March Round-up

A quick end of month post:

Aani joined her brother in the world of orthodontia, and got braces. 2 kids in braces is expensive. 

Addie went cross-eyed.

Aani got sick and fell asleep at the doctor's office. 

FHE with the Chandlers at Thanksgiving Point.

The basement: It's what we do. It will be done one day, probably. That will be fun! We've got big plans, but not a lot of money. :) 

Surgery, hover boards, & drywall

The last month has mostly entailed my mom's surgery/recovery, and a whole lot of drywall. There's been some other stuff, too.

Here we are, the morning of the big double knee replacement. My brother Kevin and I act like juveniles whenever we're together, so I'm sure my mom was just thrilled that it was the two of us that were at the hospital with her all that day. 

Pre-op

 Funny coincidence: My mom's orthopedic surgeon also happens to have been Nils' mission president. He doesn't remember Nils, but sure is good at pretending he does. We saw him a few years ago at Costco, and Nils talked to him then. It was obvious he knew that an "Elder" was talking to him, but had no idea which one. So of course, on the morning of our mom's surgery, my brother HAD to remind the doctor that my husband was one of his missionaries. The doctor graciously asked what his name is, and then said, "Oh yeah! Ok...yeah!" Then we took a picture together, because, you know, that's normal. He really is the nicest guy ever. An excellent doctor, and he was an excellent mission president, too. He straightened Nils, and my mom's knees right out. ;)

The surgery took many hours, so we went to Kevin's house and rode hover boards. Also a normal thing to do. We made it back to the hospital in plenty of time, don't fret.

My poor mom. The surgery went well, and her knees are fantastic. Her recovery was complicated, however. Right after the surgery, she started suffering from excruciating nerve pain in her hip and groin, and no one could figure out what was going on. She couldn't lay on her back because it hurt the nerve too much, and sometimes the only comfortable position was sitting on the edge of her bed. She suffered with this pain for weeks and it was horrid. No complaints about having BOTH OF HER KNEES REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME; it was this random nerve pain that nearly killed her. She was put on some crazy pain meds to control it. After a couple of weeks on that, she stopped taking it and went through withdrawals, which made her nearly lose her mind. She's home now and still recovering, but is doing much better. It will be a couple months still before she can get back to her normal routine, but she already notices a huge difference in her knees. 

Take care of your knees, kids. 

In other news, Anders made the high honor roll. We're pretty sure he was switched at birth, because there is no way he's our biological child. He's in all the honors classes AND gets on the high honor roll? Switched or not, we'll keep him, so that he can support us in our old age with his millions.
P.S. Anders loooooves jr. high, for real. Again- switched at birth.

Went to parent teacher conference, and this was hanging in the hall outside Ava's class. Between the high honor roll and Ava's New Year's goal to "reall the scriptures", we were feeling a little braggy.

Here's little old lady Ava on the 100th day of school.

Anders wanted to go to the Salt Lake Temple to do baptisms. Nils and I were married here and haven't been back inside since (we usually go to Timp), so it was pretty fun to go with our boy. He really wants to go to the Provo City Center Temple, but we'll probably have to wait until it's not the coolest temple in town. So many temples around here! #templeproblems

The other big news around here: DRYWALL. We had about 4 billion sheets of drywall delivered. They put it in the garage, and I tried helping bring it downstairs. Drywall so heavy. I lost my ability to grip after about 45 minutes, so I wasn't actually that helpful. Lots of guys from our street came and helped, which was so nice. Nils has been working his hiney off in the basement. There's only one bedroom left to drywall, and then we'll have the mudders and tapers come. It's gettin' real around here!

Hey- Happy Leap Day. Such an exciting day.

January Haps, Words Only

I have taken 4 pictures in the last month, and none of them are interesting, so this is a text only post.

BIRTHDAYS AND BASEMENT:

We finished up birthdays last week, hallelujah! This was supposed to be the off year for parties, but when we asked Anders what "fun activity" he wanted to do for his birthday, he just wanted to watch some of the movies he hasn't seen. So, we let him invite a few friends over and they had a movie marathon. For journaling's sake, he invited Isaac, Isaiah, Elias, Caleb, and Jaden. 12-13 year old boys are super annoying. Non-stop talking, repeating one-liners over and over, laughing like school girls, etc. I hid in our room the whole time they were all over. Nils tried watching one of the movies with them, but he couldn't handle it. Anders has a good group of friends, so no complaints about the quality of them. They're lovely boys individually. In a herd, they're tolerable for 10 minutes at most.

