It's my horn, and I'll toot it if I want to

If our roles as mother and homemaker were run a little bit more like the girl scout program, I would have definitely earned a badge last night. Actually, I think last night was worth two badges. The first badge (and this would be a really big, fancy one) would be the "Baby Shower Hostess" award for my first successfully thrown baby shower. The second badge would be for excellence in decor, ambiance, cuisine, and overall result of said shower. Of course I might lose a few beads for taking all the credit for the shower when, had it just been left up to me, it would have probably been a sad and sorry affair. So Ashley, you can have all of the above badges plus the "Grace" award for keeping your cool while working with a pure ameteur who insists on stealing all your glory. (Applause)

Luckily I captured the night on film so all can bask in our adorableness.

This was our clothesline with little onesies for our new mom, also featured in the picture.

Cynthia (above, niece of Sharon McConkie for all who might care to know) wasn't due to have her little girl until the middle of March. But at 33 weeks, the doctors found fluid in her lungs so little Eliza Jane had to come out the next day. She is still in the NICU but all is looking well and she should be coming home in the next few weeks.

Eliza totally ruined our first shower date by her untimely arrival (you would think newborns would be more cooperative) but we forgave her and had the party a little later. We had a table with pictures of the new tiny little bundle and this book for guests to write their best baby advice.

The opposite wall was adorned with this amazing creation.

And then, there was the food.

'Is that a fruit and cheese platter' you say? Yes, yes it is. There were also fruit topped cheesecake tarts and crackers added to the display later. And the lovely decantur at the end of the table was filled with what turned into a surprisingly good batch of strawberry lemonade made with actual strawberry puree.

After some lovely chatting and the round of ooh's and aah's as Cynthia opened her gifts, the guests were then invited create their own thank you bag from our candy bar.

So dang cute right? All of the truly adorable creations (ie. the book, banner, etc.) were all completely the work of Ashley. The only crafty thing I can claim is the heart blanket and all I did was pay a woman to add the name, but it turned out so well I am claiming full credit anyway.

My bragging time is officially finished. Now you may praise me.

:)

FHE Reminiscings and other stuff

Jon and I have been trying a little harder to have some decent family home evenings since Scarlet is a little less worthless (as Jon lovingly refers to her) and able to participate. It usually consists of a few prayers, songs, a lesson from our 'beginner's bible', a very brief activity, and dessert. At first, our activity was the hokey pokey, a David Earl family classic. We even got to add in my dad's favorite addition, "you put your BUM in, you put your BUM out." That one was always a hit.

I decided to mix it up last week and pull out another classic, the noodle to your nose into a jar activity. I remember playing this game as a child vividly. The purpose of the game or why we actually enjoyed it so much still kind of eludes me...

Scarlet kinda had a hard time grasping the concept herself. The game is played by putting a jar on the ground. Holding a dry noodle to the top of your nose, you then try to drop it into a jar. As we got older we usually had to stand on a chair or stool to increase the difficulty.

Instead of following by those rules, Scarlet decided to balance the noodle on her nose...

Stick the noodle up her nose...

And then, eat the noodle.

We might need to practice that activity a few more times.

And as you can see in the background of that last shot, Scarlet has a new toy courtesy of her dad. We bought some furniture from Costco for Rhode's room and it came in a big old box. Jon walked up to it with a knife and, five seconds later, it was a playhouse for Scarlet.

She has spent the last week in there poking her head out the window and through the hole on the roof. We have even decorated the inside with her markers.

Why do we ever actually purchase toys?

And my final story of the evening. We were out with friends the other day and I had Rhode laying by me on a chair. Scarlet came up to him and leaned over to give him a kiss on the forehead. Moments later, he was screaming. I pulled Scarlet off of him and looked down to find clear impressions of her top and bottom teeth embedded into his forehead. She bit his head! Who does that?!

V-day Par-tay!

My good friend, Ashley, threw a fun little Valentine's Day party for some kids in our ward on the Friday before Valentine's day. That was officially the extent of my Valentine's Day celebration all weekend. Jon and I are not really Valentine's Day people, I know how lame are we?

Scarlet had a great time though. Of course I pretty much let her eat as much sugar as she wanted, what kid wouldn't have a blast? We were the first to arrive so I got a shot of Ashley's boys, Blaze and Bennett with their decor.

We ate a ton of fun little goodies. Ashley made these amazing sugar cookies on a stick dipped in frosting and sprinkles. I totally felt like a six year old eating it, but in the best of ways. It was just so good! I did control my six year old desires and kept myself to only one of those (finishing the other half of Scarlet's does not count...) Scarlet and I brought brownie bites with a little frosting heart on them. Sadly, she insisted on carrying them in from the car so the hearts got smeared all over the place. Still, how bad could a brownie be?

The kids did a cute little Valentine's craft and then burned off some of their sugar energy outside.

Whatever character Afton was playing (pink sweater) she was way getting into it!

It is quite the interesting phase of life when your idea of a party drops even below the way nerdy mormon college party level to cupcakes and two year olds. Maybe it really is hip to be square...

