Our Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve we celebrated with our traditional eggs, biscuits, and sausage dinner followed by opening presents from Mom and Dad. The kids all got much needed new pajamas.

Christmas morning the fun began at 7:30 a.m. Donald got some great new baby toys and he enjoyed the wrapping paper just as much as the toys!

Adrian was surprised by some Halo action figures! He loves that Master Chief came with a sniper rifle and the Arbiter had an energy sword. With money from his Call grandparents he bought a tank so Master Chief and the Arbiter have a cool vehicle to ride in.

Charlie got his much awaited Wall-E robot. He's been telling everyone for a couple months that this is what he was going to get. You plug Wall-E in to an Ipod or CD player and he'll dance to the music. Charlie loves being Wall-E's D.J.

Rock Band 2, from Grandpa Blodgett, brings joy to the whole family! The girls especially love singing and one of their favorites is Livin' on a Prayer. They also got some High School Musical doll sets.
I gave Dan a collection of family pictures in a frame and a scripture case. I made the scripture case based on the one his mom made him when he was 8. I can only say that she definitely wasn't a novice seamstress and I'm afraid I am so I hope this time it's the thought that counts. He got me some nice BYU shirts and a frame for a painting my Grandma gave me. I was also surprised by a new measuring cup! (I melted my favorite plastic one in the dishwasher a few days before Christmas.)

The day after Christmas we spent playing our new XBOX games from Grandma and Grandpa Weir, Legos Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. We've also begun our World Tour with Rock Band and we already have hundreds of thousands of fans.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas too!

One Week Before Christmas...

10 years ago, Rebecca Marie was born. She was such a fun Christmas present and I love celebrating her birthday. On December 12 we had her friend Mikayla sleep over. The two of them made brownies so we decided she should blow out candles while she had her friend over. She must have made a really important wish because she put her all into blowing out those 10 candles.
On Rebecca's birthday I brought Charlie and Donald to the school to watch their Christmas sing-a-long. Charlie loved sitting with Rebecca and her friends all through the program. Everyone did an excellent job. (On a side note, when the program was over Charlie stood up as every one was leaving and stomped his feet and yelled, "I didn't get to do my song!" I asked him to do his song for me so he sang, "Dun dun dun dun Everybody Dance Now!" I'm sure that would have gone over well with the entire school.)
After school we had friends over and made peanut butter popcorn and drank hot chocolate. We waited until Dad got home to open presents and she was so happy. I wish I could post the video but it's too long. I made her a collage of portraits of her lovely face. She got a dress with money from Grandparents. We also got her a cute shirt, a necklace with charms, and a Beautiful Bride Becky doll.

Here's the real birthday cake, chocolate chocolate! Yum. She's my kind of girl.

She wore her new dress to church today along with a new bracelet from her Aunt Jessie. (It fits her perfect and she loves it. Thanks Jess.)
Am I really old enough to have a 10 year old?! She's so grown-up!

Christmas Decorations

Not much to post right now, but here are some pictures of our decorations. It was time to post these before Christmas is over.


The Christmas tree in the light (of course you've already seen it in previous posts):

And in the dark:

Of course, the stockings were hung with care:

Our nativity set:

Donald really got into the spirit of things:

Special Day

We had a wonderful day celebrating our newest member of the church. Shari was baptized today. Shari's cousin James and Uncle Scott spoke about baptism and the fourth article of faith and Rebecca spoke about the Holy Ghost. It was such a nice program and so wonderful to see that special glow of excitement surrounding my sweet little Shari.


Shari said the water was nice and warm and she had a good feeling after she was baptized. It was so special to see her receive the Holy Ghost and I know she will be a strong member of the church and do all she can to follow the Spirit. We are so proud of our little Shari.

Thanksgiving

Here is a link to some pictures of our fun Thanksgiving weekend:

