"It's Lovely Weather for a Sleigh Ride Together..."

Well, unless you live in Virginia, where it's pouring down rain and 65º this evening.  Apparently, my husband is unimpressed in how long it's been since I updated our blog. So here we go.

We have been Christmassing all over the place the last few weeks. Thankfully, we've been more or less well, so that's been super nice!! Jeremy often gets Wednesday afternoons off, so we have done several things in the area that are probably really crowded on weekends, but not too bad in the middle of the week. We went to the Children's Museum in Portsmouth and saw a special show in the planetarium: "The Mystery of the Christmas Star." We were the only ones in the little theater, so that was helpful with a busy little Katy girl and Reilly's never-ending questions. That same day we took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop in Hampton to see their decorations and get free pictures with Santa, and we also saw a little collection of animatronic Christmas creatures a the Courthouse Galleries in Portsmouth, a few blocks from the museum. Here are pictures of the kids seeing Santa:

Kind of thinking Santa and Jaina both look a little creepy in this picture...

They did well, especially Katy. She was nervous, but didn't cry at all. She -loves- seeing pictures of Santa right now and will say "Santa!... Ho ho ho!" So cute. There were some free little games for the kids to play, and they liked looking at the fish in the big tank there.

Katy was WAY less impressed with Santa at the ward Christmas party last week. "Santa" was super nice, but it was already after her bedtime, and the throng of kids was pressing all around the little Santa stage. We had a nice dinner there that night and a good time, despite the late bedtime.

She was super-impressed with the rice krispy tree we let her have.

If only Reilly wasn't being a goofball, this would be a great picture of us!

Poor baby. Just not happening.

Jaina had a birthday - 4 years old! I posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook, so I won't repost most of them here. Here's the Facebook link. You should check it out. :) She's been looking forward to it for months, and hopefully it didn't disappoint. We had her choice of food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, played games at Chuck E. Cheese, and had cake after that night. She was spoiled by her grandmas, grandpas, and parents. :)

I wanted to take a picture of the girls in their "Christmas dresses" with Jaina's new doll and its matching dress. (Poor Reilly. I promise he'll get new Easter clothes or something) Katy thought it was a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad idea. Here's kind of how the pictures went:

LOVE these crazy people.

Yesterday we worked hard pretty much the whole day making Christmas sugar cookies. Jaina's been asking for weeks, I think, and we finally took the plunge. It was a huge mess, but they had such a good time. Actually, there was still a mess when Jeremy got home, and for some reason I was feeling kind of awful and HE ended up cleaning up most of it. He's awesome. Hopefully we give away a few of these cookies, because my "Christmas diet" (try not to eat too terribly and work out a lot) does not need them. They turned out really yummy and fluffy. HERE is the recipe. :)

They did such a good job and were so proud!

I don't know why this is flipped. Some are to give  away,
and some are to keep. Can you see which are which? :)

Like I said, it poured down rain all afternoon here. Here is a fun little map from weather.com.  We don't even remotely have our hopes up. But that's okay, we're still super excited for Christmas in a few days!!

And here are a few more random pictures from the last few weeks:

One of those things that looks better on Pinterest...

Cause for celebration: I can finally finangle a tuft of Katy's hair into a tiny
rubber band to hold a bow in her hair. YAY!

Christmastime is here...

Even though it's a ridiculous 70º today (and our cooler keeps kicking on - it's set at 75º...) we are getting very excited for Christmas around here! I would say about 90% of our Christmas shopping is already done, all of our decorations are up, and I've put a few wrapped presents under the tree. Jeremy wonders what I'm going to do when everything is completely done and Christmas is still 2 weeks away. But it's only -3- weeks away right now. SO exciting!
Here is our little elf modeling the Santa hat that just barely fits her. It goes to a Christmassy outfit we got on clearance back before we even had Reilly. Maybe she can wear it the whole outfit to church on Christmas. :)

 Here's some of what we were up to Saturday. It was actually fairly cold that day, but Jeremy was still excited to put up lights on our balcony since we found out it -wasn't- against the rules, like we thought.