Top 5 Reasons Never to Leave Home

Rhode and I took a mini-vacation up to Moses Lake, leaving Jon and Scarlet to fend for themselves. Boy have I learned my lesson. Never again! And here's why...

5. Scarlet called me every night and used her sweet little voice and ever growing vocabulary to tell me she missed me, she loved me (first time by the way) and that I should come home until I missed her so much I could hardly believe I ever looked forward to my Scarlet-free time.

Of course, I have returned to find sweet phone Scarlet isn't actually here. Clingy, fit-throwing, mess making, baby beating, toy stealing, piercing scream emitter Scarlet has taken her place. Ok she is not that bad. I can say that now because she is taking a nap. It always easier to enjoy sleeping children.

4. I already get to avoid soy products (think soy sauce, hot dogs, and other random foods) to appease my little man who sure likes to puke on me when I eat them. Now after finally getting him to take a bottle, I learn that formula is not the boy's best friend either. It was the cheap stuff so maybe he will do a little better with the expensive kind, but that little experiment left me covered in white spit up spots all weekend.

3. I refuse to pay the extra fee to choose your seat assignment on Allegiant Air. I get so sick of their nickel and dimeing me! So, not surprisingly I ended up on a window seat next to two men who were not excited to be sitting next to the baby mama combo. Rhode wasn't all that into sleeping either so I got to wrestle with him with my knees crammed up against the seat in front of me (sucks to be tall on an airplane) for 2 and a half hours. Sucks to be so cheap...

2. I am oh so very behind on my life, but it is all that much harder to catch up when you leave your phone behind in Washington! We are not believers in having a land line so it means I am stuck with little contact to the outside world and without the ability to get many of my important tasks done as I wait for my phone to arrive in the mail.

And the number one reason that I will never ever ever leave home again is because, after only a few days, I came home to this...

No woman should have to endure such facial hair torture!

Ok, actually I had a really fun weekend. I got to see my Aunt Julie and spend a lot of time with my sisters who looked absolutely beautiful this weekend.

But I have learned my lesson and will never leave Scarlet and Jon to their own devices again... until the Earl cousin reunion that is! :)

Crazy lazy weekends

Since we moved into our house almost every Saturday has been a working Saturday. There is always something that needs to be done... ok, several things that need to be done. But we have found a little time lately to enjoy some weekend down time as well. It has been oh so very nice.

It is really hard to stay cooped up painting, sanding or whatever else when you have a sunny 70 degree day waiting for you outside. We fling open every door and curtain and let the sunshine fill our half remodeled home and it just makes us so much happier! Our kids even got to enjoy a little naked time by the open sliding glass door.

Scarlet loaned Rhode the block for the picture.

Two weekends in a row we were able to convince friends to cart their kids over to our house where we let all under the age of four run 'Lord of the Flies' style upstairs while we occupied the downstairs. It was so nice this last weekend that Jon and I decided to pull out the barbecue. Is there anything more fun than enjoying a delicious right-off-the-grill hamburger on a beautiful night in January?! I don't think so.

Once we got all the kids distracted upstairs, we pulled out some Rock Band on the projector. There were four couples in all so the boys went first. We let them play around for a little bit. Then it was time to hand over the babies to the men and form the greatest girl band ever.

I love that you can see all the guys holding the kids in the back.

On drums, we have newly mother of two and first time drummer... me.

On vocals, five months pregnant with baby number three... Ashley.

Rocking the guitar on the left is mother of one Mindi and Angie laid down the bass only weeks away from her due date.

Ok, so by greatest girl band ever I really mean hardly coordinated enough to make it through a whole song on easy... but we had ourselves a good time.

Jon occasionally made it upstairs to make sure all children were still alive with all limbs still attached and I found these pictures on the camera.

Angie's two cuties, Evan and Afton.

Scarlet with Ashley's boys, Bennett & Blaze, and Afton.

And no, luckily no one died from choking on the ping pong balls they are shoving into their mouths.

Good times.

A third of the first year of his life is OVER!

My little guy is officially four months old!

I am told my baby is not as photogenic as I think he is. Somehow pictures make him look even chubbier than he is. My family claims they expected him to be bigger when we came up for Christmas from my blog posts. I'm not sure... he is quite the chub! Almsot everyone who sees him can't resist a little cheek squeeze. Not even Scarlet!

He is also getting so big! I really should be dressing him in 6 month + clothes but he has so many adorable 3-6 month outfits I'm having a really hard time moving on.

He loves to smile, he is just starting to laugh, and he loves the jumperoo. I should clarify, he loves standing in the jumperoo and occasionally lifting his legs in the air. The jumping part of the jumperoo still eludes him. But he has discovered the toys on it and gets a kick out of whacking those.

He has yet to even attempt to roll over. I have decided the delay is a combination of satisfaction and extra chubbiness. He is just too content to lay in whatever position I put him to do anything about it. And really that is a lot of extra baby poundage to get up and around to the other side.

Everyone should be blessed with a kid this happy and chunky. It is the sweet life!

