White Christmas

Yes, we had a white Christmas this year.  We joke that it always snows for Natalie when she comes to Snowflake because she wants it to so badly.  It's funny because it doesn't snow all that much there.  But, in recent years there have been many occasions where it has snowed right at the time we had a trip planned.  This time was a little different.  We got caught in the storm while driving.  We had planned on leaving for Snowflake on Thursday night after Nate got home from work.  After a call from my mother-in-law around lunchtime, informing us that it was starting to snow, we moved up our travel plans and were able to leave by about 2:30 so we could hopefully get there before it got dark and roads got icy.  We started hitting snow in Globe and pretty much had it on the roads the whole way after that.  It was a bit scary, but it wasn't too bad because we ended up driving behind two different snowplows in the worst spots, and our Durango has 4 wheel drive.  Our slightly over four hour drive ended up being closer to six, but we arrived safely.

The next morning we bundled up our kids in their finest Tucson winter wear, which consisted of jeans, an additional long sleeve shirt, normal shoes, and--in the case of my boys--two lightweight jackets and socks for gloves.  However, they didn't care.  They had to be freezing, but they all stayed outside and played for quite a long time.  I might add that my shoes were...flip flops.  I forgot to change my shoes before we left.  It was awesome walking around in snow and slush.  Enough talk, cue the pictures...

This was Damon's first time playing in the snow.  He absolutely loved it.  He wanted to be able to make snowballs like everyone else.   He was excited about the idea of throwing something at his siblings and not getting in trouble.  It was cute to see him try.

All at once that painful cold seemed to hit Damon and he started just crying.  I went to get him to bring him inside.  That made him cry more.  It was funny that the very thing he wanted was what was making him so cold and miserable.

One by one, they all came back inside, completely frozen.  After they came in, I stripped them down and wrapped them in their blankets, which I had put in the dryer.

On to Christmas.  We had a fun Christmas morning opening and playing with gifts.  Natalie and Kelton have enjoyed their "new" DS's (thank you Craigslist for providing them for about $30 each) probably more than anything else. 

This one is from Christmas Eve.  I walked back in after I had put them in bed and found them like this.

I was able to somewhat surprise Nate with a new TV.  I left the TV at home and put an HDMI cable in his stocking.  So... we are no longer the only people on earth with a giant tube TV.  We have finally joined the flat screen revolution.  :)  Nate surprised me with some nice sunglasses.  I've lived in AZ all my life and have never owned a pair.  He also got us tickets to see Wicked when it comes to Phoenix in a few months.  We've never seen it so it should be fun.

So, I know it's January now, but Merry (belated) Christmas to everyone!

Stuff we made in December

Here are some other things we did in December.  Like every year, we made chocolates.  And I can say "we" because I had help this year from Natalie and Kelton.  I was a bit hesitant to let them help, but they wanted to roll the centers into balls and since that is the part I like the least, I figured, why not?  I thought I would have to re-do a lot of them, but I was fine with that.  I was really surprised to find that Natalie was truly helpful.  She was able to get the right amount of dough and roll it into a nice ball.  I handed Kelton peices of dough and he was able to make them into nice balls as well.  They ended up saving me time and it was fun to have the company.

Later on, I did all of the dipping.  While the kids were helpful with the centers, neither is quite old enough to help with the chocolate part.  The chocolates are long gone now, but they were very yummy.

Natalie also helped me make a Christmas gift for her teacher.  We made her a set of calendar blocks.  Natalie did most of the painting and I finished the rest.  Her teacher loves ladybugs, so we incorporated that in the design.  My photography skills need some help... the blocks looked much better in person.

I have been doing a playgroup/preschool co-op for Kelton with a few other moms.  He got to make a gingerbread house at the last one he went to before we stopped for the Christmas break.  He was very excited about it.

