Holly Jolly

HO HO HO!!! We left our Grandview winter wonderland and drove to the BROWN HOUSE for Christmas this year…

…BUT before we left, we had a great WHITE Christmas first:

Dec 23rd, we went to the White House to open presents before we left for the Brown House. It was awesome having two Christmases, I’m not going to lie.

Check out my sweet new gardening gloves! My kitchen received some exciting additions this Christmas too. Jay adores the little basketball hoop and Mega Legos that Dan, Leslie, and Stephanie gave him.

My tight, baby-filled stomach can barely handle all of the laughs Jay gives us!

“Up north” near Seattle, Jay enjoyed playing with MahMa (Grama) and Meh (Mel) and Bapa (Grampa) and “the unks” (uncles Brad and Kyle). Family time at Christmas is our favorite!

Putting “the angel” on top of the tree. Jay’s strong uncles hoisted him through all levels of the atmosphere! Poor Aunt Mel accidentally dropped him once, and thankfully things tamed down a bit after that.

Cereal box hat! Santa-bellied Mama!

Playing with Mel

Uncle Brad! This was his last Christmas as an UNmarried man.

I forgot to bring Jay’s stocking, so we improvised. I taped a piece of paper onto my sister Em’s stocking since she wasn’t around to use it this year. Sorry, Em!  At least her stocking got USED again…it’s been a while! (Jeff and I shared my good ‘ole stocking)

Stockings are my favorite part of Christmas!!! (a close second is…my Christmas tree headband!)

I love this picture! Dad gave Mom an iPad, and this was her reaction when she opened it. I think she was saying “WHAAAT?” when I took this picture. Dad and Kyle spent the next few days showing her all of its COOL features, and smirking/gloating every time she admitted that she likes it a lot. I love my Mom.

Jay really likes this cool bath toy that my parents gave him. It took him about 2 seconds to figure it out. Now he asks for a bath about 3 times a day.

And NOW, to reveal what I made to give my family for Christmas this year! I had tons of fun with all of these intense projects, and only felt overwhelmed a few times! Drumroll…

1.      30 beanbags—6 sets of 5—for juggling!

(plus carrying bags)

2.    24 Thank You cards—4 sets of 6—my biggest project! These little beauties have short-circuited my creativity for the time being.

(bound in their little pouches)

I made Jay a fun little magnetic fishing game. I don’t know who likes it better—me or Jay! I couldn’t resist playing with it a few times before Christmas. 
[if you’re curious, the ingredients are: felt, buttons, and safety pins for the fishies, PVC pipe (leftover from my curtains), ribbon, and magnet for the pole, the bottom of a juice jug for the bucket, and a leftover part of one of my sheet curtains for the water. $O.]

3. Family Face Magnets for Jay!!! I printed the pictures from our computer and  used extra-thick cardboard, heavy-duty packing tape, and some old peel-and–stick magnet strips that I’ve had forever to make these. Jay likes them even more than I thought he would. So far he likes to bring me faces, tell me who they are, and point out their teeth. (and yes, Dani, you are stuck in our family now no matter what—I made a MAGNET of you! (she’s Brad’s fiancé)

4. I also made Jeff a sweet indoor frisbee golf kit, complete with old sour cream container lids for frisbees, hoops to fly them through, targets to hit, objects to knock over and score sheets, but I don’t have a picture of it.

OK, now you know how I spent my December. I love MAKING Christmas gifts because they feel much more meaningful when I take the time to dream up ideas and then try to make them into gifts. As selfish as this sounds, it doubles the JOY of giving!!!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!!

4 Years Ago On Dec 20th…

…we were here…

…doing a little bit ‘o this…

…and a LOT ‘o this…

…and some ‘o this…

HOOORAH FOR AN AMAZING 4 YEARS!!!

Twirling!

This is what Jay was doing last night:

Jay had been spinning around in circles for a while before I took this video. Before that, he had been trying on my shoes (do you see them back there?)

Lately, Jay has been trying on my shoes (not Jeff’s for some reason). He takes one pair down at a time, walks around in it, puts it back, and then tries on another one. I need a picture of him in my Sunday shoes.

Jay also likes trying on Jeff’s hat and gloves. Here he is in all of his finery! He calls gloves “bye-byes.” Maybe because they make his hands so much bigger so he can wave?

Since we’re going away for Christmas, we opened one “present” early this year—the big one. It is technically a wedding gift—we got a Pottery Barn gift card for a wedding gift 4 years ago. It took us FOREVER to figure out what to use it on! So we got this cool foam armchair for Jay. Another surface to climb on!

Meanwhile, Jeff got a TEACHING JOB! Before you get too excited, it’s not full time--sadly. He will be an adjunct teacher at the community college here, teaching 6 credit hours. The job pays about as much as he could make substitute teaching, with way easier hours. We’re excited that he will have consistent work starting January 3rd!

As for me, I have been crafting up a storm! The only project I can tell about right now is the sun room curtains. I made them out of sheets. We used PVC pipes as curtain rods. This whole room of 6 curtains cost $10!!! [The pinkish curtains are actually rainbow striped, but it’s hard to tell in this picture] We feel so protected from the prying eyes of the world now!

This week Jeff and I also “frosted” our front door—it’s glass, so everyone could see straight into our living room. We staple-gunned some insulating plastic and tissue paper over the window. I had a hard time cutting in straight lines (as usual)—this picture is pretty forgiving because it’s taken at an angle! It’s kind of a ramshackle fix, but the cool static cling window coverings were toooo expensive. As for my many other fun projects, you’ll just have to wait till after Christmas to hear about them!

A Wedding!

Weddings = happiness. Temple weddings = JOY!!! Saturday, December 11th, Jeff’s sister Stephanie got married to Jasen Gibbons in the Salt Lake City temple. It was such a wonderful, beautiful day. Steph was glowing. Jasen was dashing. I cried.

