Our Christmas Celebrations

December 23rd:

We have a little tradition (like most families who live in the north half of Utah) of going down to Temple Square and seeing the beautiful lights. We also have a tradition of meeting one of Matt's mission companions while we are down there and catching up with him. His name is Matt Neves. Since Neves had to work, we hit Temple Square a little earlier, planning to meet up with him after for some dinner. We also took Matt's mom, Elaine, down with us. Her and Steve had a big date night planned and since Steve works in Salt Lake she rode with us and then we took her to his office. His accounting firm just moved into a new office and we got to tour it before we headed to Temple Square. 

These are the only two pictures I managed and the first one was taken in the parking garage. Keldrie was quite taken in with the Angel Moroni on top of the temple. She kept talking about it and would get upset if we were at an angle where she couldn't see it. She also wanted to get out of her stroller, and I was not about to let that happen with the crowds down there. My grandparents serve a mission at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building once a week, so we got to go see them as well. After a little over an hour on the grounds, we headed back to the car and called Neves to decide on a restaurant for dinner. 

Neves and Matt decided on a place called L and L's Hawaiian bar-b-que. I've heard about this place a few times and once Neves suggested it, Matt started to salivate. He hadn't had it since early in the mission. So off we went to eat there. We all had some good food and then it was off to Trolley Square. We thought it would be really busy there since it was the 23rd of December, but not so. In fact, it was a little sad how not busy they were. 

On our way out the door, we took a few pictures. 

December 24th:

We followed a little tradition from Matt's family of giving a 12 days of Christmas present to Keldrie this year. She got mostly candy for the first 11 days but on the last day I gave her a water-color set and she was so excited about it. 

She painted by herself for quite a while. It was nice as it let me get some last minute stuff done. 

Later in the afternoon, we made brownies together.

These were for my Grandma's traditional Christmas Eve party. Keldrie had a blast playing all night with her cousins and Matt and I enjoyed playing a very intense game of Catch Phrase with the grown ups. 

After the party, we had to come home and open one present on Christmas Eve. This is a tradition from my family. Each year we would get pajamas and each year my mom would deny that they were pajamas until we opened them. 

Then we all put on our pajamas and headed to bed. We needed to make sure we were asleep before Santa Claus got there and had to skip over our house. 

Christmas:

Santa Claus was very good to Miss Keldrie this year. She got the Rapunzel dress and doll she had been asking for and also got the pink camera she wanted.  

I made something new for breakfast that I think will become a family tradition of our own. I don't really know what you would call it, a Cinnamon Sticky Bunt Roll Cake? Anyway, it was really easy and super delicious. It is also super sweet and sent my blood sugar quite high. 

Of course, we did have to have some hot chocolate with it as well. 

For church, we decided to go to Steve and Elaine's ward since they were singing in the choir and we were going to lunch at their house right after. Elaine's mom, Grandma James, lives real close to us, so we brought her with us as well. The meeting was very good and even Keldrie was pretty good. 

Afterwards, while dinner finished cooking, each of the Grandkids got a present from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

The book has already seen quite a bit of use. She loves it. 

After the kids were finished, we gave Steve and Elaine their gift. It is a semi-circle depiction of their family history. It went back 6 generations I think. I think they liked it because Elaine immediately took down something else and hung it on the wall it it's place. 

After dinner and some more playing with cousins, we headed over to my mom's house where there was more food and more presents than Keldrie could ever need. But next year she will have to share the spot light with her little brother, so I guess I'll let her have this one.

By this point in the day I was too tired to take more pictures, but we had more fun at Grandma Keller's and then came home and had still some more fun. Two days later my body and my house are still trying to recover. Yikes! Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We sure did! 

A couple of pre-Christmas pictures

 Well, we are getting close to that magical Christmas morning! Today, tomorrow, and then it is here! 

I wrote about the train ride my mom took Keldrie on in the mall. Well here they are waiting in line for their ride. 

You can't tell by the look on her face, but Keldrie was very excited to be in the blue car with her Grandma. My mom said she just leaned out the window and waved pageant-queen style to everyone as they passed. 

