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!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving crept up on me a bit this year, but it was still enjoyable. We went over to my in-law's house as usual, but my favorite part was the "Turkey Bowl" that morning. Christopher still keeps in touch with quite a few friends from his old neighborhood, and they managed to round up a good sized group of friends and siblings for a football game. Normally this is just a guy thing to do while the girls make Thanksgiving dinner, but Chris wanted me to play, and I had a blast! In many ways, it is nice being the only girl because people don't expect too much from you. I even made a couple of catches! When I picked up the kick off, I started running and said "the best part is, being the only girl, no one is really sure if they want to tackle me or . . . oh shoot . . ." as my husband ran straight at me, grabbed me around the waist, and tackled me on the ground. Stinkin' flirt! I enjoyed watching Chris play- he had a great day, and actually caught a bunch of touchdown passes.

But my favorite thing about Thanksgiving, oddly enough, is that I can set up my Christmas decorations. I LOVE Christmas decorations. Heck, this year, I took down the pumpkins and leaves all over the house and set up holly and reindeer before I even went to bed on Thanksgiving itself. I have two favorites: the nativity set and the tree.

This nativity set is something that Christopher got while on his mission. Each piece was hand carved by a Philipino artist, and it was designed by another missionary in his area. The other Elder requested an angel without wings, and also asked that the manger be empty while Mary and Joseph hold their child. I love that. It seems to much more fitting to me to see the new little family huddled together, inspecting each other for the first time. When Chris saw the set, he went back and asked the artist to make him a set just like it. Right now it lives on my dining room table, which works out well because the angel hangs from the chandelier. I just love seeing the way the light from above shines on our little scene.

And my second favorite is the tree. When we first moved into this house, it was a big fixer-upper. We have painted nearly every surface, and intend to paint it all before we are done. But we loved the bones of the house. And our front room is part of what sold us. When you walk in, the front room and dining room are open, vaulted ceilings that go all the way to the balcony of the second floor. When I took out my decorations for Christmas that year though, I immediately noticed a problem. Coming from a small apartment, we owned a 3 foot, bitty Christmas tree. I just got the box out from the basement and looked back and forth from this tiny little tree to the 16 foot ceilings and laughed. So we stared shopping for a bigger tree. It started at 6 foot, and then we saw some 9 foot trees- hey, our ceiling can handle that! And suddenly, Christopher decided we should just do it. We spent almost all of our Christmas money on this 12 foot monster that year, but it was SOOO worth it. It was as though the house was designed to show off a 12 foot tree in the front windows. Setting it up is a chore, but oh, I do love my tree! Thanks heavens for "pre-lit", or I would lose my mind.

This year we had a new addition too. Christopher came home from Black Friday sales with a train to run around the tree. The only sad part is that it is not built to withstand Kaitlyn, so we can't actually set it up and leave it there. But Daddy and Tyler were ecstatic to set it up in our front room this morning and play with it. Tyler loves "choo choo trains"! He also liked pressing the buttons for the sound, and making it go forward and backward.

Kaitlyn, on the other hand, was absolutely furious. She wanted to grab this thing so badly, it was all either of us could do to hold her back. Daddy is fond of calling her a "monster", and usually I correct him, but she is quite insistent on inspecting everything we don't want her to touch. You can't see it, but Daddy is holding desperately onto her legs to hold her back for this shot.

And finally, we have success! Kaitlyn took quite a few steps today. She has to be distracted enough to not really notice she is doing it, but she did just great. Look out, everybody!

Twilight and BYU football

Friday night was a lot of fun! A friend of mine is really gung-ho about the Twilight series (I like them, but don't love them), and her sister-in-law gave her 4 tickets to see the movie that they couldn't use. And so she invited me and another friend in the ward to go with her and her sister-in-law. It was so much fun to have a girl's night out! I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it that much, but it was really nice to get away from the kids for a few hours and know that Christopher was watching them, so I didn't have to worry about them with a teenage babysitter or anything. We had some adventures, of course- we went to the wrong theater, and missed the first 10 mintues of the show driving to the correct one, and then ran on empty until we could find a gas station, and find a restaurant that wasn't over-crowded to eat at, etc. But it was really nice to just hang out, and not have to be in "mother" or "wife" mode for a while.

Oh, and I did like the movie, by the way. It was WAY sappy. I mean, there are action flicks, and dramas, and romantic comedies- this was pure romance, start to finish. I thought it did justice to the book though, because the book is pure romance, start to finish. The only thing I didn't like about it was Edward. I thought that the entire cast was perfect, except I thought Edward was rather unattractive and his lips were way too red and strange. Oh well.

And then tonight we had a big BYU football party for the rivalry game. I made up invitations and gave them to some friends in the ward a couple of weeks ago, and Christopher posted one at his work and invited all of them. The funny part was that we had a great turnout- but only one person who came tonight actually got an invitation. Three of Christopher's siblings came, a few guys from work, some random friends, and two of my awesome beehives that I mentioned it to. But only one person who I delivered an invite to. I guess if I want people to come, I should NOT give them an physical invitation? LOL. It didn't matter, if anyone else had shown up we would have been out of seats. As it was, I think I counted 26 people here, which is a lot to fit in one room watching the same screen. And yet, we fit them all perfectly. I love our basement! Chris worked hard this morning building the platform extention so we had two couches in our "stadium seating" second tier. Such a good handy man!

And then the game sucked.

