How Do You Eat Your Oreo?

I think the most unexpected reaction on Christmas morning was captured in this picture.

As a last minute whim, Santa included a group gift to the male members of the family:
Mega Stuf Oreos.

They were a HIT!

Watching them eat their cookies was as fun as watching them open the gift.

Apparently the three male members of my family each have their own technique.

Ammon likes to twist the top off,

eat the frosting from the middle,

have the chocolate cookie take a swim in the milk and then finish it off.

His is the messiest and most complex approach.

Peter likes to dunk his Oreo into the milk and then nibble it in several bites.

I think his is the most "normal" approach.

Andrew likes to stick a fork in the frosting to use as a handle as he dips it into the milk. 

Then he gobbles it up in one big bite.

But whatever your method, eating Oreos as a group activity is tons of fun.

Check out Ammon's smile!

Ammon Turns 10

Ammon's birthday is always super stressful to me.

After all - we just had Christmas.

And how do you top that?!

In the past my strategy has generally been to do an impromptu cake and icecream deal.

With the intention of doing a "real" party later.

And that "real" party may or may not happen...

(It happened last year - in April!)

This year I decided that we needed to do our best on his actual birthday.

And call it good at that.

It seemed tricky, though.

I didn't really know any friends to invite for a party.

Andrew had to work.

We were all worn out from Christmas.

In fact, I fell asleep for a good portion of the morning and almost ruined our swimming plans.

Not to mention that Andrew had a late lunch break and didn't get home with the car as expected.

Fortunately I woke up to a text from a friend asking if we were coming swimming again.

I had gone to sleep after allowing the boys to play on the tablets, so Ammon had long forgotten his desire to swim.

But once I eliminated electronics from being an option, swimming was back on.

We scrambled to get our stuff together, and made it to the swim.

(Open swimming here is only available at certain times.)

It wouldn't have worked out without my friend.

I had to leave the boys under her supervision to take Andrew back to work.

But she was willing to help out and make it happen for us.

After swimming we went to McDonald's for lunch.

Then we stopped by the grocery store where Ammon picked out his cake.

He and Peter each got HUGE cupcakes that they ate when we got home.

Then we got a small (half) cake to put candles in for eating after dinner.

Ammon couldn't stand the wait for presents, so we did that first thing when Andrew got home from work.

He had a present from Barbara and Sonner.

It had been under our Christmas tree taunting him all month.

She was tricky about wrapping it and had put it in a popcorn box.

He had snuck into the wrapping and totally thought popcorn was what he was getting.

Then he opened it up and discovered it was knitted socks she had made for him.

THEN she had him put the socks on and he discovered 10 dollars in it - one for each year.

THEN he put on the other sock and found 10 MORE dollars.

I don't think he's ever held so much money of his own.

He was in heaven!

Then he opened the gift from us.

He wasn't sure about it at first, but became quickly excited.

It was six star wars figurines.

Each guy came with a piece to build a seventh guy.

As they were cleaning up the trash, Ammon told Barbara,

"This is my best birthday ever!"

FINALLY we got around to making dinner.

Ammon had asked for tin foil dinners.

Andrew grilled them up for us and they turned out amazingly well!

We finished up with cake and icecream and by this time it was already past bedtime.

Birthday success!

Christmas 2013

We set up the tree on December 1.

Before I knew it, the boys had totally taken control of the situation.

That meant that the ornaments on the tree weren't necessarily the ones I wanted.

Or maybe not placed where I would have placed them.

But Ammon and Peter enjoyed doing it, and that was more important.

We have enjoyed several trips to the swimming pool over Christmas break.

The boys seem to have a great time and enjoy playing in the water.

They have both been to the pool on field trips so they are comfortable being there without a parent in the water with them.

We have also enjoyed running into friends at the pool which makes playtime more fun.

We made our traditional holiday fruit cookies on Christmas Eve.

We did it in stages while watching The Santa Clause.

It was was a fun evening.

The end of the spatula came off and got mixed into the dough.

That was adventurous.

The other moment of humor was watching Peter crack an egg.

He was so worried about it but we convinced him to do it anyway.

He ended up with egg all over his hand.

He was devastated that he had done it "wrong".

