Christmas

I love the Christmas season. I'm always a little sad when Christmas day arrives because it means it is almost over. We have loved all the time this month that we have shared with so many wonderful friends and family members. As my kids were going to bed on Christmas Eve we were talking about how hard it is for kids to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. What my kids don't realize is that I am just as excited as they are for Christmas morning - not because of what I'm going to receive but because I love to see my kids so happy! We had a quiet day at home and I loved every minute of it. Mostly, I rejoice in the birth of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I love the time to reflect on his birth, life and sacrifice for all of us. Merry Christmas!

Can't wait to see what Santa brought!

We'll soon be getting a pet! Andrew got a parakeet cage and gift card to the pet store.

This is the view we saw of Jared most of the day as he was taking pictures with his new camera. Notice the jersey of his favorite Jazz player.

I think 4 might be the perfect age for Christmas! Kaitlyn loved all her new Barbies and dress up clothes!

Rumor has it that it took Santa hours to assemble this!

Andrew spent all afternoon putting together his Harry Potter castle. We thought a Lego set with 1290 pieces would last for at least a week but we were wrong!

Busy Time of Year

It's that busy time of year when it seems like almost every day there is a fun party or activity to go to. We've enjoyed spending lots of time with friends and family the last couple weeks. Here are some random pictures to catch up on what's been going on.

Kaitlyn's Christmas dress. She wasn't very cooperative about posing but she really did look adorable! I love shopping for a little girl!

Jared just finished his Jr. Jazz season. His team came so close to being undefeated! They lost their last game by just a couple points! He loves playing basketball and still spends a lot of time outside in the cold shooting hoops in our little basketball stand in the driveway. He can't wait until his dad gets around to putting a real one in the backyard.

Kaitlyn's preschool field trip to the Christmas Village. She kept getting behind the group because she could have spent hours looking in the windows!

Kaitlyn's first dance recital! She was so cute and she wasn't nervous at all to be up on stage in front of everyone. Here she is with her dance teacher, Brynn.

Breakfast with Santa at Grandma's house Saturday. It's nice that all my kids are old enough that no one is scared of Santa. Several of their younger cousins were crying!

Last week I was grocery shopping and Kaitlyn was begging me to buy pistachios! I didn't get any because last year Jason was given a huge bag from the hospital. Jason came home for lunch that day and guess what he had! Kaitlyn couldn't wait and found some scissors to open the bag while Jason and I were unloading the groceries from the car!

Late Birthday, Early Christmas

My late birthday and early Christmas present was delivered today! I love it. I'm so excited to have somewhere fun to display all the china I got for my wedding 13 years ago instead of in a closet where no one sees it! It took two years but now every room in our house has at least one piece of furniture!

Here's a more detailed view of the hutch and table top.

Surprise Phone Call

Yesterday the phone rang and when I picked it up someone was speaking in broken English. I assumed it was a wrong number until he asked if Jason was home. I was a little confused until he identified himself as Moises from Brazil! Moises is someone Jason baptized on him mission in Brazil. I have a terrible record with answering the phone when Brazilians call. Several years ago I was woken up in the middle of the night by the phone ringing and when I answered it all I heard was what I thought was Spanish. I yelled at them that they had a wrong number and they had woken me up and hung up on them. It wasn't until I got in bed that I realized that in the middle of the "Spanish" I think I recognized Jason's name. Luckily the caller was brave enough to call back and that time Jason answered the phone.

Anyway, yesterday I managed to get the message across that Jason wasn't home and give Moises his cell phone. Jason came home ecstatic after talking with him! It made me realize how much Jason loved the people he taught on his mission. Jason was able to go to the temple with Moises while he was still in Brazil and in the 15 years since Jason has been home Moises has gone on a mission, served as a branch president once and a bishop twice! I think it really makes the two years Jason gave up to go on a mission worth it to see someone he was able to teach become such a faithful member of the church!

Deck the Halls

I first saw our house 2 1/2 years ago when Jason was interviewing here with IHC and the realtor giving us a tour drove us past the house. I thought it had a lot of charm and loved how unique it was. When we decided to take the job one of the first things I asked is if this house was still available. We looked at dozens of houses but this one just felt the most like home. The first time we went through the house Jason and I both said "This house would be so fun to decorate for Christmas!" Since we moved in January I had to wait almost a whole year but I love it!

