Various Important Updates

I know, really creative title, right? Well, that's basically what it is. And I'm not feeling particularly creative. But we do have some updates, and I think I'll go by family member.

So Mike had an interview in Albany, NY two weeks ago. Exciting, right? We'll see how he did. BUT. The trip was exciting for more reasons than just his interview. Remember that giant storm last weekend that they named Nemo? Well, that was the same weekend as his interview. So as soon as he actually got to Albany, he discovered that all of his flights home had gotten cancelled in preparation for the dreadful weather they expected to have. Woo!

So he interviewed on Friday, Albany got a couple of inches of snow Friday night, and he was stuck in a town full of closed in preparation for inclement weather stores Saturday. And then he flew home with several really long layovers on Sunday. Yay! Yes, perhaps the storm was really terrible in Boston and other such places, but . . . not in Albany. They just wanted an excuse to close up I think.

Luckily, my sister Sarah came and spent the whole weekend with me and Katie and took care of us in our intensely pitiful daddy-less-ness. Also because I get contractions whenever I do anything . . . like sit.

Which is what I did last night at my baby shower. I have such cool friends. (The shower would get its very own post except that if I waited for that I would totally forget until it was time to blog about little boys.) Anyhow, I know I had a shower for my mom's ward and all those friends a couple weeks ago, but last night my friends threw me a shower for my ward (thank you Dakin, Laura, Kelsey, and everyone else who was involved!)

The coolest part? It wasn't just for me. It was a double twins shower. A shower for my baby boys, and also for my friend Valerie's baby girls. Can you believe it? She's due just a few weeks after me. And when she called me and told me she was also having twins, I laughed really hard. (But only because I love you, Val.) But we had a pink-and-blue shower and it was quite enjoyable. And there are a lot of super amazing, generous people in my ward. And I think I ate way too much candy. But no contractions! (At least until this morning . . .)

Aren't our bellies so cute and intimidating?

Katie brought home her favorite part of the shower to show Daddy.

Speaking of me and contractions, I'm totally on "modified bed rest" now. It's a lot less restrictive than I had planned on, but perhaps it should be more so. The starting point (I'm pretty sure they'll limit me more as I get further along) is I have to be in bed 8-10 hours a night (easier said than done, you lame 'ole heartburn) and I have to sit with my feet up for at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. So I was pretty much already on this kind of bed rest just because it hurts if I try to not be sitting with my feet up.

But I'm 30 weeks now. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but we're really trying to not have babies yet. Which makes this really frustrating. Unfortunately, I'm not getting a lot of help from the Katie department. See, early Monday morning (it was still dark, so I consider it night time, really, even though Mike was already up getting ready for work), Katie woke up screaming from a nightmare about a robot getting her and had to come in my bed. And therefore I didn't get much sleep, even when she snuggled up and fell asleep on me, just because I get stiff whenever she does that even when I'm not pregnant, and being stuck in one position now is like torture. But the biggest problem is that whenever I'm uncomfortable (even when lying down) I start to get contractions. I don't have to exert myself or stop drinking water; I just have to have a sore hip from sitting at the same angle for fifteen minutes and I get all . . . contracting. Yuck.

The sad part? Katie had a play-date the other day at her friend Marley's house (thank you, Chandra!) and was gone for a couple of hours in the morning. While she was gone, I took a fast shower, then sat on the couch and sipped liquid and kept my feet up and breathed as deep as I could and I had zero contractions. And then Katie got home. And we did the exact same thing--me sitting on the couch with a blanket doing nothing--but with Katie playing on my legs on the other end of the couch (perhaps with PBS on also . . .) and I started getting contractions again. So I think I just get them with emotional stress too, because Katie doesn't know how to not jump around and make me think she's going to fall over and break her head open (which she has almost done lots of times).

Ugh.

I can take care of us in spurts, like to make lunch and such, but I can't sit on the floor to build with blocks, or climb in the cave (the big box that our new second infant car seat came in) or race her up the stairs. So if anybody needs a play date, or just some good solid entertainment, call us. Katie's your girl.

