Weekend Forecast: Sunny and in the 70s

This last weekend, I was nearly tricked into thinking spring had come early because of all the rain. It rained so much that by Sunday I was beginning to think the floods were coming. How strange to see rain in January. Even at night. Then, Sunday afternoon, the snow began. And, we were given a nice fresh blanket of white that left the mountains looking like powdered donuts and all of the trees like a scene from an icy fairytale. I've loved that the beauty of this storm has lasted for two full days undisturbed. But, as I type, the wind is bringing the pretty shrouds of snow down from the branches. And, lest I should be fooled into thinking an early spring was upon us, the thermometer reading of 9-degrees this morning brought me right back to the reality of winter.

But, not for long. Thursday morning, Photoguy and I are headed to the land of perpetual sun. My lover surprised me with a four-day trip to San Diego -- the same place we were honeymooners 10-years ago. Can you believe we've been married TEN years? I don't think there is any way to say that without sounding a little bit old. It's nice that we will be able to commemorate this decade anniversary, unlike last year (see entry on 1/31/08) when we were too busy to celebrate. Yes, we are looking forward to four days of sleeping in and pure relaxation after the last 8-weeks of mayhem that have been our lives (read -- Photoguy working non-stop and me covering all parenting shifts without him). It's a bit hard to take the time off at this crucial point with Photoguy's book, but, I think pure exhaustion and burn-out won this time, so we are off to the ocean and sunlight. My list of things to do is looking pretty good too.

flights, hotel, rental car: booked
sunless tanning cream: purchased
toenails: painted
carpool: shuffled
Soph's ice-skating lesson: re-scheduled
E-Man's show and teach presentation for Friday: ready
reading material for the flight: checked out
arrangements for the kids: made

In other news, here are a few accomplishments of my day:

AiAi went happily to pre-school without protest. Big.

I successfully exchanged a pair of Heely's that I purchased on-line (they were too small) at a shoe store in the mall for a new pair of church shoes for the E-Man, plus an in-store credit (we already found used Heely's at Kid-to-Kid for Soph and E-Man and they've been gliding around like pros for weeks now). Huge relief.

Photoguy signed on two more sponsors for his book. That means we are 25% there as far as phase one for financing the publication. At this rate he needs about nine more sponsors and has a few maybes in the wings. Exciting. Wish us luck! He's only got two more weeks to do it!

What About This One?

Photoguy and I came to agreement on a new name yesterday:

Clara

So sad to give up Kate or Katie, because I truly do love those names. But, I think I could possibly let it go for Clara. Clara Layne? Any thoughts?

Please Help! We Need a Name.

This guy is blissfully slumbering upstairs. My other two are still at school. I'm not watching anyone else's kids. I just finished two restaurant write-ups. It's spooky weird to have the house all quiet with no one making requests and nothing pressing on my mind. I'm just going to kick up my feet and write an uninterrupted entry on my blog, yes I am.

In reference to the little guy pictured here, last night he gave us a scare by hiding (his new game since the Halloween day trauma, except the only problem is that he never informs us of the game beforehand). He had Photoguy and I both dashing through the house, searching everywhere and calling out his name repeatedly at 9:30 p.m. After about 15-minutes, Photoguy found him buried in the tub of hats, gloves and scarves by the front door. What possesses this child to torture his parents so? I've learned (after the first incident in which I nearly had a nervous breakdown) to not freak out, because now I realize he does this. But, it is still maddening. I'm worried about my mom because Photoguy and I are leaving out of town next week. If he does this to her (in her giant house with a lot more places to hide no-less), she will probably have a heart attack.

Isn't it strange that in addition to being our most difficult toddler, this beautiful boy also has both of his parents wrapped tightly around his two pinkie fingers? I love that fun-loving blue-eyed boy more than I could ever express in words here on this blog.

Thank you to those of you who commented on my last post about the Ogden Book. Wow, has it ever been a long journey with this thing. When I heard Bill Allred speaking complimentary words on the radio, when that first sponsor wrote out a check, and again last night when we read the clever foreward by Charlie Trentleman (the Wasatch Rambler for those of you familiar with his column), it finally starts to feel like all the sacrifice just might be for something after all. It's been a long-haul having our husband/father devoting so many hours to this venture. It will be one happy day if/when we finally see all of his efforts and our sacrifices come to fruition. He has tentatively set the release party for May 28th and 29th, which is also probably exactly when I will deliver our fourth baby. So . . . that will keep things interesting, eh?

