Thanksgiving!

So we piled the family in the Tahoe and set out over the river and through the woods to Amy and Dave's for Thanksgiving. We went with Tony & Cindy and their kids and my mom and dad too. A great time was had by all. Selected highlights:

-Although Wyatt wasn't the happiest camper in the car, he officially reached the 20 pound mark at the pediatrician's and can now face forward in his big boy seat. It helped. He did throw up and spent some time bucking around against his straps and screaming--but he spent less time doing that than I thought he would, which I count as a success!

-We drove on I-70 on the way there and saw some beautiful sights. The traffic got kind of backed up as we reached Denver, though, and at the end I felt like I was on one of those Disneyland rides where you think you're near the front of the line, but then you turn and notice 14,000 people still ahead of you. We finally staggered into the Chick-Fil-A near Dave and Amy's house, starving and racing to the restroom . . . but once we made it to our destination it was worth it.

-Amy and Dave have a beautiful home. I love their neighborhood, and Amy has done such a good job decorating. And it's so CLEAN. I noticed that even all the jeans and t-shirts in her closet were nicely folded and stacked in neat rows. She always was the most organized sister in the family.



-Wyatt and his cousin Jack were old enough to actually interact, although I wouldn't call it playing on Wyatt's part. Maybe next year for that. But it will be fun for those boys to have each other as cousins. And don't they both have the most beautiful eyes? Brownie Brown and Bluie Blue?

-For a 25 year old hosting her first Thanksgiving for a TON of people, Amy did an awesome job orchestrating everything and fitting us all and having enough pots and pans and plates and forks to go around. Here are some shots of all the hullaballo:




-Thanksgiving dinner was delicioso. Also, it was one of the only Thanksgivings in the last 8 years that I haven't been in charge of, so it was mucho delicioso for me!! Since Amy and Dave aren't big turkey eaters, they have a tradition of eating Chinese takeout from Panda Express, so we were able to enjoy some orange chicken along with our yams and stuffing and potatoes. Mmmmm!

-Thursday night we went bowling. I am a terrible bowler, and no matter what advice anyone gives me ("turn your arm this way!" "aim at this arrow!" "tuck your leg in!") I guttered one ball of the two EVERY SINGLE FRAME. The weird thing is that I only guttered one. I never guttered both. Isn't that strange? Probably psychological on my part. But it was fun to watch everyone else bowl, and the kids absolutely loved it. We had bumpers on the kids' lane and they had a riot. Good times.

-One of my only hesitancies about going to CO for Thanksgiving was that I would miss Black Friday shopping. (I know people think I'm crazy, but I think it's fun). But it turns out that Amy likes Black Friday, too, so she came and picked me up from the hotel on Friday morning at 5:45 and we hit the Target and the outlet stores. There was a line wrapped around Target and I didn't get EVERYTHING I was looking for, but almost everything. When we got home at 8:00, I'd expected to see all the cousins up and running around, but everyone at Amy's house was still completely zonked. Here's a pic of the kids, sleeping underneath Amy's ginormous Christmas tree:



-Later on that morning, we went to a fun indoor community water park. The kids had a BALL. Here are some more pics:




-After the water park, we dried the kids off, fed them peanut butter sandwiches, and were on the road back home by 12:30. We decided to come home on Fri. instead of Sat. because we had so much to do this weekend and Forrest was heading out of town on Monday. The ride home was pretty easy, except for occasional Wyatt screaming episodes, but those were to be expected--and we made good time, pulling into our garage by 8:30 without any negative incidents to report.

-And it was a good thing we came home when we did. We were awakened at 2:00 a.m. by Elise throwing up, and later on that morning, Jonas, Wyatt and I were all pukey and crampy and miserable. Can you imagine what it would have been like driving across the country in such a state? Count your many blessings indeed. I bet Elise alone threw up 5 times. We heard that Amy's Jack was sick, too--but luckily, Tony and Cindy's family and my Mom and Dad were able to make it home without any ickiness. I was glad to hear it.

-And now I'm home, surrounded by piles of Christmas boxes and a half-decorated tree and mounds of paper for this PTA thing I'm doing (I had to staple over 1,000 packets, which is very tedious to describe but much more tedious to do). Forrest was a gem and did ALL the laundry in the house on Saturday while I was sick, though. He is a good man.

And that's it for now. I've got to get to the Christmas decorations! So thanks, Amy and Dave, for a GREAT time!!!

