Nick's birthday aka Christmas Eve

This year we actually celebrated Nick's birthday on the day after Christmas for a couple of reasons-

Firstly, my parents would be arriving that day and when it comes to birthdays, the more the merrier.

And secondly, we got an invite to spend Christmas Eve with some friends.  They said, "We'll get a ham, and you can bring dessert!"

Nick wanted chicken enchiladas for his birthday dinner (this is how I know he is actually my child- that was my standard birthday dinner request growing up) so, I figured we could either force our will upon our gracious friends, or wait a couple of days.  Wait we did.

Dinner was good.  No, it was great.  I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I love the fact that despite the fact we don't live near family, we're surrounded by plenty of people who through the years have stepped in to fill that void.

So, I was asked to bring A dessert.  I brought three.  First, I decided to make a tart.  The one on my food blog with the pastry cream.  Only instead of strawberries, I did a mixed berry kind of thing.  Actually there was a picture of that in one of my cookbooks, and Madison paid me a compliment by (sincerely) saying that "it looked exactly like the one in the picture!".  I don't mean to brag, but that is the first time that has ever happened.  Seriously, my reality rarely (never) matches those gorgeous professional pieces of art you see in cook books.  (recipe found here)

But then I decided that it might be "too grown up" for some of the kids, and I might not want to share with those who don't know any better, and one of my kids said "But what about Santa?!?! We NEED to make sugar cookies!" Kill two birds with one stone.  Santa gets his cookies, and the kids just might stay away from my once in a lifetime glorious tart. (cookie recipe found here)

And then just cause I am a glutton for punishment, and I swear the cool-whip was calling to me from the refrigerated case in the grocery store, I had to make chocolate balls too.  If I didn't make them for Christmas, when?!?! Before you know it, New Years and it's dang resolutions would be upon us, and I might not get around to making them for a very long time, so I had to.  I just had to. (easiest recipe ever found here)

And other than the usual opening one present (pajamas) that was our Christmas Eve.

The day after Christmas, Nick got his chicken enchiladas, and I even surprised him with butterbeer cupcakes. He's been in love with butterbeer ever since we visited Harry Potter world,

so I found these little cupcakes and I thought I'd give them a shot.  He USED to request what we call "strawberry dessert" but now he has told me that from here on out, he'd like butterbeer cupcakes, thank you very much. I didn't take a picture, cause my cupcakes didn't look nearly as good as the picture on blog I got them off of, (pathetic, really) so for those interested, here's a link to that blog for that recipe.

Both days turned out great, but sifting through my pictures I am saddened to see that I didn't get a single one commemorating my oldest child turning 15.

This picture will have to do-

He was getting ready for the big New Year's Eve dance the next week.  That's his snazzy "Official replica 11th doctor bow-tie" from the Doctor Who series.  He spotted it on the website ThinkGeek.com, but it was sold out clear until Christmas!  He was seriously distraught and checked back regularly so I could buy it for him. Somehow though, Santa worked his magic and was able to procure one which he found in his stocking on Christmas morning.  True story.

15 years ago, I became a mom to the teeniest, tiniest little thing. (3 lbs 11 oz)

And he hasn't stopped growing. He passed me up long ago, and any day now he'll have his dad beat.  One thing I have to mention,  although I look at that picture, and it feels like a lifetime ago, and so many other details forgotten, I can still feel the ghost of that teeny little body in my hands, feel the weight of him (ha ha) as he slept on my chest. crazy huh?  And I remember the feeling of terror the day we finally got to take him home. I couldn't believe those nurses were just going to hand a totally helpless tiny human being to us kids and say "good luck!"  I'm not much of a kid any more, and Nick isn't so helpless, but 15 years later, I am no less terrified.

and on that note.... Happy Birthday, Nick, I love you.

