Merry Christmas!

Whew!  We made it!  And we have had a wonderful Christmas.  I especially liked what my Sister-in-law told me the other day.  I was lamenting to her that last year the kids had a glorious time riding the "Polar Express" rapid transit train to see the lights downtown, and this year we never got up there.  Carrie told me that she saw Christmas as a buffet.  There are innumerable wonderful things you can do in the month of December, and no way you could do them all every single year.  So just like you don't have to get every single item at a buffet, each year you can pick out which wonderful things you do that year, and not worry about the rest when you are "full".

So we might not have gotten to see the lights, but I got to go see the Nutcracker for the first time with many of my sister-in-laws and some nieces.  It was so much fun, and I can't wait to take Kaitlyn next year!  I might have skipped my baking fest where we make cookies and goodies galore to give to teachers and bus drivers, etc, but we have a little tree in our house for the first time this year so our kids can put the ornaments they make or anything else they want all over it.  We didn't go to Disneyland, but we did pull out a book I've had for ages with a Christmas scripture, song and story to read each night before bed.  That's the one I am the most proud of.  I feel like Christ was a bigger part of this Christmas than most years.  We didn't decorate gingerbread houses, but we made gingerbread cookies and those are yummier anyway.  And we did get our big tree up . . . a week and a half before Christmas.  At that point, I debated on skipping it, but I am glad we didn't.

It just wouldn't be Christmas without the glow of those lights.

But that's getting ahead of myself.  First, we had our church Christmas party.  Kaitlyn had to stay home with a fever, but I was in charge of a "photo booth" where people could come and get their family picture taken.  I think it turned out pretty good!

I didn't have my family there to take a picture of, but my sweet babysitter went and got Tyler and Jasmine so she could play with them (I had to go rather early to set up), and Jasmine liked checking out the props and seeing what Mommy was up to.

And of course, they had to go meet Santa.  Tyler was thrilled.

Jasmine was less so.

She went and cried on her "Me-Kenna's" lap since her traitor mommy was the one that put her on Santa's lap in the first place.

And last night was the annual Skarda family party.  We acted out the Nativity in costumes . . .

,. . . had a concert of horns . ..

 . . . which Kaitlyn helped out with on her music maker, along with performing a song on the piano by herself . . .

. . . and then Santa came to visit!

Tyler and Kaitlyn were excited, obviously.  Kaitlyn had been asking for a bow and arrow for Christmas, but then last Saturday switched to "a fearless friend.  I saw them on a commercial.  They are animals that move all by themselves!"  The only problem is that google has no idea what a fearless friend IS.  The only thing by that name is a DVD set for kids with social anxiety disorders to help them cope with meeting friends.

Unfortunately for her, Santa didn't know what that was either.

Jasmine noticed that everyone who saw Santa got candy.  So she edged closer and closer . . . and though she didn't get on his lap, she did get close enough to say hi and snag a reward before running away.  Jackpot!  I was proud of her for improving.

As we were about to go home, I had the kids open a present with their new Christmas jammies.  I've decided I like that tradition- it is something they need anyway, it's fun to wear new clothes for Christmas, and then they look cute for pictures the next morning.  Tyler was sad when he outgrew his slippers, so I thought I would get him some new ones for Christmas.  But it turns out that all of the "fun" ones don't come in his size!  Boys slippers are mostly non-existent anyway, and when I did find them they were boring men's moccasins shrunk down.  After striking out at the fifth store, I began to think about making them myself.  I've made a lot of leather baby shoes in my life.  How hard could it be?  I came across shoe inserts at the dollar store and threw in the towel.

The answer to the question is that I had NO idea what I was doing.  These things look awful upon close inspection.  I figured that I would make them green (since green is for Tyler) and put a T on them (since I was too lazy to make them into dinosaurs or something).  I asked Kaitlyn if I should even give them to him, but she assured me that he would like them just fine.

And of course, he adored them.  You would think I had just give the kid the moon.  He was literally running around and doing happy dances for 15 minutes, telling everyone he could find about the "slippers with a T on them!  They have a T, they have a T!"

The next morning, Kaitlyn was the first one awake.

She was pretty excited about all the presents, but we decided we should wake up Tyler before we got started.  So Daddy jumped on his bed.

