Christmas at the Beach House

Monday, the 21st of Dec., we left for California to spend the week with David's family. My sister-in-law's in-laws own this awesome beach house in Ventura that they let us use for the week. It was a great place to stay and everyone in the family was there. We got there Tuesday around noon and the kids got straight into the hot tub. This is me and David and my sisters-in-law Carie and Malena watching the kids in the hot tub.

That night Azu and Ben made everyone carne asada tacos. You should all be jealous...very very jealous. It was delicious. We ate tacos and watched BYU win the Las Vegas Bowl. Very nice!

David and I with the sun setting.

The next day we spent the day at the beach house playing in the huge sand box and the two hot tubs. Here's Adam and David on the top deck and then they got in the hot tub.

David and his mother made this huge sand pyramid with the little boys in the sand box. It took them almost 2 hours to complete. While Matthew took a nap, I laid in the sun and read a book. It was bliss! Then that night we went to Universal Studios and walked around City Walk and ate dinner. It was cold but fun!

Pulling teeth

A few days after Thanksgiving I was brushing Jacob's teeth and noticed something behind his lower right front tooth. It was another TOOTH! His adult tooth had cut behind his baby tooth and was coming in. So I tried to wiggle his baby tooth and it only moved a tiny bit. I called the dentist and he said if I could get it out in a week or two then the new tooth would probably moved forward on it's own. It it wasn't out soon, the dentist would have to pull it. So the wiggling began. Here's Jacob with all his baby teeth. The poor kid just cannot smile normally.

Jacob, of course, didn't like wiggling his tooth because "it hurt". However I loved wiggling Jacob's tooth. I always enjoyed pulling my teeth when I was younger and would fiddle and fiddle and fiddle until I got the thing out. I thought it was all so fascinating. Well guess what...the fascination hasn't changed a bit. Playing with Jacob's tooth was tons of fun. Jacob had different feelings about it and would hardly ever let me do it unless I brided him or finally I figure out that he was happier when I gave him a little mirror so we could watch what I was doing. Anyway, Saturday the 19th we had Christmas dinner and opened presents with my parents. We would be out of town for Christmas and miss the real family dinner so we did it early with them. Jacob showed Grandma how loose his tooth was and she offered to pull it. I almost said "No way, that is my tooth to pull!" but I didn't have to because Jacob refused. Later that night before bed I was wiggling it and thought that I could get it out now. We were leaving for CA on Monday and I didn't want to have to do Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy at the Beach House. Jacob wasn't letting me do much so David put some thread around it and try to get Jacob to pull it. He wasn't doing anything so I just snuck my hand in there and tugged on it. Jacob was not happy about that but now the tooth was just barely hanging on so I was able to just gently pull it out. The tooth had a long root left on the front of it that was making it hard to get out. Once the bleeding stopped Jacob couldn't have been happier. He was so excited that the tooth fairy was going to bring him money!

They don't have the tooth fairy in Mexico so David asked me how much money the tooth fairy would leave Jacob. While I was thinking he says "like 10 dollars." Holy Cow, honey, I'm not going to to pay Jacob $200 for all his baby teeth. The tooth fairy left some gum along with the money and the gum was a big hit and he even shared it with Adam. The best part about the whole thing is that the tooth right next to it is a little loose too so I'm going to get to pull teeth again real soon. In fact between my kids I'll get to do this at least 50 times. Wahoo!

