After Christmas

My Sister and I gave my Mom Uggs for Christmas. We thought this was a great gift for her since she lives in Utah. After calling everywhere and driving all over town looking for her size, I finally found them at a skater store with an exchange only policy. I called my Sister and said "Well I got the Uggs, but if she doesn't like them we are hosed". 

Guess what??? She said they felt like moon boots and wanted to see what else they had. 

Holy Cow- what to do, what to do? 

I took her to the wonderful store sporting metal studded belts and gas masks and told her to knock herself out.


She ended up selecting a different style of Ugg boot and I breathed a huge sigh of relief that I didn't have to talk her into Linkin park t-shirts and Heelies.

Later that night Haley and Eric experimented with the Chemistry set that she requested for Christmas. When they were done she said "That was so fun, can we do Chemistry on all my date nights?" 

Haley is a miniature version of Eric... as a girl!

Christmas morning

I hardly slept at all because i was so worried about Ruby. I just kept thinking that Christmas morning she was going to be laying on the sofa asking us to open her gifts for her. I was so wrong. Even with her super high fever she was the 1st kid up. I got up early to take Max on his walk and when I got home she came up to me and wispered "Guess what...I got an American Girl doll". She had already been downstairs to check out the loot. I could not believe it!

About that American girl doll, Ruby has asked for an American Girl doll for the past 2 years. This year Santa finally shoveled out the money for it and guess what Ruby's favorite gift from Christmas was...



A bra!
Yes a bra that Haley purchased at the 99 cent store for her. When Haley was shopping she choose the bra and I said "no way" and Haley reminded me that I had said she could pick out ANY one item in the store for each of her sisters. It was one item so I let her get it. (Mom- did you see above that I kept my promise of not posting any photos of you in curlers?)

Lucy's favorite gift was a Baby alive that wets and giggles. She loves feeding her and changing her diaper. I went to target and bought a big pack of premie diapers so she can give her bottles all day long.



Three months ago we went into Walgreens and Haley spotted a HUGE black horse on the top of one of the isles. She begged for it and told me that she loved it so much she couldn't live without it.  I listened to her but acted like I was really distracted with what we were looking for and told her that maybe we could get it later. The next day I emailed Santa and told him that he should buy that one horse before it was gone, luckily he did.

A few weeks before Christmas we went into Walgreens again and there was no mention of the horse. When we got to the car Haley was crying and said she didn't want to talk about it. She later told me that "Sparrow" was gone (yes, she had named her) and explained that when we were in Walgreens she looked all around and she was gone. Haley was devastated and said that now she would never have her. With tears in her eyes she looked at me and said "Now my only hope is Santa".  She was so happy to see Sparrow under the tree I thought she was going to cry. Wheww! Thank heavens Santa was so on the ball!

Christmas Eve

Ruby has complained about her molars coming in for the past several days and I have been giving her Motrin, but today she busted out a 102 fever and her cheeks blew out like a chipmunk. After talking to Eric on the phone and looking at her mouth, it looked like she had an abscess. Since it was now 4pm on Christmas Eve I was frantically trying to page the emergency Dentist on call. He never called back so Eric came home to look at her mouth himself and he ended up calling in a prescription.

This was Ruby earlier in the day when she was still smiling.

We drove around and delivered the baby Jesus for the two families we were doing the 12 days of Christmas for (one piece of a 12 piece nativity each night) and then drove to the hospital to pick up the prescription. Ruby had never had a prescription filled at the hospital it ended up taking a long time. It was dark and I sat with my three girls out in front of the hospital watching all the people inside the lighted up windows and thinking about how hard it would be to spend Christmas in the hospital or have a loved one in the hospital. I was also a little worried that I was going to be back there in the ER later that night with Ruby because she was so lethargic.

When I was a kid Christmas Eve was almost as big (sometimes bigger) then Christmas day. My Mom and dad threw a huge party ever Christmas Eve and served my Mom's famous soup and a dining room table covered in desserts. We would get all dressed up, and everyone came, it was quite the ta do. Someday if live in a house that can accommodate a party like that I hope to carry on the tradition.

My Mom still made her famous soup but instead of a house full of people raving and secretly trying to figure out her recipe, she made it for our little family and only Eric and I ate it. My kids don't like it, yet, but they will need to soon if they want to stay in our family.

After dinner the girls each opened their one gift, which is always new pajamas and we read the story of Christ's birth. Ruby and Lucy went to bed early and the rest of us watched the Christmas miracle of Jonathan Toomey. It was a great movie and the perfect way to end the night.

I loved the note that Haley left for Santa.

