Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you had as much fun as we did this year. :)

The weekend before Christmas we went to the Harbeck's annual Christmas party. This year they decked out the trailer and took us all on a "sleigh ride". It was so fun, except that Gage kept trying to jump off while we were moving (he's not a big fan of sitting still).

Every Christmas Eve we get together with my extended family from my dad's side for dinner and a little nativity reinactment by the cousins. This year they asked Gage to be a sheep. As you may remember from my Halloween post, Gage does NOT like to wear costumes. So he wouldn't wear the sheep costume, but he carried a stuffed sheep for a few seconds before running up and kidnapping the baby Jesus doll. Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to keep Gage from completely destroying the nativity play that I wasn't able to take any pics. So you will just have to use your imagination. :)


When we came home, we let Gage open his Christmas jammies. He was pretty excited about the little snowman on the shirt.

Christmas morning we let Gage come downstairs and open his presents while the rest of us sat on the couch and tried to wake up. Gage came running downstairs and completely bypassed the Christmas tree as he excitedly shouted "backey"!!! ("backey"= Gagespeak for "vacuum"). I had left the vacuum out the night before and he was more thrilled about that than the new tricycle or any of the other things Santa left him. But we diverted his attention to the gifts and he was pretty excited once Grandpa taught him how to pedal his new bike and how to use the very loud microphone on his little electronic toy. He wowed us with his natural talent for the piano and had a great time opening presents once he realized that there were toys inside of all that wrapping paper.

We had Kyle's family over for Christmas brunch and I was too busy getting the food ready and chasing Gage to take any pictures, so I didn't even get any of the cousins together. But we had a great time spending the morning with them.

And of course, no important day would be complete without some kind of facial injury sustained by Gage. I put an extra leaf in the dining table to accomodate our large group for brunch and Gage misjudged the new location of the table leg as he was running outside to help Kyle feed the dog. Blood everywhere!

That night my brother, Brock and his wife, Tara spent the evening with us. Brock made some amazing homemade raviolis and his awesome pasta sauce for dinner. He finally gave me the pasta sauce recipe! Merry Christmas to me. :) And of course I didn't take any pics of our time with them either. Bummer.

We had a wonderful holiday spending time with our families, but most importantly, we had the opportunity this past week to reflect on the birth of our Savior and give thanks for the incredible gift of the Atonement. We are making a goal this new year to keep our focus on Christ even as life gets crazy and we wonder how we are going to survive two little boys.

The Belly

Here's a belly pic for my many family members who live far away and don't believe me when I say it's HUGE. But I feel fine (aside from the zillions of contractions I have every day) and I am not really freaked out about how big I am. I figure there's no point in worrying about it now so I might as well just be happy, eat what I want and plan on working out like crazy after the baby comes. :)

Let's Go to the ZOO!

My little bro, Andrew came into town last week to visit and we went to the zoo. Gage loved the animals but has a very short attention span so we spent most of the day running from one exhibit to the next. I think we made almost the full six mile loop by the time we left (a huge feat for a very pregnant woman). My brothers were good sports to help me chase Gage around all day.

Do I really have to do THAT???

We went to our first childbirth education class last night. I was enlightened and terrified. I found out that effacement actually has something to do with the thinning of the cervix, not the direction the baby is facing as I had previously thought. Am I a complete idiot?? We were supposed to name all the parts we knew on an anatomy sheet and Kyle and I could only figure out three of them. No wonder it took us five years to get pregnant. Then, during the childbirth video I got mad at Kyle for acting grossed out and looking away when the baby was born so he tried to tell me he wasn't disgusted by the childbirth, but by how unattractive the mother was. I think I need a new childbirth coach. Any volunteers?

On another note, the doc did a 3D/4D ultrasound on baby Brigg and he looks kind of like a really cute alien version of me. We'll see if he still looks like me when he comes out. He opened and closed his eyes a few times while we were watching him. It was kind of freaky but cool. He is a stubborn baby though. We tried for 5 minutes to get him to move his hand away from his face but he was not about to cooperate for the picture. And yeah, I know that as his mother, I am probably the only person who can actually tell that this picture is of a baby...but I am sharing it anyway because when I look at it I am almost convinced that the horrors of childbirth will actually be worth it. :)

Goodbye Mr. Stinky Binky!