Scared

I am afraid of the dark...totally and absolutely afraid of the dark. I won't put the trash can out on the street at night. When David is gone I have to sleep with the lights on and even then I don't actually really sleep. (Okay I'll be honest, after one night by myself very early on in my marriage, I just go sleep at my mom's house now. I'm so grateful my husband is hardly ever out of town.) I refuse to go to the dumpster at the church by myself. I've been afraid of the dark for as long as I can remember. But it was never about monsters under my bed. Well maybe it was and I don't remember that part. I'm afraid of bad people doing bad things and hurting me or my family, that's why I'm afraid of the dark. My friends tease me because I lock them inside of my house. Ever door and window of my house (including the garage) is locked at all times if I'm there or not. I am not paranoid just prepared. When we first moved into our house I use to lay awake at night scared because I hadn't figured out the best way to get to my kids if something happened like a fire or an intruder or whatever. I hate that I have children in two different bedrooms now because if something were to happened I'd have to go grab Matthew before I could get to Jacob and Adam and what if I can't get to them all? Okay, so anyway enough of my neurosis, I really do have a point. A few weeks ago Jacob saw part of some pre-teen movie (iCarly) at a friend's house and then had 2 nightmares that night. He's been terrified of the dark ever since. As in, when the sun goes down he follows me around the house and starts whimpering if he's left alone. The door to the basement has to be shut at all times and he refuses to play in the toy room in the basement. He sends Adam to go turn on lights, shut doors and get his toys from downstairs. Adam now says things like "It's okay, Jacob. I'll be with you." Or my favorite "FINE....I'll go get it (or do it) for you." He sleeps with the lights on and Primary songs playing. The music keeps Adam awake so we're struggling with that too. Jacob wakes up 3 and 4 times a night and while I won't let him start out on the floor next to my bed he always ends up there sometime during the night and now Adam wakes up and comes sleeps next to him because "it's not fair that Jacob gets to sleep in Mom's room." I was so happy when we finally broke Jacob of the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and coming to sleep on my floor and that finally happened less than a year ago and now we're back to it. However I feel really bad for Jacob because I know has he feels. He's scared of monsters and aliens and some big brain that lands on him in his nightmares. He's always praying that he won't have bad dreams and won't think of them. He actually asked David for a blessing and requested that we take him to the temple because he would be able to feel the Holy Ghost there. Very sweet but he's still scared. Because I am an adult and am still scared of the dark I have to force myself to do things and control my thoughts. I had to go get something out of the YW closet yesterday at the church at like 9:00 in the morning and yes, I had to sing I am a Child of God to myself while I walked through an empty church all by myself. At least I was hoping I was all by myself. But how do you teach a 5 year old to force himself to go into the basement? Do you think that we really pass our neurotic behavior on to our children? If so my poor children are in for a whole heap of bad psychosis.

Now that I have told the world of my biggest fear, it better not come back to bite me! You guys like me, remember?!?

BYU Basketball and Temple Square

Last Saturday night we took the boys to the BYU basketball game at Energy Solutions Arena. I much prefer watching the NBA but the length of a college ball game is much better for the kids. Oh, and the ticket prices are a lot cheaper too!

Adam was a happy camper as long as that popcorn bucket stayed on his lap and he knew where Cosmo was at all times.

After the basketball game we went over to Temple Square to see the lights. We just made a big cirlce around and took a few pictures. It was in the 20s and freezing cold but the boys didn't start complaining about being cold until we were almost back to the car.

It really is beautiful and worth the cold weather to see it. I especially love the nativity scene in the reflection pond in front of the temple. I love Christmas lights (and fireworks, see how that's related.) It was a great night with the family!

Matthew

Matthew just turned 10 months old. He weighs about 19 pounds. We're really hoping he makes it to 20 pounds by the time he's one so we can turn his carseat around. He's only in the 23rd percentile for his weight but the 85 percentile for his height. However this week, after months of trying, he has finally decided to eat real food. One lunch I got an entire 4 ounces of banana baby food down him. But then when I tried again the next day he would have nothing to do with it. And then at dinner last night he ate them just fine. So he's still being rather fickle about it all.

Here's Matthew at 9 months wearing his Cookie Monster suit for Halloween

Over Thanksgiving break Matthew cut his top two teeth so now he has 4 teeth. I think he has the darkest skin tone of my kids so far but his hair isn't as curly as my other boys. But it is really long and makes for some awesome hair dos after a bath. But then it dries straight.

Matthew's favorite thing to do is MOVE. You can never keep the kid still. Getting him dressed is a wrestling match that I often lose. Or at least by the time he has clothes on I feel like I've been beaten up. He can crawl up the stairs but not down them and frequently I'll put him down in the toy room in the basement with Jacob and Adam and 5 minutes later I go back to get him and he's not there. I usually find him all the way upstairs in his bedroom which is 3 flights of stairs away. He also loves the bathrooms and makes a beeline for them whenever a door is left opened.

