Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Help, I've Fallen Off the Blog Wagon & I Can't Get Up

I am having the hardest time blogging with my angry baby lately. Everything has slid to the back burner for a full month while he has battled his ear infections, allergic reactions, teething, general hyperactivity, and the bonks and owies that go along with new found mobility. Oh, yes, he started crawling over a week ago, and it wasn't but a few days later he was standing and scooting around furniture. My world crumbled and I am scrambling to baby proof everything again in light of Niles' overachievement (WHY does my last baby have to be the one who does everything earliest when I want him to stay a baby the longest? WHY?!). I have lived in a sleep-deprived daze this whole month, so these photos are a hodge-podge of weird times I remembered to pick up the camera. Here goes... On New Year's Eve (which I still need to blog, hello), Niles slept in the corner of the upstairs king room like this. It was awesome.



Niles tried Ramen Noodles and loved them. Actually, it's a love-hate relationship because he loves them, but it's so hard to get them in his mouth that he usually ends up literally SCREAMING AT those noodles.




Nom, nom.
***
Back on the 12th, I was cleaning house BIG TIME getting ready from Grandma Lyn to come back and stay with us. I put Niles in his walker so he could scoot around and follow me, to his delight. But then when I started dinner, he disappeared for a few minutes. He had made his way into the back bathroom, and this is what I found:
flower bucket dumped? CHECK.
toilet paper unrolled? CHECK.
towels pulled off racks (not pictured)? CHECK.
These antics earned him the much-deserved title of HEIDI JUNIOR!
Same day, James and a free banana from Albertson's
***

Friday, January 13th we drove down to Utah to pick up Grandma Lyn at my mom's house. On Saturday, my sibs and cousins came over to celebrate her birthday EARLY with a surprise party.

Here's my cutie hubs with Gram after a yummy enchilada dinner and a delicious Costco cake.


pretty cake for pretty gram



Addie & Niles at Nana's back door.



sweet little chappy cheeks!


Cousin Brent taking pictures of James & Niles on my lap at Nana's house



Owen and James had fun trying to make Gavin (not pictured) and Niles laugh.
(my bro Sam is in the background there)



Here's Heidi with my cousin she calls Uncle Brent, and my sis Abby. They are showing off their black chucks (they all have the same shoes). Brent's amazing wife, Autumn, is hiding behind Heidi there, which is a shame because she is radiantly lovely and 7+ months pregnant with dear baby Ruby. Autumn had seen me earlier that day and worked her Massage Dimensions magic on my broken arm ("It's your thumb," she said confidently as she proceeded to chase the pain right up my arm and out my chin and scapula. "The thumb is a part of a large system, and when it gets out of whack, it hurts all the way up to your neck--are your neck and sternum bothering you, too?" I was stunned, as I'd been having a hard time swallowing the past 2 days. And it was all because of MY THUMB?) She is A. MAZE. ZIIING! If you hurt and it's not going away, she's your fixer, I swear. Plus she has this cute husband and son, and soon, a daughter!



Nana gave James some soap crayons, so he had fun in her tub that night.



Drawing Dinos (of course)



***


We had planned to stay in Utah until Monday afternoon, but the weather reports had a huge winter SNOWPOCALYPSE passing through our path Sunday night and we didn't want to travel through that storm nor its aftermath. So we SADLY packed up our stuff and left early Sunday morning. We got home in the evening in time for dinner, just as it started snowing again in Livingston, and enjoyed a quiet MLK Day at home watching the snow. When I took the kids to school on Tuesday, it was so windy, the snow was blowing off the mountains making all the air so sparkly like this:





That white mist is actually blowing snow and it was magical.



***


Heidi Junior/ NILES learned to stand up in his crib. Here he is yelling at me while I laid and read with James on James' bed--jealous much, stinker?








Such a cutie punk



Speaking of cutie punk, sometimes he makes a huge mess at dinner and goes right into the sink with the dishes.



It's fun in 'ere.



Addie with Niles



Finally captured ANGRY BABY FACE...love it.



Look at all the yum we got for $15 from Bountiful Baskets this week. We are quite enjoying that program, but I miss the bread this week!



Last but never least, here are my two boys snugglin'. So sweet.



***


I will FINALLY post some New Years pix later this week, as well as a few shots of Gram's Birthday celebration on Monday. She really appreciated the calls and cards you sent--THANK YOU for making her day special. See ya!


Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Better Later Than Never--CHRISTMAS WEEK!

Treats to deliver on 12.17
Niles is indeed a gift ;) 12.19




On 12.20, Heidi played Baba in her class productions of the Ukranian folktale, "The Mitten."



Is she not the most adorable little Baba (grandmother) ever?



