Christmas Morning

Cole keeps asking me, "So what was my MAIN present this year?" I keep telling him it was this Powerwing scooter, but I guess it must not have made such a big impression on him. I think he'll see how cool it is though once we take it to the park. I knew we had to get Luke a car. There are two cars like this in nursery, and Luke constantly gets into fights over them. He has practically been living in this car since he opened it.
We seemed to have a theme this year among the gifts: Spongebob! My mom and dad got them a McDonald's drive thru. They love it and one night discovered that they could really get the full drive thru experience by using Luke's car. It was so fun to watch.

Jimmy's Christmas Eve

Well, this is at my parent's house as we're heading out to the car to drive to Jimmy's Christmas Eve party. Luke, along with the rest of the grandchildren, cannot pass by these jolly, dancing, singing snow men without stopping to dance a bit with them.


Luke goes right up to them and stomps his foot so they'll start moving.



Once we made it to the car, we drove to my uncle Jimmy's house. Every year my mom's side of the family has a big Christmas Eve party. For the last several years, it has been hosted by my mom's brother, Jimmy. His house was so beautifully decorated.



The food was so delicious. I love Jimmy's tradition of setting out a two pound box of Sees nuts and chews.




My favorite part of Christmas Eve is the music. Cole and Luke started the singing off with "Little Drummer Boy" (Cole did the singing, Luke did the drumming). My brother sang, some of the cousins sang, we all sang Christmas songs from the hymn book together, Jimmy sang "O Holy Night" which is always amazing, and my grandma and grandpa sang Silent Night, which is also a tradition. The singing was so fun and beautiful and I love how EVERYONE gets choked up mid-song and struggles to get out the words. That is what Christmas is all about.

One of the things I love

One of the things I love about Kindergarten is all of the arts and crafts that Cole brings home that become a colorful collage on the fridge.



His class made some beautiful things for the holidays including this votive made out of a baby food jar, stickers and salt.



When Cole was younger, I used to have to beg him to do crafts with me. I would say things like, "Please Cole, if you finish coloring this I'll give you a...". But the last couple years things have really turned around. He loves making things out of pipe cleaners and pom poms and glue and felt and...toilet paper rolls. He made our tree topper last year. He wanted to re-create his small stuffed polar bear that wears a purple scarf and hat. Now I ask you, how many people can say that they have a toilet paper roll on top of their tree?



Another toilet paper roll craft designed by Cole. It's a penguin that he decided would make a good pencil holder.



Here's a funny bird, and baby bird. I love the bird's string tail.



And a penguin ornament.

Raisins

Ever since Cole was little, every time a Sun-Maid Raisins commercial came on, he would say, "Mommy, that's you!", implying that I look like the girl, not the raisins. I definitely don't agree, and don't expect anyone else to, I just don't look anything like her. I guess to kids, just having the same hair color makes people look alike.
Anyway, now Luke joins in with Cole when this commercial comes on and so I get to hear my two little boys say each time, "That's you" and "dat you". It makes me laugh.

Vet

Cole's class had a vet come speak to them about her job. They each got to take home a plastic bag containing a pair of gloves, a mask, a tongue depressor, a bandage, and one of those head cover things. So tonight Cole wanted to have his own pet clinic. Thanks to his vast knowledge of animal care and animal medicine, he was able to help Mr. Turtle, Lickin' Lollipops, and CTR bear reach a full recovery.

His care included listening to heart beats, lung sounds, and grumbly tumblies with his stethoscope,




bandaging up cuts,




taking temperatures,




and administering breathing treatments via aerochamber.

It's not easy "seeing" green

Cole's class earned a small party by filling up the class bucket with good behavior drops. For the celebration, they had a Kindergarten Zoo where each child was to dress up as an animal. The kids all laughed and laughed when the teacher revealed her penguin costume.


Cole decided to be a frog which was wonderful for him because his favorite color is green. This brings up an interesting point though. Colors are all mixed up in his head due to some mild color blindness. Sometimes he gets them right, but he always has to ask which crayon is the right color when he does his homework. So after I had put the green make-up on Cole's face I showed him in the mirror and he asked, "Why didn't you make my whole face green?" All he could see were the two or three darker green dots. Though later he said he was starting to see the lighter green in the background.

Gumball machine

My mom bought Cole this funny little gumball machine. I just think this picture is so silly. You can't see the tupperware filled with Grandpa's loose change sitting next to him, but it just makes me think of the simple pleasures in life: a miniature gumball machine and a bunch of coins. Yes, this is bliss to a 5 year old.

My B-day

My sister Emily was so kind to watch the boys while me and Clay had some birthday fun. Clay was so sweet to take me to see this.


My review: LOVED IT!!! I had heard both good and bad about this movie but I knew I would love it and I did! Oh I loved all the characters; the wolf pack, the Volturi, Alice, and Jessica was even pretty funny. Go see New Moon!

