Igloo in New England

Weeks before we ever saw a single snowflake, Taber got an itching to build an igloo. I don't know where it came from, perhaps his Alaskan roots? All I know is he started researching igloos on the internet and couldn't wait for it to snow so he could build one. Luckily for him our first big snowfall came during his Christmas break. With plenty of snow and time on his hands he got to work.

The first night he was all on his own and the work was slow moving. He got a few blocks done but I told him he should probably recruit some helpers if he wanted to finish it before he had to go back to work.

The next day Garrett, one of the young men from church came over to help. With an extra set of hands it started moving a little faster.

The girls were "helping" too, and LOVED being out in the snow with their Daddy.

After an hour or so our friend Jeremy and his son McKay joined the effort and that's when things really started picking up. They were packing three snow cubes at a time and the walls started coming up.

Garrett worked on the inside, smoothing out the sides with a machete and packing the blocks in tight after they were stacked on.

Meanwhile Taber, Jeremy and McKay were cranking out snow cubes. They put a little water in the bottom of the bins to make the snow stick better, then they packed it in tight.

Once the blocks were molded they stacked them on top of each other moving them in a little closer each time to narrow the igloo out towards the top.

Here's a nice action shot of Taber and Jeremy hefting one of the snow blocks on.

With about an hour to go Garrett's three younger brothers joined the effort. It was exciting to see it so close to being finished.

With some help from a stool they packed the last cubes of snow on top.

Finally after 5 hours of hard work, the boys (and Teya) had finished their snow-tacular igloo.

I think we were all amazed at how awesome it turned out. Definitely exceeded my expectations!

When they were done everyone crammed inside.

All 9 of them fit in there, it was pretty impressive.

It looked so cool that even I decided to squeeze my big belly through the tiny entryway to check it out.

Once it was finished the true test was to sleep inside.

Taber and McKay braved the 17 degree weather and earned bragging rights as the first people to sleep in the igloo. I'm sure they won't be the last though, Taber can't wait to get out there and do it again.

The girls haven't slept in there yet but I'm sure they will at some point. Taber did bring them out there last night and they LOVED it. Teya was especially excited about wearing the head lamp.

While I had my doubts at first I'm pretty happy about the fact that there is now an igloo in my backyard. It's made our first snowfall especially memorable and I'm sure it will be a fun thing to keep the girls entertained all winter.

Christmas Magic

Christmas is absolutely magical when you have children who believe in Santa. When the girls woke up on Christmas morning they were giddy with excitement. When they saw that Santa had come every word that came out of their mouths was followed by an exclamation point! It was so fun to watch them discover the magic of Christmas morning.

The first big surprise was a pop up tent with a tunnel. They didn't waste any time crawling in to explore.

Then they dumped out their stockings and it's a good thing Santa put some apples in there because that was all we could get them to eat before they jumped into present opening.

Teya was thrilled with everything she got. Brinley was too but I think she liked Teya's stuff a little more. Good thing Teya is good at sharing.

My sister Naomi made this awesome plaque to hold our running medals. And I made Taber a running collage by scanning in all his bibs and putting them together with race pictures to make this cool running frame. Definitely made me excited about the prospect of getting back into running after baby gets here.

I also put together another Blog book for our family. It was interesting to see how my blogging habits have evolved. The first book I made covered 8 months and was 82 pages long. This book only covered 6 months but was 184 pages long! I'm glad I've preserved our memories and have a fun way to look back on our family history. Now I just need to make books to cover 2010!

After all the presents had been opened our living room looked like a bomb had exploded in there. It was pretty awesome. Here's a before and after shot.

The girls spent the morning playing with their presents.

They also spent plenty of time playing in the boxes, which makes me think next year we should buy less toys and just wrap a bunch of boxes!

I also got to use one of my new presents to make us waffles for breakfast! I LOVE my new waffle maker and seriously want to make waffles every morning now. : )

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas, even though it was our first ever without any extended family. I thought it would feel lonely but the girls made it special with all their excitement.

