Baby Glenn Gets Blessed (say that ten times!)

Steve gave Glenn a baby blessing at the Andersons' house today. Most of the Anderson gang was there, as well as Mindy and Jon May. The blessing was really nice. We stayed awhile after and talked with Liz, Brittany, and JP. Max played with Legos most of the time which made Nate really happy. Nate can't wait to blow his hard earned cash on Lego sets for himself Max. Anyway, speaking of toys, Glenn is a doll.

 

walk like a man

Max is so close to walking, but he lacks confidence... or maybe an audience? Nate's favorite part of this video is Max's double point. Mine is his chuckle after he loses and catches his balance. What's yours? Bah! I'm just kidding. I hate when people end their posts with questions to encourage comments. It just seemed like the thing to say there...

Perhaps Max is struggling to finally walk because his thighs are too fluffy. Maybe they are throwing him off balance. Quizas it's all the breakfast food we've made around here lately. Behold, a partially eaten gingerbread waffle (whipped cream makes them taste divine).

I swear once Max hit one, my strict very-little-and-on-special-occasions sugar policy went out the window with him. And today... I gave him macaroni and cheese with a cut up hot dog! Ah! What has become of me? (Intentional and serious question. Feel free to reply.)

On the twelfth day of Christmas (Christmas), my mom and dad made me...

Christmas! Nate woke up early, but he let me and Max sleep in. Have I mentioned that I've been sick? I'm pretty sure that I have strep throat, but it hasn't been too bad. I've been coughing a lot and losing my voice, but the fatigue is what's getting me. So first things first, we opened our stockings. My mom sent us some stocking stuffers, and I added a few myself. We then took turns opening presents. Max got a lot of books and a few toys. Nate and I even had some presents! We didn't buy each other anything because our new house was present enough. My parents got us Philips sonicare toothbrushes, and they are AMAZING. Brushing our teeth has never been so exciting. After presents, I made pancakes (using my mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook that I added a subtitle to when I was a young buck) and cleaned up a bit before getting ready for the day. Liz, Steve, and the kids came over for lunch. Nate and Steve watched part of an NBA game while Liz and I chatted and the kids played. Max spent most of the day with a Nerf bullet in his mouth, sucking away like it was a lollipop. He was probably savoring some chemical that's going to give him brain damage, but that's down the road... and it kept him busy during the day, so... We Skyped with my parents and my grandma for a bit before the Andersons left. That night, Nate and I watched It's a Wonderful Life while Max fell asleep on Nate's arm. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

 

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

Christmas Eve was busier than other Christmas Eve's I have experienced. Nate and I ran errands most of the morning and mid-afternoon. We stopped at Home Depot for a curtain rod and curtains for our dining room, the post office to pick up a package, Costco for gas, the grocery store, Big Lots for grab bag gifts for Haven and Nash, the library to return books, and El Mexsal for pupusas! It was snowing most of the day so traffic was slow going, but we made it home in time to make dinner for Liz, Steve, and the kids. After dinner, we did the grab bag, a tradition in Nate's family. Among other things, Max got a ton of cars, Haven got a bracelet, glow-in-the-dark star glasses, and lip gloss, and Nash got parachute men, grow capsules, and stick-on fuzzy mustaches. I think the adults had more fun with the mustaches. Max was happy with the wrapping paper and ribbons. The kids all put on Christmas jammies, and then we opened some presents from my mom and dad. They sent Nerf guns and ammo, so immediately after the first gun was unwrapped, a mad race to open and load our guns ensued. Nash, Haven, and Max ended up crying in the first five minutes (nobody was safe), but we kept going until the shock wore off... and then kept going and going.

 

On the sixth-through-tenth days of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

Sixth (Wednesday) - Nate read Gingerbread Friends to Max. Max's cold/flu started getting worse. We packed up everything in the house while watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and The Holiday.

Seventh (Thursday) - Nate worked that day which made packing difficult, but we got mostly everything done by the time Mike, Nate, and Sam came over to help us load up the Uhaul. I think this was the least "Christmasy" day yet. At the very most, we might have sung Silent Night to Max while putting him down for bed. I started getting a cough and losing my voice... so if we did sing that day, I'm guessing it wasn't good.

