So Behind!

Wow, I can't believe how behind I've gotten!!  At this point, there won't be any updating until after the 1st.  I'm up in Montana with my sister and brother in law, and so I'm not going to spend hours updating when I could be visiting :)  Here's some updates, though.  Christmas with friends, skiing with my brother in law and Brad, hanging out with my sis-in-law while the guys ski again, card games, beautiful days, and New Years!!!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 19

Well, today just seemed to fly by, and to tell the truth, we didn't do ANYTHING related to Christmas!  Well, I organized presents, and make a pile of what needs to be wrapped.  Does that count? :)  I think it's the the fizzle as I get closer to Christmas...I'm getting burned out!  OH!  I looked up tons of recipes and cute appetizers for our Christmas dinner :)  There we go, Christmas activity!

Anyways, Grace is doing well.  She's got another nasty double sty on the bottom right eyelid that looks nasty sore.  Dangit.  I wish she could just be healthy, with NO issues, for...4 months straight AT LEAST!  Even in the summer she was getting sick.  So now it's warm compresses on her eye, which I might add, she HATES.

That's pretty much it for today.  Not much to share.

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 18

Shew has today been busy!  This morning I went grocery shopping, and then Grace and I had oatmeal.  When I had made the apple pies yesterday, I kept the syrup from when I was reconstituting the dried apples.  It was so thick with cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg, along with apple that I just COULDN'T throw it away!  So I poured some of that into the oatmeal and I must say that was the most I've seen Grace eat in a long time!  Then she and I went to the police station and fire station to drop off the pictures of us giving them the cookies awhile back, then we went to Walmart to buy cards for family and friends, and then we filled them with various pictures that finally came in the mail, sent them off at the post office, and then I HAD to come home before I pulled my hair out!  Grace was going CRAZY because she was so bored!  While she slept I made applesauce (YUMMY!), did the dishes, put together my scrapbook a bit more, wrote in her preschool memory books and put in some of the papers from her classes, and cleaned my sewing room a bit.  Deep breath... now I'm writing this while watching "Hart of Dixie" and Grace is in her room playing with Mariah, her play therapist.  Later we will go on errands with Daddy, and see what else comes of the evening :)

Here's some cute pictures of Grace turning the light off with some help from her stool!

Up she goes :)

Wa Bam!  It's off!

"Look ma!"

By the way...can you believe that the high for today is 27 degrees?  And when I went grocery shopping this morning, at 7:30 am, it was 20 degrees?  WOW!!


Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 17

Darnit, I missed a day again! Monday was pretty uneventful.  We had sundaes while watching a Christmas movie together, which is always fun.  It was really cute because Grace actually asked for ice cream.  I told her we would have some, and then I went about making dinner, and she kept saying, "Ice Teem?"  It was so darn cute!  Reese's ice cream with whipped cream, nuts, chocolate syrup and milk is WONDERFUL!!!  Monday was also a therapy day but we kept her home since her nose is still running a bit.  No need to share germs!  OH!  I made pies and bread!  Dutch apple pie (2), and blueberry apple cinnamon bread (6 small loaves).  Yum yum!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 16

So far, it's been a nice day.  The snow has been falling the last couple days and so we have a nice 3 inches or so outside, which is just absolutely beautiful!  I have cleaned the house a bit while I let Brad sleep in, and I got his presents ready for him to open when we get home from church :)  I will be making him dinner, and there are a lot of yummy treats I got him so we can watch a movie and snack together :)  Can you believe it's been 6 years already!!  Grace will probably hang out with us too, but that just makes it even nicer.  To see this little one that we created with love makes me smile all the time.  Well, I better get ready for church.  I will be modifying this blog with pictures once we have our evening, so stay tuned!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 15

Today we went to lunch with our friends to Pizza Pie Cafe!  It's their anniversary on the 18th, and we are on the 16th, and so I invited them so we could share a celebratory lunch together :)  It was a lot of fun, we visited for quite a while after we finished eating, and it's just lovely to have these great friends!  They came over that evening too, and we watched some tv for a while, but then we had so much fun!  We played Wii dancy party, and their three kids played together.  And then it was Brad and Garon's turn, and than Mysha and I!!  We had lots of laughs, and Grace even got involved.  She was supposed to be in bed hours ago but had gotten messed up on her sleep schedule because of going out to lunch, and so I brought her down.  She had SUCH a great time dancing with all of us, and I was so glad I had decided to bring her down :)  They left at around 11:30, and then Brad and I watched a movie together before heading to bed.  Another great day!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 14

