Christmas 2014 (warning: marathon post)

The past few weeks have been a blur. Our master bath is 96% completed, we cleaned out our garage and tried to clean all the dust out of our house. We finished the powder room. We did other random things that needed to get done before baby blueberry arrives. We also got to celebrate Christmas with the Cheney family, which has been the best part of the last few weeks by far!

Here's the lowdown, which I want to document before I forget!

Sunday - here I am at 38 weeks. Just needed to put that in there because I didn't take one today at 39 weeks and I'm not sure if I'll be taking another before the baby comes.

Kirk and Gretchen's family flew into Richmond super late at night. Dan went and picked them up and they spent the night at our house.

Monday - Dan had to work, so the rest of the Cheney clan came over to my house for the better part of the day. It was rainy and dreary, so we stayed inside and visited in the morning while the kids played. We also had Chick-fil-a. Then we went bowling and I got my best bowling score ever - 125! Dad still beat me, though. He got 129. Everyone else headed out in the early afternoon and the kids and I waited around for Dan to get home so that we could drive over to my parents' house.

Tuesday - Dan had to work from Charlottesville in the morning. The kids decorated the tree.

My parents surprised everyone by getting an air hockey table and we played tons over the week.

 Girls playing Hullabaloo.

We met up with Dan after lunchtime to get family pictures taken at the University of Virginia campus. I'm not going to steal the photog's thunder and put up her pictures, but here are a few that I took on the side.

 Oh, these two. They played so well together all week long.

 We went home and decorated sugar cookies for Santa.

Craig and Candice's baby, Lincoln.

Tuesday night we also went caroling to a few of our parents' friends.

Wednesday morning (Christmas Eve) we did our traditional Secret Santa gifts and went to Walmart to pick them out. Later we had our nice Christmas dinner (another tradition - to have it the day before Christmas). My mom got everyone socks.

 Then we headed downstairs to put all the presents under the tree.

 Quite the haul.

 I lied. One more belly shot.

Grandpa told the nativity story and we watched a Mormon Messages video. The kids were really good through the whole thing and did a great job answering questions and listening to my dad. Then they got to open special pajamas that my mom had picked out or made for them.

 Boys minus Lincoln.

 Girls minus Sherri.

Christmas morning (Thursday). We all got ready and then the kids came down to see what Santa had brought them.

Before the chaos.

 They come down youngest...

 to oldest.

 Afton received (among many other things) a Snow White costume, an art kit, and a dollhouse (which is collapsible, thankfully).

 Sam had asked for a costume, more Hot Wheels tracks, and How to Train Your Dragon Two.

 I love how that headlamp mashes his hair down.

Our kids didn't waste much time before putting their costumes on.

 Love Sam creepin' in this picture.

After we saw the Santa gifts, we went upstairs for breakfast and then headed back down to hand out and open the gifts we got each other.

 (You may recall Dan's sweater from the missionary model picture I framed for his birthday. He thought it would be a lovely Christmas addition.)

 We lucked out on Christmas and had gorgeous weather so we headed to the playground for a while.

 The adults played a few friendly games of knock out.

My family in the pajama pants I made them.

Friday everyone except for me, my mom, and Lincoln, went on a hike to Humpback Rocks. Later we just hung out and the kids played with their presents.

Saturday Lincoln dressed up like Santa.

 He is the only Santa Afton will voluntarily get anywhere near.

We went miniature golfing and back to the park.

 Sunday we went to church and had more fun playing in the basement.

 Aiden was sweet enough to let all the kids play with his new Marblelus toy.

 Charlotte wore about 30 bracelets and other various jewelry items every chance she got.

Added into the mix was a lot of eating, more eating, playing games at night, and eating some more. We had so much fun and I'm so glad I got to be with all my family! We drove home this morning and are sad to get back to real life. Thanks, Mom and Dad for everything!

Dan's busy birthday weekend

Dan turned thirty-three yesterday. It was a busy day! He woke up early to go on a long run and also ran up to the church (literally) to do some things on the computer there. When he got back, he opened his presents and we had breakfast.

It started to drizzle but we all went out to rake the rest of the leaves off the front yard. It was so nice to have help doing that! It went a lot faster. Next Dan screwed down plywood on the floor in the attic so that we could organize and spread out our storage up there. Then Dan took a little nap. After lunch, Sam had a birthday party to attend and while he was there, we went to Costco and Lowe's. We bought a new light fixture for a bathroom and when we got home, Dan installed it. Dan had to go to a church meeting at 4, so I picked up Sam and went grocery shopping with the kids. We met Dan for dinner at Chick-fil-a after his meeting. Then I left from there to pick up a babysitter while Dan took the kids home to get ready for bed. Then Dan and I went to his work party at his boss's house. After the party, I took the babysitter home and we relaxed by watching a football game for a few minutes. Whew. It was a super busy day.

