A white Christmas after all!

Christmas in Utah.

Home, home, home --- that's where we'll be!

Recent developments have landed us home for Christmas, a place we thought we wouldn't be.

It was supposed to be a surprise, it turned out to be a leaky one however. No worries! We would love to see one and all, but with a 4 week old baby, we probably won't get out as much. You are welcome to come see us, though, if you want to (wash your hands). We'll be at my parent's or his, unless we have volunteers for babysitters, then we will be enjoying a moment or two without Sir Tornado and Lady Poops-a-lot.

Soft and cuddly

Need I say more.......

Paul and Dallin during our family PJ night. We set up the air mattress in front of the TV and watch movies all day long in our pajamas with plenty of popcorn and treats to go around. Oh, slothfulness was never so much fun!
Cross-eyed beauty queen!
Sleeping on Grandpa Duncan. And Grandpa Duncan sleeping.

The best sugar cookies that I have made.

I am kind of OCD when I make cookies. I mix the dough just enough, not to much. And I always add more vanilla and almond extract than any recipe calls for. When I am baking the cookies, I set the timer for half the time and then add more minutes as I go just so I can check them a billion times to get the perfect “barely golden”. It’s a process, but I think they turn out great and the time I spend obsessing about them is worth it when I bite into these yummy cookies. These cookies tasted like Granny B’s cookies when I put the Cake Mate squeeze frosting on top.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 teaspoons almond extract
3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven at 375 degrees. In a bowl, cream the sugar and butter together. Mix in the sour cream, the egg, vanilla and almond extracts. Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple hours or over night – This step is important, do not skip it!!

Place cold cookie dough on a well floured surface and roll out about ¼ inch (or a bit thicker). Do not roll out too thin, or you won’t get the perfect cookies that I made (haha). Get out your cookie cutters and cut away.

Place cookies about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes, barely, barely golden. I check my first batch about 10 times just to make sure I take them out at the right time.

Let your cookies cool before you frost and decorate them.

Cookies and Mommies

My wonderful, amazing, awesome, stupendous mom came to help out our little family last week. I tried to tie her to a chair, and told her that her flight was canceled, but she still had to leave to go back home :( Thank you thank you thank you, Mom, for changing Dallin's poopy diapers every morning and for letting me sleep in and for listening to me talk almost non-stop. It was so fun to hang out with you for a whole week. I LOVE YOU MOM! Dallin was so cute the morning after she left when I went to get him out of bed and change him. "Ma-maw!!!! Ma-maw!!!" he yelled! He wanted nothing to do with me. It was funny, too, because while my mom was here, my dad had to fly to New York on business and had a lay over in the Cincinnati airport, which is actually IN Kentucky only 1 1/2 hours away from here. He called to tell us he was in Kentucky, but he was already on the plane to leave, his layover was only 30 minutes long. It was so sad to have him so close but not be able to see him!

While my mom was here, we made our 2nd annual batch of Duncan Family Christmas sugar cookies. This is the best sugar cookie recipe that I have found yet! They taste like Granny B's cookies. Yummy! I want to post the recipe, but I have to re-type it first, but you need to try them! We all had a lot of fun making, baking, and decorating.

And EATING!!!

My mom made a special cookie for my brother, Kyle, who is serving a mission for our church in Argentina.

And what is a new post without a picture of the baby! I took this picture while my mom was holding her. I looked down at her and thought, "Wow! She looks like she grew over night!" A couple days later, she had her 2 weeks doctors appointment and we found out that she had gained a whole pound in ONE week! She was 9 pounds! She definitely does not look like a newborn in this picture!

Hanging out tonight

This afternoon, a friend called and offered Paul and Dallin tickets to Disney's Playhouse Live tour. He was going to take his daughter for her birthday, but she got sick :( So, tonight, Paul and Dallin are having fun watching Little Einsteins and the like, and Ellie and I are hanging out at home. It's kind of weird not having my two boys running around the house, and Ellie is sleeping like a rock. What do I do with all this quiet free time? Relax, crochet, blog, watch TV. I should be sleeping, but what is the fun in that?

Paul and I watched "Evan Almighty" last night. It was nice to sit and snuggle with him and watch a fun movie. In the movie, "God" said something that made me think:

"If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

It is so true, isn't it? Like it or not, this is what happens. I have thought about making this my new favorite quote. It's kind of long though and I am not very motivated to memorize it.

