Snapshots from the latest happenings....

This may be the last time Teya's pretty smile looks like this because both of those front teeth are wiggly jiggly and I'm guessing in a few days she'll be 2 dollars richer and rockin' a spacious gap in that smile.

The other day Brinley and I gave each other mani-pedis and did a little photoshoot while Teya was at school and Cam was napping. Love me some one on one Brinley time : )

  I think her favorite part was hamming it up for the camera. Such a funny girl : )

Lately I've been so busy that I feel like I haven't been very social, so last week I invited a bunch of the ladies over for lunch and it was awesome eating good food and having some girly chat time.

 Cam wanted in on the picture taking ; )

And on Saturday we went to a fundraising dinner for our friend Rob who is running the Boston marathon as a charity runner. His wife Darby is an AMAZING cook and she made an incredible dinner and then held a live auction to raise more money from her homemade desserts.

Here is a sampling of the goods for sale. Cheesecake, German Chocolate cake, Raspberry Vanilla cake, Coconut Cake, Apple tart, apricot crisp, peanut butter ice cream pie, and triple sin brownies all HOMEMADE FROM SCRATCH. Some of of these babies were going for $25-$30 a piece, and well worth it!

We snagged some coconut pie, a brownie, and a slice of this heavenly creation. I was glad we had both run an 18 miler beforehand, made me feel a little less guilty about eating 3 super rich desserts in one night : )

Fitting it all in...

Well we're 3 weeks into play practice and 10 weeks into marathon training and it's definitely taking some creative juggling to fit it all in.  Luckily some good things have fallen into place to make it possible. Like our awesome neighbor who has offered to come over on Friday nights and watch the kids for free while we have play practice. She's this sweet college girl who I'm sure could use the babysitting money, but she won't charge us since we're doing a church activity. I honestly almost cried when she told us that. Such a blessing : )

So this is kind of how the weekends go:

Friday afternoons I swap with a friend or get a babysitter so I can do my long run. Last week it was 17 miles so we're talking close to 3 hours of running. I usually get home around 4 and then I have a couple hours to stretch, shower, recover, make dinner, and get ready for play practice. Play practice is from 7-9:30, so we get home close to 10pm, then Taber sets out all his stuff for his long run and we go to bed.

Saturday mornings Taber wakes up around 4:20am to get his long run in. Last week he knocked out 17 miles all before 8am!! He is the man! While he's running I work on getting everything together to entertain and feed the kids for 4 hours during rehearsal. We bring the pack and play, baby monitor, blankets, booster seat, baby food, bottles, extra clothes and diapers for Cam, and toys, DVD players, coloring books, snacks and lunches for the girls. 

Sometimes we even bring their bikes so they can cruise around in the gym. 

The girls do great during rehearsal. They just play with their stuff and the other kids whose parents are in the play. Cam is a different story. He requires a lot more work, especially because he needs naps and diaper changes and someone to spoon feed him his meals.  Taber and I usually take turns juggling him since we've only been working on music, but once we start blocking I think some of the young women in the play are going to be on Cam duty since we'll be needed on stage.
(I really just wish I could fly the Grandmas out for a few months! I'm sure they'd love being on Cam duty!)

After play practice it takes us forever to round up all our stuff (we seriously bring half our household) Then we get home around 2 and we are so wasted from long runs and rehearsals and late nights and early mornings that we barely have enough energy to drag everything in the house and crash.

Not a lot of housework happens over the weekends. 

(Sorry Mom, I swear it all gets cleaned up by Monday!)

After play practice nothing sounds better than a nap, but the kids are such good sports about all this that we really try to do something fun in the afternoon.

Last weekend it snowed, so after rehearsal Taber took the girls outside to play in it. 

He was going to take them to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D too, but when it was time to come in and get ready for the movie they were having too much fun and chose to stay home and keep playing instead. 

