My Beautiful Parents

I just had to throw this picture in - I love it. I took it of my folks on my front porch the day after Christmas. They actually like the photo - they said I should keep it to use on their coffins at their funerals. Nice.

Happy Epilogue

Here is CTP with his beloved and oft-requested "Mega T-Rex," specifically the green one. I don't know how many countless people he told he wanted one of these. And here he is, rapturously dreaming with it by his side. Good job, Santa.

The Big Day!

We made it. Christmas actually came. It really was such a fun morning. I think that Troy and I are in the best days, the salad days, I would say, of Christmas - CTP is sold hook line and sinker on Santa. He doesn't even get that excited about him, like he's no big deal, just a normal part of life. He's the man who delivers dinosaurs.

We were all so exhausted from the night before - RAP pulled another near all-nighter due to having the lengthy nap and then snoozing on the way home from my parents' house. So we all slept in quite late. We haven't hit the years yet of the kids being so excited that they wake up at three or something, thank heavens. Troy and I actually woke up CTP a little before nine. He put on this funny bathrobe (more like a smoking jacket if you ask me) that was a hand me down from some dear neighbors. When they gave it to him they said that if he wore it on Christmas Morning he would get extra presents. (Thanks a lot!) Indeed, he decided he had to wear it. He looks pretty cute. Of course, the minute all the gifts were open he took it off, it's purpose having been served, I suppose.

Again, I was so proud of CTP. He was totally able to cope with the fact that not all the gifts were for him. He didn't try to open RAP's presents for her. He was delighted with the gifts he got, mainly a "Green Mega-T-Rex," for which he's been pining. Of course, even as I carefully laid out the gifts the night before, knowing how happy CTP would be, I knew also that within 24 hours he would be asking when Christmas was coming again. Indeed, it was only that afternoon he assured me that it was yet again Christmas Eve and he would be gettting all new presents the next day. I guess this is only normal for a four year old. On only one day a year are most stops pulled - why wouldn't he want it to happen again? As for mommy, I'm good with just the one day.

Christmas Eve Will Find You....

Christmas Eve on a Sunday...perfect in my opinion. It added the perfect center to the holiday. I can't believe we snapped this photo - our church is at 9:00, and this was at 9:05. Of course we were late with the snow and the fancy clothes and packing the church bag (with enough supplies, it would seem, to get us safely to the moon, but still isn't enough to get us through three hours of church...) I just had to get the shot, though, especially of RAP. This is a dress that my mom bought us last Christmas. We didn't have a dress for infant RAP last year, and my mom wanted to help us get one. We could not find a nice dress for a four month old, however, and did find this one, so RAP somehow survived a Christmas without a fancy dress last year, and we have this one to enjoy. Thanks, mom! I would have taken a picture of her in the afternoon, but she manages to get it dirty in about 10 minutes every time she wears it. Thus, I threw it on her, snapped a photo, and we were off to church.

RAP took a three hour nap in the afternoon, which was good because I had plenty of time to work on our feast. It was not good because she was up forever that night....but such is life. We had dinner with the Romney family. This is one of my favorite traditions. The Preslars never meet for Christmas Eve, so we always enjoy the evening with my family. Ever since the year 2000, when my parents went to pick up Peter from his mission in Mexico City and returned on Christmas Eve, we have had a traditional Mexican Feast. With my brother-in-law Van also having returned from a mission in Mexico and being an excellent cook, we have enjoyed the good stuff. Posole, roasted vegetables, ceviche, real refried beans...the works. We do it every year, and I love it. This year I made a sweet garlic shrimp and mushroom quesadillas. YUM!

I was proud of the kids - Christmas, and especially the eve of, can be so hard. So exciting that they want to burst. CTP held it together very well. I just have to say how much I adore my family - my dear hubby and sweet kids, and my parents and siblings. I'm so blessed.