http://weir12.blogspot.com/2008/11/thanksgiving.html

It was extra special because my dad was here from Qatar. We started our Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday. I drove out to Provo to visit my sisters Katie and Melinda and my Dad. We managed to find a pretty dress for Shari's baptism day. It's black velvet with a satin bow and she looks so grown up in it. I know it might be a little contrary to the bridal gown most girls in our ward get for their baptism day but she liked it and it is something she can wear throughout the winter. Wednesday night my sister Shari and her family arrived which was a wonderful surprise. They had been planning on spending Thanksgiving in Elko so we felt really lucky.
Thursday we went up to Kaysville to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast at my Uncle Alan and Aunt Tere's. They really know how to celebrate! It was so much fun and included much eating and playing of Rock Band. The kids all had a blast playing with cousins and my Aunt Tere has the most fun toys in her basement.
Friday everyone came out to our house for another day of fun and eating. I thought I'd end up being so worn out but I was just so happy to have everyone visit. Happiness must generate some extra energy. The party ended at around 4 when we found out Molly received her mission call and it was waiting at the Gough's house in Provo. The Gough's and Dad and Melinda had to hurry home so they could open the call!
It was so special to hear Molly's reaction to Santiago, Chile!! I'm so excited for her and glad we still get her here until March 11 to help her get ready. Congratulations Molly.
Saturday we had to say goodbye to the Kurtz family which was sad. We jumped right into getting the house cleaned up so we could get out the Christmas decorations. They look wonderful. I love Christmas. I'll be posting those pictures soon.
Saturday evening Donald was acting sick and kept me up most of the night. Sunday him and I stayed home from church and today I rushed him to the Dr. He has croup again. Ugh. Right now he's actually sleeping so I get to rest a little myself. For my rest I get to empty the dishwasher, clean the kitchen a little and fold the clothes. So relaxing.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.

Montana Trip

Last weekend we traveled to Montana. We left on Thursday after work and spent the night in Idaho. We stayed at a hotel with nice rooms. The best feature (according to Dan) was the large plasma TV's in the rooms. The kids enjoyed having their own room; Rebecca even said that the roll-out bed was more comfortable than her own bed. Donald didn't enjoy the hotel much, but that's probably because he had spent all night strapped down in his car seat instead of crawling around. Shari was really excited about the hotel breakfast. She was so excited, in fact, that she decided to eat enough for three or four breakfasts.

The next day we finished our drive to Hamilton. It was a long drive, but the combination of a portable DVD player and individual headphones for the kids made for a quiet trip. We were up there for Grandma (and great-Grandma) Blodgett's funeral. We went to the family home for the afternoon and visited with aunts, uncles, and cousins. That night we went to another hotel and swam for a while before bed.

The funeral was on Saturday. It started with a family meeting. Dan's dad said a few words at the beginning and then invited people to share their memories. Everyone was kind of emotional, and only RaeAnn managed to say anything. Dan offered a family prayer to end that meeting. The funeral services were nice and gave the kids an opportunity to learn more about their great-grandma. They especially liked to hear how much she liked swimming and music. The cemetary service was next at the Hamilton cemetery and was followed by a lunch back at the church. The whole set of ceremonies was nice and gave us all an opportunity to remember Grandma. It's nice to know that she is back with her husband and other family members, but we will miss her. We are also really glad we got to go visit her last summer when we were able to.

After the ceremony, we went to Blodgett cemetary with the rest of Dan's family. It was nice to visit there and see his mom's gravesite. All of the Blodgett cousins were there, so we got a picture of them (Judy Gail was sleeping, so she missed it).

Sarah also decided to take a picture of all the brothers and sisters that were there (Craig and Brett weren't able to go).

The next morning we got up and started the long drive back home. We ended up making a lot of stops for bathroom breaks, but made it home eventually. The highlight of the trip home was lunch. We stopped at a restaurant in Idaho Falls. The food was good, and the kids had fun playing Mad Libs on their placemats. Of course, our favorite part of the meal was that the restaurant was called "Shari's Restaurant."

Just for a Laugh

My Happy Birthday

It used to be that I would get to the end of a year and think, "Could life possibly get any more difficult?" and then it would. Now I find myself thinking, "Could life possibly be any happier?" and then it is!

Every birthday Dan surprises me with how thoughtful and generous he is. I am so thankful that he loves me and that I found him.
This year he bought me a lovely blue bathrobe. It's so fuzzy and warm all the kids wanted to keep hugging me just to feel my fuzzy bathrobe. It's just what I wanted for my early morning rendezvous with Donald. It's a cold walk from my room to his and my robe keeps me so warm. Dan also bought me the movie Get Smart. We saw it this summer for our anniversary and I thought it was so funny. I also got a beautiful alexandrite necklace. It matches my engagement ring and Valentines Day earrings so when I have the whole set on I feel like royalty.
Dan made me a delicious breakfast of eggs and donuts. Then he took me out to Wingers for lunch. He made me a fudge marble birthday cake and decorated it with M&Ms and a yummy taco dinner. (I hope it's true that you can't gain weight on your birthday.)
Thank you to everyone that wished me a Happy Birthday. I'm blogging to report that it was very happy.
Do I look like I'm 31? I kind of think I look like the Cookie Monster.

