Christmas Spirit

The Christmas spirit *I googled Christmas Spirit and that's the photo I got. Fitting enough for me* has certainly weaved its way into my heart already. I know! I know! Its not even Thanksgiving. But I can't help it. I just love Christmas. Now as more of an adult than I was 10 years ago... or for that matter just one year ago. No I do not classify myself as an actual adult yet. I don't want the responsibility that lies behind that one word. Digressing! Aaaaand moving on. What I was originally trying to say here was that as a child and teenager, Christmas was really all about the gifts. I am a little ashamed of myself now. This was not because my parents made it out like that for us, we did the twelve days of Christmas for needy families.

We re-enacted the classic manger story. We read from a book almost every night about Christmas stories of giving, loving and caring. My parents did a wonderful job of showing me what the season of CHRISTmas was all about. As an almost adult or an adult in denial of being an adult- I finally get it.

My heart if full of the love this season brings. And yes the phrase 'my heart is full' is truly the best description of how I feel. I want to sit at home and listen to Christmas music.

I want to hear songs from Santa Baby to Silent Night to The Grinch because it really does make me so happy!I can't be in a bad mood with Christmas music playing. My two little boys are still just experiencing this season, this will be Ethan's first Christmas and Ayden's third. Ayden is beginning to love the music.

He'll enthusiastically dance around the house when the Tran-siberian Orchestra blares Carol of the Bells from our computer while Ethan will stand against the couch bouncing up and down, right now that's the extent of his dance moves. Ayden's making little snowmen out of his toy balls. "Look Mommy!" and "Mommy watch, its a 'noman" (noman= snowman) are normal things I hear.

People are beginning to hang their Christmas lights. It is so beautiful. I can't help but stop or slow down my car when I pass rows of trees wrapped in red sparkling lights or coated in snow.

There is a home I pass with blue snowflake lights standing across their lawn. I can't get enough of it. I'd surely get in a car accident if started to snow heavily while I was driving, not because of losing control of my car, but because I would be so distracted by the snowflakes. I could sit and watch one snowflake rise and fall in flurries with millions of others and feel completely satisfied with how I spent my time. Christmas mesmerizes me.

I get to see people wearing peacoats and scarves. Gloves and boots. All cozied up and warm. My two little children wearing their snow gear, reminding me of the little boy from the Christmas Story.

Cute little Ethan in a jumpsuit made to withstand any natural disaster and Ayden stylin' more than Mckay and I in his plaid snow pants and matching coat. I cannot wait to take Ayden sledding. Utah never disappoints when it comes to snow and little sleds are a dime a dozen.

I wish I could let you see through my eyes and feel what I feel when I get this way. It is a blessed feeling. Perhaps its because I'm an artist- yes I use that term loosely- that I feel the way I do about the things that I see. I thank my Heavenly Father every day for the blessing of sight and for a particular fascination with how each snowflake is different *supposedly* or how glorious little twinkling lights look. You want to talk about an amazing artist. Forget Van Gogh and Monet or Picaso. God is the most perfect artist I know. He sweeps me away with all of the beauty he's created.

I love this Season. We get to honor Christ. We get to serve others. We get to celebrate with family. We get to feel like I do now! We get to be blessed abundantly. Allow Christmas to suck you in!

Potty Training Take 1

McKay and I are going to give this potty training thing a try. Our chance of success? about 0%. . .

. . . Buuuuuut maybe he'll surprise us. We're both just getting SO sick of changing his nasty diapers.

Ayden's Vacuum Encounter

Yesterday and today and probably the rest of this week was and IS cleaning the WHOLE house week. We rent. That's no surprise. So... things like poorly caulked tubs, rust, old faucets, and mold are pretty normal. The only problem with that last one, mold- yes we do have it somewhere in our townhouse, is that it reeks and in our case, it is also hidden! Mckay and I are cleaning the entire house before we call our landlord and if he doesn't do anything about it, we might have someone else come in OR we might just move, because mold it gross and phantom mold is even nastier!

Back to the cleaning story, because this post is really all about our 2 1/2 year old son. :) Yesterday I was upstairs cleaning Ethan's room. Ayden was running around tormenting Ethan and Ethan was crawling around egging Ayden on. Yep a 10 month old can tease! Who-da-thunk-it? About the entire time McKay and I were upstairs, Ayden had a little nugget of his sandwich left which he was holding in his hand. He decided that if he put the ball of sandwich down he could more efficiently play. So he stashed it on the window shelf behind the blinds. As I was sure, it would sit, until the end of time unless I cleaned it up. So what'd I do? Left it there until I finished more important things. I really wanted to get a good deep clean of Ethan's room- maybe the mold origin was hiding in there! *it wasn't* I decide that his blinds were first to be cleaned and headed down to get the vacuum. No one paid any attention to me until I switched the vacuum on. Ayden screamed, ran into his room and slammed the door. Lately he has become terrified of our purple beast. I pulled out the arm extension on the vacuum and proceeded to wipe down the blinds, not all that concerned about his fright.

