Holidays

Well we sure had a very special Christmas! It was so nice being up at my parents' for long enough to go visit other people with Joshua and not feel like we were taking away from Grandma and Grandpa time TOO much. They got a chance to spend a lot of time with him, and we got a chance to show off our adorable fat baby! I'll write a more wordy post soon, but I wanted to post some wonderful pictures for everyone to see. They are not in any particular order.

We did indeed have a white Christmas - just the perfect kind, too, because it was really snowy and beautiful, but not icy for driving. That was so nice.


We visited Aunt Ashley and Uncle Adam over at Ashley's mom's house in Bothell. That was a lot of fun - her mom and sister were pretty excited to see Joshua, but their little dog was not pleased that Joshy was getting all the attention.

We went and visited the Averys - they were my second family all throughout elementary school - the first picture is with Laura (we spent pretty much every waking second together for about 8 years!) and the second picture is Linda - Laura's mom.

Joshua got to spend a lot of time with his Uncle Geoffy - they got along quite well!

Joshua has one great grandma on my side of the family, and we went to visit her - she was SO happy to get to spend some time with Joshua (and perhaps us...but mostly him!)

Joshua and Dad had a lot of good times together - this was one of my favorite times because my darling baby distracted my dad so much that I was able to win at Settlers!

Isn't it really the little things that babies love the most? He did indeed love all of the gifts he got this year, but at this point, none of them have been quite as captivating as this blue curly ribbon was.
We went and visited Dorothy and her family - another wonderful group of people who I spent a ton of time with in my elementary school years! Joshua had a lot of fun with them!

Joshua sure loves his grandma! They had a whole lot of time together which was really special. This is one of my favorite pictures because Joshy was blowing raspberries on my mom's face and I haven't seen her laugh that hard in a very long time!

There are a lot of other great pictures which will definitely be on the calendar, and I also need to post some pictures from the Palmer family early Christmas celebration!

It was a wonderful and beautiful Christmas, and I'm sad that it is over, but it is nice to return to our home and our routine.

I believe

I have always believed in Santa Claus, but I want to write about my belief in Christmas elves. Everyone knows about the elves that work at the North Pole...the little ones that help make the toys and get everything ready for Christmas. I'm not sure everyone knows about the other elves, though, so I will share with you what I know.

Santa needs a lot of help to make Christmas a magical time all over the world, so he chooses special people to help him. These individuals need to go through a lot to get to be elf material. There are some requirements before you can be chosen. The first is a high degree of selflessness and joy in giving. The second is a twinkle in your eye. Third is an understanding that you may never be thanked for the hard work and love you put into creating those great big smiles and shining faces during the Christmas season. Fourth, you must enjoy a certain degree of mystery and a special secret. No one may know you have been selected by Santa to play such an important role, though some may guess. Often, these elves are moms and dads, and I hope to be an elf one day.

So thank you, special elf, who delivered a gift from Santa through the mail slot in our door sometime during the night. Though it is hard sometimes to humbly accept the charity of others, we are truly grateful.

SOMETHING

Ok yes thank you Kris there is SOMETHING going on in my life right now :c)

Busy busy busy these days. Friday night we had a Christmas party at church which was a lot of fun - good food, too. Can you believe it, Mom, I even ate some stuffing! Weeeeird. Joshua did too. He liked it a lot, but did NOT like the green jell-o/cool whip type salad. Fine with his mama - more for me! We had a good time there. Today I was in Lafayette with Nathan's family for most of the day while Nathan was at Capitol Honda (where he used to work) making some money doing their twice yearly parts department inventory. It was nice for him to catch up with some of his old friends from there, and the extra $60 or so will certainly come in handy. We also brought in Joshua and showed him off! It was a long day for all of us, but especially for Joshua. After having some delicious lasagna in Lafayette, we went off to Amity to Ashley and Adam's Oregon reception (they'll have one up in Washington, too...and we'll eat all the food at THAT one also!). That was so much fun - there were a lot of friends there that we don't see often (seems like mostly just at weddings lately), and there were tons of babies and little kids around. As we were driving home, we were trying to name the couples we could think of who were there and didn't have kids. I think we came up with three! And there were quite a few people there. It was a good time, and the food was delicious, and Ashley and Adam seemed like they had a great time too. I think they even both ate some food...often that gets neglected when it's your own party. I'd just like to say on here that I'm so happy for them and glad that they're married and starting off on this new adventurous time together. Ash still has a long way to go in medical school, so they'll be traveling around together as she does her residency, etc. I ALSO want to say on here that it is all because of me that they got together. Well...maybe they might have gotten together if I hadn't done anything about it, but it was a very deliberate matchmaking. All because they used code names for people they kind of had crushes on. So...3 or so years later and here they are! Way to go, me. And them.