Initiation

So far, both of my kids have thought it necessary as newborns to squirt pooh all over their dad! I think that it is some sort of initiation into the family.

Sleepy Time

Boy do we love our sleep around here! However, Dallin are Ellie are the only ones enjoying plenty of it! Dallin has been so good to take a 2 hour nap every day and still get 12 hours in at night. (He is so funny about hats, beanies, and hoodies lately, if they get put on, they never come off! And look at his lips in this picture, aren't they perfect??) Ellie gets an ample supply of beauty rest as well! I swear she is only awake 2 out of the 24 hours in the day. She even goes right back to sleep after she eats in the middle of the night.
Now, here is poor Paul. He is so good to change all the diapers at night and give Ellie a bottle when I had my 120 hour long spinal headache. What a MAN!!!! I want to thank him for ALWAYS being there for me and taking care of me, for loving me and supporting me. Here he is, having fallen asleep on the couch, snuggling with the babe, after a long night awake and a long day at work.
You won't find any pictures of me asleep. I am not sure what the word means currently. But you know what? All the lost sleep that we are getting is SO worth it! We have two amazing, beautiful children. Today, I was holding Ellie, snuggling her up to my face. I suddenly became so overwhelmed with the immense amount of love that I felt for her. I feel as though Paul and I are at such an amazing, yet trying time in our lives as parents. Having little ones is hard. But these little ones look to us for EVERYTHING. What an incredible responsibility Heavenly Father has given us, to trust us with His children. I love my kids and I am so grateful for them!

For the Grandma's and the Grandpa's

Yes, here are MORE pictures of the baby. With all of our family out west and wanting to see more pictures of Ellie, this is the easiest way to do it!

Here's the baby on the way home from the hospital...Big brother trying to be helpful. And not to be over shadowed by his little sister: Dallin saw his daddy going peepee on the toilet today. So he wanted to try too. He sat down on the toilet and peed! Not a lot got in the toilet, but we are so proud of Dallin's first "peepee in the potty"!!
Daddy lovin' the baby! She is so cuddly!
I am already trying to control Ellie. She was awake, and I was trying to get a picture of her with her eyes open. She would not keep her hands out of her mouth and face. So I finally held them down to take the picture. You can tell by the expression on her face that she had a few choice words for me! Here's what happens when the daddy is holding the little baby, and the BIG baby wants to be held, too!

We have had a week so far with this little one here. I say, "a week" without any adjectives because I can't think of the perfect word to describe it. Euphoric, tiring, exciting, painful, happy, overwhelming, etc., etc. We have determined that I have a spinal headache, not fun. So I have been flat on my back the last couple days, trying to get better. It was one of those blessing in disguise. This may sound weird, but I never realized the strong feelings of taking care of my family that I have. I didn't know I had them, but I am glad that I do. I see it as a blessing for me to have the responsibility of taking care of my family.

We were lucky enough to have a small taste of Clint and Jordan (Paul's brother and sis-in-law) here for Thanksgiving. They spent their vacation finishing Paul's "honey do" list, cleaning my house, cleaning up Emmi's throw-up, and leaving early in order to get 104 degree fever Emmi back home to her doctor. Despite the craziness of it all, we were glad that we got to see them for a day!

We were also blessed to have my sweet relief society presidency (awesome ladies from our church) bring over Thanksgiving dinner. Paul already had a turkey thawing in the fridge, so that was all that we had to cook for the day. Even though Paul, Clint and Jordan were perfectly capable of putting together an amazing meal, with me out of commission, it put my mind at ease knowing that we would have a great dinner with no fuss. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is always nice knowing that without family around, we are still taken care of by people we love.

Bonus: My headache is getting better. I was able to rest all morning and felt good enough to make dinner tonight. I am starting to feel the affects of my efforts, but it felt good to get up and be somewhat productive. On the down side, my prescription pain meds are now gone, boohoo. I guess I had to say goodbye to them sometime ;)

