Christmas Eve

Josh had been preparing Chloee for quite some time now for the night that Santa would come. They sat down and she told him what to write for her letter to Santa. Santa made it very clear that Egg Nog would be better than milk. Josh also kept telling Chloee that Santa's "pregnant" reindeer needed some sort of vegetable or fruit.

In case you can't read it, it says:

Santa,
I left these cookies for you & the egg nog too. I hope it makes you feel better. Have a good night! - Love Chloee
P.S. The apples are for your pregnant reindeer. Tell her we hope she feels better.

When Santa would ask her what she wanted, she would always say "cookies". Josh says she figured it was an even trade if she left him cookies, it would only be fair for him to leave her cookies. This is what Santa left out for her. When I was growing up, we always got a box of our favorite cereal... looks like Santa decided to keep that tradition going.

We had such a fun Christmas Eve. We always stay home and do something with just out little family. We started a tradition a few years back to celebrate it Brazilian style. They have this huge feast at midnight. We altered it a little bit and do it at just regular dinner time. We had a spiral ham with this fabulous glaze Josh makes, funeral potatoes (my favorite), homemade rolls, salad, etc. It was so good, we ate the leftovers for DAYS! Yum!

For Chloee's scriptures that night we read about the birth of our Savior. She had made a manger set in nursery so we did a little something with that too. After we put Chloee to bed, Josh and I watched a movie together with only the Christmas lights on in the house. It was a perfect night!

Nothing Worse...

There is nothing worse than being sick (not pregnancy related) and being pregnant and fat. My throat is so sore that I can't even swallow my saliva, I have to spit it out. My ears are about to burst from so much freaking pressure, my jaw hurts every time I open it, my eyes are constantly watering, I have a permanent headache and I have pulled some sort of ligament or muscle in my stomach from coughing so much, so hard. NO medicine that I CAN take is helping with anything. I can't sleep, eat, been attached to a bathroom for days, dry heaved a lot yesterday and I want to just SCREAM!!!!! I can't get medicines down my throat because they just come back up. I want to be done being pregnant, I don't want to be sick anymore, I just want to be NORMAL once again! Of course, I want to go full term and have a healthy baby but I am so miserable right now I want to pull my hair out... so next time you see me, I might be bald!

Been Gone Too Long

Although it has only been 1 week since I last posted, a million things seem to have taken place. Of course, Christmas and New Years but so much more. I just wanted to jot down a few things that have been going on.

-We had a great Christmas but a post will come later about that one and the traditions that we do as a family. A New Year post to come as well.

-Josh has been off work since the 22nd of December and does not go back until January 5th. It's been heaven to have him home. We have been doing a major overhaul on some stuff. We are turning our downstairs "play room" into the office and making the office upstairs the baby's room. It is much more work than you would think. We've been making the transition since Monday and I still feel like we have so much to do.

-We were going to paint the baby's room this week but I don't know if it can possibly get done. We might just be able to get the primer done in the room. It is so dark, all tans, deep blue and red, with lots and lots of stripes. No only do we have to apply probably 2 or more coats of primer but we have to sand off all of the lines from the stupid stripes. Blah!

-I have come down with a nasty cold that I think is mutating into the flu. The ONLY bright side to this is that Josh is home to help take care of Chloee as I spend most of my time on the couch or in the bathroom.

-Josh is trying to get Chloee potty trained while he is home. We tried underwear a few days ago, had an accident and we are now doing pull-ups. We set a timer and he has her go every 20 minutes while he's pumping fluids in her. Yeah, I heard that when you are potty training a kid like that, you don't leave the house for a few days and just do the routine for a couple of days. Josh is so great to help me and to do so much while he's home.

TREEHOUSE

The weekend before Josh left to go out of town we went to The Treehouse. It is this really neat place in Ogden. Chloee loves it so much that we bought a membership there. There are so many fun things to do there. Here are just a few pics of what we did.

There is this little theater place where the kids can put on play clothes and do plays. It is so cute! I loved this picture of her in this dress.

The king and his princess in the royal chairs.

This chess set is huge. Chloee whooped Daddy in their game of chess.

If Chlo were the president!

This big chair reads you stories. Kind of creepy and cool, all at the same time.

Chlo sure was at home here with this kitchen set. I love the old fridge.

Grandma Kathy will be so proud to see this. Chloee is our little nurse. Jury is still out on whether or not she'll be that nice to our baby when she comes.

This slide is PITCH BLACK and all the kids are so scared to go down it. This is how Chloee ended up, head first. All kids get twisted around in that thing.

The FAMOUS fire truck. This is right at the first when you walk in. They can put on the hats and the coats. She loves this place.