Christmas Season 2011

 Amidst all the caramel making, (50+ batches)

(which I totally do to myself- I'm not complaining and I don't need any lectures- you know who you are) we still managed to fit in some Christmas merry-making (much of which I didn't take pictures of, so I'll just throw in some pictures of my kids to appease the grandparents)

playing a viola duet of Christmas carols at a nursing home,

piano recital,

freezing our wimpy Arizona tails off looking at the lights at the temple,

looking for Buddy our shelf elf,

and making gingerbread houses.

And probably a few other things I am forgetting.

But this girl-

spent much of her free time writing letters for Buddy to take back to the North pole,

and decorating the house with her own special touch.

(Seriously though, how sweet is that letter to Mrs. Clause?  Love her. )

12 and 24

Madison and I both celebrated our birthdays in December.  She turned twelve ( a very highly anticipated birthday because she gets to join the Young Women's group in our church and she is old enough to babysit.)

A few days before her birthday, a group of silly, loud, giggling teenage girls knocked on our door and welcomed her to Young Women's with a big plate of cookies.  She did not stop smiling for the rest of the night.  Later I was asked by one of their leaders if the girls bothered Madison. Are you kidding me?  She loved every second of it. Like I said, so excited.  And I am so excited for her too.

I have to admit though that I'm a little conflicted because I think she's growing up too fast. These next few years are so fun and exciting, and I'm excited for her, but it's already going by way too fast, and I am wondering what ever happened to my little girl, and who let her grow up?  Not me.   And besides, shopping for presents has gotten hard!  It used to be that if it was pink, she'd love it, and the hard part was not buying everything.  This year we ended up having a girls night out including going to the mall and letting her pick out her presents.  Kinda lame, but she did love it. 

My bff Jamie was able to fly down and some time with us over my birthday.  I turned 24. For the 12th time. (or is it 13?) Seeing as I gave my birthday to Madison and I get to stay 24 forever and all.  (unfortunately mother nature doesn't seem to be aware of this plan) Anyway, Jamie came down.  We've been friends longer than we haven't.  Since jr. high.  I think I was 14 when I met her. 

Anyway, I didn't think I'd get her down her after the last time.  Germs and kids are two things on her list of "things to avoid" so, when she came down and we all got sick, it was pretty much her worst nightmare.  I got strep, and tried to pretend I was fine, even though I was shivering and had a fever, and needed to see a doctor, but wanted to go shopping instead, and cause I wanted her to have a good time, but ended up at the doctor anyway, cause if there is anyone who can see right through me it's her, (although I was doing a lousy job of being "fine".)  And then John got the flu so bad he ended up in the ER cause he was so dehydrated so Jamie had to watch my two little kids who happened to have colds and snotty runny noses that she had to wipe while I took John to the hospital...

Anyways, she was pretty traumatized by the whole incident. I think it took me a whole decade to talk her into coming down again.  This time I made sure everyone was taking their Vitamin C, and we all stayed healthy.

And speaking of really awesome friends, I got to go out to lunch several times over the course of the week with some other girls I love a whole lot.

We let Maddie pick out the birthday cake, I was gonna make her one, like I plan on every year, but I get busy, and John seems to have issues with me making my own birthday cake, so we bought one, and truthfully, this place makes the best cakes so no complaints here.

Unfortunately December was too crazy of a month to throw Maddie a birthday party. I was gonna try and fit it in, but I couldn't.   12  is a pretty big deal, so sometime in January we plan on it.  (is that lame to have a party 6 weeks after your actual birthday?) Stay tuned for that (hopefully awesome) installment in the coming weeks.

success!

I am actually writing this in January, but plan to pre-date this sometime in December.  I got way behind in blogging, and I like to turn each year's worth of blogs into a book, so I want to make sure that the events were officially recorded in the year they happened.

Ok, so here's something I was seriously afraid I would NEVER get to blog about, Christopher is officially potty trained!!!!

NO MORE KIDS IN DIAPERS!!!

woo-hoo!!!

