he's a fake

have you seen the movie "elf"? it's one of my favorites. we watched it a handful of times this christmas. one of my favorite scenes is when buddy is working in the children's toy department at the store and santa comes. only it's not the real santa and buddy rips the beard off while yelling, "he's a fake, don't tell him anything, he's a fake!" well, i really felt like buddy when i was at our ward christmas party. i saw santa with his QUILT BATTING BEARD and it was all i could do not to rip it off and start yelling, "he's a fake!" the kids were not fooled...well, actually sadie and her friend busted him getting changed. they thought it was some older kids who were holding the door shut and playing a joke so they snuck to the other door and opened it to find "santa" changing his clothes and YELLING 'get out now!!' we got a good laugh.

the best part of the night though was watching kai. none of this stopped kai from getting right to business. it didn't matter if it was santa, santa's helper, or his sunbeam teacher in disguise (which it was) he knew that the things he told this santa would have some effect on the christmas gift he received and there was no messing around.

max on the other hand kept sliding in by "santa's" knee and just wanted to stand there touching him, but definitely not looking at him, maybe hoping for another candy cane.

dirty socks

i know this life is not always a joy ride, in fact we were coming home from phoenix where our brand new car broke down right after christmas. but life is made up of moments that are full of joy. who knew one of my joyful moments would come from dirty socks. we just started our commute home in our rental car. max was sitting in his car seat holding his bare feet saying one of his new words, "cold, cooold". it was late and dark outside and his cute little toes were cold. out of the corner of my eye i saw abe, who was sitting next to him, take off his shoes and then his socks. then he put his dirty, gi-normous socks on max's cold little feet. i looked back at abe who was smiling pretty big at the sight of max's unusually big, but warm feet. isn't that what life is all about?

a love for the ocean

before this beautiful christmas season began, i was thinking. it hit me hard that as soon as christmas time was over, abe would be baptized...how fast he is growing up and in a blink of an eye he will be twelve and ready to get the priesthood. i had one of those motherly moments where it all hit at once and i began wondering what am i doing to help him so he will be ready...

i read about the priesthood in pres. monsons' conference talk. he called the priesthood "the great plan of service" at the same time i also ran across a quote and i don't know who it was by or where i found it. it said if you want people to build a boat then don't fill their time with menial tasks that have to do with boat building...instead create inside them a love for the ocean.

in my mind i mixed these two quotes and it all made sense that if i am to help abe prepare i need to create in him a of love people through service. what luck that the christmas season had just arrived and we could start our prep. my goal this christmas was to have my kids be more excited about our service and the gifts we were giving than what they would get on christmas morning. i can honestly say i worked hard at this.

we also had our own beautiful christmas. we were lucky enough to have my parents here. on christmas eve we had a wonderful christmas dinner and program that dave put together, his attempt to make it my mom's kind of fun. the kids did some great musical numbers. abe played his strum stick, sadie, kai and abe played jolly old st. nicholas with their boom whackers(plastic tubes that you hit on your head), sadie sang, and dave and sadie did a violin/guitar duet. it was wonderful. the dinner was delicious.

christmas morning finally arrived. santa left no names on his gifts, just magical dust to sprinkle on dave, which amazingly let him tell who each gift was for. it was fun to see the kids excitement and hope that they would find the things they asked for. max loved his converse. he had to have them on top of his footed pj's. with his new, awesome shoes on he danced, more like rocked back and forth (all morning) to his new musical caboose singing, "choo, chooo". sadie was thrilled with her american girl doll accessories (she even screamed once), abe loved the soccer wii game and goal and kai loved it all the same. abe wrote in the note to santa the night before christmas, that he would like santa to find his nintendo ds that had been missing for a month. i'm sure santa loves those last minute requests. he must have done a mad search and somehow found it, leaving it on the table with a bow.

these are all great memories and we had a wonderful christmas, but when i think of our christmas i will remember the kids and dave sneaking up someone's driveway...well, trying to be sneaky, which is hard when you are carrying a fully decorated christmas tree. without any notice, the car in the driveway started....the tree, the kids and dave quickly turned and discretely as they could (with a christmas tree) ran back out of the forever long drive way and joined me, hiding behind snowy garbage cans. it is that moment of laughing, hiding behind garbage cans, watching, wondering if they saw us, waiting...i hope somewhere in that moment that my children felt a love for people, a love for our savior....that it created in them a little bit of love of the ocean.

