Another Year! Already??

Ahh.. it's that time again. Time for me to blog about our trip to Salt Lake for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Lots of the same stuff over again, lots of new stuff. Brace yourself for lots of pictures and I will try to let them speak for themselves, so that this doesn't take all night!

This year we decided to go down on Thursday instead of Friday, so that we could have two days, but still be back before Sunday. Even though our hotel did cost $60 more for a weeknight- crazy!!!

So, once we got to Salt Lake, of course the first place we had to visit was the Christus Statue. One of Alex's favorite places in the world. After this visit he asked me if we could paint his room like this. He wayyy overestimates my painting abilities.

 Beautiful weather in Salt Lake and flowers popping up all over the place!

Then we went to the Scottish shop for socks for the boys, walked around downtown a little, where Alaina said hi to everybody and asked what their name was, then off to the hotel for dinner and swimming. The hotel has a free buffet dinner on Thursday night, so we thought that would help offset the extra cost. But let me be honest. These pictures look all cute and wonderful, but Alex was being quite, well, horrible. Danny and I were working hard to hold our tempers. And downtown Salt Lake has all these stylish, young single people and after being in the car for 3+ hours, I wasn't feeling very attractive. And our family felt very big. And out of place. We just don't fit in to that scene anymore- not that we ever really did, but now it is more obvious. Even the lady at the Scottish shop said, "Wow, you guys are loud." Yeah, we noticed. In your teeny shop with our 5 kids + Mark and Justin!!!

When we got to the hotel for dinner, Alaina announced our arrival by running into the dining room and yelling loudly, "Hi everybody!!!" Which just brought attention to the fact that we were the only ones there with children, that we had a lot of children, and that every table was full.

 The nice worker lady who was nice in that kind of patronizing way that drives you crazy, quickly offered us a tray so we could take some food up to our room, but we opted to eat outside on the patio. None of the kids wanted to eat, and so on and so forth, but at least outside no one could hear us!! 

Fast forward to swimming- this is the only picture I got! The kids had a lot of fun and Alex's eyes were red for the next 36 hours, but it was worth it.

Even though, shortly after we got there the nice lady and her two teenage daughters left the pool area, and then the annoying worker lady came in and said someone said there was something in the pool. We looked all over and found a band-aid at the bottom, which wasn't that big of a deal. But I felt all betrayed, because who would have said something except that lady, and she had been so nice! Maybe I was a little over-sensitive at this point, and Alex had worn me down, but I kind of wanted to splash water on the worker lady. I think I might have felt better then.

Watching tv in the room. The kids were up soo late. Yikes!

We slept in late the next morning, had a nice breakfast at the hotel, took forever to get ready and by the time we got loaded up in the car it was time for lunch! Since we were way south already, we went to Ikea for lunch. It took forever to get our lunch, and I was waiting with the kids. Thought I was going to go crazy with Emme and Irelyn crying. By the time Danny got there, I went out to the car to feed the baby. I'm not trying to be negative, but really, the kids had been sooo cranky up till then and whiney and you just wonder what it's all for!! But, I called Megan and whined to her and then I felt better. :) 

After that things got a lot better. 

 We took the kids to the Living Planet Aquarium, which was really fun for all of us. Huge tanks of fish, tarantulas, anacondas, penguins, otters, sharks, jelly fish (which Alex and I looved. Alex kept saying, "Come here Squishy. Bad Squishy!), an octopus, seahorses, sting rays that you could touch, and lots of other animals. Here are lots of pictures!

Who knew that someday I would pay for my kids to touch a garter snake? We used to see them all the time outside for free!!

Tristan petting the stingrays. They are very slimy. Not at all like dolphins.

It was a lot of fun! This is Alex wearing his mask that he got at the gift shop. We told each of the kids that they could pick out something under $5. Megan, can you imagine what we would have thought if we had been told that when we were little?! Alex looves this mask, and Tristan got a shark tooth that he is very proud of. Emme got a poofy penguin, that popped before we left the parking lot and Lainey got a glowing squid.

Got pizzas, went to the hotel. This is where Emme said she was sleeping!

As we went to put the kids in jammies, we noticed that all of Alex's stuff was gone. That was Danny realized that Alex had put all of his clothes in the dresser in the other hotel. (We were at the airport hotel the first night, now we were downtown.) So then Danny had to drive over there and get Alex's stuff.

This is the kids the next morning watching tv in our room while we got ready. Ate breakfast and then dressed up for the parade. By the way, Alex was being normal by now, and we were all having a lot more fun. Good thing! !

Haha! This picture is actually from last year! Danny forgot to bring the camera to the parade, but it looked about the same. We had great weather, amazing, and we got candy for the kids to throw. They were all so good, and there were sooo many people there for the parade! The kids all loved waving and being in the parade, but after it was over they were all a little sad when they realized that had thrown all the candy and didn't have any for themselves!!

