Good bye toddlerhood...

...Hello little boy hood.

My baby is growing up.

Instead of a vocabulary consisting of just nouns (ball, car, shirt, etc) he's starting to string words together. At this very moment as I sit here and type this, he is using his very favorite sentence " Mo-om, ah ya you?" (Mom, where are you?) If I am not in his sight, you can bet I'll be hearing those words over and over again (no matter how many times I answer him). Sometimes I don't even have to be out of his sight.

But the biggest clue my baby is growing up is that we have graduated from Blues Clues to Disney's Cars. It is now the #1 asked for show in the house. He still likes to sit on his nasty red thinking chair propped on my couch and watch it, but generally he will have either a) his Cars pillow, b) Zach's Cars blanket (from when he got surgery on his you-know-what), c) a large stuffed Mamer (Mater), d) one or more Cars toys in his clutches, or e) all of the above.

A couple times in the past week I've even found him sound asleep on the floor clutching at least one toy car in his hands. I'm happy to be done with Blues Clues. It's been apart of our lives for a decade now, but I think I can say good-bye. (sarcasm- it doesn't translate too well in the written word). I'm good with substituting toy cars strewn from one end of the house to the other instead of the massacred handy- dandy notebooks and envelopes- ("We just got a letter!")

Not to worry though, I still have about three more milestones (that I can think of off the top of my head) before he's a real little boy and I am officially done with baby/toddler hood- We need to move him from the crib to a big boy bed (should happen by the end of the year), he needs to be potty trained (I am afraid the kid might have to potty train himself. I do not jest when I say "Zach broke me."). And finally after he is potty trained, I can send him to pre-school. And we all know that exactly 14 seconds after I drop him off for the first time I will burst into tears.

Bitter sweet it is, this thing of having your baby grow up.

Go Wildcats!

Although it pains me to post a picture of a rival school on my blog, (well not exactly a big rival, or even in my school district, but I think we might have played some game or two against them at some point in my high school career), we had to make an obligatory stop at East High School for Madison.Which, as every cool 'tween knows is the site where they filmed parts of High School Musical.

Madison was pretty excited. Totally coincidentally she happens to be wearing her HSM2 shirt.

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As a side note, as I was pulling into the parking lot I totally had a flashback to the day my friend and I where my friend and I decided it was a good idea to ditch class at our high school and trespass at East High to go say hi to a friend attending there. (Coincidentally, the girl at East high was also named Kiersten, although she obviously spelled it different.) We didn't get caught or anything, but I can't remember why it sounded like a good idea either.

late night entertainment

Zach is by far our most entertaining child at night. He doesn't like to be alone so he refuses to go up to bed until Nick does, and most nights ends up crashing on the couch before his bedtime of 8:30. (I realize this means that maybe his bedtime is too late, but by changing his bedtime, I'd be punishing Nick, because they share a room, and Zach has weird issues about being alone in any room)

So around 8:00 every night, Zach crashes on the couch. At 8:30 I take on the monumental task of getting that kid up 17 stairs to the farthest bedroom at the end of the hall. I'm just glad he sleeps on the bottom bunk. He's a big kid. I can't pick him up and carry him like I used to, I have to try and convince his sleepy self to walk as I half drag him first to the potty, then to his bed. It is imperative Zach use the bathroom before he goes to bed. If he doesn't, the risk of him wetting himself, the bed, and the floor increases dramatically. Most of the time he's so out of it, he can't wake up enough to figure out what is going on, and so he just stands there and cries.

Nick is always on hand to help because he finds his little brother hilarious. Zach tends to talk in his sleep, which can be pretty funny. (We think so at any rate. Maybe this is one of those "you had to be there" things, but I'm sharing anyway.) The other night he was yelling at me "No, Christopher! No! No! No!" Over and over again as we lead him up the stairs. Once, he kept crying "No! I want to go to bed!" I'd assure him in my most soothing voice that he was indeed going to his nice warm bed, to which he'd reply, "No! I want to go to bed!" Tonight I stood him in front of the toilet, he stood there for a minute, (pants still pulled up) and said "Kay, I'm done." Luckily, he wasn't, and I was able to yank those pants down in record time and get him to use the toilet. On the way to his bedroom, he asked me what Braden (the neighbor kid) had done. (I have no idea what he's talking about. I can only assume he was dreaming)

Nick now says that in addition to regularly talking in his sleep, he's been singing in his sleep. Zach denies all such accusations.

