Way to be born!

We've had some birthdays!  Two to be exact!  Documentation was never my strong point.

We actually decorated!  Thanks to some darling bunting my sister gave me for Christmas!  It's amazing what two strands of bunting can do to my lack of decorating skills!  I'm now a pro!

 We even hung a festive little sign (which we left up for two weeks).  Why decorate twice?  It was cute!

 Amidst all the festivities we got a LOT of snow.  We have had several big storms followed by nasty pollution.  This was one of the clear days right after a storm. Check out how much snow was on our mailbox!  King's been shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling...

 Back to the point.  Birthdays!

Millaker seemed oblivious to the festivities.  She was grateful for the the extra company, the cake, and extra paper to tear.

Eddie got some books- which are her FAVORITE things.  She read, read, read, and had grandma read them again and again.  Thanks grandma and grandpa!

 Amidst all the excitement we forgot to give Eddie OUR gifts.  We'd already put her in bed when we realized this fact, so we got her back up and brought out the gifts.  Oops. Bad parents.

King has much better pictures on his phone of her- I promise to post them as soon as I download them.

I can't believe this girl is three!  She is very, very proud of that fact!  Three means lots of things.  three is being a very kind sister who loves to help Millaker (whether or not that help is wanted).  Three is loving to go get things for mom and be my helper. Three (and one, and two for this girl) means she NEVER tires of books and would read them all day with me if I had the time (see above).

Oh, how we love our Eddie!

Tangent:  We have had LOTS of friend over the last few weeks.  The kids have LOVED it! 

Then came King's Birthday!  I think Guy had more fun giving Dad presents and watching him open them than any one else.  Its fun to see the kids really get into a birthday!  We put trick candles on King's cake this year, which guy thought was a RIOT.  Who knew trick candles could be so funny.

King has reached the ripe old age of ... I'd better not say. 

He is a wonderful, wonderful dad!

He wrestles with the kids, plays knights and princesses, pillow monster, tag, the "tickle game" and the kids adore him.  Millaker in particular will SCREAM in delight the moment dad gets home from work!  She can not get enough of her daddy!  

And though I may be slightly biased, King makes the most wonderful husband.  He has done more than his fair share of housework lately as I've been under the weather.  He helps make meals, clean house, take care of kids, and all while he's in the midst of his busy season at work.  We love, love, love, our Daddy.

Sisters

I was looking through old pictures and found these two.  The first is Eddie with her classic finger-sucking-hair-twirling pose she kept for nearly three years.  

The second one is Millaker.  Besides their drastically different eye color and despite the fact that in one photo one child is neatly groomed while the other CLEARLY is not- I think these two look a lot alike here.  I frequently have people tell me they look alike and yet I don't see it much.  That was, until I saw these.  I guess they look like sisters after all.

I'm so glad I have my girls!

Toddlers

You know your baby is becoming a toddler when in ONE afternoon she:
Climbs on the table
Falls off the table in her attempt to climb back to a chair
Destroys her siblings block towers with absolute glee
Climbs on the table and manages to make it to her chair this time
Refuses to take one of her naps
Walks around muttering, "no, no, no, no"
Thinks that all kids remotely her age or younger are the "BABY!"
Intentionally climbs on the block table so her siblings CAN'T remake the tower she's knocked down... and smiles at their wailing
Yanks out her ponytails
Raids the garbage can and brings you its contents one by one
Destroys your sorting piles that you've been working on ALL DAY to dejunk the filing cabinet
Walks around the house caring the firehouse siren pushing the button again, and again, and again...
Tries on everyone shoes and then proceeds to scatter them throughout the house

Welcome to toddlerhood, Millaker.

Christmas and New Years

It's times like this I wish I were naturally witty.

I'm not.

So be prepared for the monotone dialogue (it sounds MUCH better on my end) and a whole bunch of photos! 

Christmas and New Years did, indeed, happen.  My lack of documentation is just a delay on my part.

My very favorite picture from the whole holiday break was this.  Guy wanted to be SURE Santa knew we wouldn't be home Christmas morning.  He hand wrote this note himself and placed it right in front of the Christmas tree:

SAN

TA-   WE

8  R  AT

GRAM

OZ

HYRUM

(Translation: Santa, we are at Grandma's.  Hyrum)

Cute boy.  He found us.

 Here's the Christmas parade circling the house before they could come open their stockings.

 

 I promise Eddie was more excited than she looks.

 I am pretty sure these pictures of Millaker don't belong in this sequence, but they were somehow added and are much too cute to be taken out.  Those darn fingers!

ALL of my siblings were in town!  I could find a picture of this whole family- so they're here in bits.

As in- all the photos of kids you don't recognize are theirs.

 Us.  In all our morning glory.

 Oops- more of the Kids Christmas Train.

 I'm not mad- I promise.  I'm not sure what that look on my face is.

 The cute newlywed couple.

 The REAL Christmas Train made by Grandpa.

 The bachelor!

 The family who traveled the farthest!

Here in the middle there should be a whole SLEW of pictures of us freezing cold on snowmobiles- that will be a whole other post in and of itself.  It deserves it!

 

 We ended the holidays with the oldest niece getting baptized!  They were able to arrange to have it here while everyone was in town.  Such a serious occasion obviously didn't merit serious pictures.  See below.

And that face of Millakers - is about how I feel right now. 

Night, folks!

