Our Christmas in a Nut Shell

Christmas this year has been a blast! D is finally to the age where he is understanding the idea of Christmas, Santa, and presents. We had the opportunity to see Santa twice this year. The first time, D didn't really care about Santa himself, but the display of reindeer and snowmen he had around him. The second time was at an extended family christmas party. He sat and talked with Santa for a very short period of time...then he just wanted the candy that he knew was the wrapped present Santa was holding for him. He took it out of his hand and jumped off!

Christmas Eve here at out house was fun also a lot of fun. My Mom, Dad and brother joined us. Unfortunately, we didn't have anyone from K's family here because we just had everyone down from Idaho for Thanksgiving. We made a delicious dinner and (smart as I am!!) made things for breakfast the next day that could be put in the refridgerator over night. All I had to do was pull out the breakfast caserol and pop it in the oven! Genius! No dishes to clean! After dinner we played games and enjoyed the evening. It was very nice not having to be somewhere or do something. My Mom made D a pair of Christmas pajamas that we let him open that night. At first, since they're clothes, we wasn't into them, until my Mom showed him she had a pair of twin pants. He was eager to put them on after that. Then we set out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer on D's special chair we have just for this. D set the chair by the fire place. Usually when its time to go to bed, D is the type of kid that crys. Not this night! He knew from all the talk that Santa was coming...he gladly welcomed bed!

Christmas Morning, D has forgotten about Christmas, Santa and presents. When we reminded him that Santa has come, he was so excited and hopped and hopped and hopped! He was excited! He saw the plate of cookies and carrots and thought we needed to put more out for Santa and the reindeer. We had to explain that Santa only comes once a year. He didn't get that concept...he ran into out room this morning (that day after Christmas) and told us Santa had come. D was so good when we told him he had to wait a half hour or so for everyone to get ready to open presents. Of course, since he is the only child of ourselves, the only grandchild for 2 out of the 3 sets of grandparents, and the only nephew on one side of the family, he made a killing! D made it about 3/4 the way through his presents before he was done with opening and just wanted to play. As with most 2 year olds i'm sure, the toys were the hit. He wanted to play with each one immediately as they were opened. All clothes were held up and literally tossed to the side. Very boring according to him! For K and I, we kept Christmas small this year and it was great. It was kind of nice. We each put more thought into what we got eachother. Even baby A (who is still showing no signs of wanting to be born yet!) got a few presents...a blanket, and a soft teddy bear.

My latest Project

K will be so proud of me...this is my first time adding something to our blog! I have just finished a project inspired by my friend Heather and her new baby. As a gift for her own baby girl, Heather received a car set cover that is just absolutely adorable!! Of course I asked if she knew where the gift giver had gotten the cover and she told me the giver had made it. It inspired me to make one for my own baby girl coming. I have been needing a project to do. The idea of the cover is very simple and the pattern easy to create without an actual pattern. It took me a few days, but I just love the result. For those of you interested in making your own or making one to give away here are the basic instructions for it.

Choose two coresponding fabrics (you could pick any theme in the world: simple and pretty with no dominating theme, flowers, animals, baseball, dogs, princess, or gender neutral). Cut each peice into rectangles big enough to cover the car seat from the top of the seat, up to the handle and back down to the bottom. Sew them together creating the basic outline. Pick one of the fabrics to be the "top" fabric that will show when you have the seat covered. For the handles, take two long strips of fabric and sew them together. Place them on the "top" fabric in logical spots according to where the handles should be located. Sew them into place by stitching in a square pattern to make sure the handles won't rip off. Velcro is what closes the straps. Sew them on so the handles close in a cirlce around the car seat handle. Heather's bow's on top of the handles were hot glued on. I tried sewing them and gave up...I ended up hot glueing them on as well. The button is hot glued as well. you could get really creative and do large flowers, large buttons, or anything that would fit your theme. Around the edge of the fabric I sewed ribbon about two inches in from the edge. The created a pocket that I ran elastic with ribbon sewed onto the ends. The allows you to pull on the ribbons and pull the cover tight over the car seat so the wind doesn't blow the fabric open.

I had a ton of fun making it!! As mom's, I think we all enjoy making and doing things for our kids. I am excited to use it coming up soon! If you want to make one of these yourself and need more specific instructions, let me know!

Great News

As of today I now work for Far West Bank.. We are very excited about this new opportunity to further my career. I will get a base salary plus commission along with benefits, 401k and 2 weeks of paid vacation. We are grateful for this wonderful blessing. I will still be doing mortgages at the bank, my assigned location will be in Utah county. This is great because most of my business comes from down there anyway.

Gas Prices

I can't believe it GAS prices are below $2. I thought it would never come. I had to text Emilee yesterday when I filled up her car and it only cost me $30. Anyway I hope that it stays like this for a while and maybe even keep dropping!!!!

Hospital Visit

Today was a very long day and a little stressful at first but in the end things are a bit better. For the last two days E has been complaining about getting light headed and feeling like she is running a fever but isn’t. She has also felt nauseated and tingling in her arms like they are falling a sleep. So this morning she felt these things again while she was giving D a bath. She asked for a blessing and I gave her one. After the blessing we called her doctor and he said to go to the hospital for some tests. We got to the hospital around 11:45 and didn’t leave till after 4. When they took E’s blood pressure it was 129/86 by the time we left it was 106/72 so it had come down a lot. They also drew some blood and ran test. When the test came back he potassium was a little low and so was her sodium so our doctor told her to drink a Gatorade once a day for the next few days to help with the sodium level and hopefully that will fix the problems.

