2013 Christmas Card

An Eventful Week

(taken Thanksgiving weekend)

Thanksgiving week was quite the eventful week for our family!  For the first time ever, we celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at home in our jammies!   We had been invited to a friend's house for dinner, but with sick kids all week on and off plus Rachel waking up Thanksgiving morning with the body aches and a fever, we cancelled the dinner plans with friends.  I still made lots of stuffing and took it over to their house, and then just brought us home some dinner to enjoy with our own little, sick family.

Thanksgiving Week Recap:
Monday
- Brandon got 3 root canals because there was an infection growing up above his front teeth (right where he had his tramp accident as a teenager).  It caused his face to swell and was kind of scary!  But he feels much better now and is all taken care of.
- Andrew got a fever, so we laid low.
Tuesday
- Kendall threw up and had a fever (having a 1 year old throwing up is the worst because you never know where it's going to go!).  I felt like I was hovering around her for half the night until it was done.
- Andrew was grumpy and sick, but handles sickness pretty well.
Wednesday
- Debated on what we should do about Thanksgiving plans - should we cancel or split up and take the healthy kids?
Thursday
- Happy Thanksgiving!
- Rachel had a fever and body aches and was down most the day.
- Cancelled our dinner plans and decided to stay home and eat in our jammies.
- Black Friday shopping for Brandon where he scored a kindle and some fun toys for the kids.
Friday
- Black Friday shopping for me and I got some poinsettia neighbor gifts and a fire pit for our backyard.
- We bought our first piano at Linton Milano in downtown Mesa!!!  (Nancy & Val's Christmas gift to us was money to put towards it - awesome!)
- Lost my mind and started potty training Andrew.
Saturday
- Potty training central.
- Brandon finished major paver project on the side of the house where the shed is going to be.
- Girls' night with the Natalie, Suzi, Kasey & Sarah - had so much fun and got home close to midnight!
Sunday
- Got a new calling; released as VT supervisor and got called to be the RS Activity Chair.
- Stayed home from Church to potty train and tend to sick kids.

Me, Sarah, Suzi, Kasey & Natalie at Oregano's - love love love these girls!

Big Boy Underwear

Look who is potty trained and wears big boy underwear!  This picture is a perfect depiction of potty training week at our house.  (And it makes me laugh out loud!)  The house was a complete disaster while I was chasing around this little guy in his superman underwear.  If you know me well, then you know I DESPISE potty training!  The constant hovering over a little 3 year old tornado - every moment of every day for 5 days - is not my idea of fun.  The constant repetitious phrases ("Tell mommy when you need to go potty…Please keep your underwear dry"- 75 million times a day) plus following every frantic movement he makes, and all while watching his squishy face for any indication that it might be time to go and just basically not taking my eyeballs off him … it's enough to drive me totally insane.  BUT WE DID IT! 

We started Thanksgiving weekend, and he had a good handle on it after about 5 days.  We had lots of juice, sticker charts, there was a lot of running to the toilet, & potty treats (the whole family got one every time he went - it was a serious sugar party at our house that week) & poo poo prizes.  He has done fantastically, and I am so proud of him.  Andrew, this was the best Christmas present you could have given me!  You are a rock star in my book!

Quote of potty training:

Mom:  Andrew, be sure to keep your underwear dry, ok?

Andrew:  Aye, aye, Captain!!

Update on the Monkeys

Rachel is thriving in school and absolutely loves it.  She earned an outstanding citizenship award for the first term and the teacher had lots of good things to say about Rachel.  When Rachel was student of the week, Mrs. Caha let her read the class a book and lead the class during calendar time, share time, etc. and Mrs. Caha said that she could have left to run an errand and she was pretty sure the class would have run very smoothly under Rachel's direction.  She is brave, confident, outgoing, and makes friends easily.  She is very sweet and helpful most of the time, but she has her moments when she is disrespectful, whiny, and irrational (mostly just at home).  Last month, I started a "nice talking jar" for Rachel and everyday, she had 15 puff balls automatically to start the day but if she didn't talk nicely, I would just count down to 14, 13, etc. and however many were left at the end of the day, she could put in her jar.  Once the jar was full, she could get one of those Beenie Boo stuffed animals (she and her cousin love these, but they are not cute in my opinion).  It really helped and was a successful little system for her and helped us get in some better habits.  Rachel does really well with positive praise often, so I try my hardest to recognize when she is doing something good and I try to give her good consequences too, instead of only bad consequences.