                   This is a picture we had someone take of us after the parade, at the hotel.

Then we changed clothes, packed up, and then drove around Salt Lake and showed the kids where Danny lived while we were dating. And then I found my new favorite neighborhood! We will definitely have to go here on a girls trip! All the houses were so different and unique and beautiful!! 

Don't you want to live here?!

Then we went to see the Christus Statue, again, and then got Subway and headed home! Oh, and stopped at Curry in a Hurry and got some to go and stopped by TaiPan and got a couple of little things.

 All together it was a great trip!

Lots of fun, lots of memories, and luckily, over time all you remember is the good stuff!

Christmas Week

Whew! Do you think it's been long enough, that I should go ahead and post about Christmas?! If I wait much longer, it will be the next Christmas I am writing about!!

 So, here are a few pictures of Christmas, and the best part, the rest of Christmas Week.

 So, the night before, as everyone else has already said, we did the Nativity and exchanged presents with my family and ate appetizers- yummm! It worked out so great, because then we weren't also trying to squeeze in my family on Christmas Day, which is just too much, with Danny's family, too!

Tristan was so cute and took his role very seriously. Now him and Alaina always pretend to be married- I wonder if this is what started it??

Hunter was an angel, Josh was a shepherd and Alex was King Herod. He looved wearing the crown and beard!

Christmas morning!! We locked the two doors together and tried not to let the kids get up before 6:30. We did stockings first, which had oranges, a little candy, a Santa mug, bubble bath and baby cereals. I forgot Candy canes and Alex was a little disappointed about that. (How could I forget candy canes??) But they enjoyed all their loot and Danny and I gave each other wayyy too much candy. We agreed next year to keep it to a nice days worth of chocolate and not a month's worth!!

Then onto presents!! Let's summarize by saying everyone got plenty, with the highlights being a pillow pet for each of them, a kitty, Barbie movie, and Zooble for Alaina, a remote control helicopter, sky ball and Guess Who game for Tristan, a dancing skeleton, Shrek movie, dancing/ singing snowman for Alex, a Dora doll, bath animals and light up spinner for Emme, school t-shirts for each of them and water bottles, and then more from Justin. Yikes! They were spoiled!! But it was fun!

Danny really like his two t-shirts. This one says, "Does this shirt make me look Scottish?"

And this one says, "It's called a "kilt" because that's what happened to the last guy who called it a skirt!"

Hahaha!

Notice the kids all wearing their head lamps that they got from Grandma Doc the night before? Man, they love those things!!

After presents we ate a delicious dutch oven omelette thingy, yummmm.... and played games.

Then we got ready for sacrament meeting at 1pm, which was wonderful and I thought great to have on Christmas Day, and then we went to the Campbells. There they all got spoiled again, and we ate a wonderful dinner.

By the end of the night they were all cranky and irritable, but that is pretty much to be expected!! Danny and I thought it was one of the most relaxing, peaceful Christmases we have had. The kids are getting funner all the time and we loved having the day with them.

But what made it really nice, was that Danny had the rest of the week off from work!! That made it all feel so relaxed and luxurious! So that night after the kids were in bed, I took a long, hot bath with some of my Lindor truffles next to me and read all of my Christmas book, Austenland. I thought it was a great fun read! It was the perfect end to a great day!

The rest of the week was awesome, too, but I forgot to take any pictures! We took the older kids to the movies, went to the mall, played lots of games, took a few naps, and generally enjoyed ourselves. The only downer was that we got a bug of some sort and so each of us was sick at least one day. :( So that meant we didn't do all the things we would have liked. But Danny is already scheduling to get Christmas week off this coming year, too. It was sooo fun and felt like a real holiday!!

 And I think this pretty much sums up how we felt by the end of the holidays!!

New Arrival

No, the pictures of our new arrival are not of Irelyn- though those are coming soon. You see, we have an awesome globe that I love to use to teach the kids (and myself) about the world. But it was pre-1994, so it still said USSR and Czechoslavakia and a bunch of other stuff was wrong. And it was small. So we upgraded. Size wise, anyway.
This was the space pre-map.

Alex took this picture of the map when it first came and we were holding it up.

We very quickly made and painted a frame for it and used Command strips to hang it up! (I am loving those more and more!) I think it is awesome!!

A close-up of our beauteous frame that we are so proud of!

And a close-up to show you what a great map it is. Idaho Falls and Pocatello and West Virginia are all on there! We were especially impressed that West Virginia made it on there. Oh, and North Dakota.

