Tyler's birthday

I think Tyler had a nice day today. It was rather low-key, mostly because he has no idea what a birthday is anyway. But he got to open presents from his grandparents this morning. (I'll admit it- we were going to hold back a present from Christmas to be for his birthday, and I forgot, and then figured that he had so many new toys from Christmas it was silly to buy him more so . . . yeah, we didn't get him anything. Sad, I know, but true.) He liked this puzzle a lot.

And then, this afternoon, we went to Kangaroo Zoo to play with some of his cousins. Last time we went there, he liked it, even if he was a bit tentative on some things. We saw a big improvement this time! He did a great job, just carefully pulling himself up some rather big "ladders" all by himself, time and time again. That kid will do anything for a slide.

One of the coolest moments of the day was a very random one. Some background first: a few months ago, when Kids on the Move was testing Tyler to see his progress, they asked me if he did any problem solving. You know, using an object to get to something he wanted, etc. And I couldn't think of anything. He just doesn't get driven about things that often, so if things aren't easily done, he just finds something else to do. And then today, we were hanging out in a seating area when Tyler picked up a chair and marched off with it. We all stood there, watching him leave, with our heads tilted. "Where is he going with that?" And then, about 30-40 feet later, he sets it down in front of a favorite obstacle and uses it to climb up onto it easier. TA DA! Problem solving! I was so proud.

Also, last time, I had my other camera, and went bonkers trying to get good pictures. I was excited to try my new awesome camera out here and see how much better things are. I learned a few things.

1. I have a LOT to learn about my new camera still. I have read a few books, but I still need a lot more practice. The good news about times like this is that you have problems, and go home and look up how to solve that problem. Like, why things are still blurry in sports mode, and what settings to use in Tv to fix it.

2. It turns out that no matter what camera you have, the lighting in this place stinks. It is very bright, very harsh overhead lighting, and the inflatables make very harsh shadows over the slides. So your camera is fooled into thinking it is very bright out, and won't turn on the flash, even though you need it to fill in your faces. Grr.

3. My auto-focus likes to focus on things other than my kids. Like dinosaurs in the foreground. I figured out how to correct that once I got home and read my book.

In the meantime, it was great to see how much fun Tyler had with his cousins!

I think the funniest part is trying to convince him that he is three. We taught him a few months ago that when someone asks "how old are you?" he says "two". And now we are telling him that is wrong, and trying to get him to say "three". Can you blame the kid for looking at us like we are crazy? I actually started working on that a month ago, since I knew it would be hard, but he still says "two", and then he will say "three" when we start to correct him, and sometimes even get to "four". He does love to count!

New Year musings

I am not usually a New Year's resolution type of person. I try and make new goals and work on them whenever I get fired up about them during the year. But this holiday does mark a few little milestones for our family, and those are always fun to reminisce about. So while everyone else looks forward, I chose to look back just for fun!

Seven years ago-

Christopher and I met at the Liberty Bowl in 2001. We were both in the marching band, and I happened to sit next to him on the bus ride to our Graceland tour. We hung out the rest of the trip, playing air hockey at Dave and Buster's, wandering up and down Beale Street (where the one and only picture of us was taken, crappy as it may be) and then sitting next to each other on the plane ride home, New Year's Eve. I remember we celebrated the countdown twice because we were flying across the country and it caught up to us in two time zones.

It's amazing how time flies by. I can hardly remember what life was like without Christopher- he truly is the other half to my soul in so many ways, and I am so grateful that I was late getting on the bus that day! What a random moment to make such a good team. I feel truly blessed to be in a marriage with someone who is just as devoted to making everything work as I am, because that has made all the difference.

Three years ago-

Three years ago, I was due with our first child on February 1st. We flew to Ohio for Christmas, since I figured it would be our last chance without dragging kids and half the universe with us. My work had been chaotic that year, and I had set aside the first two weeks in January to set up things for my replacement and get things together for the baby. I had multiple people tell me they wanted to throw us a shower as soon as the holidays were over, so the only little clothes I had were the four pieces that my mom and I got over the Christmas break. We flew home on New Year's Day, pulled in the driveway at 1 am, unpacked a handful of things, and climbed into bed.

The next morning, my water broke at 9am.

I spent the first two hours on the phone, trying to sort out what on earth we should do- calling the midwife and my Hypnobirthing instructor to find out what was going on, calling a half a dozen people in my school to tell them I was never coming to work again, despite school starting back the next day, etc. The funniest call was to my mother, who thought I was just calling say I made it home okay. I calmly told her about the flight, and what time we got home and everything. And then a pause. "So, my water broke this morning . . ." "WHAT!!"

