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.  

One of the best on record...

I am not really sure how it happened.  It's not like 29 is some impressive or momentous age to turn.  But I had the best birthday.  I think I can honestly say it is the best birthday I have celebrated in the past decade.  It was so good I don't think I can claim I'm not a "birthday" person 'cause I kinda want every year to go exactly like this one.

Let's start from the beginning.  My birthday was on a Thursday this year which means there was still school and other stuff going on.  So I woke up, started getting breakfast ready and gathering kids.  Jon took over and sent me upstairs to take a shower.  Little did I know he had taken out the water saver feature from the shower so I got the best high pressure water dousing shower ever known in the history of that shower.  It was heavenly.

Jon then informed me that we needed to be gone about 11 a.m. for my combined birthday/Christmas present (every December birthday child's nightmare...) so we hopped in the car and drove.  And drove and drove and drove.  I guessed the whole way there just to be amusing/annoying.  "Yay!  ChuckECheese, how did you know?  Laser Tag... awesome."  I was definitely not expecting to pull into the parking lot of Lasik Eye Center.  Jon had scheduled me an appointment to see if I was a candidate, and if I was I was going to have 'bionic eyes' before Christmas.

Oh.  My. Goodness.

I was exuberantly happy walking into the building, had a great appointment, passed every test and scheduled the procedure for the next week.  So awesome.

We headed from there to Scarlet's school where she gave her presentation on Bottlenose Dolphins (more on that later).

Later that evening, Jon got a babysitter and took me out to dinner at Firefly, a tapas restaurant my friend recommended.  Our choices were exceptionally delicious and it was a rare but enjoyable treat to be out to dinner with just my husband.

I had sweet friends give me little presents all day long that just perked up my day even more.  One friend gave me some chocolate covered pretzels, another gave me some grey nail polish I have been wanting forever, and another gave me a new cookie scoop!  My last one busted and I have been severely cookie hindered without it.

And even after that much good time, the best part still hadn't happened yet.  I had been trying for weeks to get a girls karaoke night together and the night of my birthday just happened to be the best date for everyone.  Even though I had a few people say they were going to come, I knew it was going to be late and I kinda thought everyone would back out on me that day.  And a few people did, but at 9:30 p.m about 12 ladies showed up on my door ready for a night on the town.

After some cake, we headed out to Hot Shots, a bar down the street that was almost completely empty until we came to shake things up.

It was SUCH a blast.  There were so many awesome moment, great conversations, amazing performances, it was just perfect.  I think my three favorite routines of the night were as follows:

3:  Adrianne's looks-so-good-it-could-have-been-choreographed number to Genie in a Bottle.  I am not exaggerating, the girl's got moves.

2: Anya's could-have-been-legit-it-was-so-good performance to Objection Tango.  Anya has a rockin' singing voice, as proved by a recent Sacrament meeting performance.  I was a little worried she would go all boring karaoke with some impressive ballad.  But no, my adorable Russian friend busts out some Shakira and it was amazing.

1: Our group number, Man I Feel Like a Woman.  It was legendary.

Honorable mention goes to my Tik Tok performance.  The bar was smoky and I was still getting over a cough so the vocal cords weren't at full capacity.  Solution?  Some good ol' fashioned talk-singing Ke$ha style.  And the duo stylings of Mindy and Shauntelle will be forever ingrained in my mind... and ears.  Not to mention my small and adorable Peruvian friend Sara taking on some Britney Spears.  Seriously ladies, it was all beyond awesome.

I finally climbed into bed at 2 a.m. It was a day/night not soon to be forgotten.  Thank you to everyone who joined me/contributed to the awesomeness.  Singing only to the five lonely people at the bar and the ridiculously busty bartender just wouldn't have been the same.

Thanksgiving 2012

You know sometimes after a crazy, busy, stressful thing has come and gone, and there were all kinds of things that didn't go as planned, but as you look back all you can remember was the good times and the fun you had?

Well maybe this year's Thanksgiving needs a little more time because I still remember the stuff I screwed up on nice and clear.  I have done the large part of the Thanksgiving cooking quite a few times now and I really just feel like every year should be one step forward to Thanksgiving Linner perfection (it feels weird calling it dinner, does anyone eat it after 3 p.m.?  Cause I never have).

But that just wasn't the case this year, I went down a few notches instead of up.  Here were my three biggest blunders:

#1 The Pie Blunder - We made 9 pies this year and had some really great ones.  The chocolate pecan turned out deliciously and the apple pie was perfection with just a spoonful of vanilla ice cream on top.  But my favorite pies are always the cream pies and I have been making my grandma's recipe for a few years now.  I do not know what I did wrong this year but, after many salvaging attempts, I gave up.  My coconut cream pie was liquid soup.  Super bummer.  Instead of chancing another failure, I used my backup pudding packet to make the banana cream.  It was well received but... well it just wasn't the same.

#2 The Store Blunder - I thought I was so on top of things and had everything I needed days in advance.  Well that didn't work out as planned and I got to take a quick trip to the Walmart across the street 4 times during Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving.  Every time I walked in, I could feel the invisible glares from the cashiers who were thinking, "YOU, and every other slacker who didn't get their shopping done in time are the reason I have to be at work today!"  I refused to go to the grocery story for like a week after Thanksgiving.  Thank goodness we had leftovers...

#3 The Roll Blunder - The one that bothers me the most.  I make my mother in law's roll recipe and it is delicious and very forgiving.  I cannot explain to you what was going through my mind when I whipped up the recipe just as called for.  I always ALWAYS double or triple the batch.  Except for this time.  So we had 20 people coming to my house and I had a total of 18 rolls.  So, so unacceptable.  This invoked one of the above Thanksgiving day store trips to buy what were deemed the "kid rolls."  I then made a double batch the next day so we would have sufficient roll sandwiches.

Phew... getting all of that off my chest I already feel better.  Now onto the stuff I totally nailed.

#1 The Company - The Warrens, the Rosenlofs, and the Bahlmanns were superb company.  They brought delicious dishes and great conversation.  Plus, they kept all of their roll disappointment to themselves, which I was grateful for. I am choosing to take all credit for the success of my guests

#2 The Turkey - I think it was just a touch bit overcooked in the breast but otherwise delicious.  I have had a lot of luck with my brining method and it was super tasty.  Really good gravy too... mmmmmm.... gravy.

#3 The Taters -  I tried the crock pot mashed potato recipe I pinned recently and it was super awesome.  I would highly suggest using chicken broth instead of water and adding a little cream cheese in with the butter but it was handy, out of the way, and turned out really delicious.

#4 The Pom Salad - I hope to always have pomegranate salad at my Thanksgiving dinner.  It will just always be Grandpa Earl memories in a bowl for me.  But I don't think a little revamp on the recipe diminishes the memories.  So instead of fruit cocktail (which I am not a fan of) I do fresh fruit, which this year included pineapple, grapes and bananas.  And at the last minute I threw in a few maraschino cherries and it was awesome.

Since there are more on the awesome list than sucky list I am going to say Thanksgiving was overall a winner.  Of course none of you are going to mention that the lack of any pictures taken could also make it on the bummer list so I can keep my win.  Thank you for that.   And Happy Thanksgiving!