(He is my perfectionist.)

He said that Ammon never had this learning curve.

We explained that not only did Ammon need to practice to do as well as he does now,

but that even Dad STILL sometimes gets the shell in the food on accident.

In fact, that happened to Dad just a few days earlier.

That made Peter laugh and everything was better.

Christmas morning was fabulous.

It was the first year that I truly slept until the boys woke me up.

(Usually I end up waking up the kids myself...)

We said a prayer in our bedroom and then went out to see the tree.

After we looked through our stockings,

we invited Sonner and Barbara to join us as the boys opened presents.

It was fun to have our honorary grandparent figures share the morning with us.

It was a simple but successful Christmas morning.

The rest of the day was spent playing games, putting together puzzles, making yummy food etc.

We had the missionaries over for dinner.

We talked to my family on the phone a couple of times, and Skyped with the Shadel parents.

By the end of the day, Andrew and I were hammered!

He noted that we are not young anymore.

Who would have thought that Christmas could be so exhausting!

But it was exhausting in a good way.

Merry Christmas!

Pictures in December

This picture was taken from the parking lot at church.

I LOVED seeing the snow-flocked forest of Christmas trees.

SPOILED.

This was the sweet birthday gift I received from my kind neighbor Barbara.

Sadly I have been sick pretty much ever since my birthday,

so I haven't had a chance to use the gift certificate yet.

But it will be almost better to enjoy it after the baby comes.

I left the house for about ten minutes.

When I left, Ammon and Peter were watching TV.

When I returned, Ammon and Peter were watching TV.

Apparently they took a break from TV watching during my absence.

Peter's foot ended up in Ammon's eye.

No one said anything.

We were sitting down for dinner when I saw this.

Unexpectedly finding your child injured is a terrible experience!

Fortunately, it healed up and all is well.

This is the beautiful sunset that the boys get to enjoy as they walk home from school.

Yup - sunset at 3:30 in the afternoon.

That's winter in Ketchikan for you.

Just another picture of the lovely view of our street.

It took several people holding him down, but Ammon FINALLY got the blood work done for his TB test.

Between that, and his black eye, he looked pretty miserable.

So glad to have both behind us.

Andrew finally had a chance to pull out his grill.

It was a lot of running around to find a place to buy a new tank from.

And a different place to fill it with propane.

But it was worth it - he was happy to have it up and running again.

I have spent the better part of the month feeling deathly ill.

It wasn't really bad until the coughing started interrupting my sleep.

Sick and unable to sleep was a terrible combination.

Add being in the final stages of pregnancy, and, well, it's been pretty rough.

Sadly for Andrew, he is just now entering the unable to sleep phase of it.

Baby comes in two days.

This is my handsome Ammon walking home from school.

The missionaries came for dinner the day after my birthday.

With how sick I was and continued to be, it was the closest we had to celebrating this year.

Andrew made me a German Chocolate cake and everyone sang to me.

It was nice.

One evening I looked down at my feet to see that they had been replaced by tree trunks.

Fortunately my hands didn't seem swollen, but it was still worrisome.

Swollen feet was the first sign we noticed of the toxemia with Ammon.

After that I started watching my blood pressure really closely.

It had been up from previous measurements, but nothing alarming.

Then it got alarming, so I called the nurse and asked what I should do.

The coolest part about it was the the random nurse is actually a member of my ward.

She is familiar with my background and had already seen the picture of my swollen feet.

She told me to not mess around and just come in to Labor and Delivery.

I hung up and swallowed really big.

I knew she was just making the conservative call, but it really freaked me out.

I wasn't ready for this.

I called Andrew at work - barely holding it together.

I told him that my blood pressure was 137/91 and that the nurse told me to go in.

He arranged to come home immediately and take me to the hospital.

I started sobbing as soon as we hung up.

The nurses were really great.

I was showing minimal swelling, but my blood pressure had gone back down and there was no protein.

They ran some labs that all came back great.

And they made sure the baby was doing well.

I went home feeling very comfortable that everything was OK.

At one point during the time at the hospital, Andrew ran home to get out tablets.

He ran into someone in the hall who quickly inquired about me.

He made reference to the fact that I had seemed "puffy" at church.

