Thanksgiving

We made a last minute decision to go to Washington this year for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun and even though we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to because they had a crazy snow storm come through, we had a really nice visit. We stayed with my dad's sister, which we've never stayed with before and it was really nice. Her house is very cozy and I loved just sitting there all snuggled up with a cup of hot cocoa and watching the snow fall. She lives close to Mt. Spokane so it was so much prettier up there than in town. Everyone was complaining about the snow but I was loving it. It snowed almost the whole time we were there!

I was a little worried about having Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's house because she has a lot of dietary issues and can't eat most things that would be at Thanksgiving dinner. I even called my dad ahead of time to make sure that we weren't have a "diet dinner". He assured me we weren't and he was right. It was actually one of the best Thanksgiving dinners I've ever had. Everything was made from scratch, and some of the substitutions she made made the food even better. For example, she can't have sugar so she made the sweet potatoes with pure maple syrup. YUM! I even made them again since I've been home I liked them so much. We didn't make it over to my grandma's because of the snow but I kind of liked being snowed it :)

Henry's birthday was two days after Thanksgiving so on Friday my dad threw a birthday party for him at Chuck E. Cheese. He was so funny. If you get the package then they do this whole thing where Chuck E. will come out and present you with a crown and a medallion and sing to you. There were a few other kids having parties there at the same time so they do the presentation all at once. Henry had the funniest look on his face the whole time and wouldn't participate in any of the songs or dances. Then each birthday kid gets a turn in the Ticket Blaster, which is one of those things you stand in and they turn air on and tickets (they usually use them for money) blow around and you're supposed to try and get as many as you can. They told him if he got scared to knock and they would let him out. I think he misunderstood because he just stood there and then knocked because I think he thought that's what he was supposed to do. He did end up catching some tickets in his crown though. Then they asked who wanted to go in for Henry to earn some tickets. I'm pretty sure they were talking to the adults, but Haylie was so excited and she wanted to go in so they let her. She just stood there too, but she didn't knock. It was the funniest thing because of the look on her face. And then it was even funnier, because, like Henry, she had caught tickets in the crown, but she took it off before they could open the door. My dad got some sort of package and I will say that they are very generous with the tokens there! By the end of the night we were just playing the games that were the quickest just to get rid of them. We all had a great time and the kids still talk about it. Thanks again, Papa Zkeeter!

On Saturday we went to my mom's brother's house for an open house/joint birthday party for Henry and my cousin Josh. My uncle's daughter, Jenni, was also in town with her new baby so we wanted to give the family a chance to see everyone at once. But because of the snow, only the immediate family came! Oh well, we had a very nice visit anyways.

On Sunday we packed up and went to stay at my grandma's for our last night in town. She made turkey noodle soup and it was delicious. I think with all the yummy food we ate I gained about 10 lbs., which is exactly the opposite of what you want to do after having a baby, but oh well. We had a nice visit with Grandma Carol and Papa Jim and then on Monday morning we headed home. We split the drive up, just to be safe, so we stayed Monday night in Butte, and made the rest of the trip on Tuesday. It always feels so good to come home to our own beds and routines after a trip, even though we have so much fun while we're there.

Henry's First Primary Program

This Sunday was my first one back since giving birth, and obviously Hunter's first trip to church ever! I really wanted to go, even though we (Hunter and I) hadn't gotten any sleep the night before; because it was Henry's very first Primary Program. We have been so excited to have Henry in Primary, he loves it so much and we were really interested to see how he would be up in front. I have heard many stories about how "interesting" Brandon was. Apparently he was the kid who always sat up there and made faces and basically humiliated his mother. We expected much of the same from Henry, since he's such a crazy little outgoing kid. Exactly the opposite. Brandon had to convince him to even just stay up there and sit in his seat. He wouldn't stand up at all for the songs, he didn't sing, and when it was his turn to say his line, he refused to get up. His teacher picked him up and took him to the microphone and he whined and acted like the microphone was going to attack him. Awesome. He did so good at memorizing his line, too! Poor kid. I asked why he wouldn't go up and he said he was afraid of the microphone. He did get up to the microphone in the Primary room and say his line though, so that was good. Maybe next time he'll get up there...

I don't like that

Henry is going through a phase right now that I do not particularly like. He doesn't like ANYTHING. Every single night while I'm making dinner he asks what we're having. When I answer he yells in an extremely whiny voice "But I don't LIKE that!". And then we have to basically force-feed him a bite after which he usually proceeds to clear his plate because he does, in fact, "like that".

The thing that really gets me is is it's like he's just doing it out of spite to drive me crazy. He says he doesn't like things that every kids likes. For example, yesterday we were getting ready to go out to lunch and we were telling him to get his shoes on because we were going to McDonalds. He then stomped around for ten minutes, refusing to put his shoes on and claiming that he doesn't like McDonalds. Come on now. Every kids likes McDonalds. And today. The ward primary is having a water party, which Henry has been talking about for two weeks. This morning he decided that he doesn't like water parties. Or ice cream for that matter, which they will be serving at the water party. Or chocolate. He just decided to throw that one in for good measure I guess.

