Goodbye Grandma

My mom has been staying with us for several months helping with the kids and keeping me from going crazy while Scott has been gone.  We took her to the airport this week so she could head back to her normal life.  It was so nice having her stay with us.  Everyone was a little depressed after she left.  Here we are about to take her to the airport.

Grant took it the hardest.  We had been prepping him for it by telling him "Grandma is going to go away on an airplane back to her house and we won't see her for a while..." etc.  I think he did kind of understand.  But later in the day he went to the door and cried for "gammaw" for about 30 minutes.  He was clearly mad at me and kept pushing my arms away if I tried to hug him.  Poor Grant.

 He was not having any of my attempts to "nuggle" him
(his term for snuggle)

Here he is the next day after talking to "gammaw" on the phone...and about to take a nap.  He was starting to feel better about the whole thing I think.  And I think he might be done being mad at me about Grandma leaving.  I think the chocolate helped too.  I did wipe his face off after this...but had to take a picture first.  :)

This One's For You, Scott

The first Christmas Scott and I were married we lived in Florida and got a tree at a local lot the day after Thanksgiving.  We went out of town for about ten days around Christmas time and when we got back that tree was very dry.  When we tried to take the tree out of the house and pushed it through the doorway, needles got shaved off the tree (by the door jam) in huge waves.  Needles fell everywhere, covering the carpet and the ground outside the door and leaving an incriminating carpet trail of dry needles to the trees final resting place by the trash.  Not many needles were left on the tree.  It was like in the cartoons when the cat eats a fish and pulls out all the bones, intact from his mouth.  It was a huge mess but we laughed and laughed about it.   Even now I can't think about that tree without laughing.

This year our tree fared a lot better and I had to show Scott just how well it did.  I feel like this should earn me tree points.

We vacuumed the day we got the tree but didn't vacuum at all after that, and these were the only pine needles that fell off.  Amazing! 

 Here is the front step after squeezing the tree through it.  Not many pine needles.

No carpet of pine needles here.  Do I get tree points yet?

 

And here is our tree's temporary resting place on the side of the house.

On Saturday the boy scouts are going to come take it for us.

I felt kind of sad bringing the tree out to lay in the snow after I saw how robust it still was.

I think he wanted to say, "I'm still alive!"

Oh well,  rest in peace tree.

And as an added bonus, here is a picture of our Florida Christmas tree

This was when the needles were all still on the branches...and not on my carpet.  :)

It's the End of the Year As We Know It

and I feel fine

Here are a few pictures from our last bit of 2012...and a little from the beginning of 2013

We had a small New Year's Eve party.  I should have made our 2012/3 sign pop a little more.  ;)

 Everyone liked the noise makers...except the neighborhood dogs.  I don't feel I owe the neighborhood dogs anything since they like to break into our yard and go to the bathroom...just sayin'

 

We went to my 2nd cousin's (ok not sure...my mom's cousins son's) baptism just before Christmas.  They live in Denver so we stopped at the Denver temple.  The kids liked this nativity scene outside the temple.

My dad visited us and did a lot of odd jobs for us.  He is so industrious.  Thanks dad.  While he was examining some of the baseboards/moulding by the stairs someone came and sat on him.  I'm not sure she made it any easier to get things done, but Grandpa was a good sport.

We had several days of light snow on and off and colder temps.  Winter is really here now.

John got a chance to talk to Scott on the phone.  He was mystified.

And here's John doing some tummy time

He sort of likes it.

I cleaned out some of my kitchen cabinets one day and found some old food coloring markers.  Anna used them to decorate some of our leftover gingerbread men.

Sadly, when I clean out the kitchen cupboards, things have to get worse before they get better.  It's a work in progress.

Grant has been laying down by some of John's baby toys and saying things like, "I baby!"  He seems to be doing it in good humor though.  And John doesn't mind.

Is it just me or are these two getting close to the same size?

Buddies

And we got a very large gift basket from Scott's co-workers.  It was full of gifts and surprises for the kids and me.  Normally they would have sent Scott a gift basket, but Scott told them to send something to us instead.  He is like that.  :)  The kids were beyond excited about the gifts.

2012...One Day at a Time

This was originally posted on my personal blog, along with all the picture a day pictures.  Here is our picture-a-day video for 2012.  This video is dedicated to Scott and his many many travels over the past two years (he's been everywhere)...and to those of us who stayed behind.

While reviewing this video - a moment from each day of our lives for the past year - I was reminded that these pictures probably aren't very meaningful to most people, if for no other reason than other people won't know what each little picture represents, or what was happening that day, or what that moment or that day meant in our lives.  So this year I added a few subtitles to some of the days, to guide you through our year.  Of course, I didn't subtitle every meaningful picture, just some of them.

