December Pictures

Random pictures from the month:


I put Ellie in the tub (dry) with toys while I was getting ready. Somebody (I won't say it was Jack because I can't prove it) turned on the water (they say it was Ellie - & yes I was right next to them all). Ellie had a great time splashing around in the teensy bit of water that was around the drain.

Little Mommy loves to help. She begged & begged to help feed Ellie. Ellie wasn't as clean as usual after her meal, but Callie did a great job & has helped several times now.

Apparently we're out of the regular sized straws! (it's a snorkel)

9 months old!

The sweetest present!

Halloween pajamas, Callie's hat, rainboots, and a "horsey ride" around the yard.

She dressed herself. Can you see where Jack gets his fashion sense?

Family Night gingerbread house building. A Divis tradition.

I knew Jack was in my bathroom playing with some toys in the sink, but I didn't realize he was IN the sink! He was quite pleased with himself for giving himself a bath in the sink! lol!

Callie & one of her best friends Kenadee (who she gets to play with every Thursday).

The reindeer who never made the song.

Notice the angel at the back? Yeah, that's Callie. She cried & refused to participate with her classmates in their Christmas program at school.

For some reason Ellie loved crawling under the tree.

Christmas

Christmas morning was really fun this year because Callie is at a perfect age! She was really excited when she woke up Christmas morning to see what Santa had filled her stocking with. We had to wake Jack up because we just couldn't hold her back any longer. She was happy to see that Santa had eaten the piece of cheesecake (& milk) they'd left out. She was also really happy that he'd taken the little pictures with messages that she & Jack (who she'd helped) had left for him (which I remembered about just before I drifted off to sleep - thank goodness!).

Jeremiah grew up having piles of presents (meaning each child had a pile). I grew up where present opening could take days because we'd go around one at a time taking turns opening a present (and there were 6 kids!). Both ways are fine but this year we tried Jeremiah's way. Jeremiah's way is probably more fun for the kids - especially at this age!

After we did Christmas at our house we went to my mom & dad's where everyone was just getting up (at like 10:30!). We did presents again & had my family's traditional breakfast casserole (yum-o!) & hung out for a while. On Christmas day we snacked & had leftovers. On Christmas Eve we'd had our big dinner which was delicious- prime rib! Oh my gosh it was so good! It was really fun having all of my siblings here for Christmas since my brothers are both leaving for missions in a few months.

Most played with presents:
Callie: Cabbage Patch baby from Uncle Jason & Aunt Richelle, doll stuff & play baking set from Santa
Jack: electronic font-end loader from Papa & Nana, Imaginext dinosaurs, & electronic pirate pistol
Ellie: doll stroller that is a walking toy from Grandpa Ken & Grandma Darcy, & Bee Bop Band music set

Okay, Jer & I haven't played with either of these presents yet, but these are the ones that we're most excited about:
Jeremiah: SPOT from his mom & dad (I'm so stoked about this since he hunts & plays a lot).
Me: An awesome project table! I'd mentioned I loved the one from Pottery Barn & wanted to try & make a cheap version of it so he had this guy build it for me! I'll have to take a picture soon. I love it! I can't wait to do lots of projects on it!

Snow day in Kingman!

Which never happens. Well maybe once and rarely twice a year. But never like this! We woke up to snow & it snowed all morning. It eventually turned to rain (in the evening) and then sleet & snow again but by the next day lots had already melted.

8:40 am

9:27 am (they got themselves ready)(no, i didn't let them out like that)

3:37 pm

It took me a few minutes to shovel a pathway around the car & scrape enough snow off the top so that we could get in. How funny is it that 2 months ago I had a yard sale & got ride of a big snow/ice scraper that I'd had for years & then I had to use a broom for this! I couldn't believe how much more snow had come down before I even finished the job!

The Nutcracker!

