Odds & Ends

It feels good that we had a productive day yesterday. Lots of odds & ends that have been sitting around cluttering up my life got checked off the list yesterday. Stuff like fix the laundry room door hinge, hang Dave's guitars on the wall so little fingers stop messing with them, hang pictures and my new jewelry case on the wall, and make a dent in the ironing pile, are all out of the way and done. Many of those pesky little things got checked off the bottom of the list, and I am feeling more organized. It is one of my goals for the New Year to maximize every inch of our small space. That means getting uber-organized!

We had new tenants move into Denise and Arnold's old apartment yesterday. They moved out last Saturday and we are all so sad. The boys cried when they found out last Friday night that Daddy would be helping Aunt 'Nisey and Uncle Arnold move their stuff out. Even though we didn't see them every day it was so nice having them close. Mega sad!Milo hung out at our house while Jessie went for some girl time at the Thompson's. These silly boys played with Playdough for over an hour. They are so goofy, and loud.

I don't know about all you Mom's out there, but since I have become a Mom I have learned to be a light sleeper. One of the hardest things for me when we brought our first baby home was getting used to functioning with sleep deprivation. I never realized how good a full nights sleep was until it was gone. So, Mr. Cooper got "puke sick," as we call it, in the early morning hours this morning. After scooping up all the messy bedding and clothes we settled him on the couch with a pot next to him and went back to bed. It didn't matter that I was in a wonderful deep sleep an hour later when Coop started at it again. I was up and out of bed before Dave even rolled over. Oh yeah, he didn't move a muscle because he can sleep through World War III. Not quite, but you get the idea. Someday I'll be able to sleep throught the night. I'm okay with that.

That's all I got for now. I feel like the more I write the less coherent my thoughts are. Time for some sleep.

Syd is ONE!

Already!!!

I was not ready for my baby to turn one. She grew from a snugly, sleepy newborn to curious toddler faster than expected. This year has flown by even though I tried to cherish every month and milestone.

We had a great day and I think Sydney had fun. She wasn't too sure about everyone singing to her, and she completely froze when it was time to blow out her candle like we practiced earlier today. As soon as the candle was out of her cupcake she knew exactly what to do and dug right in. She had lots of fun playing and eating! It was everywhere when she was done, even on the back of her head. We had a little party on Monday night at my parents.More later- I'm falling asleep...............So Sydney opened the present we gave her after cake with Grammy's and Grandpa's there. We plopped it in front of her and she gave everyone a wrinkly-nose face like she was saying, "what am I supposed to do with that?" Daddy showed her what to do (even though we just did this at Christmas) and she tore into her gift and loved it. Every one of our kiddos gets a "softy" blanket and jade necklace for their 1st birthday. It was so precious to see Syd smile and snuggle her new blanket. I had an idea she would love it when she kept pulling the satin binding down off the table to brush on her face while I was sewing it up.

The jade necklace is a tradition that started when Dave brought home a carved jade necklace for little Jessie and me from a trip to New Zealand. They are based on traditional Maori carvings and Sydney's means new beginning, growth and harmony- fitting for our sweet little lamb.

Our Sydney at a glance:

She loves to tease Me by putting her cold hands up my shirt to hear me scream and jump away. Then she giggles and goes for it again.

As soon as she sees Daddy home from work they point at each other and Syd's face (and Daddy's) lights up.

She has 2 top and 2 bottom teeth and already looks so grown up

She loves to take showers

Syd is a patty-cake fiend! seriously. she takes anyone's hands and starts the actions then keeps it going for at least 5 minutes straight. It get so old repeated that many times, but she is beyond cute flinging her hands up in the air and smiling with delight.

Every night after the kids go to bed Syd tries to sneak in to climb on Logan's bed. When I stop her, she squeals and runs toward me for tickles and hugs.

Syd loves to shove her hand down my shirt, for comfort I guess. It's not the most pleasurable thing during the winter when her hands are chilly a lot.

She is almost always happy and content, and has learned to explore every inch of the house. yes, she is getting into everything and making trouble faster than I can keep up.

She loves to get into the kitchen cupboards and haul out glass dishes, bowls, cans of food and kitchen tools

We call her Squidy, NeeNee, the Squid, & Sweet Bebe

Syd loves to squeal when she's happy, or ticked-off

She still has a great appetite and likes to eat anything- favorites are bananas, carrots, Cheerios, spaghetti and warm milk ;)

Syd loves books and finding pens or pencils that the big kids drop so she can write on the floor and walls. The girl's only one and she is already tagging the house. yikes.

