Here Comes Santa Clause!

So I know that we are a little early, but the little shopping center down the street had this Christmas Walk amoung 3 different stores last weekend. I figured since we were heading to Salt Lake for Christmas, this would be a good opportunity to take my kids to see Santa. Carson thought he was great, Hallie wouldn't sit on his lap, but loved the penguin and Tucker fell asleep in his arms!

It's begun =(

My hair has started falling out in big clumps. It's horrible! It has happened after each of my kids. I will soon have male pattern baldness, uggggh! I don't know why I thought it would be any different after the 3rd child, but for some reason I did. Usually it starts to fall out when the baby is about 2 -2 1/2 months. Tucker is almost 3 1/2 months now, so I was excited, thinking I wasn't going to have to go through this after this baby. Unfortunately, my hairstyles will soon have to get very creative in order to hide all of the hair loss. Bummer.

So proud of himself....

Tucker has recently become very discontented with ANYTHING but standing. He will sit in his bouncy seat for maybe 2-3 minutes before he gets mad. His little play mat he has no use for. He likes to be on his stomach, but forget it lately. Even when we are holding him, he has to be standing, none of this sitting or lying down bit. We put him in the exersaucer the other day and let me tell you, he is awfully proud of himself. He thinks it is pretty awesome. Not to mention that it lets me get a few things accomplished!

Poor Hallie!

We were at the church tonight for a primary activity and as everyone was leaving, Hallie some how got her finger slammed in the door. It was pretty ugly looking and the pinky finger was definitely not straight anymore. We had to take her to the urgent care and do x-rays. Her finger was dislocated, but luckily popped back in on its own.

For Hallie, this is fairly minor stuff, but I was extremely proud of her anyways. The only time she cried in the whole doctors visit is when they put the pulse oximeter on her finger (a fear left over from her time in the hospital-- she got burned by one once when it got left on for too long). She didn't even cry when they did x-rays. She loved the cooker things (aprons) that she and I had to wear and wants to make one for Daddy for Christmas. He'll look good in a floral apron, don't you think? They kept giving her stickers ( we ended up with 20 or so) and she would take a walk out to the waiting room to share them with Carson. It was so cute!

She and I were sitting in the exam room (Derrick was a chicken and opted to stay in the waiting room with the boys) and she asked if we could play I Spy. This is not very challenging with her because the first thing you name, even if it's not what she was thinking of is the answer. And she always does the I Spy part while you get to guess what it is. Then she looked at me and asked me if I was thinking what she was thinking. This is a new game for her. I asked her what she was thinking and she told me that she thought the room was dancing. The other night was she thought the house was dancing like a penguin. It was such a crack up. Here she is in so much pain that if you even touched her finger, let alone moved it, she would cry out in pain, yet she's playing games, talking to the nurses and doctors, and having a great time. And the whole time I am thinking how much she has gone through in her short little life, how amazing she is, and how incredibly blessed I am to have her still with me, despite the nice mural she colored on my wall for me today!

Gratitude

While we were out of town, Derrick's company did some lay-offs. Not huge ones, just a few people, but with an office of only 35, it's been enough to scare most of the other employees. When you hear about all of the jobs being lost, it just makes you so grateful to have a job, to have a way to make money and support your family. Who ever would have thought that we would reach a time in our lives that we would be so grateful to have a job that if they ask you to work extra hours, you do it without complaint? Derrick has worked so many hours since we got back from vacation. Part of that is because he was gone and had so much to do, but the rest is just him trying to help take up the slack from the layoffs. My poor kids are missing their daddy so much! He has been working at least 10-12 hour days ands sometimes 16 hours, including the weekend. Tomorrow his show comes out and it will be another long day, but come Thursday, he should be home around dinner time and we are so excited! My heart aches for those that have lost jobs and I hope that each of us will truly remember our blessings this holiday season and give back to those in need.

Cincinnati trip

We just got back from visiting Derrick's parents. We left the day before Halloween-- what an ordeal traveling out there is anymore! We flew out of Sacramento, so we had to wake up at 3:00 am and drive 2 hours to get there, during which Carson threw up, of course! That was even with Dramamine. I swear that child gets motion sick just at the thought of riding in a car! Then we had to park at a hotel, take the shuttle to the airport, get through the security (no small feat these days) and take a 4 hour flight to Minneapolis, which is a very cool airport. They have a mall inside of it. They also had this hug airplane inside the terminal that the kids could play in. We had a 2 hour layover there and then flew to Indiannapolis, about 1 hour and 45 minutes away. Derrick's family met us there and we grabbed a bite to eat and then drove the 2 hours to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. We didn't get there until about 10:30 at night. I was so tired by the time we got there that I couldn't hardly see straight!

Halloween we slept in and tried to catch up on some sleep, then we went to grab a few things at Walmart and then headed up to Aunt Sis's (Derrick's great aunt). We had an early dinner with her, then headed back and went trick or treating. It was kind of cool-- out there everyone sat on their porches or the end of their driveway to hand out treats. Some people had little fire pits going. It was like a party for the adults and it made it easier for the kids to not have to walk all the way to someone's door to trick or treat. It was very nice.

