Marble Mania madness

So Zac's Dad gave Eric Marble Mania for Christmas. On the box it stated "over 450 parts". Hmmmm..not good for a new baby. We just made Eric get rid of all his small toys that Jennifer could possibly put in her mouth and choke. We tried to take it back to Costco, however, the one here in Lehi does not carry this game. Then I got looking on the box some more, and it stated that it takes 4-6 hours to put together. So it's not a toy like Magnetix or something that parts are everyone in the house. So I made a deal with Eric that he can have it (he was REALLY mad when we said that we had to take it back) as long as he keeps it in his window sill. If I see ONE marble then the toy is gone. So I was proud of myself for putting it together in 3 hours. However, after I was done, one of the gears wasn't working properly. I had Zac take a look at it, and he fixed it after about 2 minutes. Eric was so excited when it was done. I was telling him how happy that I was able to put it together. He said, "Yeah, but you had to look at the book the WHOLE time. It took forever. But Dad, he is a GENIUS!" Great.

Jennifer is obsessed with eating her hands.

Eric has been playing with this non-stop. Thank you Grandpa Nielson!

Merry Christmas!

Thank goodness Christmas is almost over! The kids were really fun this year. When Eric opened up one of his presents he said, "Wow! I didn't even ASK Santa for this! How did he know?" Aubrey was thrilled that Santa ate some of the cookies. Their big presents were new bikes and a "new" tent. (It used to be Zac's and his brother Matt's tent. Sorry Matt if you didn't know we had it. haha) We, meaning Zac and I, agreed again to not give each other presents this year....Zac yet again made me feel horrible for not getting him anything. He made me this board. I've been wanting one for awhile now. He even made the frame! He was able to get some knotty alder to match our cabinets. My best friend has a vinyl machine so she made all the words and numbers for him. I'm way excited about it...but again feel like a loser for not getting him anything.

We went to Zac's Aunt's house again for Christmas Eve. The kids were so excited when Santa came. Eric asked for a Rocket Sled. hmmmm good luck. Aubrey asked for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We have no idea what toy that is. We even had her walk around the stores to show us what it was. She couldn't find it.

I forgot to put down Jennifer's stats for her 4 month check-up we had 2 weeks ago. She is in the 97% for her height and weight, but only 50% for her head. Whew! Eric was always in the 100% for his head. She weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds. I can't remember how long she was....I have it written down at the house. She is such a good baby.

Here are some random pics of Jennifer and Aubrey. Aubrey is a good helper watching Aubrey. Sometimes too good of a helper.

Temple Square

We took the kids to Temple Square on Thursday. Since I have the girls up in SLC with me already, I had Zac and Eric meet me at my work. The kids were so excited. Not for the lights...but for the train ride on TRAX. My work is across the street from the Gallivan Center, so we only had 2 stops until Temple Square, but they loved it. We were only at Temple Square for about 20-30 minutes before we started heading back. The reason you ask? Aubrey's persistent, "I want to ride the train!" finally got to us. The second we got on the train Aubrey turns to me and says, "When are we going to the temple?" ARG! She was cute though when we saw the Christus and the misc picture of Jesus in the Visitor's Center. She kept on telling people that "That's Jesus! He's my brother!" Then Eric would get mad because HE is Aubrey's brother.

So Aubrey has been saying the funniest things lately. When we were going to daycare this week Aubrey says to me, "Mom, Superman flies huh." I said, "Yep he does." Then she said, "But batman, he FALLS with STYLE!" Then she starts giggling. Another time she just started laughing. I asked her what was so funny. She says "My tummy wants to eat that cloud! It goes, mmm boy that cloud sure looks good. But we aren't suppose to eat clouds. My tummy is so silly!" She has some imagination.

