Holidays

Reese likes to bathe in the sink, she'll stay entertained for long periods of time in here.

I am SO beyond lame, I took zero, yes zero! pictures of Christmas and New Years! I keep thinking pictures are going to show up somewhere because that is so unlike me to fail to take any pictures of fun events like these. I could kick myself. So a summary:

Christmas Eve:
- Went to my grandparents' annual German breakfast and gift exchange.
- Annual Messick shepherds' meal.
- Opened PJs: Reese was in LOVE with her Yo Gabba Gabba jammies.
- Spoke to Daniel over video skype; was kind of weird because it was all of the families and no one seemed to want to say anything in front of everyone else maybe, he looked good though and it was fun nonetheless.

Christmas:
- Reese wanted to open everyone's presents. Loved that this year!
- We opened 1/2 the presents, went to Christmas sacrament service, opened the other 1/2 (except Ivan who wanted to nap instead and opened the rest of his presents a few days later).
- Reese woke up at 2 in the morning and stayed a wake for over 2 hours, she was that excited.
- Headed down to Provo for a prime rib dinner with my family and gift exchange.

New Years Eve: 
- Showed up at mom's while Eric finished working at Emily's house. Mom gets tight chested feeling and calls Dad (who is at work), Dad tells me to call 911 and have paramedics come. They come, dad and mom head to the hospital where they find out mom's gallbladder is filled to the brim with stones and the pain is radiating into her chest and shoulders. Surgery follows a couple days later.
- Met up with friends for dinner at Cafe Rio, which was a bad idea considering that we had planned for a lot of food at the party that would follow, and no one was hungry.
- Had our annual friends New Years party, this time at Lindsay Graulings house, the majority of the attendees were our family members (Emily, Jacob, Rachel, Brian, Kristen, and all their kids, David & Nicole,+ Micah and Rachel).
- Played XBOX Kinect, which is so totally fun.
- Missing the countdown like EVERY year but luckily (like every year) having DVR so we could rewind and pause while we filled the glasses with Martinelli's in preparation for the countdown :)

New Years Day:
- Attended Lindsay's sacrament meeting in our jeans, because we weren't originally planning on going to her ward.

Our holidays were FILLED with family, which was SO fantastic! Everyone was in town helping out on Emily's house, and thankfully that time overlapped with all the holidays, so not only did we get to spend a lot of time with my family but also with Eric's side of the family! We feel blessed for such good family, for good health, for the gospel, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for the many blessings we experience constantly!

A Christmas Picture

I was looking through the pics on my other camera and found that I DID take a picture on Christmas. One picture (below) and a video of Reese opening a present. So I'm not quite the loser I thought I was, still bad, but a little better :) Reese in her cute princess dress backwards by our Christmas tree that has be re-decorated multiple times by both my kids (mostly Reese putting ornaments higher when Ivan knocks them to the ground and Ivan pulling the tinsel stuff down.)

Dream

My kids make me seriously happy! Yes, things are a bit crazy around here, but that's what I love about my life. I'm living the life of a wife to a wonderful husband and a mom to 2 youngsters and I don't wish for anything different. This is what I've always wanted. I'm living my dream.

This year I am BEYOND excited for Christmas. It is so fun to see Reese start to grasp ideas. We went to Temple Square last weekend and Reese could see the Christus through the window (the building was locked because it was getting late). She told me what she remembered from last time we visited, "Jesus has spots, they're owies, he died, he's alive, he's wearing his jammies (the robe he has on - haha)". We had a little talk about Christ again and a couple days later I heard her telling my dad, "Jesus died for me, now he's alive."

My thoughts have been turned to the Savior more this holiday season then I feel they have been in past years. I'm grateful for that. I feel my heart growing with love for others, finding love in my heart that I didn't know would or could ever exist.

On a 'worldly' note :)...When I ask Reese what she wants for Christmas from Santa she tells me, "a mermaid toothbrush". I think Reese is going to be really into opening gifts this year. I have butterflies thinking about Christmas morning, I'm so excited for her to have her first "exciting" Christmas morning.

 Ivan's a charmer! He MELTS me with his sweet personality, quick smiles, and the way he instantly starts playing with my hair when I pick him up. These days he looks so much like his daddy I can hardly stand it!!

update

Lately my schedule has been so skewompous (sp??). This is by my own choosing. Eric is working in Orem, so many days of the week I'll go down with him and go to families' houses to hang out, help out, or whatever else. Lots of evenings, especially when Eric gets off late, we end up bunking up at my parents house since it doesn't seem worth driving all the way back to SLC just to go to sleep and head back the next morning. I spend at least 1/2 my time at our house, but since it isn't 95% I feel like I'm so crazy with cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc on those days that I don't get around to blogging and such. I probably ought to figure out a better schedule.