That is the part I remember every year on this day- the shock. I had not gotten in the mindset to have a baby yet- we were having a baby, but it was always so far off in my mind in comparison to the hectic job I had. And then, suddenly, there he was in my arms. We have truly fallen in love with this guy since that day, but what a day that was!

Mike and Brie's Wedding

This last Monday and Tuesday was spent driving back and forth to SLC for my cousin's wedding. We left the kids with a neighbor family (thank you Robinsons!), and they all seemed to really enjoy having babies around to play with while we went to the dinner (instead of a luncheon, they had a dinner the night before). Then we left them with my friend around the corner (thanks Steph!) while we went up for the early morning ceremony, which was one of 53 that day in the SLC temple. And finally, they came with us that night for the reception, which was beautiful (even if it was in the Ute Stadium :). I only took my camera to the reception though, but I did have a lot of fun with my new lens there. If you are in the family and want to see all the pictures, go here. Otherwise, I wanted to post a couple of my favorites.

My pictures didn't do her wedding dress justice- it was gorgeous!

My kids spent a good portion of the night running up and down the hallway, pushing around these benches they had and getting rides on them, etc. My cousin's son, Jackson, was their ringleader :).

Christmas

Somehow, earlier this week, I thought about what I was going to say on my blog, and then mentally checked off that I had written on my blog. And now I forgot what I was even going to say! LOL.



Anyway . . .


Christmas was fun around here! We went up to see my extended family for Christmas Eve. The big shock for me was seeing my Grandpa- he just had surgery on his eyes, because he could barely see even with his glasses. And so while they were fixing the cateracts, they went ahead and fixed his vision, so now he doesn't need his glasses! He has been wearing the same frames in every picture I have ever seen of him, way back into the 1940s. So seeing him without glasses was quite strange. At 95, my Grandpa is just amazing.

And then we had a great Christmas morning here at our house. Not that the kids understood why there were more new toys to play with suddenly, but they were quite happy to enjoy it anyway. The big item for this year was the "new" train table. When we visited Ohio last August, my mother found a train table at a garage sale for $20, and Tyler spent the entire visit hanging out at that table. We have had a small train set here for a while, but it had no home and we always missed that awesome table. So Grandma sent it here for Christmas! It cost about as much to ship as it would have to buy a new one, minus the fact that this one is bigger and more solid than ones I have seen in stores, and it has two drawers for parts. We set the table up when it arrived, but it wasn't very interesting to the kids until Christmas morning when they came down to see a new, big train set laid out for them. They both loved it (though Tyler was rightfully a little possesive when baby sister tried to grab and eat all of his train bits).

Christopher gave me a new lens for Christmas - 50mm with 1:1.8f - that many people have recommended as their favorite, so I was really pumped about that. He was even thoughtful enough to give it to me the night before so I could use it on Christmas morning. It takes a bit of getting used to, switching from a zoom lens to a fixed one, but the lower f-stop rating more than makes up for it. I think I am hooked. (If that doesn't make any sense to you, just skip over it!)

The kids had lots of little presents to open from cousins in Vegas (we draw names in my family- thanks Scot and Kathy!) and Grandparents, as well as from us, and it was fun to just make a nice, slow morning out of it. They weren't into the unwrapping very much, so we just let them have 10 mintues with each new toy before moving on. It was great! I'm sure as they get older it will turn into a frenzy soon enough.

And the big ticket item to each other this year was Rock Band 2 for our PS3. We bought the PS3 for the blu-ray playing part, and this was actually the first game we got for it! We have had guitar hero for the Wii for a while, but I think we might sell it to fund Rock Band, because I love the drums a lot, and we both liked that the characters were just a little more clothed, along with more songs to choose from (once we unlock it all). And the kids love the drum sticks, which is rather concerning actually . . .

I must be the only bored person on the planet.

Seriously. I mean, all we ever hear about is how hectic December is. So many things to buy, so many parties to go to, etc. And so I braced myself. I did all my shopping early. And all the parties were early. And so, for the last week, I have had absolutly NOTHING to do. Nada. Kinda creepy . . .

We hosted the annual YW Christmas party last Wednesday, and that was awesome. We really feel blessed to have such a great house to host in- we fit everyone in, no problemo! I also have to count my blessings on such a fun calling. I remember that two years ago, the Christmas party was my first activity when I started working with the Beehives. And I didn't know a single girl! I just remember feeling bad, because all the leaders had brought their assigned food (they didn't want to assign me something on one week's notice), and were chatting with all the girls, and I just stood there wondering how I was going to get to know all these girls I had never met before. But now I just look around and see all these girls that I absolutly love to pieces. I worry for them in all of the trials I see them go through, but I am constantly amazed by their strength and vibrant spirit. I know everyone says this, but we really have a wonderful batch of young women in this ward!

