Cold

It's pretty stinkin' cold lately. This morning there were frostbite warnings, and government advice to make sure you wear a hat and gloves if you must go out as exposed skin can reach frostbite in less than thirty minutes.

Nathan got this picture of our kitchen window at negative something ridiculous like ten degrees this morning, but with the wind chill it was more like negative 24.

Fa La La La La

Monday was a bit of an all day Family Home Evening of sorts. We got out all our decorations. The garland and wreath made a reappearance, as did our candy-hiding countdown calender.

We had a couple additions this year. I finally managed to find a top to Nathan's Christmas pyramid online. He got it on the last day of his mission in Germany, but it has always been missing a piece. Well no more. It is complete and working.

We also got a fancy smancy nativity from Grandma Audrie while I was in CA. It's our first and only nativity as we never found one we liked. Nathan liked this one so much that we went out and got the wise men. It looked fine without them, but we were afraid that we would someday be unable to get them and then be wise men-less.

Some of us didn't quite grasp the concept of evenly distributing the ornaments on the tree.Discussing Star Placement Theories while Dad and Lily get ready to hang something.Placing the star. Owen got to do it by himself, with some help from Dad.

Happy Birthday, Grandma Audrie

Saturday was my mom's birthday. Jenna and I decided a while ago that we would surprise her and take her to see New Moon on the day. It took some doing and we had to smear Steve's good name.

On Friday I flew out to Jenna's in the bay. We hung out that night and got ready for the big day. Also on Friday, my dad averted a crisis. Mom had a free ticket at a certain theater and was going to use it. She told my dad she was done waiting for Jenna and Steve, she was going. It was after all practically her birthday and it was free. My dad told her that she had to wait. Before Thanksgiving we had laid the rouse that Steve was reading New Moon and wanted to finish it before seeing the movie. Therefore they couldn't see it at Thanksgiving and would have to wait 'til Christmas. My dad reminded my mom of all this and told her that she couldn't go without Jenna, it would just not be okay. My mom complied, but not very happily.

The next morning my mom's RS was having a breakfast and a craft day. Through some clever conversation steering at Thanksgiving, Jenna knew all about this. Time wise we decided that it would be best to get her then. My dad turned out to be serving breakfast. And good thing too, I didn't want him to miss it, but how would he have explained himself going to craft day?

Well he got the RS pres in on it. She grabbed us in the foyer and when she saw my mom wasn't looking, ran us to the stage to pop out from the curtains when she announced a little something for my mom's birthday.

My mom isn't used to me in my glasses, so it didn't initially sink in. But when it did I think shock would be the only descriptor. So we then gave Mom her Team Jacob shirt to match ours and told her that we were taking her to lunch and New Moon. We also cleared Steve's name. That the incredibly manly Steve was not in fact reading New Moon and was probably as glad as Nathan not to have to be taking his wife. (Nathan has actually said that not having to go himself was easily worth the cost of my plane ticket.)

So, our master plan went through without any snags. I even made my desperately tight connection in LA. And I was there to make my mom's craft like back in the day, so two gifts in one. I was glad we thought of it.

Such an Artist

Lily likes to draw on our little magnadoodle. Usually it's modern art. Today, she has become more realistic in her representations. She has been drawing a squiggly line and saying, "that snake!" And really aside from a worm that's pretty much the only thing it looks like. Maybe a small piece of yarn. But it is quite a fantastic snake. Such talent.

Our First Black Friday Foray

I've been needing to get a couple things from Michaels and I was going to be out Visiting Teaching anyway, so I went shopping on Black Friday. There I was at eleven-forty with my little handful of stuff and my 25% off coupon. It was more crowded than I'd ever seen it, but nothing crazy. It was almost noon after all.
Then later that afternoon I realized I needed to go back to Michaels and swap one of the things and so we combined it with a trip to Target for Grandma Audrie's Christmas present.
Target was crowded. We came home and I felt pretty impressed that I went to not one but two stores on Black Friday. One was even Target. But then I was done.
Nathan however was not. We've been wanting to get a big tv for about a million years, but they were always just too expensive for us to ever want to spend the money. Really seventeen hundred bucks just seems crazy to me. Well, Best Buy was having a great deal on one that we couldn't find in the print ad. Which is perhaps why it was still there at bedtime.
So I got the kids to bed while Dad and Aunt Mary went and got the "big surprise." So we now have a fancy tv. And since you can't not get a blu-ray player, we have one of those too. And seeing as our streaming netflix roku box has changed our lives, our blu-ray player does that too. Our wii is even HD now.
We are pretty high tech here nowadays. We're even using windows 7.
Owen and Lily love the new tv. We're pretty excited about it too. It will make it that much easier for me to see mariokart when I stomp Nathan.
I would say our first Black Friday was quite the success.

Thanksgiving

This year my pregnant brain and I were responsible for the turkey and the ham. (I made mashed potatoes and watergate salad too, but it's not quite the same intimidation factor.)
Nathan made me very specific instructions and we went over it about a million times. I've been pretty flaky this pregnancy so I wanted as explicit as possible. (I've accidentally gotten on a toll freeway, almost forgot a girl at YW night of excellence, and the best one, I mixed up tablespoon and cup, talk about funky.)
But despite the apprehension, it went well. No disasters or even incidents. I was even told that the turkey was nicely moist.
So my first solo turkey went well. I won't be nearly as nervous next time. And next time I'm sure I won't be pregnant so that will improve the situation at least ten fold.

My Birthday

It was Tuesday. Nathan and his assistants made my giant rice krispie and golden graham treats cake. It was extra fancy as Nathan used the cake pans that were used once upon a time at my aunt's wedding. It was four layers of tasty. Some expressed doubt that we could eat it, but it's nearly all consumed. (Of course we did host a playdate on Wednesday and I'm sure that helped dwindle the stash.)
Owen and Lily love decorations. Balloons especially. And Owen loves knowing that a party's coming. They were eager helpers when it came to unwrapping. Owen and I worked as a team, but Little Miss Independent had to be intercepted a few times, she must have just really wanted to listen to that Brad Paisley cd. Owen has gotten much better at not telling. He repeatedly told me that he wasn't going to tell. A marked improvement over Nathan's birthday; then he spilled the beans in the process of telling Dad that it was a surprise.