'Tis the Season

Wow. Christmas always rushes by in a blur doesn't it? With all the activities and craziness, not to mention the flu bug going around... yes it's a blur. This year's Christmas was lovely despite the craziness. Every year since we've been married I have been sick on Christmas, but this year it wasn't me. It was Lucy, throwing up Christmas eve night and Christmas morning. She was such a good sport about it though, the little lamb. And actually threw up {mostly} into a bowl, which is quite monumental in the life of the mother of a toddler. I didn't revel too much in breaking my-being-sick-Christmas-tradition since when your baby's sick, you're wishing it was you anyway. There is nothing on earth more heartbreaking that your 2 year old repeatedly pulling up her little shirt and in sobs petitioning you to kiss her hurt belly all better in her little voice. I might shed a tear now thinking of it. Anyway, since that stomach bug caught up with me the night before yesterday and I'm still on the BRAT diet today and feeling weaker than weak, I don't know if I cheated the tradition after all. Yuck.

Back to the good stuff. Well actually, not back to anything good, mostly just onto pictures. I have no energy to tell you all about everything that's happened. I have stomach flu brain, remember? But I do have a LOAD of pictures.

A few at our house...

Angelic much? Yes. They are angelic indeed.

Christmas Eve morning we headed up to Jason's parents house for the festivities. Festivities include gingerbread houses, an enormous meal with every kind of goody and delicious item you can imagine, Christmas skits, sibling gift exchange, hog wrestling and more. Much much more.

Then when some of the crew clears out, (Jason is 1 of 7 siblings) we open our matching jammies.

I spied these 3 wretches posing for pictures without me...

Not happening. I don't care if I did kink my neck in the process of throwing myself into that pic. So worth it.

Sexy face:

And the sexy face award goes to...

Linda Bea. No question.

Ugly face:

And the ugly face award goes to:

Wendy. Not because it's the ugliest face of the group (props again to Grandma and props to Cammi!) but mostly because this may be the first year she has attempted it. So maybe we'll call it the "most improved ugly face award". Though I will say, Grandma's ugly face has come leaps and bounds as well. I guess since she already won the other title, we'll stick with Wend. We don't want her getting arrogant on us.

The boys:

And the ugly face award goes to:

My husband. Absolutely no question. This is his go to ugly face. And he bursts 7 blood vessels every time he does it. And soils his drawers. I have nightmares about this.

The girls with cousin Corbin... he is scrumptious as scrumptious can get

Leaning over to tell me she didn't want me to "go all out" for her this Christmas... told me she thought the leap frog activity table was a little too pricey... She really teaches us lots about needs versus wants. But sometimes, when my husband's in a less responsible, spendy mood, he'll say something like, Put a sock in it Scarlett! and then I have to step in and mediate. tsk tsk tsk. Kids.

Even with her rough night before, she was in complete awe over Santa's deliveries

And this is about as much excitement as you can get out of my husband folks. Opening his very own Wii. In shock because I am SO anti-video game and I swore we'd never have anything even remotely close to a gaming console in our house. But don't you worry, certain restrictions apply. Along with this came Just Dance 2. :)

And see that behind him? That's my beautiful new road bike that I plan on winning many-a-triathlons with! (See this post.)

Babies revolting against a Christmas morning family pic:

And bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for church the next day.

I have so many more pictures and stories... but I have to go eat my saltine crackers and applesauce. Had chicken broth and noodles last night and almost cried because it was so delicious after 24 hours of sprite and apple juice.

I love the emotions and nostalgia that the Christmas season stirs up. I love the reason we celebrate and travel to be close to loved ones. Even though hardly anyone on my side of the family was able to be together because of new babies and weather and such, I love the reminder to treasure the wonderful people we've been blessed to call family; the amazing families that Jason and I both were born into and the family of our own that we're still in the process of creating. (We hope there are more to come:).

Most of all, I love the Savior of the world and His teachings. I am thankful for His birth and that even through the humble circumstances that surrounded His entrance into this world, He was teaching. I'm thankful that I've been taught from a young age about what's truly important in this lifetime and what we must strive to become in order to have joy. I'm so thankful for the restoration of the church that He organized while He was on Earth, and that we now are privy to every blessing that was available then. I'm thankful for truth and light. I'm so thankful the hope of His gospel is accessible to all who will come unto Him. I love Him and hope to be more like Him. Hope everyone had a wonderfully merry Christmas!