Wyatt the Walker (kinda) and Wyatt the Talker

So Wyatt has two new feats to show off on the blog. One he's been perfecting for a few weeks now, but I'm just getting around to posting it. Here's Wyatt the Walker (kinda) And please excuse the bad mommy singing:




But even better than that, today Wyatt officially said his first word. Although he's been saying lots of Da Da Da's and Ma Ma Ma's (and he also loves "Wow!" and "Hey!"), he hasn't said anything purposeful until today. I was mopping the floor and he crawled over to the Swiffer Wet Jet and knocked it over. I said "Uh oh!" and looked right up at me and said "Uh oh!" too! For the rest of the day, he's been performing his new skill. He even said it to Grandma Sweat on the phone. So here he is, Wyatt the Talker (and please excuse the less than G rated bath footage):




As far as other news goes, we went to the kids' Reflections Contest awards ceremony last night, and both Ethan and Jonas won first place! Elise was up against some stiff competition and didn't win a medal--but I told her that she got 1st place in Best Attitude of All as she was complementary of both her brothers and gave a friend who won a hug and didn't get upset even once. Good kid. So here are all three of my good kids:




So this is a good Proud Mama post.

In other news, I've been asked to post once a month on the Segullah blog. If you want to visit, you can see my first post about LDS lit (the niche I was asked to blog about) here. Much different writing for a "public" blog like that rather than my little family and friends blog here. But fun, too.

And last but not least, we had Mindy and Pete's girls for a couple of days and they went home last night. Mindy and Peter were visiting their old homestead in Seattle. Such cute kids. (Bella and Ayva, not Mindy and Pete--although they are both very attractive as well.) But I'm also glad I don't have six kids every day of my life!! It is fun to be an aunt, though. I have THREE pregnant sisters in law who are all due within a month of each other (Mindy's first, then Cindy, then Andi--all in May). What a fun month that will be! I get to visit new babies and not be the one giving birth and nursing in the middle of the night!!!

That's about it from here. The weeks keep rushing by so quickly that I go to check my blog and I'm amazed it's been 7 days. Life.

Tonight I Am Tired

I realize that I should probably be going to bed. But I haven't posted in over a week, and I know from my experience reading others' blogs that you get about a one week grace period without a new post before loved ones start getting irritable. (I assume that only loved ones care enough to get irritable. The random guy from Venezuela who did a blog search on "sumo costumes" and ended up here probably doesn't care so much.)

This week has been another busy one. The last week off track. The kids went fishing with Forrest on Monday, so that was a highlight for them, and I took them to the skate park and swimming lessons and they had a sleep over and went to Thanksgiving Point with Grandma--and I know that sounds like a lot but it really wasn't that much. But I still feel like I've been rushing from the proverbial pillar to the proverbial post and I'm not entirely sure why. I can say that having a house full of kids and husband (Forrest hasn't traveled much the last couple of weeks) has given me a hankering for peace-and-quiet. Not that I don't love them. Of course I love them. But I also love my peace and quiet--my ability to decide what I want to do for the day and then do it without being pulled in 10 different directions. (Okay, now I know Ethan is probably reading this, and Ethan suffers from Oldest Child Parent Pleasing Syndrome--OCPPS--and I recognize the symptoms because I had it too. I would like to officially assure Ethan that I love him dearly and that of all the children that could be rampaging through my house all day long, I would pick the four I have out of a lineup, because they truly are good kids. So no guilt, Ethan. This is just your ol' Mom who likes a little alone time, just like you do.)

Anything else exciting? Hmmm. Some neighbors of ours turned in some other neighbors of ours (the family of Ethan's friend, whose mother happens to be the District Attorney) to all the major news outlets, writing an email with the heading "Please Help!" that went on to describe how Ethan's friend's family had wild parties and unruly teenagers. Although these things are probably true, the news organizations ran like dogs to vomit to the completely un-newsworthy story, only because the mom is the D.A., of course (what neighborhood doesn't have unruly teenagers???) and parked out in front of their house all day doing foreboding "breaking news" segments about beer bottles found in the gutter. It was all disgusting, and I felt particularly embarrassed that our neighborhood and some members of the church would stoop to such a level. Ethan's friend came to our door the night of the incident, crying (Ethan was fishing) and told me, "Some people in the neighborhood called the news to tell them that we're a bad family, so now we have to move," and I gave him a hug on the porch and thought about the parable of the woman taken in adultery and casting stones and all that. The poor kid. The poor family. But then I also realized that I had been guilty of some gossip about this family myself (although I didn't call the news) and needed to repent, too. It's so easy to be judgmental, though. Righteous indignation is one of the easiest--and most potentially destructive--emotions we humans can fall prey to. So easy to be prideful, and offended, and call for justice. So easy to forget the eleven year old boy who's had every news station in SLC aiming their cameras at his front door to let Utah taxpayers know that the D.A. has a "bad family."