Unprepared

We went to visit the beautiful Temple Square to see the lights last night. This is one of my favorite traditions and I look forward to it every year. Last night, however, I probably should have let the dream go. It was a lovely night but oh so cold. It was probably around 20 - 25 degrees out. Troy and I bundled up the kids and hopped on Trax. CTP did fine but RAP just doesn't have a huge enough snow suit. Her little Sunday coat just didn't do the trick and within 10 minutes she was one angry little babe. She loves running around and did some of that, but her hands and feet got cold and she didn't understand why she was so uncomfortable. So she just kept on running, or fighting me to get down and run, but cried profusely the whole time. We stayed about 20 minutes and then headed for the train. We were that fun family you love sitting by in public places with a screaming baby, snot flying everywhere....but the lights were lovely!

Snow Dog

Our beautiful pooch Alex still acts like a puppy everytime it snows. He's 10 and a half - can't believe that! I met him when he was a 10 week old puppy - Troy brought him to a ward party. That was the first night I met either of them, and that's when the love affair began - with both Troy and Alex! Talk about a love triangle....

Santa's Little Helper

What a beautiful morning - we have some good snow fall in SLC this morning - not more than a couple of inches but I love it when the smog gets cleared out and the ugly salty roads are covered in snow...well, slush now. Anyway, it's a lovely snowy Christmassy morning. Yesterday CTPs preschool put on a little Christmas program for the parents. They sang three or four songs and did some little action-poems. I videoed the whole thing, but I can't put it on youtube because the file was too big. I'll figure it out, hopefully. CTP was great - he's come so far this year learning how to focus and follow directions. Of course, he did lead the "I refuse to wear this stupid hat any longer" rebellion.

Midnight Lament

I've been really wanting to get to my blog for a long time, and just haven't been able to, due to the hustle and bustle of the jolly holidays. I'm working hard to be jolly, here. Sometimes I feel the Christmas spirit and sometimes I am a bit of a humbug....perhaps I will elaborate more on that topic later. I've been planning to, and would still like to blog about my children - I've been enjoying them so much lately and have made a couple of little videos to post on youtube and everything but I'm so slow at actually sitting down and writing. I meant to last night. However, my children had other plans. That is, my daughter had other plans. I was invited last night to a production of It's a Wonderful Life - it turned out to be all dance with some narration, and it was a little cheesy. But it was fun to be out with my friend Marianne. Troy was putting the kids to bed - no mean feat at our house. So at intermission I called him to see if all was well. Silly me. Of course both the kids were in bed, sound asleep. My phone call, however, woke RAP. When I got home at ten, there she was, weepily sitting in Troy's lap waiting for me. I tried feeding her, which usually does the trick. Except for last night. I let her play for a few minutes and then we went for a drive....let's make this long and unpleasant story short. After every trick I knew from letting her cry to rocking to driving to singing to feeding to telling her to go to sleep in a loud firm voice (not officially yelling) to doing some crying myself, she did not go to sleep until 4:00 in the morning. Oh. It was such an awful night. She wasn't sick or unhappy - just AWAKE. It was actually Troy who got her to sleep after mommy huffed off to sleep on the couch - he held her down in our bed until she got really mad and then she just slept. One of those memorable nights that I will never forget.

Discovery Gateway

This Saturday we decided to check out the new Children's Museum. It has been moved to the Gateway, which isn't my favorite place ever, but it makes a great spot for the museum. I was very impressed - we were thrilled with all of the improvements and wonderful exhibits. Both of my kids were in heaven for many hours. We especially loved the water play, the tubes and balls, and the construction area. We could have been there several hours more, were it not for nap time.

I guess it's Christmas Time

Last night good old Mark Eubank (who gives his final weather report this Wednesday night!) wore his white coat. He said that we could expect some snow right around 6:00 p.m. today. I guess I didn't believe him, because at about 5:55 I took Alex out for a walk. After a day of RAP tantrums (she is turning out to be quite talented in this area) I needed some air. So we walk out the door, and I'll just say that when Mr. Eubank said six o'clock, he MEANT six o'clock. The clock struck six, my foot hit the pavement, and suddenly I could no longer see. I was being pelleted to death. This of course only lasted a few minutes before it settled down to some steady snow - it was beautiful to walk through the evening air and watch the snow drifting down in the light of the street posts - an image that gets me in the Christmas mood more than almost anything.