Speaking of this baby, I need some input on names. Soph's name is Sophie Caroline. The middle name is after my mom, Carolyn (and, me, my middle name is Carol). I want this baby to be my mother-in-law's namesake. Her name is Rolayne, and I've always loved the idea of using "Layne" from her name as a middle name. My #1 name is:

Katie Layne

But, the problem is that every time I say it, people say, "Oh, like KD Lang the singer." Ummm . . . no, not like her people. Not that I have anything against PETA/lesbian spokespeople, but, this is suppose to be my mother-in-law's baby namesake. But, I don't know if I should really care so much. It's not like we will call her "Katie Layne." Just Kate, or Katie. Still, here is another option:

Kate Rolayne

Photoguy is not sure he is sold on Kate or Katie. His pick is Megan. I like:

Megan Elayne

But, can't use it because then her initials will spell MEN. If we use Megan I like:

Megan Michelle

But, feel sad to not name the baby after my mother-in-law.

Finally, Soph's pick is:

Kate Sophia

How adorable do I think it is that she wants us to name her sister after her? It does have a very nice ring to it, no? I think it is one of life's greatest ironies that she has gone from not wanting to share anything at the tender age of 1 1/2 when E-Man was born (she could not even share old baby blankets -- nothing -- in fact she tried on several occasions to extinguish him from her world altogether) to wanting to share every last piece of herself including her name.

The Ogden Book

Check out Photoguy's latest and greatest project at: www.ogdenbook.com or www.nicholsonphoto.com (click on "Ogden Book").

Almost exactly one year ago, Photoguy had a wild hair. And, as those of you who know us well are aware, these wild hairs can sometimes lead us down crazy roads (like roads that lead to China for example).

This time, he had a vision to create a book of portraits of people who live in Ogden. Influential people, vagabonds, people with cool tattoos -- a book of portraits of people from all walks of life connected by one simple thing -- the awesome city where we live (really, it is awesome, we even found t-shirts that say "Ogden is Awesome," so there's the proof).

For an entire year, my hubby has been devoting loads of time to this project. Making phone calls, compiling lists, sitting at the Union Station with his backdrop and cameras all set up waiting to snap photo after photo after endless photo. In the end, thousands of portraits were taken of more than 400 people (the book will contain about 350).

There were many, many phone calls to the publisher, even more hours of editing, and, finally, a few weeks ago, we got to see the first hard copy of the project. And, guess what? It is amazing!!! I'm so excited for how it is turning out. Many people who had heard of the project and then saw the sample copy in print admitted afterwards that they hadn't been very excited when they merely "heard" about it, but when they "saw" it, they were astounded. They were impressed. They said they would definitely buy a 12x12 hardbound version for their coffee table and/or permanent book collection.

Bill, from X96's morning show is originally from Ogden. Just before Christmas, Photoguy shot his portrait for the book and showed him the sample copy. Snarky, always-making-fun-of-Ogden Bill got excited about the book and said some complimentary things on the radio.

Part of the reason my blog has been so devoid of photos lately is that my photographer has been MIA this past month. That is because it is crunch time. His goal is to get the book off to the printer by the end of this month. The problem is that self-publishing is extremely pricey. And, it even turned out to be almost twice what he originally thought it would cost. So . . . he's been hitting the pavement looking for sponsors (who will get a nice bio in the front of the book in exchange), and, guess what? He called me just a few minutes ago to share the news -- he got his first sponsor!!! So, I'm super excited that this is lifting off the ground. Go check it out and tell me what you think. You can even e-mail comments to Photoguy directly from the site, and, if you do, it will make his day.

Angels We Have Heard on High

Today, we all slept in. Until 8 anyways. That is sleeping in, right? It's an hour later than I usually have to get up. Ahhhh . . . I am loving sleep right now.

Photoguy dashed off to work, and the kids and I lazily ate our bowls of cereal. E-Man kept listening to the song "Angels We Have Heard on High" by pushing a button on a Christmas ornament his piano teacher gave to him. Suddenly, he jumped up from the table, ran to the piano, and played a pretty flawless one-handed version. I was looking around to see where he had found the music for it and realized he didn't have music.

"E-Man, where did you learn that?" I asked, completely bewildered (remember that I have no musical abilities of my own).