This is stressing me out. First of all, Brandon went on a man-trip this last week, which left my 36 week pregnant self alone with the kids. Not a huge deal, but I can't say I haven't been looking forward to this water party as well, just to get Henry out of the house for a little bit and have some peace and quiet. Did I also mention that I'm sick? Just a cold, but when you aren't allowed to take anything for it a cold can knock you on your butt. Just saying.

Anyways. I am pretty much over this "but I don't like that" phase of my son's life. No, not pretty much. Very over it.

Haylie, however is going through a really cute phase where she wants to "give you wuvs" every five minutes. Which is how I caught this cold. She had it and I couldn't resist her when she would reach her chubby little arms out and say "Give you wuvs, Mommy. Give you kiss, too". Dang it.

Aren't kids great?

Quitting the Bink

So we've been talking about taking away Haylie's bink for quite some time now, but I just haven't wanted to go through that again. It wasn't bad with Henry, he was just really whiny for a few days and I wasn't looking forward to that with Haylie because she is extremely annoying when she's whiny. Extremely. But we both agreed that she needs to be done with the bink well before the baby comes so yesterday I took them away. I just hid them before nap time and when I went to lay her down, the conversation went something like this:

Haylie: where's mine binky go?

Me: the binkys are all gone because you're soooo big now.

Haylie: mama throw them in the garbage?

Me: uh, yes.

Haylie: oh.

And then she rolled over and went to sleep. Are you kidding me? If I would have known it would be that easy with her I would have done it months ago!

The duck pond

My friend Lindsay texted me this morning to tell me that there was a playgroup today and afterward she and her family were going to the BYU duck pond to have a picnic lunch. After a little persuasion, I convinced Brandon to meet us there with Taco Bell. (He doesn't eat sandwiches, and I didn't have time to make any anyways) I had no idea where the duck pond was, and I wasn't really paying attention when Lindsay was telling me. Silly me. We live on 300 S and 900 E. The duck pond is on 800 N and like 600 E. Awesome. Did I mention that I only took our umbrella stroller because normally I let Henry walk? It's really not that long of a walk for adults, but for little kids, it is. Henry did well going there, Lindsay's little girl got tired at the end and wanted in the stroller, which her 9 month old sister was occupying. So we get to the park and eat lunch and feed the ducks. The kids were in heaven. Henry kind of tried kicking one of the ducks, and I think he had more fun chasing and terrorizing them than feeding them but Haylie was so cute. I think BYU holds classes there, because my friend Deena, who also came, referred to the pond as the Botany Pond and there was a large area with stadium benches, which is where we sat. The kids were playing at the top of the seating area when all of a sudden Brandon gasped and ran off. Poor Haylie had taken a nose dive down the stairs. She only fell like, one stair but she fell face first. She looks so banged up it pitiful. I thought she only got her nose but as you can see she got a lot more. Poor girl.

Finally!

With summer approaching, I'm always weary of having to wear a swimsuit. I hear of little skinny girls who can't find modest swimsuits, so how in the heck am I supposed to find one if they can't? There is a site called Lime Ricki and it has modest swimsuits! (well, they look modest on the models, we'll see if it's still modest one it gets on me) I think I'm going to try one out and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, I can just send it back! I really like the v-strap ones, they seem to have the most coverage but they're still super cute!

Our Neighbors

We've been hanging out with our neighbors in Apt. #2 and #3 a lot lately. The people who live in #'s 2, 3, and 4 all went to high school together and somehow they all ended up here at the same time to go to school and the ended up on consecutive apartments. I don't know how they did it. So we have kind of joined their little group and they are a lot of fun. We have a lot of impromptu parties and most recently, we had a Wii Fit party. Here's a video of a couple of the guys doing the hula hoop.

The first one is Neal(#3) and the second one is Jovus(#4). I don't know how to fix it so they're upright. Sorry.

Big girl bed

We converted Haylie's crib into a "big girl bed" yesterday and she slept in it for the first time last night and did great! We were a little worried because when we transitioned Henry we went through the whole crying/talking for hours after we put him to bed and the can't open the door because the kid is asleep behind it thing. But we put her to bed like normal and she didn't make a peep and I just put her down for a nap and she's passed out. I hope our next kid is this easy!

Ew.

So, Brandon started complaining about a smell coming from our room a few weeks ago. I didn't really smell it, but then I started to. It smelled like someone hid a poopy diaper in our room months ago. So I started hunting around. I concluded that the smell was coming from our closet. I assumed that it was somebody's shoes. So Brandon's tennis shoes that he's had since bootcamp went outside. But the smell stayed. Then the other day Henry was in our closet and got into this travel bag thing that we use when we go on road trip to put snacks in. I wondered...so I checked it out, and found a half a loaf of banana bread that had been in there since CHRISTMAS. Gross, gross, gross. The weird thing was, it that it still looked pretty normal. No mold or anything. But the middle looked kind of shriveled. The scientist in me almost wanted to slice the thing open and see what was inside. But instead I threw it out and put the travel bag that also reeked outside to air out. Next time, that thing is getting checked and double checked when we get home from a trip.

