Christmas in Texas

This was our first Christmas not going back to Utah and I had mixed feelings about it.  I was excited to spend Christmas in warm Dallas with my sister Kari , not having to spend all our vacation travelling back and forth from Provo to Centerville, and not having to spend $1600 to fly. However, there is just something about being at home on Christmas that makes Christmas special, and I missed Utah a lot this Christmas.  I missed snow and mountains and being with all the family. We did have an awesome Christmas with Kari and family though.  The weather was so nice. On Christmas it was SEVENTY degrees and sunny. We went to the park across the street from Kari’s house and played in the afternoon.

Holland woke up sick on Christmas.  My kids are always sick on Christmas. Her nose was non-stop runny, and she had a horrible cough and a fever.  I was so bummed because she wouldn’t be able to play with cousins and I was scared she would get Kari’s 4 month old baby, Asher, sick (and anyone else for that matter). She refused to take medicine so we resorted to mixing meds in with root beer (because we knew she’d down it all fast).  The morning we left she started feeling better. Poor girl. On Christmas night she woke up about every 30 minutes delusional. She kept saying “Carly quit touching me” or “Carly bugging me",  or just saying stuff we couldn’t understand.  Poor girl!

With Holland’s sickness aside, all of us healthy ones had a great time.  Carly had the time of her life playing with Ethan and Bentley. 

The night before Christmas Eve we opened all our big presents at home that we couldn’t take with us to Texas:

So excited to open presents

Walking down the steps to open presents

   Carly got a new bike!

      

Holland got a princess tent and ponies, but loved these tinkertoys.

New shoes, and clothes for Casey

I got a new blender and a lot of fun kitchen stuff

Christmas Eve in Dallas

                

              

                 

              

Facetime with my family in Utah

Christmas Morning!

      

                

              

What fatherhood will do to you:

Sweet sister and baby Asher

Thanksgiving

This year we took a road trip to visit Casey’s sister Tearsa and her family in Peoria, IL for Thanksgiving. The Sunday before Thanksgiving a tornado came through Tearsa’s city (Washington) and destroyed many homes. Her home was one of the only ones still standing, but still had a lot of damage and was unlivable. We still drove there to try and help clean up, and spend time with family and cousins.  We stayed in Tearsa’s friend’s house with Casey’s other sister Maryn and her family. It was so much much fun to hangout and let the kids all play.We ended up going to Golden Corral for Thanksgiving dinner and it was awesome. It was crazy busy but everyone could get what they wanted and we didn’t have to spend all day cooking and cleaning up! It was a lot of fun to see family and take a road trip.

My little girl is 5!

I really can’t believe Carly is 5. Where has the time gone??!  Carly has been looking forward to this day since her birthday last year, seriously!  When it finally got here she didn’t know what to do with herself, she couldn’t believe it! We went to storytime in the morning and then I let her pick out anywhere she wanted to go for a fun lunch, she picked Sonic… and she only wanted a big thing of tots of which she only ate 5 and then was done. Haha. Then we had some friends come over for dinner and dessert to celebrate at night. This year Carly wanted a rainbow party again.  I made a rainbow cake after an idea I saw on Pinterest, but all the ones I saw on Pinterest were huge so  I made really small layers so the cake didn’t turn out ginormous. 

Yes, at this point I was a little afraid how it would turn out, but frosting can work wonders.  I just filled all those gaping holes with frosting…

Can’t forget the llama piñata.  Carly really didn’t want to break it apart.

One of my favorite things about celebrating my kids’ birthdays is decorating at night when they’re asleep and seeing their reaction when they wake up.  I love me some good party décor.

Carly is such a smart, polite, loving, friendly little girl.  We love her so much and are so grateful to have our little rainbow girl in our family!

8 week check in

Carly started preschool 3 weeks ago and has been loving it.  She goes to a Methodist church just a few minutes away from us.  It is way nice and I feel blessed that we found a option for her to go to preschool here in Arkansas. She is starting to learn all her southernisms like  “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” and “five minutes peace” etc. I  love that Pastor Dan comes into the class every Wednesday and teaches the kids out of the bible!  It was pretty hard for me to let her go, as I know it is with every parent.  It’s especially hard having people teach her things that are different than what I teach her… nothing extreme but up until now I have taught her all she knows and it’s a hard thing to give her up to someone else to teach her.  I do love getting some alone time with Holland during the day though!

