Grandma Stratford visit

We were hoping that our trip would overlap with the annual Stratford Christmas party.  We were so close but missed it by just a couple days.  We decided to drive up to Ogden to see my Grandma anyway since it's been awhile since she's seen the kids.  I received the same reaction from my mom and Grandma that I did at the Rogers, "What are you doing here?"  It was awesome.  We had a delicious dinner and hung out for a couple hours before we needed to head back down to South Jordan.  I'm glad my kids were still smile ready this late at night because I love getting pictures with my Grandma and my little family.

Breakfast with Santa

This year I wasn't sure exactly how Breakfast with Santa was going to work out.  I know that the kids love going, and I love that they get to sit on Santa's lap and be with their cousins.  However, I was also going to be 37 pregnant and didn't think I'd be able to sit through the drive or board an airplane.  I sent the kids with Jeremy and had intended to have a quiet weekend at home.  Those plans changed though as soon as I realized that I like seeing Santa Claus too!  I hopped aboard an airplane and surprised everyone by showing up the night before.  It was definitely worth seeing the look on everyone's faces when they saw me, especially my kids.  

Santa came ready to tell stories and listen to all the kids' Christmas wishes.  My girls are still entranced by Santa and Kelton is still trying to figure  out who the big guy is.  

Santa chose Sammy and Chase to be his elves this year to help pass out candy canes.  As he was explaining what it took to be a permanent elf up in the North Pole, Chase just couldn't handle it.  Santa had said that the elves live with him all the time while some of their mommies stay home.  Poor Chase thought that he would never see Jen again and completely lost it.  It took the rest of the day for his smile to return, poor guy!  

When it came time for the boys to sit on Santa's lap, none of them wanted anything to do with him.  You can tell how much they really cared...maybe we'll get smiles next year! 

 Kelton wouldn't even look at me, much less smile. 

 McKenzie and Cambrie on the other hand were super happy to tell Santa what was on their wish list.   McKenzie asked for Legos and a hula hoop.  Cambrie asked for a globe, microscope or telescope.

Candid pictures waiting for everyone to sit on Santa's lap. 

 It was a hard year this year for Louesa to sit on Santa's lap because it was the first year she was sitting there without Leonard.  There wasn't a dry eye in the house, Santa's included.  

We still managed to get a couple decent family pictures before Santa had to head back to the North Pole to finish prepping for Christmas Eve.  

After he left it was time for the cousin gift exchange.  Kelton received a fun talking toy and began his obsession with opening presents.  

McKenzie received an elf Lego set she was hoping for.  

And Cambrie opened a perfect green lava lamp.  

I love seeing all the cousins just as excited to give the gifts as they are to open their own.

  After presents it was time for more family pictures.  Here is the picture of all the third and fourth generation with Grandma Great.  

And this year the boys pulled out the ugly sweaters.  Their faces in this pic remind me of some crazy mob shot so I just had to tint it.  It was a great and festive morning! 

Mr. Kelton

This little guy is the cutest, but hardest part of my day sometimes.  He has the sweetest smile, gives the best hugs, makes the silliest faces, and is just a goofball.  However, he is also incredibly stubborn, many times wants for no one else in the family except me, makes big messes, and I still have no idea what he says most of the time.  I have to capture the happy moments on camera so that I remember them once he starts throwing his fits.  He loves, loves, loves pancakes.  He always asks for two, and for awhile the girls were hesitant to teach him any number higher than two for fear he would take all the pancakes.  This particular morning he wanted to cut his own pancakes.  He was actually successful too.  I just loved his concentrating face as he worked so hard to make it happen.  

He also discovered the bag of frozen blueberries I am keeping on hand.  As far as a snack food goes, I really don't mind him eating them since they are blueberries instead of chocolate chips.  However, if I leave him unsupervised he looks a little like this when he's done.  

Kelton also loves laundry day because he gets to ride up and down the stairs all day in the laundry hamper.  When I was folding laundry yesterday he and McKenzie came up with a game.  "Mom! Look at me!" (at least that's what it translated to).  They played with that empty hamper and stuffed animals long enough for me to fold three loads of laundry.  I was pretty happy about that.  

Gingerbread houses

This year we didn't have the support of the whole Pearce clan for our gingerbread house, it was totally up to us.  But that's okay, because our houses still turned out awesome :)  The girls had a hard time deciding what the theme of their house was going to be.  At first they thought it would be cool to have a home next to a pond, but after we found some amazing gummy sea creatures we decided to make a beach house instead.  It's been awhile since we've done sugar windows so I introduced Jeremy to the beauty and simplicity of jolly rancher windows.  After they melted they needed to cool.  The fastest way for us to do that was to set them outside.  The girls could not wait for them to be cool enough to assemble their house.  

The walls went up quickly, it wasn't a complicated design luckily, and the girls were biting at the bit to put on all of the candy they picked out.  The made a thatched roof out of pretzels.  

