Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year, despite not having any snow :( Christmas eve we had fun making treats to take to friends and neighbors. Kaleb and Eliza actually played nice together while we were cooking.

That night we went to the Noble's house for dinner. They are such a nice family. Diana wouldn't let me clean up and she got us all gifts.

We went home late and hung our stockings and did a nativity lesson. When we asked Kaleb who the baby in the manger was, he said, "Santa!"

Christmas morning we were all awake at 5 with Kaleb screaming. He had his first real nightmare. I went in his room and his whole body was shaking. He said, "the scary owls are in my room!" Mom asked me later if I let him watch Harry Potter :) Ha, ha Mom. I don't know where he got the owl idea. We tried to sleep in till 8, but gave up at 7 and came down. Kaleb was so excited about every one's presents. He thought they were all dinosaurs. When he unwrapped a box of cereal, he shook it and still thought it was a dinosaur. When I finally convinced him it wasn't, he tossed it aside.

When we ask him how many dinosaurs he got, he thinks about it for a minute and says, "I have LOTS!" It's like he knows it's too much work to count that high :)

Eliza had fun crawling around and eating what she could find :)

I got really spoiled this year. All month Braydan's had a couple packages wrapped that I could not guess. One of them was 3 bound books he put together of all my blogs from the past 3 years. He said he printed over 800 pages! All the pictures are in there and everything. I couldn't believe it, as you can see by my face :) It must have taken hours. I remember telling him a while back that my blog is part of my journal and asked him what would happen if I lost it. Well, I don't have to worry so much now. I also got another huge present: new skis and boots! Braydan only wrapped my boots and bindings and hid the actual skis, so I didn't see that coming AT ALL! I love them, but I think sometimes Braydan sees me as the same crazy college girl that did all that outdoor stuff, but now I'm content to stay home with my kids. I know he's right, however. I do need to get out and have fun sometimes, so I'm going to try and put my nice present to good use.

Braydan got lots of outdoor stuff (go figure) like new hiking boots, new beanie, backpacking meals, water bottle, cool watch, and jeans. I also got him one thing unexpected: the Hunger Game books. He already finished reading the first one :)

After presents, we ate delicious gingerbread waffles with light lemon cream topping. I love this blog my sister-in-law told me about (realmomkitchen.com). I think I make at least one thing off there every day. This was one of her recipes. Mmmmmmm.......We started a fire after and burned all our Christmas wrapping. The kids love watching Braydan chop the wood :)

We talked to our families on the web cam and then Christmas night we went to the Bettilyons and there were 33 people there! It was lots of fun and good food. Kaleb had the best time running around with all the other kids :) Here's just a few of the kids there. I love how Katie is mysteriously missing her skirt? :)

Now we're looking forward to our trip to Arizona! I better get packing cause we fly out Monday!

Surgery Week

Well, I survived my surgery last Friday and am getting stronger and better each day now. Actually, I should say I survived the week before surgery because it was brutal. By the end I wasn't eating much of anything and hurt all day long. Luckily I have awesome friends who watched my kids and helped do everything. One night Kaleb woke up crying with what we thought was a bad dream, but when Bryadan went in his room, Kaleb confessed "I just miss all my friends." LOL! He sure was spoiled getting to play with different friends every day :) It's just my luck that Braydan had one of his busiest work weeks. Everyone wants projects done before Christmas. He tried as hard as he could to be home a lot, but it didn't happen much till Friday.

The night before surgery was especially torturous. I wasn't allowed to eat most the day and then drink after 12pm. I'm still nursing so I'm always thirsty anyway, but not getting to drink for so long was the worst. It was the first night in my whole life I never slept at all. I tried to watch movies even though I couldn't concentrate on them with the pain. I tried sitting in the bath and taking showers, but I really could NOT WAIT until morning when I would actually get some help! I woke Braydan up early and said, "we have to go now or I'm not gonna make it!" So we got to the hospital early, but they still got me in pretty fast. The surgery itself took less than 30 minutes. It was the best 3o minutes of my life :) They asked if I was nervous to go under, but I was looking forward it! I was so tired! I woke up feeling groggy but awesome! They kept asking about my pain, but I felt great! I wish they would've told me I feel great cause I'm numb and have lots of drugs in me. That pretty much sums up the next days after. Saturday early morning I was dumb and took pain pills with nothing in my stomach. I woke up a few hours later throwing up and so sick. I thought I learned my lesson about that before. Anyway, I made a vow to myself that I'm gonna treat my body better from now on :) Let's hope I do.

