Christmas 2010

Ok, so I know Christmas was over a week ago and with only having one kid in the house all week I should have found time to post Christmas pictures, right?  Right.  But I didn't.  So forgive my tardiness.

This year we drove to Minneapolis to spend the holiday with Chris' brother JD and his wife Pamela.  (Pamela posted pictures on their blog about the weekend too and since she is a very talented photographer and graphic designer - much more so than me - I am quite tempted to just say "to see pictures from our weekend click here" .... but that would be cheating so I won't)

Anyway, it was kinda strange since this was the first Christmas without either of our parents.  But we enjoyed a calm, relaxing weekend.  I mean ... it doesn't get much more relaxed than eating grilled cheese and tomato soup for Christmas Eve dinner (it was great, by the way :)

Their house was decorated beautifully for Christmas with three trees - much to Brooks' delight.

He walked around all weekend pointing to them and proclaiming "tweeeeeeee".

We took a trip to downtown Minneapolis to see the 8th floor Christmas display at Macy's.

Brooks loved opening all his presents.  Well, to be honest the wrapping paper and boxes were more appealing that most of the gifts but that's normal, right??

And the "big" boys enjoyed their nerf guns that Santa brought them.

Later on Christmas day we went outside and played in all the snow!!

This is called sledding without a sled ... and it was fun :)

Christmas with kids is so much fun!!!

well hello there blue eyes!

And from our family to yours, we pray you had a wonderful Christmas and have a blessed, happy new year!!

weird Christmas

Well, for starters, it's Christmas this week.  Totally weird and not really feelin' ready for it.  I mean I bought the few presents we're going to buy and wrapped them.  But they're all stacked up high on a shelf because when I put them under the tree ... well .... let's just say a certain one year old boy was totally fascinated with shiny bows and tearing off wrapping paper.  So we have an empty tree.

And then there's the fact that this is the first year we're not spending Christmas with either of our parents.  Chris' mom and dad were supposed to meet us in Minneapolis, but couldn't get away for work/church reasons.  After the initial disappointment I thought "maybe this won't be so bad.  We'll get to start our own family traditions this year."  But we're not going to be at our house for Christmas.  We're still going to Minneapolis to spend the holiday with Chris' brother and his wife.  Which will be fun, but kinda weird.

And then I had this huge dilema about cookies.  (yes, cookies!)  Should I bake Christmas cookies??  I usually never do because our mama's bake a whole ton of them and that's usually enough sugar intake for the whole year.  But our mamas aren't going to be around for Christmas!  And I don't like making dozens and dozens of cookies because I EAT THEM ALL!!!  (sigh)  So I've been fighting this scroogy, bah-humbug attitude for the past few weeks and I don't like it :(

So then what's this whole Christmas thing all about?  (and let's be honest, we all know the right answer, but do we really live it?)  I know Christmas is not about presents, or cookies or in which bed we wake up on December 25.  But it's alwasy easier to say that when you have cookies and presents and the like.  So I'm learning to let go.  I'm learning to enjoy this season for what it is.  I'm finding Christmas.  I guess that's a part of growing up and making that transistion from being a part of my parent's family to becoming our own little family.

And the closer we get to Christmas the more excited I'm becoming.  I'm looking forward to a low-key Christmas with JD & Pamela.  I'm excited for Brooks to actually know how to open presnents and enjoy the tree.  And I'm totally excited to take Mr. B ice skating for the first time.  And of course I'm excited to remember the great sacrifice that my Savior, Jesus made by coming to earth as a baby so I could have eternal life (way better than any gift wrapped in snowman paper if you ask me) 

Merry Christmas!!!! 

Travelin' Mama

You ever have that 'need to get away feeling'?  Well, there's been none of that around here.  Because believe me ... I've been away.  And now, finally (sigh) I'm back home.  Yes, it feels good to be back home.

It started the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  We packed up our son and half of our home into our mini-van and hit the road to Wisconsin to visit my family for Thanksgiving.  We decided to leave after dinner so we could drive and the little would sleep the whole way there.  Well, turns out that's not such a good idea.  Because around midnight it physically hurt to keep my eyes open (yeah I know, I'm old) leaving my poor husband to drive in the dark by himeself.  And from 11p-1a Brooks was WIDE awake, shooting the whole 'driving at night so the kid will sleep' theory right in the butt.

But we arrived around 2am and crashed hard in the morning.  Thank goodness for grandparents who are more than willing to feed and entertain a 17 month old while mom and dad sleep in.  (sleep in??  does that happen when you're a parent?)

