Merry Christmas

I got sick last week and decided to nix sending out the Christmas cards. They were pretty cute too! Darn. I've done them every year for 9 years now and I always enjoy getting the mail and seeing all the cute pictures from everyone. I'll do it next year though.

I've had a little doozy of a virus. I haven't had a bad ear infection ever in my life. But I got an ear infection, complete with eardrum rupture. Supposedly it is supposed to feel better once it ruptures, but it sure hasn't. I can't hear very well, lost my voice, etc. The upside is that I've been enjoying lots of movies, reading, etc since. I got Born to Run for Christmas. It has been a fun read. Makes you want to go out and run a 50 miler.

Monet's Lucky Injury

Monet is one of those kids who got her baby teeth really late. So it isn't so surprising that she's had to wait longer than most of her classmates to lose her teeth. At 8.5 years old, she's only lost four, and apparently that is just not enough. So she is extremely anxious when she finds a new wiggly tooth. She's been working on one of them for a couple months, but the darn thing just didn't want to come out despite her best efforts involving string, door slamming, and all kinds of other tricks she'd heard about.

So last Sunday, she accidently hit her mouth on Simone's head. Jared ran into the her room as soon as he heard her crying, but said that she was half crying/half smiling. A different tooth that wasn't even loose got knocked almost all the way out. She was hurt, but very happy at the same time! Elise pulled the dangling tooth out. And five minutes later, I pulled the loose one out.

She was a VERY happy kid to have two teeth to leave for the tooth fairy in one day. This is a girl who LOVES money.

Before: (pointing to the loose one)

After:

Girls Night Out

We love going to shows at the Hale Theater in Salt Lake and Orem. I love how close the stage is to all the seats, and I think they do a great job. Some of our favorites were: All Shook Up, Aida, The Importance of Being Earnest, Singing in the Rain(and it was so fun to know Murphy, the star of the show), and The Three Musketeers.

A few weeks ago I took the girls to see The Scarlet Pimpernel. Kelli and her girls, and Grandma G also came and made it a really fun girls night. This was one of my favorite books ever, and I was not disappointed at all in the show. It was a fun night!

Thanksgiving In Sunny California

We had so much fun in California this Thanksgiving. It was perfect timing. I was NOT ready for cold and winter. I love fall, and I love mild November days. But I was not ready to face snow yet. So we got the perfect break. Although it kinda made me wonder why we ever moved back to Utah. California is so beautfiul and smells so good too. The air has a peppery smell from all the different trees. They even built a Trader Joes across from our old apartment. I'm jealous! No wonder 3 million people want to live in Orange County alone. If everyone would just leave already, we'd go back for sure. ;) I guess I can always visit. I love the beach, the radio stations, the diversity, the shopping, food, landscape, AND tons of family. I love it there.

The first day, we hit the beach. All the locals told us it was soooo cold. Tell that to my kids. Sun, sand, water--they were going swimming. No matter what the thermometer said. We had lunch on the Pier at Ruby's with Nana and Papa. It was a beautiful day at the beach, even if it was a little chilly.

We loved visiting the San Diego Zoo. The only Zoo I've ever been to is the Hogle Zoo. So it was really fun to see so many new animals. We loved seeing the pandas especially. Simone really liked the flamingos. There were tons of animals there. It was great to be there with Chandice and Cameron and their cute kids.

Thanksgiving was great! We ate so much, Jared gained 8 lbs. For real. All that good food was heavenly and worth every bite. And it was so fun to be with the family. Especially all the little girl cousins running around with Simone. Miles loved hanging out with Kobe--the cool "big" cousin.


The kids had a great time playing with Rocky Road, Nana and Papa's Shih tzu. And the player piano was super cool too. They've gotten a lot of mileage from that thing with the grandkids. My kids love their house because they get to swim, watch lots of tv on the BIG screen, eat yummy cereal, play with the dog, and they have TONS of toys for all the kids. They especially like this Crocodile Dentist (think Christmas). Here is Monet and Papa playing Sihlouette.

Friday morning the girls and moms all went to see Tangled, and Jared and Papa took the boys to Megamind.