McKay was watching Ayden while I was doing this. He opened his door, poked his head out, snuck back to Ethan's room, cried in horror and ran back to his room only to slam the door again. He did this about three times and each time he became more agitated. The last time he stood in Ethan's doorway and cried like the end of his life was around the corner. I turned the vacuum off, clearly surprised that he was so upset. McKay asked what was wrong and through his tear streaked face and sobs he pointed to the blinds and said 'My Sanwich! My Sanwich!' in a voice filled with despair.

Trying not to laugh I grabbed his little balled up sandwich and held my hand out to him. He ran over warily eying the vacuum, snatched it up and ran determinedly back into his room where he once again slammed his door.

McKay and I could not stop laughing! It was so cute! He was so scared that the vacuum was going to eat his food that he'd stashed away, which I guess he DID intend to come back for. Now I just have to hope that he didn't hide it in his bedroom and that he really did eat it!

Somethings in the air. . .

And no I do NOT mean that moldy smell we just can't seem to find. Who hates renting? [looks around and raises hand] Yeah. That'd be me!

 

McKay and I do not have a lot of these moments.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Clearly they're not breathing the same air we are.

Look! No one is biting, punching or scratching!

My boys' time together is usually like an episode from Maury. Especially when you get two nasty, angry, huge black woman up on the stage that just so happen to hate each other for some stupid reason. But today, Blue's Clues brought them together.

Thanks Blue's Clues! Now if only I can figure out how to do that without the TV.

On another note. Ayden has taken lately to walking around in everyone's shoes. The craziest one I've caught him in so far?

My booties. Yes they actually are called booties, although I must admit I prefer ankle boots.

Strut your stuff Ayden... strut your stuff.

Vaca-muh-cation!

Ok, more like a weekend getaway. But it was totally worth it! McKay and I one night, after a call from my Grandma Esplin, decided to do something crazy. Take our two children, stuff them in our 14 year old car and drive 4-hours up to Burley, Idaho; *furiously clicking* Population... 9,105. And by the time all of our relatives arrived. 9,122... or more. I could be off by a bit. And then we thought it would be a good idea to stuff all 17 relatives... don't forget- possibly more, into a somewhat small house. It would be considered only accomodating because we forced it to be. Luckily, McKay and I arrived the night before everyone else and because we have two little children, we actually got a room. If you're curious like me and you don't know the whole story, you may be wondering why in the heck a call from my Grandma would make three families and a few college strays drive up to Burley. Don't get too excited the answer isn't going to shock you- it was my grandpa's 71st birthday and we all just happened to live close enough to come up or down or sideways to be there!

 If you didn't get it by my emphasis before on how small Burley is, let me remind you again. Burley is really small and there really isn't much to do there. So all of the kids went to a local park to play. Holy crud it was freezing! By the way, Of the 17 people 12 were kids.

This photo here is of Ayden getting very excited about the doggy in the background.

Anyway, my boys got all bundled up and we drove to the park with Aunt Lissa, Melissa for those of you that have trouble translating, and her friend-boyfriend-something friend and played around until fingers started to turn blue.

 Ethan was the first to suffer the purple fingers. You can see them turning red here. And don't worry- that pant leg got pulled down right after this shot!! Brrrr! Poor guy! Although, of everyone there, my kids were bundled up the most. I even forgot to bring my own sweater. What was I thinking?! Lets just stop there and assume that I really wasn't. Because if I actually was thinking that would imply that my thoughts are not all that intelligent.

 After about 20 minutes of playing on the actual play structure, this is where most everyone ended up- the Merry-Go-Round *said in a deep despising voice* Its not exactly a thing that Ethan and Ayden can play on with the big kids. You remember being a kid right?? You try to go as fast as you can on those things and see if anyone flies off or pukes. So, IF my two year old were to participate, he would be the first to fly off and then probably the first to hurle. I'm not even going to address the issue with little Ethan!

Ayden waiting patiently for his turn and all the big kids were nice about letting it go slow when he got on. Two of them even stuck their feet out like a wall where he was sitting so if he slid toward the outside he'd bump into their legs. I was convinced of the soundness of the leg-wall. NoThInG was getting through the leg-wall! *nervous laughter*

After Ayden's turn was finished he chilled with Lissa some more. He definitely likes her. She's kinda of a sucker for his standing in front of her and begging 'det up. Det up. Please.'