merry, merry christmas.

shrink-a-dink

do you remember the big plastic pictures you would color and then you would stick them in the oven and they would shrink to almost nothingness....shrink-a-dinks. i feel like my day was sort of like that. i started with such grandiose expectations for the day and things just didn't seem to work as i had imagined....in fact, the grandiosity kind of shrank.
we have had so much snow. three snow days in a row, so the kids have been home from school all week. today i decided i would be an exciting mom and play.

we started out with gingerbread houses. i thought it was a great idea, but i didn't make the frosting like i have before and well....they didn't really work out. in fact, they didn't work at all.

luckily anything sugar is great with kai so he didn't really care....it is tricky to lick and smile at the same time.

max had fun painting himself...and me.

NEXT: "MO-MAN" (said with a slight growl)

max loves snowmen so i thought today was the day to build his first snowman. snow is not my favorite so i was being a really great mom to get all bundled and get out there. it looks pretty good, don't you think?

until you put max next to it so you see it is actually only about six inches tall. the snow was horrible and wouldn't pack at all. max was not too happy about the whole thing.

he kept knocking the head off...and crying. i think he was just cold, but part of me wonders if it was the dinky-ness of the whole thing.

the saving grace of the snow day was the personal sledding hill dave and the kids made on our front steps. i do love hearing kai say, "ready, steady, GO!"

i guess shrink-a-dinks were always pretty great in the end...just different than expected.

nutcracker in modern bare feet

last weekend sadie performed in a modern version of the nutcracker. she auditioned a few months ago (her first audition) and made the part of a party girl and a chinese girl. she did such a great job and really enjoyed the experience. she loves to perform on stage. with practices and everything else she has been balancing, it has been a busy couple months for her. i am proud of the hard worker she is. her teacher told me the other day she is "perfect" and told me how lucky i am to have her as my daughter. i completely agree.

the nutcracker was a little different than the ballet version, complete with cell phones and belly dancers and african drums. it was entertaining and well done. dave's parents flew out to be here for it. it was wonderful to have them here. it was the perfect weekend for them to come because they got to catch a soccer game of abe's, sadie sang in sacrament meeting, the primary kids also sang a song, and kai gave the scripture in primary. max wouldn't let go of papa john and sadie and mimi had a great time sewing, but they are both forever banned from the iron. we were sad to see them go but we completely enjoyed the weekend together.

a dozen

twelve. does that sound like a lot? i thought it was, but it's not. so in honor of dave's and my 12th anniversary, here's a dozen memories:

1. the first time we saw each other at a ninth grade party.

2. dave serenading my window in high school--only i was asleep in the other room. he had to wake me up and we tried it again....then he climbed in my window and we talked for hours.

3. sluffing school to sit on santa's lap, buy goldfish, help him pick out his outfit for a dance (he was going to with someone else), play baseball....we seemed to always run into his mom. i recall one of these run-ins she handed him her credit card so we could go get some lunch.

4. he asked me to marry him for reals....and then he asked me five more times. i think it kind of became a quest to make me laugh....on the radio station 'the breeze', at a dance -our friend was the dj. i thought we were just going to say hi but they made everyone get in a big circle and then dave got down on one knee to ask, then we had to dance in the middle of the circle to depeche mode or some awesome 90's song. i always felt bad for for girls that got engaged that way.

5. getting married on the coldest day of the year. it was freezing. i remember the photographer taking a picture of our hands on the temple door knobs (classic temple photos) and noticing how red and chappy they were...not glamorous at all! anyway, it was getting really cold taking pictures and dave bent down and took one of my shoes off and rubbed my foot to get it warm. i knew right then what kind of a husband he would be.

6. thinking we would be fine in our first, tiny apartment with only a twin bed.

7. statistics. we were both going to school and we had sadie. my 7am statistics class was a challenge for me. dave would wake up with me at 5am and help me study. we both graduated on the same day (and sat next to each other during the ceremony).

