Getting Christmasy and freezing to death

This past week, we got about 14 inches of snow in one huge storm. And to ensure that it won't be going anywhere, the temperatures have been in the negatives at night and have not gotten above freezing during the day. FUN FOR US! It also snowed all day Saturday, but only an inch or two stuck.

 Madelyn and Luke enjoyed their first romp in the snow when she got home from school last Wednesday. They promptly tripped and belly flopped and Madelyn couldn't get up. Haha.

 Luke's main order of business has always just been to eat as much snow as possible.

 Hands and feet and face were completely covered in snow and freezing. He had to thaw out in a bath.

 Playing in the snow is hard work! Luke's been falling asleep watching Mark play his nightly video games lately. He likes to boss him around as to what to do and who to shoot.

Last Saturday was our ward party--a breakfast. WHY our ward always insists on doing breakfast parties, I will never know. I've been in the Relief Society presidency the past few years and we're always in charge (on top of a ton of other things going on) and let's just say I'm super glad it's over. I love this picture because of my neighbor Lowell doing a facepalm in the foreground. My feelings exactly, Lowell. Too many things going on in December.

 The kids were excited to see Santa. But since Luke won't even go near his grandparents half the time, I wasn't surprised that he was too shy to talk to him. He spent about .01 seconds on his lap before flailing/running away and preferred to view him from a distance. I think eventually the message that he wanted a gun got across somehow.

 

Madelyn said she didn't want to sit on his lap and was just waiting in line with Luke, but she ended up doing it anyway and telling him she wanted a Tummy Stuffer. 

 After the party was over, Mark finally got out all our Christmas decorations because Madelyn had been bugging him for weeks. Then he left to go shopping with his brother and while I tried in vain to lie on the couch. Madelyn, Emma and Luke were RELENTLESS about getting those decorations up. 

 Putting up our Christmas stuff is like a Labor of Hercules. We literally have 12 boxes and bins of decorations we have to haul out of the attic (through a hole in the ceiling of our garage). We don't use them all, but still!! I was just so exhausted anyway, and my heart was acting up. All our fall decorations had to be put away as well, and the house cleaned, and four loads of laundry, and all of Luke's clothes had to be sorted through to switch out sizes and seasons. I'm still not done!

 Since I was forced to put up the tree by those darn kids, I at least found Saturday Night Fever on TV. The kids were like, "What are they wearing?! What sort of dancing do you call this?!?" DISCO, BABY. 1977 at its finest.

 Luke has a wider appreciation for music and was dancing right along with John Travolta during his big solo. If you've never seen this dance, please, let me show you:

 

 Except for the lights and tinsel, Madelyn decorated the entire tree by herself. She did a good job! Luke takes ornaments off constantly, though. No glass or porcelain pretties for us!

  

My favorite decoration is always this little ceramic village that I painted (before we had kids). It is sparse because they don't make that kind anymore. It's high up on a bookshelf and hopefully out of harm's way.

 

I bought most of this stuff last year on clearance at a shop downtown. I like some traditional stuff like that, but mostly I go for bright colors nowadays.

  

 The kids have been playing with our little Nativity. It's cute to watch them.

  Madelyn has a monster icicle in front of her window and took this picture. She thinks it's hilarious.

 That thing could probably kill you. Pretty sure it's over three feet long by now.

 

We have all sorts of gnarly icicles on the back of the house, too.

 Luke calls them "icebergs" and makes me break them off for him all the time. Then he leaves them around the house and they make big, cold puddles.

Time to get back to my to-do list. Less than two weeks to go before Christmas-are you in a proper state of panic yet?? I am! Don't you just love the holidays.

Thanksgiving weekend 2013

 

Thanksgiving weekend! Barely survived this year, haha. I'm telling you, pregnant women should be given a "get out of the holidays" free pass. It was fun, just very very tiring.

We had Thanksgiving with Mark's family this year. We went to his folk's house in Hurricane. His brothers Frank, David and Paul were there with their families. There was a ton of food and it was all super delicious.

Madelyn helped me make a peach pie and two pumpkin pies (store bought crusts, canned peach filling...easy way out this year) and she and Mark made a big green salad.

Everybody pitched in and there was also sweet potato pie, cookies, brownies, turkey, ham (which I appreciated because I'm allergic to turkey), mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad, orange rolls, corn and peas and homemade gravy!

After we ate and cleaned up, the guys settled in to play Hearts with my father-in-law Frank. Each game goes on for over an hour, and I knew they'd be spending most of the rest of the day playing, so I decided to go up to St. George to see the rest of my family with Luke.

They ate at Tyler and Monica's this year, and we were the only ones that weren't there. Somehow we need to get back on a better rotation so we can all be together.