Coming out of the temple—we all loved Steph’s pink Ugg boots.

The “wedding party” at the temple.

Siblings.

Sniff. I love this tender picture. Side note—Steph asked ME of all unlikely people to do her hair!  I was so nervous about it! I did my best braid for her, and she added all of the stylish finishing touches.

Admiring the Boots. My job in these pictures was to tuck away my 7 month belly and try to look graceful in my homemade skirt and sister missionary-style loafers. It was hard work, because I was exhausted at the end of the day!

Jay’s Uncle Sam wore him out while we were all in the temple, as you can see by the dazed expression on his face. Sadly, Jeff and I never managed to get a picture with the happy couple. Oh well, they know we  love them!

And now, on to The Reception! Doesn’t Steph have good taste? She directed all of this décor and we as her army of family members did our best to execute. I thought it was quite classy. They rented a big house for the reception, and the out-of-town family members slept there too instead of a hotel. It was a great idea—we could put Jay to bed and then keep right on working (or partying!).

My cousin-in-law-in-law (Whitney) and I finally met!!! We’ve been Facebook buddies for over a year now, and it was so fun to actually spend time together in person! She and I are nearly the same height. Double awesome. Too bad we failed at getting a good picture that night. Ghostly!

Here are some other details about the trip:

• We drove down to Utah on Wed Dec. 8th, and returned on Sunday the 12th. Jeff, Jay, and I squeezed into the back of Dan and Leslie’s (Jeff’s parents) car and hitched a ride with them for the 10 hour trip to Salt Lake City. Squish! Jay surprised us by being an angel! He loved having Mama and Dada right next to him all day long. I think he did better than I did on the drive. I was tired, sore, and cranky by the end!
• I got to see another one of my favorite people while we were there—on Friday, Jay and I hijacked the Maxima and drove to Provo to spend the day with my dear ole roomie, Laurs. She had to babysit 2 kids for the day, so we just hung out with all of them.
• Chick-fil-A for dinner. mmmm. In the public restroom at the mall where Chick-fil-A was, Jay suck his hand in the toilet before I could flush it! eeeew!
• Steph felt bad that everyone turned out to have coordinating clothes except Jay and I (even though it wasn’t planned that way) so she gave me that nice black shirt, and Jay that snazzy sweater vest outfit! She has good taste, and it was so sweet of her to even notice something so insignificant in the craziness of her wedding week!
• Even with that nice new shirt, I confess that attending a wedding while 7 months pregnant was humbling because I felt so huge and cowlike. Everyone was so nice about my belly, but it really stuck out and bugged me. Rose, be ye thankful.
• We worked our BOOTIES off with all of the reception preparations. My feet were in agony the whole time, probably thanks to 1.Rose and 2. the hard tile floors in the house. I was sad that Jeff and I never made it to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights because my feet hurt too badly to permit a leisurely stroll of any length. Boo. Maybe another year.
• The house that we all stayed in had a ping pong table in the basement. The Gibbons family is a fun bunch, and we had some wild games of 7 person around-the-world ping pong late into the night. Even I played!

Whew! That trip to Utah was an exhausting whirlwind! But it was SO worth it. Before Saturday, I had never been to another temple sealing other than my own. Like I said before, it was joyous! I’m so happy for Steph and Jasen. Yay for FAMILY!

10…9…8…

Weeehaw! As of today, Rose’s weeks in the womb are in the single digits! Only 9 more weeks till February 6th! I think that technically means that my stomach has to grow 9 more inches—one inch per week! I think that seems excessive:

When Jay clings to my knees, he has to really crane his neck back far to see around my stomach these days!

Today: 31 weeks. Hippo or Whale? I feel so heavy!

And now, on to FAR cuter things:

Jay loves to climb! He climbs (and falls off of) chairs, tables, stools, boxes, the couch, the fireplace, and most other 3-D objects. He especially likes to climb onto the table and steal whatever he can get his hands on. I’m just glad he doesn’t climb the Christmas tree!

Jay LOVES his Dada! Every day he asks me about a million times: “Dada? Dada? Dada?” over and over until I say something like, “He’s at work,” or “He’ll be back later.” Every other night, Jay wakes up around 2 or 3am and comes pitter-pattering in to check that Jeff is home—he goes straight to Jeff’s side of the bed and repeats his “Dada? Dada? Dada?” till Jeff wakes up. The evil angel on my left shoulder is secretly glad that Jay chooses to wake up Jeff, because then Jeff puts him back to bed and I get to stay under the warm covers!

Other STUFF that’s going on around here:

1. This is the end of my first official week as our ward’s Primary secretary. Let me just say I thought I was pretty organized until I became a secretary! I have definitely had more mistakes than successes. Bah, it is tricky figuring WHAT to do and HOW to do it!
2. Doctor office delays. I have to go to el doctor every 2 weeks now. (Why?) I am sick of spending hours at the doctor for a measly pee-in-a-cup-measure-belly-check-blood-pressure-listen-to-heartbeat checkup! My latest record: 1 1/2 hours! With Jay. AHHHHHHH
3. Jay must be growing—he’s been eating SO MUCH! He had 2 whole chicken puffs one night this week, and at the ward Christmas party, he had 3 pancakes and a sausage patty! I think he gained a pound or 2 this week.
4. I’ve been working extra hard and taxing all my creative faculties to make homemade Christmas gifts. (relations—get excited)
5. Jeff has been working a-plenty—sub during the day, computer lab monitor at night. Jay and I miss him during the week.
6. I’m reading Little Women, and it is such a sweet, touching book. I want to be just like Mrs. March. Soon I may feel the urge to type you up some of the golden quotes in it!

The End.