So on Friday Eric decided to cut his own hair. Aubrey came running upstairs and told Zac. Sure enough, Eric had cut the center part of his hair, and to the scalp on his side. Zac asked Eric why he cut his hair. Eric said he wanted to look cool. So Zac had him look in the mirror. Eric gasped and said, "I look stupid!" Zac told him yep, and you are going to school like that. Eric was not happy. Zac ended up buzzing his hair. At least it was Eric's hair not Aubrey's.

So most of you know by now, but my Dad and Diane are getting married. They haven't set a date yet, but it will be before March. I'm guessing their wedding will be in February, but don't quote me on that. It was quite the shock to us, but we are getting used to the idea. They made it "official" on Wednesday.

Depending on the weather, Dad and I will be coming up to Idaho this Saturday. If it's going to be snowing the whole drive though, we may end up staying. That is a long drive during storms. Our ward Christmas Party is this Friday, and since Zac and I are committee chairs we are going to be pretty busy all Friday setting up and getting everything ready for the party, and then busy during, and busy cleaning up after. Otherwise we would be leaving for Idaho on Friday night.

So Zac has been busy selling things on KSL and ebay. This is what happens when the kids get into the packing peanuts...

Crazy week

This week has been a crazy week. Work seemed to fly by. We ended up going to Zac's Aunt's house for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. When we were leaving Zac's Aunt gave Aubrey a toy dog. She has been taking it everywhere with her. We brought it to Dad's house and scared his dog Chaucer...it was pretty good. So Nathan found out on Monday that he got the job with the Utah Highway Patrol. He starts in 2 weeks and will be for Utah County. They are really excited. I guess they only had 1 open position in Utah County, the rest were for SLC. It was highly unlikely for him to get a Utah County position, but they want him for it. Congrats Nathan!

On Friday, I stopped at Dad's house for a moment. Dad came and sat by me and Devin and said, "I'm doing something crazy." I said, "What, putting up the Christmas tree?" For those of you who know my Dad he HATES putting up the tree. He goes, "No, I'm going on a date." So my Dad started dating this weekend. It sounds like it's getting serious pretty fast. As Devin said (and I am paraphrasing, I can't remember the EXACT words he used) "Dad doesn't do anything slow. He thought, maybe I'll get a dog in the summer (this was said after Christmas last year). The next day he came home with Chaucer. He said, I am thinking about maybe having the missionaries come live here. The next couple of days the missionaries were here. When he says he needs to be married to go on a mission, and by the way, I'm going on a date, he will be married by the end of the month." He ran into my Mom's best friend Diane the other day, and he asked her out for lunch. They spent most of Friday together, then he took her to Temple Square to see the lights last night and dinner. They are going out again tomorrow, etc. She will be coming to Sunday dinner. They really seemed to have clicked. They have a lot in common. My Dad works as an ordinance worker in the temple on Tuesday nights, so does she. She was my Young Women President growing up and I was good friends with one of her daughters. They both want to go on missions pretty much their entire retirement. She owns her home in Lehi, and her daughters are all married and live in Saratoga Springs. Their dates consisted mostly of talking about Mom. It's weird thinking about my Dad dating...it will be four years this January since my Mom died. I don't want him to be alone for the rest of his life, but it is still weird to think that our entire family can change so fast. I guess if he was going to date someone, I would want it to be someone who knew and loved my Mom, and could share in some stories about her. When he first told me, it almost felt like he was cheating on my Mom. I'm now starting to get used to the idea. I really do quite like Diane. She has some of the same characteristics as my Mom, which may be the reason why my Dad likes her. He may be furious that I'm posting this entry...but this affects me and my family, and this blog is like my journal. Dad was telling me that if they do get married, Diane has already said that she wants pictures of Mom up everywhere, like we have now. She wants us all to still talk about her. When we visit her grave, she wants to visit it with us. Dad told her that he is going to be buried with Mom. She said she wouldn't have it any other way. She has said a lot more other positive things about this. She seems to be understanding about our situation, and doesn't want to impose on it. So today at Sunday dinner my Dad told my Grandpa (who is in his 90's) that he went on some dates. My Grandpa's response, "Does she have a sister?" haha I laughed so hard. Anyways, I guess nothing really happened to ME this week, so I had to talk about other people's. :)

Thanksgiving a little early...