"I was playing it on the table (he's often tapping out tunes with his fingers), and then it sounded right, so I played it on the piano," was his reply.

E-Man, I will never stop being amazed by your wonderful piano abilities.

Magic Hugs and Kisses

Something I am loving right now: Magic Hugs.

First, I tell a story of when Soph was young. She was probably around two-years-old when she started wanting me to kiss her owies better. It was awesome. She would get hurt, start to cry, I would kiss the hurt and ta-dah!!! All better! I don't know what has ever made me feel so awesome as being able to administer magic kisses. My powers even got to be so strong that, eventually, I could blow a kiss across the room and all wrongs would be made right again. I miss the days of those magic kisses. But, now, I have a new superpower, magic hugs.

Lately, whenever AiAi gets hurt he says (in the cutest baby voice imaginable), "I needa hug." As soon as I give him the hug, he is happy again! Sometimes, I hold my arms out to give the hug and almost as soon as I walk toward him, he is healed. Other times, he needs a really long hug. Other times, he suspiciously keeps hurting himself over and over and over every three seconds requiring multiple consecutive hugs. Whatever kind of hugs he needs, I'm loving being the giver of the magic hugs.

School Lunch Wisdom

Every now and then, I like to pop in and meet one of my kids for lunch. I love that it means so much to them and I realize that before long it will be an embarrassment. So, I try to do it while I still can. Last year, after choking down numerous corn dogs, frozen burritos and other unsavory school lunch foods, I had a revelation -- I don't have to eat the lunch. It may seem rather obvious, but, at first I felt that I had to purchase a lunch to sit by my child in the cafeteria. I now realize it's not so much the eating of the lunch as the just being there. My kids don't mind a bit that I sit there with no tray watching them eat and asking them about their day. I love that all the kids in E-Man's Kindergarten class wanted to sit by us when I joined him for lunch today. And, I also loved that I did not feel compelled to pretend to enjoy the chicken and rice or a prepackaged grilled cheese sandwich.

Switching gears, to another story, I was paid a very high honor today. Over the weekend, my friend took her 3-year-old daughter to Build-a-Bear. This is, Izzy, the same 3-year-old darling girl who I frequently babysit while her mom "puts the bad guys in jail" (those are the words of her 6-year-old daughter, my friend is a lawyer and victim's advocate). Apparently, Izzy picked out a moose at the Build-a-Bear, dressed her in angel clothes, and named her after ME! I just found out today and I thought that was about the sweetest thing I've ever heard. I've never ever had a stuffed angel moose named after me before. The best.
Here is that sweet girl blowing out her 3rd birthday candles (with AiAi's help) a few months ago.

Eight Already?

Soph bravely jumping off the diving board for the first time last summer (after some urging from Daddy).
Reading to AiAi in the pepto-palace.
Dear Soph,

Suddenly I look at you and see that you have changed from my darling baby to a little lady. When did this happen? I guess it has been happening gradually since the day you were born.

In a few short months, you will be baptized. Eight-years-old. That seems so grown-up. I can't imagine how I went from babies to having an eight-year-old.

I'm so proud of your loving disposition. When you were in the first grade, your teacher wrote me a note telling how you went out of your way to be kind to Tucker (who was the class bully and had a hard time making friends). When I read the words, "Soph knows how to treat others and is an example to all of us," it felt like one of the most crowning and validating moments in motherhood so far. Thank you for being a kind person. If there is anything I could teach you (besides a strong testimony) it would be that.

I'm so grateful that we get to bring a sister into the family for you to love and nurture this spring. I had no idea that you would get so excited over having a girl. I love the way you speak to her through my belly each night and tell her all about your stuffed animals and the great adventures you'll have together as sisters. I hope you will always be best friends with all of your siblings.

I'm proud of your accomplishments in piano. I love the way your face looks all dreamy when you play. And, I'm proud of you for stepping outside of your comfort zone to eagerly conquer ice-skating lessons. You do love the cold, so, I guess ice-skating fits. You've spent more time outside since the snow fell than you did in the warm weather. Completely opposite from your mom in this one regard.

You've told me that you want to be an art teacher and an author when you grow up. I know you will excel at both if that is what you want to do. You are so smart, I know you can be anything you decide. You've also told me that you never want to get married because you never want to change your last name. You can keep your last name forever if you want, but, I hope you don't miss out on experiencing the greatest joys life has to offer as a wife and mother someday.