Last year when it was time to put up the Christmas lights Jason wasn't too excited about it. (Notice that one of those corners is almost three stories up!) He thought it would be fine to just hang them above the porch but I insisted we get them on the top level as well as hanging wreaths on the windows. Luckily we had a fearless teenage neighbor who wasn't afraid of heights! This year we found a cherry picker type contraption so that no one had to climb to the top. Here it is all lit up at night. I think it was worth it!

When I started shopping I quickly found out how expensive my ideas were so this is a work in progress that I'm adding to every year. Last year I bought the garlands.

This year I bought my own tree so the kids could decorate the real tree how they want and I can have a pretty tree with white lights. (Jason hates white lights.)

I'll probably still add to the tree but I think I'm over budget for this year. Jason thinks I'm going a little overboard. He said it's going to take me a month to get it up and a month to take it down. It only took a week and next year if we stay in town for Thanksgiving I'm pretty confident I can get it up in a weekend!

Thanksgiving in California

My brother, Ethan, and his wife, Cecilia, were visiting LA from Europe in November so we made a quick trip to see my family for Thanksgiving. Ethan was in LA to defend his physics PhD thesis at UCLA. We arrived on Tuesday evening and he defended his thesis Wednesday afternoon. My poor brother! I don't think I've ever seen him under so much stress before! He really looked like he was in bad shape when we got there (and I think he would agree with this statement!) The kids were dying to play with him but we tried to keep them calm and out of the way until he had left for his defense. While he was gone we threw together a party for him. Here are the kids making a sign saying "Congrats Dr. Brown!"

We were all relieved to see Ethan and Cecilia walk in the door with big smiles on their faces. Ethan did a fantastic job and received nothing but praise from his review committee! Congratulations, Ethan! What a great accomplishment! He's moving to Germany now to work in a post doc position while Cecilia works on her PhD (also in physics). Here are the kids with a much happier uncle!

Thanksgiving Day we went to Long Beach to run the Turkey Trot. We were hearing from our family in Utah about the extremely cold weather that had arrived for the weekend and really enjoyed a run on the beach with temperatures in the mid 50s. Jason ran the 10K in 36:52 and placed 4th in the men. This was the fastest he has run the 10K in years! Andrew and I ran the 5K. Andrew smashed his PR by 2 minutes running 23:25. I finished first in the women with 19:55. I won gift cards to a coffee shop (which I gave to my sister-in-law) and tickets to a New Years Eve party in Orange County (which I gave to my brother, Spencer.) The only prize that I was actually able to use was the pumpkin pie although my mom had so many delicious homemade pies that we didn't get around to eating it until a few days later when we got home!

After we got back to my parent's house Kaitlyn started acting like she wasn't feeling too well. A couple hours later she had a fever and fell asleep. She slept through Thanksgiving dinner which kind of put a damper on the day. It was really quiet and we missed having her at the table with us. My mom is a fabulous cook and Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. She makes everything from scratch. Even the bread for her stuffing is made from scratch. Cecilia is French-Italian so she got to experience her first American Thanksgiving. She thought the rainbow jello was a little strange but the boys were happy because they got to eat her piece.

My birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year. I told my mom not to make a cake but as soon as I was out the door for the race she made me one. She wasn't going to decorate it but Cecilia insisted on making it look more like a birthday cake. She had never seen food coloring before and started dumping half the bottle in the icing. My mom told her that was "gobs" but she didn't know what that word meant (by the way, her English is very good!) so she just kept dumping it in! It did make for some bright blue icing! Wow, that's a lot of candles! I got them all out except one in the corner!

A trip to California would never be complete without several trips to the beach. It was easy to tell we were visitors from a colder part of the country since our kids were the only ones in swimming suits playing in the water! The water is always cold there and with temperatures a little cooler than normal it was kind of chilly for a swim! The amazing part is that while the adults were cold sitting on the beach the kids didn't even seem to notice how freezing cold the water was. The last day we were there I wouldn't let Kaitlyn wear her swimsuit since she had been sick but the water was still just too tempting for her and when we left she was wet from the knees down! We watched the dolphins, collected seashells and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the ocean!

Our trip ended up being cut one day short when we had to avoid driving home in a snow storm. I wish we had more time to stay but we loved spending the holiday weekend with my family!