We all LOVE this sweet girl and she is definitely the princess at our house.

time is short

I sang at a funeral last night
I am more aware of how fragile our lives are
I am thankful that I know who I am,
know where I'm going,
know that I will be with my family forever
my family is most precious to me
you better believe I thanked God extra last night for the time I have with my family NOW
go hug your spouse/kids/parents/friends/family and tell them you love them
this time never comes again
carpe diem

Snow adventure

It's finally quiet at my home. I'm home sick from church today- just me and Squidy, and it was a long night. She's playing sweetly on the living room floor with the boys' Jungle toy they got for Christmas. I'm staying warm with a cup of peppermint tea and nursing a chest cold and headache. I played too hard last week and now I'm paying for it. It was all worth it though.

We just got back from a week with my family at my brother's house in Utah. All the Cali family flew together and descended upon Ken & Cassie last Saturday. It was so nice to have extra adults to help Dave and I through the airport and on the plane with 4 kids. All the kids were good with traveling (yes!) which means I would love to get away from home a little more. We really haven't traveled because Dave was tied down with school for so many years and we weren't making any money during that time. ;) I pray we can fit in more visits with our family now, especially because my kids are getting older and miss their cousins.
Here's some highlights in pictures, of course;

It was the kids first time on an airplane and they were all fabulous. Toby was the most excited and talked Aunt Lauren's ear off about every aspect of the plane ride and stuff he saw outside. Mr. Cooper kept asking me how high up we were- every 10 minutes. Sydney was good on the plane except the last 20 minutes both ways. She was sick of staring at the same 5 ft radius. I don't blame her- I was too! Jess was cool as a cucumber and listened to her new MP3 player or read the whole time. Visiting Temple Square after flying in to SLC. The kids were SO excited to play in the snow that that's all they wanted to do on the temple grounds. They weren't dressed for it and got cold pretty quickly. Dave got a stomach bug that morning too (me too but not that bad), so he wasn't up for staying too long. We saw the nativity, walked around inside, and did a quick walk around outside to see the lights. They were amazing!We had a little time to kill until it was dark to see the lights so we drove around a little and got Jamba Juice for Dave and my queasy stomachs. This is the Cathedral of the Madeline in SLC. I sang in this church every year at Christmas with the Salt Lake Children's choir. It brought back a lot of memories just driving by at this time of year. I remember it being a dark, cold, kinda scary place as an 8-11 year-old. My cousin Cyndi and I would walk around and "watch" the prayer candles before it was time to practice. There was one time I remember vividly having to scratch my nose SO badly during our performance. Our choir director would give the worst evil eye if you so much as moved an arm upwards so I was petrified to scratch my nose. Memorizing song lyrics while I did the dishes at home, singing in a processional past hundreds of concert goers, and the beautiful songs that I remember to this day all came back to me as I snapped this picture. It was a fun trip down memory lane. Dad took us past this building that he built while we were in the neighborhood, too.
Sunday was a low-key church day. We slept in and got ready for church at 1 o'clock. All the siblings, Cassie and Mom sang in church, and cousin J was ordained a Deacon right after with both sides of the family there. It was nice to see Cassie's family and Jason & Shelley who were visiting. We had a delicious dinner at the church afterwards.

Monday was Dave's Birthday!!! He went swimming and had a huge snowball fight with all the kids and Lauren in the backyard. It had snowed right before we got there and Ken's backyard was about 12 inches of untouched powder for the kids to play in. It didn't take them long to trample over every inch of the yard and use up some snow on this cute snowman. Cassie and I went shopping for food for the week while the babies were sleeping, and I picked up Dave's present at Costco while we were out.
We took family pictures on Tuesday and went to let off some steam with the littles at Kangaroo Zoo while the big kids went to Jump On It. Cassie has a great picture of all the cousins lying all over each other on the floor after the jumpfest. They were exhausted (plan worked!) and everone was hungry. Ken took us to JCW's for gourmet burgers, fries and shakes. We're talking Hickory Bacon, Bacon Blue Cheese, and my pick, the Hawaiian Burger. The shakes were fabulous as well, Grasshopper, Peppermint and EggNog . We had a quiet meal because the kids were busy eating all they could. When we walked out of there Dave said he wanted to come back before we left. It was delicious. Go there and partake if you are ever in American Fork or Lehi, Utah.

The big kids played Settlers of Catan, Mao and Crazy Rummy until the wee hours almost every night, including New Years. We put on Kung Fu Panda for the kids to watch before midnight on New Years and they were all asleep before it ended. Jessie was the only one awake because she had a nap, but even she didn't make it until midnight. The one night all the cousins could stay up together and they crashed.

We fit in lunch at Tucano's which was a must on our list. Dave kind of spur of the moment dropped some major dough on 3 fabulous suits after lunch. Jos. A Banks was having a killer sale of buy 1 suit get 2 free. Dave hasn't worn or owned a suit since his mission 12 years ago, and he has been talking about buying one lately. This deal was too good to pass up so suit shopping we went.

