Christmas Comes But Once a Year

Christmas has come and gone! Here is the photo essay:

What the first picture really SHOULD be is a snapshot of how beautiful the snow looked falling down early on Christmas Eve evening. It would have been picture perfect.

Instead what we have is a visual of our first ever attempt at a family Christmas Pageant. Here are the kids in probably the only 2 seconds they kept their "costumes" on before they started running around the room (literally) while Scott read the Christmas story from the Book of Luke.

After Family Home Evening and dinner and making cookies for Santa, we let the kids open their Christmas jammies and their new ornament for this year's tree.

This could be my favorite ornament EVER that I've given to Scott. I wanted to try and find something that represented this year but couldn't find anything that worked. Since this summer's internship with Procter & Gamble pretty much was the main event of the year, I wanted to represent it somehow. So, I bought a plain chipboard bulb ornament at Michael's and bought myself some decoupage glue. I went through old magazines and ripped out any P&G products I could find and thus adorned the ornament. I lacquered them on, followed it up with a coat of varnish, and Voila!

After the kids went to sleep, I decided to make my first ever attempt at homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. I found a recipe entitled "Best Cinnamon Rolls" in my new MBASA cookbook and gave it a whirl and they really were the best!

I rolled them out the night before and let them rise in the fridge overnight

(In case you're wondering about the single cinnamon roll without cream cheese frosting it is because Ethan is rather fastidious and does not like to be sticky and informed me that I COULD NOT put frosting on one for him because he does not like it)

Here are the kids with their loot:

Sophie was actually HILARIOUS this morning. She was so excited surrounded by all the presents that she was literally bouncing up and down and trying to lunge after everything!

And here is my loot:

My Pink Christmas gift!

I love it! I can't wait to find the perfect place to put it in our new place when we move next summer. Thank you Harmony, so much!

For those of you who are wondering what it was that I made for my Pink Christmas gift, here it is:

And for those of you who are wondering what "Pink Christmas" is, you really should check out this link! I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated to try it last year, but I'm so glad I decided to join in this year. Especially for such a great cause. It was an awesome experience.


Finally, here we are at the end of the day. Ethan and Grace are wearing their paper crowns from the "crackers" their Aunt Kristin sent from England, while eating cereal for dinner (after deciding they didn't like the Gumbo Scott and I had been working on all afternoon). What a good mom am I.

It has been a LONG day. I am finally feeling the repercussions of too many late nights and early mornings, and I've got a raging head cold. So, if this post is a bit lackluster, I apologize! I'll try to bring my "A" game next time. Hahaha.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

A Month in Review...

Well, its been a while, and I know all of you have been eagerly awaiting the results of Sophie's RAST test. Apparently her numbers were all through-the-roof-high. As in, any numbers over 17 are considered "extremely highly likely to cause an allergic reaction" and Sophie's were 84 for egg whites, 33 for wheat, and 54 for milk. But only a 3 for soy -- which is ironic, because we've figured out that soy sauce is probably what sent Sophie to the ER in the last post. The nurse practitioner who called with the results also informed me that I would also have to cut all these things out of my diet so that they wouldn't pass through to her. Ummm. Yeah. Let's just say I couldn't last even one day on this diet. I finally broke down at 10:30 at night to have a bowl of cereal because I was STARVING. Luckily after doing some more research and talking to my real pediatrician, I realized that all these restrictions were unnecessary for me.

Since we've eliminated the allergens from SOPHIE'S diet, however, she's been doing much better. She's still pretty tiny, but she is putting on some weight.

Here she is in all her 10 month old glory.

Whew. Okay, that novella is done. Here is what has been happening during the rest of the last month.


Thanksgiving -- My WHOLE family came in town and we were able to have a lot of fun together. We were even able to squeeze in a family picture before everyone left. Here are some candid shots taken by Levi Gruwell, while the real photographer (my brother-in-law's sister, Shannon) snapped away. In retrospect I really wish I would have given Ethan a haircut prior to the photo shoot. And had him coordinate a little better outfit-wise with me, Scott and the girls. Oh well. Live and learn.



The Christmas Season -- Starting about a month ago, I resorted to using a strike system to threaten the children with. Basically, I told them if they get 3 strikes I'll call Santa and tell him they're being naughty. As successful a system as that may seem, it hasn't really done all that much to cut out their antics. To counterbalance the negative reinforcement, I thought I should do something else to get them to behave.

As a kid, we had a family tradition that during the Christmas season, any time we did a service, we could put a piece of straw in the manger of our nativity scene for baby Jesus. I decided to re-enact that idea with the kids, and for Family Home Evening a couple of weeks ago, I turned this:

Into this:
The kids have actually responded much better to this system than the strikes. And even better, they're even recognizing all the little services that I do for them on a daily basis! As in Ethan telling me that I could put a straw in the manger for making their lunch.

