Happy New Year!

Happy 2013, fellow internet-ians! Aren't you impressed that I actually got on to blog today instead of trying to tell you happy new year on, like, the 20th? Because you should be.

Well, I think Christmas was quite successful, overall. You all got our Christmas card, right? Hehe, I'm just kidding. It was the previous post. We didn't do Christmas cards. I can barely stay awake for a shower every day.

So our Christmas began really when we flew to Grandma's house on the 23rd. Being two days before Christmas, I thought we might have to stand in line for maybe two or three minutes in security. But . . . no. The Boise airport will never have more than six people in it at a time. Except then something happened with our plane and it was, like, three hours late. Good thing Alaska airlines has a cute little play area with toys and duplos and Katie had totally the time of her life. Except that I almost starved to death. Until Mike got me some Quiznos (I just have a weakness for their Mesquite chicken, okay?)

We did have one new and exciting experience. What I was not aware of beforehand is that Alaska airlines is a cool airline where you go outside to a propeller plane and climb up the stairs. No wimpy covered ramp for them. I felt so Indiana Jones. I probably would have felt more so if it hadn't been heavily precipitating in both places and if I hadn't been quite so pregnant. And the flight itself was quite successful. Katie got a wee bit freaked out during takeoff and landing, but then we turned on Frosty the Snowman on our handy little portable DVD player and she was good.

The week itself was pretty awesome. I did basically nothing, but that's mostly because nobody would let me. People keep thinking that because I'm practically on bed rest I shouldn't go jogging or wrestle all the cousins all at once. Geez, guys.

Things we did do: have a slow, relaxing Christmas morning where we all slept in and took breaks to shower and eat yummy breakfast and not actually finish opening presents until about 3 pm; see The Hobbit with the brothers-in-law; go out to lunch with Mike's sisters because we finished our fitness challenge (they were quite lenient with me, thankfully); and go do sealings at the Seattle Temple with Mike's parents. That was a good time. I remembered to bring my family names so we got all the ones that were ready done.

Also, I had been worried that we were going to talk about going to see Mike's family and Katie wasn't going to remember them and she'd be all awkward and shy. Luckily, she started chatting them all up as soon as we got there and didn't stop until we flew away. When she got a new story for Christmas, she went around the room and had everybody take a turn reading it to her. ("How about you, Grandpa? How about you, Uncle Brett? How about you, Emily?") Score one for teaching my kid to be social.

Of course, then it was time (alas!) to come home. And right after we told them that it never really snows in Boise, we came home to snow. And it's still all white and crunchy out there. Katie loves it. And also Mike got the vicious stomach flu. We know it's the flu this time because everybody still back with his parents got it, too. Hurray! (It's okay, he's pretty much better now. He wasn't sick at work yesterday or today.)

But do you want to hear our really big news? Remember that one time how we kept saying we were going to take apart the crib and have Katie switch to her toddler bed? Well, it kept not happening. And we didn't get it done before we left for Seattle.

So last night we realized that we were totally just procrastinating and that it was really starting to cause me harm to lift Katie into and out of her crib, so we should stop procrastinating. So we totally took apart the crib and reorganized Katie's room.

The only problem we had previous to this was that Katie really didn't want us to take her crib away. She apparently was quite attached to it. So our first tactic last night was to offer to let her help Daddy take it apart. And at first she got all excited. But then she visibly realized what we had said, stopped dead in her tracks, and turned around, scowling. "No! Don't take a crib apart!"

Then I had a stroke of genius. "Katie, what if we let Daddy take your crib apart, and then we can make you a princess bed?" Oh boy, did that work. Except now I can't call it a "big girl bed," I have to keep calling it her  princess bed, which I am perfectly okay with.

And now, because you were so nice and let me ramble on about everything in such a boring fashion, you can see the video I got right before vacation. Keep in mind that I told her we could watch the movie after she sang me the song. So she's being bribed.