Almost a Surprise

Yesterday was Jason's birthday. Last month when I found out the seventh Harry Potter movie was being released on his birthday I started making plans for a surprise birthday party to see the movie. I've never been able to pull off a surprise party for him. I invited all of his family and bought tickets. He knew I was planning something but I managed to keep the movie a secret. Jason's family came for dinner and we celebrated with presents and cheesecake with the kids. The plan after that was to pick up the babysitter, blindfold Jason and all the adults were going to take him to the movie. It would have been perfect if Jason's brother, who wasn't there, hadn't called him to wish him happy birthday during dinner. The first thing he asked him was "Have you gone to the Harry Potter movie yet?" So my surprise was spoiled. The movie was fantastic though and it was exciting to go on the first day it was released. It made for a great party. I thought the day was over but there was one more surprise waiting for Jason that I didn't know about. Jason's sister, Melanie, didn't go to the movie so she could stay with her little boy. While we were gone she ran to the dollar store to pick up supplies and came back to our house and she and the babysitter helped the kids decorate the house for Jason. I felt a little guilty leaving the kids with a babysitter because they love being right in the middle of birthdays. They had a great time though and it helped them still feel like they were part of the birthday party. They were asleep when we got home but all they could talk about when they got up this morning was decorating the house last night! Here's a picture Melanie took of them while they were decorating. Who knew balloons and crate paper could be so much fun?

I think this was the best surprise of all for Jason. It really made his day!

Fabulous Four

I don't know what I would do without Kaitlyn. She is always giving me reasons to laugh or smile. Last week when my dad was here I had to run to the store to pick up a few things. Kaitlyn stayed home to play with grandpa while I was gone. As I was leaving they were playing Candyland. Kaitlyn was trying to stack the deck so that her first card was the fairy. My dad dealt with that by stacking the candy cane card so that it was her second card and sent her back to the start. It seemed fair to Kaitlyn and everyone was happy when I left. I came home a few minutes later and when I walked in the door Kaitlyn burst into tears saying "Grandpa's not playing fair!" They had switched to playing Memory. The only problem was my dad decided there were too many cards after they had started the game so he turned over all the cards to pull some of the matches out to make the game shorter. In Kaitlyn's mind she was just sure he was cheating!

She's given me a few scares lately too. My dad and I were cleaning some furnace filters and we thought she ran outside with us. We looked all over for her inside and out and couldn't find her anywhere. I was really starting to panic until I noticed the pillows on my bed looked a little funny. She had decided to play a game of hide and seek and was hiding under the pillows. We now have a rule she can't play hide and seek unless she tells me she is going to hide.

Yesterday the activity day girls were at my house making thank you cards. She had a great time being right in the middle of the big girl activity. A lot of the girls were making cards for their moms. I asked Kaitlyn who hers was for and she said "Santa". I wonder where she got that idea from?

While having a 4 year old has its challenges it's also such a fun age. She like a sponge right now soaking up all the information around her. She is constantly giving me tidbits of information and then saying, "Am I right?" The other day she was doing an alphabet dot to dot. She had gotten to K and then asked me where the letter "elemen" was. She's so proud of being able to write her name now. It is fun to watch her so eager to learn!

Dad's Visit

Last week my dad came to visit for Jared's baptism. My mom wasn't able to come and it was different just having my dad here. My dad is great at jobs around the house and I felt kind of bad because I had a bunch of projects waiting for him when he got here. He really is happiest when he's working on the house though and I think he enjoyed it. He installed programmable thermostats, fixed holes in the walls, replaced electrical outlets, fixed some plumbing and hung towel racks. It was fun to have him here and I realized how grateful I am that he is still in good enough health he can travel.

A few weeks ago my friend Don ran a 50 mile race in Ogden Valley. He asked me to pace him for the last 15 miles and when I was getting ready to go I mentioned to my kids that Don is about the same age as my dad. Their response was "and he can still run?!!!" My kids don't really know the dad that I knew growing up. He took us camping, hiking and fishing. He used to love to ski and he's even the one that got me into running. I remember going to watch him run 10Ks and thinking it looked like so much fun! He was always a middle of the pack runner but he enjoyed it and I admired him for it. One of my first 5Ks was in Island Park on the 4th of July. That was also one of Dad's last races. He didn't mind at all that I beat him. It was a very small race and even though he came in last he won a blue ribbon for his age group! Dad got really busy with work after that and never really had time for running anymore. Here's a picture of my family in 1985 in Yellowstone. Too bad Dad has a hat on or you could see he really hasn't always had gray hair!

