December and Christmas 2019

As soon as we were back from Vegas it was time to celebrate my birthday! The best part about having a December birthday is that since it's in the midst of all the holidays it always sneaks up on me. Emily made me this gorgeous hand-painted ornament, which was so sweet. Kristy and Marisa sent me Crumbl cookies because they get me. Courtney ordered Thai food for us so that I didn't have to cook for the night! I love my birthday. Rory had dance class that day and afterwards Sarah and Rebecca went with us to Joe's Farm Grill so I could cash in on my free birthday lunch. They started making chicken and waffles and this meal was so good that I have not stopped thinking about it since and I want it documented forever in our family history. 

On Saturday we met up with the Collins for dinner at Caldwell County BBQ and then drove out to Schnepf farms to see their Christmas village and lights. They had all sorts of fun and cute things to do and the best part was that the lady at the entrance only made us pay one entrance fee instead of three- huzzah for birthday miracles! We decorated cookies, rode a Christmas train, fed baby reindeer, made a pine cone ornament, and even got to meet Santa. Added bonus was Rory was super feeling herself in this new puppy dress that Grammy got for her.

Move aside Christmas, back to my birthday festivities! Gilbert was lucky enough to get a Giving Machine again and we could not wait to make use of it. After Rory's toddlerschool the girls and I headed to downtown Gilbert to pick some items to buy for others. Rory chose "stinky shoes" which were actually a fresh, new pair for someone who needed them and Ada and I got food, backpacks, and school supplies. I hope we keep getting the machine so we can keep this tradition going. We then went to Oregano's, just like last year, so I could cash in on my birthday pazookie. We were a little bit of a nuisance for all the poor business men and women sneaking away for a lunch break, but man did I enjoy my food even if Rory was jumping around on the benches and Ada was crying and struggling to nurse in the confines of a booth table. I'm sure eventually these two will make much better lunch dates. 

My parents organized an adults only trip to Hawaii and unfortunately this year we pulled the baby short straw and decided we would bring a human into the world instead. Since we had 4 month old Ada we opted to miss out instead of making everyone else endure a beach vacay with a baby, and while we were bummed we knew it was the right sacrifice to make for those who would be able to go kid-less on the trip. Jon and Kacey had a previous engagement fall through and last minute were able to join the Hawaii crew, and they knew just the baby-laden sisters to ask to watch their kids! So Kendall and I met up in Vegas and stayed with the Nielsens for the week. It was a lot of kids and a lot of babies, so I recruited Ashleigh and John to take Rory for me for the week. Rory is at her worst when I am giving my attention to anyone else, and it definitely made our week go more smoothly to have her off having fun with her other cousins. John and Ashleigh were absolute angels and took her to do all the most fun things. She hasn't stopped asking to go to their house since. In fact, she often asks if I can leave so she can see John John and Ashleigh again and go to the movies with them. 

Kendall and I got a lot of baby time and it was so funny to visit with my sister who lives too far from me now. Ethan is so calm and happy and I still am amazed at the way he could go from laughing and playing in the Rock N Play to immediately asleep. We helped ourselves to lots of good food, watched lots of corny movies, and mostly kept each other sane in the midst of trying to take over Kacey's life. She left one day before the Nielsens came home and that one day was HARD. I got Rory back from John and Ashleigh and I tried to channel my inner Kendall to be fun and exciting (she truly is the best aunt). She bought gingerbread houses beforehand knowing I would need something to do with them, and as you can see from the pictures I was not quite able to make "houses" happen at all. Hey, I tried and more importantly no children were lost in the process. We were all very, very excited when Jon and Kacey finally made it home and Stephen (who had joined me earlier that day) and I decided to take off for St George right away. 

Christmas in St George was so great and it was wonderful that everyone could be there together. The morning of Christmas Eve we went to Fiesta Fun to go bowling where we had our own personal lanes. The kids all loved it and Rory even bowled a Turkey! She earned $2 from her uncles and felt like a pretty big deal. I didn't bowl nearly as well, but I was wearing Ada the whole time so I will blame it on that. 

