Sunday Schedule (and family pic)

We're not totally sure what to do with our new church schedule. Most days, Jaina takes a nap at 1. Church now starts at 1. She is not one that does well without a nap, but she will not fall asleep if we're out and about. At this age Reilly was giving up his naps completely, I think, but I love that she still sleeps 2-3 hours every afternoon (and 12 at night)! We had luck with putting her down at 11:15 last Sunday, and she actually went to sleep not long after, and got over an hour in. That was enough to get her through church. I hope she'll keep that up most weeks!
It's also a little hard having the day almost gone when we get out of church (at 4 - the sun goes down before 5 right now) but I have to admit it's nice getting to sleep in, eat a nice breakfast, and slowly get everything (and everyone) ready to go. The first week of the new schedule we even had time to take pictures right before we left.
We did a lot of experimenting with Jeremy's remote, and between that and Photoshop, achieved this family picture, with everyone lookingat the camera and even smiling!
And here is a picture of our soon-to-be-baby. I'm about 16 weeks in this picture. I think I look about the same now, probably? I am having more "good" days, where I don't really feel sick at all. Some are still rough, but over all doing SO much better. I have my Level II ultrasound in about 3 weeks. We have decided not to find out whether we're having a boy or girl, since Jeremy thinks it will be a fun surprise and since we have more baby clothes for either gender than we know what to do with...

Settling In

This post is mostly just pictures of Jaina, actually. I guess Reilly didn't do anything that interesting in the first week or so we were home. That's fairly unlikely, but he also doesn't like getting his picture taken as much as this cute 2-year-old:
Poor Jaina has been having on and off days. I'm pretty sure she's working on her 2-year-molars (the same ones Reilly is still trying to finish off, actually). One morning she was being kind of grouchy, and the last time I saw her, at about 10, she had stolen her elephant and pacifiers out of her crib. I told her to go put them up. She just looked at me, so I said to go put them up, or go to bed! (they're only for sleeping) After that I didn't hear her for a while, and assumed she had gone downstairs to find Reilly. After a bit I decided I should check on them, but she wasn't with him. I thought maybe she had closed herself in a bedroom and had found something to play with so quietly I hadn't heard her, but when I opened her door, this is what I found:
My children do NOT do this. They only go to sleep in their beds and, occasionally, their car seats. But I guess she found a pillow on the floor in her room too, and the teething (or whatever) had her tired enough to just go to sleep! This is at about 10:30 am, and she generally gets up at 8! She slept about an hour and a half, which isn't the same length as her normal naps, but it worked out really well that day, because we had an appointment to be to by 2...

Mostly the kids just loved beig home and actually getting to play with their Christmas toys. (they didn't get to do a lot of that in Arizona, because we packed most of them up pretty quickly, or we knew we'd be leaving pieces of everything behind...) Here is Jaina playing with her first puzzles. Reilly LOVES puzzles, and she always wants to do them to. She's actually starting to get good at these.

And here are the kids having lunch at their picnic table Grandma and Grandpa Kerrigan got them. That thing is really handy sometimes, and they think it's neat.

Confused

I just came across this picture and really looked at it. It seems that we need to work with Jaina a little more on the Christmas story next year. She's a little confused...

Traveling Home

When Jeremy and I re-met in Phoenix on the 30th, we didn't have time for much but heading back to Pima. This is the site that greeted us on the way in. The sunset was beautiful. How I love that mountain!
We had dinner that night with Jeremy's family, then meant to get a decent start on our way to Iowa the next day, but it wasn't meant to be. Rounding up all our stuff, packing it, getting our oil changed, and LOADING it all (including two chiropractic tables - Jeremy is amazing!) took a good part of the day. We didn't end up taking off until like 3 or 4 PM...
It is always hard to leave - I absolutely hate taking our kids away from their grandparents after they've re-bonded and are all in love with each other. :( Here is my dad entertaining Reilly and Jaina while Jeremy loaded the last of our stuff. They thought this nerf gun was the coolest thing!

Actually, this is how Jaina looked whenever it WASN'T her turn to shoot it...

They are definitely going to miss all of their grandparents, aunts, and uncles!

We made it to Albuquerque rather late that night, and since I was stressed about us all getting sleep in the same room when I would likely be coughing my head off, my wonderful husband got us -2- rooms for the night ($25 a piece on Priceline, yay!) and even spent the night with Jaina on the bed (an adventure, he says) so I could have a room to myself...

The next morning we stopped by the Albuquerque temple on our way out. It was beautiful! The kids and I didn't get out - it was just too cold!

