Can Never Show My Face At Church Again...

I remember the days back in the good ol' singles ward when I used to really notice how quiet Sacrament meeting was.  I appreciated it a little but I occasionally had the thought that it might be fun to have a few munchkins making a little noise in my pew someday.    It was much more magical in my imagination.

And now there is Asher.  Already a pretty rambunctious kid, we have now reached that awesome age where they are way too old to be happy sitting on your lap in Sunday School but too young for Nursery.  This had led to many interesting moments, but three that stick out for their high levels of public embarrassment.

1) During the middle of a particularly great Relief Society lesson, Asher made a dash out of my arms and headed straight for the front of the classroom.  He then made a pivot straight towards the easel holding the announcement white board.  I was right behind him, thank goodness and caught the easel just moments before the white board came crashing down on his head.  I thought I had set it up correctly before grabbing my still wiggly son, but no.  Instead the white board came down a second time on top of my head.  In the middle of the lesson.  

We spent the rest of the lesson in the hallway.

2) The Nursery was a little short on helpers one week so I instantly volunteered, knowing if I was in there Asher could be too.  The first hour went fantastically.  He was well behaved, stayed in his chair during music time, and ate his snack like a Nursery pro.  At the beginning of second hour, they take the kids into the toy room and let them play for awhile.  I knew that would be his favorite time so I wasn't concerned about leaving for a few minutes to conduct Relief Society opening exercises.

I had been in the RS room for a total of 2 minutes when our President came rushing into the room saying, "Kacey, Asher needs you now!"

What could possibly have gone that wrong in that amount of time?!  I turn the corner toward the Nursery room but slow down as I hear a commotion in the bathroom.  I walk in to find our poor Nursey leader with a handful of paper towels, poop on about three different surfaces, and a very smelly child of mine sitting on the ledge.   He had filled his diaper, up his back and down to his ankles with poo in those few minutes.  It was like a newborn explosion increased exponentially to a 17 month old size.  

I cleaned and scrubbed and sanitized for a good old long while, picked up my mostly naked child, took him straight home and put him down for a nap.

3) And our third and final strike was this past Sunday.  We just switched to 11 a.m. church which is full on nap time for this guy.  He held it together through the first 20 minutes of Sacrament meeting thanks to a pack of fruit snacks and a pacifier until the Sacrament bread came around.  As Jon was passing the tray to Rhode, Asher took a flying leap at the bread.  Then chaos ensued.  Bread went flying in many directions as did my son.  He finally landed with a loud crack as his ear connected with the hymn book holder.   I jumped to my feet and pushed past a very confused Deacon and made it in the lobby just in time for the post-large breath intake scream of death to erupt.  

He then took a two hour nap in the mother's lounge.  It's gonna be a long year.

Our Best Christmas Looks

The Sunday before church was unusually hectic and we had an incredibly difficult time getting out the door.  But I MADE everyone stop so we could take a picture.  Those are pretty real smiles for a group who just got royally yelled at by their mother.  (p.s. this is post eye surgery which is why I am wearing no eye makeup)

And our other family picture of the month, our annual Christmas card...

I lost my address list and had to go back to one from 2010 so it was all kinds of screwed up.  Hopefully some of you got it.  

Christmas 2012

We spent Christmas in Las Vegas this year.  It's nice to be in your own home for the holidays sometimes, especially when your home is a good 40 degrees warmer than your usual destination.  But, skipping out on the traditional plans means having to make your own traditions.

We started with some good ol' Christmas Eve fun.  The Stouts, Warrens, and Halls came over for a tasty Ham lunch/dinner with lots of awesome sides.  We had just enough kids to pull together a nativity.  We raided the fabic closet and came up with some real winners.

Our three wise men with their embroidery loom crowns

A shepherd

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

Our lovely angels

and a production was born.

We finished off the evening by baking sugar and gingerbread cookies.  We then delivered them to some friends and did a little caroling.  Many were skeptical with my plan but our recipients were very appreciative.  And the cookies were seriously good so what could there be to complain about?!

Once all of the extras had gone home it was time to open our Christmas Eve pajamas.

Scarlet's were a little small.... she didn't seem to mind.



Rhode was ecstatic to be Batman, he gave us his best superhero poses.

And surprisingly enough, even Asher was stoked about his new night wear.  He kept pointing to the front and saying "vroom!"  

 We practiced our hiding spots for Santa a few times before bedtime.  I wish I would have gotten pictures... Scarlet set herself up between two couches with a blanket over the top.  After practicing a few times, I finally asked her if she could actually see out of her spot.  No, she said, but that was okay.  So we switched her to under the coffee table which was covered in a blanket and then set up with our milk and cookies for Santa.

Rhode had the best spot.  We carved a peep hole out of a very large cardboard box.  The kids then decorated the box to their hearts content and Rhode hid for Santa disguised as a present.

Well before we knew it, Jon heard the little pattering of reindeer hooves on the roof so we woke the kids up, ran downstairs and quietly as we could and took cover.  Just moments later, the big man in red came walking through the front door.  He carried three large presents with him over to the tree.  We could hear him muttering under his breath about what good kids they had been and how excited he was to give them these presents.  He had a small bite of cookie and a little bit of milk but he was pretty full from the night and he was in a hurry so he headed right back out the door.

The kids were perfectly silent and he didn't catch us at all.   Asher slept through the whole thing but woke up just a few minutes after Santa left.  Maybe next year.

My kids must have been VERY good this year.  Santa and Grammy Peggy definitely thought so.

We had a great morning opening presents, laughing, making muffins and enjoying each other.  After whipping out a few new toys and using up all of the AA batteries in the house we decided to put a few of our new toys to work on the street.

