like brush my teeth or drive. I can't reach the sink without pushing on my tummy. At least I get out of dish duty this way! Driving is a challenge. I'm really short, so I have to be pretty close to the pedals. Which...doesn't work so great with a big fat belly pushing into the steering wheel. Thankfully, John usually drives when we go places anyway. It's when I'm going out on my own that I have to deal with it.

Not to mention the hormones. Oh boy. I've been crazy grumpy irritable psycho mom this whole time. Sleep deprivation makes it worse. Which, of course, happens frequently. I fly off the handle about the dumbest things. It's ridiculous. I'm trying to be patient...but it's so hard! Some days are better than others. And other days...well, let's not go there. I think my family will be very happy once these hormones are gone!

My son likes to push his butt or feet out. It hurts! Like his siblings, he prefers the right side. I'm mean; when he stretches out, I push him back in. If you're running out of room in there, you're welcome to come out...just sayin' ;)

But what I hate the most is ligament spreading. OH do I hate it! It hurts!! Getting up is so painful. Rolling over, walking, any type of position change - regardless of how small - hurts. I'm sore all the time. I'm so ready to be done with this!

Well...mostly. I have a big fat to do list that needs completing before he can make his appearance. Like finish Hyrum's baby book, clean my bedroom to make room for the pack n play, clean the car seat cover (it was in storage), finish updating my recipe book, give John and Hyrum haircuts, and get the blog up-to-date. That's not even close to everything. But I'm almost to the halfway point on Hyrum's baby book, I made significant progress on the bedroom project, I plan to give the boys their haircuts tomorrow evening, and, as you can see, I'm working on the blog updates now.

There will always be more to do than I can reasonably accomplish. As long as I get the high priority things done, we'll be set. And if not...we'll survive. All new babies really need are clothes to wear, food to eat, diapers, snuggles, and a place to sleep. Aside from the diapers, I've got everything I really need. All the same, I'd like to get more stuff done before he comes!

Health-wise, I'm doing great. I'm measuring perfectly, have awesome blood pressure, baby is right on track, etc. I've gained 22 lbs so far. So if I gain a pound a week like I'm "supposed" to, we're looking at around 25 lbs total. I gained 20 with Emma and 17 with Hyrum, but I also weighed less when I got pregnant this time around.

All in all, despite the many discomforts, everything is going great. We're so excited to meet our little boy!

Failure is Imminent

2011-08-30T13:30:00.003-06:00

Hard drive failure, that is. Oh yes, I get to go through that again.

Thankfully, this time I had 1. forewarning, 2. a back up of the bad sectors, and 3. a valid warranty.

It all started when I tried to open my family pics folder...and it wouldn't open. It just hung and then tried to tell me that the drive wasn't formatted. Um, yes it is...the other folders worked just fine, too. Well, except for the friends pics folder. On the whole drive, those are the only sections I haven't been able to access. Good thing all those files are backed up on my external!!

I ran a diagnostic test on the drive. Or tried to. It stopped itself and said there were too many bad sectors to continue.

At that point, I looked into warranty info and thankfully it's still covered. Yay! So I get a replacement drive for free! Ish...I have to pay to ship the bad one to them. But $5 in shipping is a lot cheaper than buying a new 500 GB hard drive...

And then I backed up everything that wasn't already backed up. Thankfully most of my files were already backed up on my external. Phew! No data loss for me!

I'm also glad that if I have to lose a drive that it's my pics and digiscrap drive - as long as I've got everything backed up, that is. Which I do. I'm glad I don't have to reinstall Windows or Photoshop or any of my other programs. All those are on my main drive. I'll still have a functional computer while I wait for my replacement.

I'm not exactly thrilled that I have to go through the whole RMA process and wait for my new drive. But considering what could have happened, it's not so bad. Just a minor inconvenience. I have to pull out the bad drive, put it in an anti-static bag, wrap it up in bubble wrap, find a box, slap my shipping label on it, slather it with my RMA number, and ship it out. Annoying, but certainly not the end of the world. Nowhere near as awful as losing all my files (been there done that, it sucked) or being without a computer for awhile. Or having to *gasp* actually pay for my replacement drive. With money I don't have, of course. So glad it's free!

In the meantime, I'll be scrapping off my external hard drive! I should reorganize my files while I'm at it; it'll make the transition from back up to new drive much smoother. Ha - if I can find the time to do it! I've got a billion things to do in the next 3 weeks before my due date! Sorting through 5 months of files isn't exactly my favorite activity...;) But it needs to be done. It's just not the highest thing on my priority list at the moment. Packing my hospital bag is much higher on that [extremely long] list and I haven't even started yet. I've still got time, right? ;)

In Want of A Yard

2011-08-17T22:22:00.003-06:00

Oooh how I want a yard. We live in a small 2 bedroom apartment. With 2 kids and a 3rd on the way. It meets our needs for now I guess, but it is small. I desperately want more space. But in the summertime, what I want most...is a real yard.

Sure, there are a few grassy areas around the complex. But they aren't what I'd call ideal. There's a long, narrow, sloped grassy median between the 2 parking areas. When we play outside at our complex, that's where we go. But it's not the most kid-friendly place to play. See?

You can see we have no qualms about staying in PJs all day ;)

And there are a few grassy areas at the street side of each building. But that's pretty much it. None of those areas are as play friendly as a full on yard. Our complex does not have a play structure; I asked about the possibility once, but there's really not a good place to put one. Not to mention the liability issue on their part.

There is a fabulous park just 2 blocks away...but sometimes I don't really want to put forth the effort required for a trip to the park. Especially in the heat and while pregnant. Pushing a double stroller with 55 lbs worth of kids + heat + 3rd tri = exhausting. Yeah, not very fun. At least not for me. So, most of our park trips lately have involved driving...and John has the car during the day since he has to, you know, be able to get to work...

What I really want is a yard. A fenced in backyard. With a wooden privacy fence.

Imagine the possibilities.

I could take the kids outside to play all day long - and in my PJs, without having to worry about people seeing my ratty, unwashed hair and yesterday's leftover makeup. No having to get ready before we play. Gotta love that.

I could bring a book to read while they play, or do housework or yard work (depending on kid's ages and the yard's safety).

We could have one of those awesome playhouse swing set structures. I'd love for my kids to have one.

I could plant a garden. Not a huge one; just the right size for us. John and I have decided that we'd prefer a smaller, modest garden. I'd have some tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, green peppers, basil (mmm, loooove fresh basil), garlic, strawberries, cherries, apples...maybe a few other herbs, fruits, and veggies. Just things we'd use enough to make it worth the effort.

And of course some pretty flowers and trees. Roses, lilies, willows...stuff like that. I want a nice, shaded garden area with a comfy bench or swing. Something semi-private and romantically tucked away in a back corner, but where I could also watch the kids play.

We'd want a nice, big open grass area for the kids to play in. It'd also be perfect for mingling with BBQ guests and such. Or running through the sprinkler and filling up a plastic kiddy pool. Or water balloon and squirt gun fights.

There'd be a patio area with a BBQ and a large picnic table. We really like the hexagonal ones. Those are just cool!

But on glorious summer nights like tonight, what I long for most is a nice, comfy swing or hammock on the back deck and a good book. Doesn't that sound simply divine? Or, as the kids get older, for all of us to sit out back and just enjoy being together in the evenings. I just love love love summer nights. The cool, refreshing air is simply delicious. I could eat it. It's so invigorating. It's definitely one of my favorite things about summer.

If I had a decent (and private) porch area, I'd probably be out there now. As it is, I've got a window open behind me and 2 fans blowing that delicious air towards me. But it's not quite the same as being out in it.

Next summer, however...we will have a yard. This is our last summer here. We'll head out to grad school in April. Wherever we end up for it, we will have some yard space. It's one of the big criteria for me. We want to rent a 3 bedroom house/duplex/townhouse. We need more space, more privacy, and more of an outdoor play area. I'm sick of sharing walls. I'm sick of not having enough room. And I'm sick of not having a yard.

My 30th Birthday

2011-08-17T00:00:00.009-06:00

Ok, just writing that title makes me feel weird. And old. I can't believe I'm 30! So insane.

The funny thing is, I really don't feel any different. I don't feel like I've suddenly aged a billion years or anything. I feel pretty much the same. I don't feel 30. You're only as old as you feel, right? Right?

I had an awesome birthday, though. When John's boss found out my birthday was coming up, he let John have the day off. Yay! It's an unpaid internship anyway, so it's not like we're missing out on a day of pay. So I got to have my husband home on my birthday :D

First, I got to sleep in. Sort of...my body doesn't really let me sleep when I want to...but I got to lay in bed and relax while John and the kids made orange sweet rolls for breakfast. Mmm, breakfast in bed. Awesome.

We spent the morning just lounging around the house. Goofing off on Facebook, checking the weather forecast, watching kid movies, etc. John and Emma went to pick up my cake and a couple of other last-minute birthday foods during Hyrum's nap.

Lunch was a lazy "eat whatever you feel like" meal. I had PB&J, which of course my peanut allergy kids can't have. They had cheese, bread, egg rolls...something like that.

We went to the new water park after nap time. I was kind of bummed that the weather wasn't as cooperative as I'd hoped it'd be. It was a little cooler and windier than I'd have liked. But we still had a ton of fun! I loved feeling less pressure while in the water. That was definitely nice. Plus, it wasn't crowded at all. That was awesome. I just wish it'd been warmer. Good thing the water is heated.

After we got everyone de-chlorinated, I started on dinner. Yes, I cooked my birthday dinner. I made chicken alfredo (from scratch - canned alfredo sauce is nasty IMO) and garlic bread. We also had corn and sparkling cider. Yum.

Mom sent me a funny card that said: "Things I've learned: any pan is a no-stick pan if you no cook in it." Bwahahaha, awesome. Love it. The inside said, "it's your birthday. Don't cook." But I totally did anyway.

Tori and Adam (John's youngest sister and her husband) came over for dinner, cake, and presents. We had so much fun hanging out with them :) I love having family nearby.

I got some great presents :) My parents got me the blue and green necklace I posted about previously. I cheated and opened that one a day early so I could wear it to church on Sunday ;) John and the kids got me the Best Bites cookbook, a DVD, and some candy (which I uh, ate half of before my birthday...I wrapped it to keep myself from snacking on it pre-birthday...). Tori and Adam got me Dieter F. Uchtdorf's Your Happily Ever After book - awesome book, basically a prettified version of an amazing talk he gave to the Young Women. It's one of those talks every girl/woman needs to read. Several times. I'm glad I have it in book form so Emma (and any future daughters) can see and read it any time they want. And so I can read it when I need the reminder as well.

Everyone sang to me and I blew out the candle. Haha, the only candle we had on hand was a number 3. We joked that I was turning 3. Awesome. I'm the same age as my daughter now ;) The cake was yummy! White cake, raspberry filling, whipped frosting. Yum. And we had root beer floats. Mmm.

After the kids went to bed, I curled up and relaxed with a book. Perfect way to end an awesome day!

Oh, and I love the fact that I had over 40 "happy birthday" wall posts on Facebook, plus some texts, emails, and phone calls. I loved getting so many birthday wishes from friends and family! I felt so loved ♥

I did get some pics throughout the day, but I look like a beached whale in all of them (granted, I'm 35 weeks pregnant...). So, no pics this time. I'm feeling lazy.

All in all, I had a fabulous birthday. Good food, good presents, and even better time with family. What more could I possibly want? Aside from not being pregnant that is...;) 5 more weeks to go!

Upcoming Birthday and Baby Needs

2011-08-02T13:01:00.008-06:00

Wow, did I really not post anything in July? It was a super crazy month, full of tons of fun family activities and more. I'll have to post about that soon.

But first...my birthday is coming up. And not just any birthday. My 30th birthday. It's less than 2 weeks away (15th)...and I have no idea what I'm doing. I think I know what I want for it gift-wise, but that's about it.

I'm pretty sure I want this necklace. But I also really like this one, this one, and this one.

Honestly, I'd love to have all of them...but that's not very realistic. At least not for my budget! But which one do I want most? Which one would you get?

I also want this book.

Another good gift option would be the only Sims 2 stuff pack I don't have yet, Kitchen and Bath stuff.

So, if you're interested in getting me a gift, any of those options are good ;) Or there's always cold hard cash. That's always useful. Feel free to check out my Amazon wishlist for ideas ;) Just keep in mind that a good chunk of what's listed there is for the kids. I don't want the dress up, Legos, or cars and trains stuff for myself ;) Well, maybe the Legos... Books or movies are always good.

Now, how to celebrate my birthday? Cake, obviously. I'm going to order a yummy cake from my favorite grocery store bakery. I'm thinking white cake with raspberry filling and whipped frosting. But what to do for the party itself? My birthday lands on a Monday. John will be working all day now that he started his internship. He'll get home around 5:30 or so. During the day, it'll be just me and the kids.

Originally, I wanted to go to Olive Garden for dinner that night. I still do. But...we can't afford it :( Maybe we could go to the new water park? They have some specials on Monday evenings. Maybe get pizza? Or make my own special birthday dinner (which is what I usually do because no one else knows how to make my favorite meals the way I like them)? Or go somewhere cheaper for dinner?

Oh I don't know. I want my birthday to be something special this year. After all, you only turn 30 once. There are so many family birthdays in the 2 months preceding mine that my birthday tends to get glossed over. Seriously, there are 16 family birthdays in the 2 months before mine. 16!! So by the time my birthday comes around, everyone is all birthday-ed out. That, and most of the family lives 800 miles away...

Last year, my birthday was a total bust. It was a Sunday, we all had colds, and I still had to direct the choir number at church. Lame. So I want this year to be FUN. I did at least get to have a yummy dinner (homemade lasagna)...but I made it myself. The cake, an ice cream cake from the grocery bakery, was a disappointment last year, too. So, this year needs to be NOT lame. It's bad enough that I'll be huge and uncomfortable on my birthday (34 weeks 6 days). I really want a good birthday this year. But I don't know what I want to do for it yet! Gah! And of course I have to figure that out before I can make it awesome.

John keeps asking me what I want to do, and I hate having to tell him I don't know. Everything I can think of costs money we don't have. This time of year is the hardest financially for us - especially this year with John's unpaid internship. Financial aid and such will come in soon ish, but not until 2 weeks or so after my birthday.