Once that was done it was frosting and candy time.  I was so busy whipping up frosting and making sure they didn't eat ALL of the decorations that I didn't get a single picture until the house was complete.  They put star lights on the home, grapefruit fencing, sand with seashells and sea creatures for the yard, berry bushes out front, star fish in the ocean, frogs on the roof, turtles digging in the sand, and their favorite part was the coral reef right off shore.  

Holly visited that night and also gave her seal of approval to the girls' house.  While we were busy with our beach house, Jeremy was busy making a replica of his office to take into work the next day.  We experimented more with candy glass and put the Risas logo right on top of the roof.  If we had known it was going to work so well we would have put it inside the roof so it glowed with the rest of the stained glass windows.  He was going for realistic, and the details took us awhile but it was worth the effort.  The girls at work love the house so much that they can barely resist liking the tasty windows.

The Nutrcracker

With one more boy joining our family in a few weeks, it's a pretty safe bet that it is just going to be the three of us for the Nutcracker each year.  It's a little weird to think about actually that the only thing that will change about these pictures is how big my girls are going to grow, not necessarily the number of girls going.  We put on some of our warmest fancy clothes (it was cold that night!), took a quick picture in front of our tree, and hopped in the car to see the dancing and hear the music.  

Because of parking traffic we ended up being about fifteen minutes late to the performance, which was a real bummer, but at least we made it.  We had seats on the front row of the balcony which meant that the only thing blocking our view was...nothing.  The first act went very quickly and before I knew it, it was time for intermission.  I liked the small changes from company to company each year, and this year I think my favorite was the involvement of other toys in the fight scene between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King.  When we sat down for the second act, both girls were starting to say how tired they were.  I can't say I blamed them.  They spend the day before skiing and hanging out at a friend's cookie exchange party until late.  Then earlier that day Cambrie had a soccer game.  McKenzie fell asleep right after Mother Ginger.  She was not going to miss that!  I'm pretty sure that Cambrie also nodded off during the dance of the Sugar Plum fairy.  When it was time to go, I couldn't wake McKenzie up she was sleeping so soundly.  The dance of the flowers was beautiful and I loved all the costumes this year.  Even though we carried two sleeping girls in from the car when we got home, it was definitely a night that was worth it.

Keystone!

The girls each received epic ski passes this year for free because of a state-wide elementary ski program.  Free skiing?  Yes please!  So in order for them to go, Jeremy picked up one of his own and they plan on spending a lot of days on the mountain this year.  I'm a little disappointed I don't get to see their smiling faces out there, but this belly called baby won't quite let me participate this year.  I asked Jeremy to take some pictures while they were at Keystone and the ones he brought home made me smile.  They started they day on the magic carpet to review some key skills and get warmed up.  The magic carpet is covered the whole way up which makes for a much warmer ride. 

 Jeremy said they didn't need to spend long on the bunny hill for the girls to remember what they were doing.  The best family run is actually near the top of the mountain and it is long.  He said it took them nearly thirty minutes to get down once.  Apparently Cambrie was really confident in her wedge, which means that we are going to introduce parallel skiing this season.  McKenzie had the power wedge and sped straight down the mountain.  Ya, that's going to take some work.  However, they were all able to stick together without much trouble and were having a blast.  

They didn't want to stop for lunch, but Jeremy made them eat at least a little before round two.  

He said there were no complaints from tickling clothes, gear, being cold, or being tired.  That is a good sign since they should be going out again soon :)

35 Weeks

Okay folks, we are down to the one month countdown.  People ask if I'm ready for this baby and the only thing I can do is laugh.  Are you kidding?  I'm nowhere close to being ready for this kid to come.  I haven't pulled out any baby clothes. set up the crib, looked for any of my baby gear, bought diapers, pulled together any nursing items, prepped the nursery at all, or prepped the rest of my house for an extended mom-absence.  Ironically the only thing we have ready is a name.  I don't know if I'm in denial that my life is going to change drastically again, overwhelmed by everything else that I'm already in charge of at home, or just too lazy.  Whatever the reason, I'm not ready.  However, I am ready to fit into my clothes again.  This morning I went swimming and found that my suit doesn't fit any more.  Rest assured, this is not my pre-pregnancy lap suit, this is a suit I bought to accommodate a medium-sized belly.  I had to swim laps today in one of my maternity suits which isn't nearly as effective...  When people ask how I'm feeling I can answer that physically I feel just fine.  True, I can't sit down for extended periods of time, roll over very easily, tie my shoes, tie my kids' shoes, or stand up without my belly contracting, but it's not too bad.  Emotionally, I'm still a basket case.  I'm pretty sure that subconsciously I know how far behind I am in getting ready for this baby and it's totally stressing me out underneath.  Ever so often all my stress and worry come to the surface in a volcano of emotion and it's times like those I just want to lie in bed and ignore the world.  Here is a belly shot of the wiggly little guy.