Eighth (Friday) - We packed up our mattress that morning and cleaned the now empty house. Sam helped Nate move everything from the truck into the garage of our new home. Nate and I spent the rest of the evening putting things in the correct rooms. We ate some assorted chocolates and caramels that Mike and Cecilia gave us.

Ninth (Saturday) - We spent the morning setting up house before we went to Ikea to get some shelving units, a rug that I LOVE, and some cinnamon rolls (surprisingly good) as early Christmas presents to ourselves. While alphabetizing our DVD's and stacking them on the shelves, I started to get a fever. At this point, my voice was at 25%. I sucked on cough drops all night. Bleugh. I say that to the cotton mouth, not the cough drops. They, on the other hand, were quite good... and they work. I'd like to take this moment to give a shout out to Young Living for making my sickness more bearable. Without the cough drops and the Thieves oil diffused into my bedroom night air, I wouldn't have gotten any sleep this holiday season. So, thank you.

Tenth (Sunday) - We decorated the Christmas tree again and put out all the presents and other decorations. I made chicken, potatoes, and crusty bread for dinner (first homemade meal in our new house!). I made the bread using another early Christmas present from Nate - a Food Network 7 quart cast iron dutch oven in red. We used the place mats my mom sent for Christmas, too.

The twelve days of Christmas were mostly to help us keep Christmas present in our minds while we underwent yet another move this year, but it turns out that moving into our new house has not only made this Christmas one of the best for both of us, but it has kept us grateful. We are so excited to have a home with a place for everything and space for Max to grow. Ha. That made it sound like he was going to grow so big by the age of four that he would fill a room like Alice does after she eats the cookie. Speaking of cookies... look at this delicious morsel.

 

our precious

Around 3 pm yesterday, I was trying to settle Max down. He kept throwing himself about, not wanting to be held and not wanting to not be held. I was at a loss for what to do and wished Nate were home. Within five minutes, Nate walked through the door. Christmas miracle! Not only was he home early, he came bearing gifts of toffee and chocolate pretzels. I swapped Max for the treats and eased my troubled soul with sugar. I needed to get out, so I later planned on dinner and a movie (The Hobbit) with a friend, but I couldn't find the clicker to our car. Because we had locked the car with the clicker, it was impossible to unlock it or turn it on with a normal key. We searched high and low without success. My kind friend drove that night, but we still had a major issue - the walk-through of our new house was today at noon. We continued the search for the clicker all morning and finally had to have our real estate agent, Sam, come get us. Luckily, he's my close friend, so it wasn't a big deal. The walk-through went well; we blue-taped the heck out of the place with no objections. I guess I'm picky, and I guess they don't mind. On the way home, Sam was asking us all the obvious questions about where the clicker might be. "What were you wearing?" "Did it fall into the couch?" "Did you drop it outside?" We had turned our house upside down, so his questions didn't seem to help. He told us about losing his wallet in the mission once and finding deep down inside the couch. Once home, Sam was kind enough to help Nate look outside in the snow. He then came in and stuck his hand down inside the couch. I was embarrassed that he might find crumbs and assured him that we'd checked the couch several times. I mean, of course we had. We had lost the clicker the night I had to pick up Zach and Julie and finally found it in the couch. Sam pulled his hand out... and guess what he found! We felt like idiots, but we were happy the search came to an end.

The moral of the story: if you've lost something, it's in the couch.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

Max is still sick, but today we allowed him a quick jaunt in the snow while wearing his new boots. Nate walked with him until Max wanted to sit down in the snow for a closer look, so we promptly brought him in. Once he's well, we'll let him explore more.

   At Christmas, my mom would bring out stuffed animal reindeer. I always loved them, and she bought me a few of my own throughout the years. Now that I have a family of my own, my mom gave me her reindeer to add to mine. I put them out for Max to see, and he liked a snuggly reindeer the best, probably because it also has a bell around its neck. He shook it around a bit before he looked up at me with dopey eyes. He crawled into my arms and fell asleep while I watched Little Women.

Bedtime Christmas book: The Wild Christmas Reindeer

Christmas movies: Mixed Nuts and Little Women

 

thank you, bins.