Sorry. That story was kind of a downer.

So I'll finish on an up note. I went to the AML Writers Conference today--for a little while at least--and enjoyed it. In between AML conference sessions, I headed back up Redwood Road and went to the boys' karate tournament. They both did particularly well in board breaking and came home with second place trophies in that event. (Sorry no pictures!!) Also, Tony came by and dropped off the gorgeous cover he's created for my book and I love it. Can't wait to see it on the book in real life.

And now I've done my duty and updated the blog and can go to bed in peace!!

Hallstromween

When I started typing the word "Halloween," my ever helpful computer automatically suggested "Hallstrom" . . . so I thought I'd combine the two. Although the word "Hallstromween" sounds strangely like what Wyatt and I did about three months ago :-).

Halloween was a success around here, though, and we have the mounds of candy to prove it. The festivities started on Tuesday night, when I earned myself the motherhood badge of honor and took my three kids and three of their friends to the "Haunted Corn Maze" all by myself. (Forrest was out of town so I got a babysitter for Wyatt). I was a little nervous about it at first because we went to this same corn maze last year with Cindy and her kids and my Mom and got hopelessly lost--I still have flashbacks of us hacking through the corn with crying children in our arms--and that was the NON haunted version. So this year Ethan decides that he wants to go to the haunted version--even though he was decidedly spooked by the Party City Halloween display . . . so I gave him credit for trying to overcome his fears. He tells all his friends about his plans and even invites a couple, which makes it pretty much a given that I can't back out. Then, of course, I put it off until the DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN. But I followed through (yes, I'm switching back to past tense. I don't know why I popped into present tense for a while back there, but I don't have the time or wherewithal to change it, so you can mark me down 1/3 of a grade if you'd like). The kids had a lot of fun, and it was scary but not TOOOO scary, and we didn't get very lost. Just lost enough to have fun with it. And Ethan and Elise and Jonas did their little "1-2-3 THANK YOU MOM!" chant that they save for times when I've gone particularly above and beyond (this also applies when I buy them Slurpees for no apparent reason and also when I let them stay up 30 minutes later than normal to finish watching a show.)

So here's the rundown of actual Halloween:



I took Wyatt, all dressed up in his Spidery goodness, to see Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Hiatt. Elise came along for the ride too. Grandpa treated us all to a great tune on the piano, and Elise was duly impressed. We also went to my Mom's work (Elise called it "spacious") and showed Wyatt to all the incredibly nice women in the office who will take a baby in a spider costume over a sheaf of heath benefit paperwork any day.

Then the kids got ready for trick or treating. This year marked a milestone because ALL THE KIDS WENT WITHOUT US!!!! Elise went with some girls in the neighborhood and Ethan and Jonas went with some of Ethan's friends. (Ethan didn't seem to mind letting Jonas tag along. In fact, I think he WANTED Jonas to come. I don't know if Joe realizes what an anomaly it is to have a brother in 6th grade who will let his 1st grade brother go trick or treating with him and his buddies.)

Here's a shot of Elise with four of her girlfriends. Elise and her friend Tayler dressed up as twinner "Punk Pirates":




I also included a close up of Elise, simply because this is probably what she'll look like when she's 16 and going through her Goth phase. I think I'm going to have to be vigilant about the 16 year old Goth boys.

Jonas dressed up as a Ninja. Luckily for me, he was perfectly happy to wear a costume that Ethan had worn a few years before, just so long as I bought him a $3 pair of "Ninja swords".




And, as you can see above, Ethan was a Sumo wrestler this year. His costume was hilarious. It came with a little fan that you stick in a mesh pocket that kept the costume inflated, and a very itchy wig. The little fan occasionally got knocked off kilter and would start buzzing like a warplane in a nosedive, and the neck strap was really tight. The costume wasn't the most comfortable thing Ethan's every worn, but I think he believed it was worth it for the humor factor. But barely.

And here's one more cute picture of Wyatt. Since Forrest and I stayed at home and handed out candy, Wyatt didn't do any trick or treating . . . but I don't think he minded. He was ready to get out of his spider getup a few minutes after I wrestled him into it for picture taking purposes:



And that's it for October 2007. Can you believe it's three weeks to Thanksgiving??? Then it's Christmas??? Then Wyatt is ONE!?!?! Amazing.