I'm excited to be at home today. I'm excited to take the kids to the "fish place" (Living Planet Aquarium), switch out our books and DVDs at the library, and get some Christmas presents wrapped. Ah, I love being a mom!!

Ivan is 1!!

Today my baby turned 1!! When I woke up this morning and saw that the clock said 6:30 am I was FILLED to the brim with sweet memories. I remembered the 4 am birth of my sweet boy. It was so rewarding having to work so hard for a brief time to bring my little guy into this world. The thought makes me want to give birth over and over and over again. Seriously, it was such a rewarding, spiritual, and connecting experience. I remember being full of energy for about an hour after his birth and looking at him thinking "I cannot believe I just did that. I just did that!" I was in love with that little guy from the time I found out I was pregnant with him, and the love just grows exponentially. There is something about a mother's love for their sons. It is truly indescribable. I recalled having an extreme amount of fatigue come over my body after that first hour postpartum. I laid in bed, with Eric next to me, Ivan squeezed in between. We all slept deeply and I felt so fulfilled, thinking of my wonderful husband and beautiful children.

We had a combined birthday party. My dad's birthday was the day before, and Amber's birthday is the same day as Ivan's. It was fun and COZY with all the family at our place for soups, cake, and ice cream.

Benson

Our friends, Brad and Shanda, came up for dinner the other night with their 2 cute kids. Reese and Benson had a fun time watching Monster's Inc., drinking LOTS of chocolate milk, and building blanket forts.

Best pals

These two are the best of pals. They definitely know how to push each other's buttons, but for the most part play good. It makes my heart SO happy when I see them playing and giggling. I am excited to see these two grow up together, being so close in age.

FYI: Reese is feeding Ivan nerds in this pic. She loves to feed him things, and is learning to quickly remove her fingers from his mouth since he now has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth. Ivan also likes to feed Reese, when she'll let him. That blue dress Reese is wearing is her "dancing dress". She insists on wearing it the most part of every day. I need to get that girl in dance lessons!

moto ride

Near the end of October, Eric and my dad went on a long motorcycle ride. They said they froze the majority of the time but still had a good time. Crazy.

They went to quite a lot of cool places and saw many neat things.

Halloween 2011

Ivan = Shark

Eric = Shark Fisherman

Reese = Sheep

Nakita = Shepherd

 You should have seen me sewing Reese's costume. It was pretty hilarious. I made it the shape and size I thought it would need to be, then I tried it on Reese and cut and sewed different places multiple times to make it fit right. It still wasn't fantastic, but it worked.

Our ward Trunk or Treat was fun, except when they had the kids all line up and go outside together, and by the time I got out to the parking lot I found Reese wandering around trying to find me. One of the parents was dressed as Darth Vader and was next to us as we trick-or-treated through the parking lot. Reese was a little freaked of him and kept squealing and saying "aaah, scary guy!" every time he came near her. Someone had a bubble machine that blew fog filled bubbles - AWESOME!

We went trick-or-treating, on actual Halloween, around my parents' neighborhood. Reese was wiped, tripped before we even got to the first house and then continued to trip periodically and freak out when both Eli and Chelsea weren't holding her hands. She kept saying "I want to go back to papa's house". Next time we'll make sure she's well rested for trick-or-treating so she can enjoy it a little more. Ivan was totally happy about being outside walking around, but then again, he had 2 naps before we went out.

Cornbelly's and Carving Pumpkins

We went with Micah, Rachel, and Kaylyn to Cornbelly's this year. Eric and I had never been there but I had heard good reviews. It is like Disneyland, but cheaper, and probably colder. Definitely wonderland for mom's of energy filled kids - that is, if you can keep up with them running from one fun thing to the next. Reese was in heaven with jump houses, slides, wooden trains/tractors,etc that you could climb in and on, electronic animals performing songs (while Reese watched super intently - maybe she thought they were real? - and clapped her hands and kicked her legs excitedly, LOVE this age!), and all the room in the world to run free.

 Princess land was a HIT. I was honestly shocked at how Reese reacted. She ran into the dress up room and picked out a pink princess dress, smiled from ear to ear while looking in a mirror the entire time I was getting her dressed in it, and then ran onto the stage and danced to the princess music....like not for just a minute either. She was SO into it. I thought she'd be bashful since it was only her on stage with us adults just watching her. But no, she was beaming and danced her little heart out. I wish I had had my video camera with me.

