Finally I started to feel more like myself again. This corresponds to more photos being taken and more memories being recordered. Not to mention, it just means I am a lot more involved with my family's life. Reading books with Holland (and the older girls). Doing easy activities with them too. Holland kind of discovered that she liked puzzles one day in January. She did so many puzzles that day and still likes to pull them out.
I am still not getting up for bus drop off but at least I can get their hair done for church on Sunday. I am afraid that they look a little homeless for school. One day Holland drew me as this awesome drawing. Apparently the big hump back is the baby in my tummy. :)
We finally started using the Children's Museum pass that we bought a few months ago. It is fun to go with friends.
We even took advantage of the lovely weather and went to the park for a couple of playdates.
I started to be able to eat fruit again, just in time for our yummy blood oranges to be picked! Our little tree held on to seven oranges which ripened throughout the year. It was a record for us!
We have church starting at 11:30 this year, which took a little adjustment, but it has all been good. I love two hour church with a family devotional every Sunday. We even started to have people come over to our house for a playdate. Clearly I have been feeling a ton better. Holland loves Sophie so so so so SO SO SO SO SO SO much!!!
Our anniversary gift to each other this year was a little 3 month texting service that gives each of us 2 challenges a week of quick 10 minute actions to do to make our marriage stronger. We also alternate getting a date idea for each week. One weekend John got takeout from a yummy restaurant for us. We seriously never do that, so it was pretty fun. We had to eat it by candlelight of course.
One weekend the kids' school had a Valentines Dance. For the first time Moms were invited! I got to go dance silly with my kiddos in public. It was a little embarrassing with my big prego body, but it was great.
Eliza eventually ditched us to dance with her friends on the stage, but it was still fun to dance with my cutie Miriam and my better half John.
One random thing that happened this time of year was that I was contacted by Miriam's first grade teacher, who retired two years ago, to make her another necklace. Apparently I made her one as a teacher gift that year, and she liked it enough to track me down to get another one. It gave me kind of a crazy thrill to actually earn some money, but it was stressful enough to not want to start a business or anything.
We really lived it up this year. In addition to have had a few days at home just with us before this, John actually took the day off work. I am not quite sure what we did, but I just remember it being so nice. I definitely know there was a laser tag game involved. :) That night we went to PF Changs for dinner which was delicious. Seriously so good. It was fun to people watch that night. The family next to us arguing about money, but still ordering a ton of food. Then the one dad who was there with just his little boy. I had to laugh about that one because we were there for our fancy anniversary dinner, but he is just there for a dinner with his kiddo. I was also surprised at how many people were there. It was a Thursday right after the holidays, but there was still a substantial wait. Weird.
I feel so lucky to be married to this guy. He really is my best friend, and I love him more than I can say. John is kind, hard-working, patient, selfless, fun, and just keeps getting more handsome. :) This last year was a tricky one with some big, complex, stressful vacations, and then there was the terrible start to this pregnancy. Through it all John has been nothing but supportive and helpful. We are here at lucky 13, and I am thrilled to spend the rest of forever with him.
I went to Utah for Christmas this year a little unwillingly. I clearly had been suffering with pregnancy nausea, and it didn't sound fun to go on a long drive + stay at other people's houses. I got outvoted though. John really wanted to see his parents. We did a little survey with the kids about their favorite Christmas traditions at the beginning of the season. Both of their top traditions were going to Utah for Christmas. I am pretty sure Holland just drew a bunch of pancakes.
Truthfully I really wanted to go see my Grandma. She had to get moved to an assisted living facility a few months before, and I just wanted to see her. So one way or another, we traveled to Utah. We did take it easy on me, taking the drive in two legs each way. On our first leg, we were going along quite happily, eating our dinner, listening to an audiobook, when we saw signs for California inspections ahead. Wait a second?! We are not supposed to be going to California! That's right, we totally missed our turn off in Kingman to head to Vegas. Fortunately the boarder patrol didn't confiscate the 200lbs of oranges we had in the back and just waved us through. It did add about an hour to the drive though and we kind of had to take the back roads to get to Vegas. Oh bother.
