Some missed events

We missed a few events that we remembered when we uploaded photos from our lesser used camera, so here they are. In mid-September, my friend Matt and I ran in a local 10k. It was my first race in my new 5fingers, which were and are great (they barely escaped being returned to REI when we found cheaper pairs later). I took 1st and he 2nd, but that was only out of 6 or 7. It also marked the end of serious running for me last year. I did not run with Theo, but Cait brought him after the race finished.

In sadder news, I let Theo burn his hands on the stove. I turned away from him standing on a stool near the stove where he was helping me cook eggs. I had turned off the burner but it was still hot. He slipped and caught himself on the burner with both hands. He cried some, but not too much, and had to have them bandaged for a few days, but he seems no worse for the wear. Also, this picture marks Theo's transition in interest from the Ipad to the Desktop Mac. He's gotten really good with the mouse and navigating to PBS kids as long as we turn the secondary click off. Sorry, no pictures of the unwrapped burned hands, not an opportunity I will regret missing.

Christmas in Pictures: Boxing Day Brunch

The day after Christmas, we invited some of our wonderful friends over for a Boxing Day Brunch of crepes with all the fillings. Nutella, fruit, jam, fancy cheese, real whipped cream: you name it. They were delicious, our friends are awesome, and Alice and Theo were in love... with the Nutella crepes. I think my favorite part was when the two Beatty boys found our Star Wars books. They were smitten. Tim is hoping that is our future.

Harrison and me, strangely coordinated in our outfits

Crepes, Julia Child-style. SO EASY.

Ben and Athena

Beattys plus Tallia

Jon, Harrison, and fireplace

Cutest, fattest baby ever

Crepes!

Christmas in Pictures: Christmas Eve/Day

Tim worked most of the day on Christmas Eve, joining us back home that evening for clam chowder (great recipe, but I accidentally bought FAT-FREE half and half.... bleh, bleh), homemade rolls, a homemade fire in the fireplace, and lots of Christmas movies on the iPad. Theodore fell asleep during A Christmas Carol: Jim Carrey style. For some reason, he refused to watch A Muppet Christmas Carol, which I was rooting for. Oh well.

We woke up entirely too early.... even if kids aren't getting anything, I think they just KNOW. Theo was way too grumpy to go to Church at 9, I think he knew that he was supposed to get presents and didn't get any. Oh well, he was cheerful again by 10:30 so we meandered over to the local Episcopal church. Silly, they didn't have a nursery on Christmas Day, so we only lasted about 30 minutes into the service before heading to another local LDS ward where it was OK that you had a kid with you making lots of cute sounds.

Our presents were meager, but appreciated. My parents sent us money and an Olive Garden gift card, Casey and Melissa came through as usual with handmade mittens for me, a tool kit for Tim, and an iTunes gift card for Theo. We celebrated by buying him a new Winnie-the-Pooh app. After Church, the babe was tired, so we wrapped him up in the Sleepy Wrap like old times (thought he would hate it, but he loved it still) and walked around the neighborhood. I took a nice long nap with him and woke up to cook Christmas dinner (chicken, stuffing, sweet potatoes) and Skype with Tim's family. We finished the day by lounging in front of the fire, again.

Homemade wrapping paper

Back massager, that we ended up taking back because it was cheap

Tool kit from Casey and Melissa

I was so excited about Tim's gift, a wool plaid fedora. Alas, too small.

Theo didn't get anything, but liked Dad's tool kit

Sleepy wrapped -- went to sleep before we hit the next block on our gorgeous, sunny Christmas Day

He looooooooves the fireplace

Tim's idyllic Christmas

Theo's idyllic Christmas

Happy holidays everyone!

Happy birthday, Fatticus Gordo!

That's his new nickname.

I completely forgot these pictures existed. They were on our low-quality waterproof camera and we just started using it again as a video camera because our Flip mysteriously disappeared.

And here's a snippet of late summer/birthday fun:

Birthday party at Aunt Linda's

CAKE.