We've been working with Christopher for a few months (years) but only seeing progress these past few months. (those teachers at his school are ANGELS) I was actually daring to hope that I might be done with diapers before Nick's birthday because I was really hoping to NOT be able to say that I have been changing diapers for MORE THAN 15 years - STRAIGHT.  (not including the two years total time that I had two kids in diapers at different times.)  Potty training has truly been the bane to my existence.

Anyway, usually I send Christopher to school in underwear, then change him into a pull-up when he comes home because he usually poops in the afternoon, and I really hate swishing out dirty underwear in the toilet.  (I admit to sometimes just throwing them away)  He had the peeing part down, but he wasn't interested at all in working on the second part of the potty training equation.

But when I was gone to science camp, John forgot to.  He forgot to put him in pull-ups.  He even forgot to change him before he put him to bed.  He could have had a potential mess on his hands, but he didn't. In fact, it's been a month, and he has had ZERO night time accidents (I totally know I just jinxed myself), and only one real accident since then as well.

So a month later, I finally feel confident in announcing that Christopher is officially potty trained.* (I've been somewhat quiet about it up until now because I didn't want to jinx myself)

So, woo-hoo!  I REALLY worried this day would NEVER come.

Also, given that today is actually January 1st, a day when people think about new years resolutions, I would like it noted that "potty training Christopher" has been on my list for at least a couple years now, along with losing weight, and if I had to pick one resolution to finally get to keep, I totally would have picked the potty training one, so I am pretty stoked about being able to cross that one off.  

I think what really tipped the scales in our favor was that Christopher finally figured out that he can get out of church several times in one day just by announcing he needs to go to the bathroom.  It's quite powerful.  He's figured out we are both happy to encourage him, and afraid he might have an accident.  Another reason why we sit in the back. By a door.

In other news, if anybody is interested, I have some boys' size large pull-ups I am happy to give away for FREE. :)

*(except for swimming lessons -which has turned into an EVERY SINGLE TIME occurrence. - Hopefully he will get that under control before summer)

science camp

Since I went with Nick to 6th grade science camp, I was naturally expected to go with Madison when it was her turn.

I have to confess, I wasn't really looking forward to it.  With Nick, we went earlier in the year, so the trip up into the mountains was a welcome reprieve from the heat.  With Madison, we went later in the year- think the first of December.  In fact, they were telling us to bring lots of extra socks because it was probably going to be wet and cold.  Just super.

I'll spare you the suspense.  It was wet and cold, and it even snowed, but I'm still glad I went.

I figured instead of boring you with the day by day itinerary of what we did, I'm just gonna share some of my favorite pictures from that week, but I do want to share this-

On our packing list it said to bring a snack to eat on the way up.  We stopped at a rest stop area and Madison pulled out a couple of brown paper bags she had packed herself.  She had stapled mine up so I couldn't peek inside before hand.  This was my favorite part-

Love that girl. 

Anyways, without further ado- 6th Grade Science Camp 2011.



"team building" exercise.  They were jumping rope.  I thought it was a neat picture.



Another team building exercise.  It was a teeter-totter thing and they had to hold perfectly still.



Maddie and Jillian dissecting owl pellets (ew)

 

Maddie and Taryn



silly girl



I came prepared to keep warm.



in the cabin.

 

Maddie and some of her friends.  I love that she picks such good friends.  Beautiful girls- inside and out.



Maddie and Jillian geocaching. Madison totally fell in love with this.  She's been bugging us to get our own equipment.



Maddie and a couple of her teachers.  I'm impressed that these teachers take time out of their lives (and don't get paid extra) to do this with these kids.  Many schools don't do this any more because the teachers can't be bothered.



Rock climbing.  Those hand holds were freezing, her hands were frozen and in pain when she got to the top, but she did it.  I also have to mention that she was climbing towards a zip-line at the top,  She was the only kid I saw to jump off the platform while standing, every one else scooted their butts off the edge. I was pretty stinking proud of her.