Toe Pick!

(Julie, this one is for you)

Back when I was in jr. high or high school the movie The Cutting Edge came out. It was an ice-skating move. My friend (Julie) and I loved it and we saw it several times at the dollar theater. Once we even tried to go see a different movie, but ended up leaving that one after only a few minutes to sneak in to The Cutting Edge and see it yet again. The story is about this former hockey player turned figure skater and at one point he is having difficulty getting used to figure skates because they have this jagged tip on the front of the skates that helps the skaters stop and spin and do their things. He trips over it for quite awhile, all the while in the background the snobbish girl is laughing and reminding him in a sing-song voice about the "toe-pick!".

It's probably been years since I've seen that movie, maybe I caught part of it on cable awhile ago, but I could hear clear as a bell that mocking voice in my own head "toe-pick!" as I tripped on my own and went crashing down hard to the ice yesterday when I went ice-skating with Madison and her girl scout troop.

It must have been quite the spectacle when I fell because several people were laughing and stopped to see if I was okay. One teenage girl stopped and helped me up, then turned to chastise her sister/friend and told her to apologise to me for laughing. "That's okay", I said, "I'd laugh at me too."

Besides the bruise forming on my knee, and the persistent ache in my shoulder where I slammed into the ice, I'm okay. Even my ego is intact. It's hard to have a bruised ego when you have very low expectations of your own performance. A conversation with John yesterday went something like this-

"Okay, so tomorrow 10-11 I have Zach's class party, 1-2 I have Madison's piano recital, and 3-5 I have ice-skating with the girl scouts."

"Then from 6-10 we're gonna be at the ER while they fit you for a pink cast?"

"No, it will be red. It's Christmas time. I need to match the rest of the decorations."

Big Kid date

With an age span of 9 1/2 years between all of my kids it can be difficult to find things they all want to (or can) do. My younger two are incredibly picky eaters, so for the most part we eat at places that serve french fries, and my older two seem to be increasingly tired of the same old stuff.

Right now the requirements for a "family activity" have to be either one of the following- Christopher can run around freely (because he will), or Christopher is strapped in his stroller and someone pushes him all over the place. So, you know, things like bowling, rollerskating, and going to movies are out of the question.

Our best solution to this problem is to split things up. Generally either John or I stay home with Christopher while the other one takes the rest of the kids out. Sometimes however we do something extra special.

Since this is the month of December -the month where we celebrate three birthdays in addition to the birth of our Savior, we hired a babysitter for the younger ones and went out for a big kid date. We took the older two (the birthday children) to go see A Christmas Carol at Hale Center Theatre. They loved it. (We all did) I think Nick's exact words were "This is the best show EVER!" They really did a fabulous job. It's no wonder the tickets sell out so quickly. It was also pretty neat that we knew two members of the cast.

After the show we had reservations at Benihana. Boy do I crave that onion soup. It was a totally new experience for the kids and they thought that it was great. They were thrilled to see the chefs tossing knives, making volcanoes out of onion rings, and cooking their food right in front of them.

I think I am going to enjoy having older kids. It's opening up a whole new world of possibilities for us.

Christmas Movies

I think my all-time favorite Christmas movie has to be A Christmas Story. I find it totally hilarious. I remember as a kid my brother and I laughing until we cried at the Christmas dinner scene in the Chinese restaurant. To this day I have this very obnoxious (and very un-PC) urge to sing "Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra" whenever I hear that that song Hark! The Harald Angels Sing. (Instead of Fa-la-la-la...). Mostly I control that urge. Mostly.

Elf has got to be a new Classic around here. I still laugh every time I watch it. I know what's going to happen. I know that he's going to try and put that star on the tree by catapulting off the couch and the tree is going to fall down, still, I laugh. I'm not generally a Will Ferrell fan, but I kind of think he's a comedic genius in Elf.