Dinner in LA

After church we drove out to LA to have dinner with my Mom's good friend Jackiejean. My Mom and Jackie actually went to High School together and still keep in touch. Growing up we used to do stuff with her all the time but since my Mom moved to Utah we had not seen her for several years. We went to dinner at our favorite place to eat in LA, Andre's Restaurant (6332 W 3rd St, LA) it's right across the street from The Grove shopping center. It was so great to see her and her son Ezra! They got to meet my kids for the 1st time, I can't believe that it has been so long since we have seen each other.

Grandma Bonnie is in town...

...which translates to shopping! Lots and lots of shopping. We went to every shopping area/ store within the greater LA area that is selling anything.

While shopping I became increasingly aware of Ruby attraction to hoochie mama clothing, purses shoes ect. I now realize that we need to send her away to some kind of fashion intervention out in the wilderness before she becomes a teenager or we are in trouble.

Yes, she actually thought she could convince me that this dress (ladies size 6) fit her perfectly and she needed it for Christmas. I can only imagine her walking into church sporting this beauty!



She spent a long time showing me that these fit and how well she could walk in them. When she realized I was not buying her story or the shoes she left crying.

Domestic violence

Eric is currently sporting a very sore swollen broken nose.
He and Lucy had a disagreement over a marker and it's appropriate use. When Eric bent over to retrieve the marker from her, She threw her head back to block him and CRACK, you could hear his nose break. It still makes me sick to remember the sound.

I took a photo of his new much larger more colorful nose, but was asked by the victim not to post it on my blog.

Ruby's ornament

Ruby's 1st grade teacher always does the most creative art projects with the kids. I love this Christmas ornament she brought home Friday. They wrapped their painted hand around the bottom of an orniment, then used sharpie markers to decorate the snowman. The ornaments they used look like glass balls, but it is plastic. So smart!

Here is the poem that came with it:

These aren't just five snowman
As anyone can see
I amde them with my hand
which is part of me
Now each year when you trim the tree
You'll look back and recall
Christmas of 2007
when my hand was just this small!

Little Drummer Boy

My favorite Christmas song has always been Little Drummer Boy. I think this is because I loved singing it as a kid trying to get my ba rum pum pum pums to sound like a drum.

I was driving in the car with Lucy singing away to Little Drummer boy when she said "Mom, this is a bad song...they say bum bum a lot. That's not nice to sing about bum bums". I explained that they were not saying bum bum but trying to sound like a drum.

Later in the day the song came on again (by a different artist). Lucy really loud said "Mom, this song is bad!".  At this point I calmly said "Lucy this song is about a little boy that is so excited about Christ's birth. He wants to take the new baby Jesus a wonderful gift but he doesn't have any money so he decides to play his drum as beautifully as he can as a gift." I explained again that it is not saying bum bum, it says ba rum pum pum pum to sound like a drum. Then I explained that this is my favorite Christmas song and it will make me sad if every time it comes on she thinks it's bad. I thought she understood.

The next time the song came on Lucy said "Mom, I know you like this bad song...so I wont say anything"

Ruby's date night

Last night it was Ruby's turn for a date night with Dad and she wanted to drive up the mountain for a snow fight. Eric took an ice chest and they decided to surprise us with snow in our front yard.

Ruby and Dad made a little snowman.

Then we had a snowball fight followed by hot baths.  It was freezing cold, but Ruby thought it was "the best night ever".  Chalk one up for Eric, I would have said no way to shoveling snow at night in the freezing cold.

Decorating the tree

For the past couple of years we let our girls decorate the tree however they want. Eric outs on all the lights, but they do all the ornaments and garland as they please. It looks kid decorated and that makes me happy.



This year it was Ruby's turn to put on the star!

Life Savors for breakfast

The past couple of weeks my girls have been coming out of their bedrooms in the morning happily sucking on a Life Savor.

Check out these little advent Christmas trees they made at a Primary activity December 1st. The wood was already cut, painted and had the 24 nails in it, the kids decorated them with glitter and sequins- what a brilliant idea!
My girls absolutely love these!

Christmas Boutique

A few days after we returned from our trip, we had a Christmas boutique that I had been organizing with my friend Stephanie for months. Although we had done a ton of work before I left, there was still a lot of last minute stuff before the sale.

I have been a bad blogger because I have been so busy with this boutique so here's a sampling of what was going on.

Eric decided to make some Gingerwood Houses to sell at the boutique. He was making so many I was worried that we would never be able to sell that many at the sale so I set up a blog to help move them:
http://gingerwoodhouse.blogspot.com/



This turned into a beast. They were selling so quickly that I was packing and shipping 2-3 houses a day. By the time we had the boutique, we only had four houses left!


