What did I do??

He's not my little baby anymore!!

Merry Christmas!

We hope you are having a wonderful day as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Flu Who?

Last Tuesday night I hung out at my sister-in-law's house and had a slight headache. On my way home it got worse. A few times I felt a little nauseous and dizzy. By the time I carried David up to bed I thought I was going to pass out. I had Emma get ready for bed by herself, and left a sleeping Mckenna in the car for Ian to take to bed when he got home 10 minutes later. I took a bunch of Advil and Tylenol and went to bed.

The next morning my whole body was sore, especially my head, neck, and back. Over the next two days I had a fever, chills, night sweats, more nausea and dizziness, heat rash, and was just super super sore all over. The headache was the worst I've ever had, even when I was on 4 Advil and 2 extra strength Tylenol. Wednesday night was the worst. I was shivering more than I ever have in my life. And Thursday morning I stopped halfway down the stairs and just started crying because I hurt so much. Last night was the first night I started feeling a little better. I just figured I got a nasty flu and it had to run its course.

Then I woke up this morning...

...with swollen lips. I looked in the mirror and the inside of my lips looked like I had chomped down on them sometime in the night. There wasn't any broken skin, just big red and purple bumps. Odd...

Then my feet started to itch. And get red bumps, as did the inside of my cheeks and the palms of my hands. I finally went to see a doctor today. The diagnosis?

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. Nice, huh? Yeah - I know what you're thinking: disgusting! You can go Google it, but it's basically just a viral thing that has to run its course. The doctor said once the rash appears, I'm not contagious anymore, but the rash usually lasts about 1-2 weeks. Yuck.

Now I bet you're still wondering why I felt so cruddy the past few days. Well, it turns out that there's a complication with H/F/M disease...you can get Viral Meningitis - very commonly described as "The worst headache you've ever had." Sound familiar? Here's what the Mayo clinic has to say about it:

Meningitis is an inflammation of the membranes (meninges) and cerebrospinal fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord, usually due to the spread of an infection. The swelling associated with meningitis often triggers the "hallmark" symptoms of this condition, including headache, fever and a stiff neck.

So wish me luck as I drink my milky smoothie and rub hydro-cortisone cream all over my feet. Oh and Happy Holidays! Hopefully I haven't coughed on you in the past couple of days.

Ian's Deal

For all those of you who are mad at me when Ian finds a great deal and I tell you about it after the sale is through...I guess I bugged Ian enough and he typed this all up and emailed it to me, before he even told me there was a good sale this week! Happy Shopping!

Safeway's got some good deals on Kellogg's products - save $5 on your order when you buy 5 participating items. Below are some of the items that interested me (prices shown are after the $5 is taken off your order):

Smart Start $1.88
Mini-wheats $1.49
Special K Red Berries $1.99
12ct Pop-tarts $1.49

I usually don't get these healthier Kellogg's cereals because they're not on sale very often and it's usually hard to find good coupons for them. I think my family is getting sick of Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Captain Crunch! (the Pop-tarts are far from healthy, but they're a cheap & convenient breakfast for those days when we're running late!)

I bought the following coupons on eBay (spent $6.18 total):
(10) $1 off Smart Start
(10) $1 off Special K
(15) $1 off Mini-Wheats
(10) $.55 off Pop-tarts (doubles to $1 off)
Basically, I'm going to get $1.00 off each of these items. Once I'm done, I will get 35 boxes of cereal and 10 boxes of Pop-tarts for $37.16.

Kid-isms

Mckenna: Mommy my nose hurts. I think someone picked my nose. But it wasn't me! I don't know who did it.

_______________

David's new phrase this week is either "Huh?" or Whaaaat?" And when you answer him, he'll say, "Oooooooh," as in "Oh, it all makes sense now!" He usually says it after you tell him no. Like this:

Me: No, David, we don't play with scissors.
David: Huh?
Me: Remember when you cut your shirt earlier today? We don't play with scissors, bring them to me.
David: Ooooooooh.

More pictures....

Our camera has been stuck on the "sports" setting since Halloween, so we took it in to Best Buy and have been minus a camera for a while. Luckily, I bought a new, smaller one on Black Friday. Because I have been bombarded with picture requests(ok...two), I will now pleasure you with a blog full of just pictures....

Our neighborhood had a little mini Christmas party last weekend. Santa came riding up on a firetruck. I guess Emma didn't believe it when we said Santa would be coming out of the truck because this was her face when he did:David wasn't so sure...Emma asked for a basketball hoop and a basketball.