I shoulda been a crook. You're gonna like this one.

What is it with when you're tip toeing around in an area where a baby is snoozing peacefully and you enter said room so stealthily and with much confidence that you can go unnoticed and then you end up making 100 times more noise than you ever would have if you weren't consciously trying to be quiet? Jason is the worst, I'll call him out right now. He always stubs his toe really hard on something, then subsequently trips onto the bed while simultaneously flinging the glass of water he was holding across the room. Upon landing he immediately shoves his face forcefully into a pillow in order to muffle his scream of pain. Which doesn't do too much muffling, does it? Or the fact that he is the loudest sneezer in the world, like when we were first married I would literally yell and punch something out of sheer startle every time he would sneeze, because it was just so disturbingly loud. Now it seems whenever he walks into where our babe is slumbering, an attack of sneezes immediately seize him, and again, he flings himself onto the bed going for the pillow, but alas, a cry usually follows shortly after because those sneezes cannot be domesticated. I'll admit, I'm not much better. I think something about him being just a bigger person in general adds to his overall need to make noise, but it happens to me too. Knocking something off the dresser or hitting that stupid door stopper thing with my foot that makes that ridiculous boiiiiiiiing sound that reverberates off each and every surface and then the inevitable whisper-swearing that follows.

This brings to mind a story I've been meaning to share for some time. Something you've never heard before. It's an oldie but goodie. I'm going to tell you the story of the little Drummer boy. Just kidding. No, no folks, this story is mine... all mine, as in, it belongs to me, as in don't try to re-tell it the next time you're at a holiday party as if it happened to you. Because it hasn't' happened to that many people.

And by oldie I mean it happened to be about 10 years ago. Maybe. I can't remember if it happened to my my senior year in high school or first few years of college. But how relevant is that detail to the story? Not very. If someone were to interrupt me while telling this story in order to correct that kind of detail, I'd have to probably sucker punch them.

When I was on my way home from running some errands my mother had asked me to stop by my Aunt Dallas' house and drop something off. I can't remember what it was (I do remember some things about the story so stop getting impatient), but we'll say it was a Christmas treat. I knew the location of my great Aunt Dallas' home very well, it was only a couple blocks away from my Grandmother's house, the house where my dad grew up in good 'ol Idaho Falls.

So I pull up in front of the house. I can't see any lights on, but assume she's expecting me because my mom had called her. I knock. Nothing. I knock again and ring the doorbell. Nothing again. So I do what any respectable great-niece would do. I enter.

The reason I hadn't seen any lights on from outside was because... there weren't any lights on in the house. So I clumsily fumble my way into the kitchen and flip on a switch, but still no sign of anyone. I yell her name, "Aunt Dallas?!" And think she for sure should be able to hear me. But nothing. So I continue my search. Going into each and every room upstairs and yelling her name all the while throughout the house. Then I hear a little something downstairs and decide I better go on down.

I get downstairs and as I round the corner from the stairs, horror strikes me. There are people there. A family in fact, sitting on a large sectional couch watching a movie. The family room downstairs is dimly lit but there's enough light for me to be sure of one thing and one thing only: No Aunt Dallas. The 10 year old turns and looks at me, and the rest of the family members follow, and pretty soon, we're all having a big staring contest, the mom, the dad, the 3 kids, all staring at me and me at them. And then I say again, as if with my words will change everything and all will be right, "Aunt Dallas?"

As it turns out, my Aunt Dallas had moved across town. And I had not a single idea that this had taken place. And, I'm sure you can gather that I had just walked into and rooted around in the rooms of the house of total strangers. It was like the scene on Back to the Future when he goes back to his old house and the windows are all barred up and then he sneaks in that room and that black family is living there? Pretty much exactly what it was like.