There was one funny moment when we ate breakfast at the casino the next morning. First, I have to say how bad I feel taking my whole family through the casino to eat breakfast. But we asked for a table in the back. It does feel like showing my kids really bad examples though: gambling, smoking, drinking, etc. Although, funny Miriam had to point and whisper to me that she saw a man drink coffee with his breakfast. That made me laugh. Doesn't she see people drink coffee all the time at school?? That was probably the most benign of the the things going wrong in there.
We made it up to John's parents' house. We had to do some grocery shopping that day because of some things that we had forgotten plus some food we needed to prepare for the family dinner the next day. Turns out that shopping on the Saturday before Christmas is a little insane and it took a couple of different Walmarts before John found some socks that would work for him (we were trying to find some for me because I didn't pack any, but they didn't have any women's socks at all). So I used his normal socks that were a little bit smaller, and he used the newer big ones. Holland also needed underwear. Clearly I did a great job packing.
His parents asked me to take some pictures of them in their matching plaid pjs. That was pretty awkward, but I ended up getting a good one by going out of my comfort zone and asking Marie to sit on the floor.
The next day we had a nice Christmas dinner at Millie's house. We had a hard time getting all of our potatoes cooked in time, but we made it more or less. It was a nice time with family, and it was fun to announce that we were expecting. One funny coincidence was that Jeff and Kaylyn actually brought a rattle that we had left at their house years ago to the dinner just in case we were having another baby.
The next day was my birthday! Unfortunately John had to put in a full day's work remotely that day, but fortunately I had been consuming enough material from this life coach I like (Jody Moore) to realize that I could make the day whatever I wanted to. After sleeping in, I took the girls to the nearby mall, where we browsed, got a treat, a picked out a little something for ourselves. I got a long sleeve white shirt that I had been wanting. Ellie got some pants, and Miriam got a dress. Holland stayed back that the house with Daddy and watched a movie, which was easier and happier for all parties.
I was surprised how not crowded the mall considering it was two days before Christmas, but it was a Monday. After we came home from the mall we grabbed Daddy and Holland and went to the Clark Planetarium downtown. This museum is actually free, which is a little crazy to me. There were tons of fun exhibits and interesting displays.
Definitely worth a visit. The only thing that was disappointing was that we actually paid to see a 3D show there. Maybe I should have moderated my expectations, but since we had just been to see a really cool planatarium show that summer in NYC and the rest of this museum was pretty cool, I thought the show would be neat too. C'mon it was in 3D. Nope, it was pretty lame. The older girls and John kind of liked it, but Holland and I were a little bored. It was more or less a documentary about some particle thing they did in Switerland. Yes, a documentary where most of the shots were of people just talking to the camera or walking around this facility. Yikes. Definitely 3D was not needed. So that was kind of a burn. But you win some, you lose some. Fortunately the snacks were super cheap so we got a huge bowl of popcorn and a big slurpy for less than 5 bucks.
Later that evening, we went with John's parents and Matt to Red Robin for my birthday burger dinner. This was kind of funny because Marie was clearly starving. We tried to give them our Christmas present before, and she totally stopped us mid-gifting to ask if we could go eat first. Then, unfortunately, there was a big ol' wait to be seated. She kept going up to ask how much longer. Her persistance paid off though, we definitely got seated in a shorter time than they told us it would be. Also, no judgment here. I am right there with her. If I am super hungry, I go a little crazy and nothing else matters. It was still a little pricey to take our whole family out for dinner even if we got my burger and a yummy chocolate dessert for free. But it was fun.
The next day was Christmas Eve, and we left John's parents' house and went to play at Kayla's house that afternoon. She made us some delicious food, and everyone had a great time hanging out. Then we made up to my parents' house where things weren't quite so easy. I guess my mom was trying to make a Christmas Eve dinner, but couldn't quite do it. Then she got emotional when my dad didn't step into help right when she asked. Then she took some medicine and slept in her room for most of the evening. My brother David came out and helped my dad "finish the soup." Whew, that was not really very edible. I feel bad I wasn't really there to help out, but we made it up there for the evening.