Now when people come visit, we'll have to for sure go to The Treehouse. Amy, your kids would LOVE it there. Lots of fun!

Early Labor

I swear I was going to go into early labor these last few days.  Rest assured, I am not.  Josh left for Ohio on Tuesday which stunk, and was supposed to get home late last night.  I spent the 4 days up at my Mom & Dad's.  I also had a doctor appointment, NO, I don't have gestational sugar diabetes, whewwww!  I was borderline with Chloee so I'm glad it came back good.

I really wanted to come home yesterday, so I did, in what we thought was going to be the break of the storm, in the morning.  Well, over 2 hours later, slipping, sliding, the CANYON FROM HELL, frozen windshield wipers and a screaming 2 year old, I made it home.  Let's just say that it was REALLY bad and LOTS of wrecks.  I swear I don't want to travel anywhere for a month.  Blah!

To top it off, Josh's flight was delayed.  He was stuck on the plane for a couple of hours.  His flight was supposed to get in about 10:45 pm but didn't land until 12:30 am.  Then of course the line for the baggage was a mile long and it wasn't even running.  By the time he got his luggage and drove home with all the ice on the roads, in the car, mind you, he stumbled in at 2:30 am.  I couldn't sleep the entire time, so I was just pacing back and forth waiting for him to get here.  I was so tired but my body would not rest.  

So there you have it.  See why I could have gone into labor early yesterday?  I had a pit in my stomach from me driving home and then it finally went away, just to get riled back up because I was worried about Josh.  I actually did have Braxton Hicks contractions while I was at my Mom's but I had those with Chloee about this same time too. 

Today I am going to sit around and just relax.  Yeah right, I still have to Christmas shop and Josh will probably sleep the day away!

1 Year Ago Today

I cannot believe that it was a year ago today, December 14th, that we moved into our house. It feels like that time just flew by and stood still all at the same time. We, and when I say we, I mean Josh, painted the house at the end of July. Yes, we didn't put anything up on the walls for about 9 months because we were going to paint. I HATED the paint in this house and it was just depressing to look at everyday. This was when I was throwing up a lot. My mom had come down and stayed with me for a few days after I got out of the infusion therapies I was doing, to help take care of me and Chloee. I ended up going home with her and as a GREAT anniversary present, Josh painted for me in one weekend, right before he left to go out of town for work on Monday. Also, a great big THANK YOU to Kathy, she was so sweet to come and help Josh paint on Saturday. He couldn't have got it done without you!

Before, yes, the house was totally trashed, I was out of commission for over 2 months so cut me some slack. I hated that hideous antique look she tried to do. Blah, just not my thing.

Much better. We decided to do the one wall green, which I think accents really well. Poor Josh had to seriously prime like crazy before to cover up all the sponging.

Notice how she just made her own line and cut off the paint between the front room and kitchen. What, you can't just do that in the middle of a wall.

Nice and seamless, same paint, imagine that!

Yeah, what is with the random stripes of red in the kitchen. Lance worded it perfectly when he said, "It looks like your ceiling is bleeding" and it did. This lady loved stripes, seriously every room has had stripes in it. Don't even get me started on what we are going to have to do to the baby's room.

All one color! Not super great light here so I promise the color really does look good.


The drywall had started to bubble around the end of the banister and Josh ripped it all off and had to redo it.

See how beautiful.


Ok, I really had to post this just so you could see how awful the paint job was. See how you can see where the roller actually stopped in multiple places. It was so uneven. I am really glad I don't have to look at it anymore.

Just one more of the pretty walls that don't make me want to hurl every time I look at them. Surprisingly enough, after the paint was done, I started feeling much better. Chance, coincidence, or whatever it was, I was very grateful for my husband who did all this just days before he went out of town for a week.

It feels weird to think we have really been here for an entire year. Many milestones have crossed our path in this home. We are hoping that during this Christmas break, we will be able to get the rest of the house in organization mode. I know sad, it's been a year but all in due time it will be done the way we want it to be.

Happy Birthday Kennet

Today is my cute little nephew, Kennet's 4th birthday! Yea! This picture pretty much describes him in all aspects of his personality. From the dinosaur undershirt, just underwear and what is probably Boyd's boots, this is so "THE KENNET" as Amy and Micheal put it. Sorry that we aren't coming down for his birthday party, Amy, but thanks for being so great and understanding about it, as you always are.

Chloee seems to think that Kennet is 24! Whenever he's here he says, "Now Chloee, Kai is 5, you are 2 and I am 24!" So there you have it, the best dressed 24 year old I've ever seen. I hope you have a great birthday Kennet. We love you so much and I hope you get to talk to your Daddy today on the phone! LOTS OF LOVE!!!