 Last week we had the Christensens and David and Nicole up for pumpkin soup and pumpkin carving. Kaylyn is such a good baby - she just chilled and didn't mind Reese's constant doting.

 The sawzall was the best idea of the night. Made short work of cutting the tops off of the pumpkins!

 Wal-mart didn't disappoint once again. ANY pumpkin for $1.80?? Yes please!

 4 of the 6 finished pumpkins. Eric's is the 2nd one from the left - the Grim Reaper. Mine is the one on the right - hello kitty.

September - 1st week in October

Eric went glassing with Taylor prior to the elk hunt. I hear it was bitter cold - sounds like fun ;)

 My sister Aubrey had her 3rd baby. A baby boy named Micah. Reese loves him! It is funny how much she loves babies. She is definitely a born nurturer.

 Speaking of....whenever Ivan is crying hard (due to a reason other than something inflicted purposefully by Reese) Reese wants to hold and comfort him. It is so cute. This picture is of when they were playing next to each other and I hear "Yook mom, I hold Ivan" Sure enough, she had gotten him in front of her and layed him down on her lap.

 Talented Eric made an art easel for Reese. I love when he makes things because we get to design it how we want it. I still haven't put the roll of paper on it, simply because I keep forgetting to order it, but Reese is enjoying drawing, coloring, and painting on it (and me too, since she usually invites me to join her)!

Overhaul

Usually I don't blog unless I have pictures to show but by the time I upload pictures I've forgotten details that I would've liked to remember. So....I'm going to start blogging even if I don't have the pictures ready and then upload the pictures later. Annoying? Maybe. But I have a bad memory so I'm going to do it anyway.

The last 3 days + 1 day last week were spent up at our house in Heber. Our tenants decided that they were going to move out, even though their contract goes til next July. As you may imagine, we were worried. Worried about finding new renters, especially finding them with such short notice, etc. Then to throw a wrench in it all, our current renters decided that not only were they going to move out prior to their contract ending, they would also leave the place a disaster, not refill the propane, or replace all the wood pellets that they went through. Let me tell you....AWESOME! Thank goodness for my goal of trying to be Christlike, or else they would've gotten 2 ear fulls from me.

The 2 dog contract turned into 3 (maybe 4) dogs, so the place was nasty. With all the fires that apparently took place on the stove top, in the oven, and in the microwave, I'm just thankful the place was still standing. We scrubbed the place from top to bottom - walls, floors, cupboards, furniture, appliances, etc., re-painted the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, put in new kitchen countertops, fixed dog scratches all over the doors and walls, and did the normal maintenence stuff like re-varnishing furniture, walls, decks, and patios, cleaning windows, etc.

The kids were so good, considering the lack of attention they were getting while mom and dad worked. Reese calls the place her "baby house" since it was the house she lived in as a baby. She was so excited to be up there, play with the neighbor girls, and run free through the yard. We were so grateful for all the help too. My dad and mom came up one evening to play with the kids, dad and Camla came up to help install the countertops and play with kids, and then Camla stayed over with us one night and helped with kids and cleaned a ton. Thanks to them it only took us 4 full days, rather than the 5 or 6 it may have. I wish that others could appreciate the place as much as we do since we put in all the hard working hours to make it nice again. Hopefully future renters will at least appreciate it's niceness and cleanliness.

There are a few more things to do. Carpets need to be professionally cleaned, hot tub needs to be drained and wiped out, and we will need to move some of the furniture out. We have been so blessed in this whole stressful process. Eric and I had a great time working HARD side by side, day after day - it really was rewarding to work non-stop and then at night lay down with completely exhausted bodies thinking about all you got done that day. We got multiple calls to see the place the day we put the ad on KSL and found what seem to be some great renters that will be moving in 1/2 way through November.

Evening

Reese is in love with 'baby bottle pop' candy, and it never fails to make her mouth a lovely shade of blue (or red, but usually blue since that is the one she picks out most often since it seems to be her favorite color).

 Now that the weather is cooling down we can go on more evening bike rides. It was just too flippin' hot too late into the evening during the summer months. Eric caught this cool picture from the overpass we drive over on the way to "Sugar Park" (as Reese calls it).

Life is full of uncertainty but God is constant. I'm glad we have him to hold onto and look to. This rings in my mind almost constantly these days :)

Caineville

Our friends, the Kennedys, invited us to their annual friend dirt bike get together in Caineville, UT. Holy! I haven't ever seen such dirt bike enthusiasts. I love dirt biking, but I didn't realize there were other people, like Eric, who LOVE love it and could and would dirt bike all day every day if possible. Eric was in heaven!