I thought you would have grown out of stuffed animals a little by now. When you slept in your tiny toddler bed, there was hardly enough room for you with all your furry friends crowded around. Then, we got you a bigger bed and the pack of animals grew. I'm always encouraging you to "put a few of them away," but, you just won't have it. And, so you sleep curled in a little ball in the loving embraces of all your animal friends watching over you and protecting you as you dream.

I'm proud of the way you've taken to cooking. Before Christmas, you mentioned that you'd like some cooking tools of your own. Mammas (who always spoils you) ran right out and bought every mini chef gadget she could find. I've loved watching you and E-Man work together baking mini muffins and other concoctions. Just yesterday, you made no-bake cookies all by yourself.

Thank you for being one of my greatest joys in life. I hope you will always let me lay by your side for a few minutes before you fall asleep, and I'm already feeling a bit misty eyed that that will end all too soon, in ten more years or so when you grow up and move off on your own. For now, I will try to savor the moments of your childhood as much as I can.

Love,
Mom

Is Refinancing A Home Suppose to be Like This?

I'm not sure if I'm suppose to put stuff this personal out there in the blog world, but, I just have to know, is refinancing your house suppose to be more painful and invasive than childbirth?

Last April, we were thinking about buying a larger home down the street from this home. We spoke to a mortgage guy who supposedly "pre-approved" us for the loan with no problems. By August, the home we wanted to buy had sold to someone else and we decided to refinance our home and stay awhile.

We figured that everything would go smoothly, but ran into a few glitches because of the tightening standards in the mortgage industry (right at same time we decided to re-fi), and the fact that Photoguy and I draw a large portion of our income from freelance ventures -- not the preferred way of doing things in the eyes of the lenders.

Finally, at the end of October, we were told things were a "go" and forked out a whoppin' $450 from our own pockets to get an appraisal -- what we were led to believe would be the last step before signing closing papers.

Our mortgage guy surprised us on closing day with a 30-year mortgage (we need a 15-year), a 6% interest rate (he had promised us 5.5%) and an additional $6,500 in closing costs. Ummmm . . . gee no thanks.

We then moved to another guy who had the very easy task of taking all the documents the first guy had collected and drawing up a new loan meeting our expectations of a lower interest rate, lower closing costs and being a 15-year mortgage. After a series of setbacks with this guy, we lost our trust with him when he was Mr. Eager Beaver to lock us in at 5.5% when we knew full well that interest rates had just dropped below 5%. Ummmm . . . again, not going to work out.

In walks mortgage lady #3 who was referred to us by a friend. We were very excited to be with her, she was so reassuring and great to work with, plus she immediately locked us in at 4.7% -- hello, how fab is that? Then, we found out that she is SO good and does SO many mortgages that we end up being tossed around between five team members who are not so wonderful to work with as her. At the beginning of December, current mortgage lady assured us that we would be closed and finished with this process by the end of December. At the end of December, she assured us that it would happen by January 9th (today). Now, we are being told that we may not even be able to refinance at all. And, even if we can, it could still be months in the works. Oh, and, by the way, that appraisal is looking a little bit old nowadays so maybe they should just order a new one -- because the only thing worse than paying someone $450 to tell you how much your house is worth is paying them $900 to tell you twice.

See . . . it seems not to matter that our credit scores are among the highest, that we are refinancing for less than 50% of the current appraised value and that we've lived in the home for 9 years and never so much as been a day late on a payment. All that matters is that we don't have hard and fast W-2's to show our income. So, they look at our 2006 and 2007 tax returns. Ummm . . . we lived in China for half of 2006, so it is only reflective of 6 months of earnings instead of 12. So, that hurts us. And, they won't even count much of our income even though we declared it and paid taxes on it -- does that make any sense at all!? Why on earth would we be paying taxes on money we didn't earn? Don't people usually try to not declare money they have earned instead of vice-versa. Oh . . . the crazy world of the mortgage industry.

I feel like I am going certifiably insane with the whole business of it. I won't even begin to tell the stories, because, as those who are close to me can attest, the madness of it all just goes on and on and on and on. Let's just say that every other day they are requesting more and more documents from us that send my blood pressure soaring to new heights each time as we dig through boxes and boxes of paperwork trying to supply them with every last stitch of everything that we've ever done in our lives since we were born. And, sometimes they ask for things we can't even provide -- like last week, they asked me to give them my 2008 1099 from the newspaper.