I still have several projects to work on. These horses I sort of started last year, hoping to get them done before Christmas. I realized it wasn't going to happen though (early Christmas Eve) and that R & J were already getting way too much as it was, so I put them off until this year. Of course now Katy is old enough that she would definitely feel slighted if she didn't have one too, so I'm just getting started on hers. Reilly's is almost done, except for a few finishing touches. Jaina's is getting there. I really need to get going on Katy's, and find a stick for it. We are enjoying December, though! :)

Fall

Well, since SOMEone (me) forgot to put the memory card back in the camera, we don't have any actual pictures. (I took video)  But it was good. Here is a picture of the pie crusts I made the day before. (before baking, obviously, but they all turned out!)  It was my first time making pie crust, but between a good recipe (from my great Aunt "Nano") and helpful tips from my mom, they didn't die! Next time (like next Thanksgiving... making pies is not good for my weightloss attempts... surprise, surprise) I need to work on making them a touch thinner and of a more uniform thickness. :)

We went to a friend's house (they don't have any family anywhere near either) and had a nice Thanksgiving dinner together.  They only have an (almost crawling) baby, so our three kids are a little bit loud and crazy for their house, but they were good sports. :)  EDIT: I forgot Jeremy took some pictures on his phone. Here are a few. :)

The "kids' table"

Katy with her OWN piece of pumpkin pie. She wanted nothing to do with
this "bites" thing...

Jeremy had some of his usual Black Friday shopping fun, though he did most of it online (actually on Thanksgiving) and slept in this year. We are almost completely done with our Christmas shopping! The day after Thanksgiving we also put the rest of our lights and decorations up, and put the ornaments on the tree. Our house is so very festive and I LOVE it! I adore Christmas lights. :)

Last weekend (backtracking) we went over to another friend's house and helped them rake their leaves. We don't have a yard, so we don't really have any leaves. The kids had an absolute blast playing "Fox & Geese" and jumping in one of the huge piles. Their yard is about the size of my parents, but more horizontal than vertical. There are a LOT of leaves. Plenty to share. :)

Yesterday we were looking for something to do, and I saw online that the "Chesapeake Arboretum" wasn't THAT far from our house, and it was completely free, so we decided to check it out. It's a cute little patch of wilderness with trails zigzagging all through it and lots of local flora labeled. We could see surrounding houses much of the time, and it's probably prettier during other seasons, but in late fall the trails were all carpeted with crunchy brown leaves, and there were still lots to see. The kids said "Thanks for taking us on this fun adventure!" They enjoyed it a lot more than I thought they would, and we'll definitely have to go back. Maybe with our backpack carrier next time. It would be a much more logical choice than the double jogger we threw Katy in. She's way to heavy to carry through all that, and though we let her walk some, she didn't want to hold hands or press forward. She was much more interested in stopping and seeing what she could find to put in her mouth... One other funny thing: Reilly commented on how he hadn't seen any animals and I told him they were probably mostly sleeping.  Reilly asked, "What kinds of animals sleep during the day?" I said, "Um, maybe racoons?" Reilly: "That's right, because they're nocturnal." I guess at least the TV he watches is mostly educational, because we certainly haven't discusses what nocturnal means. Crazy kid. He's a little too smart for his own good sometimes.

After the arboretum we ran to Wal-mart for a few things. Jeremy had a random craving for a donut, so he took the kids over with him to pick out one to share. I guess we're doing something right nutritionally, (or maybe we're just mean parents) because neither of them knew what they were called. Jaina called them "bagels with frosting!"

That evening we actually got to go out on a date, because Jeremy had set up a babysitter. We don't get to do that often enough (it's just too expensive!) but it's so nice to get away from these sweet little "bedlamites" and enjoy each other's company without the constant directions, questions, and opinions!

Happy Thanksgiving!

19.  A four-day weekend. Especially when you're a little low on sleep, having your husband home sounds nice for many reasons. Tag-teaming the sleep issue is not the most exciting part, but it's definitely a bonus!

20. A happy, healthy baby girl. (though at 17 months, she's hardly a baby anymore...) Even if she DID wake me up before 5 again, she has been so silly and so happy and I'm so grateful that we have her (and her siblings!). I was reading some infertility/adoption blogs yesterday, and they just broke my heart! Is it bad to say that I enjoy reading about other people's trials? That doesn't sound quite right. Other than part where I'm crying for them (without even knowing them) it just makes me SO SO grateful for all our blessings, and helps me not take the little things for granted.  I like getting some insight into their lives, so that maybe when people close to me are dealing with something hard, I'm able to have more empathy, and perhaps have better ideas of what I could do or say that is actually helpful.