Katie, to make a transition, is no longer even a toddler. At least not in the way you think of toddler. The word implies some form of infancy or physical uncertainty, doesn't it? Well, Katie has firmly taken both of those principles, beaten them to a pulp, and thrown them out of a 15-story window. She talks better than a lot of three- or four-year-olds I've met, insists upon making her own lunch and putting on her own clothes, and only wants to hold me because I'm not allowed to do so. She's a kid. The only reason she's not potty trained is that I can't really get proactive about that right now. And she kind of is. Today's the second day in a row where I haven't really changed a wet diaper at our house because she announces that she has to go potty and then . . . does. It's pretty fantastic.

She is, however, getting cabin fever like it's nobody's business. On days when she doesn't have friends or Grandma, she gets quite tired of me and our house. Today she woke up and asked me first if we could get our swimming suits and go swimming. When I explained that it was way too cold to think about swimming, she asked if we could go outside and play on some slides. Luckily, my mom came to the rescue and took us to a park. (And don't freak out, Mike. I sat on a comfy bench with several blankets while Katie yelled "roar" at all the ducks and went down every slide she could find several times.)

One thing that we totally did right as parents recently was Valentine's Day. First thing you have to understand is that I have the best husband in the whole world. All you other girls can be like, "no, you're just saying that because you don't have my husband." But you're wrong. You're just deluding yourselves. And you're all jealous of my husband because he's the best. So there.

So the day before Valentine's, Mike came home with a dozen long-stemmed roses. I know, they're all traditional, but they're still my favorite. So he wins.

Correction: he came home with eleven roses for me, and one for Katie. She was thrilled. She ran around the house waving it like a wand and singing songs about it until I convinced her that flowers need a drink of water to be happy and gave her my skinny vase for her flower. Now it's next to her spot at the table and she hugs it at every meal.

This has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, but it's really cute.

The following morning, when Katie and I woke up, we discovered valentine's cards all over the house. Katie's were mostly just spread out at her spot next to her flower and on her tub o' blocks, but mine were hidden all over the house--in my scriptures, in the silverware drawer, next to my toothpaste in the bathroom cupboard--and I didn't find them all until almost when Mike got home. They all had little bitty notes written on them that made me all super happy. At breakfast when Katie had all of hers gathered into a pile, she had me read them all to her: "Have fun playing today! Love, Daddy." "I love my Katie tons! Love, Daddy." But her favorite was one where he wrote, "Don't eat too much candy today!" When I read that, she actually burst out laughing. "Don't eat too much candy? Silly Daddy!" Darn my little kid's intelligence and sense of humor.

So Katie and I had a pretty good day not doing anything, except that I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon, so Katie had to take an early nap and I had to get all pretty before 4:30. My mom took us to my appointment, and I have really fat boys, and then Katie went home with Grandma and Abuelo (Abuelo was taking some sisters on a date because it was a Thursday) and Mike and I got to go be on our own for a while.

You know the best part? We couldn't really have a fancy date because I'm not really able to do very much, but that was totally cool. We brought pizza home and had pizza and played Scrabble and just hung out being grown-ups together for a couple of hours. And it was perfect. And when we went to get Katie from Grandma's house, she didn't want to come home because she was doing Grandma's dishes (I know, right? I'm so spoiled!) So at the end of the day, Katie ate way too much candy, but she had a fantastic day, and Mike and I had an at-home Katie-free date, and there was plenty of chocolate that we are still nibbling our way through. (Okay, fine. Maybe I'm chomping rabidly through it instead of nibbling. Whatever.)

Now, about my boys.

Remember how there are two of them and we're all worried about them being pre-term and having low birth weights and all that stuff? Well, I don't think we need to worry much about their weights. So I had my doctor's appointment on Valentine's Day, and we got our usual ultrasound, but because I was 29 weeks he started doing measurements instead of just checking their heart beats and membranes and stuff. And he said that one is 3 lbs, 3 oz, and one is 3 lbs, 11 oz. Now, that sounded huge to me even before I had a reference point. There are almost seven pounds of baby in me right now. (I'm going to be so skinny this summer! Woo!)

