Ice Ice Baby

 

This sweet tiny little handprint made me smile. A sticky reminder of the small ones leaving their imprint all over the house and my heart. Busy and crazy and wonderful all in a rollercoaster every day.

 

Flare loves to come out of her cage and explore.

 

Checking each other out

Boo the crested gecko

 

Monday and Tuesday were holidays but also feeling arctic- in the 20s. So we went one day to a bounce house with the cousins and some friends.

 

They didn't stop moving the entire time it was wonderful!!

 

This one reminded me of the Chinese game show Wipeout. Diana would jump from ball to ball.

 

And by the time she got to the last one she'd fling herself headfirst, only making it some of the time and providing plenty of entertainment for the parents as she ricocheted off the rest of the time.

 

I finally went to the baby doc. 16 weeks along and this little one is doing great and already letting me feel those kicks and squirms. We have another ultrasound in three weeks and should find out gender then.

 

One time I got Flare out she decided to peek in on Sunny and was trying to nose her way in. I guess Sunny looked like a good snack?

 

The kids went to school Wed and Thurs and then a big ice/snow storm came. We had mostly freezing rain and sleet all day long, with a little snow at the beginning and end of it all. The result was horrible road conditions and power outages. We are lucky to live in a great location that since the neighborhood was built 17 years ago only lost power once during an ice storm and only for a few hours. This storm we had no problem and enjoyed sledding down our steep driveway and playing with neighbors.

 

The best sled we have is a kids snowboard I got for less than ten bucks on clearance at target a few years ago. The other sleds always tear up but the plastic snowboard is always the neighborhood favorite.

 

Because it was so slippery, Katy got to enjoy the weather inside with me. Hopefully we will get some plain old snow sometime so she can go out and enjoy it.

 

After two snow days that were just days after the two cold holidays, I decided to bust out the Dead Sea Mineral Anti-Stress mask that Jim got me for Christmas. I am not sure if it worked, but it scared the kids away so maybe it kind of did work :)

 

Church was cancelled Sunday because of all the black ice (we never got above freezing yesterday). I was slightly terrified of the endless hours and came up with a battle plan. We are halfway through the day and so far so good.

 

Charades was absolutely hilarious. Diana wanted to be a lion in every one. The kids loved this game!

 

 

Singing at the beginning of our family sacrament meeting.

The kids always ask for Christmas hymns. Angels we have heard on high is the running favorite.

 

Primary singing time.

 

Nursery with Katy.

 

She loved all of the attention!

 

We sang as many nursery songs as we could think of and then topped it off with playing Pie Face. I got some hilarious video and the kids loved it.

 

Katy watched for the first time. I put a little dot of whipped cream for her to eat and she looked at it like it was going to jump up and hit her face. She seriously was terrified of the little piece of whipped cream! We quickly rescued her from "danger" :) I am grateful for our safety and peace during this big storm and although it can get a little crazy with all this home time, it is a blessing to be with our family safe and happy.

January

 

The weather stayed in the 70s so long this year! We took a hike a few days after Christmas around a nearby lake. The kids each brought their stuffed animals (and Mike brought a balloon they gave us free at the grocery store).

 

Jacob loves Kindergarten. He would prefer to "do his own thing" and staying on task is not fun for him, but he works hard every day to keep his behavior at a "Green" level. He loves basketball and watching BYU games too. During Nicole and Mike's games he pays attention to what is going on most of the time. He gets to play next year and will be on Mike's team so that should be fun!

 

Katy is a little girl now. She communicates with little phrases sometimes and is super cute and sweet. She cleans up voluntarily after herself a lot! It's amazing to see her hang up her coat when we get home. Katy loves to push chairs around the kitchen to see what she can get into.