We still had dinner with David and Patti's family and MaryElla and her boys. Then we did the nativity and sang some Christmas songs. After they left we had kind of a chill evening with the kids playing quietly or reading. We wrapped presents for each other. Holland discovered fancy writing, essentially adding curly endings and beginnings to letters. It was pretty sweet.
Every year we say that we are going to get less stuff for the kids. This was especially true for this year because Disneyland was our main present. That being said, we just couldn't resist a few black Friday sales on some things we wanted to get for the kids, like shoes, clothes, and jackets. Then, they do gifts for each other, and it feels mean not to do one gift of just something they want. Anyway, it ends up being a lot. My parents tree was a live one this year. It was pretty little, but cute. Then there was the stockings. So much fun stuff.
Christmas morning was good. We sang songs and did a little devotional, which was good because my mom wanted my dad to go get my grandma. Nothing like making the kids wait for that long on Christmas morning. It all worked out though. It definitely makes me want to try having our Christmas morning at our own home one time though.
The rest of Christmas was great. I helped Miriam pick out these super cute boots for Holland, but turns out the box from Amazon only had one of the boots in them. Everyone seemed to love what they received. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the kids with the Disneyland paper, but even though it wasn't a surprise, it was still fun to really give them the vacation for real
Later that day we watched a movie that we had given the kids, the live action Aladdin. It was one that we had seen and really enjoyed in the theater earlier that year. It was fun to watch it with my parents. Then we got ready for our Christmas breakfast dinner with my siblings. Best tradition ever, delicious breakfast food. Then we did our sibling exchange. We received a couple of games from Marc's family and gave some fresh citrus and a game to Kayla's family. Unfortunately things took a bit of a downturn when we realized that Marc's family was sick. There were a couple of kids that were fevery and coughing everywhere, especially in the beds that my kids were supposed to sleep in. Which wouldn't be as big of a deal if we hadn't needed to stay the night there. I just felt trapped by all the germs. Thankfully, my parents have a pull out bed so even though we washed the sheets we didn't have to have everything washed and dried before we could put the kids to bed. Ugh, that was not great.
The next day was a little better again. The kids played in the snow with John.
They made a super tall snowman that ended up tipping over before too long, but it was still fun. I ended up going furniture shopping with my mom, which was okay. My parents decided not to go down to Sheila's house for Christmas dinner, so we took their food, our food, and Marc and Miriam's food (because they were still sick and didn't come, thankfully), picked up Grandma and headed down to SLC. It was nice to spend some time with Grandma in the car. She sang songs with us, and we had a good chat. The food at Sheila's house was delicious, and we played a fun white elephant game.
Spending some good time with Grandma.
There were a couple of particularly funny white elephants: Sheila's fake nose, Curt and McKenzie's crafting with cat hair book, and Grandma's thong.
It was a good time. McKenzie actually wanted the cat hair book.
The next morning we packed up and drove back to Mesquite. We had time to hit a local diner for dinner. It was kind of fun.
We made it the rest of the way home the next day with no detours. Although we did try the new freeway that opened right by our house and goes on the other side of South Mountain.
It was the earliest we have ever left Utah at Christmas time (we left on the 27th), and I was super not sad about it. I had definitely had enough family drama. We spent the next few days as just our family and had a ball. We were productive and also had a ton of fun. One particularly fun night was New Year's Eve. We made the traditional 7 layer dip, and also had the free food from my birthday meals. We had countdown activities in little bags.
Here are our little countdown bags.
One activity was trying out the new hair chalk.
Of course we had to have way too much fancy food and made dessert crepes for the occasion.
We also played games, watched a movie, did a play bath, and worked on the puzzle. At one point we put Holland put to bed. This is the first time we have let the older girls stay up that late. They LOVED it. Here is us at midnight.
One thing we particularly enjoyed on our days off was the new Laser Guns that our friends the Jacobsons gave us. It is a good time. Unfortunately we only have four guns so we have to take turns. The other person has been given the phone to take pictures while we play. Mostly the pictures are all blurry, but we have gotten a few good ones. Good times.
We also just had good family time. You can tell the girls were enjoying their fun time together because one day they wanted to be completely matching. We also finished a puzzle from my mom that was one of the hardest puzzles we have done. It was quite satisfying to finish.