Not only is he eating a little bit better but he actually has slept through the night a few times. He's never gone more than 2 consquentive nights sleeping through but usually he'll do 2 nights then be up 1 night and do another 2. Or at least that seems to be the pattern this week. Who knows if next week will bring the same. We just love him anyway. His newest nickname is Mashu Picchu...you know like Machu Picchu in Peru. David came up with that one and I rather like it. It stems from Mafu and Mashu which we call him all the time instead of Matthew. If I don't cut his hair pretty soon we're going to have to call him Mufasa from Lion King. We were over at David's brother's for Thanksgiving and he called him Matt and I didn't say anything but David just politely said "Sure, but we call him Matthew". We know that someday he'll probably go by Matt but it's foreign to us right now. Mashu Picchu is much more Matthew's name than Matt. How sad is that? Well whatever we (or you) call him we just love him to pieces. And besides he's a beautiful baby with big big brown eyes that just are full of innocence. I imagine with his older brothers around that innocence will not last that much longer. :)

Football

As soon as Jacob's soccer was over for the season. David started teaching the boys how to play football. Not just like "let's throw the ball around" football. I mean the boys know how to run routes and the I formation and how to tackle. I begged David not to play tackle football with them but my pleas fell on deaf ears. Then a few weeks ago we were at a tailgate party when a pickup game of football started. The game was about 4 dads and their little boys. Jacob was the oldest at age 5 and then about 4 other little boys. The first play Jacob tackles this 4 year old boy to the ground and of course the boy starts crying. Now David finally understands why I tell him not to teach the boys to tackle. Most other children his age are not taught to tackle the person carrying the ball. However at least they know how to do it properly and what would get a flag thrown. They were most excited when they got to play for a bit in David's annual neighborhood Turkey Bowl. This was our 3rd year of putting on the Turkey Bowl and we had the best turn out (16 men) and a great game.

David had an Elders Quorum meeting later on and didn't want to change out of his suit from work. Again my pleas fell on deaf ears. David would even take Matthew out there and plop him down in the grass to watch. Apparently you can never start training too early.

What can I say? We LOVE football at our house.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. It was wonderful to be out of school and off of work and spend time together. Wednesday we took the kids to the Hogle Zoo. It was our best zoo trip yet. The elephants were eating and pooping (very exciting to little boys...and David) and the orangutans were getting health checks, and there was a baby elephant and giraffe. However Adam was so excited to see a lion just like to stuff animal Rarv and guess what the Hogle Zoo doesn't have a lion only tigers. We stayed at the zoo for almost 4 hours and the boys had a blast. Below the boys are in front of the white rhinos.

Mama Elephant and us. It was a bit chilly but the kids didn't complain.

The huge tiger with the even bigger head

Adam playing on the spider at the play area

Jacob playing on the caterpillar. The zoo has a great play ground.

I love the zoo. David goes to the zoo to humor me. Every city we're in I always suggest going to the zoo but he is less than thrilled with that idea but I think even he thought it was fun this time.
Then Thanksgiving morning we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:45 am to go run (well more like walk) a 5K Turkey Trot. It was a great experience but poor Matthew was not happy and David ended up carrying him and pushing an empty stroller. I push 75 pounds worth of little boys and holy cow that it hard. But we finished and we had a great time! And I felt no guilt eating 3 pieces of pie that night.

Here's David crossing the finish line holding Matthew.

Later that day we went over to my mom's house and had dinner with my family. We had great food, fabulous company and a riveting game of Taboo. In short we had a blast. Then we went over to David's brother's and stayed way too late playing pool, eating more pie and visiting. Again we had a great time. We are so blessed to be so close to family. Jacob and Adam made their costumes at school and wore them to Thanksgiving dinner. Aren't they cute?

The day after Thanksgiving we went to the BYU Bookstore and shopped and hit the candy counter of course. We ate lunch at the CougarEat for old times sake. And then wandered around a completely empty campus. I challenged the boys to some races. Check out my racing form.

Matthew, Jacob, Adam and me in the the courtyard of the new Joseph F. Smith Building

Jacob took this picture of us while we were taking a break to enjoy our candy.

To end our great weekend BYU beat the U 26 to 23 in a thrilling game. And then Max Hall ruined it all by opening his fat mouth and saying comments that were inappropriate for a press conference. He can think that way but he can't say it in a post game interview without smearing BYU and our win. I was never a Max Hall fan and now he has lost what little respect I did have for him. Use your brain not just your mouth!

At least the Colts remained unbeaten!

Moving, Young Womens and Wisdom Teeth...