Switching gears a bit here...

We're getting closer to having 3 kids. Crazy! I'm now 33 weeks along. Can you believe that in just 7 weeks (or less) we'll have another baby? It'd be awesome if he decided to be a due date baby like his older siblings. I'd laugh hysterically if that happens. But I certainly wouldn't complain if he decided to be a week or 2 early...;)

We have most of what we need for him. The biggest thing we needed was a van and we got that back in March. We got the dresser for free and got it all fixed up and stained. I washed all the newborn and 0-3 month clothes immediately after we put the dresser in the kids' room. We just got a replacement swing for the one Emma broke. It's a travel swing, similar to the one we used to have. I got it used for a great price. All it needs is batteries.

There are a few more things I'd like to have but don't necessarily need. They'd be very useful, but I could live without them. I still want them, though ;)

First, I would really like a new diaper bag. I didn't buy one at all last time around. I mostly used the free one from the hospital. It worked ok, but I'd really like something that zips closed and has more pockets. Trenna gave me a Mary Kay bag and it's nice, but it's too big for everyday use. We use it as our church bag. I'm thinking about this bag. I originally picked out the black and avocado, but now I'm thinking about the black and turquoise as well. I think I'm currently leaning more towards the turquoise. What do you think?

I'd also like to get a few new outfits. I have found a few "new" secondhand items, but I'd like him to have at least a few brand new things. I'd particularly like to get him some of those cute appliqued tie onesies. I'm not good at sewing type projects, so I'd have to commission/buy those.

I'd also like a new pouch sling. I had one for Emma, but it was pink and black. Very girly. And I was bigger than I thought I'd be postpartum so it was kind of too snug. I lent it out to a family member, but I'm not sure if she realized it was an on-loan kind of thing...oh well. I'm too fat for it and having a boy anyway.

Other than that, all I need is to stock up on diapers and wipes. Oh, and maybe a few more hooded bath towels. Maybe a couple more cute blankets? I have a lot of stuff already. The benefit of already having one of each ;)

So if anyone is in the mood to get birthday or baby gifts for me...that's what I'd like!

Peanut Allergy: Confirmed

2011-06-23T15:50:00.004-06:00

We ended up taking the kids in to the ER last night. They were eating some chocolate chip muffins when Emma said she had something stuck in her throat. We thought she had a chocolate chip lodged in there. She was really upset about it and then threw up. I called the on-call pediatrician (it just happened to be their regular doctor) and left a message - turns out his battery died, but he called me back quickly. After awhile, she fell asleep and it seemed like things were ok. In the meantime, I got a bag together and got ready just in case.

But then, Hyrum threw up, too! That's about when their doctor called me back and we figured that since both kids threw up, it was some sort of virus and Emma had mistaken a sore throat for getting something stuck in it.

But while I was talking to their doctor, Emma woke up and had thrown up all over her bed and on the floor. I quickly got off the phone so we could take care of that and we started to draw up a bath for her. She still said she had something in her throat and started hyperventilating. She was SO upset and having such a hard time that we decided to take her to the ER.

John quickly cleaned her up and changed her clothes while I threw all the soiled bedding and clothing in the wash. We grabbed the bag and the kids and headed to the hospital. I called their doctor again on the way to let him know we were going in. He agreed that was best. He could hear her over the phone and said it sounded like either an allergic reaction or a lodged object. Either way, we needed to go in.

While we took care of all the paperwork, she started to break out into a red, splotchy rash on her face and neck. It definitely looked like an allergic reaction, but at the time we couldn't think of anything she'd eaten that could have caused it. She reacted to peanut butter back in August 2009 and we've always been super careful about avoiding anything with nuts in it. We were hoping she'd grow out of it since she was under 2 when it happened. Her cousins accidentally gave her a peanut butter cracker; they didn't realize she wasn't old enough to have it yet. We weren't going to let Hyrum try any until after he turned 2 as well.

The nurses took her vitals and she was NOT a fan of that. She fought the ER staff most of the time. The ER doc looked at her and got her a Benedryl shot and some zofran, then she got a chest x-ray to see if there was anything lodged in her throat. When Hyrum saw Emma get a hospital bracelet, he got mad because he wanted one, too. He was asleep by the time he got his.

While John took her to the x-ray, I noticed that Hyrum was breaking out with hives. He kept pointing to his diaper as if it needed changing, but he was dry. When we checked again, his diaper area was all red and irritated. He threw up 3 times while we were in the ER as well. Emma threw up twice in the ER. Both kids threw up 4 times each. Everything kept pointing to an allergic reaction, for both kids.

It was then that we remembered the brownie Emma got from her church class on Sunday. We didn't think it had anything in it, so we split it between the 4 of us. They ate the chocolate chip muffins at the same time. I called her teacher to ask about it since it was the only thing we could think of. Turns out it was a Reese's mix. Peanut butter.

We told the ER doctor right away. Once we knew what we were dealing with, we were able to get both kids the treatment they needed. They each got 2 shots: Benedryl and a steroid. Emma got zofran for the nausea and Hyrum got a breathing treatment.

We spent about 2 hours in the ER. We left just after midnight. The kids were soooo tired. They fell asleep in the ER but woke up during the transition from ER to car to home. This is where they slept last night:

John is such a sweetheart; he slept on the living room floor in case Hyrum fell off the couch. I tried to sleep, but I spent most of the night tossing and turning. The reality of what happened fully hit me after we got them home and settled down. Up until that point, we were in high adrenaline "let's take care of this" mode. It wasn't until after things settled down that the scariness factor truly hit me. It kept me up most of the night. I know it's no one's fault, but I still feel riddled with guilt. I know Emma has a peanut allergy. I unwittingly let her eat something she's allergic to. And now I know that Hyrum does, too. I am not mad at Emma's teacher at all; she didn't know. She feels bad enough as it is. But it's not her fault and I made sure she knows that. I can't expect everyone to keep track of my kids' allergies. That's my job. I have to be extremely aware of the foods around us.

My kids have obviously inherited my dad's peanut allergy. I've spent my entire life checking ingredients for nuts, so doing it with my own children isn't a new thing for me. The hardest part is checking every single treat at church activities, family gatherings, restaurants - everywhere that I'm not in charge of preparing or buying the food.

On the plus side, I've wondered for ages if this was something Emma had outgrown or if it was going to be a life-long allergy. We meant to get her tested but life kept getting in the way. Now I obviously have to assume it will be a life-long thing. I've also wondered if Hyrum would have the same issue or if he'd be able to eat peanuts. Last night gave me clarification on both - just not in the way I wanted it.

They are doing MUCH better today. A bit grumpy from being up so late, but that's to be expected. Aside from the grumpiness, you'd never know they spent 2 hours in the ER last night. That and the fact that Emma refuses to take off her hospital bracelet. Such a funny girl.

My Crazy Little Man

2011-06-20T13:18:00.014-06:00

It's been way too long since I posted updates on what the kids are up to. Since these posts tend to be insanely long, I'm breaking them up by kid.

And what is a kid update without pics? I need to sort through over 2 months of pics, but I hope these recent pics will keep the anxious pic-hungry grandparents at bay for a bit ;)

Hyrum is 17.5 months old now. He'll be 18 months on the 4th of July. Can you believe it? In 2 weeks, he'll officially be old enough for nursery. I've taken him for the first hour of playtime and he loves it - but only if I stay with him. We're introducing him to it slowly since he's very clingy around others.

Hyrum is such an adorable, sweet little boy. He's incredibly loving and snuggly. He climbs onto my lap all the time and randomly gives us all hugs and kisses.

But oh, is he a handful. He tries my patience in ways his sister never did. He gets into everything. I can't tell you how many times a day he opens the kitchen cabinets and pulls stuff out. We're not supposed to put baby proofing stuff on the cabinets at our complex, either. I soooo want those magnetic cabinet locks someday.

He loves to unroll toilet paper. He's the reason we keep the bathroom door closed.

And he's a climber. For instance...I was in the bathroom for maybe 2 minutes max, and this is where I found him when I came out:

Yeah. He climbed onto the kitchen counter. He climbed onto the table the same day. He also climbs onto the toilet and flushes it when given a chance. And every single chair in my house. He likes to stand on them. The desk chairs especially freak me out. This kid is seriously going to give me a heart attack.

Hyrum finally started walking for real at 15 months. He could have done it earlier but he just wasn't motivated enough to do it. Now he runs around all over the place!

He's very curious and loves to explore. Sometimes his explorations drive me crazy. Other times they're just adorable or hilarious. Seriously, how can you not smile at this?

Or this?

Or this?

Such a curious boy! One of his favorite things to do is put buckets or laundry baskets on his head:

He seriously does this over and over and over again. He can't get enough of it.

He loves to go outside. If anyone goes outside without him, he throws the biggest fit. Especially if Emma goes out there without him (don't worry, she only goes out with an adult). Oooh man. Huge tantrum.

Thankfully, he doesn't run off much yet. He's still cautious and wants to hold our hands when we're outside. Except on the playground. He's really good at exploring on the toddler play structure. Climbing up was easy for him, but it took a few falls to realize that he had to pay attention to when it steps down. It didn't take him long to figure out that it works better when he holds onto the rail. He especially loves the tunnel:

He loves to go on walks in the stroller. We went to the zoo last week and he just loved looking at all the animals from the stroller.

LOL, I love how he's like, "why are you taking my picture AGAIN, Mom?"

He roared at the tiger (who was hiding in his den).

He loves to roar with Emma. They walk around the house roaring at each other. He knows several animal sounds: cats, dogs, ducks, lions, tigers, and frogs. He probably knows more but I can't think of them at the moment. He says "mmmm mmmm" for vrooming cars.

Speaking of cars...he's obsessed with them. Cars is his favorite movie at the moment. He also loves Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc, The Lion King, Tangled, and pretty much everything. The kids get 2 movies a day and I let each of them pick one. He loves it.

He's a smart little guy. It's so fun to watch him learn. That's definitely my favorite thing about this age.

Hyrum also knows several body parts now: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, hands, feet, bum, and belly button. He can point them out on himself or others.

He can say at least 30 words, including: mama, Emma, dada, more (muh muh), Hyrum (slurred together), amen, thank you (dee doo), please, cat, meow, dog, ruff ruff, duck, cow, moo, car, ball, bubbles, book, yeah, water (wawa), juice, cheese, hi, uh oh, bird, diaper, bowl, baby, bye bye, Jesus, temple, key, fish, cheerios, tree, and right there.

He can fold his arms for prayers, give high 5's and knuckles, nods for yes, shakes his head for no, imitate others coughing.

Whenever we walk over the canal or drive over the river, he points at the water and says, "wawa!" He gets really excited about it. One rainy day he kept exclaiming wawa over puddles! Hyrum is fearless about water. He loves splashing in the tub and dumping water over his head. I can't wait till it's really warm enough to take him to the spray park. He'll LOVE it. He's also taken to putting his hand directly under the faucet when we clean him up after meals. He thinks it's SO funny to spray us!

Hyrum will point at a picture of Jesus and then say His name ♥ He also points out pictures of the temple, babies, and immediate family members and labels them correctly.

Yesterday he pointed at a tree and said "tree" - I didn't even know he knew what a tree was!

He's totally fascinated with technology. He always wants to play with my camera, phone, or computer. Once he even opened Photoshop! I'm still not sure how he managed that...I had the mouse way out of his reach when it happened.

A few days ago, he sat down on my belly and the baby kicked him right in the butt! It was hilarious! He didn't seem to notice, though. Brotherly love, anyone?

Sometimes when he needs a diaper change, Hyrum will grab a diaper, wipes, and a changing pad. Then he'll put them on the floor, point at his bum, and say diaper.

Just recently, he's taken to throwing food on the floor when he's done eating. We tell him that's not ok and such, but it takes time to nip that in the bud. Ugh. It wouldn't be as frustrating if our table wasn't on carpet...someday we'll have a real dining room with hard floors. I hate cleaning food off the carpet.

He loves to feed himself. He's really good at using a spoon now. He gets super messy sometimes, especially with mac and cheese. He just inhales that stuff. He eats a TON. Seriously, this kid out-eats his pregnant mother. And he's only a toddler. Imagine what he'll be like as a teen! John jokes that he'll have to get a 2nd job just to feed this kid. He just loves food.

But he is kind of picky. He won't touch meat unless it's mixed in or hidden. Even then he usually picks it out. The only veggies I can consistently get him to eat are corn and potatoes. But he inhales the corn whole and it comes right back out. I need to start hiding veggies in his food so he can't tell they're there. If you have any favorite recipes that hide veggies well, I'd love to hear them!

Hyrum loves bread, pasta, cheese, yogurt, jello, bananas, diced peaches, diced pears, mandarin oranges, crackers, and any kind of dessert. He drinks milk, water, and any kind of juice (when we let him). He's a total pro at using a straw and has been since the moment he tried it. He loves juice boxes, which we use for picnics and such. Here he is drinking a juice box at the zoo:

We took him to the dentist about a month ago and the dentist confirmed my suspicion that he was cutting at least 6 teeth at once. Poor little guy! Actually, the dentist then said it's probably more like 8. And sure enough, he had all 4 side teeth and the first set of molars coming in at the same time. He's still working on 3 of them. He has 3 of the molars in now and 2 of the side teeth. It's funny; the 2 side teeth he has are the top and bottom on the right side. Poor Hyrum was miserable with that many teeth coming in at once. Especially at sleep times. But I'm glad they all came in at once. I'm all for getting teething over and done with.

We've had some sharing issues. Hyrum gets really upset if Emma is playing with something he wants or if she takes a toy from him. I'm constantly having to play referee. "Who had it first?" "Did you take it from him/her?" "If you can't share nicely, no one gets to play with it." "If you take it away again, you're going to get a time out." And on and on and on, all day long. Hyrum of course doesn't get the sharing concept as well as Emma, but now is the time to learn. Ah, the joys of siblings.

Thankfully, he's pretty good about time out. He'll stay there and doesn't usually fuss about it. Sometimes he'll put himself in time out!

Hyrum is a great sleeper. He cries in protest for a minute, but it doesn't take him long to fall asleep. If he cries longer, it's usually because he soiled his diaper right after we put him to bed. We change it, give him some snuggles, and put him back to bed - and he's out. He rarely wakes up at night. When he does, it's for a good reason (diaper, teething, sick, etc). It's awesome.