On a related note, the basement is coming along nicely, which will be fantastic for our mental health when the kids' friends come over. Nils works hard on it when he's able, and progress is being made! He put the first couple panels of sheetrock up today. Our goal is to have it done by April. Hopefully it will be sooner! It's pretty roomy down there; we'll have 3 bedrooms, an exercise room, a theater area, kitchenette, family room, and bathroom. The kitchenette will have to go in later, and we're going to paint the concrete floor and put throw rugs down until we can save up for carpet. Everyone is excited for it to be usable space, and when it's ALL done it will be amaze-ballz.

Addie had her birthday as well, and had friends over for a movie and games. Same deal. We put food out, provided the movie, and disappeared. They're old enough to entertain themselves, right? I think they loved it. She invited Lina, Emi, Yennika, and Ben. Ben didn't come because he didn't clean his room. Or maybe he was scared of being the only boy? Ben is one of Addie's best friends from school, and we think it's hilarious that they get along so well. Last summer we went to the city's "Saratoga Splash" celebration at the park, and Addie ran into Ben there. At the end of the evening, Nils found the two of them sitting on a bench watching fireworks together. No words.

NEW KNEES FOR GRANDMA:

My mom is getting both of her knees replaced this next week. She's a stubborn woman and has been dealing with stiffness and pain for several years. She finally went to an orthopedic surgeon to see if she could get injections, and he couldn't believe she was able to function at all with how bad her knees are. She told him that she mows her own lawn, and he didn't believe her. Her knees are totally deformed because of arthritis, and he told her there was nothing they could do for her except replace them. It's bad enough now that she's having a hard time doing normal things, like going to the grocery store. This surgery will give improve her quality of life a great deal. The recovery is expected to be hellish, but it will be worth it. #prayersforgrandmasnewknees

JUST GET THE COAT ALREADY:

The last time I bought a parka-style coat was about 15 years ago, and I have been freezing my hiney off every winter ever since. I would go shopping for coats, and could never bring myself to pull the trigger, thinking "oh, it's just a couple more months, I can tough it out, " or "I just need to wear a hoodie under my million-year old coat and I'll be fiiiiine." Well, one night I was lying in my bed searching the interwebs for new coats for my girls, and I decided to get myself a coat. The warmest coat in all the land. And I did, and it's amazing, and I'm never cold when I wear it. I can't believe I waited 15 years to be warm. I wonder where I get my stubbornness from. *cough* MOM! *cough cough*

IDENTITY CRISIS:

I'm on the brink of an identity crisis. I've been feeling it coming on for quite awhile. What am I going to do next school year when all of my kids are in school all day? What's the purpose of my life? What am I good at? What don't I hate? I don't want to get a job just to have a job. I already graduated from college and have very little interest in going that route again. Help me, Obi Wan!

I have thought about starting a blog- ANOTHER blog, about how I do things. I can write, I don't hate writing (bonus), and I do stuff sometimes. Something along the lines of "The Underachiever Mom", but not so self-deprecating that it's sad, or rude to the overachievers. Because overachievers need to be loved, too. It also needs to not be so underachieving that it looks like crap and is unappealing. Thoughts? I'm serious- I need validation, people.

December=so much fun=tired & poor

What a month! We start December out with a bang with Ava's birthday on the 1st. She's six! 

Her current interests are: Shopkins, Lego Friends, American Girl dolls (she doesn't know the difference between Target dolls and American Girl dolls, and we're going to ride this train as long as we can), Play-doh, etc. She's funny and sweet, loves friends, mac n cheese, and snuggling. 

We start birthdays out first thing in the morning by opening presents. Then Nils takes the birthday kid out to breakfast. They usually want to go to Kneaders, and Nils loves it, because he looooooves their french toast. 

Friends from the old 'hood and new 'hood at the birthday bash.