Anyway, after the YW party, we have just been hangin'. Doing laundry. Wrapping a few presents. The thing is, my kids are still too young for this holiday. Neither of them have a clue what is going on, and if we had any "Scrooge" in us at all we wouldn't buy them a thing, because they would have no idea. As it was, they were with me when I bought their presents, and "helped" me when I wrapped the presents. (That girl is such an investigator! She drove me nuts, picking up the scissors or the tape the instant they were set down, taking presents I just wrapped to push them around the carpet and use them as chairs, etc. Of course the scrap wrapping paper I gave her to play with was b-o-r-i-n-g.)

And yesterday we had quite the blizzard. So I took the kids out to play in the snow! This is going to sound lame, but that was the first time I have ever done that. Tyler has always been so timid- as it was, he mostly just stomped around in the drifts yesterday, and wasn't sure he liked trying to make snowballs or anything. But he is getting more and more adventurous, and Kaitlyn I knew would enjoy anything she could attack, so out we went. Her neon gloves were a bit of a fashion statement, but Kaitlyn sat and ate some snow before getting up and trying to walk in it. Even though it came up past her waist. LOL. And Tyler seemed to think it was exciting, even if he had no idea why. Next up: we need to get a sled!

Christmas Card addresses

Okay everybody- I am working on getting my cards out this week. So if you want to get one in the mail, I need addresses! My email address is just my name (firstlast) at hotmail.com. If you got one last year, I am sending to that same address unless otherwise told. Except for Sara- I know you moved back to Germany, but um- where?

If any of you haven't gotten one before, and want to be added to the list, please don't hesitate! I always end up with extras, since my home teacher owns a print shop and prints them for me.

In the meantime, here is the cover, fresh off of photoshop!

Heading in to Christmas . . .

We aren't as busy as most people are in December, but we do have a few traditional events that help us head into the holiday. Our first one was last Friday- the annual Cloward party. It is one of those really good white elephant parties, where it is a contest on who can come with the funniest, most useless or interesting item. Things like a pumpkin, a pair of high-heeled constuction shoes, one bowling pin, a set of Donny Osmond VHS tapes that come back every year, or crazy boxer shorts. It helps that we have awesome, hilarious neighbors. And this year, Christopher worked very hard for his prize. He opened it, got really sad when it was stolen, and then was SO happy when he managed to steal it back and keep it.

Makes a wife so proud.

He hasn't decided firmly what he is going to do with the horns yet. Right now they are on our front door, attempting to impale anyone that comes to our house. But he mentioned that he wants to attach them to his truck. That would make sense for a beat up, rusty old truck. I guess the fact that he has a nice, 2008 Tacoma instead adds to the humor? In case you are wondering about what I won, my prize package included two rolls of toilet paper, a box of popcorn, and a DVD from the Mayo Clinic about some gastrointestinal disease (GERT?). Oddly enough, someone approached me afterward and asked if they could borrow the DVD because their husband actually has that disease. Um, all yours! Take it away!

And the next day was something I honestly look forward to all year. My grandpa and I have gone to Christmas Around the World for 7 years now. It is a show that the BYU folk dance team puts on every year, and we love it! My grandpa loves all song and dance shows, but this one is a really good one. Basically, the dance groups dress in local costume and perform traditional dances from countries around the world. Irish dancing, American clogging, you name it. They always manage to find something new to add for variety, since there are a lot of people who come every year (it has been going for 50 years in one form or another), but there are old favorites too (it's not over until the "red boots dance"!). This year they had the Men's Chorus come and sing, and who doesn't love BYU Men's Chorus? My favorite part was when some of the singers came down and "cut in" on the dancers, and then the displaced dancers brought choir director down to dance. And then they tossed her up in the air! It was so much fun. I truly look forward to my "date" with my grandpa every year. He is 95 this year, so I never know how much longer it will last.

That night we went up to Christopher's work party. I think I would have had a wonderful time if I wasn't trying to keep two toddlers on their best behavior for a sit-down dinner in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. At least I got to visit with everyone though. We really are good friends with most of his co-workers and their families. That is the best part of a small, close-knit company like that.

After all that fun though, it is time to do MY part to get ready for Christmas. The Christmas card was rather stressful this year, since I never see Chris in the daylight hours to take a good picture, and the one time we tried to arrange someone else to take the picture was when the kids were FRIED and didn't smile. Notice their happy faces above. So our card has a picture of each kid on the front instead of a group shot this year. They are the cute ones anyway. On to shopping!