December and Christmas

December started out with that horrible windstorm and then life just kind of continued to feel like a windstorm throughout the rest of the month (isn't that how December always feels?). I have to admit that I was pretty happy when Christmas day came, just so I could sit around the house and not have to do anything for a while.

One of the first things we did in December was make a Graham Cracker house.

 I was surprised how well the kids did at not eating all of the candy for decorating the house. They had so much fun and loved helping me decorate it. I think we will try it again next year, but maybe we will try using real gingerbread instead. I bet it would hold together better than graham crackers.

Next I got to go on Beckett's first field trip with his Kindergarten class. We went to the Treehouse museum. I drove Beckett and two boys from his class in our car. Beckett was so excited and proud to have them ride with us. We watched a play that the kids participated in. Only one of the children was not afraid to say their lines in front of everybody. It was super cute. The kids also got to do a Chinese Dragon Dance. It was so cool. Each child got to hold one of the poles that held up the dragon and dance throughout the museum, while the adults made lots of noise with drums and cymbals. I think that might have been the favorite thing that we did that day. We also got to do a craft and then run free in the museum. It was a lot of fun.

After months and months of threatening to cut Anabelle's hair if she kept on sucking on it, I finally followed through.

On December 10th, I cut Belle's hair for the very first time, ever. It was difficult to do it, and not just for me, as you can see by the pictures, she wasn't too thrilled about it either. When it was all over though, I think she felt better about it, like she had passed a milestone and was a little more grown up.

I am a little sad that her long hair is gone. She had the cutest curls in the back of her head, just like me when I was her age. And just like me, once the hair was cut, the curls were gone too. But now her hair doesn't look all clumpy and gross. My mom didn't go for a styled cut, we just pulled her hair towards her mouth, and snipped it where it was just out of reach for her to get it in her mouth. Unfortunately, now it has grown just long enough that she can get it in her mouth again and she is starting to take full advantage of it. Urgh!! Why can't I get this child to understand how disgusting that is?! We have even told her that Paul (Matt's friend that Anabelle has quite the crush on, and yes, I am worried about that) doesn't like girls that suck on their hair, but apparently that hasn't fazed her. I guess she is just going to have to have short hair the rest of her life.

Also in December, I went on a date with my mom and aunt to see "A Christmas Carol." Two of my nieces and a nephew were in it and they did a fantastic job. "A Christmas Carol" is such a wonderful way to get you into the Christmas spirit. No wonder President Monson reads that every year.

I also got to go on a date with Matt to his company Christmas party, sans children. It was nice dress too. It has been a long time since Matt and I got dressed up to go out for a nice dinner alone (yeah. there were 400 other people there, but no children). We even got a nice picture taken, but I think Matt might have lost the link to our picture, so that was a bust. The food was really good and we sat with some fun people too. Despite the big let down of no gifts from the company, we had a really good time and were grateful to have had some time to ourselves.

That same weekend we also got to have a family sleepover with Matt's sister, Ana, and her wonderful family. We had a lot of fun having them stay with us. The kids had all kinds of fun together and Belle got to go shopping with Ana's family, so she had the time of her life. We adults made and ate way too much junk food and loved every minute of it. Isn't that what the holidays are all about anyways? I mean, really? One more bonus to having them stay with us, they put Netflix on our Wii, and have left it on there for us to use. It has been awesome! Ana and Scott, you are the best!!

The week of Christmas, both Anabelle and Beckett had parties at their schools. Beckett's was your standard school party. He came home with all kinds of gifts from his teacher and special ED teachers. Lucky duck. I don't remember getting presents from my teachers, let alone 3 teachers.

Anabelle's was a pajama party. She had a blast. Mrs. Claus came and so did the missing Gingerbread boy and girl (They went missing earlier in the month and sent them postcards from their travels all month long). Anabelle still talks about finding the Gingerbread girl. That must have been much more exciting than the big guy's wife.

Christmas Eve was spent at Ana's house, having dinner, painting ornaments, and busting open a pinata. This is two years in a row we have done this, so I think we might start calling it a tradition. The kids did much better at painting their ornaments this year.