Wintry Weather -- We've experienced quite a bit of snow this winter so far. Including one really crazy snow storm last weekend.

The view from our front door.

The Kids -- I went for a parent's day at Ethan's preschool last week as they ended their unit on "Construction." And aside from being really nervous about the saw he was playing with at one of the stations, it was really fun to see him in his classroom.




Ethan and Grace enjoyed building gingerbread houses last week -- and enjoyed eating the candy even more. Check out that spread! We hit up the dollar store for all of the loot.




Projects, Projects, and more Projects -- My sister-in-law had twins right before Thanksgiving, and after they were born, I decided to make quilts for them. So, I made 2 quilts from cutting and piecing to hand-quilting and binding in about 2 weeks. Yes, I am insane. I managed to get their Christmas package mailed out this last week which is just in time because Ella was finally able to come home from the hospital this weekend and join Lucy after a miraculous turn-around from being in the NICU. I used 1930's reproduction prints for the fabrics, and I think the quilts turned out really cute. I'm now debating making some more just like them for my own girlie bugs.




And finally, I participated in Pink Christmas this year, and was excited to deliver my gift today. I won't post a picture just yet of what I made, just on the off chance that she reads this blog, but here is a picture of the wrapped gift.


My gift was delivered to me last week and I'm so excited about it -- especially because I'm determined that this will be the first gift ever in my adult life that I will wait and open on Christmas day. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.


Well, that's about all that's been happening. I apologize that there are not more stories to keep you entertained. But with Christmas right around the corner, I'm sure there are some in the making.

A Trip to the E.R.

Okay, so since the last post's segment about Sophie and all her issues I've been a little concerned about how much she's getting to eat. Its like I wasn't looking at her objectively until someone commented on how small she is and then it kind of hit me that yeah, she IS tiny. And in fact, I think she's shrinking.

So, last Friday during our WIC certification this was confirmed, when they weighed her, and she only weighs 14 pounds. Which is not even on the charts for her age. So, after talking to the nutritionist and explaining how she's been so fussy and seems hungry a lot and at the same time how she seems to be allergic to so many things, she told me to try and feed her as much as I can with the foods that she can eat (don't worry, we're getting to the emergency room part). So, for the last few days, I've been trying to bulk her up with lots of fruits and veggies and baby cereals. Well, last night for dinner, I gave her some kiwi -- which she has had a couple times before -- and she was gobbling them down. However after about 4 or 5 slices, she started to get really fussy and refused to eat any more. Then I started to notice the spots appearing around her mouth. I gave her some benadryl and proceeded to get her jammies on and not until a few minutes later did I notice that her upper lip had swollen to 2 or 3 times its normal size and the lower lip was following suit and she was drooling a ton. After a call to the pediatrician's office after hours line, they told me I should go down to the emergency room in case her tongue and back of her throat started to swell as well.

Here she is after the triage assessment.

And here she is an hour and a half later when she finally fell asleep. You can really see how swollen her lips were still. Sorry its blurry, I was holding her and trying to take the picture all the while trying to keep her asleep.

Luckily the reaction wasn't life-threatening, because we ended up waiting in the waiting room for over 2 hours after the initial triage assessment. Let's just say that there were A LOT of people having emergencies last night. And let's just say that there are A LOT of interesting people in E.R. waiting rooms. I was literally to the point where I was about to just go home, because the swelling had finally started to go down a little and she clearly was still breathing, when they called us to go back.

She got a dose of a steroid -- Prelone -- and a prescription for it and after an explanation of what we should look for in case it were to get worse, we were on our way.

Of course our Sophie problems were not over, because when I took her in for her 9 month check up today, the doctor was concerned with her weight as well. In case you're wondering, she weighs 14 lbs. 2 oz. which is in the 2nd percentile. Not good. And she's only in the 12th percentile for height. In addition, he says her muscle tone is weak and when they checked her blood iron levels, those were on the low side as well. However, because of all her allergy issues, the usual measures for bulking babies up are not really an option. He sent us to the hospital lab for a RAST test, which will check for allergies to wheat, dairy, eggs and soy, and so hopefully after we get those results we'll be able to come up with a better plan of attack. Oh and also in case you're wondering, Ethan and Grace were underfoot and fighting and screaming and otherwise trying to get my attention the whole time I was trying to talk to the doctor and hear what he had to say. Fun times.


In funner news, the kids thoroughly enjoyed Halloween. Which is great for them, but the candy aftermath and sugar fallout sucks for me. Especially since Grace's birthday is the day after Halloween, and the sugar high follows along with it.