I know all this makes from some crazy weekends but I really love what we are doing. The spirit has been so strong in some of the rehearsals that more than once I've had to wipe away tears. The music and the script are amazing and working on them has helped me to focus more on the Savior in my daily life.  I play the CD with the music all the time and the girls are even starting to sing the songs.  It's the best having our home filled with such beautiful music. I love it, and I'm so glad we're making the effort to fit it all in : )

Three Things Thursday

So one of the blogs I read does this Three Things Thursday deal where every Thursday they post about 3 random things. And even though Thursday is almost over, I'm going to be a copy cat and do it too. Here are my 3 things in no particular order:

1) The last Christmas decorations standing:

I put away all the Christmas decorations the day after New Year's but I still can't bring myself to take down everyone's Christmas cards. Seeing the faces of so many people I love, smiling at me every time I walk by just gives me the warm fuzzies. Thank you so much to everyone who sent us one! They really do warm my heart. : )  One more week, then I swear I'll take them down : )

2) Fun with Jenga

We got the girls Jenga for Christmas and I'm impressed with all the ways they use it to entertain themselves.

They love building domino type structures to knock over

And they love testing their ability to concentrate and hold still while Taber builds towers on their foreheads.

Brinley is the absolute champion of Jenga meditation. While Teya squirms and giggles, Brinley holds still as stone and lets her mind go to her "happy place" (When Taber asked her what her happy place was she said, "Chuck E Cheese." ; )

3) An Unusually warm winter

Besides one random snowstorm in October, his has been an incredibly mild winter. We didn't get any snow until last week and even that has melted.  I know Teya is upset that she hasn't been able to play in the snow and Taber is itching to build another igloo, but I certainly don't mind that the kids can still play outside on the trampoline in January.

(also if you're wondering about their pink eyelids, they were having a playdate and decided to give themselves makeovers, hence the pink eyeshadow : )

1 year, 16 Teeth, and Two visits to the Emergency Room

Our little Cam man turned 1 year old last Friday.

He loves his bottle, soft blankets, giggling at his sisters and wreaking havoc around the house (i.e.  unrolling all the toilet paper, pulling out all the DVD's, pulling things out of cupboards and off of shelves, you know, typical 1 year old mayhem. : )

 He is busy busy busy. He army crawls so fast it looks like he's swimming across the floor. He's not walking but he pulls up on everything he can get his hands on, and knows how to climb up and down the stairs like a champ.

One of his big accomplishments this year was sprouting 16 teeth in 12 months.  8 on the top, 8 on the bottom, including 4 molars. Made for some rough nights and lots of drool, but I sure love that toothy little grin.

Despite all those pearly white chompers he still prefers mostly soft food. Baby food, yogurt, canned peas, canned green beans, bananas, mushy sweet potatoes and oatmeal are his go to favorites.

He is really, really, ridiculously good looking (gets it from his Dad) and even though he has yet to say any formal words, he fills the house with his adorable low belly laugh.

Besides sprouting lots of teeth and learning to climb and crawl, Cam has also given us a couple of scares this year. In September he had a febrile seizure that landed him in the hospital for 3 days.  Our doctor told us that from now on we'd have to watch him because a spike in fever, or a high fever over a sustained period of time could trigger another seizure.

We experienced that today when his fever spiked and his whole body began to tremble and seize. His lips and fingers turned blue and his skin became blotchy. I called 9-1-1 but this time I was able to stay calm (for the most part) and hold it together until the paramedics arrived. Cam's seizure lasted around 5 minutes but he didn't lose conciousness. He did throw up in the ambulance from the high fever and when we arrived at the ER his temperature was 106.

It was very hard to see our sweet little man in such a scary condition. Thankfully the doctors were able to get the fever down by layering Motrin with prescription Tylenol with codeine. They also discovered the cause of the fever, a double ear infection, and took care of that with a shot of antibiotics.

After 3 hours in the ER we brought our sweet guy home and he is doing much much better. I have an appointment with his pediatrician tomorrow and hopefully I can find out more about what we can do to prevent these seizures and also how best to handle them when they happen.

The good news is he's home and on the mend. It's been an eventful but wonderful 12 months, and now I'll end with a few cute pictures from last Friday's birthday celebration:

Didn't take him long to snatch the whole cake and ram it in his mouth.

Baby likes the Cakey

Happy Birthday little Cam!! Thanks for bringing so much happiness into our home!

Things are about to get Crazy Busy

I like being busy. I like having places to go and things to do. I like having commitments and responsibilities. It's fun, and I kind of think it helps me stay productive. It can also make me drop balls and run around like a mad woman, but in a weird way I kind of dig some of the chaos that comes with being busy.

That being said, things are about to get CRAZY busy over here, and the next 3 months are going to be a little intense! Let me explain the layers of craziness:

Layer 1

Taber works full time + has to go back on 3rd shift once a week+ commutes 45 minutes each way to work + serves as the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency at church (which means lessons on Sundays, activities on Wednesdays) + is the father of 3 small children.

