22 weeks

This is what I looked like last week and now I think I've officially "popped".
There's no hiding it anymore! Not that I want to hide it but it's sort of weird looking chubby for a while...

Hello booty!!


And now that the puking slash complete and utter exhaustion have somewhat subsided (seriously though how do people keep having baby after baby after baby?!?! I have no idea since I've been scraping by these last 5 or so months) I have been feeling a little "nesty".
So I made some roman shades for my kitchen and it is amazing how much more light comes into my kitchen. I wish I had a before picture for comparison but I don't.
And I guess you'll just have to believe me on the "looking lighter" thing since I never remember to take pictures until it's night and dark.



And another cool thing I figured out a while ago that I wanted to share--- the rug in my family room smelled like pee or rotten milk or a nasty combo of the two. I was this close to throwing it out when I read somewhere that you can take them to the car wash and just hose them down with that high pressure water hose thingy. Well, I couldn't find that kind of car wash anywhere around here, so I just hung the stinky thing on my fence and hosed it down. And let the filth run out. Honestly. Nastiness. It was brown and it took forever and ever to dry (hello humidity) but it finally did and now the smell is gone. I can't recommend this for everyone because I don't want to be responsible for ruining your favorite rug, but if you get to the point where you're ready to throw it out (and you've tried every carpet cleaner in Target and rented those steam carpet cleaners from Lowe's a million times already) then it's worth a try!
Here's my rug hanging inside to dry. So fresh and so clean, clean.

11 years

Dear Lewis,

Happy anniversary! I thought I'd take a minute to say it here on the ol' blog while Cate is NOT SLEEPING but at least she's sitting pretty quietly in our bed listening to Mimimaid (aka Little Mermaid) sing "part of your world" over and over on repeat on my ipod. That girl just did not feel like taking a nap today. I partly blame it on you. See, we're all real glad that you've been home more at bedtime this month, but you've spoiled her by laying next to her every night while she goes to sleep. But anyway back to the anniversary message...

I wish I was sitting somewhere on some remote warm beach alone with you instead of here alone with that little monster who refuses to sleep, but I'm not. Instead, you are on call and won't be home until tomorrow afternoon and I have youth conference this weekend and will have a house full of silly 14 to 18 year old girls staying here tonight. Such is life. Someday we will celebrate an anniversary somewhere fancy or remote or wonderful, but this is our real life now. We're in the thick of it and I'm sure glad I've got you to walk through it with me. Time to wrap it up, sweetcheeks herself just came walking out of the room. I'm pretty sure she's trying to see if she can get me to pull my own hair out.

So here's to those future trips to far off places and here's to real life. Cheers!

I love you Lew! (Can't wait for you go enjoy those new running shoes!! ahem)

JJ

Probably the greatest thing that's ever come home from school

Don't you agree?

500th post Christmas pictures

This is my 500th post, so I guess the right thing to do is fill it with pictures from our Christmas trip that were all taken with our old junky camera!
On the trip out Cate made sure Ariel and Eric were safe.

Working on the snowman. I see a future camp director developing here...
Visiting temple square to see the lights:
Then the Panda afterward. I would like to say it's changed for the worse but I actually think it's always been that much of a hole.
At Incredible Pizza they have lots of games as well as bowling, go karts, mini golf, and laser tag. As usual, the dads had at least as much fun as the kids!
Sledding at Mountain Dell, Lewis broke his tailbone so don't ask him how it was.
Christmas morning. I couldn't even get the whole tree in the picture.
Cousins minus Porter and Finn who were still asleep, lucky guys. We let the kids get up whenever they wanted and look at their stockings (Aiden and Brooks were up at 5 in case you were wondering). They were allowed to come get everyone else up at 7:30.
Trip to the Bean museum was as creepy as I remembered it. My favorite part was Fischer saying how sad he was that all these animals had to die. His hunter dad wasn't excited about that.
Afterward we went to the creamery and fit all 11 of us in one booth meant for 4!
Skiing on the last day of our trip might not have been my brightest idea yet. But it was warm and sunny and the kids had lots of fun. Thanks a million to Jordan and Matt who helped Brooks because I kept getting a charlie horse in my right calf. Now both A and B can ski greens by themselves.

On the flight home I gained a new love of in-flight satellite tv, specifically nickelodeon. Thank you Dora for keeping things sane for a whole hour.
I didn't take a lot of pictures this trip, but Brooks got a camera for Christmas and wanted to share his pictures too so look for that post coming soon!