Aside from the movie, that morning I finished up part 1 of a project I'm working on. I'm trying to make a sort-of scrapbook kind of thing about my grandpa (my mom's dad.) I want it to have pictures of him, but it will mostly be his stories. So on my birthday, I was able to finish interviewing him and video recording him telling his history, advice for posterity, testimony, etc. He is amazing and the stories he shared with me are golden. I'm thrilled about it.

Later on, Clay and I also enjoyed shopping, trying on fancy formal dresses (well, just me) and going out to dinner. Oh my goodness, I ate way too much at dinner. I felt so stuffed and it was so freezing outside that we put off doing more shopping to just sit in the car with the heater on for a while. I only mention this because it was so wonderful--laying in the reclined passenger seat, heat on, just talking to Clay, having his undivided attention. It was lovely. I had a great birthday.

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Clay's parents. Suzanne prepared a beautiful feast for everyone and we helped a little with side dishes. It was all so delicious!


And here is the lovely couple, Mark and Corrine. It was nice to see them and get to know Corrine better. She is wonderful and obviously head-over-heals in-love. Mark and Corrine will be getting married in Feb. We are very excited to have her as a sister soon!


Luke had his own private feast a couple hours later after he woke up from his nap.

So Inspiring

Our ward had a musical fireside last night. I brought Cole with me and while he fell asleep almost immediately, I really enjoyed it. The absolute best part was the last solo number "Bring Him Home" sung by our Bishop. It was amazing! The song is from Les Miserables. The Bishop said that he was dedicating it to the missionaries who were serving from our ward. Hearing the song from that perspective makes it so powerful. His voice was phenomenal and sounded just like Jon Valjean. Just to refresh your memory, here are the words to "Bring Him Home".

(Valjean is standing over Marius at the barricade)

VALJEAN
God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there

He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.

Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy

You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

Just Another Day in Paradise

We went on another beach trip with Jaime and her boys today. We stayed for hours and had a great time.

A sad little pilgrim

Cole's class did a Thanksgiving program last Friday. They sang four cute songs: Five Fat Turkeys Are We, This Land Is Your Land, Albequerque Turkey, and A Turkey Ran Away. I love Kindergarten!

Cole got throught the first 3 songs just fine, but by the time I took this picture, sadness had hit. He later explained that he was sad because at the end of the third song, he didn't hear me laugh. I did infact laugh, the song had a cute punchline at the end, but of course, he couldn't hear me because of the large, noisy crowd. He was expecting to hear his mommy's laugh clear as a bell. I assured him that I laughed and that helped him a bit.


After the song, the kinders walked to their feast. The picnic table looked very festive.


Oh no, sadness again! This time he is nervous about the food. His teacher encouraged the kids to try a taste of everything so he thought he really had to and was cringing at everything he saw being placed on his plate. His teacher quickly came along and removed the offending foods from his sight. He finally was able to eat some mashed potatoes.


It's just so hard to be a pilgrim.

Why exercise is bad for you

My poor, sweet Clay. Last week, while he was at work, he decided to do some light exercise during his lunchbreak. So he walked down to the train station, where there is a large flight of stairs, and went walking up and down the stairs for a little workout. Afterwards, as he was walking back to the office, he started to feel a little dizzy, lightheaded, etc. So he stopped, leaned against a pole for support, and then passed out. A lady who was walking by called an ambulance.

When Clay came to, he told the lady that he was fine and he needed to get back to work. She insisted that he just lay still. He didn't realize that his head was bleeding and dripping quite a bit of blood all over his nice dress shirt.

At the hospital he had to get staples for the cut on the back of his head. Also, he had to stay overnight so the doctor could run some cardiac tests on him (Clay's heart rate has always been low so they thought his heart might have contributed to the fainting). The tests were inconclusive, but Clay had had enough of the hospital and came home instead of staying another night. He did however have some nice conversations with the 600 lb man who shared a room with him. The other two men in the room were older; one of them liked to take off his gown and put it over his head, and the other never spoke.

Classic: eating McDonald's instead of the terrible hospital food.



Okay, totally corny picture of me and Clay holding hands. But I just loved that I got to go cuddle with him that night (thanks Jaime for watching the boys!) and I loved holding his hand, and it was such a role reversal to have him be the one connected to an IV.

Update: Clay is feeling great and will be following up with more tests with his regular doctor.

On dresses

I love all the girly stuff that's out there. And if I had a little girl, I would have her wear fluffy, ruffly, sparkly dresses.

This dress is similar to the dresses Cole and I saw at Costco today. I had to laugh at what he said when he saw the rack of dresses like this. He pointed to the dresses and said,
"Oh look Mommy, they're still selling Halloween costumes!"

Our Giant Pumpkin

Clay's parents grew giant pumpkins in their garden this year. We were more than happy to take one of them home, which we did at the end of September. We didn't think this huge pumkin would last until Halloween, but it did, and well beyond. Clay and the boys finally decided it was time to carve it and see what kind of a mess was inside. This pumpkin, or Jim as Cole calls it, is not without blemish. In fact, it looks like it has some abnormal facial growths, but we still think its great!


It made a wonderful seat,


and a wonderful stool,


and a wonderful companion.


and a wonderful treat. Thanks Jim.