A little while ago, Nate and I painted his office.  We did one accent wall that is a darker blue (which doesn't come across in the picture below).  Nate has been wanting to hang some pictures on it.  So I made him some for Christmas.  The photographs are 12"x 12" and are Modpodged onto 1" thick boards (painted black), so they stand out from the wall when hung.  I thought they turned out very nice.  The one on the left is the Sacred Grove, the middle is the Snowflake Temple, and the one on the right is La Coca Falls in Puerto Rico (where Nate served his mission).

Oh, I made these too...didn't they turn out cute?

Didn't know they sold that

Tonight I was sitting at the table with Natalie.  We have this unusually large container of peanuts that had not been put away.  Natalie was looking at it when she suddenly asked, "where did you buy these?"
Me: "At the store." 
Natalie: "Yeah, but which store?"
Me:  "Walmart."
Natalie:  "Then why does it say Best Buy?"

What?  I was confused and then had to laugh when I realized she was looking at the printed expiration date... best by...

We only lack the tree...

I realized that I have never really taken pictures of our Christmas decorations!

I re-stressed the importance of this nativity set to my kids this year.  It was made by my Grandmother and me and is irreplaceable (sentimentally, at least).  My Grandma made ceramics, and every year, I always loved visiting her to make something new.  We both had a hand in making this set.  But she passed away when Natalie was only a few months old.  So, I am always a bit nervous to put it out each year with all my little crazies running around.  But I do anyway.  Because it is beautiful  And no matter how sentimental, I can't enjoy it from the inside of a box.

I bought these shelves (unfinished) a several years ago and painted them for our stockings.  The stuffed animals are actually from our wedding reception centerpeices.  Our stockings were made by Nate's grandma, who passed away maybe two years ago.  Damon actually has her stocking.  She wanted for one of the kids to have it, so it became Damon's.  Last Christmas, I took her name off and put Damon's on.  And notice the enormous size of Kelton's compared to the other kids.  We joke that it is due to a severe case of favoritism.  Nate's grandma's maiden name was... Kelton.

Thanksgiving

We had a really fun Thanksgiving weekend.  We went to Snowflake to visit family.  Chad & Erica and their family, and Rob & Tina and Christian were there too.  And we got to see Melanie's family throughout the weekend too. 

Chad and Erica and Nate and I went golfing with my dad on Wednesday.  We got a couple of carts and brought the kids along with us.  (We left Kelton and Damon at home sleeping.  Kelton was way upset when he woke up and found out we went golfing without him.  To make up for it, Nate took him golfing on another day.  He surprisingly lasted the whole time, without a cart, and in much colder weather.)  Natalie and Callie had a ton of fun on the golf course.  The loved riding in the cart and then jumping out at every stop to play in the grass, look for rocks, and whatever else they could come up with.

My parents recently bought a new TV that happens to have 3D capibilites.  So we got to spend some time trying out some 3D blu-ray movies.  I wouldn't want to watch every movie that way, but it was fun to do.  And, I think it looked better than 3D movies in the theater.  Here's Kelton and Kira looking super stylish.

On Thursday night, after our great Thanksgiving feast, Tina and I headed out to brave Walmart's early Black Friday sales.  We were both wanting to get a trampoline that was on sale, so we headed up an hour early.  The sale was supposed to start at 10:00, but when we got there at 9:00, everything was already out for the taking (except for the big electronics and stuff like that).  Tina was lucky to get the last trampoline, and had to jump through a few hoops to get it.  A lot of the stuff I wanted, I couldn't find.  So later that night, I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. (which was the beginning of Friday, Pacific time) when all of Walmart's deals went live online.  Chad also stayed up to get some of the things he wanted.  The online experience proved to be just as bad/frusterating as the in-store one, with the site crashing every few minutes because of the mass numbers and walmart only letting so many people go through check out at a time.  Trying to get to the checkout screens felt a bit like trying to win the lottery.  Then if you did get through and something in your cart became "out of stock" you would get kicked completely back out of checkout, only to try the whole process again.  Once again, I didn't get the trampoline, and neither did Chad.  Although, we both had it in our cart at one point.  We should have taken pictures of each other's angry faces from accross the room to remember the moment.  Or not.  I did, however, get everything else on my list.  But two of the items I got, Chad was also trying to get and because of the luck of the draw of getting into the checkout, five minutes later when Chad got to checkout, those items were also out of stock.  Stupid website.  Do you want to know the really stupid part?  I will probably do it all again next year.

