January Blah!!

Not sure about everyone else, but January is a "blah" month for me. The holidays are over and it's cold, the roads are horrible so it's hard to go anywhere, the kids are driving me crazy cooped up in the house, I feel like I can't keep anything clean with the snow/mud getting tracked in and toys spread everywhere. I did however, find some fabulous after Christmas sales. And I am finally getting things organized, at least in the non-child accessible parts of the house. I also spent some quality time with the dentist last week and 7 crowns, 1 bridge and 1 filling later, I sure do have some nice pearly whites. OUCH!!!!!

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

It finally snowed!!! The boys LOVE it, I'm not a big fan, but at least it feels more like Christmas. Dave was in Florida all last week testing a weapon that he made for the Air Force. The tests went well and now other military branches are wanting in on the new weapon as well. YEAH- more contracts!!! (I'm proud of you babe and so happy to have you home, I love you Dave.) I'm glad he doesn't have to travel too often.

Christmas with a 3 year old is so much fun. This is the first year that Porter understands Santa and Jesus and presents. I bought a little advent elf and we put a note in each pocket with an activity to do leading up to the big day. Every morning Porter is so excited to see what the note is. The other night the note said, "Watch a Christmas show", so we watched "The Santa Clause" and Porter loved it. After the show, he got out a pencil and paper and starting writing. I asked what he was doing and he said he was writing a letter to Santa. I told him that we already did that a few weeks ago (nervous because I already bought his "Santa gift"). He replied, "I don't think a toy kitchen will fit in Santa's sleigh, it looked pretty small, I'm writing to tell him to tie it to a reindeer." How cute is that? I smiled as I watched him take his folded note and set it out on our front porch.

?CHURCH?

Today definitely made my top ten list of worst days at church. As mentioned in a previous post, Dave is now a counselor in the Bishopric, which means that I sit by myself. This can get a little crazy with a one-year-old and a three-year-old. There are some wonderful families that sit by me to help out. I thought I had things running fairly smoothly until today.

Two cute brothers, whose parents don't come to church regularly, sat by us. They are 9 and 11 and very well behaved. 30 minutes into the meeting, I took Caleb (who was screeching; not the upset kind of screeching, but the fun, loud screeching that is really distracting in a large group meeting where two returned missionaries are sharing experiences and bearing testimony) out in the hall. Porter was being entertained by my friend's 12 year old son. On my way out, one of the boys that was sitting with us came too. I stopped in the foyer, but he continued down the hall. I then heard terrible lurching sounds and walked around the corner to find that the poor little guy was just three feet from the bathroom door and throwing up all over the floor. Let's just say I could tell what he had for his last two meals. Several dads, out in the hall with their babies, ran for cover and I was left alone, holding a squirmy one-year-old. I went back to the foyer and said that I would clean it up if someone would hold my baby, so he didn't crawl in it. There was a happy volunteer (happier to hold the baby than clean up the mess). I thought, well, I've cleaned up my own kids' puke and poop, how bad can it be? Well, it was bad. I got what I could from the janitor's closet and the kitchen and was down on my hands and knees, in my dress, for a good 30 minutes. By then the other brother had come out and I told him to call home and see if someone could come pick them up.

Meanwhile, Porter decided he wanted to go sit on the stand with dad. So he went up and sat for about two minutes and then ran back down, up the center aisle and headed for the door leading outside. Dave was second guessing himself for letting Porter down while he watched as two of my friend's teenagers chased Porter through the chapel. Dave said you could see everyone's eyes following Porter. Well, everything got cleaned up and no children escaped. After all this I went to teach my darling primary class with some of the biggest stinkers I've ever seen. It is a combined class with about 20 on the roll, but usually only 8-10 come. They can be pretty naughty. Today we only had one serious break down and a little kicking, but no biting, punching, flagulance or hiding under furniture, which was a blessing.

To redeem the day; Porter did make it through all of church in big boy underwear with no accidents and some friends left a gallon of milk and some cookies on our doorstep (they overheard me tell Dave we were out of milk for the baby and because of my failure to plan I was going to have to go to the store to get some). Thank you Reeders! I'm sure we'll be talked about over several dinners tonight and I really need a nap!

I Cooked SHRIMP!!!

I should preface this by saying that I LOVE SHRIMP! It is one of my absolute favorite foods. Whenever we go to a nice restaurant I order shrimp because I love it and I can't cook it. Also, in general, I am not a great cook, but I do try and Dave graciously eats anything that I put in front of him. Although, I can always tell how good it REALLY was by the number of days the leftovers remain untouched in the fridge.
With that said, I was grocery shopping at Smiths today and as I walked by their meat counter, I noticed fresh, raw shrimp were a good price. Feeling inspired by watching the Tepanyaki chef on Saturday, I decided that today, I too, would cook shrimp, or at least try. So I got home and shelled and washed my shrimp, luckily they were deveined. I opened up my recipe book, put some olive oil and garlic cloves in a skillet dumped in my shrimp with a sprinkle of salt and WALLA... They were delicious!!! Who knew it was so simple. I was very pleased, especially because now I can have shrimp whenever I want!!! FABULOUS

Secret Date

We had another Secret Date Society adventure. This time the husbands actually mailed each wife an invitation with the date, time, and dress. They kept all other details secret. It's so fun to watch them sneeking around. I actually caught them sluffing Sunday School a few weeks ago. They were in a classroom planning a secret date. Of course, they made it appear that they were watching our baby, but does it really take three grown men to watch a 1 year old:) Anyway at 4:30 pm and our friend pulled up in his black Ford Excursion and off we went. First, each wife was handed a wrapped gift, mine was a Josh Groban christmas CD (I love it!). Then we had a DELICIOUS dinner at Tepanyaki and finally, we went cosmic bowling/mini golf. It was great fun. Dinner was fabulous and the young crowd at the Fun Park truly made us remember the good ol' highschool days. Great job boys! Thanks for another memorable evening!!!

SICK and COLD

YUCK!!! I hate being sick. Porter started throwing up on Sunday and it has now cycled through me and Caleb. We're all on the uphill slope...Yeah!! What's up with the flu shots anyway...they didn't seem to work for us. I suppose the doctor would say that without them, it would have been worse or the horrible flu that we were vaccinated against is still yet to come. Either way, I hate being sick, but the carpets did get a good cleaning. I missed exercising for 4 days. I know people think I'm crazy, but I love to exercise. It's just something on my daily "To DO" list. It makes me feel good and I seem to get much more accomplished the rest of the day. I just joined a gym for the winter and they have an inexpensive daycare, which is fabulous. Well, back to the laundry. Not much else going on here, except that I played some awesome volleyball last Thursday with my fellow ladies. Nothing like a few hours of volleyball, especially if you win, to start off a good weekend!

Paul's Patch and Hay Maze

When we first moved to Brigham City 3 years ago, I questioned if I would survive with the lack of retail, restaurant and entertainment options. But, living in a small town definitely has it's perks and grows on you. This summer the local high school band marched by the house every morning. Porter would run out on the lawn with his "instruments" and march along. It was like a mini parade every day. In the fall a local farmer sets up a pumpkin patch with this cute little hay maze for the kids. Bales our stacked two or three tall, so you can see all the little heads bobbing around. There are bridges to crawl under and over and a tower in the middle. Since it's just five minutes from our house we actually went there twice this week. Porter could spend hours playing in the maze and Caleb loved crawling around also. Oh, the simple joys of childhood! It also was a fun place to take some pics.