Them: Well, we spoke to the newspaper and since you aren't a W-2 employee they won't supply us with your last year of earnings (this, after I have given them 7 solid months worth of paystubs and documentation of my 2006 and 2007 writing earnings on tax returns). Do you think you can just get your 1099 and get it to us right away (bear in mind this is only days away from when we are hoping to close the loan).

Me: Ummmm, I don't think I can really control that. They have until the 31st to send those out, so, I'm not sure when I will get it.

Them: Well, can you just try to get it in the next few days? Do you think it will come sooner rather than at the end of the month?

Me: ?

Which leads me to call the newspaper and try to find out when tax forms will be sent out. My questioning leads to a series of people repeating to me, "We have until the 31st, we have until the 31st, we have until the 31st." Hello mortgage people, I am not magical.

I said I would not tell stories, so, I stop right here and only add that this is the kind of ridiculousness that consumes a crazy amount of my time at present.

The other day, as we were frantically searching for, yet another annoying list of forms, Photoguy said, "Does it kind of seem like they don't want to do our loan so they just keep giving us more and more hoops to jump through until they finally find the one task we can't do?" "Yes!" I said. "That is exactly how I feel!!!" What is up with that?

Yet, we persevere. And, we put up a front of patience as we continue to complete the ever-increasingly insane tasks they put us to in hopes that we will, at long last, get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- the refinance. Because, for various reasons, we really, really, really, need this to happen. And, if we jump ship again, we will miss out on this amazing 4.7% interest rate. I keep hoping that it will happen and this insanity will finally end.

Sugar and Spice Cakery

I love this new restaurant for so many reasons. The name itself is one. It's a total girly place -- pink accents, pretty pastries and salads with yummy dressings. They opened a few weeks ago on Historic 25th Street, and I had the privilege of interviewing Wendy, the owner. She and her husband have been running an on-line wedding planning business for the past 2 years, and she does gorgeous wedding cakes too. They decided to open up a quaint little shop for her cakes, plus so they could add catering services to their wedding business, and so that the rest of us can enjoy dining in the cozy restaurant front.

After I did the story I called Photoguy and told him about it because I haven't been this excited about a new restaurant for awhile -- a nice change from the slew of Chinese and Mexican joints. He was less enthused than I was about the cute name, fancy custom cakes, etc., and that is when I realized "it's a girl thing."

I love that Wendy is such a dedicated worker, arriving at 4 a.m. to begin baking and staying until closing at 7 p.m.. Talk about loving what you do. I love that they only patronize locally owned small businesses. And, perhaps what I love the most are the prices. In addition to their reasonable soups, salads, sandwiches and breakfast items, they offer an "Economic Lunch Crunch" special each day -- a no frills brown bag of tacos, hot dogs, mini hamburgers or deli sandwiches for under $1. The gourmet hot chocolate -- made from real ground chocolate with the option to add extra flavors is only $1.50. And, the lovely pastries are between $.75 and $2.00. I guess I'm so accustomed to specialty shops like this gouging out your pocketbook at the door -- charging $4 for a hot chocolate and another $4 for a little pastry.

This morning, I bundled up my two babies, Izzy and AiAi and headed to Soph's school to do a little volunteer work. I ended up leaving the school right at 10:30 -- the usual time for stories at the library. Rather than head home, I swung over there with the babies. But, I didn't realize that this is the one week out of seven that they are on break from story time. No big deal. We haven't been going for awhile, so I didn't have the current schedule. We played in the kiddie section for awhile, then headed to the car to go home for lunch.

As a side note, I had enrolled Izzy and AiAi in morning pre-school back in September. Izzy loved it, but AiAi notsomuch. At the beginning of November, I withdrew him rather than forcing him to go. I decided to give it another go this month and moved both Izzy and AiAi to the Tuesday/Thursday afternoon session. Today was the first day.

We had quite a snowstorm raging all morning, and, as I buckled them into their seats yet again, I was thinking to myself, "If I go home, there is no way I will want to leave my warm home and venture back out in this storm in an hour to take the kids to pre-school." I decided that instead of going to my home at the top of 25th Street, I'd head west to the Sugar and Spice Cakery instead. We were not disappointed.