Here's the birthday girl at the beginning of the day. She was very excited about her "birthday girl" shirt -- and the tiara.

I think the expression on her face sums her up nicely.


I was glad that I could talk her into a "flower cake," made out of cupcakes. It was the easiest cake I've ever made! And in case you're wondering how I got the frosting so purple, I used NEON food coloring. I love it! The colors are so vibrant.

Here's a shot of Sophie in happier times on Grace's birthday before all the drama began.

And there you have it. The last week or so in a nutshell. I'm beginning to think life is never going to slow down!

Before I close, apparently I've been tagged. So here you go. Six random, heretofore unknown facts about me:

1. I hate driving.
2. I LOVE the chocolate covered cinnamon bears that they sell at the BYU Bookstore. It sounds like a gross combination, but its to DIE for.
3. The summer before my freshman year of high school, my across-the-street neighbor had a baby and had to go back to work sooner than expected (she was a periodontist). I went with her to work almost every day to take care of her newborn for her in the lounge/eating area while she worked. For the whole summer. And she only paid me 2 dollars an hour. To this day, I still get ticked off just thinking about how cheap that was.
4. During my senior year at BYU, my sister Emily and my roommate Heidi decided we wanted to do something to take the "South Carolina boys" in our ward down a few notches. Basically because they thought they were the crap and they really weren't. So, we planned Operation Hot Dog. In case you're wondering what that entailed, we pretty much dressed head-to-toe in black and snuck over there late one night and stuck plastic forks all over their yard with hot dogs speared on them.
5. I'm currently addicted to Costco's "Kashi: Go Lean! Crunch" cereal.
and 6. I've never been to Disneyland.

There you have it folks. Thank you and goodnight.

A Homecoming and Halloween

An episodic recap of our goings-on. But first a picture to whet your appetite for the story that is to come:



A Homecoming



First off we were super-duper excited for the arrival of my little brother, Freddie, fresh off the mish in Costa Rica. He spent a couple weeks at home in New Orleans before coming out here where he is getting himself all set up before starting school again next semester. The kids have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Uncle Dodo.

(twinsies)

My brother-in-law, Andrew, went to pick him up at the airport and apparently didn't even realize that they were dressed like twins until they picked up Sarah after work and she pointed it out. We all went to eat at Costa Vida that night, and Laura was able to hook us up with a fantastic discount because she works there. I'm thinking that having so many of my siblings here this school year is going to be the bomb dot com.

The Witches at Gardner Village
Next up was a field trip of sorts. For the last few weeks we've been wanting to go up to Gardner Village to see the witches that they have on display during the Halloween season. Scott and I went a few years ago while I was still pregnant with Grace, but the kids had never been. And since Scott didn't have school on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of last week, we thought we'd take a little trip up there.

What I should have realized, of course, is that Ethan would be terrified of said witches and would want to leave right away. Grace loved it, though, so before we left we managed to squeeze a few pictures in.

Here are (some of) the witches:

This is the one that was the deal-breaker for Ethan apparently. (The witch was suspended mid-air over a little pond with the wheels spinning, and I guess this really freaked Ethan out).

Our Little Soph (pronounced with a long "o" in case you're wondering)

Its a good thing she's cute, right?

Grace climbed in bed with us this morning and as she settled in next to me asked, "mom, why does Soph (or Soap as she mispronounces it) have so many issues?" Why, indeed. I guess Grace has overheard me describing Sophie quite a bit lately. And what are her issues might you ask? Well, let's see.

She's entered into that ever-splendid phase of separation anxiety.

She seems to be allergic to every food she tries -- so far this includes pretzels, animal crackers, bananas, corn, cow's milk (it was given to her accidentally) and by that same token -- formula (and she won't even try a soy formula, so that pretty much makes me her sole food source. yippee.) And by allergic I mean she either starts wheezing, breaks out in a red rash, throws up, or gets a runny nose. Or all of the above. And over the last few days that I've tried to feed her other baby food, she clamps her mouth shut and pretty much refuses to eat anything.

Other issues? Oh, she won't ever let me put her down. She starts freaking out as soon as she is no longer in my arms. This includes even when she is in other arms -- such as her dad's, or my brother's. I'm really not getting a whole lot done while she's awake these days.

And I think she's teething. She sure is chomping down on anything she can get in her mouth. Hopefully once that's over she'll start to settle down a bit.

Oh wait, and the kids have been passing around a lovely case of pink-eye over the last couple of weeks, and Sophie has now gotten it for the second time.

