vacation brief

Here's the summary:
days away from home- 19
miles traveled (in a van with 3 kids)- 3200
states visited and/or driven through- 11

I just looked through the pictures on my camera from our vacation and as usual, I'm disappointed that we didn't take more. I always forget about it, especially towards the end.

I have posted highlights of the pictures we did manage to take here. My sister has posted a few that she took while we were visiting here (this includes some from my brother's wedding of which I took no pictures! dumb!). Jon took some pics from his cell phone while we were on the road (most of them while driving). All are really cool and show the changing landscape, they are here.

Despite the crazy amounts of car-time we put in, the trip was way fun and we were able to accomplish many important things during the course of it. We visited with a few old friends, spent many hours shopping for treasures at the DI, played lots of Wii, ate good food, spent lots of quality time with loving grandparents, saw my brother get married (on an 80 degree day in Mesa!), laughed a ton, and ate more and more good food.

The following pics are some of the highlights of the trip.

Jon and Seth shoveling on the first day it snowed. Those of you in Utah for that Christmas week know what I'm talking about! Many more inches were to come!

Our family Christmas evening. This picture was taken in an effort to show the kids' new pajamas (Jonas and Seth match). In the picture taken right before this one, Jonas is waving the sword in my face.

(in this picture, L to R: Uncle Dave, Grandpa, Katie, Jonas [in stroller], me, Grandma Jeannie holding Seth and Emily holding Maryn. Jon was taking the picture) We went to see the holiday lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake. It was beautiful! Cold and slippery, but really beautiful. The kids did really well considering they were hungry, cold and tired. (Jonas ended up falling asleep in the stroller.) Seth's favorite part was "the big Jesus statue" (in the visitor's center). Earlier that same day Jon and I were able to do a session at that temple. Interesting (because it's live- never experienced that before!). I love the history surrounding these old buildings (at Temple Square). What a feat of architecture in a place that was essentially, at that time, out in the middle of nowhere. They are beautiful.

The kids with Grandma B in more new Christmas pajamas. After my brother's wedding in Mesa, when we got to Tucson we got to have second Christmas! Hoorah!

Thank you to all our family (and friends) who made this trip so memorable. Thank you for taking care of us and showering us with gifts and love. We love you.

getting back on track

I have not posted anything for a while for a few reasons. The main reason being that as more and more days came and went, I realized that it would take more and more effort to catch up on my blog and that made me avoid it altogether. But now, Jon started his new semester today and so our daily routines have begun to normalize. I realize that I need to get back to my real life. So I will attempt to give a short summary of our last 2 weeks.

First of all, some people commented and wanted more details about our crazy Christmas Eve. Well here they are in all their glory: We drove up to Chicago on Sunday (Dec 23) night and picked up Wendy from the Chicago Midway Airport. (Which was so busy, they wouldn't let anyone stop and wait for the people they were picking up, so we had to drive in a stop-and-go circle with hundreds of other cars 5 or 6 times.) We stayed at a hotel that I had booked online that was in downtown Chicago. It was an older but pretty nice hotel. The kids had trouble going to sleep because they were so excited about everything- Chicago, Wendy, Christmas. We should have planned better and brought the pack and play for Jonas and a sleeping bag for the kids- but we didn't- so Jon shared a bed with Seth and Maryn and I shared a bed with Wendy and Jonas. It was pretty much uncomfortable for everyone. Then as we were leaving the next day, a piece of paper was slipped under our door- it was a bill for parking at the hotel- $30. I have never heard of anything so crazy- a hotel charging you extra to park at their hotel! Next, we headed off to the museum to see the exhibit. We decided to be smart and save the $12 it cost to park there and park on the street a few blocks away. It was free admission day- so it was crazy busy. It was a challenge trying to keep our small group together. We went to the exhibit first and stayed in there for about an hour. It was really really awesome! There were costumes from the movies, a hovercraft you could ride on, an R2D2 you could build then plug in and drive, and a viritual game you played with small tiles on a large circle while watching yourself on a screen (hard to explain, but really cool). The rest of the museum was really really awesome too, three floors full of really cool interactive rooms about a variety of topics. By the time we got out of the exhibit, we only had the energy and time to go to a few rooms- farming, circus, and space exploration. Jon walked the few blocks, got the van and brought it back to the museum so we could load up the crew. He returned with a Christmas present from the City of Chicago- $50 ticket for not having our IL liscense plate on the front of our van. This is the law in IL, but there are so many cars in our town that don't have it, we have just been dragging our feet about getting it done. So we saved $12 in order to pay $50. Merry Christmas.

