Christmas Vacation

My parents rented a cabin in McCall, Idaho for the week of Christmas and we drove up the day after Christmas to join them.

Uncle Jacob with Matthew and Tori's baby, Owen. It was so fun to finally get a chance to meet that chunky little baby!

Nathan playing "Pass the Pigs".

Nearly 6 months pregnant!

There was so much snow! Probably at least 3 feet of it, and it snowed the whole time we were there. Uncle Jacob took the boys down to the lake behind the cabin to jump off the dock.

Matthew made a deep hole in the snow when he landed.

And then he had to crawl out of that hole in the snow--makes me think of a snow worm.

Nathan played for hours in the snow. Hours.

The boys collected icicles off the house and built a sculpture that resembled Superman's house. This was the biggest icicle they found--it broke off the roof as Matthew was licking it.

Maggie tried to play in the snow a little bit (she loves her snow pants but not so much her Princess boots) but I think the snow was just too deep for her.

Daddy throwing Maggie high in the air.
She LOVES it. "Again!" she always says as soon as she comes down.

Nathan and Matthew went skiing on our last day--Uncle Ryan taught them. They had a blast and Matthew came home to report that he only fell down one time...which meant he only fell down one time on one of his runs, and I guess that was the run that counted.

The Wilson sibs: Me, Tori, Jacob, Sariah, and Cami

It was a fun trip and it was so wonderful to see all my family--especially Tori and her family who we haven't seen for a long time--but it's nice to be home.

Christmas Day

Christmas Wonder

Maggie reading her new Disney princess books.

Matthew asked Santa Claus for three things: a laptop, a PlayStation 3, and "Arthur and the Invisibles" video game. Well, Santa found the video game...

...and a V-Tech version of a laptop...

...but no PS3. I think Matt will survive, don't you?

Nathan lined up all his gifts in front of the new chest of drawers that Santa left for "Natebutt and Mattbutt" (Brian says Santa knows the boys' nicknames) to take pictures with his new camera.
So of all the wonderful toys and presents that Maggie received for Christmas, what do you think she took to bed with her that night? Her bag of stocking candy, tucked carefully on the pillow next to her. I don't think I saw her without a piece of candy in her hand the whole day.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Thanks to a long story about an Elk and some pies and a bloody kitchen I was not in the best mood on Christmas Eve. But I tried to keep my pregnant hormones to myself as we headed off to Grandma and Grandpa Swings' house for Christmas Eve dinner and festivities. The kids had a good time, at least.

Maggie in her Christmas bows.

Mommy and Maggie

Opening a few special Christmas Eve presents: cameras for the boys, a vacuum for Maggie, and traditional pajamas all around. Thanks, Grandma!

Maggie playing with the xylophone from Aunt Charity and Uncle Erik. She kept telling me to sing "louder!" until I was practically yelling "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as she pounded the chimes with that little plastic mallet. It was quite the Christmas performance.

Matthew and Nathan (with Uncle Erik) trying out their new plug-n-play video games from Charity and Erik.

Seeing Santa

Along with broken Christmas lights, shopping in crowded stores, and bad Christmas music on the radio, going to see Santa is one of the true headaches of Christmas. Why do we do it? For the same reason we do all of it, I guess: for the kids.

Last Tuesday, we ventured with Grandma Swings to the mall for lunch and a visit to Santa. After finally finding a parking space only a quarter of a mile from the door (instead of a half mile) and trekking through the entire crowded mall looking for Santa and the food court, the kids were hungry (so was their pregnant mom, and you don't put off lunch for pregnant moms). So we managed to find a table and sat down to enjoy some lunch.

After lunch, we made our way back through the crowds, talking up Santa all the way. But when we got there...no Santa. Apparently, they forgot to mention the Jolly Old Elf takes a lunch break from 1:15 to 2:15 when Grandma called to find out what hours he'd be available. It was 1:15. What do you do in a crowded mall for an hour with a very cranky two-year old and two high-energy boys?

Well, we all survived a very long hour. I wasn't about to go home and try coming back another day--it was see Santa today or next year. And after waiting only another half hour in line (ok, I let Grandma do that part while I sat on a bench and watched) the kids finally made it up onto Santa's lap.