She is also taking the bus home from school!  Crazy, right!  I'm pretty sure that at one time or another I said that I'd never let my Kindergartener ride the bus.  And once again, I eat my words in the parenting department.  The pick up line was a horrendous system for us - usually interrupting Kendall's nap time and Rachel had to wait in line for 10-15 minutes before I got to the front of the line.  Her little buddies she was standing by were not my favorite, and she was coming home with all sorts weird stories from the pick up line.  So now she rides the bus and sits by her best friend, Holly, and Holly's big sister.  Rachel had been begging to ride the bus, so it worked out to let her ride it just on the way home from school.  We've recruited lots of the neighborhood kids, so now there are lots of kids that ride the bus all together.  Rachel is also participating in the school's choir and goes to practice right after school twice a week (so nice that it is free!), and she is also doing tennis lessons, which she really enjoys and Coach Ray is so fun with the little girls.

Andrew is growing like a weed and makes us laugh everyday.  I don't know how to describe it, but we just think he's dang funny.  I hope he keeps his good sense of humor.  We have a rule in our house that we can only say potty words in the bathroom, and that they shouldn't be used to make jokes.  Well, Andrew made up a repetitive song, "We only say potty words in the bathroom.." and if he's singing it IN the bathroom, then all the potty words become part of his song, "...poo poo, pee pee, bum bum, naked."  And occasionally, I'll watch him go into the bathroom just so he can say the potty words.  It cracks me up.  Last month he participated in a class through the city called "Play Along Pals", and it was good to have a special little class just for him (Kendall also enjoyed the class and thought it was for her).  Andrew has struggled with the transition to the new nursery, and I'm convinced it's because he misses Grandpa Rod and his best buddy, Maddox!  He gets whiny and tearful now so we're trying to help him through that.  He starts Sunbeams in January, so maybe that will be better since he'll get a little more structure and get to see Rachel.

Kendall hasn't been feeling well this month, so she's been off a little bit.  She once was my best sleeper, and now she wakes up usually once a night and it's hard to figure out what she needs to put her back to sleep (she is not a cuddler, so that doesn't work).  This all started when she got a double ear infection and it took me awhile to get it figured out before I took her to the doctor to get some medication (this was the first time she got sick and needed medicine).  She also got 4 new teeth in the back this month (1st year molars), and has had 2 different colds this month.  She has been whiny and has wanted me to hold her and haul her around.  It is making for one tired mama!  It all started back when she turned 1 and we switched to whole milk.  We were desperate and decided to try giving her soy milk, and it has made all the difference in the world!!  She is back to sleeping all the way through the night and is so much happier (we started this 3 days ago).  Hallelujah!

At 6:30am, I found Andrew watching daddy move rocks.  What a big helper!  :)

Instagram Photos

I think the dino costume is a little small, Andrew!  ha ha

The 5 year old was here - I think I'll wait awhile before I wash them.

My dad got me a new accessory for my desk ... Jack!

Kendall's the birthday girl, so anything goes! 

Always has to have something around her neck, but refuses to wear a bow!

Kendall's 1st birthday

Kendall had her first birthday, and we celebrated with a snow-cone themed party.  The girl does love her daddy's snow cones and knows exactly what's going on when the machine and flavors come out.  I made cupcakes that looked like snow cones for her cake (1st birthdays are my domain in the cake department - Brandon gets the hard ones when they can actually make a request).  I also made a snow cone banner, and tried to keep it pretty simple.  We celebrated with dinner and dessert with the Tompkinsons (Kendall and Garrett's birthdays are only a day apart), Perkinsons, and Gunnells.  

Kendall is our precious, little angel baby!  Her personality is just barely starting to really come out and it is fun to see that fun side of her.  She loves to play by the big kids, and she is starting to copy everything they do.  She is very independent and walks everywhere.  She is my best sleeper of all three, and takes longer daytime naps than Rachel and Andrew did.  She's the light of our lives, and she has been such a good addition to our family!

Halloween!

Middle:  Rachel with her best friend, Holly; bottom middle: Andrew with his full costume on for about 2 seconds

Get this ... no costumes allowed at our Elementary School - bummer!   I had it all laid out (not knowing the school's costume policy, so then I started texting moms, and it's a good thing I did because I had no idea!

Gorgeous weather!  The week before Halloween, we went to a free event put on by the City of Mesa.  They had bounce houses, trick-or-treating, firetrucks/helicopters/buses, etc.  

I knew the Jesus beard would come in handy … for our Duck Dynasty costume :)

Andrew turns 3

Andrew turned 3 on September 30, but we waited to celebrate his birthday General Conference weekend when Nana & Papa were in town.  Andrew wanted a Rescue Bots themed birthday, and since his favorite Rescue Bot is Heatwave, daddy made him a Heatwave cake!  Andrew loved it.

We invited the Tompkinson boys over to celebrate with us and Nana & Papa.  Maddox and Andrew are just a week apart, and they are best buds!!  Bummer that they aren't in nursery together anymore.