Nate has been sick for a week and has had to work from home. The idea seemed exciting at first, but we quickly realized that having a clingy one-year-old around and a wife who wants to "hang out" doesn't quite mesh with "working" from home. So nothing much changed while he's been here... but it was good to see him so much. Unfortunately, Max is now sick, sneezing streams of boogers over his lips to his chin. That part is kinda funny; the restless sleep is not. Nate is starting to recover, but both he and I are exhausted. I mention all this because we have to pack up and move on Friday, and we have a lot of stuff. We were thoughtful enough to not unpack 18 bins or so after our last move, so that saves us some work. Our last move from Arizona happened a week after my c-section, so I wasn't much help then. This time, I'm willing and ready... but I have Max to consider, and he's more needy than usual. He always follows me around the house, but it usually doesn't involve whimpering and pants-pulling. Actually, have I ever mentioned how he cries while I shower? I can't allow him in the bathroom because he pulls back the curtain, letting the water out onto the floor. So I leave him outside, and he screams and pounds on the door the entire time. Gone are the days of long and peaceful showers. And by long, I mean more than 5 minutes. Anyway, this is Max climbing the bins instead of my leg.

I should mention that I LOVE Max. I don't know if that was clear in the above paragraph. 

On the fourth day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

I didn't really make Max do anything but keep his little hands from reaching up over the edge of the table while I was icing cookies. He got to an un-iced one fresh from the oven and demolished it before I noticed. I ended up with one shy of two dozen iced snowball sugar cookies. "I thought we were eating healthier!" Nate whined. "It's Christmas!" I retorted. Enough said.

Bedtime Christmas book: None. I left Nate at home with Max while I went to see The Hobbit with Deborah. We'll have to do two today to make up for it.

On the third day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

Oh dear. This one didn't quite work. I asked Nate to draw a Santa to which Max and I would tape cotton balls. First off, Nate has been sick all week, and while he is a great dad, I had to practically force him to draw the Santa. It's not his best work. And then Max showed minimal interest in the activity, but he was very excited to make a mess of the supplies. So I ended up applying the cotton ball beard and hat trim. It's not my best work, either. I had to practically force Max to color the hat and holly. So as you can see, there was a lot of forcing and shoddy work as a result. Someone is a little too eager for her kid to do fun crafts. When I showed Nate the finished project, I was laughing hysterically. He said, "Only one of us performed at age level on that one." When I showed Max, he tore at Santa's beard. Alas, this will not be going in a scrap book.

Bedtime Christmas book: The Elves And The Shoemaker

On the second day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

We celebrated Max's birthday, so we didn't do anything particularly Christmasy besides read a Christmas book at bedtime. We read Merry Christmas Mom and Dad by Mercer Mayer. I had this book as a kid, as well as the read-along cassette tape. Consequently, it's one of my favorite Christmas kid's books. Nostalgia makes the season brighter, wouldn't you say? I found the tape when I was home a few months ago and could remember every inflection in the reader's voice, every sound affect, and every melody. At the end of the tape, there is a song with the lyrics, "Merry Christmas Mom and Dad. This Christmas I'll remember. How you made me feel glad. Merry Christmas Mom and Dad." I assume that Max won't display this sentiment for awhile considering he is only one, but I still like to start the traditions early... you know, for the nostalgia.

Christmas Movie (kinda): Holiday Inn

On the first day of Christmas, my mom and dad made me...

I cut out some Christmas shapes and had Max color them. To be more precise, I had Max scribble on a blank piece of paper and then I cut the shapes out where the most coloring had occurred. Make do.

Bedtime Christmas book: Santa's Runaway Elf (I had this book as a child. My love for elves started young.)

Christmas movie: A Christmas Carol (The version with Patrick Stewart)

Max's First Sugar Overload... erm, Birthday

We finally celebrated Max's first birthday yesterday. I realized just today that we had celebrated Max's birthday 11 days late. Does that phrase sound familiar to anyone but me and Nate? Probably not. Max was born 11 days late. Payback!

Actually, we were waiting for Zach and Julie. They were in town for the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert, so they stayed with us a night. We spent Saturday lazing about until our late lunch at Pantrucas where we gave Max a black and white cupcake from Sweet Tooth Fairy and sang Happy Birthday. When the owners of the restaurant realized what was going on, they brought out a piece of mil hojas cake with a lit candle, and we sang Happy Birthday again! Max would light up when we sang, and he LOVED his cupcake. I would say it was a simple success.

And Max learned a very important lesson: some things are worth the wait.