As the years went on my family saw my dad's health begin to decline but it was so slow it was hard to really notice what was happening. I can't even begin to explain the emotions I felt when I found out he had been diagnosed with M.S. My dad's sister had suffered from M.S. and we had seen the devastating effects it had on her family for years before she passed away. All I could think about was the same thing happening to my dad and I desperately wanted my children to know their grandpa. We soon found out that medications have improved a lot since my aunt suffered from M.S. but there is still no cure. I don't think a day goes by that my mom and dad aren't affected by his disease but he does have good and bad days. I know it is so hard for him not to be able to do so many things that he used to love to do but I'm so grateful for the things he still can do. We had a wonderful time touring Rome with my parents this spring. I think my dad had the trip of a lifetime. He even ran half a block trying to catch an over crowded bus! We had to do lots of walking and he did so much better than I thought. I'm grateful for the days he feels well enough to go to the beach, the zoo, or the park with us. I'm glad he can still travel to Utah and see my kids in their games and activities. Sure their are a lot of things he's had to miss when he's not feeling well but I will cherish every minute that he can spend with my family.

Jared's baptism

Jared was baptized on Saturday. It was a special day for Jared but it was also such a neat experience as a mom. There is nothing quite like seeing your child dressed in white and taking a such an important step in his life. I think days like this are the pay days for all the times when it is hard to be a mom. I was so proud of my sweet little boy. He has been so excited for his baptism and it has been hard to wait for a whole month after he turned eight. He was so proud of getting baptized that he has been telling everyone all week that he was getting baptized on Saturday even if he really didn't know them! My dad and Jason's sister, Melanie, gave some wonderful talks that I hope Jared will always remember. Melanie's husband Sam played "I am a Child of God" on the trombone. Before asking him to play we debated about whether a trombone would be appropriate but it really turned out wonderful and added so much to the meeting. Thanks to everyone who came to support Jared and all the wonderful teachers, friends and family members who have influenced his life!

Not My Thing

A couple weeks ago when my dad was here he pointed to a Halloween block I had bought at Tai Pan and said, "Did you make that?" I laughed and said, "Of course not! I don't make things like that; I buy things like that!" Last night was Fabulous Friday at our church (Super Saturday except on Friday night. For those of you not members of our church it's a craft night for women.) I looked at all the cute things they had at church and signed up for a couple projects without putting any thought into the fact that I had to somehow make mine look cute. I had a great time chatting with friends at dinner but then it was time to pick up our kits and I remembered why I don't do crafts. They were giving us directions and I really started to stress out when they were using words like "mod podge" and I had no idea what that even was! I started thinking about when the last time was I actually attempted a craft activity. It took me a while to figure it out and then I remembered it was Bob.

This is Bob. He visits our house at Christmas time and my kids named him. He's magic and flies back to Santa every night to report on the kids' behavior and then finds a new spot to watch them for the next day. He can't be touched or he loses his magic. He goes back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve and then we don't see him until the next year. My kids adore Bob and I have to admit that I've become pretty fond of him too. It wasn't always that way though. Bob wouldn't even exist if it weren't for my mother-in-law. She is extremely creative and talented. I think she can make anything with a sewing machine and I've never seen anything she made that didn't turn out perfect. She had four boys before her youngest was finally a girl. Now that her daughter is grown and she has several daughters-in-law she loves to find fun crafts to do for girls' day. The only problem is that the fun things she can whip up in a few hours take me days or weeks. Last year she found a pattern for these elves. It sounded cute enough until I started. I had no idea how to turn a bunch of fabric into a stuffed doll. It of course involved several hours of sewing (and unpicking because that's how sewing works for me.) Then we got to the point where we had to turn a ball of fabric and stuffing into an elf's head. For me this was like trying to turn straw into gold. Luckily, I had the help of my mother-in-law and I enjoyed spending the time with her and my sisters-in-law. Thanks to them I think Bob turned out adorable but don't look too close because he's certainly not perfect.

Last night actually turned out better than I thought-especially when I found out Mod Podge is a whole lot like Elmer's glue! Luckily it was all wood and paper so there were no sewing machines involved and I had a great time visiting with my friends while I worked. It took several hours and again, don't look too close, but here's what I came up with.

So for all my creative friends out there. If you want to share your crafty ideas, call it a girls night and let me know. I can always use a night out with my friends and in the end I always like the finished product. If it's left up to me, the next time I want something cute for my house I'll be heading to Tai Pan.

