Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas was a bunch of fun this year. We had our few presents from each other, and then a horde of presents for Aiden so he had his share of stuff to open on Christmas morning. He was so funny about it. He didn't quite get the tearing at first and just kept trying to flip the present over and over like that was it, but once he caught on that it makes a fun noise when he takes the paper off, he was a tearing machine.

After opening presents, we went over to Thomas' parents house to hang out with the rest of his family that came up to visit for the weekend after Christmas. It was fun for him to be able to play with his cousins because the last time most of them saw him, he wasn't quite yet at that playing stage.

New Year's Eve we did absolutely nothing. In fact, we were asleep at 10:30 because Thomas had to work the next day at 5:30 a.m. and what fun is it to stay up by yourself just to not see the ball drop because you don't have any form of TV reception and then wake up way too early because your son is teething and wakes up at approximately 6:00 every morning? I cannot tell you how glad I will be when his molars are done cutting. He has two cut through already, another one possibly minutes away with the fourth trailing behind a few days.

Oh, and since I missed it, his eleven month blog update:

He is now able to climb onto more and more which means I absolutely have to have him within sight and reach at all times because I'm the first time mom that is scared of bumped heads. He is also really too smart for his own good because he is now able to make the okay kitchen drawers steps to get to the not okay kitchen drawers so I have to cut them all off which is a pain in the butt when I am trying to cook. He is also starting to talk. He will say momma, dadda, Coco and poop. And most other words he will mimick what you are saying, but doesn't always connect it with what the object actually is. Also, on top of that, he is so close to walking. He will stand up and start to lean towards what he wants and lift up his foot, but then at the last possible second, when you think there's no way he won't take a step, he kneels down and crawls. We'll see if he starts before his birthday.

The Rest of the Story... er, Week..

The rest of the week we just kind of went around to different places and shopped and whatnot. Brad and Thomas were still kinda sick so we didn't go out and do much.Monday, we went shopping and stopped off and fed the ducks at Salem Pond and then it started snowing so we went home and Aiden played in the snow for a little bit. Well, he sat there and ate snow while I took pictures and Thomas threw a snowball at him.

Then that night we went to Red Robin with my mom, Brenna, Brad and Emron. I so love Red Robin! And then we walked around the mall and Aiden went Jeepin'. Tuesday we went up to Temple Square and spent the day there. We went around and saw all the stuff in the Visitor's Center, Brad saw the movie in the Legacy Theater while Thomas and I ate and went through the Church History Museum. Then we met up and went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and saw the huge valley, we went into the Old Tabernacle and into the Assembly Hall and then it was off to Dennie's for dinner.

Wednesday we went up to Tooele to see Nathan's band concert and then back to Dennie's house afterwards. I got sick on the drive home and we had to pull over so I could throw up. That was about all the happenings of that day. Hooray.

Thursday I went up to Tracy's so I could have a nice, relaxing day while she watched Aiden and I could take a nap and try to kick the nasty cold I had while Thomas and Brad drove around and just hung out for the day. That night, we met up at my mom's house and spent the night there.

Friday, I went up to Provo with my sister Brenna, and my dad while Thomas and Brad went to Orem to go Christmas shopping. I met up with my mom afterwards and then we went up to Salt Lake to Dennie's for a family dinner before everyone left. That was the worst drive ever. A normally 45 minute drive took us a good hour and 45 minutes in the worst traffic ever. We got there right as everyone was getting ready to eat. We exchanged gifts and then it was time for everyone to go their separate ways.

Saturday, we woke up insanely early to make our flight and after a couple flights, lots of tears on my part, a gigantic layover in Houston and a long drive home, it was time to relax and just relish in the feel of being home!

Weekend Activities

This weekend Thomas and I went to the Manti with my family and were able to spend all day Saturday there. It was a long day, but it was fantastic to be there with most of my family and with some of our good friends.
It started out pretty crazy. We woke up to Brad throwing up. He had been sick all night long. Well, he was sick all day long, except he was okay long enough to go down to Manti with us and spend the afternoon there and then on the way back he started getting sick again. We are so glad he was able to go with us.

Also, as we are getting ready, we received a phone call from Tracy telling us that they are on the back way to Santaquin from Tooele, and they have a flat tire. So that means that Tracy was going to ride down with us in the van while Danny stayed behind with the kids, buy a new tire to replace the flat one, and then meet us down in Manti later.

We started out the day going to the Manti Temple and then afterwards all of us ate at Manti House, a restaurant/bed and breakfast there in Manti. (Wow, can I say Manti a few more times? Manti, Manti, Manti)

After that we went home and I'm pretty sure all of us slept on the way home. It was a long, exhausting, eventful day.

The next day, I went to church with my parents and then skidaddled out of there early because we were going up to Salt Lake to see the LDS First Presidency Christmas Devotional which was fabulous. The music was wonderful and gave you goosebumps. The talks given by President Thomas S. Monson, Henry B. Eyring and Dieter F. Uchdorf were amazing. It was just all around a great night. We were able to go with Tracy and Danny, Brad, Emron, and then Thomas and I while my mom walked around Temple Square and played with Aiden in the little kids activity area, which before that night, I had no idea existed.