Christmas '08

We have always had wonderful Christmas's at my house. I have been so lucky since I've been married to have been able to spend Christmas with my family every year (we always do Thanksgiving with the Nielsens). I love the traditions, there is something in my personality that really likes things to happen the way I expect them to happen. Christmas always does.

We had a great Christmas Eve with the extended Earls. Though I must say, there were not enough of us there. So if all of you who didn't get their butts up to Moses Lake for Christmas this year can step it up next year and get it right I would really appreciate it!

Jon brought one of his family traditions with him this year, the Christmas chimes. His family takes a casual approach to the chimes. They all hand out the different chimes and politely play along with the music until they figure out which tune they are playing. Nothing about that is Earl style. first off, each of us tried our hardest to get the chime that got the most play time. Then we practiced the tune several times in order to sound good enough for the Earl talent show. Corrections were shouted out frequently during our practice session, 'Bryan you aren't holding your spoon right.' 'Dad, that's not your note!' 'Courtney you are high C, not low C.' 'Bryan, you are still not holding your spoon right! Are you going to do it correctly or not?' I caught Jon shaking his head in resignation a few times.

The truly funny part was, the chimes were not their first choice for Earl talent. My parents were dead set on the family learning this lovely routine.

I will admit, my dad doing a little Beyonce booty shake would have been pretty dang funny, but we just couldn't get our moves together in time. So we moved on to the chimes.

That night, we opened our Christmas pajamas and the photo shoot ensued. I am just remembering as I type this that we used to runway style walk down the stairs in our new pjs, do our model turn, hair flip, and continue back down our runway... I will tell you you really haven't laughed hard enough if you haven't seen Kristy's 6 year old model walk. Oh the good ol' days!

We debated back and forth whether to wake Scarlet up for Santa but we finally decided to go for it. So when my dad came downstairs in the wee early hours of the morning (ok, about 6:30 a.m.) I grabbed a half awake, half frightened Scarlet out of her bed, pacifier still in mouth, and we crouched under a well placed table. She laid in my arms pretty peacefully until Santa walked in the door. I could feel every muscle in her body tense and she was instantly wide awake. I could see her eyes following those boots as they walked back and forth across the room. At one point he came up to the side of the table and we could see him from head to toe. She instantly grabbed tight to my hand and I could feel her slightly shaking. I held her tight and she continued to watch his every movement until he walked out the door.

Then we all came rushing out of our hiding spots to see what he had left behind. Scarlet got a Baby Alive doll, which she loved. Rhode (who we got after Santa has exited) got a winnie the pooh tummy time mat. So far, he still isn't a huge fan of the tummy time but he had a great time staring intently at the box for awhile.

My mom never puts our names on the presents. She doesn't want us trying to figure out what we got or how many are ours so the names are always in code. This year we were all pop stars. I was Shakira this year and Jon was Hannah Montana. We got some great presents this year. Jon and I tried to keep things pretty low key this year. He got a pretty expensive speeding ticket the week before Christmas so my present to him this year is to do his online traffic school for him. He got me a much needed new set of scriptures.

Scarlet trying on Aunt Kylie's new Christmas hat.

Scarlet did very well. Jon and I got her several sets of color wonder markers and notebooks in hopes of saving our walls from further graffiti and some new books. Aunt Kylie got Scarlet the new Tinkerbell movie. And my parents got her several adorable outfits, snow clothes, an electronic purse, a teddy bear, a toy vacuum cleaner, and SEVERAL others that made a lot of noise. She was in toddler heaven! Rhode also got some fun toys from grandma and grandpa, we played the 'he's not old enough to care' card and got him nothing!

One of our favorite gifts of the year was Jon's gift to Bryan, his secret santa sibling. We had the hardest time decided what to get, so Jon decided to get him... a machete. Yeah, a real machete. It was pretty awesome. Bryan seemed excited about it. I think Jon and Bryan found a few things outside that needed machete-ing before we left. Boys...

We spent the rest of Christmas day in our pajamas, playing all our new games and eating all the junk we could. Scarlet kept going up to different aunts and uncles saying, 'I'm hungry!" which actually sounds like "I'n hun-gee". They would then say, ok what do you want? To which she would reply, "candy!" or "tan-dee"! She scored a lot of chocolate that way. Every time I would find her with another mouthful of chocolate, I would turn to the offending aunt or uncle and they would look at me with their innocent eyes and say, "She said she was hungry!" So easily fooled by a cute face....

I loved seeing my children get to spend so much time with my family. Scarlet was constantly beckoning one of her aunts to "come!" and follow her to wherever she wanted to play next.

She even learned a few names! Kendall (Ten-dow) is her favorite name to say. She still will turn to me occasionally and say, "mom, where ten-dow?".

Rhode got spoiled rotten as someone was there to hold him every second of the day.

I was also able to help out my mom during the week with some dance choreography. We spent a lot of time editing music, watching the routines, fixing the parts that weren't working. Kristy snapped this picture of us watching yet another routine. She calls it the three generations of dance.