Christmas 2007!

So, Christmas has come and gone, and my house still looks like Santa's gift bag exploded everywhere. But that's ok. This is the one time of year that I am perfectly ok with my house being a mess for days in a row, and living in my pj's as well. Ok, I know that is the case an awful lot the rest of the year, but at least this time I don't feel guilty about it!



The first thing Logan wanted to do was check out his stocking. We had the Christmas tree in the other room, so he didn't see what Santa left him first. That was his choice. It's funny how the thing he seemed most excited about in his stocking was his orange. Avery played with hers too. Funny kids!



My mom and dad sent Avery this really cute musical tea set. She loved it! Both kids did actually. They played "tea party" for quite a while. It was so cute to watch! Avery would sway back and forth to the music each time they pushed the button. She would sing along with it too. She had to suck on all the spoons, and put them in the cups.I was amazed that she knew what to do. Do you see the little clippy in her hair? Santa left her some hair clips in her stocking, and they actually stay in! This momma was very excited!



My sister-in-law gave Avery this really cute toy! It is a little polar bear that growls when you push on it's head. I was worried that it might scare her, but she actually smiled and laughed at it. And played with it. I love it!



So, I am really embarrassed to be saying this, but poor Logan has been wearing a size24 month coat because I haven't been able to find him a new one...that I was willing to spend money on. I finally got one the other day half off at The Children's Place, but wasn't 100% sure I liked it. Thankfully I did not remove the tags because Grandm and Grandpa Black sent him this fine looking coat for Christmas! It was just what he needed, and I like it much better than the one I got, so the other one is going back!This is the best shot I could get of him modeling his new coat, silly kid.



What holiday is complete without some chocolate laying around? We happened to have a few boxes of these chocolate orange sticks. Yum! well, Avery was in her seat near the table eating cheerios, and when I wasn't looking managed to snag the box of chocolate orange sticks off the table and dig in! What a happy girl! There's nothing like chocolate to make a gal happy! And messy!

We also discovered that Avery really really likes ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and jello. I love that this girl will eat real food! So, while she indulged in all the goodness of Christmas Eve dinner, sorry to say that all Logan ate was some ham and the whipped cream off his jello. One of these days he better decide he is hungry and needs some real sustenance!

I will have to post more of our Christmas happenings later!

Bathroom music

Logan spending time on the potty way back when!I love his singing...it is so cute!

I Spy with my little drippy eye...

Wednesday afternoon, Logan all of a sudden started crying and crying and saying that his ear hurt. I didn't know what to do, so I gave him some Tylenol and hoped it wasn't anything serious. He went upstairs crying, and after a while I didn't hear him anymore, so I went up to check on him and he was in his bed sound asleep...with his cd player on playing his lullabye music and everything. It was so sweet.This was around 1 p.m. and he hadn't even eaten lunch. He napped for 2 1/2 hours, and when he woke up he said he felt much better. Well, it wasn't too long before he started saying his ear hurt again, but he wasn't acting too upset about it, so I thought I would wait it out another day.




Thursday morning, he woke up and his eye was all red and crusty. He had the major sleepy stuck to his eyelids, and the whole area around his eye was even red and swollen. It was soooo sad! He wasn't complaining about his ear anymore, but as the morning progressed, he started complaining about his eye and it was looking worse. I finally called and made an appointment to see the doctor. We went to the doctor, and he has a really bad ear infection, as well as this lovely bacterial eye infection...aka pink eye. The doctor prescribed amoxicillin for his ear, and some eye drops for his eye, so we went to get those filled. As we were driving in the car, he kept whining that his eye was dripping. It was sooo sad! It was seriously dripping tears down his cheek. I would hand him a tissue to wipe it with, and not long later he would be upset about it dripping again. When we got home, I told him to go lay on the couch while I put Avery down for her nap and then I would come give him his medicine. I wasn't upstairs for more than 5 minutes, and when I came back down he was sound asleep. I let him sleep, and every once in a while he would wake up kind of fussing, and when I would go see what he needed, he had eye tears dripping down his face, and making a nice puddle on the pillow. I would wipe his eye, and the next thing I knew he would be back asleep again. It was really the saddest thing I have seen! My poor, brave little buddy.



** So, these pictures really didn't show how awful it really was, but you get the idea. Isn't he so sweet that he smiled for me? How do you like his chocolate milk chin? And his shaggy hair? He needs a haircut so bad!

So, today his eye is looking a lot better, and it isn't dripping anymore. He did still get the crusties, and it is still red, but not swollen and not drippy. He was acting almost back to normal today, except for his nap again this afternoon. Lately his napping is few and far between, so I know he is really really tired, or not feeling well when he naps.