From Eric cutting out so many houses we had little wood triangles all over the garage floor. I decided to have the girls make them into Christmas tree ornaments and sell them at the boutique. I tried to drill the tops for a ribbon and I kept splitting to the wood. Haley asked if she could try to drill them and I explained that the drill was heavy and it was really hard to drill them.


After I had split the wood on so many that Lucy and Ruby were gluing them together to make wood sculptures I decided to let Haley try. She drilled it perfectly. So I let her do another and another and another, she ended up drilling them all and only split the wood on like 3 of them. She was so proud she told me to go get the camera!



The girls painted the trees, I did the polka dots them they did the glitter on top. They turned out pretty cute!


I also made some Christmas advents with 24 Hershey kisses hanging from them.


These are just a few of the projects that were finished. I had a garage full of projects that I needed about 4 more days to finish, oh well.

Overall the boutique was a huge success. We had tons of customers and sold a plethora of hand made items.

Day 7 Princes Cay Bahamas

Here is a photo of our whole group 5 adults and 7 children. That sounds crazy and has been in the past at places like Disneyland, but on a cruise it worked out great and was actually pretty relaxing.


Can you see the love! These two just love being together. When we left each other at the end of the trip, Ruby cried and cried about leaving Jacob.



We took little boats from the ship to the island. Look at the water!
I seriously could not stop smiling. I couldn't help but feel completely blessed to be there!



We all snorkled a lot and the kids played in the sand.

A ton of the servers from the ship came on the island and they set up a big BBQ buffet for lunch. We frequented the fruit table often. They had the best pineapple I have ever eaten and of course my girls wanted more kiwi!





After we came back from the island it was dinner, packing and basically the cruise was over. We disembarked early in the morning in rainy cold Ft. Lauderdale Florida. It was really yucky weather, but we were still high from the unbelievable week in paradise!

We drove down to Miami Beach and had lunch in South beach. It was so fun to see South Beach in person, I know it totally lights up at night, but it was still pretty cool.


As our plane took off to leave Florida it was 20 min after the Grand Princess had left for their next cruise. When I looked out the window and saw our ship leaving port I was sad, but also excited for all the people that were about to have the greatest week ever!

Day 6 At sea- Thanksgiving

I did not realize what a HUGE part food plays on a cruise. It felt like thanksgiving every single day. We hardly ever eat out so the fact that I did not cook or clean up dishes for 7 days was a great vacation in itself.

The food was really amazing. I stretched my stomach so much that towards the end of the cruise I was eating 3 rolls before dinner, an appetizer, a salad, my dinner and sometimes two desserts. I fully expected to pack on some pounds but I didn't care. For thanksgiving dinner I ordered Lobster instead of turkey just because I can eat turkey anytime, but lobster is normally not an option. I ate every bite and loved it. Our waiter Sergi brought out a whole new plate of lobster for me....and I ate all that too! Really, I ate more on that ship in a week then I normally eat in a month.

Sergi got our kids to try all differnt kinds of foods that they had never tried and they loved all of them. They all expecially loved Kiwi and ate about 7 kiwi fruits each per day. This was Haley trying a cold coconut soup that she loved!



We had some cousin time in our cabin. Ali and Jacob came over to watch Even almighty and of course sit in the window.



They danced and played and had a great time. It was all good until Lucy used a little stamper to stamp Ali's face and body...I was less then 6 feet away and totally oblivious. I guess I was just really into the movie. The stamps washed off...eventually.



Every night when the kids were at the kids club we went out to the shows. They had great comedians, magicians a hypnotist (that tried to hypnotize Eric on stage), there was always some entertainment or class going on.

My Sister Tiffany and her husband Dave


Me and the cute guy I met scuba diving
My Mom Bonnie

Day 5 Cozumel Mexico

We took a taxi out to Paradise beach. This beach was amazingly great for kids. There were live parrots...



two water trampolenes connected with a bridge, a floating rock climbing wall, kayaks...


and of course snorkeling. My kids have always loved to snorkel (even in the bath tub), so this was the day we converted all the cousins to snorkeling. You could hear the kids scream through their snorkel every time they saw a fish!




All the girls had their hair braided in a little tent right on the beach.




We left the beach around 1:00 and headed to Dolphin discoveries. My girl have always loved dolphins. This was such a dream come true to be able to swim with, hug and kiss a dolphin. I'm not sure who had more fun, the girls with the dolphins or Eric and I getting to watch them.