I had a first the other night and watched a movie I had never seen before- It's a Wonderful Life. I think I'm officially the last person on the planet to see that movie. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say "Every year we watch It's a Wonderful Life at Christmas time, and I always cry at the end." And then I would secretly mock them in my head. No, not really. Because that would make me a hypocrite, and if there's anything I dislike more than crying at movies or books, it's being a hypocrite, and since I am already guilty of one of those...

I have seen parts of it before. Like the part where the old man is smacking young George and his ear starts bleeding. I remember thinking "What a terrible movie! Why do people like this movie?!" I've also caught the very end on TV, when all the people are giving him money, and I knew the basic premise to the story - for some reason he wishes he were never born, so an angel comes down and shows him how terrible life would be for all the people he loved if he were never born, and he has a change of heart.

I bought the movie last year, but our only DVD player was retarded and apparently very snobbish, and it would refuse to play certain perfectly good DVD's. Brand new out of the package even. We're not talking about the much used and abused CARS DVD or anything. Brand-spanking-shiny-new DVD's. So the movie got shelved, until some future date. The other night John was out of town, and I had intentions of staying up late and making yet another batch of caramels, but I really didn't feel like it and then I remembered that movie. So I watched it instead. And I was very glad no one was around to see me cry.

obsessed? it's up for debate.

It all started with a book- you know which one I am talking about.

My friend Mindy was in town visiting and she said "There's this book that you HAVE to read! Oh my gosh! I need to talk to someone about these books!" And that's how it began. She dragged me to the bookstore, bought books one and two for me (in hardback, cause she knew I would want to share them) and I was instructed to read them ASAP and then call her immediately, because she needed someone to talk to. "I know it sounds kind of weird" she said, "but trust me on this one. It's about this girl and this guy who fall in love, but he's a vampire..."

So that was how it began. True to her word, I loved the books, and lent them out until my friends started buying their own copies. I went to a book signing by the author, a midnight release party for the latest book, stayed up all night reading that book, took a picture of a silver Volvo S60R in the parking lot of a hospital with my cell phone, and for awhile there my flair board on facebook was all twilight. (Now it's all Halloween, I think I need to change that).

Other things I haven't blogged about (at least I don't think so) are the fact that for awhile there I was checking several different websites each and every day for any news on books or the movie. (I don't do that anymore, just once or twice a week now) I've spent hours reading all the additional things (out-takes, etc) written by Stephenie on her website- I love what she's written in Midnight Sun, and I hope desperately she will finish it, (it's so yummy) and I've downloaded a good amount of the play list for each book. There you have it. I think that's all the ugly details.

On the other hand, I've never sent off any fan mail, or dressed up as a character from the book, I don't own any of the t-shirts (although I wouldn't say no to one), I thought about doing a whole twilight theme background for my blog, but thought better of it, I do own the twilight complete illustrated movie companion book, but I didn't buy that or ask for that and if I had seen it in a bookstore I most likely would have picked it up and thumbed through it, but not paid actual money for it. I was just in an exceptionally crabby mood one day and John bought it for me "so he could see me smile". I didn't go to the midnight release of the party (but that's just cause things didn't work out that way.)

But I have seen the movie twice already. Once on Friday and once on Saturday. Obviously I loved it. I loved it even though it was cheesy in spots, and choppy, and too short, and there could have been a lot more character development, and some of the special effects and left a little to be desired, and I laughed throughout the whole thing. I laughed at serious moments when laughing would normally be inappropriate, I laughed at certain parts that felt more like an inside joke to those of us who have read it a few times, and I laughed at the people around us. For instance there was this little girl (12 or 13 or so) sitting next to us and she was the best. So totally not in control of herself no matter how hard she tried. She was almost as entertaining as the movie with her gasps and sighs every time Edward had a close up, how she just shook in her seat, and her barely audible "I love you Edward!" or "Just kiss her already!" had us laughing (silently) in our seats.