Updates

Family: We had fun this last weekend making gingerbread houses with some friends. We actually made REAL gingerbread from scratch and cut out all pieces. It was more work than graham crackers, but sure smelled festive and tasted delicious. The kids had fun running around and stopping for a few seconds to grab some candy. I knew I'd better snap a picture before we ate it up :)

We had our ward Christmas party a while back and Kaleb was excited to tell Santa about his dinosaur request. He was all ready to go up to him, but at the last second he bolted. It took me a while to chase him down, and then he confessed he didn't want to talk to Santa. I told him, "we better go home then." He thought about that for a minute and then said, "I want to go talk to Santa." He was brave and sat on his lap. I was busy trying to get my video camera out to capture the moment, but everyone was telling me to get in the picture. So. . . I missed his conversation with Santa in all the shuffle and I didn't want to be in the picture, but there I am :)

Braydan: Braydan had a rough week last week. His team didn't win the Salt Lake City job and he was really looking forward to the excitement of working on that huge project. But. . . ..I was thrilled :) I couldn't imagine up and leaving our home for a year. I know it probably would've been okay, but I'm so glad we're staying. It's been freezing cold here, but he still went climbing Saturday for scouts. Here's some pictures of their fun.

Jessica: I've had a rough week too with some health issues. I'm having surgery Friday and hope to be recovered for Christmas! That's all I'm asking Santa for :) I've had many prayers answered and I'm amazed at the love our Heavenly Father has for each of us. He's the only one who truly knows what I'm feeling and what I need to be healed. I'm humbled by his help in all this mess. Since I haven't been feeling good, we've stayed home a lot, which if you know me well, understand how hard that is for me :) To get me through these last couple weeks, I've found 2 good books.

Sometimes I'm so oblivious to other cultures and ways of life. These two books enlightened me into the world of 19th century China, and modern Orthodox Jewish culture. But more importantly, they have themes that resound in my life. If any of you read them, let me know what you think. My other new comfort is Pandora Radio. I love how I can customize it so it plays only stuff I like :)

Kaleb: Kaleb has helped me get through some long days with his silly ways. One day he was reading books and as he would finish each one, he'd say, "in the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN!" Another night we were playing hide-and-seek and I started to panic cause I couldn't find him. Well, he let out a noise to clue me in and here's where I found him.

He won't be hiding there anymore :)

Eliza: Eliza learned how to clap and thinks it's pretty fun to do. She's crawling on the tops of her feet sometimes and can stand for a few seconds by herself. She says a few words and will try and imitate what we say: mama, dadda, bubba, baby, and poopo. :) I'm afraid her hair is going to be crazy curly like mine! Poor girl. (I'll have to add some pictures later of her) Her newest love is books! If there's toys and books on the floor, she crawls over to the books. She can flip through them for a long time. She has two teeth now. I don't where her other teeth are?

Funny Boy

Some funny Kaleb stories......

1. Yesterday one of Braydan's presents I ordered came in the mail and Kaleb helped me wrap it and put it under the tree. When Braydan got home, I told him he had his first present under the tree. Kaleb heard us talking and blurted out, "Want to go see your new boots Dad?!! Come down and see!"

That's the last time he's wrapping presents with me :)

2. Kaleb's always running around, tripping, and biting his tongue. Whenever he gets hurt he runs to me and asks me to kiss it better. Usually I gladly oblige, but when he comes running to me with his tongue hanging out, asking me to kiss it better, I'm not so excited. "KISS IT MOM!!!, he cries to me."

"I'm not kissing your tongue Kaleb!! That's gross!" We go back and forth about it forever till he gives up and goes and plays :)

3. I was asking him what he wanted for dinner and he very confidently said, "Cookie Soup!"

4. In one of our many dinner battles to get him to eat, he confessed, "I can't eat. I have a crack in my head."

5. He calls boobs "emmies" ( I have know idea where he got that) but one day when he was playing with his dinosaurs, he came running to me and said, "look at my dinosaurs' emmies!" Sure enough, his dinosaur had something going on there.