We are officially a binky-free household! This may seem insignificant to many who have not dealt with pacifier addiction and withdrawls, but it is a big deal for us. Gage has been without the binky for over two weeks now and we have all lived to tell about it. We wanted to do away with the stinky binky for a while because Gage has only one type of binky he will take, and the company who made it discontinued it so we were down to our last one. It was ratty, discolored, chewed on, stinky and just all around horrible, but Gage could not go to bed without it. So one day (of course he picked the weekend that Kyle was out of town), Gage bit off the sucky part of the binky and that was the end of Mr. Stinky Binky.


The end.


Ha, ha. I wish that were the end. What really happened afterward was that I had to lean over the side of Gage's crib (a difficult position for a largely pregnant woman) that night and rub his back for 3 hours before he even came close to falling asleep. And ever since then his two naps a day have ceased to exist and have been replaced by a tired and cranky little boy. It's been a tough couple of weeks, but it can only get better, right?

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Ammendment: I wrote the above post a week ago, at a time when I really didn't think it could get worse. But a couple days later, Gage learned how to climb out of his crib. So now we are not only battling the binky withdrawl, but we can't keep our monkey child in his bed. None of us are ever going to sleep again. Now, it can only get better, right???

We Love Adoption!!

Congrats to my cousins, Lynzie and Danny whose beautiful baby girl was born last week!! Her birthmom was awesome and we feel blessed to have another happy adoption story in our family.

I have to admit though that I am a little envious. I am grateful to have the opportunity to experience pregnancy and childbirth first-hand, but it really was completely amazing when we held Gage for the first time right after he was born. I just don't think it will be the same when I am the one who has to do the work to bring our little boy into the world. I am afraid that I will be distracted by the pain and suffering of childbirth and won't get to really enjoy those first moments with Brigg that I cherished so much with Gage.

Caramel Apple Cupcakes and a Poop Story

I made these cool cupcakes from the cupcake blog for the girls at my enrichment committee meeting. They didn't turn out as beautifully as the cupcake lady's, but they were fun to make anyway. I didn't taste the actual cupcakes until the day after I had given them to a few people, and I am feeling very bad now because the cupcake part was totally horrible! But I ate a lot of the delish caramel while I was frosting them (probably not such a good idea the day before I had to take my glucose test at the doctor's office... gestational diabetes here I come...).

Then while I was busy getting ready for my meeting, Kyle and I noticed that Gage had been quietly playing by himself for a while (never a good sign). So I went to check it out and found him standing in his room, completely naked. I picked him up and went to get a diaper when I realized that he smelled pretty bad. Then I noticed the poop that was smeared on his foot, his leg, his bum and now my shirt. I found the rest of his load on the carpet in the hallway. Lot's of fun...

Halloween Party

Thanks to the Sly family for throwing such a smashing Halloween party! It was a huge hit complete with excellent Mexican food, spooky decorations, apple bobbing, caramel apple making, pumpkin and face painting, and lots of great people. We had a great time catching up with our friend Lacee who moved to Queen Creek a while ago. Rich, you missed out. It's been so long since we have seen you that I can't even remember what you look like (although that could be the pregnancy brain kicking in...I can barely remember what I am doing at any given point in time).

We had a dilemma this year when picking out a Halloween costume for Gage. He refuses to wear anything on his head, so hats, masks, hoods, etc were all out of the question. And he doesn't like restrictive clothing or anything protruding from his attire. So most cute animals, monsters, dragons and dinosaurs were out. The only thing we could think of was a punk rocker. He refused to let us get any good pics of him with his guitar and full ensemble. But at least you get the idea...

Gage freaked when I drew this tattoo on his arm. He cried for a good five minutes until I pulled his sleeve over it and told him I had washed it off.

