Twenty-nine

So now I am 29.











This could be my last birthday, you know.

From here on out I could be the type of woman who responds to the question of her age with, "29".

My mother in law informed me, however, that is probably always better to look your age or younger than it is to look like a really old 29.

So I might turn 30 next year. I think I am going to play it by ear.

This birthday felt like one of my best. It was just a really good day.

Possibly because last year was one of my worst. It didn't have anything to do with my birthday. It's pretty clear to me, through hindsight, that last January I was probably swimming a little deeper in the postpartum blues than I realized.

How happy I am to be out of that yucky place.

Friday night I had a great date with Dan. Saturday morning I went to breakfast with my parents. And later in the day we all took a trip to Ikea. Which turned out to be a very fun and unexpected shopping spree.

We had set aside a large chunk of change for a sectional couch after we moved in. But in all of our searching we had been unable to find just what we wanted for just what we wanted to pay. We went to Ikea to buy a dresser. We left Ikea with a sectional sofa, 2 dressers, a shelf system for Ava's room, and a shoe organizer. And we got it all for the exact amount we had set aside for the couch alone.

Of course our couch is not leather. And it's not the highest quality. And oh yeah, I had to build it myself.

But give me an hour or two, and by golly, we were in business!

Now, I still have a foyer full of cardboard and a few more hours of assembly ahead of me, but I can do it, I am after all, still a spring chicken!

A pirate's life for me

It's not too late, right?

I haven't yet written about Luke's first day as a Sunbeam.

After our move he struggled going to nursery. He is a big boy and he can cry loud. Really loud. Week after week he would cry in nursery as soon as we left. Finally the second to last week of December, the last Sunday we would be in town, he didn't cry.

Which was great and all, but I knew in the back of my mind, the next time he went to church he would be going to Sunbeams, not nursery, and I couldn't help but wonder if we would be back to square one.

Enter the miracle. Sunday came (the same Sunday I was sick at home, breaking our baby's leg). And Dan took both of the kids to Primary. Luke walked right in and sat down, and never looked back.

And he started preschool yesterday at the home of a nearby lady. When I picked him up he said,

"I wub, wub, wub my new cool, Momma!"

And while we're on the topic of Luke, one morning last month, we came downstairs to find that Luke had been busy.


He unscrewed all the light switch covers in the family room and office and left the screws in a nice neat little pile.

And here is the picture I took, also last month of his bed. A true rats nest.



He hunts and gathers and keeps it all safe. Let's take a quick inventory shall we?


Luke's Bed:
Hippo
Elephant
Zebra
sippy cup
2 remotes
1 key music toy
1 empty Christmas tin
1 handheld fan
4 AA batteries
1 calculator, batteries exposed
1 disassembled flashlight
1 pacifier
1 broken necklace
1 toy pliers
1 matchbox car
1 beanbag
shredded sewing plans
1 gear toy
1 semi-truck
2 fan books

And since the time of the photograph it would be necessary to add in the Tool Box, which he sleeps with,


which is also the portable home to 6 remotes, 3 flashlights, 2 screwdrivers, 1 measuring tape, and 1 set of keys.

And now for my personal inventory some of my goals for 2011:

1. Do something physically challenging this year. I'm still deliberating...

2. Not break any more of my kids' bones.

3. Be better about reading my scriptures everyday.

4. Clean the house more often.

5. Not get pregnant. Gotta break that odd-year streak.

The Year of the Pillow Pet

Christmas morning began far too early in my opinion. Especially since I waited until the night before to do all the wrapping, assembling, and packing.




I actually got done sooner than I'd thought but still, 4 am felt too early.

Ava, however, filled with excitement and anticipation, could only make it until then before she began her calling from her bed, "Mooomm-yyyyy, is it tiiiiiiime to wake up, yet?!"

Which continued approximately every 15 minutes until we finally relented at 7:30 am; the time the kids usually wake up and also the time we had arranged with my parents to come over.

Max surprisingly was not awake by 7:30 so we went ahead without him. It was probably better that way, otherwise he would have been all over the other kids stuff.

I think everyone was pretty pleased with their goods.

Luke with his flashlight and tool box

Max, later in the morning, just happy to be there

Dad and his new Blu-ray player

Dan's new scriptures

Mom and the apron I made her

Dan's super surprise gift for me, editing software

Ava and her various creatures

Later we hopped on a plane to Salt Lake to spend some time with the Colton side. We told Ava that her beloved Unicorn Pillow Pet was too big to carry onto the plane. She went into mourning but finally consented. As soon as we got seated on the plane, two little girls came walking down the aisle, with their Pillow Pets. You can bet your beef jerky we heard about that for a while.


The snow was so tempting, we finally relented to the kids begging and bought some snow clothes. By the time we got home from the store, however, most of it had melted away.

Lucky for the kids (and our hard earned money) a blizzard hit us the next day.









Poor Luke's "coat" was actually two sweatshirts which acted more like snow velcro than anything else.











We got to spend lots of time with the family and meet our newest nephew, Charlie.




And as usual, we hardly saw the little girl cousins. They'd disappear for hours at a time playing.

Ava finally lost her front tooth.

She had been reminding me of Abby for weeks.