Tyler told him to stop, and even threatened "I'll flick you in the head, Daddy!" but eventually he woke up and made it downstairs.

And Jasmine joined us, too.

Jasmine was the most excited about the large pile of fruit snacks in her stocking.  She might be literally addicted to those by this point.  So when she got free reign this morning, she took full advantage.

Let me at 'em!

And I kinda loved her bunny slippers.  Which were store bought, and hence properly made.

I love having young kids that are so easy to please!

"Cheese!"

We helped the kids shop for each other this year at the Dollar store, and that worked out wonderfully.  Tyler got this sword from Kaitlyn and went around carefully cutting off all of our heads.

And Jasmine made us a picnic from Grandma's present.

This year I swore I would not push Tyler along.  Every year I get so excited for him to open the next thing that I push him away from playing this them to unwrapping, but this year I just let him be.  He opened his last gift at about 4:30pm!

Kaitlyn preferred the "rip it all open" approach, but she still loved playing with all of it.

And Jasmine loved playing with everyone else's toys.  And running around in her new snow boots.

And thankfully, Kaitlyn was thrilled with her bow and arrow set.  To top off her day, she discovered a loose tooth!  She has been hoping for one of those for a long time.

What a wonderful Christmas!  I am so grateful that I got to spend it with my awesome little family.

Why my Christmas tree still isn't up

We came back from Ohio and had to hit the ground running.  We've been planning on replacing the carpet since we bought the house, really.  It just looked bad from the beginning.  We've put it off for a while, thinking that our kids were little and would destroy the carpet anyway, but friends have told us that their teenagers are just as likely to spill things.  So when it was time to shift all of the rooms, we decided to go for it.  Tyler and Kaitlyn have been sharing one big bedroom, but it was a bit beyond time for the boy and girl to have separate spaces.  So Tyler needed to move into the little bedroom, which was filled with computer things.  The computers could then go into the nursery that is attached to the master, and Jasmine would move into the big girl room with her big sister.

Easy, right? Ha.  If we were doing that much, we might as well replace the carpet.

As Christopher says, he goes back and forth between loving it so much he can't believe we waited this long, to thinking that it was so much work he never wants to do it again.  We took everything from the kids' room and put it in the front room, forcing the kids to sleep in the basement for a week.

Everything in the office filled the nooks and crannies in our room.  And then we had to repaint both bedrooms.  Daddy helped the kids paint Tyler's new room the day they were waiting for their flight to Ohio.  That room had been painted yellow when we got the house, and while they painted the back of the door yellow (who does that?) it was a good enough paint job we left it until now.  And then when we got back, Kaitlyn helped paint over the blue to make it a girls room from here on out.

Daddy said they liked wearing one of his old shirts almost as much as they liked painting, which says a lot.

Anyway, after painting two rooms and all of the trim, all we had to do was rip out the carpet and pad, take out every single staple, vacuum all of the dust that used to be our pad, and haul it all off somewhere.  It only took a couple of days, but we got things ready for them to come and do the first half.

And we were in love.  SO much better!

The bad news was that they accidentally scheduled us for consecutive days, instead of giving us 3-4 days in-between to get the second half ready for them.  ACK!  I think in those two days combined, I got about 6-7 hours of sleep.  Thankfully we weren't painting the rooms in the second half, but just the trim.  And it was all worth it.

Before:

After:

 In the closet of the nursery, there was a piece of paper left under the carpet and pad dated 1978.  That means the carpet in the entire house was original to this 1979 house.  It was time!  Especially on the stairs, where the pad was literally nothing but dust.  Oh, and the crinkly plastic lining that someone put on our pad.  Every step on our carpet has always crinkled.  I remember when that sound used to wake Tyler up as I tiptoed away from setting him in his crib.

Now the kids love their rooms.  So far Tyler got the best end of the deal, since Jasmine has had a couple of rough night adjusting to going to sleep in a different room with someone else.

And the girls' room is a row of beds at the moment, since the un-stacked bunk beds are ready to go, but we don't have a mattress for Jasmine yet, so she's still in her toddler bed.  I splurged a bit on some Pottery Barn quilts, but they are just perfect!  Tyler needed a big boy quilt that was green, since Green is for Tyler.  And the girls have quilts that match in different colors.