We had a nice Christmas, low-key, here at home with Wendy as a guest. We spent the next week getting our needlework on- me: crochet and Wendy: knitting. We both attempted to teach the other our skill, but both ended up sticking to what we know. We collaborated on a really cute sweater poncho for Maryn (that she won't wear- the stinker) and completed a bunch of other projects. I will post pics later this week.

We spent new year's eve at a friends house playing board games and singing along to the guitar (2 of my favorite things). Wendy went back up to Chicago to do the NYE thing and came home 24 hours later with Hans. We spent the next week watching movies, eating good food, crocheting/knitting, playing nintendo, and avoiding the outdoors (wind chill was below 0).

Last week...mmm...what did we do? My brother came home from a mission on Jan 10. Our town's library opened up their new building and we went three times (it's really cool). The rest of the week blends together.

And now here I sit. Dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dirty house, dirty kids- and I'm blogging. I guess my life really is back to normal.

Christmas music and holiday business

I absolutely love Christmas music! I get so excited to pull out my CDs and start singing along on Thanksgiving day. I also look forward to singing Christmas hymns in church for the month of December. If you asked me what my favorite Christmas songs are, I would probably say O Holy Night and Ave Maria. But my real favorite Christmas songs are All I Want for Christmas is You and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas- these two make me laugh and want to sing along at the top of my lungs.

I don't want to use the word hate here- but there are a few Christmas songs that I do not like, not one bit. If these songs come on while I'm listening to the Christmas station on the radio or even on a CD that I love, I will skip them immediately. The offending songs are Little Drummer Boy and Do You Hear What I Hear. These songs drive me crazy! I'm pretty sure I hate them. Even when Josh Groban sang Little Drummer Boy on Oprah, I had to fast forward through it. I tried to like it, for Josh, but it couldn't be done.

My favorite Christmas CDs this year are Bing Crosby (this and every year) and James Taylor (just purchased). Close runner up is Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas album (you just can't beat Carolina Christmas- we're chillin' in our underwear). And then there's always Harry (Connick, Jr.) my Christmas music staple. Ahh- I guess I can't narrow it down to just one.

Some questions posed to readers- What is your favorite Christmas album? What is your favorite Christmas song? What is your real favorite Christmas song? Any Christmas songs you hate?

I was thinking today about how fast the Christmas season seems to go by every year. I always feel like I'm unable to do everything I want to during this season and therefore can't enjoy it to the fullest extent that I want to. I feel like I got a good start this year but now here a week before Christmas, I've sort of hit a slump. Maybe it's because I've been a bit incapacitated these past three days but I think it's mostly just that fact that I only really have one more week before Christmas is over. It just goes by too fast.

That's what I've been thinking about about today. Luckily, my ankle is feeling a lot better and I can even walk pretty well when it's wrapped up. So I'm going to try and get back to business tomorrow, the business of getting down with the Christmas season.

p.s. We Arizonans figured out how to make a real snowman...well Jon did, I took pictures.

holiday projects- part 1 and potty training update

This is a sample of the ornaments I made for the ornament exchange party I went to 2 weeks ago.

These are a few of the ornaments I received at that party. My favorites are the wooden bead snowman and the wire angel.
These are hair bows I made for Maryn in the past few days. We made the brown clips at enrichment and I got so excited that I made the candy cane ones at home!

I have also made hats for my two little nieces, but I'm not going to post the pictures of those finished products until the gifts are actually received.

One last note- Maryn has left the world of daytime diaper wear forever.  We couldn't be happier or more proud of her!

tree decorating and today's surprise

Not really the best pics since you can't really see any of their faces or the ornaments they were putting on the tree. Plus my camera is unable to capture the pretty glow of the tree lights. But it's an important part of the Christmas season, right?

This is what we woke up to this morning. And it was snowing when we came home from playgroup this afternoon. Pretty exciting for the kids, and me too.

good news Monday

• The freezing rain has not returned (for now).
  
• A good friend did me a huge favor and actually made my Christmas card this year!
  