Ever since Gaby had us over for her Christmas party, Keldrie has been begging for me to set up a play date with her cousins. Yesterday I finally fulfilled two weeks of "I'll call Aunt Gaby and set something up" and off we went to play. Well, play time was cut a little short because I decided I wanted to take the freeway, which means I went on Riverdale Road. Yeah, not a good place to be on the afternoon of the 22nd of December. Took me twice as long to get to their house as usual. But the kids loved the time together and we even set up another play date. 

Well, that is all I have today. Today should be very busy for us. Right now Matt is out doing the last of his Christmas shopping and Keldrie and I (Mostly me) are catching up on housework. Then, later this morning and this afternoon, we are going to put together the baby furniture we bought 3 months ago. And then tonight, we have plans for hitting Temple Square and grabbing some dinner. Hopefully I will manage some good pictures of all of that. 

And tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Love it! 

The end of the week wrap-up!

This has been quite a week. Not terribly bad or anything, just long and full of adventures. Lets see all that we've done.

Sunday: Sacrament meeting without Matt is very rarely a good experience. This week was no exception. Matt had to work and so it was just to two of us. Usually it is Keldrie throwing a tantrum that has us running for the door but this week it was me. At 35 weeks pregnant, two and a half hours of sitting on metal chairs had done me in. We snuck out after the youth speaker and escaped to my mom's house. 

Monday: Monday wasn't too bad or too unusual. Matt had the morning off and we were able to get some cleaning around the house done. It was a good morning. Matt went to work and after her nap, Kel and I went back to my mom's house. Matt got home late because he had to do some serious grocery shopping after work. I think it is one of the longest lists I have ever sent him with. For Family Home Evening, we decided to drive around our neighborhood and look at Christmas lights. Keldrie loved it until she fell asleep. Luckily, I had foreseen this event and already changed her into her p.j.s for the night. 

Tuesday: This was Matt's first day off for the week and since he's out of school, it really was a full day off. We also woke up to a surprise snow storm. It didn't accumulate to much, but it did snow almost all day. We also spent the afternoon and evening making our neighbor gifts. It was messy and fun and tiring. Our sink had been acting up, so Matt took Kel to the store and bought some Liquid Plumber or Drano or something and a few other items. Well, whatever product it was, it did no good. The sink kept backing up, only getting worse.

Wednesday: Matt again had the morning off. I called my dad and asked him if he could come look at the sink. Before he came, Matt hung my under-cabinet radio my parents had given us for Christmas LAST year. But I'm glad to have it done and working now. Out came my dad with his snake and my grandpa came over too. I've written before about the experience of watching my grandpa and dad work together and this was no exception. Well, as they worked on it, Kel, Matt and I headed to my doctor's appointment. Russell seems to be doing just fine and from the ultrasound, my doctor guesses he is about 4 lbs. She also said he is curled up in quite the tight ball, making it hard to get individual measurements of his body parts, but since we aren't worried about anything, it's not a big deal. As soon as we were home from the doctor, Matt had to go to work and I had my cub scouts meeting. My dad and grandpa kept working on the pipes while I did scouts. Both of these activites wrapped up at the same time. My dad and grandpa said they would be back in the morning to try again. 

This left me without a sink, and since I had no sink, I decided it would be a good night for take out. Did you know that the Chick-fil-a on Riverdale Road has family night on Wednesday? I think you have to go inside and maybe the others do it too, but my brother works at this one and told me about it. So the deal is that for every adult meal you buy, you can get one kids meal free. Pretty sweet deal, huh? 

Thursday: Back before the whole sink episode, Matt and I had planned what we assume will be our last visit to the temple together until after the baby. We asked Elaine, my sweet mother in law, to watch Kel for us. She is always willing to watch Kel and doubly so if we are going to the temple. When we got out of our session, we called my dad and discovered that the clog in our drain had been too much for him and my grandpa, and they had called a plumber. Well the plumber got us unclogged and up and going again in about 20 minutes. So when we got home, all of our pipes were back where they belonged and the sink was no longer backed up. Hooray! Besides that, my dad and grandpa hung my pantry doors back up. We took them out when my dad tiled the kitchen for us back before we moved in. So nice to have them back up and to be able to hide my unorganized shelves in the pantry. Matt had some home-teaching to do in the afternoon, so Kel watched some Dora the Explorer while I put the kitchen back together. 