Oh, you may have noticed his hair is long in some pictures and short in others. I just gave him his 3rd haircut last week. I messed up in the back, but it grows so fast that soon it won't even be noticeable. I have to cut it every 2-3 months. I cut John's at the same time. Hyrum is pretty good about it, for the most part. He sits and doesn't fuss...until he reaches his limit. Then he cries and squirms. Thankfully it's mostly done by that point. The back and around the ears are the hardest parts. I tried ear guards for the first time this time and it worked out pretty well...until I botched the back.

All in all, Hyrum is a very cute, curious, sweet, cuddly, smart, and lovable little boy and we just love having him in our family.

Trying Out Cloth

2011-06-19T01:09:00.003-06:00

[Edited a large chunk out; don't want to offend my close friends who have different opinions than me.]

I have a lot of friends who use cloth diapers. I've heard tons about them, how they save money, etc. I've heard pros and cons. I've thought about a lot...I like the idea of how they can save money. I wanted to try it out, but without making a huge commitment. I didn't want to buy a ton of cloth diapers only to find out I don't like them.

I got a surprise package from Kimi recently. She sent me some of her son's cloth diapers (he's potty trained and doesn't need them now). So, I tried some out. But after a [very] brief trial, my answer is...no thanks.

First, I tried a Dream-Eze. It's supposed to be a very trim all-in-one diaper, but it's still much bulkier than a disposable. I know this sounds ridiculous and superficial, but...I don't like the bulk. Even of the "trim" cloth diapers. My son is a chubby little guy, so it made his butt look huge. Not a fan. But the diaper itself fit well and did a good job. He napped in it and it didn't leak.

Next, I tried a short wing quick snap flap wrap with a separate cover. Again, good fit and no leaks. But it was super bulky compared to what I'm used to. Way bulkier than the Dream-Eze. I had to put him in larger clothes than usual to fit over the bulk.

Now here's where it gets gross and gritty.

Lastly (there's a reason for this), I tried a regular quick snap flap wrap with a cover. Like the others, it fit well, no leaks, and was bulkier than I'd prefer. But...he pooped in it. And we're not talking roll-right-off-the-diaper kind of poop. No. This kid has sticky cling-to-the-diaper kind of poop. Everyday. 3-4 times a day, at least.

If I could magically do cloth only for pee, I'd be more willing to do it. But with a kid who poops so frequently and not always predictably...not so much.

Also, I couldn't tell when he needed to be changed as easily with the cloth. I can tell by feel with disposables. With the cloth diapers, I had to take a peak - which is harder to do with cloth than disposables.

But then there's the hassle of washing them. Cold rinse cycle, hot wash with tiny amount of detergent, hot wash with no detergent. Plus longer dry time. It takes too long to wash them. And the frequency of having to wash them for full-time cloth diapering. Yeah...I'm not willing to wash diapers every 2-3 days. I only do 3-4 loads a week on average, and typically all in one day. I'd be more than doubling my laundry time. No thanks.

So after a [ridiculously short] trial, I know cloth diapers are not for me. As much as I'd like to save money by switching to cloth, I'm not willing to deal with the hassle of poopy cloth diapers and the extra laundry. I'd rather buy disposables. I like being able to throw the poop away.

John feels the same way. To be honest, he wasn't really interested in cloth diapers to begin with. He didn't want to deal with the mess, either. But he was open to trying it out, just to see. And we found that it's definitely not for us.

I know 3 diapers isn't much of a trial. It didn't give us a feel for all day everyday. But we got enough of a feel for it to know we don't like it. That's enough for us. At least now we can say we tried it.

To my cloth diapering friends: I commend you. You're stronger than I am. I don't think I can handle it. Kudos to you.

As for me...I'll stick with disposables.

The Dresser Project

2011-06-18T22:40:00.010-06:00

Finally, the post I've alluded to several times. I know some of you are anxiously waiting to see these pics. And now I finally am ready to post them!

When we found out we were having another baby, we knew we needed to get him a dresser. Poor Hyrum was stuck with one of those cheap plastic drawer units all this time. I wanted to find something that would work for him and the new baby to share.

I browsed around online, checking out Craigslist, the school's bulletin board, freecycle, Amazon - you name it, I checked it. But even the ugliest of ugly dressers at the thrift store cost way more than I wanted to spend. Either I'm way too cheap or dressers cost way too much. Whatever the case may be, it wasn't really working for us.

But then a nice dresser practically landed in our laps - FOR FREE. Now that's my kind of price!

The circumstances around it weren't exactly ideal; we basically inherited it from my grandparents after they passed away. Grandpa passed away last August and Grandma in April, just 3 days before we left on our trip.

The dresser came home with us. It needed a little TLC: minor repairs, cleaning, sanding, and staining. But hey, I can't complain - it was free.

I totally planned on taking a true "before" picture, but the dresser was wrapped up in a blanket in our van until we took it out for cleaning. In my excitement to get started, I forgot to take one until after we cleaned it. So...the earliest pic I have is an after-cleaning pic:

It was actually lighter in color before we cleaned it. I read on the cleaner afterwards that it's not supposed to be used on unfinished wood...oops. Too late now!

Then I sanded it the next day, which took off some of the Orange Glo cleaner look:

I was able to get off the white paint streak and most of the black sharpie on the top.

Then we took it over to Nathan and Jessica's to stain it. Our apartment complex doesn't allow staining type projects, so we couldn't do it at home. It started to rain just as we were finishing up. We quickly moved it into their shed to dry:

I didn't realize it at the time, but the stain we bought didn't come with the clear protective sealant. All the other stains I've used had it mixed in; I didn't even know it was possible to get stain without it. So of course we had to put on the clear protective coat a few days later:

Aaaand the finished dresser in it's new home:

The skinny top drawer is for socks, the next one down is for newborn clothes, then 0-3 months, followed by Hyrum's shirts in the next and his pants in the bottom drawer. His PJs are in the clear plastic dresser.

Of course, our dresser project encompassed much more than simply fixing up the dresser itself. It involved reorganizing a significant section of the kids' room. Namely, the toy corner. Which meant completely reorganizing the toys. It was desperately needed and was on my to do list long before we got the dresser in the first place.

I mean, check out how awful this is:

Embarrassingly horrible, isn't it? I promise it wasn't always that bad...I snapped this pic at the absolute worst. We were in our post-vacation-still-unpacking-and-readjusting-to-being-home mode. And I'm pregnant, which is pretty much my excuse for everything these days.

This is a more accurate portrayal of the "before," but it's still pretty bad:

BUT...check out how awesome this is:

And with the book boxes (and the cutest little boy ever) added in:

See that storage cube unit with the pink drawers? It used to be full of various baby and kid gear: burp cloths, bibs, baby towels, shoes, socks, blankets, extra sheets, etc.

Now? It's toy storage. Cars, balls, dress up, baby doll accessories, little baby toys, electronic toys, large toys, and miscellaneous. The clear plastic bins beside it have blocks, kitchen toys, music, and baby dolls in them. We used to have those bins out as toy boxes and the kids had unlimited access to them. No more. Now they can only have one bin out at a time and they have to put the toys away before they can pull out another. Sooo much better. Less mess = happier mom.

Most of the stuff that used to be in the cube unit is either in storage or in the baskets that used to be on the changing table. The changing table is now in our storage unit as well. I'd love to have it in their room, but we just don't have the space. And honestly, we haven't really used it much in ages anyway and Hyrum kept getting into the baskets. This definitely works better.

I plan to make cute labels for all the toy bins. We also just got a nicer laundry basket for all the stuffed animals. The one pictured is super old and falling apart. The new one is bigger and better supported. I don't have a picture of it yet.

Now that I have a dresser for the boys, I couldn't resist washing all the teeny tiny baby clothes...

Newborn:

Hopefully I'll get more than 2 weeks' use out of them this time...

0-3 months:

I have more 0-3 clothes that wouldn't fit in the drawer. They're in the clear plastic dresser. I put the cutest ones in the actual dresser of course.

And there you have it! Our dresser project is complete! I just love how it turned out :D

A Little Scrapping

2011-06-18T21:11:00.004-06:00

I haven't done much scrapping at all this year, what with pregnancy and taking care of 2 munchkins. Life has been crazy stressful off and on. But I do have a few pages to share :)

First, I made this cute page with geniaBeana's Verdant Splendor:

Then I played with her Dood kit:

And finally, today I made a Father's Day card using geniaBeana's He's the Man and one of Cluster Queen Creations templates. They made an awesome template pack together and this is one of the templates from it.

Haha, I totally cheated and sent my dad the same card but with different text. It took me most of the day (while my kids trashed the house), so it balances out.

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dad's out there! Most especially my amazing husband. He really is the best dad ever. He's always so patient and loving and willing to step in and help when I hit breaking point (which has been happening a lot lately...). Happy Father's Day, John! And Happy Father's Day to Dad, too. Tomorrow is also my mom's birthday, so Happy Birthday Mom!

I'm soooo ridiculously behind on scrapping and posting in general. I hope to get caught up someday. I think I'll try to tackle both in small doses. I still have like 2 months of photos to sort through. And I want to get Hyrum's baby book done before the new baby comes...

So many things I want to do and so little time to do them in. *sigh* And I don't exactly use the time I do have as well as I should.

But at least I have something to post :) I hope to post more soon.

Emma's Treasure Box

2011-05-31T00:09:00.004-06:00

After much internal debating, I decided to open an Etsy shop! Here's the link if you're interested: Emma's Treasure Box

So far, I have 16 bows up for sale. I plan to add pigtail sets and a 10 for $25 bundle deal soon. Eventually I'll have other non-bow crafty stuff for sale, too.

For ages I couldn't decide if it'd be worth it, if anyone would buy from me, if I'd be able to commit to it. But Etsy is so low-key that really I'll only be as busy with it as I make myself be. Plus, bows don't take that long to make anyway. So it's perfect for me. Coming up with a shop name was probably the hardest part!

I haven't sold anything on there yet, but I also haven't spread the word at all, either :)

However, I put some bows up for auction on Funds for Colleen. All these bows went up for auction:

Kimi divided the bows into 7 sets and so far, 5 of them sold! There are 2 sets still available if you're interested...;) Not to mention all the other awesome stuff listed there :)

I have soooo many blog posts floating around in my head that need to be written. Updates on the kids, our vacation, the dresser project, etc. But most of those involve sorting through tons of pictures and I just don't have the motivation to do it yet. Hopefully soon!

It's Another...

2011-05-28T13:27:00.002-06:00

BOY!!!

Once again, we were so sure it'd be a girl...and he very clearly isn't. He had no qualms about letting us see his boyness.

Oh no. He was flaunting it. Guess he didn't want to be named Cinderella ;)

Emma's response to the news was epic:
"No I don't want it to be a boy. I want it to be a girl! Change it!!"

I cracked up laughing. It was either that or cry because...I felt the same way.

I really really really wanted another girl. Still do. I can't say I'm not disappointed. And I feel horribly guilty about wishing this baby wasn't a boy.

I'm trying to focus on the positives. It'll be good for Hyrum to have a little brother, someone to wrestle and get muddy with while being stuck with Mom all day. Emma and I will be that much closer and have the mother-daughter bond I've always wanted. And someday we will have another girl. Hopefully the next baby because I don't know how many boys in a row I can handle. I'm not even sure I can handle 2 yet.

Just when I think I've accepted the fact, something smacks me right in the face to tell me I haven't completely embraced the truth that I'm having another boy. Someone posting that they're having a girl. Seeing all those cute baby girl clothes at the store. Friends cuddling their newborn daughters. Pulling up my ultrasound pictures to prepare this post. Which is why it's taken me 3 weeks to announce it on my blog.

I feel guilty for being disappointed. I don't want my poor unborn son to think his own mother didn't want him. I don't want him to read my journal entries about how I wanted a girl and was sad that it was a boy instead. I never want him to feel like I don't want him. I do want him.

And once he's here I'll know that we needed another boy, that he was meant to come to our family now, that everything is as it should be.

John and Emma are both more accepting than I am. Emma keeps telling me how she's going to help change his diaper, feed him (good luck with that...), bathe him, dress him...she's so sweet about it. She's such a great big sister already and I love how much she wants to help me take care of her new brother.

As for our new little guy, he's doing great. He's perfectly on track for his due date. Wouldn't it be funny if he joined his siblings in the due date birthday club? I wouldn't be surprised, actually. I'm kind of expecting it. But of course, he'll come when he's ready.

He measured in the 57-59th percentile for his gestational age. A little on the big side, but hopefully he won't take after his big brother on birth weight. I don't really want to push out an almost 10 pound baby again thanks. I'm trying to eat healthier to prevent that. I think being due right after Christmas last time didn't help...what with all the yummy holiday treats everyone kept bringing us. I'm aiming for the 7 pound range this time :)

The best part, however, was that after they did the regular ultrasound with all the measuring and gender identifying and such, they switched to 3D!! We got to see our little guy in 3D!

Isn't he adorable? He kept his face snuggled against the placenta, so we couldn't get a great shot of him. He wiggles around a lot, so that kind of surprised me.

We're making progress on getting all the things ready we need for this little boy. We have the van now. We already have a car seat (it's good till 2013 - did you know car seats expire? I'm planning a big post on car seat safety in the nearish future). We have baby boy clothes, though most of them are hand-me-downs or consignment finds since I never got a baby shower with Hyrum. We have blankets.

We inherited a dresser from my grandparents, which we're in the process of fixing up - all it needs now is the clear protective coat for the stain. I'll post more about that project later, too. We have a bed for him. Poor kid will be in a pink Pack N Play for the first 7 months. Hey, it's what we've got and we don't have room or money for another crib or to switch Hyrum up to a big boy bed. We're moving next April anyway (when he'll be 7 months old). So those transitions will happen then.

Honestly, we already have most everything we'd need. I'd like a few more cute outfits for him, but the only thing we really need is another swing. You know, since Emma broke it last summer...

And of course diapers and wipes. Those are always needed. I think I want to at least test out cloth...we'll see how that adventure goes. I'm lazy and am so sick of poop, but I know that will save us a ton of money so I'm willing to at least try it. Especially since I have friends who've offered to make some diapers for me to test out. I'll pay for them, of course, but it's a ton cheaper than vendor cloth diapers. So...we'll see.