We also managed to get a photo with all of us there. See that shirt I'm wearing. SHORT SLEEVE!! And see how bright it is outside! If you really can't tell if its 2pm or 7pm. Let me give you a hint. The sun is gone and I'm pretty sure it was close to my kids' bedtime. Ethan has already gone into a survival mode in this photo. He knows that if he smiles he might lose some heat out of his mouth. *wonders if anyone bought that, shrug- oh well* He was clearly ready to go home.

But what's the purpose of going outside if its not to play in a leaf pile you found! He certainly enjoyed this for about as long as this video ran. It didn't help much that Ayden was doing what Ayden does best. After he was very clear to me that he had had enough of this thing called 'play', we went and hid in the car.

Oh sweet sweet nectar of the heater!

While we were in Burley, we did more than just played at the park. We gorged ourselves on a delicious ham, ptotato and veggie dinner in honor of the birthday Grandpa! We played games likes Stop Thief, Mancala, Apples to Apples, Pictionary and Ticket to Ride. My Grandma had a system set up. It can't be just play games and choose what you want. It had to be every 25 minutes you switch to a new game with new people. And if you tried to add a game to her set up you couldn't. BUT it was still fun, even with a slighty controlling/OCD Grandma.

We ended up driving home Sunday afternoon and have realized that our car just can't really hack 4-hour drives. Dang thing. Luckily we're buying a new car soon! Woo hoo! 

Costume time!

What is awesome about Halloween? I have to say everything!! I love Halloween. It is so much fun to dress up and go out all night partying. Eating crap candy, skeleton shaped veggies, spider cupcakes, caramel apples, apple cider or wassail. There's cute little trick-or-treaters all over the place. And of course my own cute little trick-or-treaters! ...........and maybe the other kids running around aren't exactly. . . little. They're actually mostly too old for trick-or-treating and they take more than one piece of candy. When I said you could have one I meant you could ONLY have one. Not one of each type! And the. . .er. . . partying all night thing... I guess we party all night if it counts as McKay, our friend Chris, the boys and I shuffling around the house trying to find something to do. But really- I LOVE Halloween!

We had a company party. Each department at work gets to decorate their area and then prizes are handed out to the best decorated, or most scary, or coolest theme. My department is somewhat lacking in their artistic abilities.  The photo above? With the streamers and my little lion? Yeah- that's about as decorative as my department got. Pah-fe-tic! *pathetic* I've decided that next year Amber and I will be in charge. She works there too and we are sick of the embarrassing set up we always have. There were some departments that were pretty cool. One place actually brought in a couple of fountains, made a pond, had a bridge and bushes and "animals" with the theme 'Haunted Swamp'. It was pretty impressive. One area was themed 'The Night Before Christmas' others just had massive black plastic draping from the ceiling with either blood, creepy dolls, or other strange patterns highlighted with black lights. Ayden wasn't too thrilled about going through one that had a fog machine in it. At least the places that were supposed to be scary did a good job of not scaring my toddler. Ethan could care less. He was just curious.

By the time we were finished trick or treating around the building Ethan was about clocked out. He had lost the bottom half of his costume since he was so nice and toasty and Ayden had filled two little felt buckets full of candy as well as our pockets. It was a good day.

Once Halloween actually rolled around Ayden and Ethan had both collected runny noses from other children at the company party. Eh, it was bound to happen. We made bank on Halloween as well. I mean- look at that face. Who can say no to such a cute face?

You could? Ok fine... how about these faces!?

Ok ok, I know that at least GG-Pa can't say no to their cuteness. And neither can the two wards we trunk-or-treated to. If for some reason you don't know what that is. Imagine going to a church parking lot and everyone's car trunk is facing out. Some are decorated and some are not and then each car has a bowl of candy you collect out of. And a picture is linked if you're really curious.

They're really fun and a safe alternative for someone like me that has a 2 1/2 year old and a 9 month old.

The churches here in Utah are close enough to walk to. So, naturally we walked and as soon as McKay mentioned that Ayden was walking too slow and that on the way home he would carry him on his shoulders, Ayden stepped in front of him and stuck his arms in the air. "Det up? der ur igup solders? Det up solders?" And yes- we understood about half of what he said too.

Trick or treating is pretty tiring though.

GG-Pa was making sure Ethan got his fair share of candies.

And after a looong day of trunk or treating at GG-Pa's ward and then our own ward we went home and chilled. We also learned that our little lion is not a meat lovin lion but instead a bread hunting and loving lion.

This year we only got two trick-or-treaters. It was pretty nice actually.