I have loved The Nutcracker ballet ever since I was like 6 or 7 & my then grandmother took me to see it. I've dragged Jeremiah to it once or twice and he really can't hardly take it & is thrilled that having a daughter finally old enough to go with me means that he will never ever have to suffer through it again! I'd been planning on taking Callie for more than a year, so when I found out there was a community production of it in Boulder, NV which was way less expensive than a professional ballet, my friends & I decided to take our daughters & have a girls' night. Callie & I had the best time! We went up to Henderson in the afternoon to do a small amount of shopping & we met up with my good friend Tana & her girls Corinne & Ali (who were going with us) for dinner at Pei Wei. Summer & Kenadee, and Kate & Kiera both had a ward party to go to so they came up & met us at the theater. Callie had talked about seeing The Nutcracker (and about our girls' night) for weeks & weeks & was SO excited! I wasn't sure how much she'd actually like it though because a week before there was a live version (as opposed to Barbie or Carebears) on tv & Jeremiah told her what it was & she didn't believe that that was what it was since she'd only seen cartoon versions. I think she even told him it was boring! Anyway, from the moment they turned down the lights she was mesmerized. Seriously! Permagrin for like the first 20 minutes! About 45 minutes into it she said she loved it & asked if we could watch it again. I said sure - maybe next year & she said no, right after this! After the performance we were able to take pictures with some of the cast (who even gave all our girls flowers!) - they especially loved meeting "Clara". After The Nutcracker we took the girls to McDonald's & had ice cream. On the way to McD's Callie was on the phone with Jeremiah & he asked if The Nutcracker was good & she said, "Heck yeah it was good!" After ice cream Callie talked all about our girls' night for almost 30 minutes. She finally fell asleep on the drive home at 11:30! I'm so glad she had such a great girls' night! Oh, & one more cute thing is that some of the cast who played Clara's friends at the Christmas party in the first act were the ones handing out programs before the ballet began so since one of the girls handed Callie her program she treats that thing like gold & tells us how special it is!

12 on the 12th

Friday, December 12th:

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Up at 6:30 to head to the gym. It takes me almost 15 minutes to get there now & I meet Ashley (one of my good friends & awesome workout partner) at 7. Well I try to be there at 7! :) I'm usually within a couple of minutes.

Ellie was fascinated with the lights on the tree. Once we got the ornaments on she loved those too, but we only had lights up for a few days because I needed to buy more & didn't want to decorate before the rest of the lights were on. I did end up letting the kids just go nuts & decorate themselves (they loved it & it kept them busy for quite a while), then I took the ornaments off to add the new lights one night.

Callie loved this Strawberry Shortcake ornament that I had as a kid. I loved it then too! It's the only ornament that I kept from my childhood (maybe it was the only one that was just mine?). For the couple of days before we decorated the tree she would often pick it up & lovingly look at it.





I bed you didn't know one of my hidden talents is being a pancake artist (lol)! Our special order pancakes used to be the basic Mickey Mouse, but now I get requests for all kinds of things. Because we've all been in a holiday mood, Jack requested a star & Callie wanted a Christmas tree. I was hoping they would have requested an ornament! ;)



I love that Jack's such a little bookworm! He can often be found lying on his bed or sitting on the couch looking at books.

To the untrained eye this may just look like a pile of clothes, but a mother of a 4 year old girl will discover that it's not just any old clothes, it's dance clothes! Tights, skirt, leotard, & shrug. Callie has dance on Fridays & they've been getting ready for their Christmas recital! She loves her dance class!

This was from our first shoot for Christmas card pictures. Yes, I said first!

We had the company Christmas party at Golden Corral. This was the end of the evening but Callie had been a little sleepy the whole time so she had spent a good deal of time on my mom's lap. That was nice for Jeremiah & I because Jack on the other hand was a wild animal who could not be tamed!

I stopped to get gas on the way home from the Christmas party & was thrilled with the gas prices (even though my sisters have paid like 50 cents less!).

We pass by the kids' dentist office every time we drive "to town" and at least one of them each time happily sings "the dentist!" It always makes me laugh! I'm sure eventually they'll stop saying it, but it's been a month so far!