Their snowman.  It was dark and cold out, but they couldn't resist the opportunity.



Taryn, Jillian, and Maddie



Maddie, Jillian and Taryn



All the girls from our cabin.



Love this girl.

 Like I said, I'm glad I went.  It was cold and wet and snowy, but the cabins were heated and the mattresses weren't too miserable.  I was in charge of two different groups of girls- a day group, and a night group, and they were all pretty great kids.  Besides, I have the sinking feeling that opportunities to do things like this with my little girl might get fewer and far between.  Not to wax too nostalgic, but she is just growing up way too fast for this poor mother's heart, and who knows when she might not want me around like this anymore?

A very Harry party.

Although my mom's birthday technically wasn't for a couple of weeks, my aunt, her sister, took the opportunity to throw my mom a surprise birthday party while we were in town.

My mom knew about the party, just not the part about it being a Harry Potter themed birthday party.  To really appreciate this, you have to understand my mom hasn't had a birthday party for herself in probably 50 years.  No exaggeration.  She was a little wary and uncomfortable about it. At least at first...

So, the back story is that my cousin Jill was throwing a surprise Harry Potter party for her daughter's birthday.  It was quite the undertaking and she enlisted the help of those around her including her mother, my mom's only sister, Janis.  (aren't they cute?  I love this picture)

Of course, knowing my mom's love of all things Harry Potter, Janis couldn't help but think of my mom and how much she would like to do something like that for my mom.  So the Halloween decorations stayed up for an extra month at Jill's house, and they did it all again.  (technically speaking it was a party to celebrate all the December birthdays, and I was just happy to be included in that, but really, we all knew it was for my mom Ü)

We all dressed up, to the best of our ability anyway- I was given the heads up before we came up, so I made sure to pack any HP t-shirts, costumes, wands, etc.

We played games like the one where you are a character from the books and you have to ask yes or no questions to figure out who you are. 

Jill made shepherd's pie for dinner, then of course there was the butterbeer and pumpkin juice. The cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties.  Janis wasn't impressed with the candyfloss cupcakes the first time around so they became peppermint ones (she made those little pom-poms herself).

And then to top it all off we got to go shopping at Honeydukes and fill little bags with candy. 

  

So fun. They totally outdid themselves.  I think my mom was touched and overwhelmed by it all. I know we all enjoyed ourselves, and were so excited that they bumped up the party a couple of weeks because they heard we were going to be in town. 

Thanksgiving

For the first time since moving to Arizona, we decided to make the trek home to Utah for Thanksgiving.

Since it was a short trip, we were able to fly and rent a car when we got there for less than it would have cost us to drive.  (the silver lining which makes John's frequent trips easier to bear)

Despite the lack of snow, it was pretty cold for us wimpy Arizonans.  We spent most of the time in my mom's living room curled up in blankets next to the fireplace.

Thanksgiving dinner itself was nice. It was actually a smallish family affair at my parent's house, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Other activities included shopping at Gardner Village with my mom, my bff, and Maddie,

Meeting John's family for lunch at the Lion House. (first time I ever took my kids) Oh, and I had to take this picture cause Nick is a big "Psych" fan, (TV show) and was so excited to "spot the pineapple" in real life.

Taking my kids to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (I still remember the days when it was Hotel Utah).  We tried to get a "Christmas Card Picture" in front of the gorgeous tree there, or even the one in one of the ballrooms, but you can see those didn't quite turn out very well. 

Hence no Christmas card this year.  Maybe we will break down and have family pictures taken and then send out Valentine's cards or Easter, or Arbor day or something...

John and the boys made it down to BYU to go to the Creamery.  They dragged my dad with them.  He graduated from BYU, but, well, let's just say that he's not sorry none of his kids followed in his footsteps.  

That's about it.  Short and sweet. Well, except for the awesome Harry Potter surprise birthday party my aunt threw for my mom, but that deserves it's own post.