As for names...we don't know yet. We have a few names bouncing around in our minds, but neither of us are sure if they're right for this baby. It took us forever to pick Hyrum's name, whereas with Emma we had her name picked out by 11 weeks. We'll see what this little guy wants to be named. Suggestions are welcome :)

Funds for Colleen - Auctions for Cancer

2011-05-12T00:13:00.001-06:00

Hello blogging world. It's been awhile, huh? We went on a 3 week vacation to visit family. And anyone who has traveled with small children knows it takes at least a week of pre-vacation prep and another week of post-vacation clean-up and adjusting. It was good to visit family, but we're glad to be back. More on our trip in another post.

Today, I want to tell you about something close to my heart. My dear friend Kimi has an amazing sister named Colleen. And Colleen...well, she has cancer. We lost my uncle to cancer in January 2010 (just 13 days after my son was born), so it's near and dear to my heart.

Colleen had lymphoma 5 years ago, but this time it came back as leukemia. She has 3 children. They all had to temporarily relocate for her bone marrow and stem cell transplant, which took place earlier this week. Colleen has to stay near the treatment center for the next 4 months. Kimi is helping to organize an auction for Colleen and her family to help cover the expenses of being away from their home for a few months while she recovers. The auctions run once a week and each week has amazing items up. You can also donate directly to Colleen's Paypal account.

This week, the entirety of Kimi's digiscrap store from her designing days is up for auction! I was on her CT back in the day and I can tell you this is an amazing steal. These kits haven't been available since the end of 2009. A couple of the kits are collabs with geniaBeana. Trust me, if you ever liked Kimi's Kreations products, you will not want to miss out on this.

For more info on Kimi's digiscrap products, check out her scrapping blog here.

For the auction itself, click here. All auction funds and donations go directly to Colleen and her family.

There are all sorts of other awesome things up for auction this week, including handmade jewelry, artwork, and home decor. And next week, I'll have these bows and flower clips up for auction:

I plan to open up an Etsy shop for bows and other fun crafty things in the near future. I'll let you know once it's all set up :)

But for now, I need to get our home back in order. At least we finally unpacked all the suitcases today! Sickness and vacation don't mix well. But more on that next time.

P365: Catching Up

2011-04-05T16:31:00.005-06:00

I'm ridiculously far behind on posting pics again. Sooo...today's post is a picspam post. Lots of cute pics of my cute kids. And other random things I took pictures of. I try to mix things up a bit ;)

I also wanted to get all caught up before we go on vacation next week. Hopefully I'll post some more pics before we leave, but at least now I won't have as huge of a pile of pics to sort through.

So, here we go!

February 9

Monkey see, monkey do...Mr. Resourceful.

February 10

Emma loves to spread butter on her bread. They were making grilled cheese sandwiches.

February 11

Emma wrote her name all by herself!

February 12

We went to Victoria's bridal shower. These are some of the prizes Jessica made. I came home with the pretty pink hat :)

February 13

Playing with letters together.

February 14

Valentine's Day! Emma and I had a blast heart attacking all the doors. She loved helping me make "bawentines."

February 15

Emma loves to dress up in our sweatshirts, coats, shoes, hats, etc.

February 16

Someone can turn on the light and open the door from his crib...time to rearrange the furniture!

February 17

Hugging Emma's baby doll...right before he threw her! Haha, such a boy!

February 18

Bath time!

February 19

Look who got into the box of kleenex...

February 20

Where I found them in the morning...

February 21

Lovin' that orange sweet roll.

February 22

Hm, how many crackers can I shove in here at once?

February 23

The aftermath of the Red Crayon Incident. Red crayons and dryers don't mix...

February 24

Playing in the snow!

February 25

Eating cereal.

February 26

Writing her name on the tub with bath crayons. I love the 5 lines on the E and the extra bumps on the Ms.

February 27

Dressed up and ready for church.

February 28

Yum yum yum!

March 1

We got to see the baby!! And they moved my due date up 4 days, so now I'm due Sept 20th.

March 2

Funny girl.

March 3

Hyrum climbed up on John's chair and started playing on the computer!

March 4

Watching Lambert the Sheepish Lion on youtube.

March 5

Car ride, anyone?

March 6

Sick weekend :( Tummy bug + cold. Not fun. Add a broken dryer into the mix and you've got one big mess!

March 7

Our entourage of medicines.

March 8

Our broken dryer element. Thank goodness for the wonderful kind people who fixed it for free! All we had to do was buy the replacement part.

March 9

Poor sick baby :( We had a family camp-out in the living room.

March 10

Melting snow!

March 11

Bows I made for a baby shower.

March 12

He likes to push toy boxes up next to my desk and stand on them. Now he can reach my keyboard. Greeeaaat.

March 13

Emma likes to climb into a toy box and put another on top! She usually says she's a robot when she does this, or that she's in a box or an egg.

March 14

It's starting to be less cold! We went on a walk...but it wasn't quite warm enough.

March 15

Emma said, "Hyrum's going to wash the dishes and I'm going to cook."

March 16

Ooooh boy. Think I'm going to have my hands full with this one? Good thing I have that baby knob on there!

March 17

We went to the temple ♥

March 18

Playing with blocks together.

March 19

I heard Hyrum fussing while Emma and I were talking about why she was in time out. I came back out to find him stuck between the couch and the wall!

March 20

So goofy!

March 21

This WAS my water cup...until Emma grabbed it off the counter and it shattered on the floor.

March 22

Emma wanted to put Hyrum's pants back on.

March 23

Hyrum LOVES mandarin oranges!

March 24

My handsome boys after their haircuts ♥

March 25

Emma's "hat" ... with a paper towel on top.

March 26

Our new van!!!

March 27

I wanted to get a cute picture of her in this dress. This was as cooperative as I could get her.

March 28

Emma came up with this creative outfit all by herself. Love the scarf, diaper bag, and shoes that are way too big.

March 29

Look what we got!! We LOVE it!

March 30

Bows and flowers I made for a fundraiser. They'll be auctioned off to help a friend's sister and her family while she undergoes cancer treatments. I'll post more details when all the arrangements are made.

March 31

We love our daddy!

April 1

The card I made for John. Heehee, it's glued shut. I also shoved socks in his shoes, put yellow food coloring in the toilet tank so when you flush it looks like it needs flushing again, and put a sticky note under his optical mouse so it wouldn't move. He got me good, too, though - he put peppermint extract in my water!

April 2

We had chocolate satin pie for breakfast. Yep, we are the epitome of health. He loved it, though!

April 3

Victoria and Emma over at Nathan and Jessica's.

April 4

Emma wrote out her name and Hyrum's with pretzel sticks.

I'm not quite happy with any of the pics I've taken so far today, so I'll post today's pic next time.

Our New Wheels!

2011-03-31T11:32:00.021-06:00

We got a mini van!! We traded in our 2006 Toyota Corolla for a 2004 Honda Odyssey. We LOVE it!! It's perfect for our growing family. Isn't it pretty?

And you know what the best part is? Trade in value + cash = 0 payments. Awesome. No car debt :) School debt...well, that's another story. Kind of a necessity at this point. But we definitely didn't need to go into even more debt for a bigger car.

It has lots of awesome features, like double sliding doors that open and close with the push of a button. I know that's a pretty standard thing for mini vans these days, but it's new to us. There's even a button to open them on the keyless entry.

The middle bucket seats slide forward and back to adjust for 3rd row leg room. Yay! The 3rd row squish factor is something I wasn't too fond of in other mini vans I've been in. And I'm super short, so it's gotta be crowded for me to feel claustrophobic back there. Not that I'll be back there a ton since I'm either driving or in the passenger seat...but it'll be nice for adult passengers.

The 3rd row folds down into the floor to allow for more space. Yay for space! We're testing that space out soon; our annual road trip is coming up in the next 2 weeks.

It came with a DVD player, too. That's one that really didn't matter to us. We have a portable double screen player that we've always used on road trips anyway. But it's convenient :) We're not going to use it for our weekly grocery shopping, though. It's silly to pop in a DVD for the 5 minute drive to Walmart. On road trips, however, it will get lots of use!

Anyway, it has lots of fun features and lots of space. Perfect for a growing family. And, it's a reliable brand. Hondas and Toyotas are the best out there IMO. I love foreign cars :D

As for the purchase story, it's kind of long and involved. If you're not interested, don't read it. There's some craziness involved but everything is resolved now. And honestly, after all is said and done, it seriously worked out the best possible way for us.

I've been researching mini vans off and on for a couple of months. I spent a lot of time at Edmunds.com and I browsed lots of local dealership inventories online. But this particular dealership I hadn't heard of until I went to a girly party at some friends' place. Another girl who used to be in our ward was there and as it turns out, her husband recently got a job as the future general manager (when the owner retires in the somewhat near-ish future) at a used car dealership. He stopped by while I was there and we talked about cars, vans, trade ins, etc. He said they'd probably be able to do a straight across trade.

I went home and told John. He spent a lot of time with this friend at church; John is/was the financial clerk and our friend was in the bishopric. We looked up their site, but most of the vans they had listed weren't quite what we wanted. He did tell me that they had a couple more that had yet to be posted online.

I checked their inventory online probably a couple times a week? Something like that I think. Fairly often, but not like every single day. I also checked out other dealerships' inventories. We weren't sure when exactly we'd buy, but it wasn't a pressing need since we won't need room for 3 car seats until September.

Then, last Friday, when I checked their site, they had an 04 Odyssey listed. For an awesome price. When John came home, I told him about it. And he called our friend at the dealership. Who then brought the van over to OUR place for us to look at that evening! We checked it out, test drove it, and decided we'd buy it unless we felt bad about it.

Emma even loved it. She kept saying she wanted to buy it. I think she really liked all the space. Haha, and then she went on to say she wanted to buy a bigger house, too. Yeah, me too, kid.

We still felt good about it Saturday morning, so John stopped by the dealership to seal the deal before work. Got all the paperwork signed, blah blah blah. I wasn't there for that part and to be honest, it's not the most interesting part of my story. We did find out though that the previous owners only turned in one key - and not the keyless entry. Bummer. But they said they'd look into that for us.

Now enter the crazy insanity. I'm not gonna lie; it was pretty stressful. And the process itself wasn't exactly what I'd call fun. However, in hindsight, it all happened exactly how we needed it to.

So, John bought it Saturday morning before work. On his way home from work that evening, he hit a nasty nasty pothole. Yes, the very day we bought the car. Big potholes are pretty common around here after 5 months of cold and snow. And since John wasn't used to driving a bigger vehicle, it was harder to avoid. On Sunday, a friend at church noticed that there was a bulge in our tire and told us it was about to blow out.

We avoided driving as much as possible until we could get it looked at on Monday. They replaced the tire and wanted to replace the other rear tire so they'd have matching tread. Ouch. $200 we weren't planning to spend. Especially since we just bought the car and put 4 new tires on the Corolla back in September. That's $600 in tires in 6 months. Painful! Thank goodness for family helping us with the Corolla's tires.

As it turns out, it's a good thing John hit that pothole. It's a good thing we needed to go in and get the tires fixed.

Why? Because they did a complimentary check on the car...and found several things that needed fixing. Based on their estimate, about $700 worth of things. Including transmission fluid, a dying battery, and a cracked belt.

We're going on a road trip in 2 weeks. Can you imagine having car problems on an 800 mile, 12 hour road trip? With 2 small children and a pregnant woman? Had John not hit that pothole, we would never have known it needed work done. We assumed everything had been taken care of, as it should have been.

At that point, John called our friend at the dealership and told him what was going on. Our friend looked up the paperwork on our new car and couldn't find an inspection report. Meaning it somehow slipped through the cracks and didn't get checked out before it went on the lot. It got the oil changed and was detailed, but not inspected for mechanical issues. That's not supposed to happen. Like, ever. They pride themselves on making sure every car is in tip-top shape before they sell it. He apologized profusely and said they'd take care everything for us, free of charge. This should never have happened as far as they're concerned. They said it was their mistake and therefore their responsibility to fix. He even came to our house that evening to apologize in person. He felt horrible about this happening - especially since we're his friends.

After class on Tuesday, John took the van over to them to get fixed up. He hung out there for a few hours before our friend sent him home in our old car; they still had work to do on the van and it was getting kind of late. And...John had to pick up Tangled ;)

That evening, another friend knocked on our door and said he might end up buying our old car! So John took him for a test drive in the car we just sold! It was hilarious. And then, while they were gone, our dealership friend returned with our van, all fixed up and ready to go. Aaaand...they gave us a 2nd key and keyless entry (remember it only came with one key?), free of charge. Sweet!! Way to make me happy :D

He also told us that had they fixed up the problems before putting it on the lot, the sticker price would have been higher. Like 3 grand higher. And totally and completely out of our price range. So had not all this craziness happened and it went on the lot all fixed up like it should have, we wouldn't have been able to get this van. We would have had to settle for something else. Based on all the crazy this-was-not-supposed-to-happen insanity we had to go through, I believe this van was meant to be ours.

We also learned that the previous owners took immaculate care of this van. Their mechanic said there were absolutely no leaks or anything, and usually in a car with over 70,000 miles there's at least some kind of leak. Our car has twice that. Knowing our van has been well cared for is very reassuring.

I hesitated to write out the whole story. I didn't want our experience to reflect poorly on the dealership or our friend in any way. Yes, the van should have been fully inspected and fixed up before it went on the lot. Mistakes happen. But as John said repeatedly throughout this experience, it's all about how things are handled after the mistake. And they handled it beautifully. Not only did they fix everything up free of charge to us, but they threw in the keyless entry. They really did treat us great.

Would we go back? Absolutely. Would we recommend them to our friends and family? Without a doubt. It's not so much about the fact that a mistake occurred as it about how they dealt with it. We would definitely go back. They have great prices, great service, and are great people. We won't need another car in the next year we'll be here, but if we did, we would go to them. No doubt.

Despite all the craziness, we can't help but to feel blessed. We now have a vehicle that will met our family's needs for years to come. We don't have a car payment, at all. Honestly, I haven't had one since just before we got married. And that has been a huge blessing in our lives. First, it allowed us to get our 06 Corolla for $500 out of pocket after we totaled our 05 Corolla. Insurance check paid the rest. And now it allowed us to trade in the 06 Corolla for a nice mini van plus cash. I am definitely a fan of this no car payment thing! We truly have been incredibly blessed.