More Pictures at the Hospital

If you want to hear the whole story... Here's the scoop: On Sunday, I was having extremely mild, irregular contractions all day long. I wasn't even sure they were actual contractions, so I didn't mention them to Paul. I didn't want to get his hopes, or mine, up. We went to bed late, midnight, got woken up by a call from Paul's work about an hour a a half later. An hour and a half after that I thought my water broke. I think we were being prepared for the sleepless nights that were to come. So we got out of bed, got everything ready to go, and dropped Dallin off at some friends of ours. By this time, I was actually thinking that I was wrong about my water breaking and was about to go back home. I then started having contractions four minutes apart, so we headed to the hospital for real. We got to the hospital and found out for sure that my water didn't break and I was only dilated to a 2. Because I was a VBAC patient, they thought it was best to keep me there so that I could be monitored the whole time. This was at 4 am. Six hours later, the doctor came in and broke my water, contractions started hurting, I got my magical epidural, and everything slowed down. My contractions all but stopped. So they gave me pitocin and at 4:53, out she came! So far, she sleeps and eats and sleeps some more during the day. At night, she eats and eats, and eats some more. Luckily, she sleeps in between. We all can't get enough of her. Dallin loves to hold her. If she is upstairs and he wants to go downstairs, he wants Ellie to come too. When we pray, he has to make sure that she is folding her arms for the prayer too! He loves to give her kisses. He is a natural at this big brother stuff! Paul, as well, loves to hold her and kiss her and love her. She has been a really good baby in our family. We are so fortunate to have her in our lives. We are so grateful for all the many prayers and thoughts that were given in our behalf as we brought Ellie into this world. It has been such a great experience, full of blessings and faith. Now onto being a family of four!

She's here!

"Ellie"

Elizabeth June Duncan

November 19, 2007

4:53 pm

8 lb 6 oz

21 inches long

PERFECT and CHUBBY!!!!!

more details later!

Poll Time and a Conversation with a Man

The baby's due November 27th

Let us know what you think:

When she will come?

How much will she weigh?

Will she have hair?

Will she really be a she?

Will she have cheeks like Dallin?

-------------------------

This morning, after doing my hair, I mentioned to Paul that I needed to get my hair trimmed. We have this specific conversation every time, and it us usually word for word:

Me: My hair is driving me crazy, I need to get it trimmed.

Paul: I thought you were going to grow your hair out.

Me: I am, I said I need a trim, not a hair cut.

Paul: But that's the same thing, what's the point of getting it cut all the time if you want to grow it out.

Me: There is a difference between a cut and a trim. I just need to get my ends trimmed so that I don't get split ends and so my hair stays healthy and doesn't get damaged.

Paul: I still don't get it, plus, it costs money to get your hair cut.

I love you Paulie-pooh!

A few of my favorite things.

I thought I would write about a few of my favorite things. These are not in any particular order, and I certainly have a lot of other favorite things that you won't see here. The first couple are my boys. I love them so much and they make everyday worth living. Paul and Dallin make me laugh, cry, live, love, and they are so crazy! Here are a few examples of the how they make me smile. Dallin loves to sneak up on my bare feet and scare them. He loves to crawl around like a puppy and lick me on the cheek. Paul cleans my toilets! One night, after putting Dallin to bed, Paul announced that he was going to take me to a "high school" dance. He told me to go put on a dress that I might have worn then and he put on something he might have worn. We then turned on mid to late 90"s music and danced in our living room. We even took pictures. I love it when Paul is silly and spontaneous like that.

Some more of my favorite things: CHOCOLATE, a good cheap pizza, and fresh fruit! Chocolate, enough said! We had a lot of Halloween candy left over. It didn't last long, maybe a couple days. Paul and I both love chocolate. Pizza...gotta love the Hot and Ready $5 pizza from Little Caesar's. This one has save me many nights when making dinner just didn't happen. And fruit, yummy fruit. During the summer, Paul and I bought a huge watermelon every time we went grocery shopping, about once a week. Paul even planted cantaloupe and watermelon in our garden this
summer. Here are the fruits of his labor. We got one melon from each plant and they were both about the size of a large softball, but they were yummy! Dallin is also a huge fruit lover. Yesterday, I gave him a small apple to munch on. About 15 minutes later, he was holding the stem only, having eaten the whole apple, seeds and all.

One thing that I know I will miss here in a little bit, is sleeping in. I love to sleep in and I use Dallin as my alarm clock on the days that I don't have to be any where on time. The other morning, I got to sleep in until 8:45 am. Man, that was so nice! I definitely cherish the sleep that I am getting right now and I am so grateful that Dallin is a good sleeper, too!