I'm pretty sure that was the Best. Weekend. Ever. Except for Brad's vomiting and Aiden's absolute hatred of his carseat.

Brad, Body Worlds, Buffet, BYU, Boulders and Ballet

Wednesday we picked up Brad from the airport and then headed out and spent way too much money at Deseret Book and the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. We killed time until it was time to go see Body Worlds. That's an exhibition of real human bodies that have been skinned and preserved by plastation. Not 100% sure what that is, but from what I understand, the gist is they take cadavers and pump it with plastic to make them last and then you can do whatever you want with them and when it sets, it stays like that. These are a couple pictures from the exhibition we saw.

It was pretty cool. They had different areas where it would show a bunch of livers and the effects different things had on it, or a bunch of hearts that had like one from someone who had a heart attack and a healthy one, etc. Every part of the body was represented and had a bunch of each one to show the effects that smoking, drinking, cancer, obesity, whatever had on them. It's was pretty interesting. There was one part though that I absolutely didn't like. There was a section kind of curtained off that had a bunch of babies. Like an embryo at 2 weeks pregnant, 7 weeks, 12 weeks, etc. all the way up to 38 weeks. It was interesting to see the stages of development, but knowing that all the displays were from real people, it was heartbreaking to see so many unborn babies, or babies that were born prematurely and died shortly thereafter. After that we went back to Dennie's house and hung out there for the night. The boys were going to go to the Miami Heat @ Utah Jazz game, but Brad had been up for like 50 hours straight, so they opted to stay home and watch it on TV so Brad could sleep.

Thursday we went down to Provo to spend time with my parents while the tires on the van were changed. We ate at an old time favorite buffet restaurant, Chuck-a-Rama (Thomas hates that name). And afterwards we went to the Provo Towne Centre Mall and drove around BYU for a while and then went down to my parents house in Santaquin.

Friday we went up to the mountain behind my mom's house. I almost got us stuck in the snow, Thomas fell down on the ice, and all around we froze a little bit.

Aiden's little nose especially froze a little bit. I set the color accent on the camera to red to see if you could pick up his little red nose, and you absolutely can.

Thomas, Aiden and I on the bridge over the little creek near Trumbolt Part on the way up the mountain.

And like little kids, we threw big rocks towards the creek trying to break the ice on top.

The view from the top of the mountain. Beautiful! Even when the valley is all smoggy.

After that we went to my mom's house so we could get cleaned up and ready to go up to Tooele to see Tracy's girls at their dance recital.

They performed the Nutcracker and it was wonderful. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because I was tending to a little boy.

After that, it was back to Santaquin to get sleep and ready for Saturday.

The Weekend of the Sick.

Friday we went to Tracy's house in the afternoon. I chopped off all (well, over half) my hair so now it is right below my shoulders. I donated ten inches to Locks of Love and then had it cut from there. It's nice. Takes some getting used to, but it's nice. I like it.
That evening Tracy and I saw Twilight because apparently Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight, is Mormon and so it's all the rage in Utah and my sister was sucked into that as well. So she treated me to a movie, which I stood in the back with Aiden for over half of it while Aiden crawled around.
Meanwhile, Thomas, Danny (Tracy's husband) and my brother, John, saw the new James Bond movie.
Afterwards we met up and went to Applebee's for dinner.
On the way home the vomiting bug started. Aiden threw up and I didn't realize it at the time. I felt that the buckle was wet, but figured he had just spit up because that's a much more likely thing than him actually vomiting and didn't think much of it because he had a LOT to eat at dinner. Then we get home and about twenty minutes later, he throws up again. It was like that most of the night and everytime we laid him flat, he would throw up, so I fell asleep in a chair holding him upright and finally at about 2.00 a.m. I went up and asked Tracy and Danny what I should do for him. They took over from there for the next few hours while Thomas and I were able to get some sleep, and at 4.00 a.m. they woke me because he needed to eat again and he had a pretty high fever, but at least the vomiting was over and done with.
In the morning, he is still pretty lethargic, but without the vomiting, and he had a fever for most of the day. I, on the other hand, had the vomiting bug and was in and out of the bathroom all day long between taking as many naps as possible.
Sunday morning we were well enough to go to church with Danny and Tracy for the full three hours, all of which Aiden slept through and I fought falling asleep. We felt much better and had our appetite back.
Monday morning, Tracy was going to take me to go shopping for my birthday, which makes no sense to me because her birthday is December 20, and mine is February 3. Seems we should have been shopping for her, but she insisted. We were ready to go, and Thomas starts to throw up. He threw up nothing but mushrooms from his dinner the night before, and we thought it was just the mushrooms were bad, but he kept throwing up. So Tracy and I left with David and Aiden to leave Thomas by himself so he could relax and get some sleep.
By Monday night, it was all behind us as far as vomiting went with our family. Three of Tracy's kids caught it Monday night and Tracy herself had it minus the vomiting. We had some lingering fevers and we didn't really have our appetites back for a while, but at least the worst part was over and done with quickly.