But then I went home and got one of my pregnancy update emails, which said that at 29 weeks, my (one) baby should be close to three pounds. You know what that means? I'm having two, and they're BOTH fat for their age. Oh man. No wonder my belly is so huge and grotesque. But that's okay. I would much rather have healthy, fat babies and have to deal with some back pain and stretch marks.

Want to see pictures? Here's Thing 1, being all shy and modest (or maybe just saying, "Dude, I'm trying to take a nap here! Leave me alone!")

And here's Thing 2. Prepare for a lot of "Holy mackerel! Look at that cute baby!"

And now I'm at 30 weeks, which feels like a big accomplishment with everything I've been hearing. So here's to at least five or six more weeks! (I'm trying to be positive so I don't just find a shotgun and pay a visit to my neighbor's dog, which barks incessantly for hours whenever its owners are not home. Especially during nap time and at 1:30 in the morning.) (It's howling through the wall at me right now.)

I know, it's not the shirt I usually wear, but I forgot to take a profile picture yesterday, okay?

Holy cow, I'm going to have to keep two boys in (relatively) clean clothing.

Remember that one time how I'm going to be adding some twin boys to my family quite shortly? Well, things are starting to feel slightly more real. Mostly because holy catfish, it's February. And also "modified bed rest" starts tomorrow.

But to help me feel slightly more prepared (at least as far as gear goes) for this rather emotional experience I'm about to have, my mom sisters and my bestie from high school threw me a baby shower this weekend. (Thanks, Lexi and Mom and Sarah and Emma! You're the best!)

(Also, in case you read my blog, Dakin and Laura and Kelsey and whoever else is involved, you're spectacular for wanting to throw me a shower for our ward. I was really stressing about how to invite our ward to a party with all my mom's friends and mine from high school and trying to, you know, talk to everybody and stuff.)

And because there are two little boys coming that are probably going to act like they're related to their sister, the theme of my mom's party was Dr. Seuss, as in Thing 1 and Thing 2 (which is quite appropriate if you've met Katie, don't you think?)

These were raspberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (dyed blue, of course). I think I probably will die if I don't get that recipe from my mom.

These are the real reason everyone came to the shower. Lexi's mom's magical caramel/chocolate dipped pretzels. Mmmmmmmmmm.

This is the diaper cake my Aunt Tookie made.  Those are flowers and such made out of baby socks. Isn't she the coolest person you've ever heard of?

I know, not that flattering of a picture of me, but somebody forgot to take posed pictures of everyone. And this perfectly showcases where I was stuck the whole time and Katie's big sister throne.

The punkin in her natural habitat--being read to by various aunties.

Well, that's how it looked. It was quite an enjoyable afternoon. Katie and I probably ate WAY too much sugar in gorging ourselves on cupcakes and pretzels and grinch punch (ice cream and lemon/lime soda and other various delicious things.)

Speaking of Katie, she was probably the best floor show anybody could ask for. Before we opened presents and everybody was playing a game (Tookie brought some games about famous twins and duos and things that come in pairs) Katie was dancing around the room singing to herself. And I don't know about you, but I never get bored of that.

But the fun really began when we started opening presents. She'd bring one over to me and start ripping the packaging off before I had a chance to check the card or tag to see who it was from. Then she'd pull something out, say, "Oh, it's for the baby brothers!" and chuck it violently at Sarah and Emma, who were in charge of managing where Katie violently chucked things. I think there were some near misses when it came to teethers and other hard things.

Meanwhile, Mike got to rent a man movie he had really wanted to see and sit on the couch and not have to take care of his crazy-needy pregnant wife or slightly-needy two-year-old. You're welcome, darling.