One of my favorite things: Being silly and having fun. Paul thinks that I am weird because I don't mind being embarrassed. We recently went to dinner with some friends of ours to a Mexican restaurant here in town. Although my birthday was two weeks ago, our friend secretly told the waiter that it was my birthday that day. So after we finished eating, I was surrounded, topped with a sombrero, my face got smeared with whipped cream, and they all serenaded me! I tried to lick all the whipped cream off my face, but I couldn't reach my nose and the fried ice cream was yummy, I must say! Dallin and I love to dance around and be silly all time. Lately though, it is hard for me to dance around and when we do, Dallin's head bumps into my belly a lot, but we still try to have fun. As a family, on weekends, we love to set up our air mattress and bounce around and watch movies and hang out. We love having fun.

My last favorite thing today is my favorite color: GREEN, grass green. Think of your favorite color. How does it make you feel when you see it, wear it, or maybe eat it (I love to eat green jello!)??? I love to see the color green. I have green shoes, green pj bottoms, green shirts. Green makes me feel calm, happy and at peace. I live to eat celery, broccoli, green peppers, and cucumbers. Green beans are yummy, too! I am always drawn to the color green. I just love the color green.

Explanation

Man, blogger is giving me a headache lately.

I didn't explain about the pictures below because by the time I got the pictures to show up, I was done.

We carved pumpkins "as a family". Which means that:

Dallin played with the guts and drew on the pumpkin with marker.
Paul carefully designed a face, and carved and sculpted the pumpkin (then washed off the marker with alcohol).
Kristen took lots of pictures and cleaned up the mess afterward.

Oh, and this is my 100th post. Pretty boring, I know. I had huge plans of posting a couple funny videos that Paul made, but, again, blogger is being dumb. Or am I the dumb one? Paul can't even get them to post and he's the smart one in the family. So maybe for the 101st post you will get to see the videos and we will celebrate then. Or maybe I will erase this post eventually so I can have a really cool 100th post. Stay tuned...

happy halloween

Jammies and Treats

Trains, trains, trains! Dallin was so excited to get a package in the mail from his Grandma and Grandpa Duncan that had TRAIN jammies in it! He loves trains lately. He will line up his frosted mini wheats on the table and "CHOO CHOO" them along like it is a long train. Baby girl also got some jammies too, so we took a group picture. Dallin wasn't too interested. Thanks for the jammies G&G Duncan!
Yesterday we had a ward FHE trunk-or-treat activity. We had so much fun. Paul was Dr. McDreamy (haha), Dallin was a pretty scary tiger, and I was a Geisha. Okay, I wasn't really, but I had my oriental robe on and that is what everyone kept calling me.
Here are friends Tigger and Pooh! They were so funny together.
Here is the whole 100 Acre Woods crew! Have you ever seen the Tigger movie where Tigger is in search of his family? He found one of his relatives tonight. We had so much fun tonight passing out candy from our car and begging for candy for Dallin, which we have now hidden and will probably keep a lot of it for ourselves.... NEVER, right??

What's this?

So what is this, you ask. First, I am the most indecisive person in the world. I was determined to buy crib bedding for my little girl. And I want to thank those of you who commented (and called me) to tell me which one you liked the best! THANKS! I was leaning towards the second one, then the first, then the first, then the second... you get the picture. I just couldn't decide. So today, when we were in Lexington, I got to step into the fabric store. And guess what I did. I bought fabric to make my own crib bedding. The funny thing is that: 1- It is nothing like the ones I had picked out previously, and 2- it is not even pink, or green, like I originally wanted. I thought these colors were so cute and I love the patterns. But don't be surprised if I change my mind and make something else out of this fabric and buy the crib bedding. I guess I could say, "to be continued".

P.S. Thanks to everyone who called me to wish me a "Happy Birthday". I forgot my phone, and we were gone all day, sorry I didn't get a lot of your calls, but thanks for the messages!

Sweet Deal

I found a pretty cool blog, Baby Cheapskate, recently. It has all sorts of deals posted on baby deals and steals. This one http://babycheapskate.blogspot.com/2007/10/reader-tips-85-off.html is worth looking into! Seriously, click on the link right now and found out what I am talking about! I found these super cute pink cowgirl boots! They are listed as $18.95. So with the deal of 85% off, they should come out to $2.85, right?! One of every size and color please!

Chili and Mini Cheddar Biscuits

I LOVE the fall. I love the chilly nights and falling leaves. I love mountains full of red, orange and yellow. I love throwing on a sweater. I love cuddling up in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate. I love turning on my oven and using my stove. I love making soup and stew and chili and biscuits. I love the sound and smell of my heater turning on. It brings memories of my childhood at Thanksgiving and Christmas time. I love fall for all the things it brings to me.