Since we knew his actual birthday would be so nutso, we had his birthday dinner and cake tonight. Which kind of explains why I only got one sorry picture of Dan yesterday and that was at like eleven that night... I feel bad about that. Here's the lone picture of yesterday:

Here he is today with most of his presents.

He received: Running pants, a Bill Murray shirt, two bow ties, "David Copperfield", a 15-pound weight, and a framed picture from me. My parents got him a fancy hedge trimmer.

He requested BBQ sandwiches for dinner. We also had broccoli and strawberries. And a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

I am so, so thankful for him. He is such a caring husband and father. I'm glad I get to celebrate these special days with him!

In other news, Dan has begun his annual reading of "A Christmas Carol" and this time he's reading out loud so Sam can hear it.

Our master bathroom remodel is going very slowly and we're hoping it's done in two weeks. (Originally they told us they could have it done by this past Friday.) Dust is everywhere which really kills me. There's so much I need to do but can't do until the remodel is done.

And here's my tummy at 36 weeks.

And what is the framed picture of that I gave him, you ask? Well, it's a picture of Dan during his mission in Chile when he and a companion went on a hike and took model-esque pictures. He's had this large picture in a tube the entire time I've known him and it really needs to see the light of day. This kind of awesomeness can't be thrust in a closet any longer. (Apparently the store where they got their pictures developed had a deal where you got a free enlargement with each packet of pictures.) So that present is more like a present for me than for him, but I took the opportunity of his birthday to go ahead and get this baby framed.

Love it.

End of November

I wrote about Sam's tooth being loose on a Sunday. I think it was on Tuesday I went to pick him up from school and he said it was so loose that he could push it so that it was basically laying flat out of the front of his mouth. But he said it wouldn't come out. I told him to give it a little twist. He did and it came out as we walked to the car. He was pretty excited about that.

The pro to losing teeth later is that means his teeth are apparently stronger. The con is that everyone else in his class has already lost teeth, so they told him stories of what the tooth fairy brings. One girl got $5 and a t-shirt. What? We tried to lower Sam's hopes a bit. He got $1. Which fell behind the bed. So he was pretty sad when he woke up. But we went hunting for it and it didn't take long for him to perk back up.

His new tooth is growing in crooked. Looks like braces are in our future.

Wednesday Sam didn't have school, but we had people working on our bathroom, so the kids and I hung out at home. Afton decided to make things a little more interesting by barfing. Fortunately her bug didn't last long and we headed to Mom and Dad Cheney's that night.

Thanksgiving was wonderfully relaxing and delicious. We chatted and (kind of) helped in the kitchen, stuffed our faces with delicious food, played a game, went on a walk, and then (I am so ashamed to admit it) went to Walmart. It was Dan's idea. 

Friday Dan had to do some work so the rest of us went to a movie (Big Hero 6) and then met Dan for lunch at Bodo's. We left Saturday morning and headed to the DC temple, which was wonderful. The 3+ hour drive home was not so wonderful.

I forgot my camera over the holiday, so I don't have any pictures from that. Here's one from Sunday. 35+ weeks. Craziness.

Yesterday it was a glorious 73 degrees so I went outside to do some raking for an hour or so while the kids played and sometimes helped.

I filled 4 bags and probably got to about 1/5 of the front yard. Then it got dark. Then of course the wind was crazy strong last night, the temperature dropped by 30 degrees, and it rained. So the leaves are scattered everywhere and I'm too wimpy to go out again anytime soon to finish the job.

We said farewell to our Thankful Tree.

Some items on Sam's list: Wood, Are great dad (sic), water, the moon and the sun, baby blueberry, natural resources, grandmas and grandpas, church, Heavenly Father, our earth world, me/Sam, senses, Holy Ghost, Dad and Afton, soil, the good fairy (there's a good fairy at his school), the tooth fairy, sunlight, the thankful tree, our #1 dad, family, sound, rain, Are lovely mom/Kristen (sic), and ice cream.

Since Afton can't write, she drew pictures of each thing and we wrote what the picture was of. Here's what she was thankful for: boxes, dad, nail polish, donuts, hangers, spaghetti, phones, eagles, glow letters, birds, magazines, walruses, light switches, cups, trees, markers, giraffes, couches, tape, duck, and microwaves.