Erica took some pictures of the kids.  Here's a couple cute ones of my boys.

I love those blue eyes.

And I love that happy little face.

Back to Natalie and Callie.  These two girls just had so much fun together.  They were always off somewhere playing together.

 It was pretty amazing that they never got upset with each other.  We did not hear of a single disagreement or fight in the 3 1/2 days they spent playing together.

I don't need to tell you how Natalie felt about Callie leaving.  This is Natalie watching Callie leave to go home, and the pictures say it all.

It's too bad we live so far away from each other!

I'm glad too

This was in my email inbox this morning--sent from Nate.

Natalie went to work with Nate on Saturday and made these pictures and hung them in his office.  If you can't read them (we are working on better handwriting...), they say, "I love you Dad."  "You are special to me!"  "You are the best dad ever."  "I'm glad that mama chose you!"  "Love Natalie!"

Brothers

Kelton finally figured out that we have given him a little brother and not (just) a little annoyance.  Something clicked in his mind that said, "hey, I can actually play with that little person and have fun with him!"  This really is a new idea to him.  Usually Damon coming anywhere near Kelton results in a lot of screaming, pushing, hitting, shoving, (Kelton) and crying (Damon).

But the other day, I sent both boys outside and they started pushing around these trucks together.  Kelton thought it was so much fun to have Damon follow him around with his truck.  They played together for a long time.  Then later I asked Kelton if he loves Damon.  His answer was, "Yeah.  I love him because he is my favorite friend."  A few hours later he said that Damon was his best friend.  His usual answer to my previous question has always (95% of the time) been a loud "NO!  I don't love him!"

That night Kelton practially begged if he and Damon could go play outside again.  Damon, of course, loves this change of events.  He has always wanted to play with Kelton.  And...I am now very glad that I bought two of those trucks on Black Friday a few years ago.  I thought at the time that it might be kind of pointless to buy two of practically the same thing, but the price was just so good.  But now I have two trucks and two boys--who will play together now.

Scrabble

Nate bought me the game of Scrabble for Christmas probably about three years ago.  It remained unopened until about a week ago when we decided to play it.  I lost by about 20 points, but only because Nate got lucky and scored 66 points on one turn.  We had a great accomplishment though.  We placed every single tile on the board without any cheating at all.  We didn't even have to skip any turns to do it.  We each just played until the end of the game when the last tile was put down.  I don't think that happens very often.   Here is our proof.

You can see Nate's 66 point play on the right hand side of the board in the middle.  He put "daze" onto the existing word "quote."  He not only got points for two words with 10 point letters in them, but also landed on a triple word score space.  I declare a rematch.

Time Out

I got to spend last weekend at Time Out for Women with my mom, sisters, and sister-in-law.  I had a great time and really enjoyed listening to the speakers.  I am ready to head back next year.


It was also nice to get away for the weekend and not have to worry about taking care of anyone else.  This was actually the first night I have ever spent away from my kids, not including being in the hospital having a baby.  (yes, I know, some of you did a little gasp at that news.  I really am not one of those moms who just can't stand to leave her kids.  An opportunity has just never presented itself before.  Next on the list... Nate and I away together from the kids for a night.) 
 

 Note to self: don't stand with part of your body turned closer to the camera.  It makes things disproportionate.  And it makes you look like a behemoth standing next to people who are already a lot shorter than you.



Candy overload (aka, Halloween)

(I am going to randomly post my favorite Halloween pictures throughout this post.)

As always, the kids had a lot of fun this Halloween.  Kelton and Damon got to dress up early and go to a special Halloween storytime at the library on Wednesday. 