A Week of Halloween Fun

It's been a full week of Halloween activities and by last night we were all exhausted and ready to settle back into our normal routine. Last weekend my parents surprised us with a visit from California to watch the kids in their primary program at church. This year was Andrew's last program and Kaitlyn's first. I couldn't see Kaitlyn from where I was sitting with my class but everyone else told me she not only sang the songs but danced through them too. We enjoyed having my parents here for the weekend and decorated Halloween cookies with them.

Our neighbors, the Warners, always have a pumpkin carving party the week before Halloween with literally over 100 pumpkins. Here are a couple of the pumpkins the kids carved at their house this year.

Friday night was our annual doughnut party. I spent all day in the kitchen making over 50 doughnuts and probably twice that many doughnut holes. This was a tradition started by our friends the Little's when we were living on campus at the U when Jason was in medical school. We loved it so much we had to keep up the tradition when we moved on. We have shared doughnuts with so many wonderful friends over the years. Jason got out what our kids have named "the scary mask" and spent half the evening on the porch scaring people as they came to our house. He has a couple favorite people to scare although I won't mention any names! He made a couple small kids cry and I had to make up a new rule that he couldn't scare anyone under the age of 5. Hopefully their parents are still friends with us! Every year when my feet are aching so bad at the end of the day I wonder if it is worth it but it has been a lot of fun and I don't think my family or neighbors will let me quit at this point!

The kids had so many fun activities to wear their costumes to this week they were almost tired of them by Halloween (not to mention Kaitlyn lost some of hers and the dress was ready to fall apart by last night.) Here are some pictures of them dressed up to go trick-or-treating. Andrew was a ninja, Jared was Harry Potter, and Kaitlyn was Sleeping Beauty.

Just when it was time to go trick-or-treating it started pouring rain. We took our time getting ready to go hoping it would stop but it just kept coming. Jason finally headed out the door with some umbrellas and the kids didn't even complain about getting cold or wet. We also got a beautiful rainbow when the storm was finally about over. We finished the weekend with a family party on Sunday night. What a fun week but I think I can wait a year for more Halloween parties!

A Lesson From Italy

My son, Jared, has always been a slow eater. When he was a toddler the doctors were worried because he stopped gaining weight. We finally realized that we were taking him out of his high chair too soon and if we let him sit there for an hour or so he would eventually get full. The other day I was trying to hurry him through dinner so that we could get on with the ten other things that needed to be done that night and my husband said, "Let him be a little more Italian." If you have been to Italy you know exactly what he meant but if not let me tell you about our first day in Italy.

We arrived in Venice in the afternoon and then had the adventure of finding our way to the island by public transit and then spent an hour wandering the streets lost before finally stumbling on the small alley where our hotel was located. We were feeling extremely jet lagged but decided to try to stay awake until night. We went to the restaurant below our hotel and had some delicious Italian pizza. (American pizza will never taste the same again!) We had the restaurant to ourselves since it was between meal times. When we were done eating we expected the waiter to bring us our bill but we waited, and waited... We were anxious to get out and see some of the sights not to mention we thought we might fall asleep if we sat any longer. He certainly wasn't busy and was right in sight so he knew we were finished. We finally had to get up and ask for our bill. This seemed strange enough but was repeated every time we went to eat. After a few days we realized that when Italians go out to eat they don't just quickly eat their meal and leave. They stay for the whole evening and enjoy their food and the company they are with. No one would ever think of asking you to leave the table. This was a little frustrating when we were trying to get a quick bite to eat before heading to the next attraction but we really enjoyed it when we found a scenic restaurant and when we met up with my family in Rome.

So my goal for now is to be a little more Italian and find time to enjoy life and the people I'm with. The only problem is that Italians are also notoriously late and I hate being late! Now if I can just find the right balance...

Family Pictures

We were way overdue for a family picture so we had some taken last weekend. I have been waiting all year to have pictures taken with the fall leaves. We had scheduled it a couple months in advance and I was worried because most of the leaves still hadn't changed last weekend. It didn't feel much like fall either with temperatures still in the 70s. Our photographer found a great place down by the Ogden River that was pretty though. The kids loved catching the grasshoppers (and I include Jason in the term "kids"- he even liked making me scream by putting them on my shirt!)

The river was a great location for the kids. I'm just glad Jason wasn't trying to fish! There were huge rocks that were a perfect for throwing in the river. It took a lot of self control on the kids part to wait until the pictures were done to throw the rocks. Unfortunately after they had all splashed mud and water all over themselves the photographer realized some of the pictures had been lost and had to retake some!