6. And finally....a picture that says it all.

And in case it doesn't, he loves band aids and wants one all the time. To try and discourage him, Braydan puts them in the worst places.

I just have to add these two other pictures. Our house is so cold in the morning and I'm always telling Braydan to make sure the kids are dressed before they come downstairs. Well, I think he got tired of it cause I found Kaleb dressed like this for breakfast one day :)

Walks in December! It's been really sunny this last week (and cold) but when it's sunny we GO OUT! My friend thought it was so funny that Kaleb had to have his sunglasses on :)

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving! In the morning the boys (Josh and Braydan) got up early and played football at the annual Turkey Bowl at the high school. They came home dirty and hungry. Josh had a big shiner on his cheek from taking some poor soul down. We started up the pies after and cooked and hung out till we went over to the Dyers for dinner. Josh ate with Kara's family first and then joined us later for pies. So our feast was oh so delicious. I'm smart cause I'm good friends with two of the best chefs around.We played games until late and had lots of fun.

The next day Braydan and Josh let me go shopping in the morning. I didn't get too serious about it cause I left at 9. We said goodbye to Josh when I got home and got ready to go find our Christmas Tree!

Even though I've lived here a few years, I'm still not used to all the Christmas Tree farms! They're everywhere! Maybe we would've had real trees growing up if we lived here :) The Dyers knew a good spot for some (cheaper than last year) so we headed to Granite Falls. It was a beautiful crisp day for finding trees. Braydan saw a tree with two tops and thought it would be funny, but I said no at first. After walking around a while, I decided we should just get it cause it's kinda cool.

I had to buy an extra star, but I like it :)

The Dyers came out the forest with a huge tree and everyone teased them about it :) Our tree is the little one inside, and they have the one on top.

We warmed up with hot cocoa after.

And came home to decorate.

Now if I can just keep Eliza away from it!

Josh Visit

It seems like I don't get visitors for a long time, and then they come all at once! After Carla left, my brother Josh came with his girlfriend Kara. We finally got to meet her! She's a nice girl. I probably asked her a million questions to make sure she's good enough for my bro :) We played games with her one night and then the next day we went to the reptile zoo. It was pouring rain so of course we have to go there!

Kaleb was finally brave enough to hold this little boa snake! I was being really brave cause I hated every moment! We got pizza for lunch after and all took naps! We all slept really bad the night before because of certain kids........hmmm....I wonder who they could be? Not mine.

Kara had to leave that evening, so the next day I had Josh all to myself. It was a beautiful sunny day so we drove to Redmond to go climbing .

We bouldered for 3 hours and Josh still wasn't tired!

Eliza didn't love climbing so much :)

I was starving so we went over to the town center and ate and walked around the shops. Kaleb was being a pain and wouldn't eat his lunch, so I promised he could go see the candy shop and pick out a candy if he ate.

Well, he did and he was so exhausted that he fell asleep clutching his candy bag the whole way home :)

Josh was great with the kids and gave many piggy-back rides and tosses :)

He also tried to dig out my tree stump. I didn't ask him to do it at all! He wanted to.

Kara lives up north about 45 minutes so Josh left to see her, but came back Thanksgiving night! I'll have to blog about t-day later! I'm tired.

Carla Comes a' Calling

So this last week, my OLD friend (she's really old, like 26 :) Carla Foggin, came up to see us from Portland. It's been a few years since we've seen each other so it was fun to catch up! I think I quizzed her ear off about the past 3 years. On Friday we went to the mall and she talked me into getting the makeup Bare Minerals. Anybody heard of it? It was fun getting pampered cause she walked with the kids while I got a makeover. Maybe I'll actually wear makeup now. We came home and made cookies and played games till it was time to go to NEW MOON. I didn't really like the last one, but I'm glad I went. I think the theater was full of 14 year old girls. Everytime Jacob came on with his shirt off, everyone was screaming "OH MY GOSH, he's so hot!" I laughed a lot, especially at all the awkward love parts. Saturday I knew we needed to do something Carla style, so we went kayaking to Jetty Island.

I had to use Braydan's work vest and it's kinda hot don't you think? I had like 4 layers of coats under the rain coat :)

She's like a professional kayker, so I'm sure my kayaks were pretty sad to her, but it was still an adventure.