Joshy updates - he's doing all sorts of new things...he's moving all around his around-we-go play table, army crawling everywhere, clapping, waving sometimes, babbling, screaming this horrible ear-shattering scream of joy, feeding himself cheerios, all sorts of things. I was realizing the other day that I was never grateful enough during the after-bath period of his early months. Sure he may have been crying his little head off for most of it, but he couldn't roll all over the place and drive me completely bonkers when I'm trying to get him dry, diapered, clothed, etc. Let me tell you, this big fat baby is not all fat. He is VERY strong, and when he wants to go somewhere, it is very hard to get him to do just about anything else. We'll see how that plays out as he gets more mobile and more curious. It will be fun, and terrifying :c)

I hear a rumor that there are a whole lot of pictures on the verge of being posted on the calendar. I hear they are resized and ready to be inserted into html to make the websites necessary for making that calendar magic happen.

Tomorrow should be a good day. I'm nervous about the lesson I'm teaching during Young Women tomorrow - it's called The Sacred Power of Procreation. Super super important topic, but maybe challenging in a class of 14-15 year olds. I'm not worried about them being disrespectful or anything, just not sure what kind of questions or issues might come up, but I think it will be a good experience for all. Just gotta say a prayer beforehand that I will have the Spirit with me and be able to teach what they need to learn. I really enjoy being a teacher to these young ladies, though. They're amazing examples to me and I love it when I get to know new things about them and start building closer relationships. It takes time, but so worth it! It's just so sad when they leave, but then new girls come join the class, which is good too.

Anyway, I should go to sleep now, but I felt so guilted by Krissy that I thought I better post before I go to bed. :c) Maybe a couple more pictures for Joshua's adoring fans would be a good idea before I finish up for the night.

Part 2

Ok I wanted to get this done before I forgot or waited too long. I need to hurry cuz baby is quickly approaching the end of nap time...and I'm putting off stuff that needs to get done. Ok here are the last few questions:

Who is more stubborn? Well, we were arguing about this last night...and both of us want to be the most stubborn. I think it is a toss-up, really. We're both very very stubborn, especially about being right.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Probably me. We both admit it, just some of us a bit more slowly than others.
Whose parents do you see the most? Nathan's, definitely, because they live 40 minutes away, rather than 4 and a half hours away.
Who proposed? Nathan did - great story for another time. He accidentally proposed really...he was "practicing." Who PRACTICES proposing to their girlfriend? I mean, seriously. He almost was in big trouble for that one. It worked out, though, huh?
Who has more friends? That's a weird question. I'm not sure. In Salem, we have pretty much all the same friends, though he's closer with some guys from EQ and I'm closer to some ladies from YW. Fun abbreviations. He has friends from high school closer by in McMinnville, but many of them have moved away just like many of my friends. So yeah, hard to say, and not something I really care about figuring out.
Who has more siblings? Nathan. I have one wonderful big brother and he has about a billion brothers and sisters. Ok 2 brothers and 5 sisters. To me, that's close to a billion. They're great, though. It's been nice being around Nathan's hometown so much because i've gotten to meet all the siblings sooner than the other in-laws did.
Who wears the pants in the family? Well all three of us wear pants most of the time. Joshua definitely has the most pairs of pants, so if that is the deciding factor, then Joshua. And he really determines pretty much everything we do these days...so definitely Joshua.

I love my husband - I love my marriage - I love my family. Nuff said.

Well, to continue this interesting game of "tag," I tag Tracy and Krissy (if you want to, of course!)

A game of tag?

Well Alicia "tagged" me the other day...and apparently that means that I get to answer this set of questions about my dear husband. Now I think it is a bit of an understatement to say that some of these are loaded questions, but hopefully this doesn't provoke any arguments! That said - Alicia's husband wrote a bit of "commentary" on her answers on his own blog, so I encourage Nathan to do the same. Here goes...