Wendy fixed up $1 hot dogs for the babies and mixed gnoche in their milk to make it chocolatey. I decided to try a couple of $.25/cent tacos (today's economic lunch crunch special). Not bad. Especially at that price. I also had a gorgeous gourmet hot chocolate (thankfully, I'm back on chocolate -- now it just falls under the "don't eat too many sweets" catagory). It came out in one of those wide mugs with tons of whipped cream and bits of chocolate sprinkled on top. So rich! So yummy! Can you tell I have missed chocolate? And, how can it only be $1.50? I almost had to take another to go, but, thankfully, restrained myself.

Of course, we could not be restrained from the lovely pastry case. AiAi picked out a yummy peanut butter topped cupcake, and Izzy took the beautiful cupcake with chocolate frosting and colorful sprinkles. I had a slice of sweet roll with so much fluffy white frosting I couldn't even eat it all (even with the babies' help). Lunch plus all of this heavenly goodness cost less than $8.

After we finished eating, we had about 15 minutes to kill before I could take the kids to school. They entertained themselves by taking turns giving each other horsey rides on the floor. There was only one other customer in the place. She was a very sophisticated looking woman. I'm not sure what she was thinking. Perhaps that they were the most darling children she had ever seen. No? Perhaps that I was a terrible mom for letting them roll around on a dirty public floor like that? Perhaps, and if so, oh well. Perhaps that I was not a mom at all, but a favorite aunt or something because I was enjoying those two way too much to be a worn out mom? Most likely. As for me, I felt like my heart would overflow because I'm pregnant and hormonal like that I was the luckiest mom in the world just then to be there enjoying the Sugar and Spice Cakery and watching those two be the most adorable children in the world. Just for a moment.

Pregnancy Journal

I've decided that in pregnancies past I've been just a tad bit too whiny about the discomforts. While I'm not one of those women who has "never felt better," I feel like it kind of takes away from the miracle of the whole thing. It's much easier to vocalize the negative feelings than the feelings of awe when you feel sick all the time.

I'm making an effort to be better. With that said, I attempt now to journal a few pregnancy quirks before they fade in my memory.

• I sometimes wonder if this baby will be born part sea creature since I crave a hot bath EVERY single night (this is in addition to showering every morning).
• For two months, the very thought of chocolate turned my stomach. I couldn't touch the stuff unless I wanted to pay dearly for it later. Chocolate! Can you imagine? Something once so integral to my existence.
  
• I've had those kinds of weird quirks with every pregnancy. For example, for a time during E-Man's pregnancy I could not eat chicken (usually quite a staple in my diet). With Soph, I could not have hamburger (but, let's face it, hamburger is nasty anyways). With all of my pregnancies I am repulsed by vegetables. Does anyone else have these reactions to food while expecting?
• I haven't noticed that wheat products make me sick, but I just don't want to eat them (again, weird since I normally have wheat every day).
• Besides chocolate, sweets in general have been making me v-e-r-y ill and achy in all of my joints. This is fabulous as a motivator to stay away from stuff I shouldn't have anyways. But, it's not so fab when I eat sweets in a moment of weakness. Six or so days around Christmas were pure torture when my iron will wavered with all the tempting goodies.
• I usually pack on the pounds like a crazed maniac during my pregnancies regardless of what I eat or how much I exercise. I feel extremely blessed for the fact that I am nearly 20 weeks and haven't gained any weight! In fact, for awhile I was losing weight. I'd like to say it's because of staying away from chocolate and sweets, but, like I said, in previous pregnancies it made no difference what I did. No amount of nausea or vomiting seemed to help with the weight issues either. Whatever it is this time around, I am so grateful. It was hard starting out a fourth pregnancy without losing the weight from the third. So, hopefully this means it will all come out sixes in the end.
  
• We are thinking about the name "Katie." Do you love it?
• In the months before I began this pregnancy, I was loving attending 5:30 a.m. body pump and spin classes at the gym (I'm a morning person). I was also loving hiking Malan's Peak with some girlfriends every week. A few months into the pregnancy, the gym classes and hikes fell to the wayside. It became hard to wake up by 7 a.m. to get the kids ready for school because I suddenly n-e-e-d-e-d 10-hours of sleep per night people! And, forget weight training, suddenly my vacuum cleaner seemed too overwhelmingly heavy to even consider getting it out and pushing it around. Yikes.
• Ahhh . . . the quirks of pregnancy. I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can.
  