That is what has kept me so busy that I keep pushing blogging to the end of the never ending list. No, I didn't move. But my parents sold the house that I grew up in. We moved into that neighborhood the weekend of my 8th birthday and they've lived their for 21 years. (Now ya'll know how old I am.) The first week of November I helped my mom move. Moving stinks! Besides the fact that you're leaving the house you've lived in forever and all your friends and your ward and all that emotional upheaval...packing, dejunking, loading, unloading, unpacking...and lots more emotional upheaval and it's not even my house anymore. In fact I haven't lived in that house for 8 years but when I took a video of the empty house and talked about it, I cried. All three of the bedrooms in the basement were mine at one point or another in my growing up years. I try to just not even think about someone else living there and I know that I don't want to drive by the house for a very long time. It's just too hard.

Young Womens....I love my calling. I really do. Now when I first got my calling I really struggled with it but now I can say I love it. So in other words I'll probably get released now that I finally know what I'm doing and how to work with the girls. We just did our yearly YW in Excellence program. It was fabulous and beautiful and the girls did such a great job and it was a very nice culminating event for our year and the things we've been focusing on. The world wide mutual theme for 2009 is "Be ye therefore an example of the believers....." Our focus has been that if you knew you were a daughter of God that you would act the way a daughter of God would act and thus be an example of the believers. At the beginning of the year we had a huge kickoff Princess Academy night and for YW in Excellence we had a Royal Gala. The girls got to dress up and we had a promenade where the dads or brothers escorted the girls. I made my very first balloon arch and I must say it turned out very nice. We used white Christmas lights on the floor to make this walkway for the girls and the dads to walk in a semi arch across the cultural hall. The cultural hall looked awesome. I wish I had pictures of it. My real assignment for the night was the food. We served 5 different appetizers at the beginning and 6 different dessert at the end including my famous chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. Not only was the food good but it all looked so pretty. And to me half the fun of cooking is making it look pretty and having all the different serving platters and decorating the table. Okay anyway I'm waxing poetic on this subject but needless to say while it was a massive undertaking it was also a lot of fun and what I was most happy about were my girls. My girls had to talk about a Personal Progress goal that they had worked on that year. I had worked so hard with them about what they were going to say and how to act and what to do. (You really do have to remind them to close "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen". They don't just know those things.) They all did such a great job speaking and being gracious and beautiful young women. So yep I was really proud of them and their accomplishment. I feel bad for people who choose not to accept a calling in the church. Serving in Young Womens is hard (on Sunday I had a girl tell me how much she hates Mia Maids because I don't let her talk to her friends during class and it's never any fun) and time consuming and requires all the patience I possess (which granted is not very much). And it turns out 14 and 15 year old girls can still hurt your feelings even when you're 29. And on top of all of that the only time you ever get thanked is at testimony meeting at Girls Camp (which is a most inappropriate time to be thanking your leaders). But if I didn't serve I would miss out on so much joy, so many of the small success, and I would miss out on my association with all these wonderful ladies that I serve with who have taught me SOOO much. (I don't know why the picture is crooked, sorry - don't worry Ash, I fixed it :) -David )

And lastly my wisdom teeth. I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth out a month ago. And to make a long story short and 10 days later after excruciating pain I went back to the dentist to discover I had dry sockets on both sides on the bottom, an infection in one and likely a fractured jaw. This was supposed to be a simple extraction. My teeth were all up and weren't fused with my jaw bone and it should have been a no brainer. But nooooo, I just had to get every complication in the book. Not only are dry sockets extremely painful and the stuff they stick in your sockets to heal them stinks and tastes so bad I'm still amazed I didn't throw up. Oh and they change those stinky gauze out every other day for a week. But my dry sockets are now healing correctly and I finished my last does of antibiotic and things are still sore (fractured jaw) and tender but I think I'm at least healing now (a month later). And did I mention that Adam has had two ear infections in the past month also and that the tube in his right ear has fallen out. It is going to be a very long winter.

Okay so that's my last month in a nutshell or at least the big stuff.