This was Mckenna's first year that she didn't need any prompting. She marched right up and said she wanted blue walkie talkies - I wish this girl would make up her mind, Santa can't keep returning things to Walmart!And David was still a bit unsure...

I love my cuties.

The highlight of the day was meeting the firefighters and sitting in their truck. This guy told them to call him "Uncle" so and so. Uncle? Really? As if they don't already love you, you have to go and make yourself their uncle? Creepy.

For my birthday, the kids and Ian made me this sickeningly sweet cake. And when I say sickeningly sweet, I mean...it was in the trash before the night was through. It was SO good that I knew I'd pig out on it the next day and I'd rather have it in the trash than on my love handles. It had strawberry margarita mixer in the batter and a lime frosting. SOOO good. And it was so cute! Emma decorated the left, Mckenna the right, and Ian and David did the middle. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving I surprised Ian with tickets to a hockey game. We're not sports fanatics, but we both enjoy hockey and I can't remember the last time he and I went on a date with just the two of us. It was such a fun night, I can't wait to go again!

And here are some cookies we made to deliver for turkey day. The kids loved it, Ian got the idea from some website...I think maybe Betty Crocker? That's been our fav lately. That's where he got the idea for my cake above.

Random picture I found on the memory stick...

And, in case you missed it the first time...here is another true definition of Willie off the Pickle Boat. Keep in mind that this child had zero help getting dressed that day. In fact, I told her she could wear whatever she wanted. We were just going for a walk to the park to have a picnic. And here is what she came up with(notice the Billy Bob teeth....thanks Tami, and the visor hanging from her neck, the headband wrapped around her waist, the superman cape above the headband on her waist, and she also has on pink flip flops):

The kids were playing house the other day. Emma was the mom(she always has to be the one in control) and Ken and David were her babies. I thought it was so cute that David wanted in on the action. They're pretending to be asleep. David sat there for like 5 minutes pretending to sleep with Kenna.

Mckenna loves the stickers they wear when they're at the childcare center at the Y and I'm in the gym. As soon as we get in the car she either sticks them on her forehead, her eyes, or on a finger and pretends it's her bandaid. She's such pure entertainment. This time, she insisted she go in to Walmart with it on her head, and to preschool. And just in case you haven't been entertained by her antics enough in this post...here are her mittens that she HAD to have when we went to Goodwill the other day. And lastly...is this not the most beautiful Christmas tree you've EVER seen? Seriously. 8 feet of pure Christmas joy. And it is FAT. And soooo super smelly. Ian said, "I don't think I've ever loved a Christmas tree as much as I love this one." Exactly.

Farfegnugen

I realized that when I posted all of the Halloween and California pics, I skipped over all of the ones in between. Here they are, plus my trip with Ian to Sedona. (More recent pics to come in another post)

The Friday after we got back from Cali, Ian took David camping with the Young Men in our stake. They got to camp at the Casa Grande Municipal Airport - how fun is that? The YM were taken up one at a time in tiny little planes(don't ask me what they were called!). David was too little, but was more than happy to just be surrounded by airplanes, and to see them take off, land, and fly around in the sky.

Every night when we finish with family prayer and scriptures, we tell the girls to go get in their beds. 8 times out of 10, David climbs into Mckenna's bed, pulls the covers up, and waits for us to come in - with a big smile on his face. He thinks he's hilarious. So one of those nights, Ian decided that meant David was ready for his big boy bed. I totally rolled my eyes at the idea, but decided to let Ian have his fun. I assumed David would either climb out of bed right away, or be up wandering the house all night long. Either way, I figured I'd let him try it one night, and then we'd put him back in the crib the next night. I'm just not ready for him to be in a big bed...all mobile! I like that when he wakes up in the morning I can snooze a little while I listen to him waking up on the monitor. And he's so good at going to sleep. You just lay him in the crib and he's quiet. Anyway, we lay him in his bed, pull the covers up, give him his little blankie(his ni-night), give him kisses, and say good night. Initially he looked at us like he had no idea what was going on. Then he turned and snuggled into his blankie. We left the room and didn't hear another peep from him until 7 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!! I went in to check on him at about 6:30 and he was lying diagonally on his pillow - sound asleep. Is he not the absolute best baby in the world? OK so 20 months isn't really a baby anymore, but he's my baby. I was just so shocked that he stayed put! Ian thought that meant that David would permanently be in the bed...sorry! I'm still not ready for that step! At least we got some cute pics of it:In other related news...One night we went in to check on Emma before we went to bed and here is how we found her:
She had shoved her "greenie"(her blankie) up in her shirt! What a nut!

