Earlier this week my mom asked me what my favorite Christmas was and I think this year has been my favorite. My kids are at such a fun Christmas age and we totally nailed their gifts this year.
Emmett getting checked out at the dentist
Kayla and Easton gave Emmett and Logan coloring books for Christmas with new markers - my kids NEVER do coloring books but this one must've come with some magic because they ask to color constantly now.
Helping me make homemade pizza
The last line: "piano is toast" 😂
I've been craving a quinoa salad my friend Kari used to make for me so I made it twice this week - talk about eating the rainbow
yum!!
I've been tracking where the sun sets for the solstices and equinoxes because I'm just a nerd like that.
On Christmas Eve Eve the Roses gathered via zoom for some virtual festivities. We played some games and everyone opened gifts they got for each other. For one of the games the men had the women participate in a blind-taste test. The worst was watching poor Bonnie get spoon-fed garlic powder on the first round with the first item. Rude! Good thing they ended up winning. Justin KNOWS I have a chicken aversion right now and he had me taste it blindfolded - bleh!!! But something fun: he also had me taste test ginger which totally ruined my palette for all the following items (try identifying a canned peach after you've had a mouthful of fresh ginger LOL), BUT the taste did something to baby because he/she was jumping all over the place afterward which was my first time I could definitively say I felt him/her. I'm 15 weeks so...Yay!
One of the Rose games was to build a Christmas creation with legos - Justin did Samuel the Lamanite. Note the "arrows" coming at him and the army men shooting at him.😂
I convinced Justin that chopping up some of our PVC pipe from our nine-square game would be great fun for the kids.
May you all enjoy eating a sugar cookie as much as this boy (que closed eyes and rocking back and forth...his mama does this kind of thing too).
On Christmas Eve, Mom and Dad had us over for dinner. We made rolls while Mom made all the good stuff for dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, stuffing, Christmas jello, and Dad made his famous strawberry ice cream for dessert. We did our Book of Mormon Christmas program and Mom had me play the piano. I've been playing on an out-of-tune, tune-up-is-impossible piano so playing in the correct key kinda threw me for a loop! Sadly our piano was deemed "ready for the dump" by the piano tuner earlier this week. But we made it through "All the Stars Shone Down" (barely) and we enjoyed doing songs with the bells. I had Emmett practice all week and he was able to play with us for most of the songs. Granny and Gramps got some new toys for playing at their house which the kids got to open. Emmett proudly described to Granny and Gramps the names of the dinosaurs as well as whether they are carnivores or herbivores. After a little charades and some homemade ice cream I was BEAT so we headed home. After getting kids in bed, Justin began assembling Logan's kitchen set gift. He was a trooper and did it all himself with no help from me - I was too exhausted to do anything more than wait for him to be done in the bedroom so I could go to bed. We put Logan's kitchen set and Emmett's "Indominus Rex" toy out for them to discover and hit the hay.
I made German pancakes and bacon Christmas Eve morning to kick off the day. These pancakes are SO fun - we dusted them with powdered sugar and served with strawberries and whipped cream. Yum.
lol...faces I get when I ask them to smile.
Doing a Christmas craft
Emmett singing along during the program
Charades
Dino-track
Watching The Grinch before bedtime - their last Christmas Eve with just the two of them!
Santa has arrived
Emmett woke in the middle of the night and came to our room - when I sent him back to his room he spotted his Indominus and took it to bed with him. 😂Thankfully it was still in its box so he couldn't try out its sound effects and wake Logan.
At an appropriate hour of 6:00, Logan got up and Justin got up with him. I laid in bed until I heard Emmett come out and we started the present opening at about 6:30. Justin got a fun surprise from his Reddit gift-giver who gifted the whole family: including baby Rose! That motivated me to go all-out for Justin's Reddit gift receiver next year. We loved watching the boys open all their gifts from us and other family who bought gifts for them, and also enjoyed getting exactly what we wanted from each other.
We made stuffed French toast and bacon to take over and share with Mom and Dad for Christmas breakfast - they shared salmon and fried eggs with us. Our kids randomly love salmon. We forced Mom and Dad to play one of Justin's "escape room" games with us which I actually think Dad kind of liked and we tried to keep Mom happy by having her read all the clues. We did it with 11 minutes to spare and only had to get internet help one time. Then we played Pictionary boys vs. girls. Mom and I were losing terribly 11-5 when we decided first to 15 wins. By some miracle we came back and won 15-14. High five Mom!
All of Justin's Reddit gifts
I've been loving my yoga set! It has made a big difference. I try to do my prenatal yoga every day. It's such good practice of controlled breathing which was key in both my previous deliveries.
Justin explaining the escape room rules...Mom and Dad's faces!😂..."You mean I have to use my brain?"
Victory!
Pictionary time
Trying out one of the Reddit gifts
Saturday morning we woke up to a little bit of snow. Justin started taking Christmas decorations down (which I normally like to do on boxing day as well), but I reminded him we didn't have good storage to put the decorations in, so I convinced him to go to Costco. On the drive there we changed course to the Pocatello location which turned out great because 1.) that location isn't making kids wear masks but the I.F. one is and 2.) I got to get some takeout sushi which I have been missing like crazy and it hit the spot! We watched "It's a Wonderful Life" in color through Amazon Prime that night which was fun. I love love love that movie.
Who needs Christmas gifts when you can have storage bins?