 You could actually see the different colors that they used, instead of mixing them all together until the ornament was unrecognizable, like last year. The pinata was also a big success. This year, they actually understood what they were doing, so it was a little more exciting. Ana found some super cute felt bags for them to put their booty into.

 We parents also got to play games, while the kids ate some candy and watched a movie. A great Christmas Eve, if I do say so myself.

My sister Christa, stayed with us over the Christmas weekend. It was fun to have someone else there to celebrate with us. She is always so good at helping the kids get excited about stuff and have lots of fun. Isn't that what Aunts are for? It was really nice for me because I had someone to talk to at night when Matt was playing with his Christmas gift, the Xbox.

Christmas was super exciting this year. Beckett remembered a lot from last year and so he was really into it. He wrote letters to Santa this year. The first one said,

Pretty direct and to the point. No messing around with that note. I think he started learning about sentences soon after he wrote that first note, because the next one said, "Beckett is the train." And then the final draft that he actually put in an envelope said, "Beckett, I want the train." Santa had no way of messing up that order. Anabelle also wrote her own letter:

I asked her what it said, and she said it told Santa she wanted a princess doll. I'm glad Santa could decipher that letter, because I never would have figured that one out.

The kids really wanted to leave out cookies for Santa, but we forgot to bake some. I don't think Santa minded because he wrote a very sweet note to the kids anyways, which they thought was pretty cool. Santa obviously got the message because Beckett got two trains and more tracks to go with them. Anabelle did get her princess doll (actually, she orginally wanted a set of all of the Disney Princesses, 7 in total, but Santa decided that was a little much), a Cinderella Barbie doll that she loves and Strawberry Shortcake with a bakery as a bonus. They got lots of other toys and wonderful presents that were loved just as much, but I don't want to bore you all with telling you about each individual gift, so I just went with the highlights.Thank you so much to those that gave us gifts this last Christmas. We loved and appreciated them all.

After Sacrament meeting that morning, Christmas day was spent at my brother Ben's house, eating more good food and playing more fun games. This is becoming a tradition as well. I guess we started all kinds of traditions this last year. We had such a good time, except that I started to get sick. The day after Christmas was spent mostly in bed, resting. I was able to actually take a sick day thanks to Christa. She took my kids home with her and brought them back the next day. That never happens for a mom. I appreciated it so much.

New Years Eve was a lot of fun. We spent it at our friends, James and Shana's place. We ate yummy pizza and snacks, and finally watched Captain America. We must be getting old though, because it felt like it took forever to get to midnight. We all kept saying to each other, "It's only 9?!", "It's only 10:30?!" Beckett and Anabelle, on the other hand, had no problem staying up that late. They could have watched stuff on Netfix all night long. They were mad when it was time to go.

Beckett enjoyed having a break from school, a little too much. I tried very hard to get him to understand that he was going to have to go back to school eventually, but I guess it didn't sink in because he put up a big fight when it was time to go back to school. It was worse than when he started school in some ways. I almost don't want to have Spring break if it is going to be like it was in January. Do you think they would give me a key to the school?

Chips

Today, we were at my parent's house. Beckett wanted a snack and so he got out some potato chips. My dad helped him put them onto a plate and then gave it to him. Beckett said, "Thanks for the Tomato chips."

I love that kid!

And now for October





So October was a big month. The most exciting thing that happened was that I finally decided it was time to potty train Beckett whether he liked it or not and it is done. I am calling it official. He made it through church last Sunday in his underwear without an accident, so I am calling it. We are still having a problem with poop, but that will come with time (I hope). How it happened was this - one day I was at the grocery store all by myself and I saw all this Halloween candy. I was looking at and thought that they would make great potty treats, so I bought a few bags and went home. The next day, I told the kids that if they sat on the potty for 2 whole minutes (with a timer going) they could have a potty treat. Anabelle was all over that idea. She already loved to sit on the potty, so the treats made it all the more sweeter (literally). Beckett was much more willing to sit on the potty, but he wasn't too thrilled with the rule that he had to do it sans diaper, but he got over it real fast when he saw the Nerds packages. I did that for about 4 or 5 days, with zero accidental pees or poops in the potty.  I was about to give up on my plan, when I talked with my counselor about it, and she told me that really it was me that had to be "potty trained". She said it is really the parents getting so tired of changing diaprers that they finally buckle down and get serious about potty training. I thought about what she had said and it made sense, but I was still a little affraid of the accidents that I knew would follow after I made that decision.