After the play, Mrs. Meador's second graders sang us some really enthusiastic carols.


Cutie Heidi


Niles snuck a sugar cookie and it was yummy!


12.21 was the last day of school before Christmas Break, so we went to Addie's school for a carol sing along with the 4th grade then a cookie party afterward in her classroom.


There she is in the middle of the crowd




Daddy, Grandma, and Niles in the audience

(with Izzi's parents, our friends Vicki & Mike behind us)

Addie and her reindeer



Later Wednesday night, Addie met with her friends and Aunt Jenn for an Activity Days party at the church. The older kids went caroling in the cold.

***
On Thursday, 12.22, we finally got to hang out with the Roberts family who moved into the ward from St. George, Utah this summer. Just before tehy came, I found out my mama was in ICU with pneumonia and sepsis--total bummer! We had a great time with our friends and kept prayers inour hearts for Nana.

First we made candy trains.

(Addie, Zach, Jessie, Gavin, James, Carter, and Heidi)


Carter making his coal car.


Heidi & Addie making trains and snacking on pigs-in-a-blanket


Jessie helping Gavin & James


Heidi showing off her "Princess Leia Buns" for Aunt Debbie
*

I regret that we didn't take more pictures at dinner time, when the Dads joined the fun, Rich made delicious hand-tossed pizza, Jessie brought a yummy salad, and the kids had a blast.


Our family room ready for Christmas.
***

So Christmas Eve came. We made a Swedish Dinner for Rich's whole family, including authentic Christmas Cabbage ("brown cabbage"-Mark Drews, you would have loved it!), Janssen's Temptation potato casserole, plus dill and parsley red potatoes, Graadas & kotbullar-gravy and meatballs, just like they serve at Ikea, only better ;). The Elf brought pajamas and we read a story with Aunt Angie (her kids were with their dad & we missed them), then we made a big family bed in the basement and watched "A Christmas Story" [fa-ra-ra-ra-ra, ra-ra-ra-ra!] unitl 10pm when the kids went to sleep and Santa came.

Our kids at 6:30 am, ready to see what Santa brought upstairs...


and then we didn't take many pictures, dang it!



Uncle Mike came over to open his gifts with us, and we got him his very own telescope!


Niles loved his mini-raceway...and look! He learned to sit up just in time to play with it!


Addie watching James open his gifts. Daddy gave him a huge box of Legos!

*

It was a good year to have church after gift-opening because we didn't have much to open--quality, not quantity this year ;) I got a new phone (welcome to the milennium, Jamie!) and Rich won an ipad for me--it's so much fun! We had a lovely service at church with our ward family. I was glad we sang "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" in church--it's such a beautiful song, and I just loved meeting together to celebrate such a Holy Day. We had a nice ham dinner at Grandma Melin's house and a restful day delivering last-minute gifts and playing with our new toys. Mellow and succeessful-- I think I love not traveling on Christmas (although we miss our loved ones so much). The day after Christmas we took the kids to Bozeman for lunch, to Museum of the Rockies, and to Target to spend their gift certificates from Aunt Lisa. The girls got warm, pretty new hats, and James got a much-needed lego case/lapdesk thing. SO FUN. On Tuesday 12.27, our California Melin cousins arrived for 2 weeks at the ranch house. We have had a great week with them, and we'll post those pictures soon. Happy New Year to all y'all! I'd love to see links or comments about what y'all did.

Monday, January 02, 2012

All About Niles (at 7.5 months)

I know I have tons of Christmas and New Years to share here, but for today, I am sharing about Niles. He got his first haircut last night so we took lot so of pictures. But in all the Christmas Hullaballoo, he also had his first ear infection & a round of antibiotics, learned to sit up, crawl, and (FINALLY) cut his first two teeth (so that explains 8 totally sleepless nights in a row, right?). I just wanted Nana Lyn to see how big her little buddy is getting. Niles on his first Christmas morning playing with his little race track.
Niles with Dady on New Years Day




His crazy little whisps of newborn hair were getting out of hand, so we buzzed all 3 boys in our family to celebrate the new year...


TA-DAAAAAH! Big Boy Haircut!


so sweet I could just eat him up!


doesn't he look like a brawny little man in this picture?


Looks like he's flying, but he's really just getting ready to crawl


Up on all fours, but not quite moving yet

(but army crawl? we've got that down!)


laughing at his sisters


Daddy's mini me


already workin' the remote



His regular happy face

Determined to crawl!
***


Gotta go celebrate the last day of Christmas Vacation with an impulsive, fun day trip with the kids. YEE HAAAW! I'll be back with all the details when they're back in school.

FAMILY LETTER 07.28.19

Dear Loved Ones,                                                                                                        We have just ...