Challenges and Blessings

2011-03-22T11:07:00.011-06:00

Life is hard. We all know it. We all go through times in our lives where it seems to be one challenge after another. Or multiple challenges at once, one on top of another.

The last couple of months have been that way for our family. I'm not going to lie or sugar coat it; it's been rough. But despite all the trials we've gone through and are currently experiencing, we've been so blessed.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of just how blessed we are. It's so easy to get caught up in the "poor me" feelings. And, much as I hate to admit it, I've fallen prey to those feelings entirely too much.

I'm trying to be positive. But it's a struggle. I didn't entirely plan on being pregnant right now. And, as awful as it may sound, I've struggled off and on with being ok with that. Obviously it happened for a reason and I did know in advance. I had a very strong prompting that it would. But I panicked and didn't feel ready for it...and a lot of the time, I still don't. I'm trying to work on that.

I know it's a blessing. I know this child will bless our lives beyond imagining. I know this child is meant to come into our family now. I know we will love this child just as much as the 2 beautiful children we already have.

But it's hard to remember that when I'm beyond exhausted day in and day out. It's hard to remember when I have to eat now or be sick. It's hard to remember when I'm leaning over the toilet or barf bowl. It's hard to remember when I have a massive headache from the fact that water makes me nauseous. It's hard to remember when I see how messy our house gets and I haven't had the energy to clean for 2 months.

And honestly, I haven't even been all that sick. At least not compared to the previous 2. Which is definitely a blessing. One that I constantly have to remind myself of.

I struggle to remember that just the fact that I can get and stay pregnant is a blessing. I know it is. It's beautiful. But remembering that when I feel miserable? It's hard.

A friend recently lost her baby to miscarriage at 7 weeks. My heart just aches for her. I can only imagine the extent of her pain and loss.

I know so many women who've experienced that kind of pain. Whether it be miscarriage, still birth, or losing a child at a young age. It hurts. Or the women who yearn to get pregnant and can't. My heart reaches out to the families who experience this kind of pain. I've never gone through it, so I can't say I know exactly what it's like. Because I don't. And I hope I never truly do. I don't want to go through that kind of trial. But I understand that it hurts.

When I complain about having to change my son's poopy diaper, I should remember that there are women who wish they had a baby to change.

When I gripe about my 3 year old having a night terror in the middle of the night, I should remember that there are women who wish they had a 3 year old to snuggle in the middle of the night.

When I moan about the less pleasant aspects of pregnancy, I should remember that there are women who would do anything to be pregnant.

When I complain about my husband being in school, I should remember that there are people who would love the opportunity to get an education.

When I mope about living in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment, I should remember that there are families who don't have a home.

We are truly blessed. Sometimes the challenges shove their way in and make it harder to see. But other times, trials are the best time to see the blessings.

During the last few weeks, friends from church have helped us so much. When our kids were sick, they brought us Pedialyte and Gatorade. When our dryer broke during said sickness, they offered to dry our bedding. When I had an awful headache or just a rough day, they brought us dinner. When I had zero energy to clean, they came in and cleaned things up.

And it's not just a one-time thing; they are always there to help. I hope I can help others just as much as they've helped me. At this point in my life, I don't feel like there's much I can do. I can barely manage the needs of my own family right now.

Does realizing and focusing on all the blessings make the challenges magically disappear? Of course not. But it makes them more bearable.

Am I still trying to sort out some of our challenges? Absolutely.

We're still trying to get back to normal sleep schedules after the kids' illness and daylight savings.

We're still trying to get an internship for summer.

We're still in the market for a minivan and just discovered that we have less to work with than we thought.

We're still frustrated that the IRS played a nasty mind game on us (well, at least I am - John is more accepting and forgiving than I am). First they gave us over $900 more than we expected. Then we got an ambiguous letter about it that seemed to imply that it was legitimately ours. That was a month ago. We were thrilled, thinking we had $900 more to put toward a bigger car. Well, we just got a bill saying we now owe them over $900. Wouldn't it have been easier for them to just get it right to begin with? Now our refund is the exact amount that we anticipated, but they falsely got our hopes up by their incompetence. I think we can put that money to better use than the government can... I know it was in error, but still - it was cruel to get our hopes up like that and then dash them instantly. It'll all work out and I know it's not technically ours to begin with, but still. I'm not exactly happy about it...and of course I'm going to (begrudgingly) send them a check. Not a good idea to stiff the IRS ;)

Regardless of whatever challenges we face, we can't help but feel blessed, loved, and watched over. Some I honestly would rather not deal with; who really wants to send the IRS a big fat $900 check? But I'll deal with them nonetheless. After all, the way to growth is through trial.

I just need to learn to not complain about my challenges so much and have a better attitude in general. And that alone is an on-going trial. I'll get there. It may take years (and probably will) but I'll get there.

New Blog Layout and New Pages

2011-03-11T14:28:00.003-07:00

Lookie, I have a new blog layout. I love it. I had lots of fun designing it in Photoshop. I got to play with geniaBeana's new collab with Dylabel Designs, Dragonfly Wishes. It just came out today. I love all the bright, springy colors.

Isn't it fun? It's on sale for 20% off. Image is linked to geniaBeana's ScrapMatters store.

Spring comes super late where I live. Winter seriously lasts 5 months. The snow is finally starting to melt, but we're still a ways from having real spring weather. So I had to be a little creative with my layout...

I also scrapped a page with another collab geniaBeana did with Nikki Epperson Designs. This kit is called Oh Boy; it's perfect for layouts of all the little boys in your life. Image is linked to the store :)

I used one of geniaBeana's Simply Stated V2 templates for my page.

I love how these pages turned out :D It helps that I had awesome kits to work with ;)

Sickness and The Dryer

2011-03-09T13:59:00.008-07:00

Worst timing ever: your dryer breaks...and your kids get the stomach flu. At the same time.

Yeah, that's what our weekend was like. It was definitely an adventure.

But there's more. Oh, there's always more.

We discovered Friday night that Hyrum is teething. And not just 1 or 2 teeth. Oh no. He's working on 4.

Saturday, both kids got fevers. Mostly in the 102 range, but occasionally spiking higher. Emma said her head hurt. Both kids had stuffy/runny noses and coughs. They were both pretty grumpy.

Sunday was even worse. It gets pretty gross here, so if you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip the rest. Their fevers got up to 104 and in came the vomiting. Yuck. I hate vomit. So gross. Hyrum threw up twice and Emma threw up 4 times.

Emma taking some medicine:

We obviously stayed home from church. John had to go in for an audit since he's the financial clerk. One tender mercy in this is that no one threw up while he was gone. I'm grateful for that. I think Heavenly Father knows I don't do well with vomit - especially while pregnant.

We had an especially nasty 5 minutes later that afternoon. Emma and I were resting on my bed when Emma threw up - ALL over the bed. And on my arm a bit since I tried to get the bowl to her but didn't make it in time. I went to clean myself up while John helped her. When they came into the bathroom, I saw and smelled it again. It was in her hair and all over her clothes...and I lost it, too. I threw up in the sink. John turned to Hyrum and said, "don't you start, too, Hyrum."

A minute later, Hyrum threw up too. He chugged his milk too fast. So in a 5 minute period, 3 of us threw up. So gross. John is such a sweetheart and cleaned it all up. He cleaned up all the nastiness with this sickness, in fact. I'm SO grateful for such a good husband!

So we had all this nasty bedding and clothing to wash...and our dryer was out of commission. We washed it all and tried to dry it...but no luck. I literally ran the dryer for 4 hours trying to get it dry. It turned and everything, but there was NO heat and the cycle dial didn't budge. We figured the heating element died.

Such lovely timing to not have a dryer. Thankfully, we have the BEST friends and neighbors ever. Not only did our friends bring us Pedialyte and Gatorade, but they were also kind enough to dry our bedding for us. We felt so blessed, despite the nasty bug that had invaded our home.

Fevers were still in the 102-104 range on Monday, so we took the kids to the pediatrician. Emma wouldn't let us give her any medicine beforehand; she wanted the doctor to do it. So by the time they checked her temperature, it was in the upper 104 range. Due to high fevers and throat inflammation, the doctor thought it was bacterial. He did a strep test, which came back negative. That surprised him. But he still thought it was bacterial, so he put them on antibiotics. He's seen lots of cases like this lately that later turned into pneumonia, so he wanted to get them on antibiotics to decrease the chances of that happening.

John stayed home with the kids while I went to pick up their prescriptions and do some grocery shopping. Emma was SO mad that I wouldn't take her with me. She threw the biggest fit over it. She seriously spent over an hour crying about it off and on. She was SO out of it. She loves going shopping, but there was NO way I was taking sick kids to the store.

Since Emma insisted that the doctor give her medicine, he gave her some tylenol while we were there. It was cherry flavored and she hated it. As a result, taking meds became a battle. Normally, she's really good about taking them. I think we only got about 2/3 of her antibiotic in her that day; she spit the rest out when we tried to force her to take it. Forget about trying something for the fever...we tried, but it was super frustrating. John finally got her to take a bit mixed with Gatorade...but there was more fluid than she could handle and she threw it back up. This time, all over HER blankets.

We've finally figured out that she just doesn't like the tylenol. We have the bubblegum kind, but she won't touch it. But we can get her to take the grape ibuprofen. We're making progress with the antibiotic. Thankfully, the doctor prescribed them a stronger one that only needs to be taken once a day.

Our entourage of medicines:

We finally started seeing some improvement yesterday. Emma was pretty out of it for a good chunk of the day; especially since she refused medicine AND food. But she was also really tired from staying up too late the 2 previous nights, so that was likely part of it. Plus the whole being sick and miserable thing. Her fever was still pretty high, too. But things finally started improving in the afternoon. Especially after we got her to eat and take meds.

The very BEST part about yesterday involves the dryer. John asked our apartment manager if he knew anything about dryers. He didn't, but the landlord "just happened" to be there - and he DID. So they came down to our apartment to take a look. Keep in mind that WE own our dryer, not the apartment complex. They were in no way required to help us with it. But they did.

As it turns out, it was the heating element that went out. The coil broke. The landlord then sent John to a specific store with the old part to get a replacement. John mentioned who was helping us with it and the guy at the store knew him.

Our broken dryer coils:

The new heating element wasn't exactly cheap, but it was way less than we were anticipating. Some of the friends who let us use their dryer on Sunday told us that in their experience, it was often more cost-effective to buy a new dryer than replace the heater. So we were thinking it'd be like $200. It was $58 after tax. Definitely better than we thought it'd be. Especially since we didn't have to call in a repair man and pay service and labor fees. We only had to pay for the part. We offered to bake them brownies or something for their effort, but they didn't want anything. SUCH a blessing. We can't help but feel watched over and cared for. We really are taken care of.

The kids had a rough night last night, but they slept in till 1 this afternoon. This is where I found Hyrum when I got up this morning:

And their fevers have finally broken!! YAY! Now to get through the joys of teething. But that'll be nothing compared to this nasty illness.

This is the 4th new post today, so don't miss the other 3!

Decisions and Research

2011-03-09T13:15:00.004-07:00

We decided ages ago - long before we got pregnant with baby #3 - that we would need to buy a van before we had our 3rd child. One of my New Year's resolutions was to save money for this very reason. Little did we know that I would get pregnant that very month.

This little alteration to our timing means less time to save for it. Thankfully, we got a decent sized tax return - more than we were expecting - which will primarily go toward our new wheels.

Our plan was to buy a used van with our tax return money and get a loan for the rest. We wanted to become a 2 car family.

But after researching grad school and how much it will cost...we've made some alterations to our plan. We really don't want to go into more debt than education alone will make us. Grad school will be expensive enough. We don't need a car payment on top of that.

We will continue to be a 1 car family. We're going to trade in our 2006 Corolla and use the trade in value + most of our tax return to buy a decent used van. We already looked up the blue book value and have a good idea of what we have to work with.

Of course, there's no guarantee we'll get the actual trade in value. We were going to go in to the dealership yesterday to see what they'd give us for it, but then we all got sick over the weekend. Maybe next week.

We've also looked online at some of the used vans they have for sale. We wanted to check out one in particular - a 2007 Chrysler Town & Country. I've done lots of research and I get mixed reviews. If you have experience with these cars, I'd love to hear it. Or if you have other suggestions, I'm open.

As long as it's not Ford...I will never own a Ford. I had one catch on fire on me right after I graduated high school...had I not gotten out when I did, I wouldn't be here. So, no Fords. Ever.

We want a newer-ish van. Something safe, reliable, and preferably 2005 or newer. I'm willing to go as old as 2003 if it's the right van, but no older. Ideally I'd like something newer than the 2006 Corolla we currently own. It seems silly to me to buy a vehicle that's older than what I drive now. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

Don't miss today's earlier 2 posts! I've got another, about our oh-so-lovely sick weekend, coming up soon.

1st OB Appointment

2011-03-09T12:44:00.004-07:00

I had my first check up last week. I've been meaning to write about it since, but, well, life got crazy. More on that soon.

As for my appointment, everything looks great. I went in expecting to get a pap, internal ultrasound, and bloodwork. The nurses totally made my day when they told me I didn't need a pap till my post-partum check up :D Since I've never had an abnormal one, it's every 2 years. And after I turn 30 (in August! Eep!), it'll be every 3 years. Yay for less paps for me! And the lab guy comes to pick up the bloodwork at the time I was still talking to my dr, so I didn't have to be poked, either. They'll just do it next time.

It was soooo cute to see my tiny baby on the ultrasound ♥ Baby is measuring 4 days ahead of my LMP, so they moved my due date up 4 days! Sweet! I'm now due September 20th.

Isn't my baby so cute?

LOL, at one point, baby gave us a perfect legs/butt view - too bad it's too early to tell! I still really think it's a girl. Emma is very adamant that it's a girl and that her name is Cinderella :D

Wouldn't it be hilarious if I had another due date baby? I wouldn't be surprised, but I'd seriously laugh hysterically.

My next appt is April 1st. Hyrum has his 15 month check up that day, too. Since my OB office and the pediatrician office work together, the receptionist at my OB was able to look up what time Hyrum's check up is so we could have them back to back. So totally awesome. They're conveniently next door to each other, too. Love it.