I've heard rumors that New Moon will be made, and I am crossing my fingers that they will throw a little more money into the production of it. Maybe I'll go to that midnight release showing of it, and wear a twilight inspired t-shirt. Until then I shall have to bide my time, I am sure I can find something to keep me occupied, but if anyone else wants to go see the movie (again even) I'm so game.

Sad Day

I just got the bad news. I guess my mom called while John and I were out on a date tonight. She called to give us the heartbreaking news. Nick took a message and he's just as upset as I am. It's like a death in the family.

They cancelled Pushing Daisies. I know, I know. I think I might cry. So much for my power as a Neilsen Family. I guess they will air the shows they've already done, and maybe do comic books, or a movie, but still... Nick wondered aloud what will we do on Wednesday nights? I wonder that too. It's only been a part of our lives for a little over a year, and that ugly strike cut the season short last year, but we've enjoyed every single episode. So I'd like to take a moment of silence for one of the best shows to be cut down in it's youth...

I'm an Esme!

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

I saw this on someone else's blog and couldn't help myself! - I made John take the test too, I tried to do it for him, but I thought the results might be a little off. He was a good sport about it, so I guess it was no surprise either that he's a Carlisle! I guess it was meant to be.


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Vegas Highlights (and lowlights)

All in all Vegas got mixed reviews from us. Madison loved all the bright lights, and swimming at the hotel and of course the wedding was the best part. As far as Nick is concerned he never needs to go back, once was more than enough. He told me he's never bringing his kids there. However, he did lament that we didn't have time to check out the Titanic exhibit, or see the replica of King Tut's tomb at the Luxor. (he's a history nut)

Some highlights- HL, and lowlights- LL are-

HL- The wedding. We've all been waiting for this day for quite awhile. It was held at The Tuscany with the chapel in one room, and the reception hall in the next. The bride was beautiful, their one-year old Carson was adorable, and the reception after was a lot of fun. They had a DJ and a dance floor, and Madison danced the entire night away. She danced with several people, insisted that John and I dance, and pretty much had the time of her life. John and I mentally added "dancing" to the list of "must haves" at her wedding. Good thing we only have one girl. Nick had a good time dancing too. He was quite entertaining. Think Elaine Bennis in Seinfeld. We all had a lot of fun.

LL- I missed the actual ceremony itself. Besides Carson, (the one-year old honorary best man) I had the youngest kids there. The people running the show at the ceremony told us they were videotaping the entire thing, and if we could please sit still and not fidget too much, that it would show up on the video and look really bad, so Christopher and I high-tailed it out of there. He was especially antsy and just wanted to run around and climb on furniture, and generally misbehave, and not in a quiet manner, so we left.

HL- our hotel rooms. Yes, ROOMS. Someone knew someone who got us their time share at a nice hotel, so for a pretty good price we got a suite with two bedrooms, three total beds, a living room with couch, 2 bathrooms, 3 tv's, kitchen, and dining room. One unlucky child had to spend the night on the couch, (they switched off) while the other two got their own beds.

LL- Christopher had to sleep with us. At least the first night anyway. After spending the night getting kicked in the back, he slept on the floor the next night.

HL- Carson's first birthday brunch buffet. Long before Carson was born, his parents settled on a wedding date, and when he was born on that same date a year earlier, they debated changing their wedding date for a little while, but ended up getting married on his first birthday. (I think it's pretty neat).

LL- Dealing with the aftermath of all that buffet food Nick ate in the confines of the car as we drove home.

HL- The kids got to see the Eiffel Tower, and the Statue of Liberty all in one morning. Where else can you do that? Also Zach and Maddie needed their picture taken in front of the PF Chang horse. (I guess they don't know that you can do that here in Phoenix too)

LL- All the other crap we tried to shield our kids from. "Just look up. Don't look at anything else."

HL- Going on the roller coaster at New York-New York.

LL- Having to walk through the Casino to get to the roller coaster, only to find out it costs $14 a person, and finding out that Maddie was too short to go.

HL- John making it up to Maddie and Zach by playing in the arcade, where they won stuffed animals- apparently Zach is quite the whiz with the "Claw" machine.