So we had our Thanksgiving dinner today at Dad's house. Justin and Lisa were coming through on their way to St. George, so we decided to have it early. It was some good eating. The kids always have fun when all the cousins are together. We pulled up to the house and the kids were playing flag football. Aubrey ran over and put on some flags, and Eric ran into the house. Aubrey loves ANY sport, and Eric is alright with baseball and basketball, but that's about it. We watched the BYU v. Utah game at Dad's house Saturday night. Again, tons of good food.

So the other day I came upstairs and saw Aubrey in the bathroom looking in the mirror. She looked like she had been crying. She was making a really sour grumpy looking face. I asked Aubrey what was wrong. She turns to me, smiles, and says, "Nothing, just practicing." Oh my. I had no idea my little girl practices being grumpy!

Bobby watches Eric in the morning before Kindergarten. The other day she let the boys play with some playdough in the kitchen. She came in and there was playdough everywhere! She asked them why would they make such a big mess. Eric looked up at her and said, "You didn't tell us not to." She goes, "You're right. You are absolutely right. I didn't tell you not to make a mess." He wasn't saying it to her with attitude, but innocently. That kid of ours! I guess five year-old logic can go a long way!

So our HOA lawsuit is still going on. It's been hard having hired an attorney in July because I don't know what the status is of our case all the time. It doesn't sound like it is resolving anytime soon. In fact, he just moved the court to join our title company, developer, realtor and loan officer. This case just got a lot bigger and complicated. We are somewhat frustrated. We never intended for it to go this big. Hopefully it won't be too much money either...I'm wishful thinking.

I've been preparing for a big homicide trial at work that takes place in two weeks. I had to go through over 500 autopsy and crime scene photos of this murder. DISGUSTING. I have never been so grossed out. I literally almost threw up a couple times. Then I had to blow-up 100 of those pics for the jury. I am suppose to go to the Ute Reservation next week to interview the witnesses and go back to the crime scene. I am trying to get out of going. So we will see how it turns out. It's a pretty interesting trial, I guess more interesting then asset forfeiture. :) So my work is having a "ROCK BAND FACE-OFF" on Tuesday. My chief attorney came in after lunch and set up his WII in the conference room. Then he ran into my office and told me that I am their singer. So we ran over and practiced for 3 1/2 hours. Apparently we have some good competition. I was just excited that I got paid to play nintendo for half my day. AND this was right after we all had to sit through an ethics training. :)

Zac has been busy with his internet classes that he is taking at UVU. He has been putting in a lot of hours trying to finish them up. Jennifer is growing so much! She has really started being vocal lately. She is really a good baby now. It's still really hard leaving her at daycare. The other day when I went to pick her up they handed me the wrong baby. Hmmmmm. I was NOT happy about that. AND they knew it. I guess it's the price you pay for working. If I could stay home with the kids, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's about it for us that last couple of weeks!

Back to Work I Go...

So I've been back to work for 2 weeks now...but life is just so busy I haven't been able to update! I got Eric and Aubrey's school pictures back, and just yesterday did Jennifer's 12 week picture. I can't believe she is already 12 weeks! The time has flown by! I'm really sad at how big she is getting.

I feel like I never even left work. Which is good and bad I guess. I was suppose to go to South Carolina this week to train some offices, luckily they thought I was still on maternity leave so they reassigned the training to another person. But the caveat is that I have to host the next group meeting in SLC in March. I got the approval from my office to do it, so I will take that trade any day!