8 week impressions of Arkansas:

-There are so many mosquitos here…I am kind of surprised I don’t have West Nile Virus yet (not lyme disease, I swear I know the difference:)) . Every time I go outside to run/play with kids/take out the trash I spray myself with bug spray. I mowed the lawn last week in pants and even after spraying myself I got THIRTY mosquito bites on the backs of my legs. I couldn’t sleep that night because I itched like crazy.  I decided that’s what hell is probably like - having mosquitos bites that never stop itching! The crazy thing is that I usually don’t feel them on me, they are stealth creatures.  And forget about wearing flip flops outside if you’re going to stay out longer than 2 minutes because you’ll get bitten all over your feet and somehow on the soles of your feet.  We are paranoid about getting any in the house because they bite us in our sleep.  Casey slept with his leg out of the covers one night and woke up with bites all over his leg. Now we pump the AC at night so we can sleep with all our blankets on at night, haha. Whenever we see one flying around we stop all we’re doing, hunt it down and DESTROY it!  One night Casey and I were watching TV and we just busted up laughing because we were sitting there scratching ourselves like dogs because we had so many bites on us! I have come to grips with the fact that I will look like I have chicken pox until it finally freezes here (if it ever does?) and the mosquitos die off.

- Continuing on with the nasty creature rant… COCKROACHES!  For reals I had never seen one in my life that wasn’t behind a glass wall at the zoo.  One night I walked in late into our room and the lights were off because Casey goes to sleep early and I turned on my lamp and a huge nasty cockroach ran under our dresser.  I screamed so loud and I could not sleep that night because I felt so many phantom bugs crawling on me and biting me. The next day I tried to find it to give me peace of mind but it couldn’t find it.  Please don’t tell me it’s building a nest somewhere.

-Now cute creature rave.  We have a lot of cute little lizards and frogs that live in our yard.  I love them because I like to think that they are eating all the mosquitos, but in reality they are probably just getting bitten to death like everyone else.  Whenever I mow the lawn I get scared that I might run over one.  Once I weed whacked a lizard on accident, it blended in with the grass, and it died (obviously), I cried for about 20 minutes. 

- I still have a hard time understanding people here. 

- I can’t wait for cooler weather

- I love Bluebell ice cream

- I miss having friends close

Even though I may complain a lot about bugs I promise I really do like it here.  It is really different than the Midwest and West which has been a hard adjustment for me but the South has a lot of charm. It is so beautiful here along the Mississippi River, and people here are so warm and kind. I am really glad that I’ll get a glimpse into Southern life during the year we’re here. 

Holland is 2!

In a few hours we are headed to Little Rock, Arkansas to stay the night and then tomorrow morning we’re flying to Utah for my little brother’s wedding!  I am so excited to go on a little vacation back to Utah and especially have time with Casey!  He has been working a lot here in Arkansas and I feel like I never see him.  He leaves for work at 5:30 and then gets home at 5:30 and then goes to sleep early so we are already in need of some good Utah fun and food. 

Because of all of this going on we celebrated Holland’s birthday last night.  We don’t know very many people yet so the missionaries and a family from our branch came over to celebrate and eat!

Holland is definitely her own little person, Here’s some fun facts about our Holly Bug:

- Her favorite color is blue, and I know this because she wants everything blue.  I ask her what she wants for breakfast and she’ll say “blue cereal”, she definitely doesn’t usually get what she wants but she sure loves the color blue.

-She is still extremely attached to her blankie

-She’s already picky about what she wears, super frustrating!

-She is a daddy’s girl, she never wants her mama to put her to bed and she frequently asks throughout the day where daddy is.

-She is an awesome eater and will eat anything, which is very nice because Carly still hates to eat!

-Loves to ride her cozy coupe around and take her blankie for a ride.  My parents gave her a trailer for her cozy coupe for her birthday and she loves it!

-Loves babies. She always has to go to sleep with a baby.

-Carly and Holland are still learning how to play with each other.  Sometimes they play and it’s so adorable, but they sure know how to push each other’s buttons.

-Loves to wave and say hi to people, but doesn’t like it if anyone other than mom or dad tries to give her attention.

-Happy Birthday Holly Bug, we love you so much!