Nathan, Maggie, and Matthew (showing his "tough" smile) and Santa Claus

After we arrived home, Matthew took this picture to his room to compare the Santa with the photo from last year. Apparently, the other Santa had a bigger beard so they aren't the same guy. Matthew's theory is that, "the helper Santas tell the real Santa what the kids want and the real Santa is up at the North Pole busy getting ready for Christmas." Sounds good to me.

Say "Cheese!"

I wanted to get pictures of the kids in their Christmas clothes this morning before church but we were running a little behind. As I was rushing Maggie into her clothes of course she had to start throwing a fit: screaming and kicking me and acting, well, two years old. So I forced her tights on and dragged her dress over her head and pulled a brush through her tangled, shower-wet hair all the time pleading, "Not this morning, Maggie, I don't have time for this this morning!" (Yes, sometimes I resort to begging my children to cooperate, and no, it rarely works.)

After we finally had her all done up I told her that Daddy would take her picture. Suddenly, she was a new child. She brightened up and said, "Say cheese, big smile like this," and demonstrated her biggest, happiest smile. Wow, we should take out the camera more often...!

Maggie, looking so pretty in her piggy tails and happy smile.

The Kids: Maggie (2), Matthew (5 1/2), and Nathan (8)

A Note About the Elk

Yes, there is a dead elk in our garage. Brian finally killed his first big game animal. He brought it home late Thursday night and hung it from the ceiling of the garage. (I wonder what our renter living above the garage thought about that.)

And then Brian decided he needed to be a man and cut the elk up himself. Let me tell you how thrilled I was at the prospect of seeing my kitchen turned into a butcher shop and my Kitchen Aid mixer used to grind up 200 lbs. of elk burger...and all this only a few hours before throwing a party in our kitchen (a football party, not a hunting party). Lucky for me (sorry, dear) Brian came down with that stomach bug we've all been dealing with this week (yes, I got it too). Yep, after hacking up the thing in the garage he got too nauseas to finish slicing, grinding, and packaging. So the process came to a halt before it trespassed too heavily into my kitchen. Hooray! I was able to quickly clean things up (with the help of my brother, thanks, Jacob) and get the house ready for company without having to scrub out too much blood.

But now we're stuck with a garage full of dead elk. Brian swears up and down that he'll get it done. And I'm swearing up and down that I won't touch the thing. I don't mind raw meat so much, but 200 lbs. of it? No thanks.

We took some great pictures when the skin was on but the camera lost them and I'm not going to post pictures of, um, the current state of affairs. I don't even want to go in the garage--thank goodness its detached from the house.

Sugar Cookies: Part II

I just had to post this picture of how Maggie frosts cookies:


Okay, not really--this was the only cookie she frosted herself and then tasted. For the rest she chose the cookie shape and color frosting while I wielded the knife (and quickly set the frosted cookie out of reach).

Sorry, I was having too much fun watching the kids decorate their cookies to take anymore pictures. You should have seen the green snowmen, pink and white santas, and triple-stacked wedding cakes on our cookie trays. It's all about the creativity.

Clarification: we cut and baked cookies on Monday but didn't get around to frosting them until Thursday.

Sugar Cookies: Part I

Another Christmas tradition from my childhood: baking and frosting sugar cookies. Remember those little silver-coated sugar balls that we used to put all over the cookies and then break our teeth on? Well, I couldn't find any little silver balls this year, in fact, I couldn't even find any red-hot candies so our cookies should be relatively safe to eat. Well, maybe you won't think so after you see these photos:

Matthew rolling out dough (you can tell he's concentrating very hard).Nathan cutting out shapes.

I made two batches of sugar cookie dough, but for some reason we only ended up with a few trays of cookies. It couldn't have anything to do with the boys eating most of their scrap dough, could it?

Here's what Maggie did with her cookie dough:

Walked through it,

Crumbled it up into many tiny pieces,

And rained them on Sparkles who went to town eating up all that dough on the floor (and her back).

Oh, so that's where all my cookie dough went...! No wonder Sparkles' weight-loss diet doesn't seem to be having much effect (I actually found her sneaking graham crackers out of the box in the pantry the other day).