We've still got a ways to go, though.  I've been trying to be careful and purge as we go.  Nothing goes back in the bedrooms that we don't actually need.  But that takes time.  And I need to send out my Christmas cards, get all the presents bought and shipped if needed, and make the calendars for each family.

At least I got the cards printed a while ago, so all I had to do was address them and get them out.

In the meantime, Kaitlyn had another piano recital.  It was cute- they had the recital of Christmas songs at a local nursing home so some of the residents could come and enjoy it as well.

So hopefully someday this week we'll get the tree up.  We got the one at the cabin put up, at least.

But since that one is 4 feet tall and the one at home is 12 feet, that doesn't say much.  It has been really cold around here, but I was glad we got one last drive to the cabin in before the snow dumped all the way down.

And even in 10 degrees, the kids loved playing in the 2 feet of powder.

Though I guess Tyler didn't like getting the snow in his eyes.

Such a silly girl.  In fact, the other day she made quite the outfit for herself.  I don't know if she even made the connection to our visit to the Christmas Story house or not, but I thought it was hilarious to see her walking around the house like this for an hour.

Time to get back to getting this house put back together!

Thanksgiving!

A few months ago, Christopher mentioned offhandedly that someday it would be really fun to go to an away football game at Notre Dame.  And I looked at him strangely.  "You know South Bend is only about 3 hours away from my parent's house, right?"  When I looked up the BYU schedule for the year and saw an away game the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we were in business.  I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner with my family since 1999.

Unfortunately, the trip got off to a really rough start.  In fact, it ranks as one of the worst moments of stupidity I've had in a long time.  We got to the airport only to find no one at the counter to check us in.  And as I stood there, staring at the tickets that I had looked at 5 times that day, I noticed that the time I had scheduled the day around getting to the airport for was not our take-off time.  It was when we were scheduled to land in Denver.  The plane was taking off at that exact moment, elsewhere in the airport.

I hate that sinking feeling when you realize you have done something THAT stupid!  Ugh.  So an hour of arguing, scheduling, and forking out fees later, we headed home.  I got to fly out with Jasmine the next day, and Daddy flew with the other kids the day after that.  I just had to keep reminding myself that it could have been worse. They did fit us in on other flights in time to make the games we were flying out to see.  No one was hurt or injured.  But . . . oh, it just stunk.  And of course my flights the next day were delayed for hours.  If only that had happened on the day we were too late!

Anyway, on to happier topics.  Football time!

One of the reasons that Christopher wanted to see a game in South Bend is because they are known for having epic game day events.  In fact, it is known as game day weekend, in many ways.  Originally we had a hotel room lined up so we could catch more of it, but missing our flight killed that.  Thankfully we were able to wake up early and still catch everything we really wanted to see.  And thankfully my parents were willing to keep my kids for the day, because it was really cold!  (Kaitlyn called it "freakingly cold".)  At the game, the announcer told us that the wind chill was 7 degrees, with wind about 20 mph and snow falling almost all day.

But you know what, even with all of that, the entire campus was full of people wandering about all day long.  I loved seeing all of the tailgating!

"Touchdown Jesus" might have a rather odd name, but the mosaic on the library really was a beautiful and impressive sight.

We went to the "player walk", where everyone lines up to see the players walk to the stadium.  I think BYU is starting that as well, so hopefully we'll see our own team do that one of these times!

Waking up early and shivering all day did take its toll, however.  We were going to see the marching band play, but that was outdoors and the wind had really kicked up fierce.  So we got our steak sandwich and sought refuge inside to found a quiet spot to wait for the trumpets.

Their main building has a rotunda, and the entire trumpet section (40 or so) lined all of the railings to play a few songs.  The acoustics in there were fun - and impressive.

Then it was on to the stadium!

I'll admit, we splurged on the tickets.  We were going to buy the tickets through BYU, but they were $70 for nosebleeds.  So we paid twice as much and got tickets that were on bleachers literally set up on the field itself.  Totally worth it!  My husband said that since this was his one Notre Dame experience, we were just going to go for it.  Sitting low in the end zone means that you don't see the game as well, but see it more from a player's perspective.