Tricycle from Grammy, awesome toy! 

 Scarlet's bike wasn't a Christmas gift but her riding skills are definitely brand new.

 Rhode got this awesome Scooter from Santa and the boots from Grammy.  They went well together.

 


And finally we had a little acrobatic fun with our new trampoline.  I bet you thought that bar was to help with the jumping.   Asher says otherwise.

Then they flap your eye over and shoot lasers in it

Seriously, that's what they do.  But let's back up.

As previously stated, Jon decided to give me Lasik eye surgery for a gift this year.  Now I am always a little wary about expensive presents, especially from a spouse.  I think all the time, but it was our family money before it was this thing.  And is it really a present if you are working hard to save money together and then one of your randomly decides to spend a big chunk of it?  But putting my present issues aside, I was grateful to find out that Jon had put aside the money for the surgery back in April so he knew it would be there no matter how the year panned out.  I thought that was really awesome.

So anyway, I go into my first appointment pretty giddy because I was still in surprise mode.  I filled out a bunch of paperwork, got set in front of a bunch of machines, and chilled while they figured out if I was a candidate or not.  Every time I went to a new person, they would glance at my chart and say, 'Oh!  Happy birthday!'  And always followed it up with, "What are you doing for your birthday?"

"Getting Lasik eye surgery," I immediately responded every time.  Turns out, not a popular birthday gift.  Who know?

I can now be grateful for my eye genes.  While they did give me the problem in the first place, I was also blessed with extra thick corneas so I could "have the surgery like 6 times" if I wanted.  I was a perfect candidate so we scheduled the appointment, gave them a lot of money, and were ready to go.

They sat me down with their 'sales guy' right at the end, which I thought was funny since I was so obviously gung-ho the whole time.  But I asked him a few of my questions, especially about the trip I was taking a week after the surgery to Hawaii.

"Don't even worry about that.  You will be totally healed up by then and won't have to take your glasses with you on the trip!"

Awesome!  I was in.

I was then extremely busy for the next week getting ready for Christmas and my trip and didn't have a lot of time to sit and ponder about what I was about to do to my eyes.  Occasionally random people would say things like "I'm not sure I could do it after I heard about the whole flapping your eye open part."  Thanks guys.

But before I knew it, I was headed in for the real deal.  I was a little late to my appointment.  My chauffeur had to swing by a job site quickly on the way, and then somehow lost a supposedly chained on ladder in the middle of the freeway and had to chase it down.  Watching your husband dart into the middle of oncoming traffic with a Semi barreling toward him to get a ladder is a sight I could go a long time without seeing again.

But finally I was there.  I had opted not to take the Valium they offer, I don't always respond very well to strong medication and I figured I could hold still.  So, I just got to sit there and read a magazine.  I was then taken into the prep room where I got a rockin' hairnet and booties.  Unfortunately, it was at that point that we got the post-surgery instruction lecture.  One of the big ones on the list was no swimming for 3 WEEKS after surgery.

Uh, hello?!  Remember Hawaii next week people?!  I am not sure what you crazy Lasik sales people do on vacation in Hawaii but normal people swim.  I, as a normal person, was planning on swimming.  I was a little peeved that they treated me more as a sales statistic then a patient.  But at that point it was either do it or wear glasses to Hawaii (which also hinders the swimming) so I just went with it.

The procedure itself was a little more intense than I thought.  For the most part I just had to stare forward into a light but they put all kinds of crazy drops in your eye that don't feel good.  Then they clamp this little suction cup to your eye and that is the one that cuts your cornea.  That part was pretty crazy.  They had to suction my left eye twice and broke a bunch of blood vessels in the process so I still kinda look like crazy bleeding eye girl.  And then there is the eye flapping and the lasers and its all kind of a lot to take in.

But less that 15 minutes later it was over and I was free to go.  I felt a few shock symptoms for a bit, got a little shaky but overall felt pretty good.

Even though the surgery itself was kinda nutty, the results have been amazing.  I am seeing 20/20 without any dryness or other symptoms.  I go to bed, can see my alarm clock in the middle of the night, can watch a whole movie without my contacts spinning in circles, it is really really awesome.

Whenever I would read a book about days before glasses and one character would be the "one who squinted" because they couldn't see very well I was always really grateful for my glasses.  Now I am on a whole new level of gratefulness.  Science is a pretty fantastic thing.

Scarlet's Kindergarten Project #2

Their second project was an animal theme.  All the kids got to choose an animal, research it, and present it in  one of several available formats.  Scarlet waffled on a few animals but settled on bottlenose dolphin.

She did tons of research and even became an avid google searcher (with supervision).  She did most of her research with library books.  She decided a powerpoint presentation was the best format for her project.  It was not my first choice, but someone told me about prezi.com.  Its format is a little more kid friendly and Scarlet caught on quickly.  She placed all of the images and typed in all of the text.  

The directions also requested the student dress as their animal... which proved problematic.  We tried to go the wet suit route but were not able to find one of the right size.  So, we just went with grey and sparkly.  Close enough.

We practiced for about a week and then it was time to go.  She was the last presentation of the day, but before she started, her teacher ran out quickly in the hallway saying, "Hold on, the principal wanted to see this one."  Talk about pressure.

Here is her presentation.

She did a really great job.  The presentation was projected on the school wall and it was really hard to see the bottom of the slide so she missed a few of her point.  But her true shining moment is when she describes echolocation, which she thinks is the coolest thing ever.  I am devastated that the video we tried to take didn't work.  She got 100% on her project and loved every minute of it.