Primary Performance

This is one day I wish I could bring a camera into the chapel! It's been 4 years since I've been able to see my kids perform in a primary program.
We missed the year after hurricane Katrina because we had almost no primary and I left Mississippi right before they finally decided to do one, and 2006 and 2007 the kids happened to be with Parker on primary performance Sunday, so I've been looking forward to this all year! Shari was asked to give a talk about looking forward to her Baptism. She did a beautiful job and had the longest part in the program. Rebecca had a part about Alma and how Heavenly Father answered the prayers of Alma and his people when they were in bondage. It was so beautiful because I know she has such a strong testimony of prayer. Adrian's part was about preparing for his mission by being faithful and obedient! I was so excited because most days he says he'd rather play football than go on a mission. It was Adrian's first primary program and he used to never sing, so it was extra special to see him singing along, knowing all the words. Charlie got through his part without making any funny sounds into the microphone or cracking any jokes, but the congregation still managed to laugh a little because he's just so darn cute.
I breathed easier once Charlie moved away from the microphone but little did I know it was just the beginning. They started singing Called to Serve and Charlie had no idea what the words were so he just sang AAHHH as loud as he could. He stayed on rhythm and tune and when they got to the "onward ever onwards" he knew the words so he sang and danced. The funny thing was they had him right next to the stairs leaving the stand so I was scared the whole time he was going to dance his way down the stairs. He didn't know the words to any of the other songs so he continued to wow us with his beautiful AAAHHHs and everyone around us was laughing so hard. Not to mention the fact that he didn't always stop singing when everyone else did. At one point he was so wiggly he knocked his chair down the stairs next to him and soon after that a member of our bishopric had to stop him from hanging off the front of the stand. Then Charlie was invited to sit next to the bishopric and he was bribed with a mint so he sat still for the rest of the program.
Sacrament meeting goes by so fast on Primary Program Sunday.

My next favorite weekend story also has to do with my rowdy boys. On Saturday night the boys were playing rowdy with Dan so he decided to have a "who can hit the lightest" contest. So Charlie hit Dan really light and then Adrian hit Dan even lighter and then Dan shoved them both and knocked them on their backs. They thought it was so hilarious because, apparently that is how boys like to play. We thought at that point they got the joke and would hit harder in the next round. Dan challenged them to another contest of who can hit the lightest and they were both super careful and Dan knocked them off their feet. By then me and Dan were laughing so hard and Adrian yells, "Dad keeps letting us win!!" They wanted to keep playing and loved getting knocked over and everytime they won! I just love boys.

Happy Birthday Shari

Our little Shari turned 8 yesterday! She celebrated in true Shari style. She wanted to bring something to hand out to her class. I was against sweets and candy so she wanted to bring little stretchy sticky plastic bugs and reptiles. They were a huge hit. When I went to pick her up from school I kept seeing frogs and lizards held by kids of all ages. I asked Shari how so many kids got her stretchy animals and she said that after class people thought they were so cool they kept coming up to her and asking her if they could have one and of course, she kept giving them away. She ended up bringing enough home that I was able to bribe everyone to get their jobs and homework done so they could have one too.
For dinner she wanted crock-pot italian chicken, or as we like to call it "Aunt Shari's chicken". For her birthday cake she wanted cinnamon streusel cake with cookie dough ice cream on the side. It was an interesting combination. I loved it because it involved no frosting and I could make it at the last minute because breakfast cake is always better warm. Then she got to play with her presents until bed time. She is a super sweet 8 year old.

Here she is before unwrapping presents.

Shari got a shirt, a peek-a-boo petites doll playset

and some dolls to go with it. Could it be my 7 month old is

almost as big as my 8 year old! He looks so huge.

I think Shari is fascinated by fire. She blew out

her candles so slowly. I don't think anyone ever told

her she has to blow them all out at once.

I wish I knew what her wish was.

This morning we finished off her cake for breakfast. She said the prayer and it was so sweet. She prayed that she would have a good baptism and asked Heavenly Father to help her be a good member of the church. Where did I get this girl? She is such an angel.
For those of you who might be able to make it, we are going to be having her baptism December 6. She's so excited!

Halloween

Halloween finally arrived last night; not nearly fast enough for Charlie. We started the night by having homemade jack 'o lantern pizza.