The best part of the shower was seeing all the people who got to come. Lots of people from my parents' ward came (awesome!) and Mike's sister Chelsey, and two of my friends from high school who are total psychos and thought it would be a good idea to open up this weird commercial we made for our speech class when we were fourteen. Thanks a lot, Lexi and Anne. Love you guys.

Long story short, it was a fantastic shower with fun people and adorable treats and my mom way over-stressed and should deserve a medal. Also her slaves, Sarah and Emma, who as soon as they kicked the boys out of the house helped her frantically clean the house and peel eggs for the green eggs and ham and frost cupcakes and whatever else was demanded of them and were just overall fantastic. And we got lots of cute boy things and I feel slightly better about my boys not having to go naked their whole lives. Because I knew that with the three newborn-sized onesies that were our total inventory last week, I'd have to do laundry six times a day. And now Mike will let me go shopping. Yay!

Now, because I've done the whole baby shower thing (you're welcome, Mom and Cynthia), I'm going to back-track and talk about life (Katie) since last time I blogged. Feel free to tune out if that's all you were waiting for and are totally bored of me.

As I recall, we left off with the snow day and her birthday, right? Well, not much has changed. I'm less mobile than I've ever been in my life, which means that if we ever leave the house, it's to go to my mom's house and sit on her couch instead of mine. And I'm pretty sure that will even be taken off the list soon. So Katie spends a lot of time using her imagination. (During church yesterday, she was down on the floor looking through the diaper bag for a story or some goldfish, and got distracted making her boots talk to each other.)

Oh, and the last couple of weeks Katie has been fighting a super nasty cold, so for a couple of days she was as laid up as I was and we sat around watching Barbie movies all day. Okay, so we still just sit around watching movies all day, but it's mostly when she's tired and wants to snuggle me and watch the horsey movie (Tangled) or the superhero movie (Incredibles). And oh boy am I sick of Barbie. Auntie Emma, can you go put them back in your storage please? Katie loves them a little bit too much and now I'm worried for her IQ. We don't want them.

Most of our days= twirling in her red riding hood dress and playing the piano.

This last one is of "Dr. Katie" checking on the baby brothers. She talks about them all the time. "Mommy and Daddy go to the hospital and the doctor will get baby brothers out! And I will come to the hospital too and put on their diapers and wrap them up and play with their feet!" I feel good about this monologue. The only part we've had to talk to her about is that she's going to hang out with Grandma when we go to the hospital, and then she'll come see us after the doctor gets the babies out. She has been quite interested in doctors recently (what with Daddy going to be a doctor) and thought she was going to help at first. I think we've cleared that up.

Now all I need is to make some of these and our preparations will be about there:

One humongous cake, coming right up!

This is going to be a long post, you guys. I have not only a whole entire birthday to cover (and a rather adorable one at that), but I have to cover last week's snow day. So this might be a doozy. HOWEVER, it will also be picture-laden. So keep that in mind before you scoff and turn off the computer.

The SNOW Day

To begin, last week there was a snow day. I know, right? In Boise! It was quite shocking. It first started snowing like crazy last Monday, and didn't stop all day and all night, and soon there was a 3 or 4 inch layer on the ground. And it took Mike like three hours to get home from work. Not really, but it felt like it. People here don't know how to deal with wintertime weather, because usually we don't have any.

Then it all froze, and we all huddled in our houses trying not to fall and break our hips. And apparently doing our Michael Jackson impersonations.

Then, Thursday, it did it again, on top of the snow from Monday that had hardened instead of melting. Which meant it was a snow day. Which meant that my mom invited us (carefully) over to play in their yard with the very much not-in-school aunties and uncles.

This is the snowman Parker made the night before we went to their house. He named it Richard Nixon. Sam told me this like it was some hilarious joke, but I'm pretty sure he had no idea why it was funny.

Also, the thing is about the same height as Mike, including the hat. And that's tall. Mike's 6'4".

As soon as we pulled into their garage, Katie took off into the front yard. Have I mentioned before that her favorite movie and song and winter activity this year was Frosty the Snowman? Well, she took off to go see "Frosty." Good thing we had her bundled up ahead of time.