Gosh I'm definitely falling behind!  I'm having a bit of trouble keeping the days right, but I'll do my best.  This was Friday, and since she didn't have any school, we hung out at home.  Of course, we watched another Christmas movie!  And we also got one of the presents that I bought for Brad for our Anniversary!  So that's pretty exciting.  Our friends will be coming over for Christmas to play games, have dinner, and just have fun (Probably play the dance game on the Wii) and so I've been talking with Grace about what we should eat for Christmas dinner.  We figured we would stay down here since Ryan didn't get to spend Thanksgiving with family, and we didn't want him down here alone again.  Plus, I work Saturday, which is when we would travel to family.  So, long story short, we will celebrate our first Christmas in our new house this year!  Grace is still pretty backed up with phlegm, and so we are hoping it will clear up over time, on it's own, without having to get a doctor involved again.  Our friends invited us to there house for dinner, which was so fun!  We had some extra yummy beef stew, and then they came to our house to play dice!  They are really enjoying that game, and it's especially fun to play with them :)  So that was our fun Countdown day 14.  If you haven't noticed, we've gone away from our list.  Sometimes, plans change.  And at this point, it looks like plans are changing to just having something fun to do each day that we wouldn't normally do!  That works for us!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 13

Sorry I missed updating for day 13!  I'm a day late, but that's ok!  Grace had her last day of preschool yesterday, and so when we went for her open house, we got to make a reindeer ornament!  The face was the outline of her foot and the antlers were her hand prints :)  This was so fun to make with her!  Then we just got to visit with other parents, her teachers, and just relax while she showed me everything in her classroom.  Then after that she had therapy (speech), and then play therapy at home, and then her teachers came over (from BYU-I preschool) to do their wrap-up for the semester!  So it was a super busy day yesterday, but that's definitely how I like it!  

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 12

Well, another crazy day :)  You know how you plan things, and then things change?  Well, the past couple days have been that way!  Today Grace got to go play with "Uncle Garon" for a while (THANK YOU!) while I went to an appointment and Daddy took a nap.  Then I had a friend over while she napped and we sewed skirts together!!  I will count that as our "Countdown Activity" today because they were skirts for the humanitarian center!  A little later Grace and I had an appointment, and then I went to clean a building for a couple hours, and now, as I type, she's in her bed SCREAMING because she doesn't want to go to sleep yet!  So, I guess I better go get her...after I get a bagel so we can snack together while we watch "Hart of Dixie!"

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 11

Well, another yucky day and so Grace didn't get to go to school  It was her second to last day of school before the Winter break comes, so I'm really hoping this yuck goes away enough so she can go to the open house on Thursday!  So we ran some errands, had a hot dog lunch at Sams Club, and while Grace was taking a nap, I wrote some more of my book :)  Then our friends brought over cookies!  And so we are counting that as our "countdown" activity for today!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 10

Monday, another sick day.  Darnit.  There was no therapy today either since she's feeling yucky.  SO we pretty much just had a lazy day.  It's not really keeping up with our countdown, but time slows down when we have sickies in the house :)

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 9

Today was church day, but sadly, Grace was sick, and so she and Daddy had to stay home while I went to church.  Then afterwards our friends came over and we watched a few episodes of "Merlin" and then played a few games of dice!  It's so hard to do anything "scheduled" when little miss isn't feeling well!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 8

This was so exciting!  We went to a show at BYU-I and had such a great time!  There was an awesome jazz music group, and vocalists that did amazing jobs.  What was the funnest?  The Christmas friends were there!  Frosty the Snowman, Santa, The Grinch and Rudolph!  So fun :)

There will be pictures on her other blog since I can't put any on this one.

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 7

Today was pretty fun today :)  Grace had her last day of BYU-I preschool...ok, well that was pretty sad...she will really miss her teachers and classmates, and the teachers were pretty emotional too.  No one cried, but you could see it in their faces.  Thankfully, one of the teachers made a video of the kids time in the class, and so that's awesome to know we will have forever!  After that we made cookies and cookies and cookies and cookies!  Gosh there were so many cookies!  These ones were butterscotch pudding chocolate chip cookies.  In the afternoon we went to the fire station and police station with bags of cookies so they could have some Christmas treats :)  Then we went out to dinner together, which was fun, and now is relaxing time.

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 6

Oh what a day!  Grace didn't fall asleep until after 11:30 pm last night, and then was wide awake at 8 am for school.  Crazy girl!  So she went to school, then after nap (which she also didn't take) she had therapy.  And then we rushed home for therapy here, and then we had company at 5:30 for dinner!  Grace fell asleep right before they got here, but only took a cat nap, which I'm glad for.  We ate potato soup and her yummy pumpkin roll, then played a game of dice and then they left.  We were going to go to the Planetarium for a Christmas presentation, but Grace was too "iffy" to make the trip.  So now it's 7:47 pm, she's in the tub, and our other friends are coming at 8:30 to visit.  Busy day, and I'm glad it's almost over!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 5

No pictures today :)  We were supposed to make reindeer hand print faces with googlie eyes and pom pom noses, but instead I made cookies that we can hand out.  And we actually did give some to one of our neighbors, so we've started on the handing out!  They are vanilla pudding chocolate chip cookies.  And BOY are they good!  There was also school for Grace this morning, and then Mommy had work this evening.  Nothing much to report otherwise.

