(crickets chirping)

That's why I haven't updated. Not much has been going on around here. It seems like every 3rd day, one of my girls has been running a fever. I don't know why Jaina did (just for one day/night, but twice in an 8-day period) but I'm pretty sure Katy's are connected to those darn incisors that won't finish coming in. We've been laying pretty low around here the last few weeks...

Some excitement: We finally decided Reilly (at 5 1/2) was tall enough and heavy enough (and responsible enough) to move into a booster seat. He's pretty stoked about it, and loves being big. Jaina is a bit jealous, and all 3 kids insisted on getting their pictures taken in it.

With the girls spending time being sick, Reilly's been trying to entertain himself. Here he is playing the card game "War" with one of the myriads of imaginary friends we have around here, Diego. (yes, from the tv show) Reilly was excited because he was winning. Also, pictures that Reilly took himself of 3 "boats" he built. I promised to show them to his grandmas, so here they are. Sorry, everyone else...

We've spent a lot of time in pajamas. And watching tv. And playing dress up?

But things seem to be looking up. No fever for the last 3 days, and Katy alternates between being fine and being super whiny. Jaina is very much herself, and excited about her upcoming dance recital in March.



I don't know how she sits like that...

Speaking of Jaina, we're pretty happy that after over a year of being "potty trained," it's finally clicked somewhere that it's worth more to stay dry all day instead of changing her underwear 4-7 times a day. Seriously. But she has only had 2-3 accidents in the last month, and I think I can say we've turned the corner! She is very proud of her accomplishment. :)

I've been trying to do a little more cooking lately, and enjoying trying a few new recipes. Also, I've been trying hard to exercise and eat healthier. NOT a strong point for me, but I'm working hard!

Homemade wheat-crust pizza. It turned out better than I expected after
I was done trying to make it be round and unholy...

The breadsticks didn't fare as well. The less I touch dough with my actual
hands, (I use my breadmaker to mix the dough) the better.

Less-scary homemade bread and yummy carrot chowder

Today, even though it's Saturday, Jeremy has to work. :(  So we've been trying to do some cleaning. I pressed the troops into servitude. Reilly is usually excited about new jobs, but Jaina tends to drag her feet. Sometimes literally. :) Katy sometimes wants to help and sometimes just tries to undo what we're doing...

We are about to get our tax return (an exciting thing when you have 3 kids and only had a job for half the year), everyone is currently well, we just booked our trip to Arizona in March for David's wedding, and things are going well. We're looking forward to what February will bring for us! (Hopefully a temple trip to the D.C. temple - we're looking forward to that!)

2012. Really?

So you know what we did for fun the night before New Year's Eve? We watched "2012" on our schmancy pancy new Blu-ray (don't worry, it's not too fancy: we got one of the cheapest ones with good reviews we could find, but Jeremy's definitely been wanting one almost since they came out). You know, the fun disaster movie where the world is like 80% destroyed. I've seen it before, but it was SO intense pretty much the whole movie. And it left me feeling unsettled, thinking about how the world is supposed to end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar. Even though I don't believe it, all I could think was, "I am so not ready for the world to end. I need to be better, etc...)  So when I saw this cartoon, I felt much better:

It's the little things that reassure us and make us see how silly our little fears can be, I guess.

Anyway, getting away from my silliness... We had a fun time on New Year's Eve. We had our friends, the Christensens, come over and we ate not-so-good-for-us food, watched part of Despicable Me (until the kids went to bed) and then played games for a few hours. It was so fun to do that again; games get so much more complicated when you put little kids and bedtimes into the pictures. Thankfully, their baby went to sleep in our pack-n-play like a champ, and we got to enjoy some adult time.

Katy watching the movie

Must have been an exciting part!

Between our projector and the blu-ray, who needs to go to the theater?

We wrapped up that "party" at about 10, because we were all tired. Jeremy and I debated staying up or going to bed, and I had finally decided we should just go to bed, because I was falling asleep on the couch anyway, when Katy woke up. I'm so over teething. I'm ordering our next baby with at least 6-8 teeth already in. She was up from about 11 to 12:30, and I was not impressed to be "ringing in the New Year" with my 18-month-old. I may or may not have been a grump at this point. Thankfully, we were able to sleep in -some- the next morning, even though our church block switched to 9 AM.  Here are our cuties on New Year's Day on our way to church!

I am actually loving the 9 AM thing, other than the slightly-more-rushed feeling we have before church. I love that we get to eat lunch,  (the 11 to 2 thing before made that difficult) and that Katy then gets to take her nap at the normal time (about 1). Then we have the whole afternoon to relax and hang out together. I may have taken a 15 minute nap yesterday... The kids seemed less crazy yesterday too than they normally do on Sunday afternoon/evenings.