Auntie Emma was trying to teach Katie to make snowballs and snow angels and such, but all Katie really absorbed was that fresh snow is delicious. She wouldn't stop eating it. So we had to keep a close eye to make sure she only ate fresh snow that hadn't been stepped on.

They did eventually get her to make a snowman, but her other favorite activity was getting pulled around the cul-de-sac on her sled. Pretty sure she got almost everybody in the family to take a turn pulling her around.

We only got a picture of her with her snowman (the mini one next to Nixon) because we told her she could still eat the snow in her hand.

Meanwhile, because I can't stand up for very long without getting all crampy and threatening to go into labor, I finished my adorable new hat. I learned puff stitches for this one, and I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite crochet move ever. So cute. I just don't have any pictures that feature a close-up of the puff stitches in the back.

We only managed to lure Katie in for about half an hour during the whole day (and I mean the whole day), and that was only because we had marshmallows, with some incidental hot chocolate.

As soon as she finished the marshmallows and could get someone to help her back into her gear, she was back outside. And she stayed there until it was starting to get dark and somebody accidentally zipped her neck when trying to zip her coat up. She's got a little scar there now that you can't remind her of or she'll start begging for sympathy.

But, because she fell asleep in the car on the way to Grandma's house, she couldn't take another nap, and was a little bit strung out when we got home. So she used what little is left of my lap to snuggle and watch a movie.

And then she went to bed early. And so did I. Okay, no, I didn't. I'm a ninny. But I thought about it.

The Incidental Before-her-birthday stuff

Friday, Mike and I finally went on our anniversary date. It was a good time, and we're super boring grown-ups because we picked up Katie at 9 or 9:30 and then we all went home to bed. But before our date, when I was putting on real makeup and trying to actually be pretty, Katie insisted that she was going on a date, too. So she put on her infant-sized slip over her clothes and got out a dress-up purse with beads all over it. And she wore both of them to Grandma's house.

The night before her birthday, I was trying to get her to sing "I am a Child of God" for the camera, and guess how well that turned out? You're right, it didn't. But I got some cute pictures. This one is what happened when I told her to look at the camera. "Fine, Mom. Whatever."

"Daddy, can I please have some cheese?"

The Birthday

For her actual birthday, I decided to take the low-stress approach. Which means that we didn't get dressed until, like, noon, because we were watching the horsey movie in Mommy's bed in our jammies all morning. When we finally did go downstairs, Katie insisted on helping me make the frosting for her cake. Therefore, we were still wearing our matching aprons when Grandma came to drop off a happy birthday happy meal for lunch.

After lunch, when I was starting to build the actual cake and frost it, Katie insisted that she was "freezy."

And at some point she took a nap, and I finished her cake. You may now all be very much impressed. Unless you can't tell what it is. Then you should just pretend to be impressed for my sake and shrug apathetically when I'm not looking.

Okay, fine. It's Rapunzel's tower with her hair spilling out all over the place, with lots of pink and purple flowers. Now you can act impressed more effectively. You know, for my self-esteem.

As soon as I finished the cake, we headed over to my parents' house for Katie's birthday party. By the way, that's what she asked for for her birthday. Every time we asked her what she wanted, or what she wanted for dinner, or what kind of cake she wanted, her reply was this: "I want a humongous cake, with candles, and I can share with all the uncles, and everybody, and Parker." So we threw her a pizza party with cake and candles and uncles.

(Photo preface: I got my camera out and told everybody to take turns, because I can't go around taking exciting pictures and squatting and such. So all the blurry ghost-looking pictures are not my fault.)

This is my very studly brother James. I had to include this picture because he never looks normal in pictures. Like, never. He has never once in his life taken a picture where he wasn't making a goofy face or doing his weird, nerdy close-lipped smile. This one's legit. Isn't he handsome?

And Katie got really enthusiastic about decorating her own pizza. Especially the sauce. I'm pretty sure she took over sauce for several people's pizzas. She was just a little bit vigorous with her spoon and we may have had to patch the dough up slightly before adding any more toppings.