It had been driving us all crazy for days, just hanging on by one little thread, threatening to send me running for the bushes. She could twist the thing all the way around and it made me gaggy.

Tried as she might, she could never muster the bravery required for a clean yank.

One night right before bed, it just fell out.



And we were all happy about that!

Well, well, well,

2011, I thought you held a lot of promise. And maybe you still do.

We got home from Utah on New Years Eve at 11 pm. (That trip needs its own post, separate from the whining I am about to do. Consider yourself warned.)

I was tired before we even got home. Really tired.

But at 2 am I awoke to strange noises through the baby monitor. Upon further inspection I found Max in his bed, struggling to breathe. Croup. The nastiest croup I have heard in all my crappy croup days, and there have been a lot.

I did a breathing treatment at home. But it did nothing. With each minute, we worried more, he was struggling so much.

I popped him in the car and we headed for the emergency room. Luckily they got us back to a room immediately and gave him another breathing treatment and oral steroids. They worked great and after a couple of hours we were home again. Back to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling awful and my eye was swollen like a marshmallow. I stayed home with Max while Dan took the kids to church. Later that afternoon, I heard that Max had woken up. I went and got him from his bed. He has been so lovey, snuggly lately. He likes to rub his face on our faces and pat, pat, pat our arms, faces, legs, whatever he can reach.

And we were exchanging these pleasantries as I carried him down the stairs. Suddenly the carpet turned to ice and we were airborne. And that is how Max broke his leg.

Of course we needed another trip to the emergency room that evening to diagnose it, but after spending most of the day in our arms, refusing to stand or even crawl, it wasn't too much of a surprise.

He has a hairline fracture of his left tibia. We went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday and they put on a cast which he will wear for the next 4-6 weeks.




He still maintains his bright, happy eyes. He still hands out his loves like popcorn. He has plenty to go around.

Have I mentioned that I feel awful? Not awfully sick. My eye is back to normal too. Just awful that I fell. That his little leg bore the brunt of our fall. That he hurts. That he can't sleep. That he has to lug around a gigantic stump for the next month. That he'll have to relearn how to walk.

I know he'll never remember this. And I know it was just an accident. And everything looks worse when you're tired. And I am really tired. That's why I'm telling myself it's okay to go take a nap right now.

On This Night

nine years ago, we were just finishing up a delicious meal at the Lion House. Our entire families were in attendance.

Afterward, I drove with my parents up to Park City.

We stopped at Walmart and I bought myself some white sneakers.

We drove to the grocery store to pick up some essentials.

We talked through the next days events over the dining table at our condo.

And then I climbed into the bed with my sister and fell asleep contentedly. There was not even a dribble of apprehension.

The next morning I would wake up (a little late). My sisters would fix my hair into a big pile of curls while I sat in front of the mirror.

We would drive down the canyon and my only fears would be about the slightly snowy roads we had to speed along in order to make it on time.

And then I would arrive at the Temple. I would find Dan nervously waiting for me in the foyer. Nervous because I was late.

I would proceed to dress in white with the help of my mother.

And then I would meet Dan and we would wait, hand in hand while our families and our friends assembled.

In the hallway, we would be introduced to the man who would perform the ceremony that would seal us together for all of ever. And he would explain with tears in his eyes that he had not been scheduled to work in the temple that day, that it was his brother's place he was taking because of an illness. And as a tear rolled down his cheek and he looked into our eyes he would say it was his privilege to be a part of our union.

Then we were married.

And it was, hands down, the very best thing that has ever happened to me.

Thriday and a Movie

Back when Dan was finishing graduate school we found ourselves in the lucky position of entertaining job offers from 3 companies.

Shell was axed pretty quickly because we didn't have much desire to live in New Orleans, especially so soon after Katrina.

That left BP and Exxon. Of course hindsight may have made our decision not look like the best, we still think it was the right one. But when it came down to choosing initially we had to weigh out the pros and cons.

And when we did they still balanced each other out. Except for one thing, BP had every other Friday off.

Seems kind of silly but when we weighed everything, those Fridays off tipped the scales.

We loved them so much. So much. And whenever Dan talked about the possibility of leaving BP, those Fridays always came up.

Interestingly enough, Dan's current job also employs the every-other-Friday off schedule.

Which makes today, what we like to call, Thriday. It feels like an extra long weekend every other week.

It means that when I wake up on Saturday I say to myself,

Saturday? Again? Yes!

And on this Thriday I visited Ava's school for her Christmas party. They got to wear their pajamas all day.



She cracked me up how she used her trail mix snack to decorate her cookie.




It was a painstaking process and by the time she finished and was ready to take a bite, the whistle blew for the kids to move to the next station.



I saved it for her.




When Dan left BP, they gave him another Ipod touch. Our first Ipod was also a BP Christmas gift from a few years ago. The old one is mine and he has the new one with a camera and video recording.

Let me tell you, we have been having a little too much fun with the video camera. We now have a treasure trove of little videos.

And when I went through them recently, I found that I had a collection of videos of Luke that were just awesome.

So now in honor of Thriday and my desire to share these little gems, here is one from The Luke Collection:


My boy is generous, that's for sure. He'd give you the candy right out of his mouth.