I'll leave you with a cute video of Teya's first reaction to Christmas morning. I just love how she is so excited about everything and literally follows every sentence with an exclamation!

Christmas Eve 2010

This year we were planning on spending Christmas eve with several other families at one of our friends' homes. Unfortunately our hosts came down with the flu the night before and had to cancel. We were a little lost since those were our only plans so we decided very last minute to host everyone at our house instead. I think Taber was excited because it gave him a chance to grill up a turkey, a tradition we started last year in Minnesota.

Their were a few technical difficulties with our grill but Taber was able to figure it all out and the turkey came out beautifully. Perfectly tender and juicy. We also had ham, potatoes, salad, beans, rolls and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was quite the yummy feast!

After dinner the kids got dressed for a live presentation of the Nativity. This year Teya got to be an angel.

And Brinley reprised her role as a sheep. She was quite adorable. : )

Some of the shepherds with a little lamb and angel.

We also had the missionaries join us and they were able to fill in as the wisemen.

The kids did a really great job and it was nice singing Christmas hymns throughout the presentation. Here's the cast posing together at the end.

After our friends left we started getting ready for Santa. The girls sprinkled reindeer food on the porch so the reindeer would have a snack while Santa was inside.

Then we put out cookies for Santa and the girls opened their first presents,which were the gifts they made for each other.

We finally got them to bed around 9. They were soooo excited! Then it was time for "Santa's Helpers" to get to work. It was so much fun getting everything ready. By the end of the night we were tired but excited for the girls to wake up and see what Santa had brought.

One last picture of the room all ready for a magical morning : )

And here's a sweet video of the girls opening their presents for each other. Their reactions are so loving and sincere. It's moments like these that make being a parent so rewarding.

9 years

9 years ago when I was giddily driving away from our wedding reception with my HUSBAND (it was so cool calling him that!) I didn't really know all that marriage would entail. In my twitterpated, star-struck innocence I thought it would be a never ending eternal date full of movie nights, bowling, horse carriage rides, camping, traveling, breakfast in bed, dancing, snuggling, and romance romance romance, ALL THE TIME!

9 years later I can tell you that marriage is a little more involved than that.

For us it has also meant:

-Managing a budget

-Balancing in-laws

-Deciding on a Career

-Disagreeing on things

-Ups and downs of caring for children

-Organizing a household

-Midnight wakings to calm crying babies

-Trips to the urgent care and the ER

-Relocating to different parts of the country far away from family

All that being said, I've also been pleasantly surprised with the benefits of marriage I hadn't considered when I was a newlywed 21 year old. Things like:

-Having my own personal confidence coach and cheerleader

-Experiencing unconditional love

- Not having to go through hard things alone

-Working together to achieve big goals

-Knowing that someone has seen my every flaw and loves me anyway

-Being able to stay home with my children and not having to work

- Never having to worry about finding a date

-Saturday morning family cuddles with the girls in our bed

-And of course, romance romance romance, ALL THE TIME! ; )

Happy Anniversary to my best friend in the world.

We may have changed a bit in the last 9 years but you're still a perfect 10 to me : )

This week...

1) Monty was a good sport. The girls think he is one of their toys, and for the most part he puts up with their agenda for him.

Today he was their baby. I bet he'll be so happy when the real baby comes to keep them distracted.

Look how submissively he just lays in there. Such a good little sport.

2) Taber picked up some new skills at work. Not really HR related but this week he got some practice frying and carving turkeys. He and his plant leadership team fried up turkeys for every shift, I think they did over 25 turkeys in all.

This is what they cooked them in:
And these are the birds. They do this for the employees every quarter. Last time they boiled lobsters. Sometimes I wish they'd come to my house and make me dinner too!

3) We had to have emergency "tree surgery"to save our tree. A few days ago our tree stopped drinking water. Since we've never had a real tree we had no idea what was going on. Turns out the sap had gone to the bottom and clogged it up. Luckily we had the missionaries over and they kindly helped us move the tree, stabilize it, then saw off the bottom to give it a fresh chance to absorb water. Hopefully now it will last through Christmas!