 We were fascinated by the Irish Guard.  I'm not sure what their purpose is, other than leading the band out, but they were amazingly tall - with huge hats to make them even taller!  Do they double as the basketball team?

One of the great things about visiting Notre Dame is that they are like us in many ways- a respectful, God-fearing group, you might say.  We have an opening prayer before kickoff at home games, and their players make a prayer of their own toward the mural of Jesus.  I saw a few of our players head over to pay their respects as well.

And their fans are just as awesome.  This group was on the front row near us, and they were hilarious.  They were there to have a good time (and by the Irish jigs we saw them dance, some fun drinks beforehand might have been involved.)  At one point before the game started, one of them stood up and turned around to the stands, trying to rally the crowd to stand up and cheer.  When no one responded, my husband jumped up and started cheering as loud as he could for him.  I wish we had a video of the guy's response, because his face lit up as he saw someone joining him- and he saw my husband's hat.  "NO!  Not you!  You sit down!"  But he couldn't even keep a straight face with it, and just busted up laughing.  So they decided that Chris was cool with them.

At one point they tried to have a "B - Y - boo!" chant going (no one else joined in on that one, either) but stopped short as our cheerleaders ran through the guys to their places.  After making a show of ogling the girls from behind, one of them turned around and changed it to "B - Y - yes! B - Y - yes!"

At half time, we noticed that everyone in our little bleacher section was just hanging out on the field during the band's show.  How cool is that?

And then we noticed that the ushers didn't care if we went back up to our seats or not.  So we watched the rest of the game from the actual grass, right next to our own cheerleaders and mascot Cosmo (who was also having a lot of fun with the group in the gold construction hats).  We kept expecting an usher go come along and shoo us off, but they would come over and chat with us instead.  "Welcome to Notre Dame!  Are you having a fun day?"

The game didn't go our way, but it was at least good that our team played well and made it a relatively close game.  We didn't expect to win, to be honest, so that was fine with us.

And towards the end of the game, I looked over and saw Cosmo eating some lucky charms and offering them to other fans.  Classic.

Being down on the field meant good photo ops, at least!

Christopher held out his hands for some cereal, but Cosmo made him catch it in his mouth.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but seeing the stadium was one of my favorite parts.  They added onto the stadium a decade or two ago, but left the original walls intact and just added another layer around the outside.  Which makes sense- the brick walls were too awesome to tear down.  But apparently they left the bleachers intact as well.

The next day Christopher went with my brother to the opposite extreme.  "I've kinda always wanted to see one NFL game in my life, too," he told me.  "Is there one that weekend?"  It was Browns vs Steelers, which is the rivalry game.  Chris said that he went from the classiest fans one day to the most classless ones the next.  He went tailgating with them at 7am, and that tailgating group spends their day drinking and chanting curses at any Steelers fans that walk their gauntlet on the way into the stadium.  My husband said he did have fun, but wasn't quite as eager to go back.

Meanwhile, we had a great day at church in the ward I grew up in.  Complete with new Christmas dresses from my mom.

The next morning, we went to see the house from one of Christopher's favorite movies.

They were in high gear getting things ready for the big celebration that weekend.  30th anniversary of A Christmas Story!  They didn't have the backyard ready yet, but the inside was perfect.  And the story behind the house tours was funny, too.  A guy was living in California without a job when he saw this house go up for sale on ebay.  So he bought it for $150,000 sight unseen, and got to Cleveland to find out that it was worth $29,000 because it was going to be condemned in two weeks.  So he did the only thing he could to get his money out- sunk in an amazing amount of money to make it look like the indoor sets that were shot in Toronto (only the outdoor was shot in Cleveland, along with Higbee's downtown), and now he sells tours.  He bought a few other houses on the street to sell leg lamps and showcase all of the clothes and details from the movie, and thankfully his business venture is working out for him.

He made the house to be explored- try on all of the their hats, climb under the sink, and even try out the soap in the bathroom if you really want to.  Did you know that the movie only played in theaters for a few days?  And that the leg lamp was a "major award" the Old Man won from Nehi soda because it was their logo in lamp form?

Seriously, my kids are awful at smiling for pictures.

After that, we headed to one of the highlights for the frigid trip.  Waterpark time!