What is his name? Nathan (known to some as Nate, Skip, Skippy, Skipdawg), but I just call him sweetie, unless he's in trouble or I have to get his attention when other people are around
How long have you been married? Since June 2004 - so about 3 and a half years
How long did you date? We officially started dating about April of 2003, so a little over a year before we were married...only 8 months before we were engaged.
How old is he? Just over a month away from 26 (man he's OLD!)
Who eats more? Well Nathan eats more often...and often eats more at one time, but lately (and definitely when I'm pregnant), I eat more than he does at dinner.
Who said I love you first? Umm...I'm pretty sure that I said I loved him like the first day we were dating, because I realized he was becoming my best friend. so cute, I know.
Who is taller? Nathan
Who sings better? Nathan for sure - he is an amazing bass. I enjoy singing, but it is only in the last couple of years that i've tried singing alto whenever I sing hymns or whatever at church. Before, I would just sing the melody unless I was singing with a choir or something - then I'd sing alto. Anyway - I still struggle with finding the alto part, but i'm getting better.
Who is smarter? Nathan is smarter about tons of things - remembering things (I rarely can remember anything these days), knowing info about the world, the country, history, math, science, and other things I can't remember - see? He can remember birthdays, things people said, how to get places...I fail at that quite often. I can rarely even remember if the person I just met was wearing glasses or not. I think I'm stronger in writing and all the analytical stuff that I studied at school, and I'm a little faster at typing, I think - thanks to hours and hours of IM'ing when I didn't have any friends at Linfield my first year of college (thanks for helping me with that skill Ash!)
Whose temper is worse? That's a tough one...my first impulse would be to say Nathan's, but I'm probably just in denial. We both have tempers sometimes. But our grumpiness is always short-lived.
Who does the laundry? dangit! I need to go put the clothes in the dryer! Thank you quiz! Ideally, I'd like to be the one who does the laundry, but in reality, Nathan does the laundry 75% of the time.
Who does the dishes? That really varies. We both load and unload the dishwasher...yeah I don't think it's really one of us or the other. Maybe he disagrees.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me. Always.
Who pays the bills? I do...well I set up autopay a couple months ago, but I keep track of them, and do stuff like taxes or financial aid forms.
Who mows the lawn? Thank goodness we don't have a lawn to mow. No, it'd be nice to have a lawn. The landscapers mow the property's lawn.
Who cooks dinner? Me nearly always, but more and more lately, I've been cooking good dinners. It used to be a bowl of pasta eaten in front of the tv, but I'm getting a lot better and getting meat in there quite often, and vegetables and fruit and some sort of carb with each meal, and we eat at the table. I'm very proud of that because it did NOT come naturally for me...so I'm building up to cooking new things. Slowly.
Who drives when you are together? Nathan nearly always drives, except on long road trips, when we switch off every few hours, or when I just really feel like driving - like Sunday over to McMinnville.

Ok the end of part 1 - I will continue it later...

Good busy

It's nice to be "good busy" rather than stressful busy. Certainly things are still happening here at the good old apartments - multiple leaks, apartment showings, etc., but nothing like the high pressure of last week's visitors. So we've filled our time with some more exciting stuff! On Friday we went over to Nathan's parents' to celebrate his Dad's birthday, which was fun. Joshua had a good time except for right after the candles got blown out on the pie. For some reason he gets pretty upset when candles get blown out - see this page (bottom 2 photos) for another demonstration: http://www.insanityinc.net/nathan/joshua/7-27.html It doesn't seem to be the clapping afterwards...I'm not really sure what it is. Anyway, Friday was fun. Then Saturday the three of us did some Christmas shopping and then went over to some friends' house for dinner - that was a lot of fun! They have 4 kids and it made me feel like I did want to have more kids...often lately i've been pretty terrified of the idea, but it was fun being at a home filled with happy little kids - and dinner was delicious! Then Sunday we went to church (Joshua and I came home early cuz we both weren't feeling real well, but we both felt better after taking it easy for a little while) in the morning. Then we went to McMinnville to watch the stake concert of the Messiah by Handel. If you have never seen or heard it, you really really should. It is an incredible musical masterpiece. Nathan and I sang in it a few years ago and I was so glad to get to see/hear it again this year...really gets me feeling the true spirit of Christmas. Ashley and Adam watched Joshua while we went to the Messiah and then we had dinner at Adam's Dad and stepmom's house afterwards. Three nights in a row of delicious meals cooked by others - always a good thing! Speaking of delicious meals...I cannot wait for Christmas!! Sorry we still don't have pictures updated on the calendar. It's been a busy time, and then it's been so long that it gets really overwhelming, but I know Nathan is working on it! We need to get Thanksgiving pictures from my parents - I'm sure we'll get those soon and then we can post them. Here are a couple of sneak previews of recent pictures, though. Well there is much to do today - I decided I should post first so that I was sure it would get done. Hope it is a good week for all.