Friday: This is a day Matt and I had both been waiting for for a long time! We loved Sherlock Holmes and on Friday, the sequel came out. I had arranged for my mom to watch Keldrie while Matt and I went to the first show of the morning. 10:00 AM in fact. At that time of day, there are no annoying teenagers and not very many people in general. It was a good movie. But if you go, know that you will need some serious brain power to follow everything. During the summer I read the original Sherlock Holmes books, and so I had a little more knowledge about the bad guy, since he is in the stories. Also, the ending wasn't so shocking to me, since it is similar to the book. But overall, it was a very good movie. 

After the movie, we had to go home so Matt could go to work. 

As we were picking up Kel from my mom, she gave me her copy of The Hunger Games! I was so excited. I'd been trying to get my hands on a copy for a while. Matt went to work and Kel went down for a nap and I curled up on the couch and read, and read, and read. I didn't even realize how long Keldrie had napped until she woke up at 4: 15. But by then I was more than half way through the book and had no intention of slowing down. Kel woke up hungry and so I gave her a snack and her color wonder markers and ran back to the couch. Lucky for me, Keldrie was in a mood to play by herself. Eventually I pulled myself away to make dinner and talk to my husband and eat dinner. But once Matt and Keldrie started playing a video game together, I was right back to the couch. I had to stop again when it was Kel's bedtime and we needed to say family prayer. By this time, I only had 50 pages left. So Matt played his game and I finished the book. Yikes! Now the only problem is that my housework is backed up and all I can think about is how I can encourage my mom to read the second book quicker so I can borrow that one next. 

Saturday: And this brings us to Saturday, today. What a busy day. What was I thinking going to the New Gate Mall on a day like today? I actually didn't spend much, but I did get the battery in my watch replaced only to discover my wrist has swollen too much from the pregnancy and it doesn't fit. Bummer. Keldrie got spoiled by my mom today, too. First it was riding the train in the mall, next it was french fries from Chick-fil-a and last was riding the merry-go-round in the food court. Man, that girl doesn't know how good she has got it. 

Quite the weekly re-cap, huh? Well, I'm sure next week will be just as exciting. Are you all ready for Christmas? I am! All but a gift card in the mail and a few presents left to wrap. Hooray! 

A Smith Family Tradition

One of my favorite Christmas traditions has already come and gone. But before I get to that, I have to show you something else first:

Keldrie has conquered her fear of the vacuum. She will push it all by herself. She still doesn't like to turn it on, but hey, this is such an improvement I really don't care! 

So on to one of my favorite holiday traditions. My sister-in-law Gaby is from Ecuador and each Christmas she throws an party with traditional food. Turkey, stuffing, sparkling cider (I don't think the cider is authentic, but since we are all LDS, it's the closest thing) and my favorite part is the Hot Chocolate. I don't know what is in it, but I really don't care. It is yummy stuff. 

The table all set for dinner. So pretty. 

Keldrie and Josh eating their dinner. Keldrie was quite in love with this crown.  It was hard to leave it behind at the end of the night. She might be in luck though because I think she might be getting one of her own come Christmas day courtesy of Aunt Chelsea.

After dinner and dessert, we got on to the main event, presents! Instead of all of us getting gifts for everyone, each family is assigned another family. It works out really great for us.

Grandpa Smith and a few of his grandsons. 

The current babies of the family, Andrew and Katelynn. 

In the back, Greg and the rookie of the party, Amanda. So glad to have our final sister-in-law with us. She fits in nicely. Keldrie and Julia anxiously waiting their turn to open presents. 

The kids checking out their loot, and the packaging. 

Keldrie sure does love Julia. I'm so glad too! Julia is such a nice, sweet girl and I'm glad Keldrie has such a cousin to look up to now and in the years to come. 

Elaine's birthday is in December and since we didn't think we would all be together again before her birthday, we gave her her present. It was the blu-ray version of Lord of the Rings, extended edition. The box had something like 18 discs in it or something! That should keep her entertained for a while. 

Our gift from Eric and Jenny and family was a bunch of ice cream toppings and some waffle cones and bowls. Last night Matt and I went to town. (Matt's is the one on the left, and yes, he did have a stomach ache after.) 