We ate lots of delicious food to be eaten, and I'm spacing out on some of the other details of our celebrating but we mostly just had a good time being all together. The girls loved their Christmas jammies and looked so cute together. One of the most fun parts of the night was doing the nativity puppet show with aunt Bekah, which turned into carols around the piano while Grandma played. 

Christmas unwrapping went mostly well considering we had so many three year olds to potentially fight over presents. Rory was once again stoked to get a candy cane from Santa (I'm hoping she never realizes you can ask for other things) and was just as stoked as we thought she would be to find some safety scissors in her stocking. She immediately tried to cut her hair and her cousins, which we also figured would probably happen. She was spoiled by grandma and her cousins and had a wonderful Christmas. 

All leading up to Christmas Rory kept asking to ride on Uncle Nate's "vroom vrooms". She was so excited about it and would talk about how fun it was going to be all the time. We finally set up a time to take the kids out after Christmas and it took us the longest time to convince her to go. She wouldn't be bribed by anything! I can't remember what finally changed her mind, but she finally tried it and we were so proud of her. She had the best time zooming around with Stephen. 

We all enjoyed just having down time with family. There was great food, fun games, and Rory and Mar Mar even got in some light reading (Man, do we wish the Skousens lived closer!). Ada and Lincoln are only about six months apart, but I love that he looks so grown up compared to her here. Can't wait to see these cousin friends grow up together. 

Thanksgiving and Ada's blessing

This year was an Earl year for Thanksgiving and we convinced everybody to meet in Las Vegas which meant a much shorter drive for us- hallelujah. It also meant that we would have both sides of our family in relatively the same place and so we came up with a plan to get everybody who could make it over to St George afterwards for Ada's blessing. 

Stephen and I were both super nervous for the car ride to St George because, as I have mentioned before, Ada HATES the car. We left late at night after Stephen had finished work in hopes that the girls would sleep most of the time. Rory the road trip champion opted to watch movies the entire time, but she was mostly silent so we were cool with it. Ada seemed to do a little better with me sitting right next to her where she could see me, but I still had to hold her to calm her down a couple of times. There was a moment when she had finally fallen asleep that Rory started yelling because she wanted another movie and I was ready to toss my first born out the window if her yell woke Ada up, but thankfully for all of us it didn't. We made it to Las Vegas very late but very relieved that our drive hadn't gone any worse. 

Brad and Jules's crew, Kendall, Michael, Ethan, and Curtis were all unable to come, but everyone else was there. Courtney and her kids plus my family all stayed in Jon and Kacey's new giant rental house and everyone else stayed at their old house that they now use as an AirBNB. It was a little crazy, but really not as bad as you would think. By the time we got there most of the cooking was already planned for, fifteen pies had already been baked, and everyone was just enjoying a little family time before the festivities. Stephen decided to go for a run with Jon Wayne and I stayed home with the girls. Scarlet came and asked me if Rory could play outside with them and I sent her out happily. Ada was napping so I had just started to get ready for the day when I hear, "Kylie!" in a tone that you do not want to hear from your teenage niece whom you've just entrusted with your child. I came rushing to the kitchen to find Rory crying and screaming while blood poured out of her mouth. It was a horrible and I was a wreck and thankfully Kacey, mom of all moms, was right there in a minute. She cleaned Rory up while I held her and tried not to cry. It was determined that Asher had somehow ran her over with his bike (or knocked down? who knows! poor kid was a wreck and couldn't talk about it) and she had split her lip open pretty badly. We cleaned up the blood and then Kacey ran to the store for superglue, tylenol and popsicles. I held her and tried to distract her with Doc McStuffins, but the poor girl was in so much pain. Kacey got back with the essentials and then Dad finally made it over from the other house to glue her lip together. She was very brave through it all which somehow just made it even more sad. After her lip was glued and she was back to watching TV on my lap (while everyone else took turns taking care of Ada who was now awake) Stephen finally got back from his run. Someone had given him a brief version of events on his way up, so by the time he made it to us he was already a little bit of a wreck. Rory, if you ever doubt how much your dad loves you then you can have me describe the pain on his face at seeing you hurt because that image is burned into my brain. Stephen took Rory in his arms and became her official nurse for the remainder of her injury's heal time. At one point we had to re-glue the cut because it would come apart any time she tried to talk or if she would pick at it, but my Dad assured us it would heal just fine. 