We only went for Friday and Saturday, but it was still awesome and we got a lot of riding in. We camped at the "meet up" spot and enjoyed an incredible wind storm during the night. BLAH! I hate wind storms while camping - they seriously freak me out!

 Sadly I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of Eric since I was with the kids when he was riding, or riding along with him once while our friends watched the kids.

The riding is like riding the sand dunes but the ground is hard. Meaning that you can ride up and down most anything, not only on set single track trails. There are tons of places to ride and unlike the sand dunes, can be ridden by all skill levels and all types of bikes. Pretty much the perfect place to take anyone.

 I rode Daniel's bike, since it is faster and more powerful than the bike I normally ride. Daniel, if you read this, your bike worked great, nothing is broken, and don't worry, Eric will insist on taking you dirt biking here the second, ok maybe hour, you get home :)

Eric made us dutch oven biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Stupid me moved the dutch oven at some point in the afternoon and didn't cover all the briquettes with dirt. Reese stepped on them with her bare foot and burned the arch of her left foot (and her pinky finger a bit when she confusedly tried to semi-crawl away) and was out of commission the rest of the day. Standing in the cooler, sitting on chairs with a can of cold soda on her foot, etc. Then, unfortunately, a guy - not with us - cased a double bad! The ambulance came because the guy had a big gash in his head and broke his collar bone, but then he ended up being air lifted out of there. Hillary Kennedy asked the EMTs for burn cream for Reese and brought it back. That made her feel lots better and she was active the last 15 minutes before we had to leave. Poor girl!

Near sighted

Right now I'm looking down from my computer chair at Reese, wearing her backwards foam filled fluorescent pink and purple swimsuit, sitting right next to Ivan on the floor pretend eating his hands while he laughs hysterically at her with his little squinty eyes and w-i-d-e toothy smile. I must always remember to love the here and now, and not be wishing for the next great thing, because really - right now is amazing!

I've felt so inspired by Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from this last weekend's General Relief Society Conference. I'm sure you've seen lots of links to this talk. Why? Because it is THAT good! Listen to it and life will become much more beautiful!

Donut Falls

We hiked to Donut Falls a while back while the river was still so high that you couldn't get to the regular base of the falls and there was so much water volume that you couldn't tell there was a "donut" in the rock formation of the falls.

So we went back last month once the water had eased and it looked like a totally different place. It was a beautiful cooler day, perfect for a hike!

 Eric is the only one who ventured to the top, which ended up being a great idea since you have to free climb some areas, and that just doesn't work when you're holding kids :) Plus, Reese enjoyed sitting at the bottom of the falls throwing rock after rock into the river.

 The "donut".

We found a little bird by the side of the trail on the way back down. We stopped for a while to observe it.

And the moose that ran in front of us as we were driving from the trailhead to the main road. All that searching in Yellowstone for Moose paid off when we spotted one in our backyard mountains. Ha ha, that scenario seems to play out all too frequently:)

Dew Tour

The night before the Dew Tour, we went to The Gateway to check out a couple stores. We noticed something going on at the Energy Solutions Arena, it was a pre-show for the Dew Tour. By the time we did our Gateway excursion and headed to the arena, the show was over. But.....they did still have free Mountain Dews and tickets to the Dew Tour for the next day.

Eric has 2 favorite sodas, at least that we stock up on regularly. Orange and Mountain Dew. So, of course Eric and I each grabbed a can, and of course Reese had to have a swig (or fifteen) of Eric's in front of the Dew Tour sign...since she doesn't get soda very frequently, but LOVES it!

We got 5 tickets so we invited who else but the two we know are up for most things, even last minute or semi-unorganized things....Micah and Rachel. Rachel was such a good sport walking around so much in the heat with her overdue baby in her belly, which she had 2 days ago! We LOVE that baby!!!!!! I'm afraid I might become annoying with how much I want to see and hold that sweet little thing!

Reese got her first temporary tattoo, ha ha. I don't know that I'm a fan of those these days. I used to buy bazooka bubblegum ALL the time at Day's market, when I was young, so I could get the temporary tattoos inside and put them all over myself. These days permanent tattoos are so "in". We believe that our bodies are special gifts to us from our father in heaven and the leaders of my church have discouraged us from tattooing them. So... I don't want Reese thinking it is ok to ink her body all up. So....this may not only be her first but her last temporary tattoo - we'll see, call me a prude if you must.

 Ivan doing his tricks!