At that point, I didn't know what to do, so I put my hand in my coat pocket and pretended it was a gun, and told them to, "give me all your money!!" And that's how we had such a grand collection of Christmas loot that year. No, that didn't happen, but we all did have a good laugh about it. They were very kind and understanding, considering how alarming it must have been having the silhouette of a total stranger suddenly appear in your hallway when you're enjoying movie night with your family. They invited me to their popcorn so I grabbed a blanket, sat down and watched the rest of Parent Trap with them. Then we spent the night reenacting that classic Let's get together scene from the show. That didn't happen either, but I wish it would have. Miss you, family.

So I guess this all relates together because when I'm trying to be stealth, I can't be. On the other hand, I can walk right in the front door of a total strangers' house and yell around, trip over objects, flip lights on and off and remain completely undetected. You wish you had my gift.

Hope you're all as excited as I am about Christmas. I'm giddy as a school girl!! Only 8 days left and counting.

Major hodgepodge. Don't let your head explode while reading this post. Stay with me.

Let me tell you all of the things I've been meaning to blog about over the last couple of weeks:

-Thanksgiving

-The birth of my beautiful niece Eve Sophia

-The one year anniversary of my brother Jesse's death

-My jaunt to Idaho

-Our trip to Southern Cali

-The NorthStar Christmas Party

-Our 4 year anniversary

-And as always, the general adorableness of my children and in-love-ness of my husband and me.

Can you see why I've been avoiding you? Can you see why I have anxiety every time I even see a computer? Can you see why I've been wetting the bed regularly in the middle of the night and waking up in cold sweats?!? What makes it worse is that we are on a major Cinderella kick at our house and I've had Bippity Boppity Boo in my head for 3.5 days straight now. I fall asleep to salikadoola michikaboolah bippity boppity boo and wake up to it as well. Not that it has anything to do with my being an overwhelmed blogger but it would probably just make everything more annoying.

So what I'm gonna do is touch briefly on some of these items, spend as much time as I deem fit, and perhaps expound more on others. Are you following me? Or should I start from the beginning?

Okay, Thanksgiving. It was a truly wonderful day. None of my siblings could travel this year and it was Jason's off year for his siblings, so it was a small gathering. And by small, I mean less people but just as much food, which actually means, a lot more food. Still eating leftovers.

My parents came down from Idaho Falls, Cathy (Jason's sis) came in from Seattle, and we went to Jason's parents house for the decadence. Take my childhood favorite holiday dishes and add my mother in law's homemade rolls and Frozen custard on top of basically everything and you get a very, very slap-happy sleep-inducing paradise for me.

Next: Vanessa had her baby girl! And wow, it's quite a story. Let's just say she was not planning on having a natural birth but labored just a little too long at home before going in to be epi-eligible. My mom called me and yelled into the phone, "She's too late for any medicine! She's pushing now!" to which I replied, "Whaaaaaaat?!??!" and immediately burst into tears. Not out of joy. Out of sheer panic and horror for my sissy. But it turns out, our bodies really are equipped to have babies! Even without the wonders of modern medicine. For the full scoop, go here.

Can you believe how beautiful itty bitty 6 lb 7 oz Eve Sophia is?? And if the rumors are true, she's an absolute angel babe. Look at her, with her crumpled wee little mitten covered fists and her big pouty lips! Ahhh I will go get mahself pregnant again right away if I keep looking at this picture. She looks exactly like her mama here. But for sanity's sake, I must move on.

Since my mom was in Chicago to be with Nessa for the welcoming of the newbie, my poor, poor pa was left without her in Idaho Falls. So I loaded up the girls and ventured up for a few days so he wouldn't be so lonely! December 1st was the one year mark of when Jesse passed away. And I will write some thoughts in another post when I have the energy to be more profound about that. But my dad and I decided that the anniversary wasn't going to be a dark and sad day. We grieve Jesse's death and miss him every day, some days it's harder than others, so the 1 year mark shouldn't be any different. Just a day to be grateful for what we have and to hold our loved ones close. Things we should be striving for every other day, too. It's always nice to spend a few days at home. And with my cousin Mitzi, her kids, and my uncle Brent staying up there for a bit, it turned out to be quite a party!

Next on the agenda! We went to Southern California with the NorthStar alarm managers for a leadership training and hit up Disneyland while we were at it. Oh my goodness, Disneyland is the CUTEST place on earth around Christmas time! And there were NO lines. Seriously we walked right on to every ride. You gotta hit at the right time, right before the holiday rush. Oh, and you gotta create a diversion and cut everyone else in line too, a lot.