Even though we didn't know who it was, we were both comforted knowing that there were people who were mindful of us and watching out for us.

And then, as we were leaving, we ran into yet another person who totally knew Andrew but neither of us could place.

As it turned out, she was a Wells Fargo customer.

We left feeling warm and fuzzy about living in such a small community.

We are still learning to recognize all the faces, but it was a comforting feeling to run into so many people who knew us.

I FINALLY got to the point where I felt well enough to drive Andrew to work and keep the car.

I also really wanted to buy some fabric to bind my tree skirt.

I waited for 45 minutes (and entertained myself with taking the picture).

When the store FINALLY opened, I learned that they no longer sold fabric.

And the store that did sell fabric was only open two days a week.

Ugh.

So much for getting that to-do item checked off the list.

Ammon won a couple of books at school for good behavior.

I think he got them two days in a row.

He was excited and I LOVED seeing him buried in reading.

The boys each performed in a Christmas concert at school.

It was fun to go watch them.

Eventually I got my fabric for the tree skirt binding.

I was just going to work on it when Barbara came down and invited me to visit with her.

As it turned out, she had all the tools I needed to cut and sew my binding on.

I probably got more accomplished because of my visit with her than I would have otherwise.

The next day I went to work on the hand stitching.

Yay for FINALLY completing a project several YEARS in the making!

Now I need to get more fabric to bind the reindeer quilt.

Sad to realize that by the time it is finished, it is outdated - we'll be missing Laurie's little hands and feet.

Christmas break has been really pleasant so far.

We've enjoyed lots of games and puzzles from Christmas.

We've also broken out the electronics more than normal.

I thought it was cute to see the boys hanging out "gaming" on the lap-tops.

One Christmas splurge we bought ourselves is this little Willow Tree figure.

We have a really cute one called Brothers that represents the two boys.

We usually have it set up with one that was just a husband and wife.

But now we have the baby, too, so it will be an accurate reflection of our family again.

This picture was taken just two days before the baby.

Andrew was up all night - unable to sleep from coughing.

I was up every hour going to the bathroom.

The parents are tired and the house is a mess.

I tried to get the boys to help clean, but they weren't exactly thrilled with that idea.

So we all took a grumpy picture together.

And here I am - about as pregnant as it gets.

Technically I am 38 weeks and 5 days.

But with the baby coming in about 37 hours, I don't foresee a lot of change in how I look.

And that is just SOME of what we've been up to in December.

Thanksgiving 2013

As per tradition, Ammon made pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner.

I don't really care for pumpkin pie so I tried to convince him to at least experiment with pumpkin pie cheesecake.

But it has been too many years and he was determined to do what he has always done.

He was also very determined to do it by himself.

He did a great job!

I tried to convince Peter to make pecan pie.

But he stuck with his traditional peanut butter cheeseball.

We ate it with Nilla Wafers and it was a HUGE hit.

Andrew made his sausage stuffing and I made sweet potato casserole.

We were kind of unsure of how much to make for a big gathering at the church, so we made two pans of each.

We should have stuck with just one pan of each.

But we always figure it is better to have too much than too little.

Thanksgiving day itself was fun enough.

The boys were able to play lots of games with other people at the church.

We enjoyed seeing the missionaries and getting to know ward members better.

But at the end of the day, I missed our families.

Thanksgiving is usually a day that leaves me with such a feeling of joy in my heart.

This year it ended feeling empty.

I guess that feeling was just a reminder of how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family.

And how fortunate I have always been to enjoy the holidays with them.

What We've Been Up To

For a few weeks we were pretty good about getting out and exploring our new home.

But winter is settling in and we are getting more into the basics of life.

I decided to look back and see what pictures I've taken over the past few weeks.

They don't account for everything we've done, but gave me some good reminders of what we've been up to.

The boys have been getting in good brother time.

They love to read together and play games.

One evening our neighbor came down to show us that we had a deer in our driveway.

The boys both took pictures, but it was dark so they didn't turn out well.

Andrew was excited to be official as a notary as part of his new job.

Ammon received his first pint of Ben and Jerry's icecream.

It was a reward for being very brave, facing his fears, and getting blood drawn.