Here are the pics from our Sedona trip. Ian surprised me with a one-nighter, and our awesome fabulous and wonderful friends, Kelli and Lance stayed with the kids(and I'm sure baby Mia - aka Meemoo - was a big help). I'm not going to bother explaining most of the pics - especially since they're in a way random order. Just suffice it to say - we ate great food, met great people, went on great hikes and great drives, and had a great time!

Notice our blingin' sunglasses? We couldn't find our regular ones, so our Britney and Kevin ones had to suffice. :)Apparently Ian thought this was a great photo op...be grateful I didn't post the other one of me bending over looking at some rocks...I'm not sure why I'm posing like a trophy wife in this one:Ian's Velociraptor rock sculpture:

It was Ms. Scarlet, in the library, with the candlestick!

For my 27th birthday last week we hosted a Murder Mystery party. It was SOOOOOO SO SOOO much fun! Seriously - I haven't laughed that hard in who knows how long. We all had characters that we had to play. There was a dinner menu, complete with recipes, invitations, a play book for each person, and lots of clues and hints. It was set in a train car in France, June of 1940.

Here are my friends Amber and Tami - AKA Barbra(the perfume heiress) and Belinda(the high society dressmaker):Ryan(Khover the secret agent)and Dave(Mal the Gangster):Mary(ruthless journalist) and Wey(pilot)Idelle(princess) and The Duke(military officer)

Barbra and Khover

Mary and Wey

Belinda and MalThe girls...funny story about this picture. It took 7 shots to finally get a picture that all of us liked and that we weren't absolutely CRACKING UP in. I'm not kidding you. We were ridiculous. And insane. And wildly maniacal.And here's my beautiful table! I was so excited to finally get the chance to use my china tableware. And my crystal!

It was really a super fun night. If anyone is interested you can buy the game on Ebay. Just search for "How to Host a Murder." You can buy them on their website, too, but they're cheaper on Ebay. Oh yeah...and invite me!

Oh and in case you're wondering(and don't read on if you ever plan on hosting this edition)...I was the killer. However... I wasn't actually Princess Idelle, I was Finona Fatale in disguise...the person who's murder I was framing on everyone else! Sneaky me!

Raindrops on Roses...

With the Holiday season upon us I have been realizing just how much I really love this time of year. The weather finally cooled off this week and now that Thanksgiving is officially over, I can really start enjoying Christmastime. So...to kick the season off, here are a few of my favorite things(of this week!)

Stephens Chocolate Mint Truffle Hot Cocoa... Mmmm... 'nuff said...
I'm not sure why this picture is so ridiculously large(none of these pictures are mine...I googled them all - and somehow they all turned out huge!)... My Great Aunt Peg's famous applesauce cake... I made some on Wed and for some reason it was really dense, but still SO so good!
I ordered this velour hoodie(and the pants) from Old Navy. When the box got here, this was the last thing I tried on...and I've been living in it ever since. I come home and put it on right away and when I wake up in the morning, it's the first thing I go to...Maybe I should get two so I can rotate them. SO cozy!

Black Friday shopping. This year was the first time I went. My friend, Tami invited me, and we had so much fun! I got some pretty good deals, but mostly just had a lot of fun.

Christmas lights! Ian put ours up on Wednesday and Saturday and they look great! I love that my husband loves Christmas as much as I do. We also cleaned the house really good on Wed and Saturday, and decorated inside. I still haven't done our trees - I'm saving that for next weekend.

Thanksgiving leftovers. I know you are all sick of turkey by now, but I just can't seem to get enough! I'm kind of over the soggy green bean casserole, but I love the turkey sandwiches! Ian bought the biggest turkey he could find(my mom taught him well) so we will be eating turkey for a loooooong time! So that's it for my fav's right now. Sorry I didn't actually take any pictures of my favorites, but our camera's been broken for a while. Ian finally took it in to be fixed last Monday, but we won't get it back for a while. In the meantime, I scored on a new camera on black Friday, so I'll try to get some new pics and movies up soon. I haven't been feeling very bloggy lately. I think Christmas is getting to me...I just want to be cleaning and spending time with my sweet kids!

So...what are your favorite things as we enter the Holidays?