8. medical school. riding the metro downtown, washington dc. museums, camping in the shenandoah mountains, outer banks, sandcastle building contests in NJ, 24 hours in NYC, painting our townhouse until 4am.

9. surprise visit...i had to go to utah for a few weeks and dave couldn't make it due to school. one night i was brushing my teeth and i turned around and dave was standing there. it scared me to death. he flew in for a surprise visit and took me the grand america and then flew back to school.

10. kids...we think we have cool kids. i appreciate that every time i have delivered dave has wanted to help me and not deliver the baby even though they ask him if he wants to every time.

11. residency. watching dave walk through our backyard gate in his scrubs after a long shift (we lived right next to the hospital) quite often carrying a styrofoam container from the cafeteria in his hand, which usually meant a treat for me. hanging a big sign in our window (made by the kids) so dave could see it at the hospital. dave calling me late at night when he was on call and unplugging the hospital christmas tree in the window so i could tell where he was standing.
dave being late to his residency graduation because he stopped to find me a perfect necklace to go with the dress i was wearing.

12. abe saying, "why is it that all mom has to do is take a big breath and then dad comes and fixes whatever is wrong."

life is better with dave. we were talking the other night about how the older we get the less perfect we feel and the more we feel like we fall short of what we want to be. i guess it's because we have more responsibilities and things that are demanding our attention. anyway, i'm glad that we know each other, weaknesses and all, and we love each other. hopefully we are better because of each other.

dave had to work on our actual anniversary so he set up babysitters the day before and he took me shopping and out to dinner. the restaurant was a quaint, cozy restaurant. there were christmas lights and snow. it was great spending the evening together.

happy anniversary dave.

championship at that

kai has such a great little personality. he makes me smile daily. he is very competitive in a nice sort of way. here are a few examples of his coolness...

• i told someone that kai was learning to play chess. he looked at me with disgust and said, "nuh-uh, i am in the championship class of that." next time i get asked to do something i hope i think, sure--no problem. and respond with as much determination and confidence as kai when he says, "i am a championship at that!"

• we were getting abe pumped up on the way to his soccer tournament by playing the song "the eye of the tiger". instead kai sang, "i am a tiger!"

• and last of all he was looking forward to something and he said, "i am so exciting about that."

kai IS so exciting. i wish i could just record everything about his four-year old self. instead, i will just enjoy him.

beautiful

abe came home from school with his weekly spelling test.  we didn't study so i was impressed that he only missed one word.  beautiful.  i wanted to make sure he could spell it so i asked him to.  his response made me laugh....."that's the only word i missed and i will never need to write beautiful in my entire life."   

i love that boy.

two week vacation

some vacations are relaxing. some are relax-ish. when dave takes time off we want to make good use of our time... i think we did. here is only some of the excitement we had on our two week vacation:
DISNEYLAND

we met up with dave's cousins and their kids for a couple days in disneyland. it was perfect weather and hardly any lines. kai was so happy to be a "BIG" kid...meaning tall enough for the BIG rides. and anything he was tall enough for, he went on. his face looked petrified on the ride but as soon as he got off he would say in his tough four year old voice, "yeah man! that was awesome. i love going sideways." his favorite was tower of terror. i couldn't believe dave wanted to take him on it, but he loved it...or just every one's reaction when he said he went on it.

max was a trooper cruising in his stroller. last time we went he was two months old, so it was exciting to see his reactions.

sadie, sydney, and eden in front of the christmas tree. it was before thanksgiving but it was great to see all the decorations for christmas.

ruby in front of the christmas tree. i love this picture!
"cousins"

when we had our disneyland and cotton candy fix, we headed for UTAH....

COLDPLAY CONCERT:

dave's mom bought six tickets to the coldplay concert in SLC and dave and i were lucky enough to go with her. thanks to my two brothers (they watched our kids) we were able to go. it was a great concert. it was amazing. my favorite was when tons of colorful confetti shot down from the ceiling...with the music and lights, i haven't seen anything like it. it was fun to spend the night with dave's mom see how much she enjoyed the concert.