The (Almost) Birthday Girl

Now onto Grace. In what has become the general philosophy in our household (or at least in Grace's world), why celebrate for one day what you can drag out for weeks? Grace's birthday is this Thursday, but when Emily's birthday package came in the mail last week, she went ahead and ripped into it. As you can see from the pictures she was super excited.



Papi came in town this weekend to see Freddie, and she got another early birthday present.

(Doesn't her hair look so cute? Laura did it for her)

As for her actual birthday DAY, she's already changed her mind a million times about what kind of cake and party theme she wants to have, so it will just have to be a surprise for all of us! Somehow I just know that as soon as I'm finished making her Rainbow cake (which she fell in love with when she saw it on a friend's blog), she will have changed her mind again and throw a fit because she wanted something else.

A Halloween Party

And now on to Halloween. With the MBASA Halloween party on Friday night, I had to get the kids' costumes done ASAP. Luckily Sophie was able to fit into Ethan's pumpkin costume from when he was a baby, so I just had to figure out something for Grace and Ethan. All along, Ethan has been saying that he wanted to be a "cute, little pumpkin, just like Soph." Meanwhile, Grace has changed her mind on a weekly basis (surprise, surprise). First she wanted to be Peter Pan. Then Annie. Then Cinderella -- but with a pink dress, not blue. And then Annie again. And then Cinderella again -- but this time with the blue dress. And finally last week she said she wanted to be a pumpkin just like Ethan and Sophie. I seized upon this and decided that the kids could be a pumpkin patch for Halloween. However, after spending way too much money on my "prototypes" for Enrichment, I realized that the costumes would have to be a cheap affair this year. While at Jo-Ann's last week, I found orange T-shirts on clearance for $1.99 a piece! Score, right? I decided to sew a backing to the front in a few lines for the pumpkins and stuff it with fluff to make it poofy. Its hard to explain, but it only took about 20 minutes to make, and for 4 bucks, we had some costumes. They even looked kind of cute on the kids. Although, as I was making them, of course, Grace wandered in and said she wanted to be a doggy and not a pumpkin. Sorry, girlfriend, too late!

Here is my pumpkin patch:

Sophie's look says it all.

The Halloween party was so awesome. It was really well-done and put together. The kids had a BLAST, and I had the BEST Chicken Tortilla Soup EVER. As soon as I get that recipe I'll have to post it. I had to take a few pictures of how the gym was decorated. And a few more of the kids, of course.




OH! And I had to take pictures of some of the desserts for the "Spooky Dessert Contest." I'm filing them away for future Halloween use.







A Harvest Festival

The very next night we went to a ward "Harvest Festival." It was so awesome. Seriously, I can't believe how well-put-together this thing was. I had to take lots of pictures again, just so I'll have ideas for whenever I may be a Ward Activities Chair.

(This was one of the decorations in the middle of the gym. These are REAL trees!)

There were all kinds of games set up for kids.

It was a family affair, as Sarah and Andrew came, too.

Miscellany

I hadn't taken pictures of these yet for the last post, but these are the blocks that I made as yet another prototype for Enrichment next month. (On the opposite side of "PEACE" is "ETHAN"). I think they came out really cute, and Ethan and Grace both love playing with "their" blocks.



And FINALLY, the story you've all been waiting for. So for the last few weeks, Ethan and Grace's rooms have been an absolute disaster area. We're talking toys and junk everywhere. I'm not even kidding, I think pretty much every toy they own, period, was on their floors. After telling them every day for all those weeks that they needed to clean their rooms, I finally laid down the law last Wednesday and told them that if they didn't clean up I would pick up all their toys and hide them.

Well, they didn't clean up, and as a result, that night around 11 o'clock I told Scott to get the trash bags and we went to work. Is it wrong that I relished doing this? A few minutes into cleaning Ethan's room, he woke up, saw me and jumped out of bed and tried to start picking stuff up and putting it on the shelf where it goes. I told him to get back in bed and go back to sleep and he listened -- probably because he was still half asleep, and I proceeded to pick up. As time went on -- because this was no quick task -- he woke up more and more until he finally worked himself into a full-on melt-down fit.

And then we moved on to Grace's room. She stayed asleep for the first part, but eventually woke up as well and threw her own fit. By the end, it was past midnight, we had two screaming children, and THREE giant garbage bags full of STUFF.

My dilemma now is that the kids really don't play with any of it anyway. And since their meltdowns that night they haven't even asked about the toys. Part of me would love to just get rid of all of it -- because if there are no toys, there are no toys to clean up. But the other part of me knows that eventually they will want to play with them again, and all those bags represent a lot of money spent on toys that I will not want to replenish at a future date. So for now they will just be hanging out, safely hidden, in the basement.

Okay, folks. Hope you've been able to get through all of that! Have a good night.