We spent Saturday in Santa Barbara with my mom. She's remodeling a house for her friend there. Santa Barbara has to be the most beautiful city ever. You have mountains AND the beach. Even though it really was chilly, it was late November afterall. City Hall was just amazing. I love the Spanish influence. We got to see the fish hauled in from the pier, and have a great Mexican dinner with my mom and her friend Michael.





The long drive home got a lot better this trip. We sold our Expedition that we bought from Nana and Papa back in 2003, and bought their Escalade that they bought when they sold us their Expedition! We loved having four wheel drive in the blizzard we got caught in on the way home. The kids were SO excited to have a new car. Heck, we drove a rental car down there, and they even loved the rental car. Miles takes one look at the Sebring we rented and says, "It's a Ferrari!" I loved being able to read I am the Messenger the whole way home while Jared listened to basketball. Nothing beats a road trip.

Basics of Essential Oils

A couple of years ago I really wanted to start learning more about essential oils. I'd heard moms talking about putting orange oil in their diaper pail, lavendar in the laundry, etc. And of course I had my little bottle of tea tree oil that we'd used for different things through the years. So one day I found myself in Good Earth one day staring at their selection of essential oils and trying to figure out what to buy first, and I was totally overwhelmed. There were so many.

So when my husband brought home a kit of about 25 or so oils in a cute wooden box, I was pretty excited to finally get to play around with them. Since then, he's learned a lot about how they can be used--and I kinda use him as my desk reference. ;) We use them a lot with our kids for stomach aches, toothaches, headache relief, keeping them comfortable when they have a cough or a cold, etc. We've even used them for sleep issues. And of course they smell wonderful so we use them for aromatherapy too.

Jared is teaching an essential oils class (free) in our neighborhood this Thursday. If you want to try essential oils and when to use them send me an e-mail and I'll send you an invite.

That Kind of Mom

I've made so many mental lists over the years of the kind of aunt, wife, mom, grandma, etc that I want to be. What has happened to all those lists? I know I'm a long way off from the mom I thought I'd be. I'm also not exactly the person I thought I'd be. There was so much that I hadn't learned about myself yet. I remember thinking that I had to reach perfection before I had kids, and was honestly a little disappointed when becoming pregnant didn't curb my cravings for junk food. I naively thought that as soon as I knew there was a baby growing inside me, all I'd want is to feed that baby the best. Imagine my surprise when the baby just wanted Ben and Jerry's.

I babysat a lot as a teen and saw how plenty of families worked. I saw things my friend's mom's did. One mom played scrabble with us every single day after school. We were in Jr. High and we really looked forward to that. Scrabble takes a really long time. That was a nice mom. I saw cute couples that I used to babysit (Pecks) and wanted to have a relationship like they had. Some mom's were ultra clean. Others were great at decorating. My mom was amazing with kids. She was super patient and read to us non-stop.

I picked out the best of each and wanted to be the mom that:

1. had a perfectly clean house
2. that never said no to sleepovers
3. gourmet cook that had healthy dinner on the table every night
4. played with her kids all the time
5. master decorator
6. date nights every weekend
7. super fit and in shape
8. lady with the great yard and garden
9. calm, positive and happy all the time
10. reads books to her children all day
11. always has good music on

I didn't think about how all those different things would come together. And for sure never thought about them all at once. As an adult, I've realized that what I want to be is not always compatible with my DNA. For instance:

Immaculate house--the trade-off wasn't worth it--I get too uptight. I like order, but I'm in no way a perfectionist and I kinda like to let loose and have a break from the house sometimes. Jared would like it if I let loose a little more when it comes to cleaning. I'll still take all the tips I can get.

Never saying "no" to a sleepover--again, not worth it. My kids are different when they have friends over. They are more self absorbed. They aren't into playing with their siblings. They don't want to do their jobs. So sleepovers are reserved for special occasions now.

I imagined I'd be a lot nicer too. I didn't realize how much exertion it takes to get kids to do things that they need to learn to do. It is frustrating sometimes! My teen aged self didn't romanticize being a strict mom. And I don't know if I qualify yet as strict(or maybe I do). But I'd like to be better at being nicely strict.