White Christmas

The kids got up pretty early on Christmas morning.  They were excited.  We were all wearing our special pajama pants at one point, but we had an amazing number of bathroom accidents this morning.  Chalk it up to Christmas excitement!

 

It snowed during the night, maybe only an inch or two, but it made for a very cozy Christmas morning.

Santa must have been hungry.  He ate ALL his cookies.  Matthew kept telling me how disappointed he was that last year Santa left a part of a cookie on the plate, uneaten.  So he was happy that Santa ate everything this year.  No cookie parts left behind!

 The kids checked out their stockings while everyone else woke up

 Grant found some Pop Rocks in his stocking

 Anna found some goodies in there too

 I think he was looking at a little Transformer here

 Before we opened presents we ate breakfast

On the menu, same as last year, cinnamon rolls, German pancakes and fruit salad

Finally the gift opening got underway.  John was still asleep at the beginning so Grant got to go first.  We went youngest to oldest at the beginning and then it just turned into a free for all.

 Anna got a special Lego set from Daddy

Grant opened a Little People Pirate Ship first and then didn't want to open or look at anything else.  He really liked it...I guess that's good.

 Here's Matthew with an excavator Lego set from Daddy

 And his Leap Pad

And Anna with a Crayola Light Designer toy. 

Scott was able to skype with us during part of the unwrapping, which was great.  It was a bit chaotic, but so nice to be able to sort of have him with us.  And he didn't have to open any of the non-rage-free packaging either.  Lucky!!

A little ride-on-Bullseye for Johnny (yes, Johnny finally woke up and joined our Christmas morning fun).

He even got to take a little ride on Bullseye!

We had a lovely Christmas morning!!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

The excitement was running high this Christmas Eve.  Grandma and Grandpa are with us and snow is forecast so it has the makings of a very lovely holiday.  If only Scott were here it would be perfect.  :)  Anna was especially excited for our day-before-the-big-day fun.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had a bunch of munchies. Chips, dips, crackers and cheese, fruits and some Texas Caviar.

 We did some baking too.  Peanut butter blossoms and spritz cookies.

Anna was in charge of sprinkles.  :)

Grant brought his trains (he calls them "choo") to the table.  We usually have a "no toys at the dinner table" rule but made an exception for our casual Christmas Eve

 

Making caramel corn

Matthew is bracing himself for a loud sound

We had a special family night with the nativity story from the scriptures and some songs to go along with the story.  Here is Grant getting dressed up for the program.

 Matthew was Joseph, a shepherd and a wiseman

 The excitement got to be a bit too much for some of us

Anna was going to be Mary but was having a great sadness when the time came, so Grant stood in for her as Mary.

Grant was very cute and sweet holding the baby and he liked wearing the costume.  He did such a great job that Anna decided she would like to be Mary again and came back to claim her spot in the program.

Grant wasn't that happy about giving up the baby.  We thought he was a bit like Horton in Horton Hatches the Egg.  Poor Grant.  Matthew was kind of mad about all the commotion between Anna and Grant.  We got through it though.

 So Anna eventually had a good time being Mary

She also played the role of the angel that appeared to the shepherds.  We sang Angels We Have Heard on High during that part of the program and Anna sang very good "Glorias"

 After our little program the kids opened a special present from Grandma and Grandpa Guptill.

 They were excited!

 Even John could hold his

Grant hasn't figured out what to do with wrapped presents yet, which has kept all our presents under the tree very safe this year.  When he got the gift, he brought it over to me and said, "open?"  He hasn't figured out that he has the power to open the wrapped gifts...very easily.  He'll figure that out tomorrow.

 Matthew shows off his gift - Christmas jammie pants made by Grandma Guptill
Thank you Ma2 and Pa2!!  They all fit and looked so cute!

I tried John's on over the sleeper he was wearing.  Somehow they got taken off him soon after this picture which turned out to be very lucky since he had a major blow out a few minutes later.  Christmas jammies are still clean!!  It's a Christmas miracle!

 Anna and Matthew

I don't know why she wanted to have jammie bottoms on her head too.

And Grant

At this point in the night, Grant had about had it.  I mean he did have a dramatic fight over a baby doll and got upstaged in the Christmas program.  His pajamas looked great though and fit him.  Notice he still has those trains.

And I forgot to take a picture of the cookie plate for Santa but here was one of the notes the kids wrote him...this is just the outside envelope.  The letter for Santa was sealed up, not for mommies to read.  :)   We had a nice Christmas Eve and as we were heading to bed snow was just starting to fall.  We'll have to wait and see what Christmas morning brings.