The first day taking Jennifer and Aubrey to day care was really tough. In the nursery they had a new girl there who didn't speak ANY English. She had to ask me Jennifer's name 4 times, by the fourth time my eyes were watering up. Then I told her to feed Jennifer at 8:00. She just looked way confused. So I grabbed a bottle and pointed to the "8" on the clock. Oh my. That is how I left her at the day care. It was all I could do to not take her with me to work. They have one person that speaks English in the nursery, but she doesn't get there until 9 am, when I have to drop the girls off at 7:30.

My first day was hard to not see Jennifer. By the time I picked her up, she slept all the way home. Then I had to go to the gym to do my bootcamp thing, and by the time I came back, she was still asleep. I woke her up to feed her, and she fell back asleep. I held her for two hours before Zac told me to put her down. It was hard, I didn't even get to see a smile or ANYTHING that entire day! So to make up for it, I decided to do the bootcamp workout before work. Which became hard. I would be up in the night with Jennifer at 2:30 or 3:00, and then have to get ready for bootcamp immediately. So I basically got 4-5 hours of sleep total for the night. I couldn't handle that either. I only have to do the bootcamp thing until the middle of December. I have reached my pre-pregnancy weight now, so I am just going to build more muscle, etc.

Thursday night was the last night of our volleyball season. I guess we were tied for first place, so we had to play a tie-breaking game. I didn't get home until almost midnight. Then on Saturday we had a volleyball tournament the entire day. We took first place, so now we are playing in the last tournament next Saturday. I didn't know we even had a tournament, but Zac was great to watch not only my kids, but the other girls on the teams kids for the entire day.

Eric got sick on Thursday with the stomach flu. He has been sick for the past 3 Halloween's in a row! Luckily it didn't last too long. We were in charge of the ward's Trunk or Treat on Friday night. It went well. We made some homemade rootbeer and let the kids just go nuts! We did it from 4-5 so that people could still go trick or treating the regular way. Our neighbors are so great! There is a park by our house and houses are all around it. The entire circle of homes did a Harry Potter theme. Every house was something different...Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Azkaban, etc. The Bishop was Dumbeldore and gave the kids "sugar quills". They also got maps and wands and other toys. They went all out, it really was amazing how much work went into it! The kids had such a good time, except for Azkaban and the Forbidden Forest. They were a little too scared. The entire night Aubrey was taking FOREVER to go trick or treating. We were with a big group of people, and she was always last. We finally realized that she was blowing out the candles on EVERYONE'S jack'o'laterns! Oh my. She would actually lift the lid off the pumpkins and blow them out! It was a great time though even though it was raining off and on the entire time. Later that night we went over to our friend's house and played games until about 1 am.

So last night about 2:00 am, Aubrey woke up yelling for me. I was already up with Jennifer so I made Zac go see what Aubrey needed. Right when he sat on her bed, she threw up on him. Gross! So he changed her bed and clothes and got her back to sleep. Today, Zac has the stomach flu. I keep on telling him just to throw up and he will feel better, but apparently he has a "streak" of not throwing up, so he is doing everything he can to not throw up. Hopefully I don't get it! I don't have any time at all to take off of work. The sickness usually only lasts one day, so hopefully he can make it into work tomorrow. His birthday is on Tuesday, so I brought pies over to Dad's house for Sunday dinner. Zac was upset he couldn't even eat his birthday pies.

Night at the canyons

Not much happened this week for us. I am still loving the bootcamp. I didn't lose any weight this week, but I did lose 4% of body fat. I guess week 2 people usually don't lose much weight. I played volleyball twice this week for four hours. On Friday night I had a girls night out with my friend. I took Aubrey and Jennifer and my friend brought her girl Aubrey's age. We went out to dinner and went shopping after. Jennifer did pretty good. Aubrey was so excited that Eric got to stay home.

Eric and his friend Madison go to school together. I guess on Friday they had a hard day. My friend dropped off the kids at school, and Madison and Eric were arguing over who got to close the van door. So they both closed it. Madison pushed Eric and called him a "Mean boy". Eric walked away about five steps, then turned around and RAN at her and pushed her down. It was with such force that she rolled three times. She got up and started yelling at him. By the time school ended, they were friends again. We had a talk with Eric about not pushing, especially not girls. The whole time though, Zac was trying so hard not to laugh. We even had to leave the room during the "talk".