All of the party guests hit the pinata about 4 times, and nothing was happening. I took a swing and it exploded.

Clearly, I was surprised by this, which amused Nils greatly.

Birthdays out! For 36 days!

The kids had lots of performances this month. Aani had her first class play, Character Matters 2. She was amazing, of course. I mean, she really killed it as Little Red Riding Hood!

And Gretel!

Anders had his Christmas band concert. The boy's doing pretty well on that ol' French horn. He was promoted from beginning brass into concert band. We pray he continues to love band, and the horn, so they will pay for his college. SCHOLARSHIP INSTRUMENT!

Lucky kids to have a Nana, GrandPar, and Grandma come to their stuff.

Addie's class performed "A Christmas Carol", and Addie had like 6 parts. She's quite the little actress. Addie has grown up a lot in the last year or so. She's got a solid group of friends and seems like a pretty happy kid. She's currently filling the role of walking encyclopedia, as her brother did in 5th grade. He had the same teacher, who fills these kids with fascinating facts that they MUST SHARE AT ALL TIMES.

Nana was captivated!

Umm, we got solar panels? Nils is very excited by this, and I'm pretty on the fence. If our power bills decrease significantly (as promised), then I'll be excited too. :)

I wasn't feeling like braving Temple Square this year. Too cold, too crowded, too lazy. So we drove the Thanksgiving Point lights instead. They're pretty good, but no Temple Square. Next year!

Christmas Eve:

Holiday weight gain? Bring it.

Hey look, it's Nils!

Weirdos

Christmas Day:

Best Christmas picture ever.

Electric guitar and amp. Guess who can't wait for the basement to be finished? (Me!)

All they wanted for Christmas!

Ava with Sophie and Ginger. She wanted to name the red head Pumpkin, and we were able to convince her the Ginger was a good name, too. Haha!

2015 has been a crazy, tiring, productive, and blessed year for us. We feel settled in our home and have worked hard to get to that point. We are in a near-constant state of awe at all of our blessings, and hope that we can continue to recognize them and remember where they come from. We're not the coolest, richest, most attractive, or most popular people ever; but we consider ourselves pretty darn lucky, and know that the big man upstairs gets the credit.

Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Goodness

We had a delightful Thanksgiving. I love me a good Thanksgiving, and this year did not disappoint. 5 of the siblings from my family attended, as well as my mom, Nils' parents, and my sister-in-law's sister, who may as well be our sister. I think there were 35 people crammed into my brother's house. It was fantastic!

(Please don't mind my stink-face in the pictures below. This is my "concentration face". I was concentrating on fitting as much food as possible on my plate. I couldn't have the gravy touching the Jell-O, no way.)

Kevin and Tonya, the gracious hosts

Year 2 of Uncle Greg putting together a relay race. Families compete against each other to string a necklace, shoot soda-can turkeys with a BB gun, and eat something unreasonable. This year, the winner family took home a garden gnome to keep for the year. They also get to host Thanksgiving next year. :) 

Rodger was happy he won (before he knew winning entailed hosting, haha!)

I found this cute "Minion reasons to be thankful" idea on Pinterest and thought it would be fun for the kids to make their own minions. Nils spent about 5 hours getting all the pieces cut out on the Silhouette. It was worth it, because the kids loved it, and they turned out super, super cute. Thanks, NilsyNils! 

So much dessert. Nils and Natasha had a contest all night to eat the most desserts. Natasha started out in the lead, and every time Nils would get another dessert, she would get one. Nils capped out at 12, Natasha at 13. I don't even know how this is possible. 

We put up Christmas decorations tonight. Crazy that it's that time of year already! 

I made these stockings, and they turned out pretty cute, in my humble opinion. I got my sewing fix for the decade. Sewing really does stress me out. I don't know how people craft to de-stress. It honestly makes me crazy. I have the ability, and I enjoy the finished product, but I don't enjoy the process. I don't know what to make of that. Can someone analyze me, please? 

(The small stocking is for the dog, FYI, haha.)

This dog

Love these little snots. They're good little snots. 

Ava turns 6 tomorrow, and I'm trying not to be sad about it. They're growing up a little too fast.