Digging in

With Grammy and Poppy before they left

Texas Roadhouse for his birthday (the last time we went out to eat...)

Sweet potatoes and chicken

IKEA train set courtesy of Grammy/Poppy

Birthday soccer game! (I was so skinny, I didn't realize how much weight I've put on everywhere recently)

Tired guy

Reading

Recent studies have shown that the greatest indication of a child's success and love for reading stems from a reading father. Well, if anyone knows how much Tim reads (he is pretty much reading 90% of his waking hours, whether it be on his Kindle as they walk around outside or listening to books on tape as he cleans) we should assume that our kids too will share the love of reading. I didn't anticipate my two-year-old would develop the obsession so early in life. Not only does he love being read to, he's started to embark on reading on his own. So far, the only word he can sound out and recognize is "ball" (with the occasional "mom" and "dad"), and now he thinks that every word is "ball", but he is getting so impressive at sounding out letters. Thank you, Super Why! and Elmo's ABCs app. And lots of patient reading with us really awesome parents.

Here are some recent videos:




He thinks the "U" I wrote is a "V", I didn't realize that until Tim pointed it out to me today.

Clementine

Part of me feels really guilty for not documenting this pregnancy here like I did with Theodore, but then I feel even guiltier because I forget a lot of times that I am actually pregnant. Especially during the day when I am going about my merry way, I feel pretty dang good and it's easy to not think about. At night with all her crazy ninja moves, I definitely remember then. She moves like crazy, way more than Theodore did in the womb. She is rolling and twisting and dancing for hours on end. I love it. Tim says he forgets I'm pregnant too, but I don't know how with all my "oh my aching back/hips/head" complaints when I wake up in the morning. Besides the tiniest box of baby girl clothes I got at a free clothing exchange and the bright orange car seat in the basement, there is little physical indication (you know, besides the large belly) that another baby is on the way. I do think I have already been nesting more than usual because my energy levels are way up, and I find myself wanting to clean up in preparation, and then remember everything is going to get very dirty again in the three months remaining. I'm officially in my third trimester. I think. I'm like 26-29 weeks now, depending on if you ask my midwife or babycenter.com or the Sprout pregnancy app on our iPad. We had another ultrasound last week to check out her brain because they couldn't get a good look at 20 weeks, and we verified she is very much a girl.

Speaking of prenatal appointments, I'm on an every 6-7 week schedule. Since everything is going dandy, I always have had healthy blood pressures, urine samples, and tons of fetal movement, I don't see the need to go monthly. Plus, it is quite the challenge to find a time to drive up to American Fork, and I prefer just popping in after work every so often for a little pee sample and blood pressure. I usually just see the midwife for about 5 minutes, even though I know I can spend as long as I want, but there isn't much to discuss when you are a very prepared birther and having a healthy pregnancy. I still have frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions [ahem, pressure sensations] but I was checked a few weeks back and am not dilated at all, so hopefully things will continue to be so. I started using my Hypnobabies tracks to work on relaxation and hypnosis for birthing. They are a little hokey, but I like her voice and they ARE relaxing. We'll see if I like her voice when I'm actually laboring...

Not much else to say about Clementine other than she is a stellar fetus and I hope she has red hair. But if not, we'll still love her. Heaven knows we are crazy about that Theo kid.

[oh: we don't know if her name will really be Clementine, everyone has been asking me that... we have a list but have not decided either which way]

Christmas in Pictures: Lights at Temple Square

We decided to brave the freeway on the 23rd of December. Bad plan. Theodore loved the lights... but probably loved riding the Trax even more.

Christmas in Pictures: Gingerbread House

In my first few posts in a long time, we'll look at some pictures from Christmas. First we will look at our construction of a gingerbread house. We bought a pre-baked one from Target, because we weren't up for baking our own gingerbread. Maybe we will when Theo will appreciate it more.

Theo loved putting on the candy pieces.

But mostly he just liked eating them.

Learning from the master decorator.