But I have to be an optimist, so here is why this night was still ok:
1. Anyone breaking that high into the BCS polls is good for everyone in the conference in the long run. I just keep repeating that to myself, LONG RUN.
2. Our team did well tonight. You know, the team MINUS the quarterback, who threw 5 interceptions and fumbled for a 6th turnover. I honestly think it would have been a tight game if not for that. Who knows, we might have even won it.
3. We had a fun party anyway! We had tons of great food, and everyone enjoyed coming over even if they were in rather foul spirits towards the end.
4. Speaking of food, our "best kept secret" here in PG came through again. Two years ago we discovered that Smith's, the local grocery store that no one else goes to because Macey's is cheaper and 3 blocks away, makes 3 foot party subs for $20. When you cut that into 2-3" slices that feeds a lot of people for the money! But every time we have ordered it on the day of, they don't have the 3' bread. So they give us 3, 18" subs for the same price. Sooo awesome!

Bits of things

There have been little things that haven't fit into other posts, so I figured I should make one random post about what each of us are up to.

Kaitlyn-
*This girl cracks us up lately! Chris likes to call her a "monster", mainly because she is very fond of communicating by growling at us. There are happy "attack" growls, and "I am not happy with what you just did" growls, and "I just conquered this mountain" growls. I have to laugh sometimes when I put her in dainty, feminine dresses and she starts attacking everything in sight.
*She has learned her first sign- "all done!" I remember when Tyler was this age, and I kept telling Christopher's family all about the wonders of teaching babies sign language. Many of my neices and nephews learned sign language starting at about 10 months, and it did wonders for the "terrible twos" because they could communicate even before they could make their mouths work. And then Tyler learned nothing, no matter how hard we tried. I felt kinda silly about talking it up so much. But Kaitlyn picked it up right away! Every time she eats, she munches on stuff for a while, then starts to fling it around, and then turns to me and signs "all done." She also likes to sign "all done" halfway through getting her diaper changed. As in, "hey, can we be done with this yet? I think I would rather be naked here."
*She is sooooo close to walking. She can walk holding onto one of our hands now, and is pretty good at standing. But when she takes steps, she usually just topples over. Sooo close . . .

Tyler-
*I go though cycles with him, where sometimes I want to pull my hair out because he doesn't seem to be understanding anything, and sometimes I can't believe all he has learned. I think it is good to document the successes for when I need the pick-me-up. And he has been doing so well lately! Our biggest problem since the beginning has been that he didn't request things. I have never met a kid with this problem. But even when he knew the word for water, he wouldn't tell me water when he was thirsty. He would just wait until I thought of it and then down three cups of water in a row. But he has been requesting left and right lately! He figured out that if he wants something, he just tacks on a "please" to something, and we hop right up to help him. So now he comes up to me and says "sandwich please". Hooray! And he even has learned to eat the sandwich still together, instead of pulling it apart and making a huge mess. Hallelujah.
*Tyler loves playing with his baby sister. The funniest part is that he is a HUGE cuddler- he comes to me all the time and just says "hugs!" And so he is really intent on hugging his sister- the non cuddler. You can pick that girl up out of a dead sleep, or when she is screaming because she fell down, and it doesn't matter. She is still going to push you away if you try and hug her. But Tyler doesn't understand what her frantic noises mean, and he thinks she is playing a game by trying to yank away. So he hugs her anyway. Priceless.
*He loves the songs that he has learned at his preschool. He knows almost all the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and adores "Wheels on the Bus", and is constantly wandering around the house singing those to himself.

Christopher-
*He is loving his new gym membership. He is only gained 10 pounds since we got married, but he is determined to get back down as skinny as possible. His last marathon time was a 3:50, and in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon he needs a 3:12. For those of you not familiar with marathons, that is dang fast. 8.2 miles per hour to be exact. It's not impossible, and he got really close once, so I know he can do it. I kinda miss him for all the time he spends at the gym lately, but I think it is awesome that he is so dedicated to it.

Sarah-
*Has yet to use the new gym membership. I know, sad, huh? But I hate calling ahead and making sure there is room in the playroom for the kids, and the truth is I am just not motivated here. Kaitlyn is still a very picky eater, and so she nurses a LOT to make up for it. Which is good for me, because I eat whatever I want and still lose or maintain my weight. My problem here is that the summer after I had Tyler, I worked out EVERY SINGLE DAY of the week. I busted my rear end off, running for 45 minutes at a time, swimming laps, you name it. I never lost a single pound. Yeah, I know, muscles is more dense than fat, I got more tone, yadda yadda. But that still stunk! And now I am losing weight sitting on my couch with a baby in my lap. I know I need to go back to the gym and get in shape again, but I just can't figure out why!
*I am trying to figure out a new quandry. Every year I enjoy making our Christmas cards on photoshop, so I always need to get our picture taken ourselves so that we have rights to the file to put on the cards. And I just spent a lot of money on the new camera, so we are set there. But if I am in the pictures . . . who is taking the picture? We tried setting a timer one year, but babies aren't going to smile pretty for the blinking light. Yet, it would be silly to pay to have our picture taken, because that's what we bought the nice camera for. I might need to trick a neighbor into helping me or something.

Saddle shoes

Ever since I had my little girl, people have been asking if I have made her any shoes yet. The funny thing is that I kinda stopped making the shoes for a while. I had a problem where the last 3-4 shoes I made were not only the most intricate, as my creativity and skills grew, but also were worn the least. People were excited to get them as gifts, but when I casually asked about them later, it turns out that they didn't fit and were never worn. That's not their fault, and I don't hold that against them. But you can see why I stopped sewing if I spent hours and hours making them and they only spent 5 minutes on a baby's foot.

Anyway, no more shoes as gifts, but I can make them for my own babies since I can measure them against the actual foot and make sure they fit. I started this pair weeks ago, and then lost one of the main pieces after I cut it out. Yesterday I finally gave up on finding the old one and cut a new piece, and today I finished it. Hooray!

Oh, and if you haven't heard about my obsession of making baby shoes out of recycled leather, please see the link in the sidebar.