Then on Saturday night we had our ward trunk-or-treat.  It was a combined tri-ward thing, and I was afraid it was going to be insanity.  But it ended up being okay.  The parking lot was almost completely full though.  So, the kids got a ton of candy.  It wouldn't be so bad if we only had one child, but multiply that times three buckets...it almost makes me sick just to look at all of it.

 Natalie got to wear her costume to school on Monday.  She ended up being Belle again this year, using the beautiful dress her grandmother made her last year.  She was going to be Tinker Bell (like she was two years ago) to match Damon, but we couldn't find the necessary leggings (dress was too short) to go under it.  I'm pretty sure they are hiding somewhere in her room.  Kelton agreed without hesitation to be a monkey again.  That's what he was last year too.  However, last year, he didn't want much to do with actually wearing the costume.  This time he was excited.  And I was glad.  For some reason this year I didn't feel like spending money on, or making, new costumes.  Damon got to wear the Peter Pan/Robin Hood costume of Kelton's from two years ago.  It was very cute on him and he loved wearing the hat. 

On Monday night I had planned to just have the kids pass out candy to trick-or-treaters.  They were super excited about that.  But Natalie realized on her own that if other kids were going to be trick-or-treating, then couldn't they as well?  So I said yes, and let them go to the houses on our street.  This resulted in way more candy than I would have imagined.  But the kids had a ton of fun going around to the different houses.  It's strange, because people here actually decorate for Halloween.  I would say that just as many, if not more, people decorate their houses and yards for Halloween as do for Christmas.  I find that strange.  But it does make trick-or-treating fun. 

When we got home, Natalie and Kelton perched in our doorway and handed out candy until bedtime.  I like trick-or-treating here because it starts at about 5:45 and it pretty much done by 7:00.  We get maybe 100 kids, which is a nice number.  It's a lot, but not overwhelming.  It was a fun night.  Now we have the aftermath of all this candy.  I'm still deciding what to do with it.  It has turned into a bribe and threat for everything though.  I can't tell you how many times I've found myself saying, "If you do this, you can get a candy from your bucket," or "I am going to throw away one piece of candy for every wrapper I find on the floor." 

Confessions of a perfectionist

Sometimes I think that being a bit of a perfectionist does not bode well with motherhood.  For example...

I decided it would be fun to make Halloween sugar cookies with the kids today.  I had this vision of us rolling out, cutting, and decorating these adorable, yummy cookies.  And we did.  However, I forgot about that perfectionist thing. 

#1. Mixing.  Natalie wanted to add all the ingredients to the bowl, which I let her do.  But I did find myself panicking on the inside a bit because she kept coming awefully close to spilling a bit outside of the bowl.  Heaven forbid.  I managed to calm myself down and let her work. 

#2.  Rolling.  Natalie wanted to roll out the dough.  She even had her own little rolling pin.  Sure, no problem.  Until I watched her start to roll.  She was trying so hard, but it was so lumpy and bumpy and getting paper thin in places while others were still an inch thick.  I couldn't handle it.  I very nicely told her that I would roll out the dough for her and she could cut.

#3.  Cutting.  Kelton decided to join in at this point.  I showed them how to wiggle the cookie cutter just a bit after they cut the cookies so that it separates the cookie from the dough a bit.  Well, Kelton got slightly carried away with the wiggling part.  Alarms started going off in my head because the cookies were getting a bit distorted.  Because everyone knows that you can't have lopsided sugar cookies.  Heaven forbid.  I tried to calm myself down.  Then Natalie placed a cookie cutter right in the center of a large area of nice smooth dough and cut out a cookie instead of placing the cookie cutter at the edge and fitting it in as closely as possible to the other cookies.  I think I actually gasped out loud a bit.  She didn't do it again.

#4.  Frosting.  I knew this one was going to be trouble.  So I prepared the best I could.  Frosting sugar cookies is hard.  I'm not even that great at it.  And I must say, Natalie did a pretty good job.  I was thankful that Kelton didn't want to try.  But I will say that when I would look over and see this...

it would take every ounce of self control to not reach over and smooth it out with a little more frosting.  But I never did.  I just took really deep breaths and, well... tried not to look.  Oh, and this cookie is a haunted house that Natalie wanted to decorate like a candy corn.