Everyone got dressed up in their costumes. Rebecca was a bat princess, Shari was a chubby witch, Adrian was a baseball player, and Charlie was a ninja.



Rebecca went trick-or-treating with her friend Mikayla in Stockton. The rest of us went around our neighborhood. It rained a little bit off and on, but everyone had a good time. The kids started out by running from house to house and were so excited to see all the decorations. As the night went on, they slowed down to a walk, and were soon tired of carrying their bags that had too much candy.

For more pictures, you can see the album at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/SarahDBlodgett/Halloween200802

Could You Forgive Him?

We were planning a fun trip to Boise this weekend. We had the kids all packed and ready to leave Thursday morning. Unfortunately Wednesday night was less than great with my sick baby. He was suddenly awake that entire night crying and coughing. It was so yucky. On top of that his soft spot was swollen again! What is up with that? I sat up most of the night holding him and trying to help him rest.

In the morning I had to wake the kids up for school when they'd been anticipating a day off. I was so sad for them. When I told the girls we weren't going to Boise to visit Grandpa because Donald was sick Rebecca burst into tears. Throughout the morning she was crying off and on and was so sad that Shari eventually started crying too. I managed to get them off to school and take Donald into the Dr. He was diagnosed with the croup and had to have a shot and breathing treatment. He was so crabby all day.

When the kids got home from school we met them on the lawn and Donald gave them all this sweet little smile. I asked them if they could possibly forgive him for messing up our plans for Boise and they said, Of Course! I hope all of our family in Boise can forgive him too. We miss you guys and wish we'd been able to make it there. We hope you have a Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins

Last week in Primary the missionaries gave a lesson during Sharing Time. The primary President asked the kids if they had any questions for the missionaries so Charlie raised his hand and said, "Do you want to come over to my house and see my pumpkins?" They weren't even carved yet but he was so excited to have pumpkins. Since the end of September every time we have been to Walmart Charlie has begged us to buy pumpkins. We finally bought them last weekend and every day this week we've been asked when we would carve them.
Well, the day finally came on Saturday. After our Saturday chores we carved our pumpkins and Charlie wants to play with them constantly. This morning he woke up and came downstairs and they weren't in their usual spot. (Dan and I can't put them on the porch because our street is to busy and we have too many punk kids going up and down our street that would think it was funny to crush them and so crush all of Charlie's happiness, so we put them in the garage.) Needless to say, Charlie looked all over the entire house to include the backyard and finally found them in the garage. He came in laughing and smiling and telling everyone not to worry, the pumpkins are safely in the garage!

I hope you can all enjoy pumpkins as much as Charlie does!

Zweiback Toast

This blog is dedicated to my mom. Zweiback toast reminds me of my mother because she would teach her babies to eat with it. It also reminds me of my baby brothers and sisters because I LOVED watching them eat Zweiback toast. I remember watching Molly suck on her toast when she was a baby and she was so adorable.
Donald is pretty cute too so I couldn't stop taking pictures of him eating his first toast. He loved it!

Red Ribbon Week

For those of you who don't know, Red Ribbon Week is the week we celebrate NOT doing drugs.
We celebrated last week and this is how:
Monday: Hat Day, "Wear your hats and let's say hats off to those who stay away from drugs."

Tuesday: Inside Out Day, "Drugs will turn you inside out." (Adrian chose not to participate.)
Wednesday: Crazy Sock Day, "Doing drugs is crazy."
(There is no photo for this day because I was at the ER until 2 a.m. and it was a miracle that we even got up to get kids to school. They all wore cute crazy socks but I was never motivated enough to take a picture.)

Thursday: Backwards Day, "Drugs make you feel all backwards." (Again, Adrian was a non-participant but he wanted to be in the picture because he said he looked awesome.)

Friday: Red Day, "Wear red to symbolize your commitment to say no to drugs." (Also no picture for this day.)

Apparently preschool was on a different red ribbon schedule and I was unaware so on the day Charlie was supposed to wear red he went to school with his clothes inside out. His teacher probably thought I didn't know how to dress him. We did however get Thursday right for him which was, "Use your head, don't do drugs, crazy hair day!"

Teeth Again!?