Climbing out of the fog

Dealing with my mom's passing is proving to be a slow process. One moment I am fine and the next I am overcome with emotion- sadness mostly but also something that hurts more than just sadness. I feel like I am in a post baby fog. Another really hard part has been my instinct to pick up the phone and call my mom every time one of my kids does something funny or when I am sitting in carpool or driving to YW or whenever. The Thursday before she passed was the last time I talked to my mom on the phone and we just had one of our normal conversations. We talked every day. At least once a day. My dad told me that one Friday night after chemo my mom was feeling terrible and was exhausted but she couldn't go to sleep because she hadn't talked to me or one of my sisters (he doesn't remember who it was) and so she picked up the phone and called. I am able to function and deal with normal life for the most part, but there is a feeling like a constant fog is surrounding me and making me forget why I walked into a room or where I put that important paper, etc. In an effort to re-normalize our lives I have been trying to get back to some of the fun things we like to do at Christmastime. Our Christmas will be scaled back this year, but it is actually a huge relief. I was proud that I got my Costco special Christmas cards out even though this is the first time I am sending them without any personal notes. But I got them out! We didn't get a tree, but some friends brought over a huge poinsettia that is taking it's place beautifully. Here are some pictures (not in the right order but that's not really important) of our fun activities so far:

Grinch party at the library. I wouldn't recommend ever under any circumstances making Christmas trees out of upside down sugar cones, green frosting, and assorted candy. Messes of huge proportions. But we watched the Grinch and the kids each got a cute pair of antlers. George didn't want to participate!

Aiden will be missing a class field trip to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever so I took the kids to see it on Saturday and this is the outfit she put together. Complete with fan in case it got hot in the theater. Birmingham Children's Theatre is really terrific. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if I had remembered the tickets the first time and not had to load everyone back into the car and home to get them.
There was a puppet show at the library and this was the stage decoration. I think it was supposed to be snow and it was really pretty. The puppet show was really great and the puppets were really awesome. I think it was called "Santa's Lost Mail". The kids enjoyed it a lot. I think Elmo did too.
After the show we waited in line to see Santa and Mrs. Claus even though A informed us it probably wasn't the REAL Santa. She didn't hesitate, however, when he asked her what she wanted so maybe she changed her mind. Cate didn't cry and I was thrilled.
And they each got a little toy and ring pop in the shape of a Christmas light.
A had her little Christmas ballet recital and did a great job even though she had missed the last 2 classes.
Oh, the Christmas parade is NOT to be missed. Even if it's at night on a school night and totally freezing cold. I'll tell you why- we came home with more candy that Halloween (not kidding) and at least 20 beads(mardi gras style) as well as plenty of moon pies and some cheese biscuits from Jim N Nicks (which I had to chase down the float to get but that's another story for another day). I've never seen another parade with so much candy that the kids just stop picking it up. As we were walking to the car the street and gutters were just full of candy. It was awesome and that's why we'll be back next year! The picture is terrible but the best one of the night so we'll deal with it.
We also went to an amazing live nativity at a local church. There was a huge line but it was worth standing out in the cold for. There were 13 scenes and it is always so moving seeing the events of the Savior's birth and life being played out by real people. I didn't get any pictures but the kids are begging to go back next year already. I don't know if it was just the hot chocolate and cookies at the end that won them over, but I know we won't miss that either.

Begging, Pleading

sorry Jackie, I had to post this picture. This is from 2 Christmases ago, my mom is modeling one of the wigs Aiden got from Santa. Which she added to her list about 2 days before Christmas. whew, it was close.

Will you please take a minute and send a quick email to rememberingdeanne at gmail dot com? We are making a book for the grandkids filled with great stories, memories, and thoughts about my mom. They are all so young and it's sad to think that they won't know what an incredible life she led. It doesn't have to be anything huge or long, just a quick line will be great. If you read my blog and your parents don't will you please ask them to do it too? It's been so fun for us to read the stories and messages we've collected already. We'll be posting them on a blog too, so be sure to check it soon. rememberingdeanne.blogspot.com

Happy happy birthday Lewis dear!

Today is the big 3-3 for Lewis!!

And to celebrate he only had to work 14.5 hours!

Let's hear it for Lew!

Superstar husband, father, son, son-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, friend, dentist, doctor, what am I missing, etc.

I can't imagine a better partner to have by my side for eternity.

He's been a gem to me for almost 11 years and has been especially incredible the last couple of weeks.

Love you Lew! xoxoxoxoxo