On Saturday we took the kids up to Provo Canyon to my favorite park, South Fork. We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows for smores over the fire. The kids had so much fun! They are still asking us to go back up. All of the leaves were changing color up in the canyon, it was so pretty. The kids loved making smores. After awhile though, Aubrey would just grab the chocolate and eat it without the other fixings. That is a girl of my heart. Jennifer did wonderful in the canyon. There is just something about being outside. She layed on the blanket for most of the time just being content.

Bootcamp

So I am hooked. I absolutely love the bootcamp! I felt like I had bruises over my entire body last week, but I loved it. Today we are working the arms again, so I need to psych myself up for it. The arms are my biggest weakness. I have lucked out and have had the trainer almost all to myself every day. I guess the other classes there have been 25-30 people in them. I have gotten more intense workouts since he is right there pushing me that much harder. I weighed in on Friday and have already lost 10 pounds! Alright, I know that most of that is water weight, but I'm still pretty happy about it. I only have 5 more pounds to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. But I still have a ways to go to get completely toned. :) The bootcamp focuses on a different area of your body every day, either core/abs - arms - glutes/legs. Then on Friday's we do a circuit of everything. So last week I was lucky enough to have the core twice, and this week it will be the arms twice. It has been great having my dietician be my friend/neighbor. I have gotten a little special treatment, and I have been able to use all the programs before the group to help her troubleshoot any problems with the program. Zac has been great and has been very willing to watch all three kids every night while I go work out. During the morning I run 5 miles on the treadmill, but Jennifer is usually sleeping the entire time for me. I have been modifying my diet to have more whole-grains in it, so I made pizza on Saturday and made the dough with ALL wheat flour. It was really GOOD. I usually put 1 cup of wheat and 3 cups of white flour, but I think that from now on I will use all wheat. Zac liked it too, and you really couldn't tell that much of a difference. I am going to miss not having a garden in the winter. I was able to use my tomatoes, green peppers and onions for the pizza. So nice just to be able to walk outside to get your produce.

Jennifer is still a little congested, but gradually getting better every day. Aubrey had a fever all weekend, but is also getting better. Not much more has happened, nothing real exciting. I did play volleyball for 3 hours on Thursday night, which is always fun. :)

Long night

So last night I was up the ENTIRE night with Jennifer. She had a lot of mucus in her throat, not her nose, so she would choke every time we would lay her down. It was a little scary because she would choke so bad she couldn't breathe. So I stayed up with her holding her upright the entire night. We got into the doctor's first thing in the morning, and they said that it hadn't gotten into her lungs thankfully! I just have to keep on doing the saline drips, bulb syringe her nose even though nothing is in there, and put her next to the humidifier. (Which is everything we were doing last night) but that I probably have 2-3 more nights like last night. I am exhausted, and I start my boot camp today. My arms feel like dead weight from holding her all night. She is now almost 11 pounds. I'm hoping they are going to focus on the legs or abs today, not the arms. I wish Mountain Dew wouldn't affect my milk, but it does, and she would be up all night because of the caffeine. But I would sure love some right now!

Yesterday Zac blessed Jennifer. He did a really good job and is glad it's done. I'm glad she didn't scream throughout the blessing. She was having a pretty good fit before church. I asked Dad to take a picture of us at the church, and Eric kept on doing his "guitar pose"...so that is what he is doing in the picture. I learned the Michael Jackson dance "Thriller" this week. A group of us are doing it for the Stake talent show. Aubrey is really cute and tries to dance it with us. She has her monster claws perfected. :) We all went to D.I. and got some great dresses to ruin for our costumes.

This is a picture of Eric's first day of school. My friend/neighbor took this picture for us and gave it to me finally. :)