• Maryn is a potty-trainee super-star!  She actually got out of bed this evening and yelled downstairs to me that she needed to go.
  

Thanks for all your comments about my previous post.  To be honest, I wasn't sure if anyone besides my family would actually read the whole thing. To answer some of your inquiries:

The ornament party was really fun and I can't figure out why I never organized one or went to one before now.  It was so fun to be crafty and create something and then to see what other people's craft styles are like.  Yes, some of the ornaments I got were lame, but most were way cute and something I would have never thought to make myself.  So I urge all you fellow crafters- throw an ornament party!  You may wonder how I managed to secure a seemingly exclusive invitation seeing as I'm so new to the area.  Here's how it went- I was walking down the hall at church when a woman (the wife of one of our home teachers, I really barely know her) walked past me, said hi, then turned back around and said something along the lines of "are you crafty?".  I said something like "kind of, I can be".  She said "I have one more invitation to an ornament party, would you like to come?"  I accepted and that was that.  It seems like I was in the right place at the right time.  I plan to make some more ornaments, so I will post some pictures of those ones to give you an idea of what I made last week (just need to find the time).  

All in all, not bad for a Monday.

I got punk'd and freezing rain

Potty training is still going, but not that well. Maryn isn't at the point where she can actually tell me that she needs to go. She either tells me while she's going or immediately afterwards. So I'm not sure that she is developmentally ready. Plus, we have not gone "cold turkey", I still put a diaper on her when we left the house yesterday and while I was gone this morning and the kids were home with dad. I'm not sure where to go from here. So don't worry Michelle, it doesn't look like she's quite ready, Zane may still beat her. I recently acquired this book from a local used book sale for only $.50, so maybe I should crack it open.

The following is the story of one 30 minute increment of my day yesterday. I was at the kitchen counter attempting to mix together dough for a pie crust, I was using my hands, so they were covered in flour and butter. Seth was in our adjacent living room making a Christmas card for his friend, Elijah. I was spelling words for him letter by letter (as patiently as possible). He kept getting lost especially on the long words like "Christmas" and "Elijah". Maryn pushed one of our chairs up to the counter so she could watch me and "help" by sticking her fingers in my dough and handing me everything I didn't need. Where was Jonas you ask? Who knows? Hopefully not climbing up the stairs, his new favorite pastime. Maryn said "Mommy I wanna poop in the potty" (this is what she always says whether it's #2 or not) just as she "goes". Her undies and socks are soaked and it's dripping down onto the kitchen floor, Seth is still trying to spell "Christmas", Jonas has reappeared and is heading straight for the new puddle, and my hands are still caked with flour/butter paste. Seriously, It was a moment out of a sitcom, although I don't think any team of writers could have recreated this chaos. I was expecting Ashton Kutcher to appear at any moment. I know you are all on the edge of your computer chairs wondering "what did she do?". Well I'll tell you- I did the following things in a matter of seconds: wrapped up the pie dough in plastic and put it in the fridge, washed the goop off of my hands, stripped Maryn down and wiped up the huge puddle. I then ran upstairs with Maryn and threw her in the bath and asked Seth to watch Jonas and make sure he didn't climb up the stairs after me. Just as I was finishing up with Maryn, my sister called. Seth brought the phone up to me but I made him tell her I would call her back. He stayed on the phone with her for a few minutes and it took me that long to realize that the three of us were upstairs together. Where was Jonas, you ask? Who knows? I left Maryn partially dressed and raced to the staircase to find Jonas almost at the top. So I brought him upstairs with me and finished with Maryn. We now had about 20 minutes before we were leaving to meet Jon for dinner. I'll spare you the rest of the specifics, just know that we all made it to dinner- dry, dressed, unharmed and on time.