Lucy was so excited to meet Minnie and Micky and the princesses that she completely choked when it actually took place. And she may or may not have given each of them the bird while we walked away.

This is as close as she got to most of them:

Notice mom trying to shove her over closer to Cinderella. She fought it pretty hard. Which as her mother, I have to appreciate. Maybe that Cinderella is a real pervert, and Lucy is just following her gut instinct. She probably is.

Love these two faces. A lot.

Lucy has a real love for ranch dressing. Wants to just lap it up like a little puppy dog! We just think it's so adorable! I just can't stop taking pictures when she does it! She actually has the same relationship with blue cheese dressing and sour cream.

Just kidding. We think it's disgusting. And we try to stop it from happening. But what do you do?

For some reason Luc opted for the cross-eyed-stare-at-mom-with-grease-and-ranch-dressing on-my-chin-pose for this pic. She's just so artistic and creative.

Again, leaning as far away as possible from Goofy. Love it.:)

One of my favorite parts of the day was looking in the mirror and seeing my alfalfa cowlick sticking up in the back that nobody told me about. I probably had a huge piece of spinach in my front teeth and toilet paper hanging out of my pants too.

Loved these teacups.

And she hated Santa as well. She wanted nothing to do with him. Here we pride ourselves on having this spunky outgoing girl. She did manage to yell, "Baby doll!" in his face before getting as far away from him as possible.

So fun! But our whole family got sinus colds while out so we were grateful to get home. Who takes care of mom when the whole family gets sick? Huh??

Next! The NorthStar Christmas Party was just last night... You can see Jason is still suffering from his head cold but it's unfortunately moved to the outter extremities.

Our happy holiday-lovin' family:

This was the general reaction that Mr. Grinch got from children:

But not our girls. Scarlett was lunging toward him all night long, whenever she could.

And Lucy, our sweet little Cindy lou-who, couldn't get enough of him either... When she first saw him we were walking toward him outside, and the only thing she said was, "uh-oh" and stared at him. But once he talked to her and she knew who he was, she kept happily saying, "My daddy! Mean wolf!"

Hank didn't win the ugly sweater contest, but he did get major points for creativity. (Yes, this is the infamous fighter, Hank the Vice-Weiss. I think he'll probably wear that sweater for his next fight. It would probably confuse his opponent, not knowing where to swing to hit him in the face. Plus, I'm thinking anyone would probably hate to get their rear kicked by a guy in any kind of holiday sweater, so it would be that much more humiliating, if that's what you're going for.)

These two together are TROUBLE. Too cute for their own good. I just sounded like my grandma.

Afton has mastered her natural smile for pictures. So effortless.

Yeah... she knew who he was. I love this pic. Pretty sweet, knowing that Lucy's love for her dad has nothing to do with his rugged good looks. Nice to know she wouldn't pack up her tiny pink roller suitcase and leave home if he should ever let himself go, which she's threatened to do before for lesser offenses.

Yesterday was also our 4 year anniversary, and we are still pinning down a day next week to celebrate it together. It's amazing how much two lives can change in such a relatively short amount of time. I loved this moment:

And thinking about this day makes me feel all warm and mushy and lovesick inside. Like I could sing in a musical or go fling myself on my bed with a flower plucking off the petals one by one all while saying he loves me he loves me not. And I also look at it and feel like we look SO YOUNG here. Like it was much much longer than 4 years ago. It's strange. How much do two babies age you in 4 years? Does anyone know the equation? Something like dog years, right? So how much older are we actually now? Don't you worry though, I still got it. Just sayin'. Anyway, Jason you know you are my absolute favorite. In the whole wide world. I do know that I'm the luckiest girl.

Oh, and P.S. I don't feel like this post is just quite long enough yet so I wanted to inform you that we are now officially only changing the diapers of one wee lass at our house. And that's me. Just kidding. Seriously though, it's been a pretty easy and effortless potty training road with Lucy, and I would have been smug about it had she not pooped her pants while we were in Nordstrom yesterday. So maybe it's never a real destination, always a journey. Thanks for reading.