21. No one is sick today! Having sickies on the holidays can be so miserable, and I'm glad that we're all well. We've beeHopefully we'll luck out on Christmas too. Definitely hoping for that blessing! :)

22. Music. I love music. I forget how much sometimes, but I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music lately, and it makes me want to have good music on more often during the year. I don't get to participate in music much these days, but I know this time of our lives is a little intense with three small children and that there will be plenty of years for me to be in ward choirs and maybe some community things like the Messiah that the Gila Valley does every year.

23. Eternal families and Temples. I know I already mentioned the gospel, but it gives me so much peace. I love my family (all of them) SO much, and if I didn't know about the sealing power and that we can have each other forever, I think the worry would just eat me up at the thought of losing any of them prematurely. As it is, I'm trying to get better about worrying about the little things. :)

24. (today) My life.  It is good. It is really good. There are things I'd like to change, (mostly about myself) and challenges, and unknowns and trials, but I really don't have much to complain about. I have been so blessed, and things are great. I am so grateful for my life, my family, my friends, and all my many blessings. Happy Thanksgiving!

Grateful Revisited.

11. Wednesdays.  Jeremy often gets some or most of Wednesdays off. It is so nice to have him around to do fun things together, or get errands done, or get some extra things done around the house. Yesterday he got the whole day off, and it felt like a Saturday for us! It is always so nice to have him around, and he is much more productive at cleaning quickly than I am. (Especially since I usually have 42 interruptions. Per minute.) He takes such good care of us!

12. Air conditioning. I know it's not hot anymore, but as someone who doesn't deal well with the heat (dry OR humid) I am so grateful for A/C. Jeremy is also grateful that I have A/C. You have no idea.

13. Jeremy's job. We may be thousands of miles from family, and it may not be exactly what he wants, but I am so grateful that we found an associate position learning and practicing what he wants to do, and that we can afford to keep a roof over our heads, and that it's in such a beatiful location!

14. (Relative) health. Sure, we may think that we have problems and setbacks within our family (health-wise) sometimes, but when I read about what some people and some families have to deal with on a daily basis, I am just humbled and overwhelmed with gratitude at how blessed we are.

15. Our bed. It is so amazingly comfortable. When we got married I was working full-time at EAC and Jeremy was working for a furniture store, so not only could we afford to buy a good bed, but we got it at cost! I have never regretted that purchase. And I am so glad we finally get to have our frame with us again too! (We left it in Arizona when we moved to Iowa so it would get less banged up in all the moving... it's a good thing, since all of that stuff moved 5 times...)

16. On that note, Sleep. It's a little hit-and-miss around here right now, mostly due to Katy teething and not being able to let her cry at all (even when she's not in pain, but just awake) to go back to sleep if she wakes up at 4 am (without waking up her siblings, which may or may not go back to sleep - and they don't nap!). It just makes me that much more grateful when everyone sleeps all night, and doesn't wake up until 6:30(!). So nice. The time change has also been a little rough on sleep around here, so I'm so thankful for those mornings they don't wake up at 5:30 or 6. 

17. TV. Sad, but true. My older two have been champion TV watchers (as in, they really liked it and it kept their attention) from their Baby Einstein days. It's hard to make sure they don't watch too much some days, but it's sure nice that they like it so much when we have those long car trips, or when things are just a little too chaotic. I know that will get the older two, at least, to settle down, if we put something on. Katy is harder to tell. Sometimes she'll watch for a little while, sometimes not. I'm also grateful there is "better" (as in more educational, less violent/scary) programming for kids now than when I was a kid. I loved 80's cartoons, but when I watch them now (including some of the Disney movies I loved), I am so glad there are other options... Not such a fan of listening to Dora or Diego, but I don't mind a lot of the pre-school programming available, and I think they're getting something useful out of it often. Kids are always learning something when they watch, so it's nice to control a little bit of what that is!

Let's throw in one for tomorrow as well:
18. Autumn. So excited for the cooler temperatures and the holidays, and the leaves have been beautiful the last few weeks! I don't have any of the pretty oranges and yellows around here (why? I don't know!) but here's a picture of Jaina standing by some bushes at Jeremy's office. :)