I'm glad it is snowing a little - Christmas can be so overwhelming for me to pull off every year, I get a little bummed out. But last week when I did some shopping for the kids and picked out stuff I know they're just going to LOVE I started getting excited. Kids make the season so fun. At church on Sunday, CTP was sitting with friends for a few minutes while I played the piano in sacrament meeting (Troy had taken a very sleepy RAP home). The dad showed him a picture of Santa. CTP said, in a very matter-of-fact manner, "Oh. That man is going to bring me dinosaurs." I guess he's got Christmas down-pat.

We had a nice Thanksgiving, hosted by my bro-in-law Van Lewis. Just the Romney family there, minus Adam and Peter and their wives and child. CTP was pretty excited about eating turkey meat. That boy is into carnage. I don't actually teach him - I think studying dinosaurs as extensively as he does helps him feel comfortable with the whole food chain/circle of life kind of stuff. Van brought the turkey out and as he carved it, he gave CTP an entire drumstick, which he diligently gnawed on for the entire meal, repeatedly asking who had killed the turkey, or if a scorpion had killed it. I belive he also wanted to know where all the blood was. He also demanded silence while regailing us with a tale of how he lifted a rock and found a billion scorpions and killed them all by stepping on them. Carnage.

One of those Days

This weekend I was in the living room and I heard CTP in the kitchen making a lot of paper-rustling noises. I went in to check it out and there he was with an entire roll of wrapping paper unrolled across the floor. I had a choice. Should I get mad? Generally the answer to that question is yes. However, I had already made that choice a few times that day and thought he had maybe had enough misery. So I grabbed the box of markers and we had a mural drawing day. We traced CTP's body and he drew his own face for the first time. He also took the trouble to include his blood and his heart. This was fun. Fun, that is, until I was cleaning the kitchen while RAP slept, and CTP took one of the markers and decorated our living room. Our WHOLE living room. Walls, tv, fireplace, windows, lamps, etc. That time I think I did get mad.

My little ballerina

In SLC there is a program called Global Artways where you pay 10 bucks and get six weeks of classes for your kid. In the summer we did parent/child art classes, which were pretty fun. This time around, I asked CTP what he wanted to do, and he really wanted to dance. Of course, he's the only boy, and prefers to spend the class running around the gym at top speed, but every once in a while he actually participates. It's pretty funny. What I really love are all the little girls in their tutu's and leotards, and CTP in his jeans. Nice. What with the dancing and him being a girl for Halloween, should I be worried? I don't think so.

The other day I went out for Indian food with a friend, and when I returned with my take-home box, CTP lit up. "Oh Mom! Let me see! Is it boy food?" He lifted the lid, slumped sightly, sighed dejectedly and said, "Oh. It's just girl food," and walked away.

Busy Weekend

Busy Weekend! On Friday night we held a half-way-there party for my friend, Terri Lyn, who is half way through her chemo treatments for breast cancer. She is such a trooper and we're all so proud of her. She was feeling pretty awful but needed a girl's night in a big way. We ate pumpkin soup, warm bean dip, and cheesecake. Can't go wrong with that. Then on Sunday evening we held a birthday party for Hannah, my now 10-year-old niece. Half of us, including me, had never seen the movie Cars before, so after taco salads and lemon cake we all snuggled down to watch. CTP loves the movie and owns several of the little matchbox-sized car characters, and spent most of the movie driving them around and saying, "ka-CHOW!" Fun movie.

Here I am!

So here I am, joining the league of bloggers. It is a gorgeous day here in SLC - I believe the last warm day we'll have this year. We're just past the peak of the fall colors, but it is still lovely and yellow out, and the day demanded a long walk. We're still recovering a bit from Halloween. That's probably because there's still a fair amount of candy-consumption going on. We just wear out from the day's busy-ness, I think. This year, CTP is in preschool. His little class had a party with a pinata they made themselves. He was dressed as Violet from The Incredibles - he just loves her. I bought him a "Violet" wig, but he wore it for only a couple minutes. Then of course was a visit to both sets of grandparents and then trick-or-treating in a friend's neighborhood. We were also invited to two seperate trunk-or-treats, but I could feel meltdown time coming, and called enough enough. RAP was a very cute little trick-or-treater. She toddled down the sidewalk as fast as her stubby little frog-legs could carry her, and remained happy as long as she had a dumb-dumb in her mouth. Good thing she lets me brush her teeth already.