Brooks taking an important call.

We had fun spending time with family ...

eating good food ....

mmmm, sweet potatoes :)

and opening Christmas presents.

And per tradition, on Thanksgiving morning the boys went out on the bay to shoot stuff.

(shrug) It's a guy thing, I guess.

We spent the rest of the weekend there relaxing, crafting (well, the girls did anyway), and museum-ing (is that a word) before we headed home on Sunday.  That gave me just enough time to unpack, do laundry and pack my bag to leave again on Wednesday.  Excect this time I was flying solo.  Literally ... I flew to Dallas all by myself.

A few weeks earlier I was accepted into the training program to be a Bradley childbirth instructor.  So I grabbed my carry-on, drove to Minneapolis and flew to Dallas for the four day training.  Let me tell you how weird it was to get my boarding pass by myself.  And sit next to a stranger on a plane for two hours.  And check into a hotel by myself.  I never travel like this without my husband.  And this was my first time away from my baby.  (sniff sniff)

I did ok, but I sure did miss 'em.  I felt so much better leaving though, since my mother in law drove in from Montana to stay and take care of my boys while I was gone.  Everyone seemed to manage pretty well without mom which made me feel kinda sad good.

And as far as the training goes.  Well, they were really long days!  Like from 8am-10pm kinda long days.  But I learned a lot, made some great new friends and gained a bit more confidence for teaching other couples how to have a totally natural, unmedicated birth ... something I am totally passionate about.  I still have some paper work to finish up (hospital evaluations, book reports and such) before I can actually teach.  But start telling your pregnant friends ... this mama is teaching childbirth!  And it's going to be great!!

jabber box

Brooks has been so talkative lately.  Well, I suppose I should clarify.  Although he's starting to actually "verbalize" some words, he uses a lot of sign language still.  But to me that's just as good as talking!  And to show off how brilliantly smart my son is (I'm biased, I know. That's my job!) I've jotted down all his "communications". (more for my record than anything else)

Signing:

More

Daddy

Eat

Sleep

Penguin

(he made this sign up himself.  See? Brilliant!!)

He also knows .....
Please
Puppy
All done
Bath
Mommy
Pray
Fishy
Brush Teeth
Work (as in "Daddy's at work")
Thank you

Verbal Words (and what they mean :)
Da da (of course)
mamamamamamamamamamama (usually said when crying or distressed .... lucky me)
shoe (says it clear as a bell)
baw (ball)
ah-yah (all done)
mah (more)
mow mow (kitty)
sah (sock)
Co (Cole)
na (snack)
too tee (touchie - aka pacifier)
eeeeeeeee (please)
amah (amen)

He also sings Old McDonald with us filling in the animal noises for cow, kitty, puppy, duck, snake, sheep, lion and monkey.  (That's right, this Old McDonald's farm has lions and monkeys!)  And to top off my bragging session, he can effectively point to his nose, ears, mouth, eyes, bellybutton and feet.  And he will gladly show you where yours are too (we've had little fingers shoved in our eyes, ears and up our noses many times)  Yeah, I'm one proud mama!

Finally Booked

So it did it!  I finally applied (and 6 hours was accepted).  My flight is booked and my hotel is reserved.  I'm flying to Dallas in two weeks!!!!  Ok ok, you probably want to know why, right?  Well about a year ago I start tossing around the idea of teaching Bradley.  It's the childbirth class that Chris and I took while we were pregnant and we loved it!  (I'll spare you all my jabbering about why it's the best ... you can just take my word for it)  And I found I was passionate about sharing this information with other people.  But because of poor timing, lack of resources or simply not enough guts I never applied.  That changed Sunday.

I realized while spending time with my pregnant friends over the past few months that I'm just as passionate about childbirth now as I was a year ago.  Chris told me to do it, Carol told me to do it, Bethany told me to do it ... but you know what finally motivated me to apply?  Southwest airlines!  Yep that's right.  They ran an ad on Sunday about their holiday sale on flights and I thought "Hey, I should check this out."  And sure enough, I found I could get a roundtrip flight from Minneapolis to Dallas for about $200!  (6 months ago it was going to cost closer to $400)  We could make this work!