 

Michael started basketball. Before the first game I wanted to make sure he wouldn't be so physical (he tends to knock people over without really trying). I asked him what a foul was. He said "It's when you tackle someone" and thought everything else was fair game. Definitely his father's son haha. After a little explanation he understood. He got to do the jump ball and worked so hard in the game. In fact, he worked so hard he defended his man on defense AND offense! And one time he did an amazing job boxing his man out, except the guy he was guarding hadn't shot the ball yet. Jim and I had the funnest time watching Michael work so hard to apply all he's learned :)

 

Nicole is on the younger side of the league this year and there are plenty of girls her height. One time she shot the ball and was stuffed two times but kept shooting, and on the third try the ref finally called a foul. I was so proud of her for not backing down! For her free throw, she missed the first and then on the second shot the ref under the basket didn't get the ball (he has to pass it to her) before she shot it. She made it and it didn't count! So then, the ref passes it to her and when she shoots (and makes it AGAIN) a player on the other team stepped over the line too early. The ref didn't realize that shouldn't have meant a reshoot but he corrected the girl and told Nicole to shoot again. Meanwhile, even the coach on the other team was trying to tell the ref about his mistake. So Nicole shoots a 3rd time (and makes it for the 3rd time!) and the ref finally counts the point. I couldn't believe she made so many in a row with all the confusion!

 

Diana is 100 miles an hour. I dropped her off at preschool one morning after Christmas break and I felt a distinct change in the atmosphere from spending every second encouraging, directing, helping this powerful emotional and physical force. She is incredible, all she needs is me to keep up with her :)

The weather was so good and we got so much rain that weeds came out in force like we've never seen! So around New Years I had the kids pull hundreds of weeds. They all participated and had fun finding slugs and worms too. Michael is a bit of a ham sometimes :)

 

Jacob with a handful of weeds.

 

 

Boo, who we got from friends in late October, has really become used to our home. She loves to come out at night and explore. Nicole will hold her and Boo climbs right up her arm and into her hair every time! Boo has soft, grippy feet so it doesn't hurt. Boo can climb right up the glass of her cage it is awesome. We love our friendly lizards!

 

Jacob is insane at Twister. His flexible body makes prettymuch any move possible and he had fun beating Jim several times in a row.

 

Diana "helping" Jim give Flare a bath.

 

Katy is always at Diana's side, ready to hop in on the action. She might not be as obvious but she is getting into just as much fun as her sister. I LOVE having these two girls at home.

 

Diana is so full of energy and excitement!

 

Jim. Just because.

 

Michael doing the dishes. He uses his imagination and tells stories to himself out loud that sometimes involves plates and spoons while he is working. He sticks with the job until it's done so I figure whatever works is fine with me!

 

Flare is the most beautiful orange and red color! We are planning on starting to breed the beardies soon and have launched a website http://buybeardeddragons.weebly.com/ and facebook page in preparation. We will ship anywhere in the US and look forward to sharing these beautiful, friendly pets! I figure a pet that even Diana can handle is a pretty good pet indeed!

 

Sunny is growing and she is still the most friendly gecko ever! She loves to crawl all over whoever is holding her and is always trying to get somewhere, anywhere. Like a daughter of mine...

 

Spike is a funny guy. He doesn't like to eat greens. At his age he is supposed to eat mostly greens but he won't touch them. Even when Jim hides his bugs in the lettuce, Spike waits until the bug gets just out of range of the greens and then chomps up the bug. He reminds me of a few of my children :) He still weighs more than Flare (who loves her greens) though, I guess he just loves his protein! I can't wait to see what their baby lizards will look like! Katy figured out how to open his cage and has spent a lot of time "petting" him. Such a patient, chill lizard. We locked the cage now so Katy doesn't try to eat his bugs or something :)

Christmas

 

Meet "Croc" the Uromastyx from Morocco. He is a yearling like Rocksy, but still pretty big. Jacob thought we got a crocodile when he first saw him!

 

 

Here is when I was warming up Croc from his travels to us. He is also meeting Rocksy for the first time and then we put them into a freshly cleaned cage so Rocksy would be less likely to be territorial. So far they are getting along great.

 

The family night before Christmas we did our family Nativity. Jacob was the only one willing to wear a beard this year. I think he really liked bringing "prizes" to the baby.

 

Michael enjoyed his very long shepherd's staff.

 

Diana is an angel! :)

 

At then end of our singing and scriptures, the kids are pretty reverent. A sweet time.

 

We had four days to wait for those Christmas presents. No school, no nothing. And it was raining all of those days! So we bought out the candy section at Target one morning and after doing some house cleaning, the kids got to make graham cracker creations!