I decided to take the kids to look at Christmas lights on our way home & they were so excited at every house. This one was a favorite (we drive by it often but usually during the day). Some people really love their inflatables!

"How do dinosaurs learn to play? They romp & stomp the friendly way!" I got Jack a little pocket set of the How Do Dinosaurs... books & he loves them. I love that it's bedtime!

12 on the 12th

Wednesday, November 12th:

At church on Sunday somebody lost a ring. Jeremiah joked that the quickest way to find it would be to stick a couple of babies on the floor. Probably because no matter how picked up a floor is Ellie will find something to put in her mouth! Not saying that the floor was picked up this morning at all! But this is what Ellie does these days - stick things in her mouth.


Callie doesn't enjoy her homework so much when it's practicing her letters I don't think, but she was excited to do this homework - color the fish, cut them out & glue them to the fish bowl. Jack had got a hold of her paper before Callie started working on it & colored all the fish yellow. Callie was devastated! Thank goodness for copiers! Callie was able to start with a blank slate.



I can't remember what Jack's in time out for this time. Maybe it was coloring the fish yellow when he'd been told to leave her paper alone. Maybe it was for not getting his underwear on after going potty (and being told several times to do it). Maybe it was for torturing Ellie or Callie. The latter 2 are the most common reasons he gets put in time out.



So I made mac & cheese for lunch and it was the first time I'd "cooked" in more than a week! Sad, huh? That's the way it goes when you're doing improvements to one home & moving out of another. In this family you can't have mac & cheese without strawberry milk!



Picking Callie up from school. She loves her teacher & her classmates. When we ask her what she's learned that day she almost always says nothing or I don't know. But she likes to tell us about things that happened with friends. She also likes to sing the songs she's learning in class.

The drive to the new house, which we've been making back & forth several times a day. It's not at all conveniently located! It's 10 minutes from the old house & almost 15 to Walmart! I remember when we moved here from CA & people would complain about going to Golden Valley which is about 15 mins away & we'd roll our eyes since in CA it took 10 minutes just to go to the grocery store & about 15 to go anywhere else. But we've been here long enough now that yeah, it's a pain that we have to drive 15 minutes to Walmart! :)

How many times do I have to tell Jack (and Callie) to scoot back from the tv?! They just can't help themselves! I'm thankful anyway that my mom brought her tv/dvd combo to help keep the kids occupied while we're working.

Ellie has been a pretty good sport about all of this. She's spent quite a bit of time playing & napping in the Pack n Play over the last few days.

Today was a great day because our new appliances were delivered! Yay! Jeremiah's spent the evening working on installation & is getting ready to do the microwave. Thank goodness we don't have to do this very often!

The past few nights one of us has taken the kids home & put them in bed, but we both wanted to stay & work late tonight & the kids were tired enough that they crashed out on the floor. They are really being great for all that's going on.

So I really don't like cut in work! Mine isn't very good & then there's my mom's who's work looks completely professional. Fortunately she's done most of it in the kids' rooms. She's been the hugest help with this house! What would we do without her?

"It usually gets worse before it gets better" applies here. If you think this is bad you should have seen it yesterday morning! :)

Progress

Things are happening around here slowly but surely. Here are some pictures of our partially completed projects:

Jeremiah & a guy who's helping him do a lot of this stuff (Tim) framed in double doors & made a new doorway into the hall for Callie's bedroom. Tim also moved the lightswitch to be next to the new door.

I was ready to dive in & get the family room painted but I was having a hard time deciding on colors. So here are a couple I thought I liked. They look different on the little square than they do all over your walls!

My mom is amazing & built this closet from nothing! Can you believe it? Before it was just a blank space!

Wainscoting (which is basically any kind of woodwork on the lower part of the wall) that we're doing in Jack's room. Which by the way has brought a lot of debate because I wanted it tall & Jeremiah thought it should be shorter because that's standard. I've been in enough model homes to be convinced that there is no longer a standard height for wainscoting - it's anything goes. Whatever you want. But I am hoping that people don't look at my house & think "What was she thinking? Doesn't she know that's too high?" Maybe I should have gone higher to really get my point across. But it's too late for that - that stuff is never coming off the walls without causing severe damage to the drywall since we used liquid nails! It still needs to be painted.