We colored pictures, had a nerf gun war at "Decepticon Daddy" (plus a big doggy pile on him!), ate pizza/cake/ice cream/snowcones, and watched a Rescue Bots show.  It was a big success!!  He got some Rescue Bot toys, his own kid chair, superhero capes, Rescue Bots show, and cars with a new car mat.

It's hard to believe my little boy turned 3 years old!  So according to the Doctor, he's actually not so little (40.5 pounds and 41.5 inches tall - average size of a 4.5 year old), but to me he's still my little boy.  My funny little man, who dislikes sleeping in (still an early riser), loves his blankies (still), otter pops, his movie time, and he can name all the characters in Scooby Doo.

I should note that Rachel struggled with all the attention being on Andrew, but finally got the hang of it about half way through the day.  Ugh!  She also did not like the fact that Nana & Papa were there for his birthday, because they weren't at her party.  Lately, I've been hearing a lot of whining, and particularly declarations of "It's not fair!" and I don't have a great response, but I am trying to teach her this all important life principle, so it's good when unfair situations arise.  I get glimpses of a little, sassy teenager in a five year old body, and it terrifies me.  Please just be a phase, Rachel!!

Flying Solo

I just finished driving the kids home from Utah all by myself for the first time (I began writing this last weekend).  I deserve a trophy or something!  Phew!!  We drove half way, then stayed in Las Vegas for a night with the Stewart's (friends from law school) and then finished the rest of the trip.  It went pretty good, minus the fact that Andrew and Kendall had diarrhea/diaper rashes the second day, which caused some drama and lots of diaper changes.  

The idea came to me when my parents were coming down for General Conference weekend, and then Rachel had the whole next week off school for fall break, so I figured my parents could help me drive up there and then I could stay for the week, then drive home myself.  Brandon would have loved to come, but his billable year ends November 1st, so he's been really busy.  Our Utah trip was so fun and we actually got to experience AUTUMN!  Fall is one of my favorite things about Utah, so it was a special treat to visit and see the beautiful scenery.  We drove up to Squaw Peak and saw the pretty views, and I was in awe!  The colors were apparently not as vibrant this year, but to this Arizona girl, I was happy, happy, happy!

Other random bits and pieces:
- Lunch with Shalauna, Cindy and mom; after lunch we were going to go to the Outlets, but figured the kids would only last a few minutes, so we opted for a park near Shalauna's house instead
- Random stop by Nicole's house on a potty training Henry day - wished I could do that more often
- A visit to Pookie's swing and a second visit to pick out a pumpkin from their garden (more swinging)
- A visit to Grandma Parker & Julye
- McDonald's on a rainy day, only to find out that the play place was closed, so we met at Kacie's for a playdate instead
- Cornbelly's with Hale cousins plus Aunt Marilyn, Leslie, Allie & Gabe; I was super impressed with all the activities they had for the kids - we could have stayed there for hours, but I was too exhausted
- Played in Nana's garden with Zoe and some pet snails that Nana found for them and that we brought back to AZ
- Kendall did not warm up to any males while we were there - she was very unfriendly to everyone, even Papa & Grandpy
- A quick peak at cousin Ellie when she came over to Grandma Nancy's one morning; she melts my heart and I even got a sweet smile out of her.  For the first time, I experienced her little cry with no noise coming out, and it just broke my heart, but her mama knew just what to do to make her happy again.
- Experienced a serious delay on the morning we were supposed to leave AZ to Utah ... Rachel woke up with a cough (something was flaring up having to do with her asthmatic, reactive airways), so I went and camped out at my Dr. office until they got us in.  I wanted to get meds and I knew my doctor is the only one who would give me something (with so few symptoms) so that she wouldn't get sick because we were going to be around lots of cousins.  At two different CVS pharmacies and a bunch others that we tried, everyone had on hand the wrong strength of the medication I needed, so I just took what I could get to get things started, and I had to give Rachel the most ridiculous dosage I have ever heard of!  No really!  It was an entire medicine bottle full per day - it was 125 ml or equivalent to 25 teaspoons of meds once a day for 3 days.  I cannot explain to you how upset I was about all this, but there wasn't a whole lot of options for me with us driving to Utah, wanting to get started on the meds, and then being in Utah away from our office.  Rachel was a freaking rockstar for making it through that (with lots of juice and treat, but she did it!).

All three kids - including the out takes

WALKING EVERYWHERE!!

Loved this picture because Rachel and Kennedy were riding the cow train with their feet up and arms up too.

Views from Squaw Peak

Sleepover with cousins

Stayed the night in Vegas with our friends, the Stewarts