THANKSGIVING:

we spent thanksgiving with both of our families. dave and i both come from great families, different, and both great.

we started in the morning at my house. my mom had worked like crazy to make dinner wonderful. a family gathering is successful to my mom if it involves some teaching and a lot of tradition. my kids were most excited to see cousins, eat seven layered jello and play bingo. every year after dinner my mom plays bingo with the kids for chocolate dollars or real dollars. they get bingo then pick a hand behind my mom's back and in it is either cash or chocolate. the teenagers even get into it. also, my mom had a table of books and each child got to pick a few. the five course meal was delicious. I was happy we were able to be there.

sadie eating a roll shaped like a turkey...they were a big hit.

abe and julia.

alex and jaicee playing

bingo...pretty intense at any age

we went to the tullis side in the afternoon. my camera died so i didn't get any great photos of the thanksgiving feast. it was delicious. dave's mom has a way of making everything seem so elegant. it was fun to be with his entire family. our kids always look forward to spending time with lily, their only first cousin on the tullis side. later dave's cousins came over for pie. there is always enough pie for everyone to have an entire pie. the kids had fun with their second cousins. sadie and sydney made a movie (dave used to do this with his cousins when he was a kid) it was highly entertaining. plus, there was a surprise visit from a cow...gabe (a second cousin) had an "accident" and the only thing that could be rounded up for him to wear was a halloween cow costume. one thing i admire about dave's family is their ability to laugh and have fun together. we were so happy to be a part of it this year.

dave's sister heather did take some great photos of the kids helping papa john in the yard.

SPORTS:

a get-to-gether with family just wouldn't be complete without a ball game or two or three. we won't even count the byu/utah game. we went to my nephew, tyler's game and we played a few of our own as well.

abe was holding his own playing against the big boy cousins.

playing soccer with uncle tim at dave's parents' house.THE CHRISTMAS VILLAGE:
the day after thanksgiving my dad lets the kids set up his christmas village and his santa claus collection. this is a big event and the kids love deciding where everything should go. then grandpa takes all the granddaughters dress shopping.

DOOR BUSTING:

my mom, my sister's and i like to go shopping the day after thanksgiving. dave just knows this is my day to shop. the plan was to be out the door at 5:55am but i guess my sister just couldn't stand it because at 4am she was standing over me in bed telling me to get up. it sort of freaked dave and i out, but it did make for an earlier start. i don't know why i enjoy this day so much. being with my sisters is always entertaining and i love being in the crowd even though it makes my head spin....and don't forget the shoppers high you get from getting an amazing deal. it is kind of fun to see how crazy it gets. the deal of the day was the fossil bag that was mismarked $4.35 but was supposed to be on sale for $43.50. plus and extra 20% off. my sister ended up getting it for 3. something. not bad.

GRAND AMERICA:

dave and i snuck away for an early anniversary outing. we spent the evening shopping at gateway. we just happen to be there right when they lit the christmas tree. we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and talked and talked until it closed. it was so fancy and fun. in the morning i got a massage at the hotel spa and then we headed back. it was a quick, relaxing get-a-way.

CHRISTMAS PARTY:

my mom fit her christmas party in so we could be there for it. we were going to go out to dinner but my bro. suggested that we do a sub for santa instead of spending all that money at a restaurant. i remembered that my friend sue headed up a project for the kids in afghanistan. her husband is serving there. we decided as a family to help with her project. this was neat for us because my brother recently returned from afghanistan.

we ended the night at temple square to see all the christmas lights. i love temple square at christmas time. it reminds me of christmas, of course, but it also reminds me of when dave and i got married. it seemed that everything was lit up for our wedding.

dave, abe and kai then headed over to the energy solutions center to meet dave's family for the jazz game.


BACK HOME:

we got home about midnight from our two week vacation. it felt like we had been gone for a long time. it was a fun trip and when we got home we had to immediately get back into the swing of things. everyone had to be to school and work the next morning. it feels good to be back in a routine and our life here in arizona. it makes me wonder if we will be here for a really long time. i have to stop myself and not worry to much about it and enjoy our time here. i'm so glad dave could take two weeks off and we could be together as a family, and that our time was filled with excitement and people we love.