We traveled all day and spent the next night (another $30 Priceline deal - really nice room) in Wichita, KS. We all slept well and made it out of there and through Kansas City before a snowstorm closed a lot of freeways around there for several hours. We actually got really lucky with weather - we weren't ever delayed because of it, and it hardly rained a drop or snowed at all on us!

Saturday we made the long haul from Wichita to the Quad Cities, adding another hour or more onto our trip by stopping to see Liberty Jail. It was worth it, though. I don't know when we'll be in that part of the country again.

I wish the weather had been nicer, because it would have been neat to go by Adam-Ondi-Ahman, but it was super-freezing that day. I think it was something ridiculous like 4º or 8º in the afternoon when we stopped at Liberty.

We made it home, but not until about 10 PM that night. We were so exhausted, and so amazingly glad to be home. We didn't make it to church the next day, even though church is at 1 PM now for us. I think it was the first day we "ditched" as a family that I can remember, but I, at least, was NOT up to it. So nice to be in our own beds and our own house, though I wasn't sure about the below-freezing temperatures and all the snow... I think it's been above-freezing maybe 3 days since then. Last year was worse around this time, though, so I'm guessing we'll all survive!

Trips Within Trips

The day after Christmas we left Reilly and Jaina with their wonderful grandparents and headed off to separate adventures. We stayed the night with Phil & Sophie in Mesa, then the next morning I flew out to San Jose, CA, and Jeremy drove up to Las Vegas, NV/St. George, UT.
One of my best friends, Karen, was getting married, and I was very excited to work it out so I was able to be there! It was so good to see her and Naomi, and meet her fiance. :) Things were a little crazy (as they always are around a wedding) but everything went very well and we all had a great time! I even didn't really feel pregnant-sick almost the whole time I was there. That was a huge blessing since I managed to come down with a cold starting on the way to Mesa the day before. I spent most of the trip trying not to cough on people and sanitizing my hands so I wouldn't get anyone sick. Other than that, though, I didn't feel that bad, and even managed to sleep mostly.
Here are some pictures from the last stop of Karen's bachelorette party with us, her sisters, and Brigham's (her fiance) sisters. We had a fun night, starting at a thrift store to get something fun for Karen to wear, then on to a neat frozen yogurt place, and finishing off at a crazy-busy bowling alley. Our side of the lane didn't score nearly as well as Karen's side. Can we use the excuse that 3 of the 5 were pregnant? ;-) Speaking of pregnant, Naomi's baby likes me, possibly more than she likes Karen. She was good at kicking for me. :) Hehe.

The day of the wedding was a lot colder than I was counting on, according to the forecast a week before, but it never rained, so that was great. I was missing my winter coat a bit though. The Oakland Temple is absolutely beautiful, and I couldn't get over the view! The temple is on a hill, and you can see almost 180º around. I could even make out the Golden Gate bridge despite some fog. Really awesome!

Everything went smoothly for the wedding, and then we took pictures for about an hour and a half, I think. I was so glad to get to be there, and I was grateful for my supportive family for helping me get there!

Jeremy went through Las Vegas to pick up a couple of NUCCA tables he and our neighbor were buying, then continued on to St. George to spend a few days with some good friends of ours that recently opened an office. He had a great time, and enjoyed seeing St. George, and two different temples!

Christmas!

We finally finished our trek and traded in the always-below-zero temperatures and ice and snow of IA for this:

And we got to meet our cute new nephew, Justin!

It was great to see all of our family (minus David in Tanzania :( ) and the kids were so happy to be with their grandpas and grandmas again. They were suitably impressed with all the decorations at Jeremy's parents, especially with the snowmen. They love snowmen!

We spent a lot of time going back and forth and trying to get at least one visit in with several people. We succeeded with some, and not with others. The kids didn't go to bed well the first night or two (Jaina -screamed- in anger) but they did a little better after that, and soon were sleeping normally. It usually takes a little adjustment. I look forward to when they're a little older, and sharing a room, and will sleep wherever we put them. Reilly is definitely getting there, and though I don't look forward to getting rid of her crib (she sleeps so well in it!) I know Jaina isn't far behind. Of course now we'll be adding a new baby to the equation, but hopefully he or she is more laid back about sleep than his/her siblings...

We spent some of Christmas Eve at the Kerrigans and finished up the evening singing some Christmas songs together. After the kids were in bed I think we tried to watch Miracle on 34th Street, but Jeremy and I were worn out and had to go to bed before it was half over. Pretty exciting, huh?
Christmas day was pretty crazy. We spent the morning with my family before Emily and Jason headed up to Jo City to do Christmas with his family and spend the second half of their vacation there. It was so good to see them! Other than a few hours in June, we hadn't seen them since last Christmas.