I'm doing lots of updating today, so don't miss out on all my new posts!

The Red Crayon Incident

2011-03-09T12:02:00.006-07:00

Every mom needs one of these, right?

Ok maybe not. But we had one a couple weeks ago.

It all started innocently enough. I was doing laundry. I was transferring wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. Hyrum came over and wanted to help. He was SO cute about it; how could I refuse? He put some clothes into the dryer for me.

What I didn't realize until way later is that he also had a red crayon...and it went in the dryer, too.

Imagine my surprise when the load was dry! Red spots EVERYWHERE.

Of course, it had to be a RED crayon. It couldn't have been, say, white or yellow or something less noticeable. Oh no. It had to be RED.

I was NOT happy. I had no idea how it happened. Maybe part of the red bath crayon got stuck in Emma's towel? It wasn't until that night that I remembered that Hyrum was helping me...and that a few days before, he had colored on the wall near the laundry closet with a red crayon. The same red crayon, apparently, that he threw in the dryer.

I immediately threw the load back in the washer for a special stain batch. Then I asked for help from all my Facebook friends. Everyone recommended OxiClean. We were going out that day anyway, so I picked some up.

I added OxiClean to my already-soaking stain batch and let it soak overnight. I was able to get the spots out of about 2/3 of the load. Thankfully, I got it out of Emma's super-cute blue coat, her jeans, and mostly out of Hyrum's khakis. The khakis have 2 teeny tiny light orange spots, but they're only noticeable if you really look for them.

Some items, however, still have red spots. I tried soaking them again, but no luck. Thankfully, most of the still spotted items are kid towels, washcloths, socks, underwear, and PJs.

Unfortunately, one of my favorite sleepers still has very obvious spots on it. And of course, it's a white one. Hyrum only got to wear it like 3 times before this happened; it's one of the newer ones my mom sent.

Here he is in his spotted PJs:

I seriously soaked this sleeper in OxiClean for days. I don't think those spots are ever coming out :( At least they're only jammies. But I'm still kinda bummed about it.

Hyrum, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. He probably didn't even notice.

I've definitely learned to be more aware of what's nearby when I let the kids "help" me with laundry.

We're going to need a bigger vehicle...

2011-02-17T10:15:00.003-07:00

...because we can't safely fit 3 car seats into the back of our Corolla...

We'd LOVE to get something like this:

It's WAY out of our price range, but a girl can dream, right? Realistically, we'll probably get an older, used van, but still safe and reliable.

But yes, we're having another baby! Baby #3 is due late September. I'll be 9 weeks along on Saturday.

This...was and wasn't a surprise. It was in the fact that we weren't officially planning to try until May. But at the same time, it wasn't.

Back in December, John asked me when I wanted to try for another baby. He said he was thinking January. At the time, I felt ok with that. And then I had the distinct impression that we'd get pregnant with a little girl in January.

But then, as January approached, I...panicked. Totally freaked out about the idea of having 3 kids, about having to buy a van with zero money, about the fact that I'm still nursing Hyrum and wanted a break between nursing and pregnancy, about fitting another baby into our tiny 2 bedroom apartment, about my ability to be a good mother to another child...I pretty much let my fears and apprehension get the best of me.

And so I decided I wanted to wait...

Obviously Heavenly Father had something else in mind. I don't fully comprehend His timing with this, but I know everything will work out. Somehow. I'm trying not to let myself doubt and fear. It's challenging, though.

Especially about the whole no money thing. At least we have clothing for either gender and we already have pretty much all the baby gear we need. We only need a bigger car...which, of course, isn't exactly a small purchase.

Emma insists that it's a girl and that her name is Cinderella. Hahaha, no. We do think it's a girl, but there is no way I'm naming my child Cinderella.

Although...we also thought Hyrum would be a girl...and he very clearly isn't. So we'll see. Either way, we've got all the clothing and blankets etc.

Thankfully, I haven't been nearly as sick this time. With my first 2, I had awful awful "morning" sickness. I threw up so much. I even made a chart with Emma...I know, nerdy beyond the extreme. With Hyrum, I had to be on zofran up till 30 weeks. Miracle drug, seriously. Loved it. But it's not cheap.

But this time? Hardly anything. I feel a little nauseous now and then, but it's NOTHING compared to what I dealt with before. I haven't thrown up at all. I've had some issues the other direction, which is annoying for sure, but I'd rather deal with that than throwing up. When I do feel a little sick, I eat something and lay down until I feel better. I almost threw up yesterday, but only because Hyrum choked on a Cheez-it and threw up on me.

I really think the main reason I'm not as sick this time is because I no longer have a gallbladder. I am 100% convinced that is why it's much better this time. The whole zofran till 30 weeks last time was mostly because my gallbladder was failing and we didn't know it. We were oblivious until I wound up in the ER last March and had surgery within an hour of my bloodwork coming back...

I have to eat like ALL the time. It's irritating. And of course, I can only eat whatever my body dictates at that time. Which of course means 3 AM cravings for white cheddar Cheez-its...when we didn't have any. Or Sunday night cravings for strawberry ice cream. Torture, I tell you. Torture.

I hope the whole eating all the time will improve when Hyrum fully weans. He's currently down to 2 nursings a day (morning and bedtime). I plan to cut the morning one out soon. I hope weaning will improve my non-existent energy levels as well.

I've been beyond exhausted. My poor house is a total disaster. I haven't had the energy to clean for...um...too long. I don't even want to know. It's seriously disgusting. If anyone is interested in doing a service project...

No really, I mean it. I have no shame in accepting cleaning help. Just sayin...

I have my first appointment on March 1st. It's not going to be a fun one, though. Pap, internal ultrasound, bloodwork...yuck. I am excited to see the baby and hear the heartbeat, but internals are not exactly pleasant. It'll be good.

And I'm hungry again. Time to find something I can stomach eating. It's amazing I haven't gained any weight with how frequently I have to eat. And the foods I can stand aren't exactly the healthiest of choices.

Haha, and Hyrum just found the Cheez-its. Um, no. Don't want him to choke on them again. Time for food!

My Cute Kids and P365

2011-02-08T23:55:00.009-07:00

It's been too long since I've done a real kid update. And I have lots of pics to post along with it.

So, last time I did one of these developmental updates, I said Emma was fully potty trained. And she was. The big potty chart even worked so that she only used the big potty.

For awhile.

Now, she's totally regressed. She keeps going in underwear or pull-ups. We mostly have her in pull-ups these days because I don't really want to deal with cleaning up poopy underwear. I keep asking her why she won't tell me she has to go. I know she gets caught up in playing, but really? It's getting ridiculous. One day, I asked her why she kept going in her pants. Her response? "Because it's funny." Uh, NO. No it is not.

I'm kind of at my wit's end here. I know regression is normal and all, but oh my goodness! It's soooo frustrating! I don't have the energy to do a lot about it these days, either. I'm tempted to give her time outs for accidents, but I think that would do more harm than good. She gets a sticker for every day she goes without an accident...since I started that chart, she's only gotten 2 stickers. And it's been up for like 3 or 4 weeks.

I know I should put her in underwear all the time, but I don't really want to clean up the mess. I know, I should just buck up and do it. And I keep meaning to. But I'm so tired, especially first thing in the morning, that it just doesn't happen most days.

Ugh. Please help! I'm sick and tired of changing a formerly potty trained child!

As always, most of the Emma updates are in the form of cute things she says. Here are the most recent Emma-isms:

- "I don't wanna break the counter."
- "What is that cute girl?" - while looking at a picture of herself
- "I close the door so you can go to sleep."
- "Hyrum's a little baby and we're grown ups."
- "We gotta do some paperwork, like Sully from Monster's Inc."
- "I don't like broccoli. Broccoli is like a vegetable."
- "There's snow outside still." - unfortunately...
- "You going to make fudge? For dinner?"
- "That's a classy one." - copying me while looking at Christmas lights
- "There's an echo in the back seat." - see above ^
- "I'm all covered in wet."
- "I had an accident at the crap store." - LOL, I love how she calls the craft store the crap store
- "I'm all covered in chocolate."
- "Hyrum doesn't wear ponytails. Silly Mom!" - her response to me putting Hyrum's hair in ponytails pre-haircut.
- "The ketchup farts."
- "He's eating money." - Pooh eating honey
- "You making a cinnamon roll? With the blanket?" - I folded a blanket to put away and she noticed that it looked like a cinnamon roll on the side
- "You're writing it down? Cuz it's funny?"
- She said a prayer for her toy bear when she fed him toy spaghetti. Then she said, "take a picture of that."
- "My mouth is big." - she had food stuffed into her cheeks like a hamster
- Walking down the ice cream isle: "that one and that one and that one and that one and that one and that one" etc, all the way down the isle
- "It's baby Jesus." - she wrapped a bear in a dish towel
- "Hyrum turned the light on while I was sleeping."
- "I found Buzz Lightyear, Mommy. But we don't have that toy. We have to get it sometime."
- "I want my dad to do the dishes." ♥ ♥ ♥
- "She has circles in her hair." - talking about her doll's curls
- "I was pooping in the garden last night." - uh, random! Everything past is automatically "last night." But...she's never pooped in a garden. We don't even HAVE a garden!
- "We gotta move to Washington." ♥ ♥ ♥
- "I want this flower in my hair so it can be pretty."
- "He has a funny bum. It has a circle on it." - I was changing Hyrum's diaper...oh boy...
- "Winter time is over." - I wish!
- "I like coloring with you when Hyrum's napping."
- "Winter time needs to be over." - AMEN!
- "We don't eat spiders, but the snake eats spiders." - talking about a snake game we like to play together online
- "I like the critter books. We should get some sometime." - she is currently obsessed with the Little Critter books. We borrow them from the library all the time. We only have one in our personal collection. So far, anyway...
- "Please can I have some more, Mom? Maybe just a lot."
- "I want winter time to be over." - me too!!

For the last 2+ months, we've limited TV time to 2 movies a day. Some days she picks 2 long movies, some days she picks 2 short ones. But she totally understands that she only gets 2. She even turns the TV off when the 2nd one ends. Awesome! Some days she protests, but we stick with it anyway.

When Emma doesn't get her way with me, she says, "I want my dad." Ha. He's going to say the exact same thing as I do. But she still wants to talk to him anyway. Not that it changes anything, but the distraction of calling Daddy helps. She knows how to call him and has now started grabbing my phone and calling him on her own. Well, she can only do it when he's the last person I called (which he usually is). I don't really want her making calls without permission, though. We've talked about it...she only just started doing that this week, so it might take a few more times to sink in.

Emma is working on learning the lowercase letters. She had all the uppercase letters and sounds down before she turned 3, but the lowercase ones are taking awhile. She can write several letters and she can sound out a couple of words. She can spell Emma and cat.

We've also been working on numbers. She's awesome at counting to 20 (and sometimes a little more), but I'm trying to help her associate the printed number with the amount.

I'm not sure what else I should be teaching her academically at this age. I have no intention to send her to preschool; I can do all of that at home (and, uh, for free). The problem is, I don't really know what to do yet!

We're at the oh-so-fun fight over toys stage with both kids. Hyrum screams if he wants a toy Emma is playing with or if she takes a toy from him. Of course, this most likely occurs when I'm like in the bathroom or something, so I have no way of knowing what actually happened. I ask Emma, but I'm not sure how truthful she is in those situations. Ah, the sibling rivalry begins!

Hyrum has learned SO much in the last month! He's still not walking, but he took his first 3 steps 2 weeks ago. The best part is, he toddled to Emma ♥ He will now hold our hands and walk around everywhere. We have this gender-neutral walk n ride toy (this one). I can sometimes get him to push it...but he prefers to walk around pushing Emma's doll stroller instead...

Hyrum knows lots of signs. He can sign: light, please, more, fish, milk, all gone, hat, bath, and thank you. He sometimes likes to do the signs on John and I. So funny.

He's been saying mama, dada, and Emma for awhile. In the last month, he picked up bubbles (buhbuh), banana (nana), and ball (bah). Not at all surprising, since those are all things he loves.

He frequently finds a little tube of bubbles, brings it over to me, and says, "buhbuh." He signs more when he wants me to blow more bubbles. He also tries to blow bubbles himself.

Every time we go grocery shopping, he gets super excited about the bananas. When I put them in the cart, pretty much the rest of the shopping trip consists of Hyrum trying to reach back and grab the bananas, all the while saying, "nana, nana, nana, nana." It's SO cute. But...a little frustrating. It's not like I can just give him one in the middle of the store. They kind of need to be weighed first. And of course, I hit the produce section FIRST...with our favorite store's layout, it makes the most sense.

He climbs on the couch ALL the time. We used to have an old banana chair blocking his access to Emma's dollhouse. Now that he can climb over it, we decided there's no point in having it take up the floor space. And oh, did he climb over it. I put it in the kids' closet today. Thankfully, he has yet to climb onto the dining chairs. He tried really hard today, though, so I know it won't be long. I'll enjoy it while I can.

Hyrum can reach way too many things. He can reach the table (and has knocked over Emma's cereal on multiple occasions), the desks, dressers, and even the kitchen counter. Nothing is safe!

I already posted the picture of this, but...he discovered crayons. Which I discovered by his artwork on the wall. Thank goodness for WD-40. We're trying to teach him that we only color on paper, but it's slow-going. He's more interested in coloring on NON-paper surfaces. He got my forehead when I dozed on the couch one day...

Hyrum figured out how to make noise out of Emma's recorder. When he doesn't have luck making the actual sounds, he hums into it instead. So funny. Emma does/did that too. Both kids love to play "drums" these days. They take any 2 random stick-like toys and drum-like box/container/pan/bucket etc and play drums on them. Emma always says, "I'm making music" when they do.

He recently found the little suction dart gun John got for Christmas and tried to put the little suction dart in. So funny!

Hyrum is still obsessed with food. I don't see that changing any time soon. He crawls over to the cabinet where we keep the baby food and snacks and pulls out the food he wants. That's his favorite way of telling me he's hungry.

Both kids now have the same bedtime! It took us WAY longer to try cry it out with Hyrum, but we finally did and he goes to bed at a decent time. Some nights are rough, though. When Emma is hyper and playing when we put them down for the night, she makes it hard for him to fall asleep. We give her time outs for it and it helps.