As it turned out, a few days after that conversation with my counselor, we were about to be completely out of diapers for Beckett and I was on the fence about going to buy more. Matt basically replied, "Nope. Let's just do this." With hesitation coming from me, we went forward and just put him in underwear after we changed his last diaper. Beckett wasn't too thrilled, but he got used it, probably because they were Thomas underwear. Matt gave him lots of juice and then promtly left to do something at a friends house (what a guy), taking Anabelle with him (thank goodness). Beckett was playing on the computer (big surprise) with a towel underneith him (I believe in being prepared for these kinds of things) and of course, he started peeing. He kind of freaked out and quickly stopped. I put him in the bath to clean him up. Of course, he thought this meant that he was free to pee as much as he liked. He did have enough smarts to try to get his feet out of the water as he did this. Oi! Naturally I promptly took him out of the tub and put him in clean underwear and sent him back to the computer with a fresh towel under him. Not too long after that he started to pee again. This time I got wise. I immediately took him to the potty and set him on there. He was okay with it, until he accidentally started peeing again, and this time he had no control of stopping it. He didn't know what he was doing and it kind of got on his foot, which really freaked him out. This experience really didn't seem encouraging to me because he seemed really upset about the whole experience. We told him we would go get a toy for peeing in the potty. After he picked out his new toy (a dinosaur train, his new favorite show) he started to see that this might actually be an okay thing to do.

We did the sticker thing for him to earn his next toy, a motorized Thomas. Unfortunately after he got his toy, he stopped going potty. That is mostly my fault because I put him in Pullups instead of underwear. So on Monday I hit the potty training hard and he has been doing ever since, with of course an accident or two. Now I need to start thinking about when I am going to potty train Anabelle. I think I will wait till next year. Give myself a little break before I start the whole process all over again.

Beckett modeling his new underwear

Now on to the rest of the month.  We had a sleepover with some cousins. My sister-in-law Marcey and her girls came over for a visit one Friday afternoon and they ended up staying the night. We had a blast. I think we should have people sleepover more often.

L-R: Julia, Jessica, Beckett, Anabelle, Josie

 My sister and I were making a red velvet cake one day and Anabelle wanted to like the bowl (she is just like her mother).  



I bet you didn't know Anabelle was a vampire



Another big thing that happened in October is Matt turned 30. We celebrating by going on a date to a murder mystery party. It was a disco themed one and it was extremely unpredictable. I was a hussy that slept with a lot of guys and would kill them when I was done with them. I was also a martial arts expert and a member of Chuck's Angels (reference to Charlie's Angels). Matt's name was hilarious - Knight Feva. He was a bar tender and a gigolo. He also turned out to be the bionic man because he had a run-in with a shark. I couldn't believe all of the twists they fit into that storyline. They all gave us some really good laughs. Thanks Shana and Sharice for putting it together. I think Matt really enjoyed his birthday. I am kind of mad I didn't take pictures. Oh well. Maybe we can recreate them and take a picture.

The next morning we went out to breakfast with my parents to the Segolily Cafe in Bountiful. The only way to describe their food is good old home cooked food, done gourmet style. They make all of their food and sauces there. We wanted to have their sweet ricotta cheese spread so that is why we went for breakfast. It is so good. I had their cashew french toast. Unbelievably good. I don't remember what Matt had, but I know he enjoyed it. I highly recommend that place. The place itself is really cool too. It is an old victorian home redone to make it a restaurant. I love it.

One present from my Dad was to come up and help Matt do some handyman stuff around the house on the 30th. I guess this gift was more for me than Matt. Matt's friend Kevin came over also and helped them work on our furnace and ducts. I really appreciated both Kevin and my dad coming and helping out. I know Matt couldn't have done all that work all by himself.