Farewell my friend

Fare thee well....Albertsons. Go ahead and make fun of my obsessive coupon shopping at Albertsons and the grief I feel at them being bought out here in Northern Utah. The latest is that they will close Oct 25th and open the 26th as something else. However both Orem Albertsons haven't been bought by someone else yet. So while everyone else had a pathetic ad this week Orem Albertsons ran an awesome General Mills sale. So as probably my last hurrah I went yesterday and did three transactions. I spend $23.69 and saved $94.13. $2.32 of it was tax and then I bought 38 items at an average of $.56 an item. Overall my saving was 81%. I did not have a single problem with empty shevles or coupons and catalinas not working. And Adam was an awesome grocery helper. In short it was a perfect coupon trip. So yeah...I'm really sad Albertsons is closing. Associated Foods which bought them out never offers the kind of savings that Albertson's does. There is another rumor that maybe since the Orem stores haven't been bought that they will stick around until the end of the year and then just close. But no matter what I've got to find another store to coupon shop at. BUMMER!

Go Green Gators!

Jacob played soccer this year and David coached his team. We had lots of fun with soccer this year. Three of Jacob's friends from the neighborhood played on his team and he made good friends with the other kids also. David did a great job coaching and had a lot of fun helping the kids improve their soccer skills.

Jacob is number 7 and his team is called the Green Alligators. We even have a team mascot which is a stuff green alligators that Jacob got from a friend at a preschool Christmas party a couple of years ago. David would bring him to the games and have the kids pat him on the head before they went out to play. Pretty cute! Below is Jacob kicking the ball and running after it. And on the left is Coach David. He's out of the field with the players. There's no refs yet so David calls the game and helps the players go in the right direction etc.

Here's David giving his team a little half time pep talk and telling them how good they are running. Jacob didn't like having to sub out of the game and I was always trying to get him to sit down and cheer for the rest of his teammates.

Coach David with his boys. Adam felt very left out and so we bought him some green soccer shorts and he always wore his green Mexico soccer shirt so he could be like the team. David let him practice with the team each week and Adam is an awesome soccer player. He could keep up with the other boys and get right in there and score a goal. He gets pushed all over the place, falls down knocking everyone else down and just jumps up and goes after the ball. Than Hancock called him the human wrecking ball. It's really quite fitting.

Jacob is really a great soccer player. He has spent years with his dad playing soccer and David has done a great job teaching him how to play. Jacob is ambidextrous and can score with either foot. That's a big deal in soccer. He knows how to get the ball out of the jungle ball group, dribble it around them and go score. He's done a great job of keeping his arms and elbows to himself and this year we really focused on giving high fives to his teammates after he scored. Jacob scores rather often and we wanted to teach him good sportsmanship. However this is a picture of Jacob celebrating after scoring a goal in his first game. Hey, at least his shirt is not over his head like he's learned to do from watching Mexican soccer games.

So Jacob and Adam are great soccer players, David is a great coach and it turns out that I'm a terrible soccer mom. I get so mad when the other coaches won't call fouls on their players and just let them play out of control...pushing kids to the ground, arms and elbows flying everywhere, shoving, and kicking body parts instead of the ball. And number two I get so frustrated when parents let their kids play like this. I never thought I'd push Jacob into competitive soccer but it turns out that it's a very compelling idea. Competitive soccer plays with refs, and the parents are serious about having their kids there. Competitive soccer doesn't start until 8 years old so it looks like I'll get some good practice at biting my tongue. But even after all of that I really enjoy watching Jacob succeed and David having so much fun. Next year David thinks he's going to coach both Jacob and Adam's teams! Let's just get through Spring soccer before we start thinking about next year.

Crawling

Matthew started crawling two weeks ago and he's so happy that he can get around. He hates being put in a high chair or a walker or anything that restrains him. This is my first baby that I'm happy he can move where he wants to go. It's just easier to baby proof than try to keep him in one place. Then this week he started pulling himself up onto his feet. Wow, that was fast! He pulls himself up on his crib all the time and then starts screaming because he can't figure out how to sit back down and get the pacifier that he left behind.

Isn't he adorable?

David's friend Brandon took these pictures for us. I have yet found time to actually print them off but eventually I will actually get some hung up in my house.

He still doesn't eat baby food but he will chew on crackers or a pizza crust and then spit it all out. I don't think he actually swallows any of it yet. I had 3 nights in a row of him sleeping through the night about 2 weeks ago and then he got a bad cold and was up 4 and 5 times a night. Now he's over the cold but has yet to go back to sleeping through the night. So I'm going to be grateful for the 3 nights I had and hope someday he'll decide he can do it again.