I LOVE these "indoor waterparks in a hotel" places.  Last year we went to Kalahari, and this year we tried their competitor Great Wolf Lodge.  Great Wolf is certainly aimed at a different market.  It was much smaller, and my seven-year-old could ride the biggest rides by himself.  But my kid did love all of the cute cartoony touches around the hotel.  When the kids are older we'll go to Kalahari, which had a lot of really big rides, but at this age they are thrilled to play in any pool for an entire day.  Oddly, Kalahari was also much more concerned with safety.  Within minutes of entering we were gently reminded to put life jackets on all kids 48" and under.  Which was fine, in our book.  They can't swim, so it's a good idea, even if baby Jasmine didn't care for the gigantic thing.  But at Great Wolf lodge our kids were in the distinct minority wearing them.

Jasmine was in love with this floating acorn- I would sit her up on it, and help her slide off in a fit of giggles.  We must have done that a hundred times.

And Kaitlyn loved jumping into the water, and trying out the "hot tub".  There was one hot tub for adults only, and was "really warm" tub that kids could come in.  (Well, like the life jackets, the sign said they couldn't, but it was filled with kids, so apparently rules are nonsense.)

At night, all the kids come down in their jammies to see the characters in the cabin sing and tell you a story.

This was one instance where I wished I had my nice camera.  In fact, this is the first vacation I have taken without using my nice camera once!  I really put the waterproof, weatherproof one to use in the snow, cold weather and waterpark, so I just never took the big one along with me.  But I forget how much on-camera flash stinks until I have to use it.  At least Tyler looks normally lit and happy.

And I debated about including the next picture, but this is real life.  It was our turn to meet their character, and so I set down Jasmine to pose with her siblings.  But she wanted none of that.  And Tyler and Kaitlyn were already scooting out of the way.  Oh well.

Back to the park the next day.

And this next picture sums up most of Jasmine's life.  "EAT!"  The other kids would come in and snuggle in our bed every morning at her age.  But this one wakes up demanding food NOW.  And again an hour or so later.  She is addicted to fruit snacks, and gangs up on anyone who says the word "snack".  "Nack?  Nack?" She will then follow you around making the sign for eat, like she is in the picture, until you cave and give her some.

All better.

Daddy dragged the kids into the bucket fall a few times- but only Tyler stuck with him every time.

He's a good sport like that.

And his favorite was the slides.

Especially the tube slides!  He was so proud he could go down all by himself.

The next day we took a trip out to Kirtland.  We hadn't been there since Kaitlyn was Jasmine's age, so we were excited to go when the kids could get something out of it.

As you can tell by the enthusiasm shown above, I was worried it still wouldn't mean anything to them.  But Kaitlyn has talked a few times about seeing Joseph Smith's home last year at Palmyra, so we did what we could.  And my mom reported that when we got back to her house, Kaitlyn rattled her ear off with all sorts of details.  I guess it didn't click in until we saw all of the movies at the visitor centers about it . . .and then she "got to go INSIDE the temple, Grandma!  And guess what!  The movies were REAL!"

We had great tour guides, and for the most part we were the only people even on our tours at all that day.  Hooray for cold weather that scares everyone else off!

Last time we saw their nativity exhibit we waited in line with a hundred other people.  But this time our kids could take their time, finding the snowmen dressed up in nativity costume, or deciding which one they liked the most.

And of course they loved the room designed for them to play in, with dress ups, stuffed animals for the stable, puzzles and board books.

I just love seeing all of the range in the nativities.  This one in the brass is my favorite- it is made out of shell casings from a civil war.  From strife, people find peace in forming their trials into their strength in Christ.

I'd add more pictures of the nativities, but this is already the longest blog post ever.  And I'm not even to Thanksgiving yet.

My kids loved my brother's cat Socks, and helping to set up the "Village" under my parents' tree.

And of course, Thanksgiving dinner itself was delicious!

I'm so glad we get to see my parents as often as we do.  Even Jasmine, my non-hugger, gets to know them and love spending time with them.

But then we had to head back to the airports to get back home.  We did get to see my brother and his family on a layover, amazingly, but now it is back to reality!  Right now, that includes a torn up house.  We are re-carpeting the upper floor of our house, so nothing is in the right place at the moment.  But it will be awesome when it is done!