It was a very fun night and we were happy to see all of the family and glad that there was no major fights among the kids and that there were no exploding potatoes this year. For that story, you will have to check out my post last year.  Thanks for hosting us all, Gaby! We had a great time and love this tradition. 

Start of December

Well, I don't have much in the way of pictures from the last few weeks, but we have been busy getting prepared for Christmas and all the festivities involved. 

This last Saturday was our Ward Christmas Party and it was really a great success except for one thing. We had a beautiful program put on by a group called LDS Ambassadors. It was all about the first Christmas and had lots of beautiful music and songs. I'm on the Relief Society Activity Board or whatever it is called. Anyway, my job was to cut up some fabric and to make two big pots of Chicken noodle soup for the night of. I spent all afternoon cooking, and it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. Luckily, my mom came out to help cook and to watch Keldrie while I helped set up and take down the party.  I made a lot of soup. I think we decided it was at least 16 quarts of soup. Well, there was a communication error and I was the only one who ended up with more than just one crock pot full of soup.  One of the other ladies made two pots, but it was clam chowder and got burned while she tired to heat it back up. Our soup was the main dish, and we ran out very quickly. It was rough, but oh well. That was a long day, but well worth it. It was great to have the ward party be all about Christ and not so much about toys or Santa. 

The last few weeks have involved a lot of cooking and baking on my end. I blame pintrest. I have made two new recipes from pintest this week. The first one was called Cinnamon Roll Cake. It was so easy and amazingly delicious. I invited my little brother  over to sample it. Tyler loves cinnamon rolls and he loves cake. He said it was pretty much amazing. That made me feel good about it. Mat also has had several pieces. Keldrie told me it was Yucky. 

The cake as it first came out of the oven.

Keldrie helped me make the glaze for the cake. She loves to stir. Give her a spoon and a bowl of plain water and she is happy.  

The cake after we poured the glaze on. 

The other recipe we made was called Crescent Pepperoni Roll ups. Only instead of pepperoni, we used Salami, because we already had some. Matt and I devoured these last one night when we weren't able to have dinner until after 9:30. 

Since Matt has now seem what is going on on the Pintrest food page, he is very interested in if I have found any new fun recipes. So to all those who follow me on Pintrest, just know that Matt is now influencing the items I pin. 

We are still enjoying the Christmas season, but would it be too awful if we could actually get some snow? We lost our fence during the big wind storm, but the HOA has started to fix it. Keldrie is having lots of fun moving the mouse in our countdown calender each day. 

Hope every one's December is going well! 

Two months to go!

Today is November 28th and Baby Boy is due to arrive on January 28th. 

So with two months to go, here is what I have finished:

1: I have bought a new crib, changing table, and dresser.

2: I have bought some clothes, plus organized the very generous amount of hand-me-downs I got from my sister.

3: I have cleaned his room.

4: Bought a boppy pillow. 

5: Explained as best as I can to Keldrie about what her brother is doing inside mommy's tummy and about how when he comes, mommy will have to spend some time at the hospital. (Those of you who have had a second child, how did the first child react to seeing you in the hospital? Did it freak them out? I'm a little worried about that.) 

Here is my list of things left to do before Russell joins us:

1: Put together the crib, changing table, and dresser. Don't fear though, Matt and my dad are both going to have much more open schedules in about 10 days, so that should be fixed soon.

2: Find Keldrie's baby clothes in the basement and pull out all the white onsies and other unisex clothes. 

3: I have yet to buy a breast pump. I gave up with Keldrie about 3 hours after coming home from the hospital and having a little freak-out so I guess it is good I didn't spend any money on breast-feeding equipment last time. (I am looking at buying the Lansinoh one, just the hand pump. Any comments from my friends with experience would be welcome.)

4: Wash any of the clothes. I need to de-tag and wash the clothes I have bought, but since I haven't bought any baby laundry detergent and I'm worried that he is going to be a giant, I'm holding off on that a little longer. 

5: Clean and find a place for all of the baby equipment like the swing and play mat. 

6: Buy a noise machine. I never used one with Keldrie, but now that she is such a light sleeper, I wish I would have. Our upstairs is all wood and it is so noisy when someone walks down the hall, so I know I'll need one so Russell can get some long naps. 

