Making Milestones

Mercedes has been out of control these past few days in her development!! I keep thinking "She's a little behind the others, but that's okay" but I think that she has decided to catch up in a few days time. On Saturday she officially started crawling! Up until Saturday she would get up on her knees but she would only go backwards, so she was constantly under a chair or stuck in a corner or under the piano. But now she is totally crawling and getting faster every minute. I'm a total sucker for a sleeping baby, so here she is zonked out in her crib that doesn't have any sheets because I was doing laundry. Notice: her hair is barely long enough to put into pigtails. They look so funny that they are adorable. Mom can't wait until it's a little longer and we can start to make them look nice. (Except I don't know where I'll find time to do 2 little girls hair plus my own.)Avri wanted to hold Sadie the other day so I put them on the couch. When I came back into the room this is what I found. It was so tender I had to get a picture!
My Dad is making one of these adorable little rocking horses for each of his grandkids to have. This one just happens to be Talmage's (hers is still in process) but she is so funny on it. She is always rocking, so I tried putting her on the horse and she just went to town!!
You can see how much fun she is having!
After she started crawling on Saturday, she also started waving "hi." At church on Sunday she waved hi to just about every person in the hall! She has the parade princess wave down to an art!
I can't get this picture to move, so it's out of place. This is before the crawling.
On Monday she learned how to clap her hands. She was taking a bath and was so excited about it that she started clapping, and now she rewards herself for everything by clapping. Later on Monday (yesterday) she decided to start signing, much to Mommy's pleasure. She signed "all done" to me when I finished feeding her and I almost fell off my chair! Today she started signing "more" and was so pleased with my reaction that she signs more and then claps for herself. I totally die laughing. Not only is she signing, but she is also trying to talk. She says "ha" while waving hi, "ba" for bye, she says "ya" when I ask her questions, and she actually says "all done." Go ahead, don't believe me, but I have many witnesses to this fact.
She is still super duper snugly. They are good buds! I can't help it. I'm totally in love with these two.

A Very Late Christmas Post

Can you even call yourself a blogger if it takes you two weeks to publish a post about Christmas?
We had a wonderful Christmas!! On Christmas Eve we opened a present that Santa mailed to us. It was the Muppet Christmas Carol, so we watched that and ate goodies. Notice Talmage drooling over the goodies and Mercedes sleeping with my Dad.
These are the Christmas Eve slippers that we opened. I think that they were actually a huge hit with the kids, and I rarely take mine off.And here they are in action... Doesn't Mercedes look like she is getting entirely too big?
Santa brought the kids a fabulous little wagon. Each child gets a seatbelt and a drink holder, and if we ever decide that we are insane enough to have more kids we can even add more cars! They thought it was very cool to ride in. Now we just need warm weather!
Avri got an Alice dress complete with shoes and headband from Grandma and Grandpa.
And Talmage got some big boy undies that he didn't really know what to do with. It took him about a week to decide that they were okay to actually wear (on his bum, not his head).
Kendall and I decided that we got a house and a new baby and a new van for Christmas this year, but I guess we bent the rules a little because I got these curtains.
Other related things, the kids got to ride the train at the mall (compliments of Grandma).
All in all, we had a fantastic Christmas!! Kendall got a few days off for Christmas and a couple for New Year's and we just had a great time giving gifts and spending time together. The kids are almost back to normal after all the spoiling. New Year's Eve was my Dad's birthday so they came over for dinner and carrot cake and a few games. We didn't have any mishaps and we feel very fortunate this year to have such a wonderful family and great friends. We feel blessed to have the gospel in our lives and to have a knowledge and testimony that God lives and that Christ was born, and died, to save us all. We hope you had a great holiday season as well. We love you all!

Here's one for Sadie

This post is about Mercedes because my good friend Heather inspires me and because I'm doing a TERRIBLE job at keeping up on baby books after numero tres. So here it is...

Sadie is really good at manipulating. She know how to get what she wants at only 9 months old (well, she will be 9 months on Christmas). She gives great big slobbery open-mouth kisses right on the cheek, or sometimes on your shoulder. Regardless they are wet and slobbery and I LOVE THEM!! She is skinnier than both Avri and Talmage and feels like a feather weight to Kendall and I even though I'm pretty sure she is near the middle to top of the charts. She wears 12 month clothes now, scoots around on her bum and rolls to wherever she wants to get and is fantastic at making messes. She still raises her eyebrows in this seductive, trouble-maker, adorable way that melts our hearts and she has a smile that makes me laugh. She gets VERY upset if you take toys away from her (that includes things that she THINKS are toys like receipts and important papers). She still doesn't have any teeth and I don't think that she will be walking anytime soon. At least we will hope not. She says Ma-ma and Da-da. She prefers to say Da-da unless she is sad and then it's Ma-ma through her tears. She doesn't really love eating, but does okay. That probably explains why she is skinnier than the other two, because they both loved eating. She thinks that Avri and Talmage are both hilarious, and they don't really even have to do anything for her to burst into laughter. She is our snuggliest child and just loved to lay on your shoulder. She detests strangers. Sometimes she cries and sometimes she is just stone-serious, but either way she will not smile with a stranger around. Her Hemangioma seems to be slowing in its growth, but it is still not pretty. We go in to the doctor on Wednesday to see how it has changed. Oh, and she does this rocking horse thing. She is always rocking back and forth, just like she is riding an invisible rocking horse. She does it when she is happy and when she is sad, pretty much all the time. I think that it contributes to the scooting around.