Since we have been home E has been really tired and went to bed shortly after 8 tonight. I am glad that every thing is fine so far with her and the baby and we pray that these problems will be solved and we won’t have to deal with them any more. It is nice having her parents living with us so I could leave D with her Dad this morning as I took her to the doctor. I will keep you posted on how she is feeling in the next few days.

Halloween

We started the night off a little rough. After dinner D was running around the house because he was excited about going tick or treating. Well as he was running around he slipped and face planted on the tile and gave him self a bloody nose. He cried for a while and I think he was more upset about me holding the tissue to his nose then his nose actually bleeding. So that is how we started the night.

As you can see from the pictures D's costume was Mickey Mouse. D loves to watch Mickey in the morning and drags around his stuffed Mickey all day. As we started the night trick or treating D was a little apprehensive at first but after the second door he had it down and was saying trick or treat at every door. D decided that he needed to hurry the process along and that the people we

re taking to long to answer the door so he would ring the bell and then try to open the door before they would get to it. We

keep having to stop him and tell him to wait for the people so they could open the door. After we were done trick or treating we took him to the famous Halloween house for one last look at this great display. It has been so fun seeing him get so excited over all of the Halloween decorations. We can't wait to see how he reacts to the Chris

tmas decor. Over all Halloween was a great hit this year and lots of fun.

Pumpkin Carving

D is so excited about pumpkins this Halloween that we had to carve pumpkins last night for family night. Here are some pictures of the pumpkin carving extravaganza!!!!!





Below we are lighting the pumpkins!!! D wanted to blow them out like birth day candles...





As you can see E has started to look very pregnant.




D was very into cutting his eyes and nose out of the pumpkin. One thing he wouldn't do is reach in and pull the guts out.
After he was done carving his pumpkin he started to help mommy by taping the design on her pumpkin.

Baby Number 2

Well since we started this blog we should probably tell you that E is pregnant with our second child and is due in January. Now for the really exciting part we are having a Girl!!! We are very excited about this. I think I am probably more excited about having a girl than E is. We are going to name her Audree (Clair or Kelly) we are not sure on the middle name; E likes Clair and I like Kelly so we will see as it gets closer to having her what we will choose. E was so sick for the first trimester I felt so bad for her because it wasn't just in the morning she was sick, it was all day. As you know E is very strong and she didn't let it stop her from doing what she wanted to do each day. If that would have been me I think I would have laid in bed all day and really milked it.... E is starting to get in the mode of decorating Audree's room and if you know E at all you know that it won't just be a white room with a few things hung on the wall. It will be its own color and design... I do have to give E credit, sometimes when she tells me what she has planned I think it won't turn out and that she is crazy but so far they all have turned out very well and I have loved them all. So we will have to see what she comes up with for this room...

Halloween

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would update you on things here and Halloween. K & I are doing great. K got moved to 1st counselor in the Bishopric a few weeks ago. The old 1st counselor had his job hours change on him and couldn't make it to anything on the week nights and only every other Sunday. So, a new counselor was called and the Bishop decided to move K as well. Loans have still been pretty slow for him with work, as we all know with the market, but we are surviving. Hunting is the big thing for K right now!! He has already been on several trips for himself and with some of his friends. Most recently, we as a family went camping for the spike elk hunt with K's hunting buddy Mike and his family. His wife, Courtney got to spend time together at camp with D and their little girl Hannah. We had a good time together as a group. (Did I mention it was 16 degrees at night!!) He is looking forward to his cow elk hunt coming up in a few weeks.

For me, Drill Team, D and having a big belly are the big things in my life right now. We just finished a crazy homecoming week with 6 performances in 2 days. It was a lot! It keeps me busy and I love every minute of it. I love D, but I couldn't stay home everyday all day long. I have also taken over the Cheerleaders as well this year. They have their own coach, but she isn't a certified teacher so they need a "teacher" for the class. She has had me do some choreography and cleaning their routines and I have really enjoyed working with them. As for pregnancy, I just keep getting larger! The throwing up and feeling yucky phase is pretty much gone (thank goodness!). It seemed to hang on forever this pregnacy. I am starting to swell like a balloon and am just getting to the "uncomfortable" part, where you're feel so large you feel like you're going to pop! I just remind myself I will have my body back soon and a baby too.

D is as two year oldish and boyish as ever. Today, we watched Spencer and Austin for Jeron while he worked and Heather was in Georgia. I swear he thinks he is as old as they are and trys to keep up with them too. They were both so good to him and really let him play with them. He is also old enough this year where things are starting to get really fun!! There is a "Halloween House" close by that has all sorts of motorized Halloween characters on top of the roof. There is a Dracula with "wed" fingernails and goes to sleep and wakes up in his "boat" (which is really a coughin, but he thinks its a boat). He loves it and asks most every night if we can go see the Halloween house. We went to a local pumpkin patch the other day to pick out pumpkins. It was the funnest thing to watch him get so EXCITED about the pumpkins and how many there were. He makes sure to show everyone that comes to the house which pumpkin is his, which is Daddy's and which is Mommy's. It is a ton of fun.

Well, that is all for now!