Why yes, I want to get a PhD in Political Science

Britney Spears

Why, on EARTH, have grocery stores been playing so many Britney Spears songs lately?! I thought she was long gone and dead and over...

In other news, I think I've composed about 20 blog posts in my head over the past month and every time I find the time to sit down and blog I can't think of what any of them are. But I do have some thoughts on Christmas I would like to share:

Tim has convinced me that Santa Claus does not exist in our home. I am utterly flabbergasted as to what implications this will have in our future. I can totally see the reasoning, but at the same time, I definitely have very fond memories of Santa Claus and don't think I was emotionally harmed. He is a tad creepy though, and I hate the bribery and manipulation of "you have to be good or Santa won't come" and the fact that Santa obviously likes rich kids better than poor kids. I'm tempted by the babushka tradition instead. Still magical, but she comes to houses where she hears children laughing, not necessarily behaving and following their parents' commands. I read it in our Christmas book about different cultures. Don't know if it's actually practiced in Russia, but I still like the story, and how it relates to the Savior.

Also, he doesn't think we should give our kids presents. One, because he's worked at Target one too many holiday seasons and he hates nothing more than when parents come in and HAVE TO HAVE A CERTAIN COMMERCIALIZED TOY and it's ALL HIS FAULT Target does not have it. And all of a sudden their Christmas, along with their child's, is completely ruined because they didn't get that one dumb toy that would probably only be played with for a month and then thrown into the back of the closet and given to DI by the next Christmas. I completely agree with this. And have you seen the hot new toys of the year!? When Tim came home and told me people were looking for a game called "Doggie Doo" I thought he was surely joking. One way I've considered avoiding this is not allowing TV in our house. It's from commercials that kids think they want these things, right? Tim thinks they will still want them because other kids will want them, but then I reminded him our children's friends will be elitist hippies who also don't watch TV and play with wooden block sets and homemade finger paints.

Secondly, I love my mom. I really love my mom you guys. But she has this thing about buying so many unnecessary presents. And then I get all these things I didn't want in the first place, and then I have to deal with the guilt of returning everything and she just goes on this "you are SO ungrateful" tirade, and then I feel all bad about making her feel bad and then Christmas is forever tainted. This has actually vastly improved in years past, probably due to some combination of my maturing and not being so angsty and her getting better at not buying me a bazillion things I don't need. And this Christmas, it seems we may have reached our acceptedness in the non-presents department. We'll see how it pans out...

Next: spending Christmas at home with just our family. When I told my mom this yesterday, she said it made her sad for me. I don't know why she would be sad about it, when quite frankly, I am very excited to have our first Christmas as just our family. Rather than shopping and present-buying and gift-opening, we've been making batch after batch of delicious Christmas cookies, listening to delightful music, and reading lots of Christmas books. Honestly, the kid is not going to care either way if he gets to open presents on Christmas morning but he will love making a gingerbread house. Plus, I hate wrapping presents. I hate excess stuff. He doesn't even play with the toys he has (exceptions: his train set, play kitchen, and football). He'd rather draw on an empty car seat box with markers all afternoon or read library books. No need for fancy contraptions to keep this child occupied. Even though when we do go to Target, he does love to go down the aisle and press the buttons on all the electronic toys to create quite the cacophony and fake music and voices "A is for APPLE! B is for BALL!"

So, am I scrooge and ruining Christmas for everyone yet? Well, I do have a few good traditions I want to implement, not just shunning the old ones. I really like the idea of three gifts per person: something to read, something to wear, something to play with. And I'd like to buy all three locally/handmade. If not local, there are always a million darling handmade items on Etsy that I covet. If I'm going to spend money, I'd rather support a small business or individual rather than Wal-mart and Mattel. I'd rather spend the same amount of money on three really awesome quality items than 10 cheaply manufactured toys. It seems quantity is what most people shoot for, so their kids can have 20 presents to open on Christmas morning.Which is really fun, to be perfectly honest, but is it necessary?