Welcome Teens!

As I sit here with my newborn on my lap (which is why there will be typos), I am contemplating the last decade. No one knew what to call these years, but oh well. For me, the 90's were all about dating, relationship DRAMA and getting used to my hubby. Interestingly enough, I got pregnant with Parker in the first few weeks of 2000 and had Macy in the last few months of 2009. Bill had a little surgery (he wouldn't say little I guess) in December, so I guess I can call this last decade the "Child Bearing Decade", start to finish. It's been fun in it's own way, and I will probably look on these years fondly, even though they are extremely hard. I am looking forward to the next decade where my weight won't go up and down 5 separate times (there were 5 pregnancies...I miscarried before Quinn). My body will eventually become my own...just in time to get wrinkles. Parker could conceivably be on a mission when this decade ends...WHOA!

Alright TEENS, bring it on!

p.s....on a side note, I hate New Year's eve...it's a depressing holiday!

Stop for a minute....

I have been busy this season...shocking, I know. With the addition of my new baby, I have literally felt like I have been in a dead run this whole month. Not that I haven't had fun. I plan on posting all the fun stuff we've done next, but I really wanted to write some stuff down tonight. In the last few days, I have been reminded of some wonderful holiday memories that I have had, and I really wanted to record these. It may be boring to you, but they were cool to me:

1) When I was 11 or so, we had gone to the Capitol Theatre to see Mannheim Steamroller do their Christmas concert (this totally puts me in the 80's). We got there early (as we did with everything my dad drove us to) so we walked over to see the ZCMI windows. They were just about to unveil them when we got there, and it was so cool to be one of the first people to see them. My then Stake President was CEO of ZCMI at the time, and put us in front of the line. I miss the candy windows. We took the kids downtown last night, and I was sad they weren't there.

2) A year before I got married, I was attending the "All-Star singles ward" in the Olympus Cove. I was going through a really rough time that Christmas and was not in the holiday spirit in any way, shape or form. Peter Breinholt (musician) was the Sunday school teacher and the Sunday before Christmas he chose not to give a formal lesson. He just brought his guitar and sang. It was really cool watching snow fall outside the window while he sang "Silent Night". Every time I play his Christmas cd, I think of how much that helped me feel christmasy when I really didn't want to.

3) We had a neighbor growing up that started a luminary tradition on our street. Everyone really got into it the first year and our whole street glowed with white paper bags. It had dumped snow that day as well, and we ran up and down the street with our friends making "Santa's Runway".

4) This was a yearly thing, but when my dad pushed the couch to the wall in the basement, we knew Christmas was here. It's such a stupid thing, but having the furniture in "Christmas position" was so thrilling!

5) For our honeymoon, Bill and I spent Christmas in Maui. We attended a Luau on Christmas Eve, and it was really cool to be there. We went to the beach on Christmas day. A lot quieter than our Christmas's now.

6) The first time I saw the Nutcracker (age 5 or so), I literally danced around the streets of downtown the rest of the day, I thought it was so beautiful. As a high schooler, I worked at the Ballet West boutique, often on Christmas Eve. It was fun to feed off everyone's energy of the season.

7) Bill and I went to Disneyland for our 3rd anniversary, no kids. We had never been together. It was, of course, Christmastime, but nobody was out of school yet. We literally ran down Main Street together, hand in hand. Disney and Christmastime....2 magical events. Perfect Disneyland day. Good weather, no crowds, and no kids to slow us down (J/K).

8) You'll die at this one, but when I was in high school, as a family and a few friends, we watched "A Very Brady Christmas" on TV. As campy as it was, we enjoyed every second. There were 9 different plot lines and we hung on every line. At the end, as were waiting for the last plot line to resolve itself, we found ourselves chanting for Sam, the butcher to come back. He did. Sad.

9) I got to be Mary in our church program. I think I was about 4. My mom sewed me a beautiful blue Mary costume that I still have. Emi wore it in our New York Christmas pageant at my brother's house (with a very cute, but grumpy Angel Caroline...sorry, Kathryn). I remember feeling so proud to carry my doll and be the mother of Jesus. I slept in the costume for weeks.

10) I sang in our Jr. High choir. We sang all over during Christmas time. Mrs. Taggart, the choir teacher, was and is legendary! She drilled the actions of "The Twelve Days" and "Twas the Night before Christmas" into us like Sue Sylvester (Glee). To this day, 21 years later, I can do all actions, as can my sister who is 9 years older!

Thank you for reliving my memories. I had to stop and reminisce so I could enjoy my Christmas today. This year, my memories will probably be Quinn running around singing Jingle Bells....which is great, but he doesn't know how to end the song. Merry Christmas to all! Feel free to share your favorite Christmas memories =-)

Is it really possible?

Yes, I know...this pic is REALLY fuzzy. My scanner is acting up and so I took a pic with my phone and uploaded it. But you get the idea....young, beautiful, stupid, naive....

and now.....

Old, worn-out, sleep-deprived, and beaten down!

Happy 11th Anniversary, Bill! The dumbest thing we did was marry in December because it's impossible to celebrate properly, but everything else has been wonderful!

Party, Party, Party

Well...who says we new moms don't know how to party? 3 parties in 38 hours....2 at my house.

Emi turned 7 today...so Friday night, we stupidly invited 11 girls to our house to the "Winter Wonderland" party. Too bad there was no outside snow, but they didn't seem to care. Here is my cake....not super, but I did stick Dollar-Tree snowflake ornaments on the sides and I thought it looked cool.

Coloring snowman bags, making snowflake ornaments....nice quiet activities. Nope. Oh the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise (Grinch reference #1). Bill didn't help by getting them all riled up and then heading downstairs to play Rock Band with Parker and Quinn.

Thank heavens for a dance studio....we did snowman relays. Hilarious.

After "stick the stuff on the snowman", we tried to coral them in for a group shot...this is the best we could do.

Saturday was our ward Christmas breakfast...love the breakfast idea. Primary kids sang and Parker got to do the chimes. One of the chimes was slightly out of tune and it drove him crazy. Loved that party...didn't have to prepare a thing, just had to get 4 kids and a husband dressed and ready by 8:30 on a Saturday.

Besides, I needed to show off Christmas outfit #1. Grandma Newman has recently started shopping again since my dad's stroke. The stores were probably worried that if she didn't return, they would have to shut down for lack of business. I will get Christmas outfit #2 into another post.

Party #3 was a result of Macy's blessing and Emi's actual birthday. It was great to celebrate my gorgeous girls. I love them so much. Here's Macy with Aunt Joyce....

...and the family (I still look at pics with all 6 of us and can't believe it's me).

This Costco cake was a lot better than my previous attempt.

Macy and the Men.

Tiring weekend to say the very least. I also saw "Blind Side" and it really made me want to be a better person. With all this celebrating, I think my "heart grew 3 sizes" today (Grinch reference #2).