Oh and Joshua got his third tooth this morning! It is a top tooth, which makes me a bit apprehensive since he is still nursing. We'll see how this goes. Ok now it's time for pictures.

Don't worry - there are tons more pictures that will be on the calendar!!

ok seriously

I would like to make a solemn commitment to post on my blog more often. I hate it when people haven't posted on their blog in ages...and I check and check and still no post. Even the joy of seeing a new post doesn't quite dull the frustration of no new posts for a week! Anyway. I'm sleepy, so we'll see how this one goes.

Well the owner and my boss and his boss came by on Monday. I did indeed make them cookies (though I'll admit that i didn't do much other than put them on the cookie sheet), and they seemed to like them. After they left I called my mom and talked to her for awhile about how happy I was with how everything went and I appreciated her being so supportive. After that wonderful conversation, though, I felt kind of talked out about the whole thing!

Our home was clean, our desk was impressively organized, I articulately answered some tough questions, and I even ended up showing the owner this chart I'd made of the increase in gross monthly rents over the last 4 years (which my boss said the owner probably wouldn't be interested in...but he WAS!). The owner was really nice...definitely a numbers guy, focused on the property as an investment rather than a place that people call home, but I don't blame him. It's our job to take care of the people. I was more worried about the big boss being here, but he was fairly tame. We were so so so nervous and I'm so so so glad Nathan was home. He had to take a really long phone call from a prospective resident (and I mean REALLY long), so he missed most of the beginning of the visit, and then he fed Joshua lunch for most of the end of the conversation, but then he got to go walk around the property with them. I'm glad I wasn't there for that part - they were inspecting things pretty thoroughly, but I think the property is looking pretty good in general. Anyway, it went well and I'm so so glad it's over.

Things are going pretty good here. Joshy got to spend time with his Aunty Mindy on Tuesday night while Nathan and I went out to dinner and then to the Oregon Symphony. They were playing at Willamette and Nathan's boss gave us their tickets (for free!!!) because they weren't able to go. I'll admit that I didn't really think I was going to enjoy it. There was a little girl there - probably 7ish, and I asked Nathan if he thought I'd fall asleep first, or she would, but I actually really really enjoyed it. They did Vivaldi's Four Seasons and then two other pieces and it was just amazing. My favorite part is watching the conductor - they go nuts up there...it's hilarious and impressive and wonderful. Many people know they'd love to see a symphony, but for those of you who aren't so sure - if you have the opportunity - go! I think it also really helped that we were in like the 7th row. That was incredible. Oh and the little girl fell asleep before I did.

Here are a couple of Joshua pictures for all his adoring fans out there. We apologize for not getting things onto the calendar lately. As usual, life has just been absolutely crazy, and it won't be a whole lot less busy any time soon, but that's ok. Right now a lot of the busy-ness is good!

Nathan didn't want to go to bed until I did, and he refused to lay on the couch as he usually does, so he is asleep on the floor, so I probably should end this for now. I'll do better at posting, though. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments - I love it! And thanks for taking the poll if you did.

Good night moon.

Thanksgiving and on to Christmas

Maybe I should let him cry for a few minutes more often! He went back to sleep pretty quickly. Anyway, that post was a bit abbreviated about Thanksgiving - we really had a great time with family and amazing food (as always, Mom!) and of course, Legos. And Joshua did great on the way down - he slept pretty much the whole first two hours, and then was awake for awhile and only grumpy for about 20 minutes before he fell asleep for the last hour or so. We had such a good time and didn't want to leave!