Today the ward showed my video primary program. Our bishop has a healthy sense of frugality so he won't spend the money to have unlimited time on our church zoom meetings. The guy conducting started the meeting really early so by the time they had an opening prayer, song, and announcements there wasn't enough time for the whole program to play, so with minutes left on the video everyone got booted off! I was disappointed for those families that had kids on the tail-end, but they later emailed the whole thing out for people to watch. It was 17 minutes and I was so proud of Emmett's part! He spoke up nice and clearly and didn't need much prompting from us. Chase and Rachel blessed their new baby Kamryn today as well and we got to listen over zoom. She was born at the end of September and wow she already looks so big! Chase did a great job on her blessing.
Emmett's part of the primary program. Logan normally does these "mantras" with Emmett but he was not cooperating, and when we took him out of the shot he would cry/scream so... the best take we got included his sad crying self. 😂🙈
Well December went by really fast for me which was great because September, October, and November were really tough and long. I'm excited to welcome in the new year where we'll be adding our 3rd baby to our family.
Unrelated: a Facebook memory popped up of my commencement speech at the College of Physical Sciences at BYU-I. Ummm...I've got to say that I'm quite proud that in a group of hundreds of science nerd graduates I was selected to give one of the two commencement speeches. So I made sure to download it and put on here for posterity. I remember writing this speech that morning in-between cleaning out our apartment: we moved to Las Vegas the very next morning. Hopefully my kids get some of those brains.
I hit 13 weeks and like magic, most of my first trimester hardships disappeared. By 14 weeks I felt almost totally normal. This picture shows how big the baby was at 5 weeks compared to 12 weeks. I am just in total awe of how much a baby grows in just 7 weeks! From the size of a sesame seed to the size of a lime - pregnancy is a miracle! And no wonder women feel like garbage in the first trimester: look at what our bodies are doing!!
making more Christmas goodies to share
Emmett helped me make Travis's chocolate chip cookies. I measured out 50 grams for each dough ball and his job was to shape them nicely and put them on the pan. He was also in charge of adding all ingredients and mixing with the kitchen aid. He LOVES to help in the kitchen.
Justin's "elf on the shelf" shenanigans
We babysat for Karen Beard's daughter and the kids loved having a baby to play with all day
Logan... the sleep saga continues. He's been getting up at 5:00 since daylight savings. For the past two days we've tried axing his naps to see if he'll sleep better at night. So far we're trading off a three hour nap for just one extra hour of sleep (sleeping until 6:00)...crossing my fingers that he figures this out!
Emmett and Justin made the nativity out of legos.
The weekend of the 12th Mom and Dad offered to take Trisha and me with them to Boise for Brynn's wedding and Braden's homecoming. This worked out perfectly for me because I wasn't feeling well enough to commit to getting a hotel for my family and I didn't start feeling better until a few days before leaving for Boise. The three-hour drive goes by much better with more company. Mom had an appointment with a chiropractor and agreed to let Trisha and me observe. We ate at Zupa's for dinner (my first time!) and listened to Brie's trumpet concert over facebook live. We chilled at our hotel the rest of the night and were lucky enough to find "It's a Wonderful Life" was on.
Saturday Trisha and I spent the day with Mitzi while Mom and Dad went to Brynn's wedding. Dad got permission to seal Brynn and Kyle in the Meridian temple. What a special experience that was, I'm sure! The three of us enjoyed shopping all morning and Mitzi treated us to lunch. We chilled out at her house that afternoon and watched "Mistletones" before heading off to Hart's house for the drive-by reception. Brynn was a beautiful bride!
From there we headed to Gabe's for the after-party AKA Mom's 70th birthday surprise. He ordered empanadas for dinner with all kinds of Beal classics at the table: sherbert with 7-up, cinammon bears, and German chocolate cake. We played guesstures afterward and just enjoyed hanging out with the crew. Gabe gave everyone Beal Corp hats at the end. It was a great day! Thank you Mitzi for taking us on all day long!
The lovely couple
Sunday morning Braden gave his mission homecoming talk and did a great job! He was so funny. I suspect he and Justin might share some Central America horror stories one day. He and Jory were also part of a special musical number which made for a wonderful meeting overall. It was so nice to be in church in person again! Gabe had us over for breakfast/lunch so we could get a bite before heading home. Thank you Gabe and Christy!!!
As soon as I got home I got busy going to people's homes in our ward to do recordings for our ward Christmas program. It was killing me that our ward wasn't doing anything for Christmas Sunday and I was talking to the primary president about it (because we were discussing the pre-recorded primary program I did). I told her we could easily do something similar for Christmas so she ran the idea by the bishop and I basically volunteered to do it. So I assigned all the parts the week before and drove to their houses to record their parts. Justin is BRILLIANT and was able to turn their videos into voice-overs for different pictures showing Nephites, Shepherds, Samuel the Lamanite, etc for the whole thing. We showed it today for church and I think it turned out great!
Our friends that live in Grandma and Grandpa Beal's house invited us for dinner the Sunday night I got home from Boise - it was perfect since the last thing I felt like doing after driving all day was cook! And they fed us ribs! Yum!
We've done a lot of Christmasy things this week - one night we drove to Arco to get treats and look at lights, then we came home to make snowflakes. The library gave each of the kids a Christmas goodie bag on another day, and I started "A Christ-centered Christmas" nativity tradition with them this week. Friday night the city put on their "parade of lights" which the kids loved! Emmett had a Christmas party for his preschool, and on Saturday we even braved the wind and tried going sledding. We did NOT last long, but Teddy enjoyed getting outside with us and the kids had fun. Saturday night we assembled all the Christmas goodies we've been making and today we will deliver to everyone on Justin's list.
I love bedtime cuddles
Emmett showing me all his Christmas party favors
One of our favorite restaurants in Puyallup makes an appetizer of fried avocado wontons. Since I can't go out to eat there anytime soon I decided to make some myself - yum!