So there you have it.  I am crazy.  I need rehab for perfectionist mothers trying to raise kids who will hopefully not pick up their crazy mother's perfectionist ways.  :)

We really did have a lot of fun making cookies.  Natalie was very proud of her creations.  It is fun to see how much she likes to create things--just like me.  She loves making things and painting and things like that.  Which is why she had so much fun decorating cookies.  (And she had no idea that her mother was employing deep breathing techniques right next to her in the meantime. Kidding.  Sort of.)

Here are our finished cookies--which I may or may not have eaten like four of tonight.  We have spider webs, ghosts (which are sideways in the picture) moons that look a lot like happy bananas, candy corns, pumpkins, cats, haunted houses, and a couple of maple leaves.

Weekend trip

Last weekend we went to Snowflake just for some time away.  We had a lot of fun enjoying some cooler weather (including snow in Show Low).  Natalie and Kelton had tons of fun playing outside with cousins all day at Grandma and Grandpa Webb's.  On Saturday, Nate and I went golfing with my dad and Melanie and Sean.  Then on Monday before we came home, Nate and I went back to the golf course with my dad and we took Natalie and Kelton with us.  They had a lot of fun coming with us.  Kelton refused to ride in the cart for about two holes (until he got tired) and wanted to walk right along side grandpa.  Natalie had fun driving (steering) the golf cart.  I'm not too excited for her to turn sixteen.  Luckily I have a decade to prepare.  Oh, and Nate got his first ever birdie.  It was on a par three hole.

Kelton kept saying the funniest things while we were there.  Here are a few that I can remember.

(while in the car--driving somewhere)
Natalie: "Mom, can we get a pumpkin and carve it?"
Me:  "Yes, we will get a pumpkin when it gets closer to Halloween."
Kelton:  "Halloween??  I like Halloween.  I just love candy!"

Here's the setup for this next one.  Kelton had been jumping on the trampoline with a metal tent spike.  I might insert here that this was not on my watch.  I got home after the injury.  The personal injury attorney was on duty.  (Hmm, I wonder if the packaging on the tent expressly states that tent spikes are not to be used while jumping on trampolines.  Hahaha.  You never know... my blowdryer instructions say to not operate while sleeping.)  So I walked in to find Nate in the bathroom cleaning up a very scared Kelton who had a little cut on his forehead, right between the eyes.  Nate got the blood all wiped up and we went downstairs to find a band aid.  Kelton still looked very scared and sad.  You know that look kids get when they are terrified--he had it.  A few minutes later, I found a band aid and cut it down to size to fit between Kelton's eyes.  I very carefully placed it over the cut.  Then Kelton got up and walked over to the back door, opened it, and in the most exuberant voice, called out,

"Natalie!  I'm all fixed now!!!" 

He then sprinted out the door to continue playing on the trampoline with everyone.  It was then that I realized that I have severely underestimated the power of band aids.

Then one afternoon I walked into a room where Kelton was.  He came up to me and asked,

"Where's DVD?"
Me: "DVD?"
Kelton: "Yes, where is DVD?"
Me: (confused) "Do you want to watch a movie?"
Slight pause... (I could see the wheels turning in his head because he realized he said the wrong thing and was trying to figure out how to fix it.)
Kelton: "Where's... Steee...V-D?"
Me:  "Are you looking for Stevie?  Your cousin?"
Kelton:  "Yes.  Where's Stevie?"

This boy cracks me up.  Lately he is having troubles with any word that ends in the "vee" sound.  For example... the television is a TVD.  In his mind, V must always be followed by D.  As in DVD.  And Stee-V-D.

I love this little boy. 

(You can see his little cut in this picture--it has been healing for almost a week and is not much more than a little red mark now.)