So I downloaded the application Sunday nigtht, filled it out on Monday and faxed it in Tuesday morning.  I made a quick call that morning and left a message saying I was sending it.  (I still couldn't believe this was actually happening.  My hands shook as I watched the fax machine suck in each page and send it to the Bradley guru's in California)  Then I followed up that afternoon to see how long this process would take.  I honestly thought I was too late to get in on this training in Dallas and I'd have to wait until spring.  And everything was happening so fast it didn't quite seem real.  But that afternoon I talked to an actual person (not the machine) and she informed me they not only received my application, but already processed it and approved it!

Um, what?  Really?  That fast?  The other Bradley teacher in town said it took a long time to hear back about her application.  This couldn't be happening.  But it was.  The gal told me what I needed to bring and to go ahead and make arrangements.  Oh wow.  So last night I booked my flight and this morning I reserved my hotel room.  I'm really going to Dallas.  I'm really going to be a Bradley teacher.  No more talk.  I'm doing it.

Of course when I return there's a whole lot more stuff to do.  I have to finish all my other requirements for affiliation (book reports, hospital reports, class observations, etc), then student teaching for two sessions.  Then I have to figure out where I'm going to hold classes and how I'm going to get students.  But I'm really doing this and Chris is behind me 100%.  I love him!

I will keep you posted on how things go, but for now.  I'm flying to Dallas!!!!

In a Nutshell

The weather at the beginning of the month was sooo beautiful.  We spent more days than I thought playing outside (remember, it's November)

This would be Brooks ... eating a rock.

And Charlie eating a rock.

Speaking of Charlie ......

He's a mounted moose!! (insert laughter here)  Our friends Brent & Laura looooooove Charlie and bought this hilarious get-up on a post-halloween sale.  He hated it.  We loved it :)

Ok, back to the nice weather.  We recently received a sandbox for the backyard for free. Yep, FREE!  And lemme tell ya, it's a big hit!

A little sand down the shirt never hurt, right?

November 3rd was my Mom's birthday and Brooks sent her this lovely little picture greeting. 

Amazingly enough, this was the first picture I took.  I realized it turned out so well because 1) My son loves the camera and 2) he had no idea that that piece of paper was even there.  Because as soon as he discovered it, he did this ....

Yeah, that's more like it.

Can you guess the story behind this picture??

I was tired of Brooks dismantling my purse and strewing all the contents of my wallet across the living room so Chris did this for me.  I guess that solves the problem.  Too bad I'm too short to reach it.

Oh and we can't forget Brook's favorite part of the day .... bath time.  Dad has fun during bath time too.  You can see why.

One evening I was giving Brooks his bath while Chris did the dishes and Brooks looked at me and signed "Dad", then followed by the expression that said "You're no fun.  Where's Dad?"  I guess I know my place in the world.

Early Tuesday morning our good friends Ben & Carol Hayzlett welcomed their first baby, Hannah Lily.  I was nervous wreck all Monday night knowing she was in labor and praying like crazy.  But mom and baby are healthy and I made not one, but two trips to the hospital to see them.  I was just so happy for them (and I loved holding that baby :)

Other than that we've been going to story time, the library, the community center and of course, reading lots of books.


So that's November in a nutshell.

my little helper

It was one of those days again.  I was trying to finish putting dinner together, clean up some dishes and get the house in order before Chris came home and Brooks is crying and clinging to my leg .... again.  So instead of hobbling around the kitchen with a toddler attached to my lower extremity, I put him to work.  Well, sort of.  He was my little dishes helper.  This kiddo loves to play in the water!!

Doesn't he look so grown up?  It totally reminds me of standing on my mother's kitchen chairs helping her wash dishes when I was a little girl.  There must be a picture of it somewhere.

He was lovin' that wire whisk!  He even grabbed the sponge and attemped to "wash" the dishes.  'Cause you know ... mom was doing it.  I love getting my kiddos involved in chores around the house.  (Because Drew and Cole feel like they're part of the family most days)  Today Cole helped match socks while I folded laundry.  Then we made granola where he measured tablespoons of cinnamon, counted cups of oatmeal, and used those muscles to stir it all together.  Did we have fun?  Oh yeah!  Was he learning?  You betcha!  (we need 5 cups of oatmeal and we already put in 3.  How many more do we need to add?)  Did he know he was learning stuff?  Not at all!  Hehe, I feel so sneaky.  Like when I put cauliflower in the mashed potatoes but no one knows and eats it anyway!

Ah, I'm so in love with that little boy! 

So while Brooks may not be able to help with many chores around the house, he certainly can play in the water while I do dishes.  And it definitely keeps him from crying at my feet!