Avery's eye was looking a little bit red tonight, so I am worried she might be getting pink eye too. I really hope she doesn't. The doctor did say that if she does, I can just call and they will call in a prescription for eye drops for her so I won't have to bring her back in. That will be nice. But really...how on earth am I supposed to give a 10 month old eye drops? Are you kidding me? That will be fun. Oh the joys!

On another, more joyous note, we found this really cool house the other night. It was all lit up with lights, and they had a sign outside to turn your radio to a certain station. The lights on their house blinked to the music! It was seriously fascinating! I was so amazed, that I went back last night with my friend Dani, and then Tony, the kids and I went back again tonight! We also drove around tonight and found a little cul-de-sac called "Candy Cane Lane" and all the houses were decorated really cute. We also found this other fun Christmas house tonight. There were cars lining the streets, and a crowd of people in front of this house. We didn't have coats, the kids were in their pj's and Logan had no shoes, but we decided to get out of the car anyway to go see the house. We wrapped the kids in blankets and carried them. This house was literally covered in window displays. I really don't know how else to explain it.There were little displays of animated gingerbread men, victorian carolers, penguins, santa and Rudolph, the nativity, elves, and I can't even remember what else, it was all so overwhelming! They had their front door open, with their storm door shut and people were just walking right up to look in. They had the inside room decorated with porcelain dolls, and ornaments hanging from the ceiling. It was crazy! The roof had stuff all over it too. Avery was fascinated by it all. It was fun to watch her.

And, we got a few packages in the mail today. Tonight we were showing Tony what we had so far under the tree, and Logan was getting really excited about his presents. He was jumping up and down and smiling so big. He was so happy that he came running over to me and jumped on my lap to give me a huge hug! I really can't wait for Christmas day. Seeing the joy and excitement on a child's face is the best. I really don't care as much finally about what I am getting. I just want to watch my kids open their gifts and be so excited. Well, Logan at least. Avery will be happy to eat the wrapping paper.

12 Days of Christmas

To put a smile on your face, and bring you Holiday cheer, go watch this:

12 Days of Christmas


Avery has been rocking out in her high chair. It's great! Thanks Ginger for sharing!

Enrichment Night

So, I am finally posting about the Christmas Enrichment Meeting from last week! It was a beautiful evening, and I am so happy with how everything turned out! The women absolutely loved it, and I had several of them tell me that it was a perfect evening, and it couldn't have been any better.I could tell that everyone was enjoying themselves, and feeling the Christmas Spirit.





The dinner turned out really well, despite all our worries, so if anyone ever wants to have a pasta buffet, I can tell you how to do it! I think our Holiday punch was almost the biggest hit of the night. It was slush...who doesn't love slush? It was very refreshing, and I think every last drop was slurped up! Yum!

I took pictures, but not as many as I thought. my memory card was full, so I kept having to delete pictures to make room for more. I really wish I could have gotten the full effect of the way it looked, because I thought it looked so pretty. I just love Christmas lights.



This is how we displayed all the envelopes that we had everyone's compliments in. We had 3 trees full of them. At the end of the night, we had everyone go find their envelope! It was really fun. There was a girl who was baptized not long ago, and she was standing by one of the trees looking at it. I asked her if she needed help finding her envelope. She said "Oh, I don't have one. I was looking for someone else's for them." I said, "Yes you do have one. Here it is" And I handed it to her. Her whole face lit up! She was so happy! That made me feel really good about deciding to do this whole comliment thing in the first place. I know for some it was a hassle to gather them all up, and put forth all the work to decorate the envelopes, and type up the compliments. Some felt it was a lot of "extras" that weren't necessary. But in that one moment, it made it all totally and completely worth it for me. That one woman felt special and loved. That was the whole point of the entire evening. She needed to know that she was loved, just like all of us do. We are all daughters of God. We are all sisters. We are all special, important and wonderful, and we all can touch each other's lives in ways that we may not ever know. Going the extra mile to get that message across was very much worth it to me.
It was a wonderful evening.

The program that night ended with a song that is my most favorite song this time of year. "A Long Time Ago" by Denise Orgill Ferguson. I have a story of how this song came to mean so much to me. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, my ward in Indiana had a combined ward enrichment program similar to what we did. A girl wih a beautiful, crystal clear, angelic voice sang this song. I had never heard it before, and could not get it out of my head for a long time. The spirit was so strong when she sang it, that she got choked up during it and couldn't even sing part of it. I asked her later on, what the name of the song was and she told me, but she couldn't remember who it was by. I searched high and low for the song, online, at the church bookstore, and couldn't find it.

Two years ago, right before Christmas I miscarried. I was about 10 weeks along, and we were going to Blanding for Christmas, and we were planning on telling our families our news for Christmas. We weren;t leaving until Christmas Eve, which was a Saturday. The Sunday before, I started to miscarry. I opted to have a d&c so that I would be able to travel and not be worrying about all that goes along with a miscarriage. It was hard to call our families and tell them we had good news, but now we don't. Anyway...it was an emotional time for me due to this, and I was still very emotional about the loss of my brother only about 15 months before.