Decorating walls and cakes

We have lived in this house for six years.  I can hardly believe it has been that long.  But now, after six years, I finally decorated my kicthen wall.  About two years ago, we painted the walls red and now I finally have things hanging there.  For a long time, I just didn't know how to decorate it.  Then, after we painted, I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't (and still don't) have the money to do it.  I wanted a very large, nicely framed, black and white picture of the temple.  Anyway, this is what I have come up with, and I love it!  My kitchen is black and red, so I think this black and white arrangement looks good.  I got the metal sign at a craft fair, I made the magnetic picture frames, and the temple picture is on a stretched canvas.  And taking pictures of pictures is pretty hard--the flash washed out the temple picture a bit and the pictures aren't that crooked.

On Friday night I did a baby shower for someone in my ward.  She is actually my brother's wife's brother's wife.  Haha... confused??  :)  Her husband's sister is my sister-in-law (married to my brother).  Got it?  It's not really that complicated but I guess it is easy enought to just say that we aren't really related but we share some of the same neices and nephews.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  It rained like crazy--even for here during monsoon season.  It gave some added meaning to the term "baby shower."  Some people actually called and said they turned around and went home because they thought they were going to get washed away or killed by all the lightning strikes.  I made a cake for the shower that matched the invitation.  Sadly, I forgot my sister-in-law's advice (yes, the same one as mentioned above) about doing frozen buttercream transfers and words.  Since you flip the finished image over, you have to make the transfer in mirror image.  Since I didn't do that, my finished cake looked like this...

Oops.

Luckily, I discovered my mistake with enough time left to redo the letters (correctly this time) and put them over the top of the backwards ones.

30 on the 30th!

We celebrated Nate's 30th birthday on August 30th.  Since 30 is kind of a monumental birthday and it just happened to be on the 30th, I wanted to make the day extra special for Nate.  Per tradition, the kids and I woke him up (at 6:00 a.m.) singing "Happy Birthday" and had him open his presents.  I gave him Bucky Balls (those little magnetic balls that you make shapes and stuff with--intriguingly frustrating little boogers if you ask me) and new pillows and nice sheets for our bed.  I had Natalie, with a little help from Kelton, draw 30 pictures and I laminated them and made them into a book. 

Nate had to go to work, but I still wanted him to have a good birthday.  So I made 30 cinnamon rolls and took them to him at work to share with everyone.  Then we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch.  Then I gave him a book I put together that had 30 birthday wishes from 30 different people.  It turned out really good and I think he really liked it.  Later that night we took the whole family to Chilis for Nate's birthday dinner.  When we got home we put candles on Nate's birthday banana cream pie and sang "Happy Birthday" again.  I think Nate would agree that it turned out to be a pretty good 30th birthday.

Cantaloupe

I got a cantaloupe out of our garden!  Well, actually, three.  But two of them were hardly big enough to count.  And the "big" one was smaller than anything you would ever find in a store.  It was maybe a bit bigger than a large softball.  But still.  I am pretty excited about this.  My garden has not done wonderfully... I didn't get a single cucumber.  I had two start to grow, but then they withered away when they were about and inch long.  The plants are now dead.  I got a few strawberries and a few potatoes.  And a bunch of tiny, skinny carrots.  (the kids thought they were pretty awesome and loved eating them)  My normal tomato plants (Celebrities) yeilded about 20 golf ball sized tomatoes, which Nate said were pretty tasteless.  The cherry tomatoes did pretty good.  But, I have been in the midst of a tomato worm war.  I think I have finally won...  But recently, even my cherry tomatoes have been about the size of pinto beans.  I guess I wasn't expecting my small square foot garden to produce mini produce.  SO...I was pretty happy with a cantaloupe that was maybe 2/3 the size of a store bought one.  Maybe next year I will double the size of my garden and get fruits and vegetables that are twice as big.

Have you ever seen cantaloupe that golden yellow in the store before?  I haven't.

I have also never bought a cantaloupe in the store that has such a little amount of green rind around the outside.  Which is why, I'm sure, it was so golden looking on the outside.

This is the cut up cantaloupe from the big one.  Kelton is holding one of the small cantaloupes.  Each of those small ones cut up into eight little pieces.