Saturday was my father-in-law's birthday. All Brad wanted to do was have a bonfire and cook foil dinners and cobbler. We did a little birthday shopping and the kids got to visit grandpa's horse, then Grandma Tucker (Derrick's maternal grandma and where we got Tucker's name from) as well as Derrick's Aunt Christine and a few cousins came over for our bonfire.

Sunday we went to church and ran into Derrick's boss from Salt Lake there. He recently accepted a new job out there and moved into my in-law's ward- probably because my mother-in-law was their real estate agent and helped them find the "perfect" house! What a small world! Anyways, Derrick got to visit with a lot of people that he knew growing up, which was nice. After church, Derrick drove to Cincinnati and picked up Aunt Sis, who came back and spent the afternoon with us. She has really adopted Hallie as her own grandchild and has worried about her since the moment she was born. We get packages every few months from her for the kids, so it was nice for her to get to spend some time with them.

On Monday, we took the kids to Jonny's Toy Store, which has a birthday castle in it. We signed the kids up for their birthday club a few years ago and they send keys to Grandma's house for each of their birthdays. We went to the store and each kid got a turn unlocking the door to the castle and choosing a toy off of the shelves. They thought it was great and wanted to go back several times during our trip. That night we got to visit Derrick's best friend Amber, who he ironically lined up with his college roommate Brady. They've been married almost 10 years and have 5 kids. We don't get to see them very often, since they seem to be traveling to see Brady's family in Utah every time we travel out there, so it was really good to eat dinner with them and just visit.

Tuesday was election day. We did early voting here in Nevada, but Brad, Vicki, and Derrick's sister Cori all needed to vote-- they had to stand in line for an hour and a half to vote-- crazy! They only had 2 booths and when one volunteer took a break, his booth got shut down. It took them forever. We went to see High School Musical 3, which my kids loved. Hallie, for whatever reason, decided that while watching the movie, it would be a fabulous time to decide to become potty trained. She told us she had to go to the bathroom 3 different times during the movie and each time she went-- it was great! I love that movie just for that reason! She was pretty good about telling us when she needed to go for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, she had to go on the airplane and told us the toilet there was disgusting-- not that I blame her-- and has completely regressed since. I guess I need to take her back to see the movie again!

Wednesday we met up for lunch with Grandma Tucker. We don't normally get to spend one-on-one time with her, so it was really great to be able to see her more than once and spend the afternoon with her. Dustin (Derrick's 10 year old brother) had basketball practice that night so the rest of us got a chance to kick back and relax and for me to do laundry and start to get our stuff together.

On Thursday, we headed back up to Aunt Sis's and had lunch with her, then went to a real working farm, where the kids got to milk a goat, feed the goats, hold baby chicks, gather eggs, and take a tour of a Native American "village". They all loved that, especially seeing Grandma milking the goat. We went to Dustin's basketball game and then had a movie night at the house.

Friday, the kids got to go visit the horse one more time and then we drove up to Indianoplis and went to the children's museum there. The kids had a great time exploring all 4 levels and doing all sorts of fun things. I will be so glad when the children's museum opens up here in the spring. The closest one is in Carson City and it leaves a lot to be desired once you have gone to one of the bigger ones! I couldn't believe the price of gas there! I though Cinci was cheap when we filled up for $1.85, but Inday we saw it for $1.72 or $1.62 with a car wash! I would love to have been able to bring some home at that price! Afterwards, we checked into a hotel and had dinner before saying goodbye to Grandma, Grandpa, Cori, and Dustin.

Saturday morning we woke up at 4:00 am ( 1:00 am our time) and flew to Minneapolis then to Sacramento. I liked the people at the security checkpoint so much better in Indy! They didn't even make me take Tucker out of the snuggli or take my jacket off-- it made it so much easier! By the time we got to Sac, we were dead on our feet! We took the shuttle back to the hotel, checked in (thank goodness they allowed early check in!) and then took a family nap! What a nice couple of hours of much needed rest! We got some dinner and were all asleep for the night by about 7:45. I was trying to hit 8:30, but we didn't realize that the clock in our van hadn't been changed since daylight savings, so I thought it was later than it was and by the time we realized the mistake, we were all too tired to stay up any longer!

The kids all woke up by 4:00 Sunday morning, so we hung out for a few hours and then all went back down for a nap by 8:30! It was great! We woke up, checked out and drove about 40 minutes to Derrick's college roommate Jason's house. We got to visit with he and his wife for awhile, then headed to church with them where they blessed their baby. We headed back to their house for dinner and then drove the 2 hours home.

We are exhausted, the kids still aren't sure what time it really is, but we enjoyed the trip. It had been almost 2 years since we had been back there, with us moving and all. The kids had a great time and I'm glad that Derrick was able to spend so much time with family and friends!

Cincinnati pics

Going Private

Due to a lot of questions raised recently about the safety of blogs, I have decided to make our blog private. I will be switching it in the next week or so. If you would like an invite, let me know and I will send you one. You can either email me or post a comment. Thanks!