His crib is near the door of their room, next to the light switch...and he now turns it on. He did it non-stop the first few days he discovered he could. Since then, he doesn't do it as much.

He's at such a fun age! Frustrating at times, but definitely very fun. I love watching him learn. He's a smart little boy. He still likes to pull books and DVDs off the shelf, but we're working on curbing that behavior. He's picking up on so many words and signs these days! I love it!

My kids are just so cute and smart!

And what is a post without pictures?

Our up-to-date Project 365 pics:

January 20

Emma being her goofy self.

January 21

I made some flower clips! Some are for Emma and I, some are for Kimi (per request).

January 22

Emma: I wub you Hymum!
Hyrum: Get outta mah face!

January 23

We played Monopoly City after the kids went to bed. SO fun! Gotta love clearance + gift cards :D

January 24

Emma put Hyrum's PJs on...small much? I love that the tag from the pants sticks out the front.

January 25

My handsome husband ♥

January 26

Fun face that Emma drew.

January 27

Silly Hyrum! He was being SO goofy!

January 28

Emma closed the door on Hyrum's hand. This is right after it happened. He had a matching line on the other side and bleeding under the skin between each finger. It got really swollen. We took him to the doctor and then to the hospital for an x-ray. Thankfully, nothing was broken!

January 29

She was watching a movie while I tried to get good pictures of her.

January 30

In her pretty new dress (thanks Mom!) while playing with blocks.

January 31

She kept walking toward me as I took the picture...

February 1

My kids just LOVE the fridge!

February 2

We made a fairy house. I couldn't find my craft popsicle sticks, so we used construction paper instead. I made it exactly the way Emma asked me to. We made little fairies to go inside, too. She loved it!

February 3

Victoria's birthday!! We went to a party at her place. It was fun :) Her roommate has the EXACT SAME BIRTHDAY - even the same year!

February 4

The kids and I made valentines (or, bawentines as Emma calls them). Nothing fancy; just construction paper, crayons, and stickers. We were out of red, so pink, purple, and white it is!

February 5

Emma and I went to a baby shower. Emma LOVED the treats ;) I love the whipped cream goatee she's sporting here.

February 6

Hyrum got ahold of John's mouse...

February 7

Eating a banana. This kid is obsessed with them.

February 8

Dreaming of summer...well, mostly just being cute. She wanted to wear her sunglasses.

Oh, and a super-cute video. Hyrum loves to copy his big sister :)

I ♥ my little family!

Hyrum's Little Adventure

2011-01-29T00:44:00.003-07:00

We had an adventure today. And not the fun kind. No, it was more of the "let's go to the doctor and the hospital in the same day" kind.

The kids were playing by their door. Emma kept opening and closing it. Hyrum was right there, laughing at his sister's antics.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Yep. You guessed it. Hyrum put his hand in the door (hinge side)...and Emma closed it on him. He cried SO hard! Poor little guy. He had this awful indent all across his knuckles and bleeding under the skin between all his fingers.

Right after it happened:

And an hour later:

See how swollen it is? I should have gotten a shot of the other side of his hand, too. There's a matching indent there, and the whole knuckle section is really swollen.

John was in class at the time, but I set up a doctor's appointment for as soon as possible. He was moving his fingers perfectly, but I still wanted to get him checked out. I'd rather go in and find out nothing's wrong than NOT go in and later discover that something IS.

The doctor was impressed by how well he can move his fingers. He can still crawl around just fine, too. We don't think the fingers are broken, but the only way to find out if there's a fracture in the main part of his hand is by x-ray.

Of course, they don't have an x-ray machine in their office. He printed up an x-ray order and sent us up to the hospital. Which, thankfully, is literally only a block away.

I kept an eye on Emma while John took Hyrum back for his x-ray. He wasn't exactly thrilled about it. They had to put his hand in this green foam to keep him from wiggling. Little boys do NOT like holding still...especially toddlers.

But they got the x-ray and we'll get the results in the morning.

My poor little baby :( I felt SO bad for him. He's been SUCH a trooper, though. Aside from the major crying when it first happened, he's acted like his normal self. Playing, crawling, laughing, eating, getting into everything...

If it were me, I would have been the biggest baby ever. Seriously. I'd whine and complain and basically want to be pampered for the rest of the day.

Heck, I did do that when Emma dropped that shopping cart on my toe back in September... By the way, that toenail did eventually fall off...and is now mostly grown back in. At least my toenail-less days were confined to winter. Can you imagine walking around in sandals without a toenail? Yuck.

Aaaanyway, my poor little boy had his first significant injury and hospital visit today. Well, he hung out with me when I got my gallbladder removed...but it was his first time back there for himself. Obviously he was born there ;)

I hope nothing is broken. We'll find out in the morning. My poor sweet little boy!

Emma said it was an accident (I didn't actually see it happen, so I don't really know), but we definitely have had some talks with her about being more careful with the door. We talked about it a ton BEFORE this happened, too. Hopefully both kids learned something from this experience? *sigh* One can only hope.

Emma "Reading"

2011-01-20T23:40:00.003-07:00

I got this adorable video of Emma today and I just HAD to share :) Enjoy!

We borrowed this book from the library a week ago...and she memorized it in about 2 days. So no, she isn't actually reading reading. Just reciting what she memorized.

She definitely takes after me on the memorization front. I've always been great at memorizing things. I know John's family's birthdays better than he does - and he has 9 siblings!!

So no, she can't actually read yet. But she does know all her letters and their sounds. I'm sure she'll be an early reader anyway, based on how brilliant she is.

She's currently obsessed with the Little Critter books. It all started when we got her The New Baby book for her 2nd birthday. You know, when I was like, almost 8 months pregnant with Hyrum. She loved it and made me read it ALL the time. Of course, she memorized it quickly. Since then, we've checked others out at the library.

Someday we'll add more to our library.

Project 365 2011: A New Journey Begins

2011-01-19T22:47:00.003-07:00

I'm finally posting this year's P365 pics so far. I just love taking pictures everyday!

2011 so far:

January 1

Balloons we got from the New Year's party.

January 2

We had Hyrum's birthday party this day. He LOVED the cake!

January 3

Just hanging out at home.

January 4

The birthday boy!! Happy 1st birthday! Lovin' that cake.

January 5

Standing against the counter, as usual. It's his current favorite place to play.

January 6

I made myself a necklace and a matching bracelet. It's hopefully kid resistant. It's really stretchy, so it would take some extreme pulling to break it.

January 7

Emma helping me bake banana bread.

January 8

Emma lined up Mike N Ike's symmetrically by color.

January 9

Dressed up for church. She didn't really want me to take her picture...it totally looks like a mugshot.

January 10

Hyrum found a hairbrush and started brushing his hair.

January 11

Playing with her LeapFrog flash cards.

January 12

Hyrum found the crayons Emma dumped on the floor...he colored on the wall. He enjoyed it entirely too much. Ironic that his first drawing was on the wall. Thankfully, WD-40 works wonders on crayon.

January 13

Salad for lunch! I've been eating salad for lunch everyday.

January 14

Emma climbed into an empty diaper box. So funny!

January 15

Bwahaha, blackmail for life. Yes, that is my son...playing with his sister's My Little Pony. The hazaards of life with an older sister.

January 16

Little stud getting ready for church. So handsome!

January 17

Hyrum enjoyed coloring on the walls so much, we let him have his own paper to color on. He loved it! He cried when we put the crayons away for bedtime.

January 18

He opened this banana all by himself...with his teeth.

January 19

Emma loves the baby doll she got for Christmas ♥

Oh, and in case you're wondering about that last photo...she bonked her head on my desk and she has eczema on her hand. We're not bad parents, I promise!

And that's all of them so far! Enjoy! More to come soon.

Love, Sweet Love: re-release

2011-01-14T13:58:00.004-07:00

geniaBeana re-released one of my favorite kits today, Love, Sweet Love. It's pink, brown, red - perfect for all those lovey Valentine's Day pages:

Isn't it lovely? I adore this kit. I re-did my blog layout with it before I knew she was re-releasing it! It's on sale for 20% off at ScrapMatters (image linked above).

I scrapped this new page with it:

And turned it into a desktop:

I think I like my desktop better. I should probably shrink everything in the actual page. Now that I look at it again, I think everything is a bit too big. But it's perfect as a desktop.

We'll see if I shrink anything; I'm feeling very lazy today. Maybe tomorrow? Haha, it'd help if I hadn't stayed up way too late...I'm really trying to work on that, but it's hard to reset my internal clock. It doesn't help that my 3 year old was up with me...

Love love love this kit.

Project 365 2010 Scrapbook: DONE!

2011-01-12T20:38:00.006-07:00

I finished scrapping all of 2010's P365 pics! That's a pic for every single day of the year, a page for every week...done! 52 pages, 365 pictures. I feel so productive. And I just love how they came out. I definitely think my scrapping and my photography skills have improved over the last year. Check out the last 10 pages:

Kit: Haunted, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Hazy Shade of Winter, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Autumnal, geniaBeana Scraps
Alpha: Cranberry Jelly, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Merry and Bright, geniaBeana Scraps
Alpha: Cookies for Santa

Kit: Merry and Bright, geniaBeana Scraps

And...done! I feel SO accomplished. I did 6 pages on Monday, 2 yesterday, and 2 today. Today I've also eaten really healthy foods, exercised, cleaned, played with the kids, and gave them a bath - all while John was at school. Wednesdays are my "single mom" days since he doesn't get out of class until 7:45 PM.

Oh, a funny moment I must share. Hyrum was playing quietly under the table while I worked on the last page. I thought, "great, he's content, so I can finish this."

You can see where this is going, can't you?

A little while later, Emma said, "Hyrum's coloring on the wall."

Oh boy. Sure enough, he was gleefully coloring on the wall. I'd totally forgotten about the crayons Emma dropped this morning...*sigh*

Thankfully, a little WD-40 and it all came off.

You know, it's kind of ironic that Hyrum's first "drawing" was on the wall...ah well. C'est la vie avec les petits garcons.

My French teacher will be proud ;)

Translation for non-French speakers: such is life with little boys.

Goals Within Goals

2011-01-10T12:50:00.014-07:00

One of my goals for 2011 is to eat healthier and exercise. Mostly to shed the post-baby flab. I know it sounds shallow, but I want to be skinny again. Like this:

These are from my senior year of high school. Um, yeah, let's not talk about how long ago that was, mkay? I wish I was that skinny now. Ironically, at the time, I thought I was fat. Ha. I was like a size 3 or 5. What did I know?

I do look better now than I did when Emma was a baby. I just saw some of those pictures and they will never see the light of the internet. Just ew. I can't really take much of the credit for the post-Hyrum weight loss, however. My failing gallbladder got all the glory. But hey, it put me below my pre-pregnancy weight from Emma, so I'll take it! I wish I'd lost more and that I didn't have an unsightly tummy pouch. That's why I have a goal to lose it in the first place.

My husband, of course, thinks I'm beautiful the way I am...

I think he's crazy.

In order to meet my fitness/weight loss/healthier goal, I had to set more goals within that goal. These include:

1. Exercise everyday but Sunday. So far, so good. I do crunches, push ups, and I jog around my living room for 10 minutes. I'll increase the jogging time as my stamina increases. The jogging typically turns into a game of tag with Emma. She loves it. I'd like to try some exercise videos, but I don't know which ones to try.

2. Make healthier food choices. Not doing quite as well as I'd like on this one yet. I'm going grocery shopping tonight and will buy healthy things like lettuce. I want to eat salad for lunch everyday. I'm going to put healthier dinners on my weekly meal plans.

3. Portion control. Stop eating before I feel full. It's so easy to keep eating something yummy, even when you start to feel full. I will still allow myself to eat some junk food, but in smaller amounts and less frequently. If I try to cut it out completely, I end up craving it...and then majorly binge. So, no eliminating. Just limiting. I need more restraint, in more aspects than my eating habits.

4. Track my calories online. This really is an eye opener. It's amazing how many calories some foods have - especially when you have more than one serving! And one serving is smaller than you might think. I've only been tracking for a couple of days. Today's been the best so far.

5. Go to bed earlier. Staying up too late is bad for me for two main reasons: 1. it makes for an overtired and grumpy mommy and 2. I eat more late night snacks the later I stay up. Going to bed earlier will help me with my other goals for the year as well.

I would love to be able to lose enough that I'd need to buy a whole new wardrobe. I want to wear some of the really cute styles that are out now. But if I were to try them at this point, I'd look awful in them. I don't want to buy more clothes in the size I'm in anyway. I want to be smaller! I want clothing to flatter me again. I don't want to have flab that needs hiding anymore. I want to be cute, and pretty, and stylish. I do what I can, but...I'm not where I want to be.

But I will get there.

P365: 2010 - Finishing Up

2011-01-08T21:51:00.006-07:00

Posting the tail end of 2010's Project 365 photos :) It's been a fun year, taking pics every single day. So much so that I've started anew in 2011. But we'll save those for another post ;)

I have some pages to share, too. I wanted to get it all scrapped by the end of 2010, but that just didn't happen. I still have 10 pages to go. I hope to finish them soon. This year, I'm not scrapping them by week again. It's too tedious. I'm going to do a 2 page spread for each month. Much more manageable!

Anyway, here are the most recent pages I've scrapped:

Kit: Boho Chic, geniaBeana Scraps
Alpha: Markered Up, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Gigglerific, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Late September, geniaBeana Scraps
Alpha: Basically Worn, geniaBeana Scraps

Kit: Shabby Fall, geniaBeana Scraps

December 16:

Adam and Victoria came over for an end-of-semester bash. We had pizza and Adam brought Rock Band. We had so much fun!

December 17:

John and I got to go to the dedication for the school's new conference center. It was such an amazing experience!

December 18:

Hyrum wanted to comb Emma's hair! He sees us doing it all the time and he wanted in on the hair-combing action.

December 19:

Emma walking around in Daddy's shoes.

December 20:

Our gingerbread village, in its new locale. The kids could get to it too easily on the counter.

December 21:

Our 4th anniversary! We went to Olive Garden for dinner. So nice to go out on a real date!

December 22:

Just being cute.

December 23:

We drove around to see all the Christmas lights.