Jeremy's going to be fairly busy this month, and even on a few of the weekends, so we enjoyed our Saturday yesterday. We went to the Lynnhaven mall in Virginia Beach and used Jaina's birthday coupon for free carousel rides. After that, we randomly decided to go down to the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, and we spent probably an hour there, walking (and running) along the boardwalk.

After that we made a quick run to Trader Joe's, and then went home. Poor Katy was about an hour past her naptime already - she could conceivably still be taking two naps a day (she's usually tired an hour or two before I put her down) so she doesn't do well with us pushing her naptime much. Thankfully she was able to take a nap and didn't sleep too late. It was worth it to go do some fun things together!

We had a nice day yesterday and everyone went to bed fairly easily. Jeremy has been putting them to bed more often lately, especially as he helps me get over to our complex's exercise room most nights as I try to re-establish some healthy living habits... They seem to be doing well with the daddy-bedtime thing. Yay!

When Daddy does pajamas, this is usually what Katy ends up in. I just
can't figure out why it's his favorite... ;-) Isn't she cute?

Christmas

(Don't miss our family pictures, which are right below this post!)

I already posted most of these pictures on Facebook, but I thought I should write a little bit about Christmas anyway. Jeremy didn't get off work until Friday evening, so it was mostly a normal week for us family-wise. We decided there were enough presents under the tree that they'd be able to enjoy a gift or too more by opening them early, so on the 22nd Katy opened a camera, Reilly opened a neat Cars 2 Lego set that he was in love with, and Jaina opened a set of Tangled figurines. They were so excited about their new toys!

The camera was a hit for everyone, especially Katy, who LOVES playing with our camera.

We didn't open any presents the 23rd. I think we maybe went shopping had
the Elders over for dinner...

Christmas Eve I was getting a nasty little cold, but we still enjoyed spending time together. We got the house cleaned up for Christmas, Jeremy took the older two to see Happy Feet 2 (that's what was playing at the cheap theater), and we attempted to drive around and look at Christmas lights. I say attempted because I would say that 60-70% of the houses in Chesapeake (that we saw, anyways) didn't have anything up. Boring! We did see a few cool houses, but it is not the jolliest of cities, apparently. It's not like it's been too cold to go out and put a few decorations up... I enjoyed the ones we did see, and the kids still had a great time though!  We also let them open another gift - the stick horses I have been working on forever. That was fun. :) We also watched "A Muppet Family Christmas," which is Jeremy's favorite Christmas movie. :)



Katy got this cute outfit from her cousin Chloe. I love it!



On their way to the movie!



Silly Girl

I thought we would have a lot of trouble getting the kids to sleep on Christmas Eve because of all the excitement, but they did pretty well! They were asleep and Santa came and went by 9 pm. :)

Thankfully, we went to bed shortly after that (I was still feeling pretty icky, and Jeremy was tired), because Jeremy woke up at 1:30 am and couldn't ever go back to sleep... No, he couldn't figure out why! Then Katy woke up crying at 5 am. (She normally sleeps until about 7) So we got her up and let her watch Dora (always a fix) on the iPad, and by 5:30, Jeremy was leaving to pick up the Elders in our ward. I guess they were more interested in watching kids open their presents than in getting sleep that night... They got back to our house about 6, and we woke up Reilly and Jaina. Christmas day was fun, if a little chaotic in our tiny living room. The kids loved all their presents, and we enjoyed seeing their little faces. Reilly, especially, is a great present-reacter.  Katy was a little grumpy, but just because of teething and being tired. I still wasn't feeling that great, but better than the two days before. I was just so grateful that we didn't have any flu or stomach flu and that no one else got my cold! Jeremy was exhausted by 9:30, and went in to lay down. He and Katy were both asleep by 10 AM, so 11 AM church, sadly, didn't happen. We spent the rest of the day playing with gifts, eating random stuff that Santa had brought, and watching movies. Later that evening we managed to do a 4-way skype video call with everyone in my family except David & Nicole (did I mention that David's engaged? :) A good Christmas, and hopefully one that we'll remember for a long time! :)

Reilly got the Legos he asked for!

Jaina got the ponies she asked for!

A picture of our whole family!

Checking out some of the dress up clothes the girls got

Katy's toy from Santa. She liked it more than her face says...

Enjoying lots of presents at once!

German pancakes for breakfast!

Our family with the missionaries that spent the morning with us.

Family Fun via Skype!