Baby Shower

I have the coolest Young Women at church. They, along with a few other amazing friends in my ward, threw me a baby shower tonight. I took my camera with me, hoping it would take some good pictures, but it only takes fuzzy ones in our church building. I needed Paul there to fix it. Anywho--- There are the most amazing people in my ward! Thank you everyone for coming and supporting me! My young women decided that that they would be in charge of all the games and prizes. They passed out little napkin diapers and we all opened them and the people who got the "peepee" and the "poopy" diapers won a prize. Then they had us sit in a circle and we played the LEFT, RIGHT game. Here's the story that Rachel (13) and Nicole (14) made up, they are hilarious!

Once upon a time, in a land far far away of green jello (Utah), there was a family consisting of a woman named Kristen, a man named Paul, and a super baby named Dallin. They suddenly LEFT Utah because they heard rumors that the awesome young women in Winchester, Kentucky were needing another assistant, since the other one LEFT. RIGHT at that moment, she knew she should come and help make them scarves and soap. A year seemed to have LEFT so quickly, because now she’s RIGHT here with us. But what you don’t know is that at night, she becomes a super hero/bounty hunter. Her shoe phone rang, RIGHT in front of Paul, who had no idea of her secret identity. She fled her house to of to the crime scene. As she flew in, she crashed RIGHT into the bank owner. It took him half an hour to explain that they had $6000 and all that’s LEFT is $0.48 now. The witnesses were shouting out directions how to get the criminals: “LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, straight ahead and your there.” Kristen tried to follow those directions, but RIGHT before she got there, the criminals had already LEFT. As soon as Kristen relocates them, they’re hanging from the top of the Ale-8 factory tied up. “Who did this?” she wondered, as she turned to her LEFT to discover that Dallin the super baby had been the one to capture the criminals. Before she knew it, the police showed up, RIGHT in front of her. As the police LEFT with the criminals, Dallin the super baby and Kristen looked LEFT, looked RIGHT, and gave a sigh of relief knowing the job was done. LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, RIGHT. The END.

The girls also brought Dallin a bag full of presents to open. He has not left that shiny gold bag out of his sight since then. I laughed so hard tonight. What funny, amazing girls I get to work with every Sunday! Thanks for an amazing shower, yummy food, and all the pink that now fills my home!

**Ale-8-one is soft drink. It is made right here in Winchester. It is like GOLD here, everyone drinks it. It tastes like watered down Gingerale.**

b l o g

I am sure that we all love to blog travel, or "stalk" as most people call it. I prefer "traveling". It sounds less obsessive. There are so many people's blogs that I like to look at. Some people I know, some that I don't. And with all the trackers that people have on their blogs, I feel like a stalker that knows their being watched stalking. Why can't I just write a comment on their blog that says, "Hi, I really like your blog. I look at it all the time. So when you see me on your tracker, you know that it's me, and that I am just enjoying the words that you write." Maybe I could make some new friends doing this. I recently looked at a blog of a girl that I knew from high school. I wasn't friends with her, but I knew who she was. I came across her blog in my "travels", recognized her, love reading her blog, but I am just to shy to comment. "What if she thinks that I am stupid?" I think. She even has a post where she asks everyone to comment, even if you don't know her. What did I do when I read this? I got out of there. I got nervous. Phoooeee! I should have commented. Maybe I will go back to her blog and do just that. I have gotten brave a couple times and commented on blogs, whether acquaintances or strangers. So maybe you are reading this and wondering if I have been looking at your blog...probably. You make me laugh, you make me cry, YOU entertain me!

Please Help Me Decide!

Paul thinks it is unnecessary to even get something like this. My argument: "What if her head gets stuck between the bars because she doesn't have bumber pads?" and "Poor Dallin didn't even sleep in a crib until he was 15 months old, poor kid is still traumatized over it!" Both really have no merit, but a girl's gotta do what a girls gotta do. He wants me to make them, but what it will cost to get what I really want, I can save time, money, and sanity by buying. I am leaning towards one of these....

this one?

this one?

this one?

***UPDATE***

These are all under $100 and from Wal-Mart. Trust me, there are a billion other ones out there that I like, but they are all $300+. I have expensive taste and an empty wallet!