Ellie's room waiting for beadboard on the back wall. Same argument about the height as in Jack's room.

House

We're working really really hard on our house right now, but it seems like it's going to take forever! It's a lot of work to paint or clean or do anything in the new house with the kids. They have toys & a tv/dvd player there and Callie & Jack do alright, but Ellie gets bored staying in one room. The previous owners had a cat, dog & bird & there was kitty litter & bird feathers all over in one of the bedrooms & it's gonna take several vacuumings (and a good carpet cleaning) to get it all up. I'm allergic to cats & the day we closed we spent a couple of hours at the new house & by the time we left I was wheezing badly & needed my inhaler! Fortunately my body seems to build up immunity after the first few exposures, so I haven't needed my inhaler again although every time I go in the cat/bird room for more than a minute I start sneezing & wheezing a little. Between getting used to it & getting the carpets cleaned I'll be fine soon I think. Today I finished cleaning the kitchen cabinets & tomorrow I have to paint. That's what I have to do every day! And I've gone through 2 different gallons in the LR & am still not real happy w/the color so I think I'll try a 3rd color tomorrow! Jeremiah has been really busy hanging lights & fans. So that's our update.

Oh, & I'm really really excited because we need a fridge & I found one on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago & called on it & got the model # & everything but it was the week before we closed & my husband didn't seem to think we'd need a fridge anytime soon so I didn't do anything about the Craigslist fridge. The next week I went to an appliance store in town & they had a fridge I liked but it was out of my price range so I went home & I'm not sure how but discovered the one I liked at the appliance store was the exact same one that had been on Craigslist so then we decided to definitely buy the Craigslist one if they still had it. I called & left a msg but didn't hear back so the next night I called again & left another msg & asked if they could at least let us know if they'd sold it (because I was so anxious). We didn't hear back so I was bummed that we missed out on it. Anyway, tonight as I was putting the kids to bed the Craigslist people called me (a week later!) and said they still had the fridge & Jer's picking it up tomorrow & we're paying $100 less for it than what they'd asked! Woohoo! I'm SO excited!!! Now we just need a new dishwasher & microwave. So we might as well throw an oven in there, right? There's a d/w there, but the people were apparently pretty bitter when they left and took the racks inside the d/w with them! It would cost $300 just to replace the racks & it's a junky d/w anyway. And I don't know if they did something to the microwave or what, but it won't heat up food (which would explain why they left the turntable & rack in it). They also took the racks out of the oven! This house is costing us a grip!

Election Day!

Happy Halloween!

Since things are so hectic here I've had a hard time really getting into the Halloween spirit, "witch" is unusual for me since I'm such a lover! I'd been stressing too because I couldn't find the lamb costume that I'd made for Callie when she was a baby & it's a tradition to have the babies be lambs on their first Halloweens. After all-out searches in the garage, shed & bedrooms, I finally found it in the first place I thought I'd looked - my closet! Just hanging up in the back. I'm just so glad I found it so Ellie could be a little lamb! We went to our ward's annual chili cook-off & trunk-or-treat tonight, and had some great chili! We'd planned on taking the kids around the neighborhood afterwards, but they got so much candy at the trunk-or-treat that we called it a night. Plus Ellie had a fever & wasn't feeling good, & Jack had been saying he was tired since 4 in the afternoon! Now that the kids are asleep we've gone through the candy - you can tell by the candy that times are tough. One thing that made me smile was when Callie sneaked her candy bag into the bedroom so she could dump it out & admire her highly anticipated treasure. She didn't eat any of it- we'd told them no more & she actually obeyed! But I can remember doing the same thing when I was a kid - dumping it all out, separating it & just admiring my bounty. So I love that Callie did that tonight too!