LL- Getting whiplash from the roller coaster. Seriously. My neck still hurts.

HL- Getting to watch one session of Conference with the kids all in one bed.

LL- John almost getting hit by a car.

LL- and the number one "Low-Light" of the trip goes to what is now referred to as "The Incident". While John was at the McDonald's getting take-out for the rest of us he was the unfortunate witness to an overly intoxicated, belligerent, overly obese woman clad only in her "unmentionables" stumble out of her taxi, then scream profanities, and threaten lawsuits when the staff told her to go home and put on something more appropriate. I'm just glad he was getting take-out, and we all weren't there "dining in". YIKES.

Another stroll down memory lane

Last night John and I went on a date to see a play at Hale Center Theater. We used to go pretty regularly, like for years and years and years I have enjoyed season tickets there, but had somehow gotten out of practice these past few years. When I learned that the daughter of a friend of mine was performing in it, I decided that now was as good of a time as any to make my way back to that most beloved of all theaters in the round.

As I sat there last night waiting for the lights to go down, scanning the audience for familiar faces (a habit I have done for years and years) a flood of happy (and sometimes sad memories) came back to me.

My mother had taken me there for almost as long as I can remember. It was our thing. We had season tickets. I remember going to the really old theater in Salt Lake City, way back before the fancy one in West Valley opened up. I think I like the old one better. Sentimental value I think. The new one has more seats, and it has a fancy floor that adjusts depending on the scene. Parts of the floor actually rise and fall, and the center is kind of like an elevator where the cast rises to the stage instead of just entering from the side. And it's a lot prettier, it's like the crown jewel of the HCT family, but I still like the old one better. The line for the ladies room was forever, they were totally inadequate for the place, but the treats were cheap- for a dollar I could get a Sprite and a Twix. (My usual)

At the old one I remember watching Ruth and Nathan Hale star in their very own plays that they wrote. I remember some plays being fresh, and new, and never before performed. I noticed they are doing one of their plays next year- April Ann. They were such a funny, cute couple. We'd get so excited when we would find out that they would be performing that night. I adored them. Nathan died first, many years ago, and we were saddened by his loss, even though we didn't really know him. But Ruth carried on. I admired her strength and wit. One time I even ran into her at a Jamba Juice, and I had to stop her and thank her for her work, and tell her how much I enjoyed coming to her theater over the past several years. She was really nice, and thanked me and told me that I should try out for one of the plays myself. (what a laugh!) She died a few years ago. I think I cried.

I mentioned how before the show starts I have the habit of scanning the audience for familiar faces- well one time when I was younger, like 11 or 12 or so, I saw someone that looked really familiar and I spent a few minutes trying to place the face. I leaned over to my mom, and I asked her if that man over there, on the end, half way up, if that was Thomas S. Monson. And it was. During half time I really wanted to go over there and shake his hand, but he was surrounded by other hand shakers, and I just didn't know what to say. I totally chickened out. (big sigh of regret)

After John and I got married, my mom would buy us season tickets for Christmas, and poor as we were, we still got to go. But after we moved to Arizona I was a tad on the depressed side for awhile. I had left behind everything I had known and loved for my whole life and had a difficult time adjusting. And then miracle of miracles, one day I was reading the newspaper and found this tiny little article saying how they were planning on building a new HCT down here in Gilbert. It was just a small part of what I had lost, but it was something. We were so excited we even went to the city meeting about it to show our support. As it turned out we totally didn't need to, and I think they were scratching their heads as to why this family showed up, but I really needed to show my support.

So I think after last night and this flood of memories I am re-committed to showing my support, and making more of an effort to go back regularly. I also think it's time to start taking my own kids and maybe they will start forming their own fond memories of something that has meant so much to me throughout the years. I think it's fate they just opened their children's theater yesterday. For like half the price of the regular shows I can take my kids to see Cinderella, but long gone are the days where you can get a soda and a candy bar for just a buck.

Oh, and just a side note- Hailey did awesome last night, so if you get the chance, go and check her out.