Later that day, I got the kids all ready for Trick-or-Treating that night. My little sister helped with Anabelle's makeup.

Anabelle is a ladybug. That costume was worn by my little sister when she was about the same age. Her nickname was Bug and so the costume was perfect. It was kind of surreal to have Anabelle wear it 15 years after my little sister did and she looks just as cute, maybe more, but don't tell Sara I said that. Here is proof:


Here is Sara in the costume

  Beckett is a Jack-O-Lantern in that picture. Right after that picture was taken, Beckett immediately stripped down to his underwear so I couldn't get a full shot of him. He wouldn't put it back on and then wanted to be a lion. I didn't get a picture of him in that because as soon as we got to my brother's house to go Trick-or-Treating with cousins, he freaked out when one of his cousins came in dressed as a clown, face painted and all. That did it for him. He refused to go out and just stayed downstairs playing with the train set. So just Matt and Anabelle went out. She didn't last long. Matt said she just stood their with her bucket and wouldn't say anything. She would say it when he practiced with her, but I guess she had stage fright when it came time to perform. Also she came back with only like 10 or 12 candies. Beckett promptly took half of it. Oi!

After the kids had been back for a while, they were all downstairs playing. They sounded like they were having tons of fun. Suddenly, Matt came upstairs with Anabelle in his arms and her head was bleeding. She had fallen off of a chair playing with one of those basketball, arcade games. She somehow gashed her head open. Luckily it stopped bleeding quickly, which surprised me, because head wounds are known for bleeding terribly. Once it was all cleaned up, you could see how wide and deep the gash was. Another lucky things was that we were at my brother's house, who is a doctor. He looked at and said it wasn't bad enough to go to the ER, thank goodness. He had some small butterfly bandages (I highly recommend you have a stash at your house) and got it on. Then we iced the goose egg. I couldn't believe how brave Belle was the whole time. She was obviously crying when Matt brought her up, she stopped while we were cleaning it up and that was it. She totally let me put the ice on her wound and didn't fight Matt pushing the wound together to put on the butterfly bandage. (That is how they work by the way. I have never used one and didn't know what they did, but they work to pull the wound back together and leave a minimal scar on deep wounds. You do have to give it some help though by squeezing the skin together and then putting the bandage on. Kind of a cool thing.) She was such a trooper.

Well, I think that about wraps it up for October. I am all caught up now and hopefully stay current on here from now on.

Another motherhood initiation

WARNING - if you have a weak stomach or are easily nauseated, do not read!

Well, tonight was a first. This year, my parent's have decided to do something different for birthdays. Rather than do a big party each birthday month with the whole family, they are just taking out each individual out for dinner. Tonight was Beckett's turn. We went to Wendy's because Beckett loves "5 piece chicken nuggets". He ordered them all by himself. I was so proud. He also got root beer, which is a special treat because we hardly ever have pop. We sat down and started eating. It didn't take long before we had to get after him to start eating his dinner and stop drinking the pop. He said, "I can't eat anymore", which is his usually response when he doesn't want to eat anymore. Well, we did what any normal parent would do, we took away the pop until he ate a couple of chicken nuggets. He complained a little and then just laid down on the bench. I thought he was just moping, but after a little while he stood up. Matt commented that he looked pale, and then I noticed it too. It wasn't too long after that that I could tell he was going to throw up. Just as it started to come out, I stuck my hand under his chin to catch it. I don't know why. There was no way I was going to catch it all. It just felt like instinct. (I would like to note that I don't do throw up. I come close to dry heaves when I just hear someone else throw up) When he was done, I went to wash my hands off. Beckett saw me leaving and came after me (he is going through some major separation anxiety lately), leaving a trail of puke dripping off of him all along the way. I felt so bad for the employees that had to clean up after him. I wanted to offer to clean it up, but I had to clean me and him up already. It was not fun and on the embarrassing side, even though there was nothing that could be done to prevent it. My sister came in the bathroom and said that the group of teenage boys that were sitting near us, watched the whole thing and were just staring. I felt so terrible about ruining everyone else's meals. So much for a special meal. Oh, and both children threw up in the car just as we were getting off the freeway. What a night!!