Her lip was so swollen she looked like a little Cindy Lou Who in her little Thanksgiving dress. She wasn't really interested in eating anything but popsicles, and she mostly just wanted to be with Stephen and watch Olaf's Frozen Adventure roughly one million times and rule is in our family that when you are hurt you get whatever you want because she did just that. Stephen was the best caregiver and stayed by her side regardless of any festivities it might mean missing. I on the other hand was technically still eating for two since I was nursing and I took that job very seriously. It was alright though, because that morning we went and did a High fitness class at the church altogether and it was so fun and totally negated the eight slices of pie I ate later. 

Ada was there too and it turns out she is pretty happy as long as she is not in a car and has someone to hold her all day long. 

The next day we hung out a little with everyone, but it was a little nutty because Kacey had a ton of things she needed to get done at the school for their production of Wizard of Oz. She was glad to have so many adult helpers on hand, but all of the helpers came with a lot of children so there was a lot of babysitting shifts and scenery painting shifts and food making shifts going around. Rory was still having a hard time with her lip injury and Stephen was having a hard time watching his baby be sad. We decided to drive to St George a little bit earlier than planned to give Rory some time in a quiet house all to herself and it ended up being a very good change of pace for her recovery. 

She loved being the only kid and having all of Grandma and Poppop's attention to herself, plus all the toys and none of the sharing. We had a lovely and relaxing day and prepared for the following day when everyone else was driving down to join us. When the rest of our crew got there the next day we all met up at the children's museum and let the kids run wild, along with every other family in St George so it was a little crazy, but mostly fun. For lunch we stopped at our favorite corn dog truck and now I'm drooling a little thinking about it. We did a little shopping (because I once again forgot to bring any pants with me- how does a person pack zero pants twice in their life?!) and then prepped to go see the long awaited Frozen II. My mom came back from a Target run with matching Elsa outfits for the little girls and then we all got to battle our strong willed daughters into changing their outfits (which was shockingly hard considering they were sparkly AND had Elsa on them- go figure). Rory had woken up from a nap right before we left for the movie and with that on top of her injury I was worried that this movie experience that we had been looking forward to for months would be totally wasted, but thankfully it was not! We all loved the movie and Rory sat happily on Stephen's lap and was enthralled the entire time. We even managed to share popcorn and soda among our herd of children with minimal fighting. When the movie had finished and we were waiting to see what surprise would lie at the end of the credits the kids all ran around and went crazy and it was the happiest we had seen Rory since the bike incident. She turned the large empty bucket of popcorn over on her head and thus, Bucket Head was born. It didn't make for a very Instagram-worthy moment for Grammy, but it did make Stephen and I laugh super hard. 

Finally Sunday rolled around and it was time for Ada to get some much deserved attention. Stephen gave her a beautiful blessing and it was so special to have so much of our family there together. Not pictured are Nate and Linne's group, Courtney and kids, and all the Nielsens. We did better at taking pictures this time but still not great. Third baby's the charm, I'm hoping. 

After everyone made their way back home, Stephen drove back on his own (bless that man) and Courtney and I stayed at Kacey's house for one more week for some sister time. Kacey was knee deep in play work so Courtney and I helped with kids and meals and just enjoyed hanging out together. We were able to have a few adventures as well. When we took Ridley to dance class we had planned to eat at a yummy ice cream and waffles place that turned out to be closed. so we found a french cafe nearby that just so happened to have the most delicious Brioche French Toast I have ever had. We also got to go to a fun kids place and let the kids work out all their pent up energy, especially Rory who was missing her dad. In one of the pictures she has her arms and legs all tangled up in a little spider web and it was too funny to see her all stuck like that. The flight home was calm and easy and I even got to watch a movie! When does that ever happen when you're traveling with two kids alone?