Well, on Wednesday night Donald got another tooth! Can babies have excess brain fluid from teething!? Apparently ours can. We don't know that for sure, but along with teething he's had a fever, 2 ear infections, a swollen soft spot, and now a bizarre rash. We took him in to the Dr. for his follow-up yesterday and he seemed to think everything was a-o.k. The only problem is that Donald refuses to take his antibiotic. You might ask who is the adult here and why can't I make him take it? Well, we tried forcing it down his throat, mixing it in his milk, and stirring it into his applesauce. Needless to say, he gets shots instead. Poor thing.
Donald is not quite back to his normal lovely self yet. I needed sleep last night because another side effect of teething is migraines for mom, so I asked Dan to wake up with Donald. Usually it's just a couple times but last night Donald really wanted some extra quality time with his Daddy so he was up at 10:50, 12:00, 12:45, 1:30, 2:00, 3:20, 4:50, 6:00, 7:00, and every half hour after that until I left the room with him at 9:00.
Now he's sleeping in dad's lap; preparing for his next big night!

Waiting...

Donald has had a low grade fever for a couple of days. Yesterday afternoon I noticed his soft spot was swollen and I called our nurse hotline. The RN I spoke with said, "Page your Dr. and if he doesn't answer in 30 minutes go to the ER." I called the Dr. and told them I would be coming in that evening around 7. At the Dr's office I was told to take him to Primary Children's Medical Center ER for a lumbar puncture or spinal tap.

It was 8:30 p.m. before Dan and I were able to head to the hospital. Thankfully our neighbor, Meredith, came to sit with our kids. There are angels in this world! At the ER we waited...an hour and a half later we were put in a room and there we did a lot more waiting. They decided not to do the spinal tap because it doesn't seem like Donald has meningitis. Instead they did a CT scan to make sure he doesn't have any blockages in his spine. It wasn't horrible because Donald was very calm. Then we waited some more for results. The Dr. came in and said they have no idea why he has excess fluid on his brain but he does have an ear infection so he said he'd give us a prescription for that. We waited another hour to be told we could leave by a discharge nurse. We didn't get home until 2 a.m.

Hopefully the fluid will go away as will the fever and fussiness, so here we are again, waiting...

More Teeth

This week it was all about teeth. On Wednesday I went to Provo to pick up Molly after she had 4 wisdom teeth removed. Poor little thing. When I got home to pick up my kids I discovered that Donald has his first tooth! He bit me.
Molly was out of it for a couple of days and then we nursed her back to health with burnt cream of wheat (I've never made it before), applesauce, and yogurt. By the last day she was here we were able to feed her rice and ice cream. It was so fun to have her here even though she wasn't her normal self. Her cheeks didn't look very swollen at all. We drove her back to Provo Sunday evening and I was so sad to see her go. I hope your feeling better Molly.
Last night I think it was another big teething night for Donald because he was awake crying for an hour with no good reason. He was fed, his diaper was changed, he was cuddled up with mommy, he had a pacifier, what more does one kid need? I finally gave him some tylenol and he zonked out 10 minutes later. It could be the tylenol or just that he'd worn himself out finally. Let's hope we don't have many more nights like that.

October!

Are you ready for Halloween? Charlie has been ready for Halloween ever since school started! This weekend we went to Provo to visit family and buy shoes and clothes for school kids and of course vampire teeth for Charlie. Now that he's got vampire teeth all he can think about is buying pumpkins to make jack-o-lanterns.

Back to Work

Here is Donald in his home office. He spins around in this thing like he's an important executive officer of a huge corporation. It's wonderful to see how motivated he is to play with each toy when he needs to.

Rebecca got her hair cut last weekend and it's been a fun change.
I also wanted to include the recipe for one of our favorite fun family snacks. We usually make it on Sunday evenings so I thought I'd share.

Peanut Butter Popcorn
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. corn syrup
1/4 c. butter
Mix the above ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then add 1 c. peanut butter and 1 tsp vanilla.
Pour the mixture over popcorn. We usually pop a cup of popcorn.

Have a fun first day of fall!

Adrian's First Lost Tooth

Adrian lost his first tooth yesterday. Actually, he didn't lose it so much as he had it yanked out by Sarah. Apparantly, one of her favorite things to do is pull teeth from kids. After working on if off and on for the last few weeks, it finally came out last night.

Adrian got a visit from the tooth fairy last night and even got to keep his tooth to go along with the money. He liked that so much that he decided he wanted another tooth pulled tonight, but we didn't pull any.

Here's Sarah practicing her dentistry skills on Adrian.

After much pulling the tooth finally came out.

Adrian was excited to show off the tooth, but not as excited as Donald. Maybe Donald just wanted the tooth for himself.