I work full time as a stay at home mom to 3 small children (which in itself constitutes crazy busy) + serve as the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency at church (which means teaching, coordinating activities and presidency meetings twice a month) + sing in the ward choir.

Layer 2

Taber and I are both training for the DC marathon in March so we also have to fit in 30-45 miles of running a week. This is especially tricky with our long runs. Right now we are up to 16 miles, which takes us close to 2 and 1/2 hours to run. Next month we will have to run 19 and 20 milers, which will be 3 hours of running. Usually we would get a babysitter and do this on a Saturday but then there's layer 3...

Layer 3

Since we weren't busy enough ; ) I decided to try out for our Stake's production of The Savior of the World, which is a musical play that depicts the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of the Savior. I was shocked and excited to get the part of Mary, but they didn't have enough men try out and really needed more so they convinced Taber to be a part of it too. He is playing a shepherd in the first act and the apostle James in the second act. I think the play will be amazing but the rehearsal schedule is pretty demanding. From now until the show in April, we have play practice every Friday night from 7-9:30 and practice every Saturday morning from 9am -1pm.  Not sure how we will fit our long runs into this schedule because we don't want to be in play practice all morning and then leave the kids with another sitter to go run for 3 hours. I'll probably have to do some kind of baby-sitting swap during the week to get mine in and Taber might have to split his runs or do some in the early early morning before practice. 

So yeah, we kind of have a lot going on, especially because we're BOTH doing the marathon and the play, and someone needs to watch the kids, so it's a real balancing act to try and juggle it all.  

I know balls will get dropped and some things are going to be neglected, but as long as I keep these three munchkins at the top of the priority list, we'll get through it okay. 

I might not shower every day or get very much sleep. I might not make my bed or match all the socks or mop my floors or vacuum as much as I should. I might not have time to read and comment all my favorite blogs or troll Facebook as much as I like to ; )  I might feed my family frozen pizza or cold cereal for dinner during the week, but I know that it will be worth it in 3 months when we get to be a part of 2 big events that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. 

So that's what's going down at the Rigg household, let the craziness begin!

End of December Massive Picture Dump

We did a lot of stuff at the end of December when Naomi and Kevin were in town, but I am currently a little overwhelmed with all that is on my plate right now so instead of individual posts I'm just going to do a big fat picture dump to wrap up December. : )

Prepare for some serious scrolling!

Cool stuff we did with the Hanks fam:

Imajine That Indoor playground

This place is the bomb. Indoor jungle gym, bounce house, soft climbing playground, play kitchen, play grocery store, puppet show theater, costumes, instruments, craft room, etc.... The kids had a blast.

Mr. busy body loved being set loose in there too.  

Look at that face, I am seriously smitten with this kid.

Boston Children's Museum

When you have small children the highlight of Boston is usually the children's museum ; ) 

(Taber had to stay home with Brinley and Cam since Brinley was still really sick that day.)

 Hanks fam in Bean Town!

 Hours of entertainment for the kiddos (and Kevin)

Teya and auntie Naomi

Lily and Auntie Becca

Hula hooping! After a little practice Teya was rockin' it!

She also discovered the joy of jump pictures : )

Kevin bought me this book at the gift shop. I seriously have no idea why...

The boys had a man-cation day where they went candlestick bowling and saw Mission Impossible 4.

And Naomi and I had an afternoon out for shopping!

Teya practiced modeling for my new camera. After she saw this picture she said, "wow, I look so grown up!" It made me a little sad when I realized she is right : (

Uncle Kevin doing some modeling with Teya.

And me modeling my super stretchy fish lips. (yeah I got skillz ; )

Chuck E Cheese

On the day they left we did one last hoorah at Chuck E Cheese

 The girls and the Mouse

 Kiddie Rides! 

 They have a new virtual roller coaster ride that all of them got a huge kick out of, even Cam. 

It was so much fun having the Hanks family here and we are just so so happy that they made the effort to come out and spend Christmas with us. LOVE YOU GUYS!!

 Celtics Game

After the Hanks left, Taber and I got to go to the opening game for the Celtics

It was fun to be there opening night and soak in all crazy excitement in the atmosphere.

Good times, great date night, and that's it for December!!