Amanda

New ornaments for 2012!

Yesterday Grace got two packages in the mail from her Dado and Papa, and one thing that was in there was her 2012 ornament!  Here's was a little moose with a red and white scarf standing next to a Christmas tree, and her name was written in the snow below it.  Ours was a Santa face with a beautiful beard! Thank you Dado and Papa!

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 4

This morning Grace went to preschool, and so that gave me time to make some chocolate chip cookies :)  After she got out of school (I had the bag of cookies with us) we went over to the assisted living facility here in town and we gave them to one of the caretakers so the residents could enjoy them :)  It always feel good to think about others, and I know they probably get ignored.  Grace had a great time!  When we got in there she calmed down, which was nice because there was a Bingo game going on.  When I went up to the caregiver and told her why we were there, Grace grabbed the bag out of my hand and lifted it up to the caregiver, saying "tootie."  They were so surprised someone had thought of them that they were "Deer-in-the-headlights" looking at us.  Maybe people should think about all the grandmas and grandpas more often.  I think I'll be going there to visit a lot more since I've got time.  After that we went to a pet adoption place, but was overwhelmed with CATS!!  So we are thinking about making treats for the cats, but I don't know...96 cats is a lot of treats!  Later today, probably after nap, we will write a letter to Santa and take it over to Broulims so they can mail it for us :)

Amanda

Christmas Countdown Day 3

Today was sure a fun one :)  Grace got to go to school where we made a photo album of some classroom photos.  Sadly, the group class photo was taken on a day that she was sick so she wasn't even in it!  But that's ok...then she had therapy in the afternoon, and at 5 we went and saw Santa!  It was so much fun!  I bought Grace a super cute outfit and she wore her cute boots, and she just rocked it for sure.  We had cake and cookies after, and then went grocery shopping.  All in all, a great day 3.  She was tucked into bed at 8:05 and probably asleep by 8:08 pm!  Silly girl conked out.  I guess that's what happens when she doesn't take a nap!  Oh, and one of our friends brought over a HUGE box of clothes her daughter had outgrown, and so now Grace has a TON more clothes, as well as a jacket I'm hoping fits her :)

Shew, I'm tired...off to go write my novel.  I'm on page 83 with 29,364 words!  So I'm getting there :)

Amanda

By the way, when we went grocery shopping tonight we were VERY happy to see that Broulims had a mail box JUST FOR SANTA LETTERS!!!  And you know what's fun?  GRACE WILL GET A LETTER BACK!!!  So we will be writing to Santa tomorrow for sure :)

Christmas Countdown Day 2

Today was definitely a daddy daughter day for sure.  I think the two of them spent...80% of the day together!  Playing horsey, playing chase, playing in her room while I'm folding laundry.  It was just so beautiful.  This was pretty much a calm Sunday countdown day, and this evening, at 6 pm, we watched the Christmas Devotional together.  And then more playing daddy daughter style!  They played some fun games together and I just loved watching it.  Wonderful countdown day for sure.
  

Amanda

CLICK ON THE LINK TO THE RIGHT TO GET TO GRACE'S NEW BLOG THAT WILL ACTUALLY HAVE PICTURES ON ITChristmas Countdown BEGINS!!! Day 1

I am so excited that our Christmas countdown is here!  I love that Grace is old enough to understand what we are doing.  Every time we go driving in the evening, she points out all the "kissmiss yights!" over and over.  It is so beautiful to hear her jabbering back there about them.  Every so often we get an "Awww."  Another thing she loves to do?  Whenever we are headed to Montana, we are driving on dirt roads that have been grated (I think that's the word).  Anyways, the tire tracks from the tractors have made such deep divots that you can feel the bumps, and when you say, "ahhhhhhhhhh" out loud, you voice bounces up and down too!  So, ever since she's realized that, she does it ALL THE TIME!  For the past few nights, she'll start... "ahhhhhhhhhh" and then.... "mom!....MOM!!!  AHHHHHHHH" She wants me to start in.  And then I do too, but Dad?  "Dad...ahh...DAD...AHHHHHHHH"  She's asked us both to join in :)  What else would we do but join?  And then after a few seconds she cracks up, covering her mouth or eyes with her hand as the laughs and giggles pour out of her little body.  SO SWEET!

Anywho, today, for day one, we had "Snowman on the Shelf Breakfast!"  Our snowman is named, "Mr. Snowman" and we use a snowman instead of an elf because she's never seen an elf before, but can tell you "snowman" at the first sign of one.  So...here's our breakfast fun!

Well...darnit...guess what?  I've filled my 1G of photo room...darnit.  I'll try to figure it out...but until I do, I think I might start another blog and put a link to it.  I'll see what happens and add another post about it.


Amanda