Stomach Flu: Shudder and Cringe

Today is one of those lost days. Matthew was up all night throwing up--poor kid. Nathan woke up this morning with it coming out the other end but no puking yet (knock on wood and cross my fingers, he's usually pretty susceptible to that). Brian left to go bag himself that elk he's been trying to find all year (ok, for several years--he's never killed an animal larger than a bunny and he really needs to get it out of his system so we can all move on...). He was up all night with Matthew, bless him, so he left with my blessing this morning but Nathan hadn't woken up sick yet... Maggie having come down with the stomach flu all over Grandma Swings' car on Saturday (poor Grandma) is no longer sick, thank goodness, but her usual cranky, demanding two-year old self.

It's now 2:00 in the afternoon and I have accomplished the following:

1. nap on the couch while the kids watched Nogin
2. taken Maggie to "pee toy-yet" several times
3. fixed a nutritious sick-day lunch of ramen and applesauce and handed juice and Gatorade all around
4. moved Matthew's soiled bedding to the dryer and folded about 5 articles of clothing (I gave up doing any more laundry when Maggie threw herself to the ground demanding someone watch Dora with her--it just wasn't worth the fight today.)
5. took a shower and got dressed

That fifth item, that was a major accomplishment, trust me. I had planned to spend the day baking Christmas treats, but I think I'd better wait and let the germs dissipate first. And in the back of my mind all the time is the nagging worry that I'm going to come down with this... Visions of last Christmas, nightmares of last Christmas, keep floating unbidden into my head...

Christmas Eve I developed a sore throat that got progressively worse as the day went on. By the early morning it was so incredibly painful that I couldn't sleep. And then I became violently ill. I don't mean a little sick and then it's over, I mean so violently ill that I literally couldn't move from the bucket (and after that the toilet) for over an hour. Just when I began to think this might really be the end of my life, it finally started to ease off.

I missed Christmas morning. I dragged a blanket to the top of the stairs, laid on the floor and listened to my family discovering gifts from Santa and opening presents. I dared not move any farther from that bathroom and I was too weak, anyway.

Gradually, I recovered my appetite and strength throughout the next couple of days. But one week later, to the day, I came down with it again. Painfully sore throat and then the violent illness the next day... I recovered again just in time to come down with it again 4 days later, the most violent episode of all this time. I managed to drag myself to an inept Tooele doctor after the third episode because by this time I had lost 10 pounds which I really couldn't afford to lose. He told me to eat a restricted diet and gave me a stool sample kit to use in case it came back.

It came back. Exactly a week after the last episode I had the sore throat and the illness again--weird, isn't it? That stool sample kit was...something I hope I never have to go through again. I was suspecting parasites, like giardia, but the tests came back negative and I never had another episode. I still think it was probably giardia, apparently it can be very difficult to detect.

Oh, I have never been so ill in my life. And now whenever I get a sore throat or someone starts throwing up, I start to panic a little bit inside...

Ribbon Therapy

I've been in a MOOD lately (those of you who've been pregnant or lived with a pregnant woman know what I'm talking about). Last night I tried to make a coconut pie using dream whip. It was only after I'd thrown all the ingredients in the mixer and tried to get them to set that I realized I'd bought cook 'n' serve pudding instead of the instant kind. Whoops. I had to throw the whole concoction out. If I'd only looked at the pudding box when I opened it... Oh I was so mad. I stormed downstairs and locked myself in my craft room to try to calm down. Even though I was up until probably 1:00, at least I made something that didn't go straight to the trash.

Some simple little bows. I covered the alligator clips with ribbon, a first for me (I hope they work).

This sweater is a Christmas present for Maggie--I couldn't pass it up at the store! I found instructions to make this loopy bow online a few weeks ago and I've been looking for an excuse to try it out. I used ribbon I already had so the colors aren't perfect but it turned out ok. I'm not re-doing it, that's for sure, it was a lot of work.

So did my ribbon therapy work? Sadly, no. Poor Brian's been feeling the wrong end of my crankiness all day. At least I got some new ingredients and finally made that coconut cream pie. Brian said, "You really do love me!" Poor little bunny.