What a weekend...

So it's been pretty stressful around here the last couple of weeks, Brandon's had tests and projects and papers galore and I've been with the kids 24/7. We did manage to go on a date, but we went to dinner with some of our Chinese friends, who took us to a Hot Pot restaurant, where they serve meat and veggies. Not my fare right now. So I spent parts of it trying to not vomit. Anyways, my neighbor, Deena suggested that we go get manicures and pedicures soon since the weather was getting better and we would (hopefully) soon be wearing sandals. (no such luck, it snowed on Saturday) So I asked Brandon, ever so nicely, if I could maybe get a massage too. He one-upped my of course. (He loves to do that!) We went online to the spa website, and he picked out the biggest package they had, which included: a 1 hour massage, a European facial, a spa Paraffin pedicure, and some sort of scalp treatment. He also told me that I could come home afterward and take a nap. I think that getting a massage or anything like that done early in the day then coming home to fight with your kids is somewhat counter productive.

I was so excited for my Saturday (yes, the day it snowed) spa day! I left the house and 9:40, kissing my kids and husband good-bye, and headed off for my "me-day". I spent 4 1/2 luxurious hours at the spa getting pampered, then I picked up some Arby's (one of my favs right now) and a milkshake for Brandon, and headed home to take my nap.

Then the trouble started. Halfway through my nap Brandon busts into our room and says, "Henry's puking". Great. I'd like to mention that Brandon does not deal with vomit well. Usually, if someone it vomiting, he vacates pronto. If it's me, he'll yell from our bedroom door while I'm in the back in the bathroom, asking if I need anything. Heaven forbid someday I do, and he has to come back there.

So I go back to Henry's room to survey the damage. It looked horrible. Now, I'm still in the nauseous stage of pregnancy, so things that wouldn't normally phase me make me run for the toilet. This was one of them. The thing is, is that one of us had to man a bucket for Henry, (he won't puke in the toilet) and the other had to clean his bed with the huge pile of grossness. I don't know what Brandon fed him, but apparently he stuck the rest of the cookies I had made, along with other various sweets during the day. Brandon thought that was probably why he was sick. So I had bucket detail and Brandon cleaned the bed.

Usually when Henry is sick, we put the mats we use for under their chairs at the dinner table (our table is on carpet) and lay him on the couch (thank goodness we have leather) and he watched movies while I hover, waiting. Luckily Henry gives me at least one cough before he vomits, so I can get there. So we did this for a few hours, (kind of) fed Haylie some dinner, and put her to bed. Now, the thing that makes me really sick when I'm pregnant is having an empty stomach, and I didn't feel like cooking, so I sent Brandon out for some mexi-fries and a slurpee. Around 9, we hear Haylie coughing, and my worst fears are realized. My 19 month old is having her first bout of the flu. Luckily, Henry is asleep and is mostly only dry heaving by this point, so Brandon can handle that. I now get to hold Haylie on my lap and hold the bucket for her. It's so sad when a kid pukes for the first time. They don't know what's going on, and it scares them. So she's crying and trying to push the bucket away. Oh, and she doesn't give me a cough or two before she blows, she just blows. But since I have the reflexes of a panther, I managed to not get vomited on.

So this is how our night goes. And early morning. Basically everyone except Henry pulled an all-nighter. The next morning, Brandon snoozed on the couch and I got to sleep in our bed for a little while. When I woke up around 10, guess what? I was sick. Wonderful. Luckily the kids slept most of the day, because I would have felt so bad if Brandon had to catch vomit for all of us. So much for my relaxing weekend.

But, we're all better now (I hope). Somehow, Brandon has not caught it yet, and we are praying that he doesn't. Haylie is still asleep at 9:30 in the morning. I'm hoping she's just catching up on her beauty sleep. I am so looking forward to dealing with things like this for years to come...

New Beginnings

This month is a big month for us here in the Allen home. Brandon starts a new semester with the hardest Chinese class he's ever taken. Henry starts Primary! (I would like to apologize to his teachers ahead of time) And Miss Haylie starts Nursery. Now Brandon and I will actually have to pay attention in class! J/k, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm the only one who isn't starting something new. Maybe I'll take up pottery or something in my spare time (haha).

I'm so excited to be done with last year, it was not the best year of my life and I'm ready to start fresh and see what tomorrow brings. That sounds so cheesy, but it's true. Brandon and I have been discussing options for after he graduates. We're looking at the NSA, and possibly him getting his PhD. I think he may be a little burnt out on school right now so I think the only way he'll do the PhD is if the NSA offers to pay for it. Everything is kind of up in the air right now, but we're using this time to enjoy each other and enjoy Brandon being home more, even if he does have a lot of homework most of the time. That's all I've got for right now...