It was freezing cold for one. For two, I was kinda scared, especially cause the current kept taking me down stream.

But we made it! We didn't explore much cause I couldn't feel my nose.

So that's Carla out there, and that's where I'm supposed to be, but I kept getting carried further down stream. Whoops.

We went to my favorite Chinese place after and said our goodbyes. Thank you so much for driving all the way up here Carla! You better come back and visit again!

kidz

I've been meaning to update about my kids. I'll start with Eliza since she's changing fast.

(Feel free to skip this post cause it's long and mostly for me :) (and grandmas :)

ELIZA

Well first off, we've been calling her Lu Lu. I think it started with me calling her Eliza Lu, and then I just shortened it to Lu Lu. I keep trying to catch myself because her middle name is Susan!! I want a nickname with that, like Eli Sue, but I'll have to work on it. Eliza's 10 months now and is such a funny butter ball.

She knows how to crawl, but will only do so on the tile or hard floors. Once she's on carpet, she plops down on her belly. It's like her princess tummy can't touch anything but soft carpet :) She figured out that dropping food off her tray is hilarious. .She loves Kaleb so much (i don't know why........more on that later...) and is so happy to see him every morning. She always wants to be by him and play with him. She LOVES the bath. She gets really fussy if I don't give her one after dinner every day. When I'm turning the water on, she practically squirms out of my lap to get down in that water :) She learned how to stand up in her crib and on every thing.

. She eats twice as much as Kaleb. I almost laughed at her doctor appointment when Doc said she could start eating non-pureed food. I wanted to say... uh..she has been for months now, but I held my tongue :) I don't know how she does it with her one little tooth.

She's still nursing lots too, but is so impatient about it. If my milk doesn't come in within the first second, she's like, "see ya!"I'm excited to cut her off in two months :) She loves playing peekaboo and still loves her fingers for comfort.

Her funniest thing lately is this noise she makes with her lips. It sounds like a kiss but looks like she just ate something sour :)

Kaleb

I love my Kaleb too. We just have our moments lately! Like this last week I had a baby shower/play date at my house and he embarrassed me a lot. He threw toys, took toys away

from other kids, whined and cried for candy, crashed his truck into somebody...... It's hard when other mom's are watching how you're going to handle the situation. Usually I do timeout, but that's not really helping him improve. He picks on Eliza constantly.

I'll put her on the floor by him and I can't even turn around for a couple minutes before she's crying because he did something to her. He rips toys away from her, pushes her, pinches her. I don't know how to punish him for it! Any suggestions? I know he's jealous but I try really hard to give them the same attention. He's not always horrible. He's so good at going potty now. No diapers or pull ups for the last month now. He wakes up at about 11 pm to go potty and then that's it! He's really into dinosaurs still and gets me to play sometimes.

The other day I was changing his shirt and it pulled on his ears hard. He's like, "Mom, you're so annoying!" I was like, "excuse me?" Dinner time has become my least favorite time of day with him. Most everything I make he won't eat and asks for help. I don't have any patience and say, "fine, go to bed." But Braydan is nice and feeds him like he's a baby. Okay, this is sounding really negative.

Postive......ummmm....he's seriously a pyromaniac. Braydan's done a couple fires since it got cold and he was in heaven. We play a "letter game" every day and he's starting to recognize most of his letters. He really likes "W!" When we read to him now, we let him fill in a lot of the words. It's amazing sometimes how much he remembers, but of course it helps when words rhyme :) The other day he was playing on the piano and I asked him what he was playing. He said, "I'm doing piano lessons." He's my best helper with cooking still (my only helper)

He seriously knows my whole wheat bread recipe from memory. I asked him what we do first. He yelled, "water!" Then I asked what's next and he said, "salt"..... and so on through all the ingredients. Funny kid. Maybe he'll be a chef. Oh yeah.. one more thing he loves: hide and seek. For FHE one night we played for an hour straight and he would've gone for another 2! I don't know who told him about ghosts, but he talks about ghosts a lot. It's not a scary subject yet. He'll just say, "I heard a ghost upstairs!" I'll say, "really?" Then he'll say, "Yeah, let's go get him!" Makes me think he might have a six sense! ha, ha.