Michael made a motel.

 

Nicole made a fish food truck.

 

Sweet Katy chilling while I make dinner.

 

I got a call the week before saying Jacob had a slight fever. I picked him up and he seemed totally fine to me. Beyond fine. No Tylenol needed or anything. The worst part was that the school policy was that he couldn't come to school the next day because he had to be fever free 24 hours. So he missed his class gingerbread decorating party and celebrations. Pretty sad! So I told him he could decorate one at home with a lot more candy than his classmates would :) Turns out he had told his teachers his neck was hot (he wore pants to school and it has been in the 70s here for weeks) so they sent him to the nurse who "didn't want to take chances". I told Jake to keep his sweat issues quiet from now on unless he felt sick :)

He did get to return for the day of their Christmas program. Yes, they actually called it a Christmas program. After all the craziness you hear about people going out of their way to be offended, it was just so nice to hear them sing a variety of songs about Santa, Christmas, etc. The only tense moment was caused when Diana threw her bag of graham crackers across a table and almost hit someone. So much for the graham crackers keeping her quiet!

 

Jake was a very cute elf!

 

The weather has been incredible. We finally turned on the a/c on Christmas Eve because it was 78 degrees in the house and very humid. Crazy! Plants and weeds especially are still going strong. We even have strawberries growing!

 

Diana is something else. Her favorite song is "Santa Baby" and Mike's favorite is the Transiberian Orchestra's "Carol of the Bells"

 

Diana never leaves anything in her hair. One day, though, she came to me at least 10 times to put back in her elastic and bow. She looked like Bam Bam.

 

Our neighborhood had bagels and Santa last weekend. Diana sat on Santa's lap only long enough to tell him she wanted a frog, and then nobody else wanted anything to do with Santa. So our Santa picture is kind of funny, but it works.

Jim was extremely busy this December and didn't get to hand out as much fudge as normal this year. I still made a ton that he delivered though!

 

We went caroling to people in our neighborhood. Other years we've driven to various friends but it can take a super long time and with little ones becomes more stressful than fun. So we just went to the 11 families from our church in the hood as well as some friends and neighbors.

 

I was talking with Marian on the phone after she didn't get to take her original flight to the Philippines (and didn't get to go until Christmas Day!) and was so distracted that instead of making two decent-sized calzone braids I made one huge one- and I made it on the counter, not on a pan! I consider it a huge feat that I was able to move it onto a pan and foil without destroying the thing!

 

One slice was as big as a plate! I wouldn't recommend doing this but it sure made for an incredible presentation for our Christmas Eve-Eve Dinner.

 

The kids practicing their duet for Jim. Having never played a duet before, having to pay attention to timing was pure torture for them! But I think we managed well enough.

 

One of the many days we had before Christmas, we had the kids make gifts for each other. Diana was studiously painting and then I look over to see that she had given herself a mustache and beard on purpose. She thought she was so funny it was pretty cute.

 

Michael making a house for Nicole.

 

Nicole making ships with pirates for Jacob.

 

One of the big hits this Christmas is the Hot Wheels sets. They absolutely love the set that whirls the cars around a ton and gives them a chance to crash.

 

Playing with their remote control cars after the rain settled.

 

I was amazed at how long the boys played Battleship. They loved the suspense and the joy of destroying ships. After not finding any "hits" for a while, they decided to stop playing, but they really like the game.

 

Nicole put together a huge Lego set on Christmas Day that I was hoping would take her all week! She was so happy to finish it so quickly.

 

Joe and Megan sent us Pie Face, a game where you turn the yellow knob the number of times a spinner gives you. The hand of whipped cream randomly comes up and gets you so it's intense and fun. The kids loved it!

 

Christmas morning we saw a huge rainbow. You can't see it in the background in this picture though.

 

This was the other end of the rainbow. A sweet Christmas morning treat!

Waiting to enter the room with the presents! The kids had a wonderful Christmas and we are so blessed to have presents and sweet time with them. Jim wasn't on call this Christmas and it was great for him to be able to relax. We have been playing, baking, and enjoying time together. I am grateful for this holiday and most importantly for the birth of Jesus Christ, my Savior. What a special time of year!