Little Miracles

I keep forgetting to post this, but better late than never I suppose.
One morning in early December our "low tire pressure" light came on.  Since it was a cold morning after a long string of warm weather we thought we just needed to fill the tires up.  No big deal.
It turned out that yes, we did need to fill them up, but were we also aware that we were in need of new tires?  Hmm.  No, we weren't. Rats.
We spent a few days price-checking and then decided to bite the bullet and get new tires before the snow and ice came along.  On a Thursday morning I brought the car in and bought new tires.  When I was checking out, I was asked if I wanted to purchase the certificate that guarantees that if they can't patch a hole, they'll replace the tire.  I called King.  He said no- I said yes.  Since he knows much more about cars than I do, we were going to deffer to his opinion.  That was until the man decided to offer a terrific coupon that made it almost impossible for me to resist.  Hey- a girl knows a bargain when she sees one.  It still took a mighty hefty swallow to swipe my credit card.  Who knew tires were so stinkin' expensive!

Fast forward two days. 

Yep. TWO.


King and the oldest two had taken a free front runner ride down south while I stopped off at a bridal shower before heading down to pick them up.  Their ride took two glorious hours of standing room only... but that's another story.
Heading south at the point of the mountain, there was a nice little jolt to my car.  I hadn't seen anything in the road!  I looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see a little square of... who knows! flying away.
My initial thought: "No big deal."
Three seconds later: "Big deal!"
My car was driving funny and the pesky "low tire pressure" light was on again.  Being in the carpool lane, I pulled to the left side of the road.  Millaker, thankfully, was sleeping soundly at this point.  I climbed out of the car into the FREEZING, blustery wind and commenced checking the tires.  Front drivers side? check.  Front passenger's side? check.  Back driver's side? check. Back passenger side... completely flat.
Now I'm not sure where my brain had gone, because my first response was to climb back in the car out of the freezing wind and call King.
ME:  Hey! I blew a tire! How am I going to get home?  I don't have to call 911 just to get a tow truck do I?
Told you my brain was gone.
KING:  Uh... we have a spare.
ME: Oh yeah!  And I know how to change it! Oh, wait! Someone is pulling over to help.
My guardian angels!
A nice family of four pulled ahead of me and backed up.  I explained the problem and the dad and his fifteen year old son climbed out of their car in nice, button-down shirts (no coats!) and proceeded to change my tire on the VERY cold, very dangerous freeway side.  I tried to give them money since, REALLY they were incredibly helpful- but they refused.  They said it was good practice for their son.  Before they drove away, the cautioned me to only drive 25 mph on the spare, and good luck.
I was going to need it.
Praying awfully hard, I manuvered my car to the OTHER side of the freeway and somehow managed NOT to get hit. Miracles still do happen.  Don't ever forget it.
Then I proceeded to limp down the freeway, hugging the side-line, with my hazard lights on.  All the while, King had found me the nearest tire store.  15 miles down the road I pulled off and find the well-hidden store.  Thanks to the certificates we very nearly didn't purchase,  the new tire and the labor were all free.  They were even kind enough to not make me purchase a NEW certificate for the new tire.
The significance of this story is this.

NO, its not great to fork over money for new tires.
NO, its not great to blow a tire on the freeway.

HOWEVER-

Had we not had new tires, the technician thought we would have rolled or at least crashed!  Whatever I hit had punctured a whole bigger than his hand and he could put his whole fist in our tire. There was no patching that tire!
Had we not purchased the certificate, we'd be out many, many more pretty pennies.
Had I had all three kids- I can GUARANTEE the whole episode would not have gone as smoothly.  I can still picture the possible mayhem in the car as I tried to help with a tire!
Had we not had kind, wonderful, generous people stop to help, I would have been on the side of a dangerous, freezing highway for a VERY long time changing my first tire by myself.  Not an ideal scenario.
I'm grateful for the little blessings- that come about in ways we don't expect, or imagine.  I'm grateful for the kindness of strangers and the unseen help from above which I can GUARANTEE helps and protects us more than we realize.

Have you checked your tires lately?

Before I forget.

I dropped the ball.  Not just kind-of.  I dropped it.  Here I was, rolling through November listing my blessings... and then I disappeared.  Still here.  Just slacking.  Here are some posts I'd started, but never finished, and a few updates.  They should be recorded. 

I am thankful for a fenced back yard.  I love being able to send these two out back.  They have such a good time.  Eddie kicked off her shoes and was pushing them around barefoot.  Crazy girl- she's got to be freezing!

I am grateful these two are such good friends.  This was an unprompted-by-mom event.  Glad my camera was close.

I'm grateful for our annual "Thanksgiving Tree."  Guy got really into this year.  He was constantly grabbing a leaf and sounding out a word.  I wish I knew how to take better pictures.  Some of his words are:  rth: earth, thnkfl for sci (sky), ... ooh! I'm sad I didn't write more down.  Maybe you can decipher them!  

I am tremendously grateful for cellphones.  It's hard to tell, but Guy is talking to King.  Randomly throughout the day they'll announce they want to tell dad something.  I'm glad we can call him (and I'm glad he can answer even though he's at work!)  Some days this little piece of technology is my lifeline.  L.O.V.E. it.

I'm grateful for sweets (now that I am not on my "month-of-no-treats"!) and for sweet, sweet smiles.  These two can turn on the cheese in an instant.  It's great for pictures if they're cooperative.  We decided to make gingerbread cookies and frost them.  Eddie had a bit of help from King.  Guy did his own- hence the TON of candy he loaded onto that thing.  Maybe that's the REAL reason for his cheesy grin.

 Millaker was just glad to eat them.  No frosting needed.

Here's King and My masterpieces.  Thank you very much.