Here's a picture of me without my belly where I don't look like a giant hippopotamus. Again, for my self-esteem.

There is a tradition in my family that rather than just sing "Happy Birthday" like most people, we sing every birthday song we know. There is a particular order, and we have all kinds of quirks to it (like Sarah imitating claves and maracas for "Feliz Cumpleanos"), but we sing every single one. And we finish with the version from Emperor's New Groove, while everybody slaps the table in rhythm. And Katie has experienced this for other birthdays and was excited for it all day, singing the different versions.

But when we started to sing to her before dinner, she was so busy spooning an entire bottle of sauce onto one pizza and shoving giant pieces of Canadian bacon into her face that she was totally oblivious. We just kind of were some background noise that didn't really bother her while she played in the pizza sauce.

After everyone ate too much pizza for their own good (except for my dad, whose pizza was the last to get in the oven, so he ate during presents) we went to open presents.

I shall now describe the video someone took that was too long for my blog.

While we tried again to sing her all the birthday songs, she picked her first present (one from Grammy, which is what she now calls Mike's mom), put it on the floor in the middle of the room so everyone could watch, ripped off a piece of the wrapping paper, and took off to throw it in the garbage in the kitchen.

Needless to say, we all broke off the song to start laughing. At which point my dad accused her of being "such your kid!" Yeah, maybe. I might have had the reputation as a kid of being really slow opening presents because I would open it where it was folded instead of just ripping the paper off.

After this incident, James went and got a trash bag to limit trips to the kitchen garbage can, and we proceeded. Do you want to know what a girly girl my Katie is? She pretty much just got clothes and dress-up stuff for her birthday (from Grammy, Grandma, and me) and she was so happy about it. She was so happy, she had to try on every single new dress or outfit as she opened it.

(This one is the dress I made her. We don't have a clear picture of it yet. But I made it with a big 'ole twirly skirt. She'll wear it on Sunday.)

And then one of my genius brothers handed the little princess a loaded nerf gun. And she started turning to face whoever said anything, with her finger precariously placed on the trigger. It was like roulette. Several people (mostly Abuelo) almost lost facial features.

Then we convinced little Charlie's Angels to get out of her pretty dress so we could get out the Rapunzel cake. Please note the fork in her hand (I don't know if you can see it) which she had poised over the cake. I kept having to stop her from digging straight into the cake while I got the plates and my cake server ready. She just wanted some cake, okay?

So I gave her the tower (made from cupcakes I shaved to the right shape).

All that sugar may have made her a little bit excitable, which made her dance, which made her fall off her chair. And there was some tragedy, so she needed to snuggle Mommy for a while. As soon as I had given her sufficient (apparently) sympathy, she ran over to Abuelo, who has magical cheering-up powers, as all grandpas do. (Ha! I called him a grandpa! Don't tell him.)

And then we played and played and played and played. And went to bed rather late. Which means that when we had to go to the grocery store this morning, she threw a very much two-year-old tantrum in the car, complete with writhing, screaming, and contrariness. Which she hasn't really ever done before. I guess she just had to confirm that she is now, indeed, two years old. Or, as she says, (while holding up both hands and all ten fingers) "I'm two olds!"

And now to finish off the post, remember that one time when I used to be really good about taking those sideways pregnant lady shots to see how big I was getting week by week? Well, I haven't taken one since, like, week 15 or something. Now I'm 25 weeks, and I'm pretty sure I'm about as big as I was when Katie was born.

I'm also not quite on bed rest (woo!) but I might as well be for all I can stand up or walk around (ugh). So if I say something about things I can do while sitting down, it's not official yet. I just can't do any activity or anything without getting Braxton-Hicks, which are normal for most people and scary for high-risk twin pregnancies. Just so you know.

Oh yeah! The picture. Here I am. And yes, I look like a hippopotamus.

Happy Birthday! Now I have to go make sure my two olds daughter gets fed.

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.