4) And lastly, my good friend Darby came over the other day and noticed this random spot in our family room that I have no idea what to do with. She told me she had a big nativity display that would be perfect for it and asked if I wanted to use it.

She brought it over the other day and tonight we set it up.

I LOVE it!

Seriously it is the cutest thing ever, and I'm happy to finally have a useful purpose for that spot!

Thanks for the loan Darby, and that is the end of my random ramblings for this week. : )

A change in perspective

So I'm down to the last month or so of my pregnancy. I have 5 weeks until my due date and I'll admit, some days I really struggle. I've been trying to be upbeat and positive but the truth is, by the end of the day I just really hurt. My back aches so bad, my stomach feels stretched to the max, bending over is hard, picking up my kids is hard, walking up the stairs is hard, everything just feels hard. A couple of days ago I was trying to get dressed and I burst into tears because nothing fits. Nobody wants to buy more maternity clothes in their last month of pregnancy but I had to go out and buy 2 new shirts because I've outgrown everything else.

Then the other night I was having a pregnancy pity party and feeling quite miserable when Teya came in the room and asked to see my belly. I reluctantly lifted the bottom of my shirt so she could see "big baby." She began to rub my tummy and lovingly talk to "cutie cutie squishy big baby." To her delight he responded with some major rolling movements and a couple of visible kicks that made her giddy with laughter. She put her ear right against my tummy and begged him to do it again. "bump!" he nudged her ear and she erupted in laughter again. "He kicked me mom! Big baby kicked my ear!"

Her excitement was contagious and I forgot all about my pity party and got caught up in the miracle that is pregnancy. I guided her little hand to where I knew he would kick next and bump after bump she was rewarded with his energetic movements. We were both laughing so hard, it was exactly what I needed. When the movements settled down, Teya gave my belly once last hug then went to get ready for bed. My back still hurt and I still felt big, slow and tired, but I was smiling again and felt renewed energy to get through the next month carrying a very important load.

I'm grateful that my body is healthy and that I've had a healthy and safe pregnancy.

I'm grateful for my children who give me fresh perspective when I need it most.

I'm grateful for my husband who goes out of his way to make my load lighter.

And most of all I'm grateful that in a few short weeks our lives will be blessed with a baby in our home.

Thinking of that alone makes all the aches and pains seem worthwhile.

Kicking off Christmas

Over the last week we have really enjoyed getting into the spirit of Christmas. I've always loved this time of year but having kids makes it 10X's as magical!

Last Monday we went out in search of a Christmas tree.

Growing up, my dad was allergic to trees so we never had a real one. After we got married we always spent Christmas with our families so we never bothered to get a real one either. This year will be our first Christmas with just our little family so we decided it was time to get a real tree. After examining several lovely pines this was the winner the girls wanted to bring home.

Once we brought it home it was time to decorate! We turned on the Christmas music, popped some popcorn and warmed up hot cocoa to get us in the mood.

It took longer than we thought to decorate (especially with little hands "helping out") but once it was finished and we turned out the lights, the girls' eyes were sparkling with awe : )

Later in the week we bought some gingerbread houses to decorate. A lot of the decorations ended up in Brinley's and Monty's mouths, but I guess that's all part of the fun.

And here are the girls with their masterpieces.

We set them out as decorations and every once in awhile Brinley likes to stop by and pull off a candy or two for sampling.

To cap off our Christmas kickoff week we took the girls to the mall to see Santa. We went right when it opened hoping to avoid a line but we still waited over 30 minutes. At least they got to take a little train ride to pass the time.

Choo Choo! Off to see Mr. Claus!

When it was our turn Brinley ran up to Santa and gave him a HUGE hug. Such a contrast from last year when she was crying her eyes out.

They each took turns whispering their Christmas wishes to Santa. Teya asked for a Tangled Rapunzel tower and Brinley asked for a mermaid.

Santa told them to be good little girls and the nice thing is, they have been : )