 My niece Nora and nephew Gary were ADORBS. They are exactly two months apart. Gary is 9 months and Nora is 7 months.

 

 

I love babies!!

 

 The kids spent some time with their Auntie Meg running around outside. My dad took some cute pictures:

 

  

Luke knows he's a stud muffin in his Bruce Lee shirt.

 (got it at Old Navy a couple of years ago)

 

Grandma Carolyn and Grandpa Rich Murset with all their grandkids! (minus Madelyn, who was too busy playing with her other cousins to come up)

l-r: Hattie, Gary, Ava, Jack Murset, Nora & Emery Nielson, Nathan Murset and Luke Yoder

The next day we cleaned house and got ready for my niece Autumn Yoder to stay the weekend with us. Madelyn was SO excited because this meant she got to have sleepovers for two nights.

 

 Autumn lives in Las Vegas and is two months younger than Madelyn. We saw her a couple of other times this year for her baptism and for swimming at Uncle John's. They spent a lot of time watching Netflix and YouTube videos of Minecraft (???). We got a copy of Monsters University and watched it at home that night.

The next day we went to the dollar theater downtown and all went to see Despicable Me 2. Cute movie!

Afterward, I dragged everyone into Gunjah The Bead Forest, which was next door. It's a bead store that also has all manner of geekery, comic books, and real live nerds sitting at tables in the back immersed in role playing card games. Just like you see in The Big Bang Theory!

 Ironically, while I have been there several times, Mark had never set foot inside before.

 

You should have seen him and Luke all giddy about everything. He bought him a couple of vintage comic books and chatted with the owner about what sort of gaming events go on there. We're pretty sure his brother Paul would never leave this place if he ever discovers it.

 

Downtown Cedar City

 The girls got along really well for the most part, considering that they're both used to having a lot of their own space. (Autumn is the youngest by about 8-10 years so is the only one at home.)

 

 We all went to church the next day and then Autumn's parents came to pick her up. Fun, busy weekend!!

Payson/DW 50th Anniversary

These past couple of weeks have kicked my trash!! I am so behind!

This is just a post about the quick trip we took last month. We drove up to Payson (northern Utah, 3 hours away) and stayed with my Aunt Sherri from Friday-Sunday Nov. 22nd-24th.

 

 Sherri has a super sweet, mellow Australian Shepherd mix named Jetta and Luke was TERRIFIED of her! If she was anywhere within eyesight, he had to have someone holding him. I don't know why that was--he has never had a bad experience with a dog. He just isn't used to being around them. By the time we left though, Mark got Jetta to lick Luke on the face and he ended up giggling and laughing about it. Baby steps, I suppose.

Anyway, the next day, we squeezed as much in as was humanly possible. First we went to IKEA (half the reason we went on this trip). A lot of people don't understand the appeal or why we'd drive hundreds of miles to go there. All I can say is that Mark and I could drop several grand buying sleek Scandinavian home goods. We desperately want to go back for new couches. But this time we mostly bought Christmas stuff for the kids.

It worked out because they have a child care area you can drop your kids off at for 60-90 minutes while you do your shopping. This was at the outside waiting area. Inside is lots of fun stuff, including a ball pit! The kids LOVED it. They ended up catching a stomach bug there, which showed up the morning after we got home, but at the time it was worth it.

The kids' toy area is full of awesome (cheap!) stuff like this. It's the Big Bad Wolf and Grandma from Little Red Riding Hood. And there's a pouch inside the wolf's mouth so he can "eat" grandma! It's just the sort of thing Madelyn would love. She's into those morbid fairy tales.

After we checked out and got the kids, we went upstairs and ate lunch in the cafeteria. It was crowded but the food was good. We were all pretty tired and Luke really needed a nap, so Mark dropped me off at my sister Megan's college dorm in Orem and they drove back to Sherri's house.

Meg took me to the mall by her place and we went to H&M (another Scandinavian store...) and I bought Luke a bunch of their 2-pack long sleeve t-shirts that are so cute and comfy. I guess I could have ordered some online, but it's just a fun store to go to. Lots of accessories, and everything is so cheap! Love that place.

The Disney Store was just across the hall, so we stopped in and drooled over all the princess stuff that we secretly wanted to buy for ourselves.

I mean, look at this!!!! I would have DIED to have this at Madelyn's age!!! She just saw the picture and was like, "GASP". It's $40 though. Maybe if she gets birthday money. She loves their silky nightgowns, too, but they're $30. (I found one later for $17, shhhhh).

Then we had to race back to Sherri's because it was time for the DOCTOR WHO 50th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL!!!!!!!!!!!