Just Call Me "Large Marge"

So I went to my regular maternity check-up yesterday. I've gained 14 pounds in the last 4 weeks! (For perspective: they recommend you only gain about a pound a week.) That puts me at 28 pounds for this pregnancy so far. At about 5 1/2 months, I'm right on track to put on my usual 45 or 50 pounds...or maybe a little more. What can I say, it's a good time of year for eating.

I figure since this is my last pregnancy, I might as well enjoy the stuffing-my-face part. Have I mentioned before that I can out-eat my 6'2", 200 lb. husband when I'm pregnant? (I'm 5'2" and, um, normally very petite.) He took me out to an all-you-can-eat buffet the other night. Isn't he sweet? That was probably half of the 14 pounds right there. Actually, I think the real problem is the several bags of candy left over from the kids' graham cracker houses. Except there's only a couple bags of candy left now...

(My registered dietitian mother is going to get a kick out of this post.)

Christmas Cards

One of my favorite parts of Christmas! I love hearing from old friends and marveling at how things change over the years (or don't). I love receiving family pictures and sparkly fancy Christmas cards and especially entertaining newsletters from my friends who can really write. I love planning my Christmas letter every year and, ok I admit it, I really enjoy creating it, too. I can't boast much in the way of amusing letters, in fact the people who receive them probably groan every year when they open their mailbox, but too bad for them because I like writing newsletters!

This year, I've had to get things started a little early because I'm afraid no one knows my new address and I won't get any Christmas cards if I don't send mine out first. If you're not on my mailing list (if you didn't get a card last year, then you're probably not on the list) and you want to be, send me an email with your address and I'll send you a Christmas card!

Sugar High, Anyone?

The boys are off-track for the entire month of December (they have year-round school) which means they have no more school until the new year. They're thrilled, of course, but I'm not so sure about a month of holiday-hyper kids. So we sat down a few days ago and made a list of all the activities they want to do this month (and some things they have to do--I contributed, too). Every day we pick at least one activity from the list. It's been working really well all 4 days they've been out of school. In fact a little too well--they've already crossed off so many of the activities on the list that we're going to have to add some more pretty soon.

Today was graham cracker house day. I have to admit the smell of graham crackers, decorator frosting, and candy brought back some childhood memories for me: building graham cracker houses was one of those cannot-miss traditions in my home growing up.

Matthew hard at work.

Always the creative one, Nathan built a two-story with sour gummy worms dripping off the deck.

Maggie just enjoyed eating candy...lots of candy.

She did stick some candy on her base.

Matthew: "It's night-time and a guy is going inside to go to bed and Santa is getting ready to come down the chimney. That guy better hurry and get in bed before Santa gets inside!"

Nathan: "There's a teddy-bear PARTY going on and everyone's outside dancin'."

Let the Christmas season begin!

Thanksgiving Photos

I finally found the photos that my brother, Jacob, took at Thanksgiving dinner last week. We had 25 people at our house--all of my Mom's family, or at least the members who live in Utah plus my parents. It was great fun and good eating. Even though I get stressed out preparing for big functions, I really enjoy hosting them. It's all worth it when you have a house full of well-fed people. :) Thanks, everyone, who came and contributed to a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sisters: Margy and my mom, Janene

Grandpa and Grandma Cannon


My sisters: Cami and Sariah

Aunt Margy set the tables, she's very talented at that sort of thing.

These guys were really working hard for their dinner.
This is the only picture of Jacob on Thanksgiving, I think Matthew took it.

That's my aunt Angie on the left dishing up food for her kids.

Another great part of Thanksgiving: conversation. Uncle Eldon and Aunt Margy (holding one of my cousin Hailey's twins), me, my mom and dad...

Uncle Pat and Aunt Angie

Oh look, here's another photo of Jacob.
My sibs: Cami, Jacob, Sariah, and me--we missed you, Tori!

Maggie having some pie.

Jacob took some great pictures of Maggie, otherwise known as Binky Face:

Apparently, after dinner there was a war waged in the basement. (That's why we have a basement, you shut the door and all you hear are faint reverberations of screaming children...)My cousin Taylor

His sister Mackayla.

Their sister Maddie.

My cousin Hailey's daughter Mila.

Mila's brother Ethan.

The Binky Warrior

Matthew and Nathan
All in all, it was a great day, wasn't it boys?