Autumn Fest

We spent Saturday at the Anthem Autumn Fest with Katie and Jeremy and their kids, Anden and Taylee. Taylee was a dream and slept pretty much all day. I am already trying to talk baby boy #2 into being so agreeable when he's born. Something about positive affirmations while he's in the womb... ;)

Anyway, the festival was great for the kids. They had pony rides, a little petting zoo, a few bouncers, a pumpkin patch, food, live music, a train and all kinds of carnival rides. Gage was too tired and cranky to enjoy it as much as he should have, but it was a fun day anyway.

Gage & Anden enviously watching other kids ride ponies.

Gage loved the animals, but almost got kicked out of the petting zoo because he kept hitting them.

Gage hasn't quite learned the concept of "sharing" yet.

We went on a little train ride around the park. Gage was NOT a fan of the train ride. He wanted to go back and drive the race car.

But after the train ride from heck, Gage found this little splash pad and was incredibly happy soaking his clothes.

He had to ride home in just his diaper.

After a change of clothes and some dinner, we went back to check out the carnival rides.

But the boys had the most fun just running around the field.

Gage's Trademark

Gage is rarely seen without some sort of facial injury. I guess it has become his trademark. His bloody lip during our photo session was the tenth in his short 20 months of life. And he recently acquired his 4th black eye. Though he hardly cried when his face smashed into the chair (I think I was more distraught about it than he was), this one was probably his worst. This pic was the day after it happened, but it got even darker over the next two or three days. I can't believe we have yet to make an emergency room trip with this boy (knock on wood). I have had several people ask me if he needs glasses because he's remarkably uncoordinated. But maybe he just takes after his daddy. Kyle survived 6 broken bones and too many stitches to count during his youth...and he's still alive. However, I am a bit worried that some well intentioned person is going to report us to CPS if Gage keeps sporting such awful looking injuries.

Family Photos

We recently had our family photos taken. Here were a few of the highlights...

Gage really didn't want to have his photo taken,

so he cried through most of the session.

We let him play with the cell phone to stop the crying,

but then he wouldn't look up from the phone.

When he did look at the photographer he had this nice scowl on his face.

Then, halfway through the session Gage fell and split his lip open
resulting in the bloodiest injury he has ever had.

So which one do you think we should we use for our Christmas card?

The Great Outdoors

We took Gage camping up the street at Usery Mountain Park this weekend. It was Gage's first time camping in a tent. We have camped before with him but always with a toy hauler or cabin (okay, that's not really camping, but a campfire was always involved so it almost qualifies...) Gage loved being outside, but was a bit more of an explorer than we expected. He wanted to check out every tree, bush, cactus and piece of garbage around our campsite so we were constantly chasing him to keep him from getting a hand full of cactus spines.

We got lucky and had a campsite right next to this playground.

Gage tried the "big boy swings" for the first time. He only fell off once.

We made tinfoil dinners. Yum!

It was so nice to hang out and enjoy the cooler weather.

The next morning, Gage got up early to help Daddy start the fire for breakfast.

Gage was terrified of our tent when we first set it up, but by the next morning he realized what a fun little playhouse it really was. :)

We have lived!

This weekend we finally made it to Pizzeria Bianco with my cousins so we can now officially call ourselves Arizonans. The pizza was amazing...totally worth the two hour wait.

I ordered the Rosa: red onions, parmesan reggiano cheese, rosemary and pistachios, and I ate all but two slices (which I finished in the car on the way home).

Guess Who is Further Along...

Thanks Brock for making me feel a little better about my ever expanding waistline. :)

Boys...

Check out what my son insisted on using as his "fork" for dinner tonight. Yes, I know tongs are not acceptable cutlery for the refined individual that I am attempting to create; however, there are days when I will let Gage use whatever means he finds necessary if he will just eat what I make for dinner instead of crying for a banana.

Bunko Night-Aloha Style

A few weeks ago I found all the luau decorations for 50% off at the party store, so I was inspired to do the luau theme when I hosted bunko night last weekend. My "tropical" menu was a bit of a stretch as I wasn't very excited about the idea of Kahlua pig or poi, but it went over pretty well and aside from a bit of cheating (ha, ha :) and the fact that I think I was the lowest scoring player, the night was fun. Thanks to all the girls who came. Can't wait to do it again!