We have all already learned a lot, which just shows how unlearned we are! It looks great and is so useful and the whole project, including the map, cost just over $100! Not too bad! Now it makes me want to do other home projects, but I have decided nothing looks as pretty as money in a bank account and food storage on the shelves, so that will be all for a while!

Flexible

I have always been very flexible- I could/ still can do the splits and lots of other weird things. But being flexible as a parent has a totally different meaning. It means this- "Hmm... I will do A, then B and maybe C, and if we're really lucky, maybe brush my teeth." Two hours later, "Okay, A took a lot longer than I planned. In fact, it's only half done. Well, we'll skip B and I will brush my teeth while taking care of C." Two more hours pass. "Well, really it's okay if it all gets done tomorrow. I'm sure it won't hurt to wait one more day to (insert action here- shop, fold laundry, clean bathrooms). In fact, I can finish it tonight after the kids are in bed." After the kids are in bed I fall over in a heap of exhaustion. I can't even remember the last time I actually got to item C, and unfortunately, blogging is usually C...... or even E or F.
  But the trick is, to have nothing ever go the way you had planned, and not let it put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
  If you were to ask me what I did with my day, I'm not sure I could tell you. It's so indefinable, it's like trying to remember a dream in the morning. Something happened, but all the details are fuzzy.
  Maybe if my to do list were this- A. Keep kids alive.
                                                    B. Feed kids.  
                                                    C. Dress kids.  and so forth, then at the end of the day, I could look at my list and say, "My, what a productive day we've had!"
   And in the end, it is a productive day. When I see what lovely, smart and kind children our kids are most of the time, I know that all these little nothings are adding up to a big something.
 
     And just to prove my point, this blog post has been written over the course of two hours this morning, in between preschool pickups, baby feedings, Emme clean-ups, book readings, stopping Emme from spinning the baby in circles in her saucer and phone calls- and I still haven't brushed my teeth!

                                                  

Holiday Goings-On

Whew! We have been very busy around here, but I am going to try and give an abbreviated version of what we have been doing- while Emme is sitting on my lap! Yikes!

Here is cutie Emme the Sunday after we put up the tree. Never again will I try to decorate with all the kids at home. We worked for two days to have the whole house all clean, so that we could have a fun day of decorating and then make cookies. But it was terrible!! Alex kept going behind me and undoing everything and the other kids were pulling out everything from the boxes. I was rather cranky the whole time and have decided that it would be a nicer memory for the kids to come home from school and be all excited that Mom decorated while they were gone. Rather than, "I remember decorating with my Mom every year. And she was always so mad!" Lesson learned. Sometimes your "vision" has to be re-adjusted for reality.

Another lesson- Thanksgiving Eve. After decorating, the next day we were going to ring in the holidays with a Christmas movie and popcorn and hot chocolate. I wanted it all to be so nice and the house all clean, especially since the next day everyone was coming to our house for Thanksgiving. By the end of the day, I felt overwhelmed and the house was a mess! I felt so discouraged, that once again, no matter how hard I tried, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. But, I walked away from all the mess, we pulled the couch up close and Danny made a fire, we had hot chocolate and popcorn and watched Mickey's Christmas Carol. And guess what? It was so fun! In fact, afterwards Tristan kept saying, "That was so fun!!" The lesson learned this time- just because it isn't perfect to you, doesn't mean it isn't wonderful to the kids. They really weren't worried about the sink of dishes anyway.

So here is a picture of us as we got under way.

Alex being Santa for Alaina. He wanted people to sit on his lap so badly. And Alaina really took it seriously and thought about it when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas.

Thanksgiving was super fun, relaxed and pleasant. Lots of food, lots of talking, afterwards we watched Jeopardy episodes and laid around. Haley and Dallin came for dessert, and we were all deliciously lazy.

 

See how big Irelyn is? I am going to put on pictures of her right away. She is changing so fast!! 

Ward Christmas Chalet- Emme and Josh hugging beforehand. The best part of the Chalet was- I wasn't in charge of anything. And I was so glad. :)

Christmas party at the Gables. Alex cornered Santa and sang Christmas songs to him. Santa was very accommodating and Alex was very happy.
Their party was great and I wish I had gotten more pictures! Lots of delicious food and singers and Santa and great decorations. I was grateful that we got to go.

Silly Alex. He found a way to combine his two favorite holidays, Halloween and Christmas.

 The kids had over two weeks off for Christmas. They don't go back until this Tuesday. It is really hard to take all 5 kids places by themselves, but we can't just stay at home all the time! So I tried to take them all to the mall to see Santa. It was..okay.... until the end, when I swore I would never take them all somewhere by myself again! But, we did see Santa! (Tristan is behind the poinsettias.) 

Well, this takes us to Christmas. I will stop for now so that you can breathe. But brace yourself, Christmas pics to come soon!! I know you can hardly wait!!