Unfortunately, that blood went to waste as it didn't arrive in the lab soon enough for the test.

We have had two unsuccessful attempts since then to do more blood work.

It's been a mess!

We spent a fun afternoon at the library.

And I FINALLY convinced the boys to read something other than Garfield.

Apparently Garfield is all the rage at the school right now and my boys have been in on it.

I was invited to go out to lunch with Heather.

She took me to a cute little place that had live music, a great view, and yummy soup.

We enjoyed the beautiful look of winter - for about two days.

Ammon LOVED the snow and was so excited to make a snowman.

He came home from school and went straight to work.

When we ate dinner and left for scout's he still felt like it needed some improvements.

By the next morning, however, the snow had melted - not from the sun, but from the rain.

Ammon was very disappointed.

Speaking of the scout meeting -

It was the first Pack Meeting since Andrew's calling as Cubmaster.

We were supposed to bring cookies.

We made three different kinds and ALL of them had issues.

Andrew accidentally forgot the SHORTENING in his chocolate chip cookies.

I let the no-bakes boil too long and so they were more dry and crumbly that I like.

And the new brownie cookie recipe I tried was awesome.

Except that they stuck to the pans like nothing else.

And then pans I buttered ended up worse because the dough just flattened out all the more.

In the end, we did take the no-bakes and some of the brownie cookies.

And we supplemented them with cookies from the store.

Ammon earned his Bear award.

He was playing with the patch during the meeting, trying to get it to stick to his shirt.

I told him that he needed to wait until we got home and that Dad would put it on for him.

(Andrew is the one who handles all the uniform stuff in our family.)

I said, "If you want, I bet Dad will even show you how to do it."

Ammon's reply melted my heart.

He said, "I would like that because I hope to someday have a boy of my own

and I will need to help him with his shirt."

Ammon has always wanted to have LOTS of brothers and siblings.

I am always so happy to hear that what he wants to be when he grows up,

More than anything else,

Is a dad.

Laurie is taking up more and more room in my tummy.

We are officially counting down until December 31.

(About five more weeks.)

It sounds SOON in terms of having our lives change with a new person.

It sounds LONG in terms of dealing with an ever-increasing stomach...

Early in the month I decided that there was no way that our family of four could eat the variety of Thanksgiving food we are used to.

We just need to keep it simple.

But there were some things, like grasshopper pie that I had to have just for traditions sake.

It didn't make the cut for Thanksgiving day, so I decided to make it early.

And then I decided that it needed to be spruced up a bit.

So I signed up to take dessert to a relief society activity.

I made my dirt recipe with pistachio pudding, and ended up with this awesome "grasshopper trifle."

It was a huge hit.

The relief society president literally licked the bowl clean when it was gone.

We spoke in church this past week.

Usually we are both comfortable and even a little bit excited to speak in church.

But this time we both had a hard time getting invested in our topics.

It was a long stressful week of something we normally love turning into a miserable chore.

But we pulled it off and are glad to be done with it!

After Sacrament Meeting I was really hot (pregnancy hormones) so I decided to step outside for a minute.

It was such a BEAUTIFUL day.

Then after church when we went out to the car I saw a completely different view.

It was ALSO beautiful.

I love it!

(Especially when the beauty isn't hidden away in rain or darkness.)

This morning Andrew went to the gym to swim and both boys came and snuggled with me in bed.

I got up to get things ready for the morning and when I came back to my room I found this.

We never did make it back for more snuggle time,

But if we had, we would have had about four BIG blankets, a dozen stuffed animals,

and FOUR people.

(The boys were happy to point out that Laurie was there with us too...)

And that is just *some* of the things we have been up to.

We have tried to be enthusiastic about Thanksgiving and not dwell on missing our families.

The biggest downside was the turkey.

I LOVE to cook for Thanksgiving.

But I am never in charge of the turkey - and I don't want to be.

At church yesterday we received two different invitations for Thanksgiving dinner.

We accepted the first one and now we are back to being REALLY excited!

The boys are out of school on Wednesday and Andrew has the day off work.

We are going to have fun cooking up a storm.

Then we'll enjoy a fabulous meal at the church with other families in the ward.

And then, all of the sudden, it will be time to put up the Christmas tree.