Stories of Santa I Don't Want to Forget

I think that secretly Soph has known the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny deep down inside for awhile, though she chooses to keep up the facade for some reason. I say this because when she had just barely turned three, we attended an Easter party at a friend's house that was complete with a visit from the Easter bunny himself. After it was over, Soph said to me, "Mommy, I think the Easter bunny was really just Lexy's dad dressed up in a costume." Me: (sweating bullets) "Really honey, ummm, why do you think that?" Her: (sweet and reassuring) "Not really mom. I think it was really the real Easter bunny." It was like she was afraid of ruining it for me.

A few times this year, someone would slip and say something about "Santa" and Soph would quickly interject a cover-up or act like she was oblivious rather than being like, "Hey, wait just a minute, what did that person just say?" So . . . I think deep down she knows, but I love that she wants to keep playing along. E-Man, on the other hand, was full of some thoughtful questions on the Santa issue this year as illustrated in the following overheard conversations . . .

E-Man: "I don't think Santa could keep track of the naughty and nice children on a list. There isn't enough room."
Soph: "It's not a list, it's a book. A really big book."
E-Man: "Well, that book would have to be as big as a house."

And, a few days later.

E-Man: "I don't think Santa can deliver all the toys around the world in just one night."
Soph: "It's just magic."
E-Man: "Yeah, but when it is daytime here, it is nighttime in China. It would take him at least a day and a night." As in, one 24-hour rotation of the earth to cover nighttimes all around the world. Now, who can argue with that?

My Take on a Teenage Craze

I know I'm a little behind the times, but considering my sheltered life as a mom, I'm just glad to even know the trends at all. Last summer, I was introduced to the "Twilight" series. I read the first book and found it to be entertaining and well written. I wasn't completely taken with the characters to such an extreme that I had to put my entire home and role as a wife and mother on hold while I devoured the rest of the books. I thought it was nice, and then I moved on.

Then, "Twilight" the movie came out, and people went a little bonkers. Moms who seemed in all other regards to be completely sane were lining up to see the midnight showing and it was all the rage that everyone seemed to be talking about around me. Still, I wasn't motivated to run out and get the rest of the books to see what it was all about.

Early in December, I attended a book club where one of the moms ranted about her outright disgust for the "Twilight" series. She was so offended that it was marketed to youth, written by an L.D.S. author and sold at Deseret Book. I said that I didn't feel offended by the first book and she assured me that the books went downhill from there until the main characters were (and I quote:) "ripping each other's clothes off on every other page."

Now, I was intrigued. Not by my need to read about Bella and Edward ripping each other's clothes off on every other page (which they did not), but by the whole moral debate about whether or not this was appropriate youth and/or L.D.S. fiction. I wanted to make my own informed judgement. The next day, I began the second book. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy it (all except the first 300 or so pages about broken hearts and depression -- that was a bit of a downer), but I also felt the need to continue on to the third book immediately. I devoured and enjoyed the third book. I was a little nervous about beginning the fourth (the whole neglecting the house, husband and kids thing, but I just blamed it all on being preggo, so it was okay). The fourth book was a bit exhausting for me. Lots and lots of details. Being pregnant, I could have done without 350 pages of graphic description of her body being ravaged from the inside out by the thing growing inside her. I found that as long as I frequently skipped ahead to see what was coming next, I was content to keep reading the never ending details because Stephanie Meyer is an amazingly imaginative and talented writer.

Now that I have finished the series I must say I disagree completely with my fellow book club member. I would not be thrilled with my young daughter reading these books. But, I wouldn't mind it terribly either. I'd have to agree with my sister-in-law that it's more about the conversations you have with your kids about reality versus fiction than them just reading the book and absorbing it as a moral compass.

To top it all off, I had such a fun girlie girl day today. Photoguy kept the kiddies (plus, my friend's three-year-old) while three girlfriends and I went to a matinee of "Twilight" and lunch afterwards. I had heard mixed reviews about the quality of the movie, and all I have to say is that it was completely fun! No complaints here. I thought they did an amazing job bringing Meyers' endearing characters to life on the big screen and included a surprising amount of details from such a long book. I had very low expectations since films are never as good as the books. Yet I walked away completely satisfied. I can't remember the last time I did something that seemed so silly/teeny-bopper-ish with a group of girlfriends like that and it felt great. The sushi at Tona afterwards was awesome too. And, Photoguy is so my "Edward" for keeping all the kids all day. Our only regret when it was over, was that we didn't take the time to make matching vampire t-shirts beforehand. Next time.