So now...this week we've been faced with preparing for the owner coming on Monday to see the property (meaning pressure-wash the buildings, pull out all the dead plants and bushes, trim all the hedges, clean all of the stairwells so they are free of cobwebs, and a billion other things that Nathan has done/needs to do) and get to know us in our apartment (meaning a HUGE overhaul on the condition of our apartment). Along with the owner, the 2nd in command of our company (so our boss' boss) is coming too. He is really really strict about policies and procedures - he actually sent us a letter in the mail (using 41 cents, I might add) to tell us that an envelope we'd sent the company was 7 cents short on postage, so the company had to pay it, and that it was NOT acceptable, and the money adds up, etc. Seems like a phone call about 7 cents would have been better than a 41 cent letter. Anyway, since our home is our office, we don't have anywhere to sit and chat with them other than our home. So far I've done a lot of organizing of the desk area, a very extensive dusting of everything in the living room, and I'm trying to get all of our Christmas stuff up - it's getting pretty festive in here. So let's talk about Christmas - it'll be a busy enough weekend - I need to take a mental break from it right now!

I love Christmas, and I love decorating for Christmas. Eventually we'll get a real tree (I LOVE having a real Christmas tree), but we don't have room this year. We had one small two foot tree that I've had for years, and we have that up, but we decided to get a 4 foot fake tree to put on the table in the corner of our living room. We've got lights on it, an angel on it, and a grand total of 8 ornaments. We have about 7 billion ornaments, so the process of choosing which get to go on it this year will be challenging. For the last two years, we've used Nathan's parents' old fake tree, which worked just fine, but we don't have room for it, either. Anyway, I'm enjoying getting stuff set up for Christmas. Actually Christmas decorations got me to start putting holes in the wall (gasp!), so hopefully I'll keep up with that. I don't really want to still have naked walls for our stressful guests on Monday.

Since Nathan's parents are going to Texas for Christmas (it would have been our year to be with them if we switch back and forth), we're going up to my parents' again, which is so great because they get to see Joshua again so soon! And we get to see them, of course. Another reason why a fake tree is good, since we'll be up there for almost a week.

We have a little chalkboard with "___ days til Christmas!" on it, and today I wrote 25! Tomorrow we start our advent calendars, and I'm very excited. We have a really cool log cabin one that we got last year and we need to unpack it today so it is ready to go for the start of advent tomorrow!

Ok well this is getting me all motivated to go unpack more Christmas stuff and do more decorating, so I think I'll do just that.

Thank you, other bloggers, for all the posting you're doing - it makes me happy to be updated on everyone's lives. Oh and I added a little poll on the side after being inspired by Tracy!

Thanksgiving

I was telling myself, "Ok I'll wait until Kris posts, and then I'll post..." but then Kris posted and Tracy posted and I still didn't post! Well now I'm back to the blogging world. It's been a crazy week, but first I'd like to write about how much fun Thanksgiving was.
We drove up to Brier on Tuesday night, and we stayed until Friday evening. It was so much fun! The drive up was rough because Joshua cried for about 2 hours. He got a tooth the next morning, so we're thinking probably that was the problem.
Mom set up a playroom in their new house, and I had no idea how excited I would be to see it. I spent a LOT of time in the playroom while we were there - mostly playing Legos. It had been a very very long time. Here are a couple of photos. Nathan did much of the work on the space shuttle, and I did much of the work on the platform. At first, Nathan tried finding the exact right pieces, but then gave up and we just found pieces that would fit when we couldn't find the right ones.



Wednesday night, Nathan and I went out on a date to Olive Garden while Mom babysat Joshua. Unfortunately we didn't get a lot of good pictures of the two of them together, but they had a great time. It was so nice for us to get to go out, and I think Grandma really loved her time with the baby!

Joshua was definitely not a big fan of going to sleep at night with all the exciting things going on - we had a hard time getting him to sleep before 9:30 when he usually goes to bed at 7:30 or so! He was a happy baby in the morning, though! And he got to spend some good times with Grandpa in the morning, too.


Here is the beautiful table before everyone showed up!


He had a great time eating with everyone else with his brand new Thanksgiving bib.

And here are some cousins that he had a whole lot of fun with!!

I made those last couple of descriptions pretty short cuz my dear little baby is crying in his crib, so I gotta go get him. He had a fairly good nap, though, and a very good one this morning. Ok I'll post again soon!

...like a baby

We used to take so many pictures of our fat little baby sleeping, but now - I would NEVER risk taking a picture of him sleeping because I am so grateful when he sleeps! Sorry for the massive amounts of pictures - this post took way too long because when you insert photos into a post, you can only do so many at a time...and then they get into a way weird order...so I had to go back and put them in the right order and that was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be and I accidentally deleted a couple pictures I didn't mean to, but that's ok.