This being the second time around the block, I have had some interesting thoughts about a second pregnancy. I am more calm and more relaxed this time. Sharing this with Keldrie has been so much fun. She wants to know when "Baby Russell" is going to get here as well as asking a bunch of other funny questions. The funniest one I think was when she asked if he would have a belly button. I think having Keldrie around is good for me too, because I don't think 24/7 about the baby, which I think is one of the reasons this pregnancy seems to have gone by so much faster than the last one. 

Besides all that, I am so excited for Christmas! I have my tree up and I bought myself a new nativity set and it is just lovely. Keldrie understands so much more this year and that has been so fun. 

However, our Christmas season didn't start perfect.  Saturday night, Keldrie started coughing real hard and so we stayed home from church yesterday. It is so heart-breaking to hear your little child cough all night long. Matt went to church while the two of us snuggled and rested and napped. She ran a fever that peaked around 101.5 and kept telling me how she was cold. We dragged about 5 blankets around with us throughout the house. She had to have them all just so, each had a specific place: one around her shoulders, three on her lap, one for Elmo and one more to go under her.  Thank goodness for Tylenol. Today she is much better with no fever and a much reduced cough. 

Is it too much to ask for the next 5 weeks to go nice and slow and then the following 4 weeks to zip by? 

Thanksgiving 2011

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. 

We ate our hearts out and the only mishap was the gravy boat breaking in two at my mom's house. Luckily though, only half the gravy was in it and so we still had gravy for our potatoes. 

Keldrie even actually ate some dinner. 

After dinner, Matt and my little brother Tyler snuck down to his room to play some x-box. 

The pie was amazing, but in our family we can't just have one type of dessert. So we also had some fudge. 

After dinner at my mom's house, we headed over to the Smith's and had some more fun. Unfortunately, I was too tired and full to take any more pictures. 

So Thanksgiving was everything we had hoped and now we can get on to Christmas!

We put our tree up yesterday and now Keldrie plugs it in every time she can. We are both very excited about Christmas! I did lots of shopping Friday and grabbed some good deals. The next four weeks should be great! 

Our first Santa Encounter

On Friday afternoon, my sister-in-law called me and and told me that I could sign up for a free Breakfast with Santa at Chick-fil-a in the Layton Hills Mall. It was the next morning and when I got on the Internet there were only 6 reservations left. We quickly signed up and then planned for how we were going to make it out to the Mall by 8 am the next day. We got there with a few minutes to spare. Keldrie was sitting so good and looking around, waiting for her breakfast, when Santa came out. She took one look at him, turned to me, and said, "I want to go home!" 

Well, Gaby and her kids came shortly after and once Keldrie saw her older cousins talk to Santa and sit on his lap, she decided she could at least talk to him. She went over and told him what she wanted for Christmas, but wouldn't sit on his knee for the life of her. So we compromised with this: 

Of course she had to have her hat because it had snowed. This Santa was such a cute one too, don't you think? We had a good time for a while, but then Kel wouldn't behave herself so we had to take off. Silly girl.

Well, Sunday morning Matt woke up feeling pretty sick. He had been fighting a cold for a few days and it finally caught up with him. While he stayed in bed and slept, Keldrie and I made him some Cinnamon Rolls. I was just in the mood to bake and Keldrie is always willing to play in the flour.

Got my Kitchen-Aid at a Black Friday sale right before Matt and I got engaged and it was worth getting up at 4 to get. My sister Chelsea went with Matt and I, and she was extremely useful. She sure can move when she wants to and she shimmied up the escalator and grabbed me a black one real quick. It is a pretty great deal. 

I gave Kel a little piece of dough to work with while I rolled and cut the rolls. By the time I was done, she had covered herself, the chair, the counter and quite a bit of the floor in flour. But she had a blast! Oh and on Sunday, we don't change out of our pajamas until it is time to get dressed for church, hence the footie pajamas pictured here! 

They turned out pretty good. In the last 24 hours, Matt has eaten at least a dozen. 

Keldrie loves her doodle board. You can also see the hair she cut on the top of her head sticking straight up. 

Well, the countdown to Turkey day is getting close. I'm pretty excited, especially because Matt has Wednesday and Thursday off, plus no school on Friday! Hooray!