I'm good with #6. Someday I'm just going to hire a #5. And I'm still working on the rest. #9 is going to be in this life or maybe the next. #11 is easy, though sometimes all I want is for all noise to just stop.

Hopefully my "grandma" and "mother-in-law" list have a chance! At least by then my kids will hopefully be happy with the package deal.

To round it all out, I'll share 3 good things I've learned about my mothering self that surprised me:

1. I am very playful. We have a lot of laughs. I'm not as patient as I thought I was going to be. But I'm a lot more fun too.
2. I am great at expressing my feelings verbally. I tell them how much I love them constantly, and we have lots of hugs in this house too. My favorite moments are when we hang out by the fire and tell stories. They love to hear my tales about friends, games, etc from when I was their age.
3. I love beauty. My kids do too. Miles is always pointing it out to me and pointing out things like trees or flowers or even just the sky and saying, "Isn't it beautiful mommy?" I started hearing him say that a lot, and realized he was parroting me, and my tendency to say "Isn't it beautiful Miles?" I love that he knows to be appropriately thrilled when he sees an early forsythia bush in bloom, or when there is a particularly colorful tree. It makes me happy that these bring him joy, just as they do me. I love that he points it out to me, knowing I will appreciate it.

Being a mom isn't always what I expected. And sometimes I don't feel like I'm at my best. But at the end of the day I see my kids and know I must be doing something right, because they are pretty great.

Halloween

My kids were all really excited for Halloween. We went to a neighborhood soup party in our friends huge garage. Fun tradition! I made our yummy wassail and we had a good night handing out candy and visiting with neighbors. I love Halloween. I love how excited my kids get and how much they love dressing up.

We were bummed that we ran out of glowstuff right before Halloween. That is our tradition every year. We actually had to buy candy. Never again. Lol.

Ragnar Las Vegas Race Report

This was only my 6th race/GWO weekend this year. I guess you could say I’m making up for lost time since I was nursing or pregnant for about 10 years of my life.

But really, I am so thankful again for my sweet husband who encouraged me to do this race, even though I was already feeling a little guilty about all the weekends away. It is easier to leave knowing that they have lots of fun while I am gone. I have to admit though, those big hugs when I got home felt so good. And they worked really hard to get the house clean. Thanks family!

We had two neighborhood teams going down, and I thought it would be fun to get to know some of these ladies better. I love weekends like this. It was so nice to get ideas from other moms. There were lots of times I wished I had a notepad to write down some of the things they do.

I was in Runner #7 in Van 2. Our van was so fun! Our team was “Lady Luckier.” We seemed to earn our name several times! Liz getting out of a speeding ticket, Kari being able to finish her run on an injured hip, and rocking it! Me narrowly missing us getting in an accident. Yikes, hot balls of terror! (okay, you had to be there to understand that one.) And finally, I lost my cell phone in the casino, and someone turned it in and they are shipping it to me. (so if you’ve called or texted me, sorry, phone is not in my possession.)


My first run was six miles with some pretty good ups and downs. I hate starting a race at 4:00 in the afternoon. Food is always an issue. I am hungry and wanting to fuel, but not wanting to eat too close to the race time. It is just complicated. Getting 6 ladies up and ready to go takes awhile too. So I decided to have my leftover chicken alfredo crap from Olive Garden for breakfast. On raceday. What was I thinking?! Anyway, I then ate 2nd breakfast and was stuffed silly a few hours before my run. It felt like I was running with a bowling ball in my belly. And sadly, my time was not that great. I think I averaged a 9:36. Lots of sideache pain slowed me down, especially on the downhill. Oh well, it may have been a good thing because I tend to start out too fast and burn out.

One of the major exchanges was at a cool resort with a nice pool, music, cabanas, food, etc. And best of all, nice bathrooms!

I was pretty careful about my eating after eating too much before my first run. My second night run was 6 miles at a pretty good incline and I averaged 9:30 again. I didn’t have a sideache and felt good overall.