Welcome 2009!

I cannot remember a New Year's Eve that I enjoyed while growing up. When I was young, I was usually upstairs watching all the posh parties on T.V. while my parents were downstairs eating finger foods with their friends. For some reason, I never envisioned myself eating finger foods with a quiet gathering of friends when I grew up. No, no. My head was full of fanciful visions of what my grown up New Year's Eves would look like. And, they always involved dancing the night away in a gorgeous gown surrounded by handsome guys in tuxes, an elegant buffet, lights, cameras and loads of balloons and confetti falling on our heads at midnight. I figured this would start happening by the time I was 16. So, while the New Year's Eves of my youth were bland, the real years of disappointment started when I reached 16 and the vision failed to materialize year after year.

It seemed that no matter what was on the agenda for New Year's Eve, I was always bitterly disappointed by the ordinariness of it all. A hockey game followed by indoor fireworks -- blah. Concerts and gigantic indoor sandboxes at the Salt Palace -- nothankyou. Parties with college friends -- meh. I once begged my parents for days to spend New Year's with a boyfriend (I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman in college). We spent the day skiing at Snowbird and the evening at the home of his college roommate playing board games with said roommates family. I could hardly contain myself from bursting into tears when they turned on the T.V. at midnight to -- gasp -- WATCH THE BALL DROP!!! Were they kidding? I didn't want to be watching it on T.V. I wanted to BE there. It didn't matter that I was with friends and doing things that on any other night of the year would have been exciting -- it was never enough to compare to the made up visions I'd created in my head. I know, I know, I had issues.

Poor Photoguy had to deal with this for the first few years of our marriage. Yes, I admit that it took about a decade of disappointments before the rose colored glasses were finally stripped from my eyes and I was able to start enjoying this holiday.

Around the time I had kids, I came to see that my ideal New Year's Eve involved making it the most fun night imaginable for our family. I mean, I already knew there was nothing going on outside of my home that I was dying to do. Plus, it's cold. Plus, drunk drivers. So, why not just stay home?

There have been many years that Photoguy has had to work. The newspaper must go on, you know. I've been able to fill in the gaps with friends. The first year after we began the traditional kid party that he had to work, I found a friend whose kids are the same ages whose husband was chaperoning a youth dance. Wallah! Bummed out New Year's Eve alone turned into two sassy moms and their kids toasting the 10 o'clock hour with plastic goblets and breaking confetti filled eggs over each others' heads.

The annual party was almost replaced by a pool party this year. But, one of the friends I had invited, who had already made plans, had her plans fall through. She called me the morning of and the party was back on. It was a breeze to pull together. In the past, I spent days obsessing about party foods and put in lots of preparation to put out the perfect spread. Then, I realized the thing my kids were the very most excited about was the easy cheese gleefully globbed onto crackers. This year's menu included mini ham and cheese sandwiches, steamed artichokes dipped in butter, fudge (made by the kids), popcorn, caramel sticky buns, decorate-it-yourself sugar cookies, grapes, raspberry sherbet punch, and, of course, easy cheese with two kinds of crackers. Pretty easy and everyone was happy.

My kids love the friends who came over. We played rat-a-tat-tat and Cadoo and had drawings for prizes from the dollar store (my New Year's resolution btw is to help out the environment by discontinuing that last tradition at our future parties). We set up the two room pop up house in the basement and the kids had a great time giggling and being silly and playing store downstairs until we set off confetti cannons and toasted with sparkling apple juice at ten. My friends went home but their kids stayed and all the kids slept in the basement. We continued the celebration this morning by eating Lucky Charms. Then, my friend picked up all the kids for a few hours and took them to her house to feed them donuts -- because, it's important to keep the sugar/junk food high going for as long as possible.

I think it was pretty memorable for the kids and yet another great New Year's for me. My hope is that my kids will love our New Year's parties SO much, that, even when they are teenagers, they will still want to party with the fam. Then, I won't have to worry about slick roads and drunk drivers and wild parties and such. I realize I might lose them through the college years. But, wouldn't it be fun if someday my grown kids and grandkids wanted to spend New Year's Eve with me? I'm hoping it will work out that way.