A trip to visit Grandma Payne was also a must on our list for this trip. My sweet Toby has been asking for the last year about his "Grandma that lives in Utah." The kids showed her their tricks, played songs on the piano, talked her ear off about all they have been doing at school and home, and they now think she is a super cool Grammy for handing them an empty clothes basket to slide down the stairs in. They loved it! Thanks for fixing us a delicious dinner Gramma even though we were still waddling around like stuffed turkeys from lunch.
It seems our vacation went by wonderfully slow and too quickly all at the same time. Thank you so much Ken & Cass for opening up your home to us! Thank you Ashlynn and Rylen for letting us take over your room for a week. And thanks Mr. Moose and Breven for sharing your room with J and Toby for the week. We all had such a good time and are thankful no one got 'puke sick' like last time! :)

Happy New Year to all!

So much has been happening this busy Christmas season. All the crazy stuff that I was stressed or nervous about is over now. It's time to spruce up the house, wrap presents and make cookies and crafts with the kids until Christmas comes in.......well it's here. Really, where did December go?

We have been crafting a lot actually. Ever since Mom and I sang at this Creche Concert at the beginning of the month I was inspired to make our own family creche. As Jessie and I wandered through rooms full of nativity scenes from countries all over the world, made from almost any material imaginable, I had the coolest idea. How awesome would it be to surround my own home with many different nativity scenes that our family made every year? When my children are grown and gone I want to remember these early Christmas' and this is one way we will do so. The medium of choice this year was clay because all the kids, even the grown-up ones, love it, it is cheap (1/2 off at Michaels a lot), and I already had some. We started our project after a review of the Christmas story for Family Night last Monday. Daddy was in charge of making Joseph and Mary, Jessie really wanted to make baby Jesus and the manger, Toby was forming some adorable sheep, and I helped Logan stay out of trouble and started the Wisemen. We will add some shepherds, a star, maybe a few different animals, the manger and an angel. When I first mentioned to the fam what we were going to do they kind of looked at me funny. After we got started though, everyone was having so much fun and saying we should do this every year. Aaaahhhh, I love it when a plan comes together!This is one of my favorites from the Crech Exhibit and below is the beginning of our family one. I feel kind of snookered into being Jessie's room parent at school this year. No one else (who all have less kids and probably more time) volunteered and I was the last one out the door at Back to School night. I want to be involved in Jessie's class as much as possible and her teacher asked pretty, super please if I would step up and be room parent. It has been fun but only after the worrying about planning parties is over. Her party was last Friday and we had a good time. I also went in the day before to help Mrs. L roll out and bake sugar cookies with the class. Mrs. L whipped up some icing for the kids to decorate a few cookies. I learned that almond extract instead of vanilla in frosting recipes is SO good. I will do that from now on.
Anyway, I'm feeling too long-winded. J's party went well but we ran out of time. 30 minutes goes fast. We made these reindeer, ate some healthy snacks, and did a gift unwrap relay. The relay was super fun. Wrap up a few gifts several times with a direction taped on the top. You could use wrapping paper, newspaper, or all those ads that pile up in the mail every week. Each person has to unwrap their layer while following the direction, like "bark like a dog," sing "Jingle Bells," or "do 10 jumping jacks."

We sang at the temple Wednesday night which was a lot of fun. Mom, Dan, Tom, Denise and some friends sang and my Mr. Bennett and Denise's Arnold played guitars. The 2 programs went well, the second better than the first, and we had lots of family and friends there to help with kids. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for taking the kids! I'm so thankful I didn't get the nasty chest cold that Mr. Bennett had- an answer to prayers. I would have planned another trip to the temple on a night we weren't performing, so that Dave and I could wander around and go to the visitors center with the kids. They had fun with friends, but every year we sing I can't be there with them. I'm also kicking myself for not remembering to get a picture of our group at the end. I forget every year and it's a time I really want to remember. Singing with friends and family is the best.

Lastly, we took our annual trip to Christmas in the Park in San Jose for Family Night a couple nights ago. Lauren made yummy chili and baked potatoes at her house for dinner. It wasn't too cold. All the kids took their letters and personally delivered them to Santa. The people in back of us in line thought that was the cutest thing ever. It was. We drank huge cups of hot chocolate as per tradition. We saw some cool trees and lights. Our group sang carols with a big group of Elders and Sisters from the church. We ran out of time for the kids to ride any of the rides and they were too freakin' expensive. I promised them we would do rides next year and drink smaller hot chocolates (they weren't cheap either). Really though, it was all worth it. Coop is getting bigger and easier to take out in big groups. Little Syd was good and slept in the stroller a lot of the time. J and Toby loved horsin' around with their uncles. The kids loved riding the light rail from Dan & Lauren's house to see Santa. There was a glass-blower making ornaments which kept the kids attention until he finished. They didn't want to leave to see Santa until the ornament was done. The guy had a huge glowing furnace and was sticking rods into numerous colored flames in his observation box. What hobby could be better for little boys? They were mezmerized.

Merry Christmas to all!!