My third leg was ten miles. Six miles up and four miles down. I averaged between 10 and 11 min/mile on the uphills until that last mile. That was SLOW. I had iPod troubles, Garmin troubles, my fuel belt was heavy, it just was one tough uphill mile. But the next four were awesome! Since I hadn’t had much downhill, I felt like I had new legs. I averaged about 7:30 coming down. It was a fantastic feeling to be done! And by this point in every relay I’ve done, I have had sideaches. It was really nice not to have that pain. My average pace for that 10 mile leg was 9:46.

The course was really interesting. A lot of it looked kinda the same to me. But I loved our last legs. We even saw some wild burros running around. I don't have many pictures since my camera battery went out on me.




The best part about the Las Vegas Ragnar was the two free rooms to the Red Rock Resort. It was a very cool place. I’d love to go there again. Our room was really cool. The casino had everything you could want was onsite: great restaurants (we loved the Cafe), awesome spa and pool area, bowling, movie theater. I only wish we’d had a little more time. Our team didn’t finish until 6 pm. And we were pretty tired after 32 hours on the course. So if you do Ragnar Las Vegas, get in Van 1, or start really early. I also loved the major exchange at the nice resort. The pool was amazing. And we all wanted to know how those lucky teams got a cabana? Call in advance? First come first served? Whatever it is, I’d figure that one out too if I were doing it again. That was awesome! I wish I’d had a big nice fluffy blanket with me to curl up on a pool chair too. Maybe even try out the hot tub. I think getting out and being wet would have been too miserable though. I didn’t bring sweats either. I always forget something important when I am doing these races. We were fortunate to have perfect running weather (aside from a strong headwind in some of the legs). But it is pretty cold when you are standing around outside in the middle of the night.

I'll have to take a picture of my Saints and Sinners medal. Pretty funny. When you do Wasatch Back and Las Vegas in the same year, you get a special medal.

We had a great time! I am glad I did it, and I’m glad it is over. It feels pretty good to not have a single race scheduled. It has been awhile since that has happened and I like it. I love running, but I’m ready to try something new too. We’ll see. Jared and I were just talking last night about getting some teams together for the Sawtooth Relay next June.

It is cheaper, it has six person teams, and only two legs instead of three. So no need for two different Vans leapfrogging each other. At the end of the day, you are just done. And you go home and SLEEP. Plus, if you have lots of people who want to do it together, you can just have the same start time and you get to see all your friends.
Looks like some incredible scenery too!

Simone

She's got the cutest giggle you've ever heard. If I could bottle it, I'd be rich. She's been playful from the beginning. She's also incredibly agile. I've got to get this little girl into gymnastics.

She came home with a paper from preschool that listed things she wishes for. At the top of it was "A chicken coop with chickens and bunnies." I asked her what other things she wished for. Again, the only things she wants are animals. That expensive little baby doll she got for her birthday? Looks like new. The stuffed animals and Littlest Pet Shops get all the attention in this house.

We had a funny conversation yesterday:

Simone:(over and over) When are we going to carve pumpkins? After dinner?
Me: We'll see. (this is my typical response when I don't want to commit to anything yet)
Simone: "See" takes a long time!

She's got me figured out I guess. Last night I looked at her all snuggled up in our bed and couldn't help but think how happy it makes me to have her. I tell her everyday how happy I am to be her mom. She is so fun. Her favorite song lately is "If you chance to meet a frown." Soo cute.

Pumpkins

Had to have an excuse to post these pictures. I think this is one of the only ones I have with Monet's eyes all the way open! Yay!

Family Halloween Party

Elise was a pirate, Miles a racecar driver, Simone a witch, and Monet was a fat hobo (pc right?)

Anyway, it was a really fun night with lots of cousins, donut eating contest, bobbing for apples, scary looking food, and good conversation.

Simone is going to be the cutest little witch ever this year! She really wanted to be a scary vampire, but she settled for a cute witch. I think this is the first year none of them did a scary costume.

Elise, the reigning champion of the donut eating contest. I win every year in my division too. What can I say, she takes after me.

The kids have the bobbing for apples thing down pat.

Jared had to do this one sitting down since his back has been completely whacked all month. Darn it. Hopefully soon it is going to feel better. His back goes out every August it seems, so I guess we're overdue.

He managed to get the whole donut in his mouth without swallowing. Just call him Kobayashi.

Three little cousins, just three weeks apart.