We were sitting in church on Christmas Day listening to the ward choir's musical program. All of a sudden, my long searched for song was being sung! I was so overcome with emotion that I started sobbing. I couldn't control myself no matter how hard I tried! I felt so embarrassed! Tony's mom was sitting by me and was all trying to comfort me, and I felt really dumb, but I could not stop. It was almost horrible really. Anyway...I was able to get a copy of the music from Tony's cousin who was the choir director, and I was very happy! I would love to sing this song myself, but it gets a bit high, and I don't think I could do it justice. I asked a lady in our ward to sing it special for our enrichment night, and she had actually sung it before, so it was perfect!

Here are the words.

A long time ago a mother lay by the side of a tiny king.
The wisemen would come, the shepherds kneel, and the angels in heav'n would sing.

Hosanna, alleluia, for unto you this night
A babe is born upon the earth to bring the world his light.

A long time ago a perfect man walked the shores of Galilee.
He taught men of faith to forgive, to love, and bade them "Come unto me."

Hosanna, alleluia, how great were all His days
For he had come to show to all the straight and narrow way.

A long time ago a mother knelt by the cross of the chosen king.
The soldiers were there, men mocked His throne, and the angels wept at the scene.

Hosanna, alleluia, how much he must have cared.
For all our sins, he freely bore and hung and suffered there.

And not long ago a mother knelt by the side of her child each night.
She taught her to pray, to worship God, and to follow the Savior's light.

Hosanna, alleluia, now when each day is through,
the love I have for Him above, I'll teach my child, to you.

Lazy, Icy, Sunday

So, Tony is gone. He called me this morning to say he made it. What a long trip! It almost took 24 hours of traveling! Yuck! He left our house yesterday morning at 9, and called me this morning around 8. He had been there for about 3 or 4 hours I guess by that point. He couldn't check in to his hotel right away, and someone told him where the Christmas Market was, so he went and bought me something! I can't wait to see what I got! Anyway...he was just counting down the hours until he could go to sleep. he was waiting until 8 p.m, and it was 3 p.m. when he called. Right now it is after 10 p.m. there, so he should be in dreamland. I hope he gets some good rest to be ready for his meetings tomorrow!

It is really icy out today, and they actually cancelled church! I don't know if I ever remember church being cancelled before...except maybe once.I wasn't planning on going anyway since I would have to take the kids out in the freezing on the slick roads by myself, and on top of that, both kids have a pretty phlegmy cough, so i though that was a good enough reason to stay home. I am glad church was cancelled so I don't feel too bad about missing.

I had Logan help me make cookies this afternoon. All was going well until he decided that the cookies weren't the only things that needed sprinkles, and pretty soon my entire kitchen floor was covered.He was really having a good time, and didn't get bored right away like he has in the past. What a good little helper...most of the time!

I could tell you a story about Avery, a forgotten dirty diaper on the floor, and a mysterious object in her hand (and maybe mouth, but who knows?)but I won't. Logan thought it was hilarious and laughed about it all day while I was amusingly horrified that my sweet baby girl had found such a thing! Momma definitely learned her lesson about properly and promptly disposing of dirty diapers, no matter how tightly secured she thinks they are. The best part of the story is how happy that little hoodlum was holding her mystery object. Ick! Gross!

I came across a neat YouTube video clip today, and decided it was a nice way to spend Sunday at home. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add these things to my blog.I tried for a while, so I had to settle with a link. Be sure to check it out. It is pretty powerful.

There is another clip of a singing group from BYU called Noteworthy. I don't know how long they have been around, because I don't remember them when I was there.Anyway...I loved the arrangement of this song that they did. If you like good music, be sure to check it out as well!

I need to post about my enrichment night the other night, but I will save that for another day. It went really well, and I was very happy with how it turned out.

Avery's 9 month pictures

 

My little miss was not as happy this photo shoot as her last one. And, to top it off, I couldn't find something for her hair, and happened to have this headband and red bow in my diaper bag. It doesn't quite match, but it looks better than without, I think. I guess next time I will be better prepared!

baby nephew name correction

So, I jumped the gun on the previous post. My baby nephew's name is NOT Tyler after all. It is Jordan. Jordan Kristopher Hammond. There is a story, but I won't tell it. If my sister decides to blog about it, I will link to her blog for ya'll.

So, hooray for baby Jordan!

Baby nephew update

So, I found out more news today. My nephew's name is Tyler Kristopher. Thankfully, it was not a tumor, so that's a relief. It is something called a torsion, and I guess they don't really have to do anything about it, and he is coming home today. Hooray!