Doo-weeeee-oooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

What everyone was most looking forward to was David Tennant and Matt Smith--the 10th and 11th Doctors--being on screen together. I LOVE those two.

(The Doctor is a Time Lord, and instead of dying, their race "regenerates" when their body wears out and they get a new body/face but they are the same person. And since the Doctor time travels, he sometimes runs into himself.)

And it was SO EPIC!!!!! And glorious! And funny! And timey-wimey!

I won't try to explain the plot--I don't want there to be any spoilers, and if you don't follow the show it wouldn't make sense anyway. It barely made sense even to me.

There were actually three Doctors on screen together in this show. It was pure gold.

The only problem was that there were commercials every 7-8 minutes. You'd just be getting into things....it would be getting really dramatic and your heart would be racing and you'd be on the edge of your seat (or in my case, tears) and 

*AT&T COMMERCIAL*

Ugh.

But I'm so glad we got to watch it together. Now all we need is to find someone with cable so we can watch the Christmas special! Although Matt Smith will be regenerating and I am already very depressed about it. It might just ruin Christmas. But if we don't see it then, we can't go anywhere near the internet!

We drove home the next morning and Luke got right back to his old shenanigans.

 

It had snowed a little and the kids were so anxious to get out of the car and run around!

  

When we were at IKEA, we looked for some new chairs for our computers. The mis-matchedness had been driving me crazy. The black chair was too big, the wheels had destroyed the edge of the laminate floor (back when we had a smaller desk it was positioned right on top of it), and the kitchen chair was uncomfortable and getting beat up by the kids.

 We ended up getting these cute little white SNILLE Visitor chairs that are actually really comfortable! The plastic is soft and has some give to it. And they were only $17.99 a piece. Hello. There's a few other changes I want to make to that area, but this made a big difference.

Next post: Thanksgiving weekend!

15 weeks

I have some other things I need to blog about, but FIRST!

I had a pregnancy checkup on Monday. I had been up since 5:00 am that morning with both kids, who had the stomach flu (I'm blaming that for the bags under my eyes) and had just come back from a trip the day before besides. Anyway, I was hammered. I left the kids at home to watch SpongeBob and went to my appointment.

It was a routine checkup, I wasn't expecting anything special. I am measuring well (I seem to have a belly sooner this time) even though I still weigh less than I did before I was pregnant. I'd been trying to drop 3-5 lbs. all summer because I was in between pants sizes and it is so annoying to either have pants that are too tight or too loose. Turns out all I needed to do was get pregnant. Ha. Although with a belly to work around now, nothing fits still. Hello, yoga pants.

After going through all the normal checkup stuff and updating Dr. Sanders on my heart, (and talking about The Hobbit, because he saw me reading it when he came in), he stood up to leave and then said, "Do you want to go have a look at the baby? We might be able to tell what you're having."

"Um, YES...."

"Or we could wait till Mark is here...."

"Pff, no, I want to see now." (Forgive me, but wait another month????? Are you kidding???)

So I texted Mark at work to let him know, and he said it was fine. Dr. Sanders had the ultrasound room prepped and he came in to do a little five minute scan to see what we could see. I had been waiting for this moment for YEARS.

I was pretty sure I could tell right away that it was a girl (there are three lines on their bum) and when he confirmed it, I started crying.

I don't think even Mark knew that for several years, I've felt like there's been a girl waiting for us, and so before we got pregnant, I prayed that she'd come. But I didn't have my hopes up too high. I thought Madelyn was a boy, and that Luke was a girl, so my "intuition" was less than reliable. Mark always seemed to know, but so far he had been saying it was a boy. I love my little boy more than anything, but I would have been a tiny bit disappointed if I didn't get that other girl.

I went to Mark's office to show him the pictures and tell him in person, and he was really happy. I was bawling off and on for half the day about it, especially when I shared the news with my sisters and they were so excited. My mom called and she was excited too but then I had to get off the phone because Madelyn was throwing up...

But when I first told her and Luke that they were going to have a little sister, she jumped up and down and said, "Yayyy!!!" She was really hoping for a girl.

This summer, Luke had added another family member to our Netflix account, and called it "qq". (Don't ask me how he knows how to do stuff like that, I have no idea.) So now we have "Baby QQ" until we agree on a name.

Mark told me later that just two days before my appointment, he was lying in bed and had the feeling that it was a girl, but he didn't tell me!!! So I guess he's 3 for 3. If you want to call him and have him predict pregnancy genders for you, go right ahead. 

I'm very happy and excited (which is a nice feeling for a change, after the past few months) and am looking forward to finally getting to use the teeny little girl things I've been saving for years. :)