Well, I think that will be sufficient. Now I don't feel like such a terrible mother. I've documented a bit of her baby-hood.

A Few Rambling Thoughts

All day long I think about these things that I should post. I think about funny things and weird things and dumb things and sad things, whatever. Rarely do they turn into posts. But sometimes when I actually sit down to post I remember a few. Here are a few of my random rambling thoughts.

Talmage has a ritual that must be performed anytime we eat fruit. He has to find the sticker and promptly place it on his forehead. I don't think this is too unusual except that he never ever forgets it. This sticker just happened to make me smile more than most. (In case you can't read it, it says "Kid-Sized Cutie.") I love those little oranges. And while I'm on the topic or oranges, I love them. I think that they are delicious, but with two toddlers who also love them, just buying them becomes a labor of love. I can't sit down and peel an orange to eat, I have to peel 3 oranges, and then I usually get a couple of the segments that I can sneak in while Talmage is swallowing. They are no longer a favorite fruit.

Here are the munchkins "sitting by the fire." I went into Talmage's room where they were playing and asked what they were doing. They were entirely too quiet to be safe. They said "We are sitting by the fire." They are sitting on top of a lego box with pillows behind their backs. As always, Talmage has his hat pulled so far down that he can't see. These are the ornaments that I helped the kiddos make this week.
Last night we had an ice storm. We are fortunate enough to still have heat and power and everything. I'm mostly posting this for the Utahans who have never experienced the beauty of an ice storm. They create so much damage and destruction, but are one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen. This is only the second one that I remember experiencing. My first was when I lived in Michigan. Pictures just don't do it justice, but EVERYTHING is coated in this beautiful layer of ice.
I broke a bunch of the ice off our frozen grill cover, but you can see that the whole thing is a sheet of ice. I'm just praying that it doesn't get windy and knock down our power lines.

On the not-so-happy front, the things that you are hearing about Caterpillar layoffs are true. They just sent out 800 layoff warnings yesterday. There have been many more than that. We are really counting our blessings that we still have a job. Both Kendall and my Dad are still fine. If the economy keeps going down then we don't have any guarantees, but for now we just keep praying that we won't lose our job. The Lord has been very gracious to us, but we pray for those who have been less fortunate. This is a very difficult time of year for something like that, so keep those people in your prayers and we hope that all of you are not in danger of suffering this way from the poor economy.

Ward Christmas Party

Now that this is over, I can ENJOY Christmas! I'm on the activities committee in my ward. I think it is a very fun calling, but I must say it is a very busy one when you have as big of a ward as we have. One of the other girls on the committee was in charge of decorations, and I think she did a FABULOUS job! You'd never guess how small of a budget we did this activity on.

I was in charge of feeding 300 people, which I was a bit nervous about, but we ended up even having extra food and it was quite yummy. This was Santa's corner of the world.

Part of the program was the primary children singing a couple of songs. Somehow Avri got in on the action (even though she won't be in Sunbeams for 3 more weeks). She had no clue what was going on, so she was turned around the whole time, just watching the other bigger kids.We put everyone on Santa's lap. At first Mercedes just starred. We couldn't get her to look at the camera. Then this was her next reaction:

We had fun (busy, but fun) and this ward is fabulous about helping with cleanup so we were only there a little over an hour for clean up. It went very smoothly.

Winter Strikes

I felt like winter hit me in the face this morning. Yesterday was 50 degrees and it rained all day, in the middle of December!! I thought to myself "This is awfully warm for December." Well, today it is 10 degrees outside!! And you guessed it, because of the rain yesterday everything is a solid sheet of ice. I had to go out visiting teaching this morning, and I got there quite late because we had to drive slow, but even more than that, the doors on my van were iced shut! They are the automatic kind, so I could just pull harder to break the ice. So I had to climb through the front into the back and pull each of the kids through the same way (trying not to get our tan seats dirty with their shoes) and then buckle them into their seats. This was all fine, but the worst part was trying to scrape the ice off the windows!! It would not scrape off! So I tried chipping away enough that I could see through a small portion of the windshield (I know that's illegal, but we were already late!). Then we slowly drove all the way there. I thought the drive and heating up the car would help the door situation, but no such luck. I don't think we'll go out again for a while. And now I'm motivated to let Kendall organize the garage so that I can park in there. Poor Kendall will just be stuck outside. :(

Kendall's Surgery

Kendall had his surgery on his Esophagus yesterday and it went very well. The doctor went in and found that he has an extremely tight ring in his esophagus, about 1/2 the diameter that it needs to be. So they cut it up a bit and stretched it out for him and they are quite confident that this should take care of his problems. His gastroenterologist here is much better than the one in Utah was, so we are happy about that fact. Here is a nice gross picture for you. The one on the right is what the diameter should be, the one on the left is what his looks like in that place where the ring is.
It was just an outpatient surgery and the only effects that he has had have been from the sedation. He's a little forgetful, but I think he's getting better. This morning he forgot his badge for work that he needed, so he turned around to come home and get it and when he was almost home he got back on the freeway to go back to work, then realized that he still had never made it home. He's been funny, but medicine has always done funny things to him. He has so many funny stories!! In fact, once when we had first started dating he was drugged up and he actually cat called at me through the window in his house.