And now onto the freezing rain. Last week at playgroup, the other moms were talking about how horrible it is, you can't open you car doors, you can't get your keys into your locks. This morning I left my house at 8 am to go and buy some pecans for a pie I was making to take to a party at 11 am. It was cold and cloudy outside, but there wasn't even any ice on my windshield. Later when I left the house at 11 (I was running late already), I noticed it was raining as I opened my front door. After I took two steps, I almost slipped (in my new boots). I realized that my entire concrete walkway (of seven stairs) was coated in ice. I made it to my van a saw that it too was covered in ice. I got out the ice scraper and started trying to clear off my windshield, remember it's still raining and I'm wearing slippery boots. I finally was able to scrape off a little window, get inside and back out only to feel an unfamiliar sliding motion. I got really scared and almost stayed home, but decided to go ahead. The house I was going to was just down the street and around the corner, how bad could it be? I made it to the party house without causing an accident but almost slipped as I tried to walk on the sidewalk. Inside all the ladies were talking about how bad the roads were and someone mentioned that stake conference had been cancelled for the evening. I have never been so afraid to drive home in my life. After actually slipping and falling on my rear while leaving the house, I made it home without incident.

If any of you readers out there in blog land have made it this far, congratulations. I have one more little story to share. The party I went to was an ornament exchange, the first I've ever participated in. It was really fun and a good way to get craft ideas. I was working on my ornaments (I made cinnamon ornaments and then decorated them with ribbon and beads and stuff) last night while watching Oprah and Howie. Jon came upstairs from the basement and said "Wow, those actually look really good!"

What's that supposed to mean, Jon?

ending on a good note

I feel like I've sort of been in a daze lately. I feel like a stranger in the strange land. It has turned cold here. Really cold. I'm not used to this and it doesn't feel like home to me. I really love the holiday season and was so excited when I realized that it was somewhat extended this year because of when Thanksgiving fell on the calendar. But I have yet to finish decorating my house for Christmas. I'm going to an ornament exchange on Saturday and have waited until the very last minute to make my 12 ornaments. I'm still not finished. I should be doing that right now.

Something kind of odd/surprising happened today. Because this is my blog, I choose to give the long version of the story. Last week I bought Maryn a Cheer Bear from Wal-Mart for a stocking stuffer for Christmas. Jon said that he saw some Care Bears at Target that he thought were cuter and cheaper. So today I went to Target, took some other stuff back and left the Care bear wrapped up in a bag in my basket. The Care Bears at Target were the exact same cuteness and price so the bear I had stayed wrapped up in my cart. When I got home, I put the large Target bag (with the bear, other stuff I bought at Target and some craft stuff I'd gotten from Michaels) on the kitchen table. Maryn was interested in the big bag, so I handed her a little bag of jingle bells I'd gotten from Michaels and left the room. I got involved in doing a million other things and later noticed Maryn sitting on the couch holding Cheer Bear. This was one of those moments in parenting where I was standing at a crossroads. I could have gotten upset with her and taken Cheer Bear away or make it a positive experience a be excited with her for her new toy. I chose option #2 and took her downstairs to show Daddy. He said that that was the same bear that he and Maryn had looked at at the store and decided that she could have it when she learned to use the potty. We decided to continue with that plan and put Cheer Bear up on the fridge. I got out the potty and Maryn sat down on it for about 20 seconds and then asked for Cheer Bear. I explained that she actually had to pee in the potty in order to get Cheer Bear back. She was very sad but I stuck to the plan. She tried one other attempt with no results but kept coming back into the kitchen to wave up to Cheer Bear. Later when she and Seth were getting ready to watch Care bears on TV, Maryn was doing her usual rounding up of all her Care Bears (she likes to have them all around her so she can wave the bears at the screen when each particular bear comes into view). She asked to sit on the potty so she could get Cheer Bear down. After 20 seconds, she said "I did it Mommy!" And she had actually done it. I'm pretty sure she was just as surprised as I was. We celebrated and Cheer Bear was brought down. And that was it. When I tried to get her to sit on the potty again, she wouldn't do it. So I'm not sure what to do now. She obviously does well with motivation, but there are only 2 more Care Bears that she doesn't have. Should I go for it and try to actually potty train her? Or just let her do it if she wants to? I'm leaning towards option #2, mostly because it's easier.

So now, the good note. I went to our ward's book club tonight. It was rescheduled to tonight from two weeks ago which worked out well for me because it gave me a chance to finish the book. (The book we read is #2 on my links list, Stolen Lives). This book club has been going since May 1993, so when the whole "interest group" thing came out for RS, it was just sort of included. But this is what is so great about it- it functions without the (I need to choose my words carefully here) confines of an official church-sponsored book club. So book choices (from what I saw from the list they gave me of previous choices) aren't limited to what might appear to be "safe". I had such a great experience. It's nice to feel like I'm a part of something enlightening.