December 24:

All the presents under the tree! Emma's presents are in the pink/red/green candy paper and Hyrum's are in the blue penguin paper.

December 25:

Christmas morning :) I had to bribe Emma with Mike 'N Ikes to get this shot.

December 26:

Playing with their new laptops.

December 27:

Christmas leftovers for dinner.

December 28:

I picked out supplies to make myself a necklace. It's a belated Christmas present.

December 29:

We made some gift returns and the kids just LOVED the little bus at the mall.

December 30:

Victoria and I made a chain link counting down to her wedding.

December 31:

Hyrum got his first haircut! He looks like such a little BOY now! We later went to a New Year's party.

And I'm all finished with 2010! At least, photo-wise. Scrapping coming soon. I think I'll scrap tonight. Or make flower clips...hmm...decisions decisions. I think I'm more in a scrapping mood. Maybe I'll even make a dent in the 10 pages I have left for 2010.

Oh, and if you missed my post about Christmas, Hyrum's birthday, his first haircut, or New Year's, scroll down! I've posted a lot this week :) Enjoy!

Hyrum is ONE!

2011-01-07T00:36:00.006-07:00

Hyrum turned one on the 4th. I have a one year old! Seriously, how is it possible that my son is a whole year old already?

He went from this...

to this...

Oh my gosh has he grown! It's amazing, the changes a year can make. Is he really one already?! Has it really been a full year?

Yes, I know it's been a year. I was there for every step of the journey. I remember holding my not-so-little newborn in my arms. I remember the first smile, the first giggle, his discovery of the world. I remember watching him roll over for the first time. I watched him discover mobility. He had various modes of self-transportation along the way: 5 months = rolling around, 7 months = army crawling, 9 months = real crawling, 10 months = cruising.

But to wrap my mind around it all, to comprehend that he truly is a year old...

I just can't do it. I know it happened. I was there. And I have the pics to prove it. Tons and tons of them.

It's strange to think my baby is now a toddler. Albeit a toddler who has no interest in toddling. At all. I can't even get him to hold onto my hands and walk. But I'm not too concerned; he'll walk when he's ready.

He does, however, have an obsession with food. He will seriously eat anything. He eats ALL the time. If he sees you eating, he wants some - even if he just ate! But he's so insanely active that he's in the 3rd percentile for weight. Yeah. Mr. 9 lbs 12 oz at birth. He now weighs in at 18 lbs 10.5 oz and is 29" long. At birth, he was in the 90th percentile...at one year, he's in the 3rd.

And yes, I DO feed him. All. The. Time.

And yet, he still hasn't doubled his birth weight. Granted, he DID start out huge. Since he's under 20 lbs, no moving the car seat around for him. Not that I've ever been able to do that at a year anyway...and since my gargantuan-sized baby can't switch at 12 months, I probably never will!

Hyrum is such a sweet little boy. He's been my little cuddle bug right from the start. He's such a sweet, cuddly boy. He brings so much joy to our lives.

But oh, can he be mischievous. That boy...oh, the things he gets into. Cabinets, garbage, the toilet brush, DVDs, books, dressers... One of his more recent discoveries is climbing onto the couch. From there, he stands on the arm of the couch...and tries to climb onto the counter! Talk about giving Mom a heart attack!

Having a little boy is a much different kind of adventure!

And now he's one! He had a fun birthday. We had his party a couple days early since that worked best for everyone schedule-wise. Sadly, Nathan, Jessica, and their kids were sick and couldn't make it. Victoria and Adam came, though, and we had SO much fun.

Dressed for church, before the party:

We had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner. Then we let Hyrum open a few of his presents. He loved his new toys! And of course, so did his sister...aah, the sibling rivalry begins. Hyrum is now very vocal about anyone taking things away from him.

The loot:

He didn't quite get the unwrapping part, so he had to enlist professional help.

Sharing? Hahaha, not exactly.

The Pound-A-Peg was a big hit!

So popular, in fact, that he got really mad each time his big sister tried to steal it. He also got frustrated after the pegs got pounded down. He wasn't sure what to do next.

Then, of course, we had cake and ice cream. The cake we ordered came out super cute...except for one teeny tiny detail...

They spelled his name wrong! Soooo frustrating!

When you look at the order sheet, you can see exactly how it happened:

The girl who wrote the order up for us wrote the r and the u in such a way that it looks like an n. But STILL. Hynm? That's not even a word, let alone a name! And it's not like Hyrum is an obscure name where we live...ugh. I know, I should totally go complain. But I'm going to be the bigger person and leave it alone.

Besides, it still tasted divine. Regardless of the fact that they completely butchered his name.

Hyrum certainly enjoyed it! I really tried to cut down on the sheer volume of cake-smash pics, but there were way too many cute ones!

First bite...

Mulling it over.

Om nom nom.

Ice cream! It's cold!

This one seriously reminds me of my brother Paul.

Emma mostly ate the frosting...

After we put the kids to bed, we played SkipBo with Adam and Victoria. SO fun! I got some hilarious fake-drunk shots of them with sparkling cider. Oh my gosh, soooo funny.
[pics if I get permission]

On Hyrum's actual birthday, we opened more presents:

Enlisting professional help again. Nothing better than a 3 year old to open your presents for you.

Lovin' the car.

Animal sounds barnyard.

Baby marbleworks! Definitely a big hit.

Chicken!

And we had more cake!

All in all, he had a great birthday! It's hard to believe he's one already! He's growing up so fast. Happy 1st birthday to a sweet, cute, little boy!

(Psst, Christmas, New Year's, and First Haircut posts are below if you haven't read them yet.)

New Year's and Hyrum's 1st Haircut

2011-01-06T21:14:00.007-07:00

We had a fun New Year's. We spent all of last week just enjoying our time together while John was off from school. Yay for vacations! It was definitely much needed. Getting back into the swing of things now that classes have started again is a bit rough, but we'll get there.

I gave Hyrum his first haircut on New Year's Eve. It turned out cute! Some before pictures:

Couldn't resist ^_^ I had to demonstrate just how long it is, right? My son is going to hate me for this...

I put his hair in a baggy after. I almost cried. My baby's growing up!

After:

He looks like such a little boy now! I mean, he's always looked like a boy, but now he has more of a toddler boy than a baby boy look.

We went to a New Year's Eve party at the stake center. It was fun! Yes, we let our kids stay up. We normally don't, but they did great. They had so much fun! Emma loved the bouncy hut.

The kids enjoyed the music and dance lights. Hyrum watched while Emma ran around and danced. I took lots of pics of John and Emma dancing together.

We watched some friends play Lego Rockband, then we found one of the movie rooms...where Toy Story 3 was playing. We stayed there until just before the countdown. What a fun way to ring in the new year!

We got to take some balloons home with us, too:

The kids went to bed as soon as we got home. Since we didn't get to enjoy sparkling cider when the countdown ended, we had some after the kids were in bed.

A new year has started. 2010 had many ups and downs. We lost my uncle and my grandpa last year. The best part of 2010 was a sweet addition to our family. We've all grown and learned a lot over the past year. Now 2011 is here. What a great time to reflect on the previous years' goals. Here are my goals from 2010, with an update on how I've fared:

1. Have a baby. - Yep!! And only a few days into the year, no less.

2. Lose weight caused by said baby. - Check! I only gained 17 with him and pretty much lost all of it right away. Then I dropped another 17 lbs due to gallbladder issues. I was pretty much stagnant weight-wise after gallbladder surgery. I stayed about the same, despite my attempts to exercise and eat better, for most of the year. And then we hit the holidays...and I put on 4 lbs. But I did exercise and try to eat healthier. I still have a long way to go, but I'm learning.

3. Nurse for the whole year. - Woot! Yep, totally did. He's one now and still going strong. We'll probably keep this one up for a couple more months or so. We'll see.

4. Be a better wife, mother, and person in general. - Making progress. I think I'm better now than I was a year ago. I still have a long way to go. This, of course, is one of those on-going life-long goals.

5. Be better at home management. Cooking, cleaning, organizing, filing, financial management, etc. But most importantly, this means to make and keep my home a sanctuary. This, too, is a life-long ongoing goal. - Again, making progress. Cooking and cleaning has definitely improved, as has financial management. Organizing and filing is also getting better.

6. Continue to develop spiritually. - Again, making progress. On-going life-long goals are never truly finished. But I definitely think I've improved.

7. Project 365. - Check!! I successfully took a picture every day in 2010! Now to upload and post the remaining pictures...and to start all over again for 2011! I still have 10 pages to scrap, too.

Many of my goals for 2011 are pretty similar; some are exactly the same.

1. Save money. We really need to start saving more for future expenditures. We get better and better at managing our money, but we haven't been quite as good about saving as we'd like. We want to start putting a set amount or percentile into savings each pay check. In order to meet our semi-long term goals, we need to start putting more of what we get in savings. Which, of course, means better management of our income.

2. Be healthier. Lose weight, exercise, eat healthier. I want to exercise every day except Sunday. I'll still eat some of the not-so-good-for-me foods, but I really need to be better at limiting my intake.

3. Read the scriptures everyday. If I can take a photo a day for a year, there's no reason why I can't do this, too! I know it makes a huge difference in my life; I hope I can read everyday. Have better prayers, too. Spiritual growth will come if I do.

4. Be more patient. I need to stop reacting to things that don't matter. I need to be more patient, tolerant, and understanding - especially around my kids. I definitely need to yell at my kids less when they do something that frustrates me.

5. Be a better me. I want to be a better me tomorrow than I was today. I want the me of today to be better than yesterday. I want to continually strive to be better in every way.

6. Be more loving and kind. I think this will help with goal number 4. I especially want to be nicer to those I love most.

7. Be less judgemental. It's so easy to judge others; even random people on the street that I don't even know! I really want to work on judging less. It's not my place to begin with.

8. Improve my home management. Now that I've figured out what works for me cleaning-wise and cooking-wise, I need to be better at implementing it.

9. Project 365. I loved doing this in 2010! I'm totally doing it again in 2011. I still have 10 pages to scrap from last year. I'll catch up soon. I hope. I think I'll do 2 page spreads for each month this year. 52 pages (1 page per week) is pretty daunting. Plus, I don't even want to think about how much it'll cost to print my 2010 book. 24 pages (2 per month) sounds much more manageable! I also want to be better at posting the pics (and other things) on my blog. Maybe once a week?

10. Be a better CT girl. I want to step up my scrapping...and actually post my pages in the galleries I'm supposed to. I'm great at posting them here and in the CT forum...but I tend to forget to upload them to the galleries. I think cutting back on my P365 pages will help me make time for my other scrapping projects. I still need to redo our wedding book and I haven't really even started on Hyrum's baby book yet - and he just turned one!

I hope I can achieve, or at least make progress, on all of these! Happy New Year!

(Psst, don't forget to read the Christmas post below!)

Our Christmas

2011-01-01T17:47:00.028-07:00

I am probably the last person on earth to blog about Christmas. We were enjoying ourselves too much to post...haha, at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Actually, we really were. We just loved having John home. He's on a much-needed break from school. He wasn't scheduled to work much at all, even though he told his work he was available. As nice as the paychecks would have been, we definitely preferred the vacation!

John and I actually got to *gasp* spend time together! No homework for 2.5 weeks! He'll be free until school starts up again on Wednesday :)

We watched lots of movies, read books, ran errands, played with the kids, and more. It's been fun. We got to do all the Christmas activities we wanted to; decorate our home,

see Santa,

decorate gingerbread houses,

look at Christmas lights,

bake goodies,

enjoy our church Christmas program,

and go to a Christmas party:

On Christmas Eve, we had lasagna for dinner, decorated sugar cookies (pics above) and the kids got to open their new pajamas. Emma got Tinkerbell and Hyrum got Toy Story. Emma also got a pair of slippers. LOL, I got Hyrum the 18 month ones because he has plenty of 12 month jammies. They were big on him, but not quite as huge as I anticipated. Emma, on the other hand, got 24 month ones...and they fit perfectly. Their new jammies were only one size apart!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth! Sadly, it didn't come in until a week later.

John and I had a blast stuffing the stockings and putting the presents under the tree.

That night was soooo hard. The kids woke up around 10...and would NOT go back down until after 2!! It was SO frustrating! Thankfully, we all slept in. But we were still pretty tired. This is what I woke up to Christmas morning:

Christmas morning was fun. We made John's family's traditional Christmas breakfast of crescent rolls baked with cream cheese and chocolate chips. Yum.

Then we read the scriptural account of Christ's birth.

And then of course, it was time for presents. And oh, we had a lot of presents under our tree. We even tried not to have too many! But I think we had the same amount of stuff as last year, when we only had one kid. So yay, we scaled back?

If you can call this scaled back...

Opening presents:

Pic of the day, for sure.

Towards the end, both kids just wanted to play with their new toys instead of opening more presents. I think that's a pretty good indication that they should get less stuff next year. In my defense, we're only responsible for about half of their gifts...and my mom bought most of the other half! We'll definitely scale back more next year.

The aftermath:

I was a bit frustrated with a few of my gifts (clothing that was WAY too big, and therefore made me feel even fatter than I do already), my back-ordered gift from John which still hasn't arrived, and a toy that we thought was broken but turned out to be fine. Everything else I got, I wrapped myself...and most of it was stuff I picked out at the dollar store. Also, I wanted a Mommy Necklace, but they closed the site for the holidays before I could order one. I decided to make my own, but then realized we couldn't afford to until after Christmas. That, plus being overtired, made for one grumpy mommy after we opened presents. I went on a much needed walk by myself to get the grumpies out of my system. Can't have that ruining Christmas!

The walk did wonders. It was SO nice. It was exactly what I needed. I realigned myself with where I should be. The rest of the day was great!

When I got back, we started on our share of the food preparations. We made honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, cheesecake (ok so I did that the night before), and jello salad. We also brought egg nog, sparkling cider (only Martinelli's - I'm a purist), and ice cream. I neglected to take pictures of the food. My card was filled with present opening pics and the battery was charging. And yes, I started the day with a full battery and an empty card...

Once the food was ready, we headed over to Nathan and Jessica's. Victoria's fiance Adam came, too. Victoria went home for Christmas, but he stayed in town. We had such a great time! Good food, good company. Can't get better than that.

We put the kids to bed when we got home. Then, John and I watched the movie he got for Christmas. All in all, a great Christmas!