The kids got WAY too many presents from everyone (especially us) and we've decided to scale WAY back next Christmas, because we can't continue to deal with this huge amount of stuff.... It was a lot of fun though, and the kids had a blast opening all the presents both places.

My favorite part of Christmas morning might have been the waffles. We had waffles 3 or 4 times in the 2 weeks we were there and I love my dad's waffles.

About an hour before lunchtime we headed up to the Kerrigans for Christmas round 2. The kids were, of course, excited to open more presents with their cousins Chloe.

We had a fun afternoon and a delicious Christmas dinner there. We didn't take many pictures on actual Christmas day at either place. I'm hoping I took more video!

To see a lot more interesting versions of this group:

check out the "overflow" album on facebook HERE.

Winter Trek 1

We left Davenport the Thursday before Christmas at about 3 pm. (As soon as Jeremy cleared for clinic!!)

We drove all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma that night, and stopped on the way at the Independence visitor's center. It had a really cool area downstairs for the kids to play. A big cabin, a little cabin, checkers, and this cool wagon:

We stayed the night in Tulsa (I think, I was pretty out of it at that point). The next morning, we drove to Dr. Robert Brooks' office in downtown Tulsa. He is a really successful/effective NUCCA doctor that Jeremy has been helping organize seminars for at Palmer. We spent the whole morning at his office while he took x-rays (multiple times) and adjusted me, figuring out why I haven't responded that well to treatment up until now. We really liked his office!

The kids liked it too - there was a fun place for them to place, and even a fully-stocked kitchen. Here they are having a little picnic in the middle of the hall.

Dr. Brooks' staff was awesome at helping watch our kids so Jeremy could observe everything. Actually, I think by the end of our visit, the kids were going up to random patients and asking for books to be read...

That afternoon/evening we drove to Amarillo, TX by way of the Oklahoma City temple:

We stayed the night in Amarillo (in a rather nice, cheap hotel - thank you, Priceline!) and then headed for home (Arizona) the next morning. We were all a little sleep-deprived and slept in a little, which kept us from getting on the road until about 9 am.

We stopped in Albuquerque, NM to visit some good friends (Hi Heather & Jared!) that we hadn't seen in over a year, and a few hours later headed on to Pima where we surprised my parents that night at about 9:30 (Saturday). They still thought we weren't coming until Tuesday night as we had originally planned. It was a VERY long trip, but the kids did pretty well, and I did my best to not complain more than they did...

Christmas celebrations and fun coming sometime soon! (ie in the next week sometime...)

Catch-up

So... things have been a little crazy around here, and the last two weeks have been pretty chaotic. No time to blog! We decided about 3 weeks before, that we WERE going to drive home for Christmas, and the last week before that, we were trying hard to get ready to go. I had been feeling a lot better pregnancy-wise, but then the last few weeks I've been sick again. It's kind of going back and forth at this point. I haven't decided if that's nice or frustrating yet. Anyway, I'm going to try to get our blog caught up in the next week or two, at least, so here's the first installment!

December 12th: Jaina's Birthday and Snow!
Two years ago, we took this picture:















And last year at this time, we took this one:
Jaina has grown so much in this last year! She has transitioned completely from a non-walking, non-talking baby to a little girl with lots of personality and opinions. She wants to do everything her big brother does, and lets us know when she's not happy with something. She is talking more every day, and her comprehension level has gone up a lot in the last few months as well.
She wasn't very happy most of her birthday-day. She had a nasty cold and didn't feel well at all. We almost canceled her little party, knowing the last thing she needed was cake, but we went ahead, and it was the happiest she was all day! Here she is with some of her presents and her birthday cake. It was a last-minute creation...
(This was the look we saw most of the morning...)
Both kids also finally got the aprons I made for them.

When Jaina went down for her nap, Jeremy took Reilly out "to go snowin'!" (as he'd been asking) finally. It had snowed several days before, but the combination of Jeremy being too busy, everyone being a little sick, and the weather being FAR too cold had put this exciting day off. Reilly had a blast playing in the snow and going sledding down the little hill in our back yard for the first time. Here he is going down all by himself!

When Jaina woke up, she could tell they were outside, and was NOT happy about it. She really shouldn't have gone out, because of her cold, but Jeremy took pity on her because of her cold and asked me to get her dressed too. She enjoyed it a lot, especially when Daddy finally let her swing. He pretty much spoiled her all day because it was her birthday...

Early December: Christmas Card Fun

Here are some of the many pictures we took in an attempt to get a decent Christmas card picture. Sometimes our children are more cooperative than other times...

And the finished result: