A Christmas Miracle

Dotty laid her first egg on Christmas.

Let Heav'n and Angels sing, we don't have to eat her.

Christmas 2011

Our family was lucky enough to get 3 days of Christmas this year.

On the eve of Christmas Eve, we opened our first gifts to each other, pajamas.

Sam was THRILLED to get Spiderman pj's. He demanded to put them on right away and then asked Daddy to help him touch the ceiling, because apparently that's what Spiderman does.

Then, on the actual Christmas Eve we had dinner and opened presents at my parents house with my little brother, Cory.

He and Sam are good buds. They love to wrestle and play together. Sam was also very excited to have Dundee there, my brothers dog, to play catch with.

After opening presents Sam and Grandma sat down to watch some movies while the rest of us relaxed as well.

Christmas morning came and Sam had a blast opening his stocking goods from Santa and his gifts from Mom and Dad.

Buzz Lightyear!

Matt and Sam got a Circus Waffle maker, so after presents were finished we ate breakfast and got ready for the day.

We arrived at Matt's parents house that afternoon to eat dinner and open more gifts. We were all spoiled, yet again, but I think that Sam mostly just enjoyed ripping the paper off of everything. He opened his own and assisted with everyone else's as well.

Matt's Mom had been fighting a bad infection for weeks, so exhaustion made it really hard for her to enjoy her Christmas. She opened all of her gifts first, and then went back upstairs to lay down. Hopefully next year she will be back to her usual self! Her Chemo treatments are working!

We hope that everyone had as Merry a Christmas as we did!

Sam

We love everything about him. Cheesy grin and all.

The Girls

I'm sure you think I am a little "different" for posting about my chickens, but the truth is, I love them.

Like, a lot.

I know it's weird because Matt tells me.

Me- "I love my chickens."
Matty- "That's really weird, Babe."

See? It's true. Both the fact that I love my hens and that I'm odd for doing so.

Despite these facts, I am posting about "The Girls." They are each very cool with extremely different personalities.

Doris. My chubby chicken. She eats A LOT. Pretty much anything that falls in front of her. She is a great layer and extremely docile. It may just be that she weighs too much to run away...

Matt and I gawk a lot at her pretty chest plumage. Isn't it pretty?

Daisy Anne (Yes, my chickens have middle names. It's important to have full names when I yell at them for digging up my onions.)

She greets me every morning with a posture that I pretend is a "Good morning! Please pet me!" stance, when in reality its a "Please mate with me, I want babies" stance. 

She LOVES to bathe in the dirt. Its easy to tell when she has done so because her white feathers make a nice canvas for all the mud. When she shakes it all out, we laugh and call her "Pig Pen". 

Daisy lays a lovely white egg every morning at 9:30. She is very reliable :)

Daisy has pretty bangs, don't you agree? :)

And then we have Dotty. She's a pretty one all right, but has been a pain in the tail feathers from day one. She's always the first into the garden to eat my strawberries, she plucks the dog's hair when they are going potty and she chases the cat out of the yard. She's grouchy, aggressive and NOT LAYING EGGS. What good is a chicken, especially when they are mean, if they are not providing you with a fresh egg every morning? Well, I'll tell you, not much.

We have tried a few different things to get her to lay, but nothing has worked. I swore that if she didn't start laying by the spring, I would eat her. And honestly, I think I could do it.
(This is the face she made when I told her that.)

But alas! Yesterday while cleaning the coop, Dotty assumed the mating position (a sign that her hormones are heading in the right direction) and I was able to rub her back a bit to simulate mating. It's not as disturbing as it sounds.

Today she requested a "back rub" twice and started making lots of noises that I have never heard her make before, noises that I assume could only mean 1 thing. She's got an egg on the way.

Look at how happy she is.
I may be wrong, but I think she is on her way to becoming a real chicken!

Well, if you didn't think I was crazy before, you probably do now.

But, aren't my chickens fun!? They are good entertainment if anything. I could probably convince you of their awesomeness with a fresh from the coop omelet :)

Holiday Performances

Last week, we attended my parents' ward Christmas program. My Aunt and Uncle were in town so they joined us to watch my Mom perform the Hula.

She has been taking classes from a lady in her ward and this was the first time showing off what she has learned.

If you ask Sam how he enjoyed the Christmas program, he would probably tell you he loved it. Although I'm not sure he could tell you one thing about it since he was staring at girls the entire time.

He was, however, intrigued when Grandma took the stage. He kept talking about how "She had a pretty flower in her hair!"

After dinner was over, we all headed out to a restaurant where my Dad's Paul McCartney band was playing. Sam LOVES to watch Bub play, and he's always a huge hit with the rest of the fans.

He is always right up front, shakin' his maraca or dancing to the beat.

Graham Cracker Houses

Thursday night we ATTEMPTED to make graham cracker houses. I thought that using crackers instead of real gingerbread would be easier and cheaper but it was a disaster. The crackers break REALLY easy and we ended up having to use 2 boxes just to get 2 small houses! It was so frustrating. Lesson learned.

We had fun anyway. Sam was really excited about it and actually got very creative. He put smarties along the rooftop and said "Christmas lights!"

Only 2 out of 3 houses survived. Matt ended up having "the touch" for building, so he built the bodies and we decorated.

 Matt's house and Sam's house were eventually completed, but Courts fell apart, so we ate it :)

The final products.

Jessie's Song

Every night Sam requests that I read him 2 books (one about the ocean and the other about nocturnal animals) and then sing him Jessie's song from Toy Story. He LOVES this song and has recently begun singing it with me.

Tonight, I got it on video :) Makes a mama cry! He is seriously the sweetest kid ever!

Sam visits Santa

We arrived at the mall today to see Santa. I had Sam practicing all morning what he was going to ask Santa for and he seemed very prepared.

"Buzz, Woody, Army Guy, Hamm and Jessie" were all on his list. What can I say, the kid loves himself some Toy Story.

When we got in line there were only a few families waiting ahead of us. Just as we turned the corner, Sam spotted Santa and ran straight for the Jolly man, cutting off 3 or 4 patiently awaiting children. He dove right into Santa's arms shouting "Santa! Buzz and Woody" and gave him a huge hug.

Luckily, all the other moms and workshop helpers were laughing along with me as tears of joy, laughter and embarrassment (quite the emotional cocktail) welled up in my eyes.

Oh, my little boy. Excitement to the extreme.

His Santa picture, although very cute, (doesn't Sam look dashing?!) does not do the moment justice. But I will always remember our 2011 Santa visit! How could I not?

It's December...

...and, as most Decembers are, it has been busy.

I have stayed extremely well worked between holiday photoshoots and helping with Courtney 3 nights a week. Not to mention being Mom to a seriously energetic 2.5 year old who is very sensitive to being "pent up".

Matt has been at the tail end of finals week and school has started to require a little more time with projects and assignments being due.

Stress levels were just about to peak as we approached the expensive holiday season when Matt was offered a job at Boeing. Deep breath. Ahhhhh....

The timing couldn't have been better. We were just about to pass the 1 year mark of being unemployed when Matt accepted the position. A huge weight has been lifted from our shoulders and we are excited to get Matt back to the office. BOTH of us, equally thrilled :)

We will enjoy this short break before Christmas with  Matt at home for a couple more weeks and me with only a few "to-do's" on my schedule. We will get out and be a little less stressed, finally. We are thankful for the lessons we have learned during this year of trial, but we are more thankful for the options we have towards a better future.

With a steady job for Matt, more time with Sammy for me and lots of good benefits for our family, great things are bound to come our way ;)

Thanksgiving 2011

Matt and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house again this year. It was so much fun to have our family with us. Sam was in heaven :)

Matt did most of the cooking. I made the dessert and decorated the house and table with holiday decor. (They may not look too good, but these pies turned out pretty yummy!)

It's always fun to be able to bring out all the nice settings. (Which haven't seen a meal since the last Thanksgiving we hosted....3 years ago!)

Dinner was amazing, as we expected it to be, and it is tradition in our family to open Poppers after dinner. We all got paper crowns and silly little gifts.
Sam and Shauna playing with their Popper gifts. Shauna is also teasing Sam for his cheesy smile, which is almost identical to the smile I made at his age.

After dinner we all went into turkey comas :)The end!

In a nutshell

Things are pretty much same ol', same ol' here. Looking for work, parenting, photography sessions and house chores. As normal as it gets.

However, we did get a fun day out on Friday. We took a ferry ride out to Bremerton (I had a photoshoot) and then had lunch. Simple and low key, but so fun. I love my family and its so great to get to spend so much time with my boys.

We saw lots of sea birds and a seal.

It was such a beautiful day.

It was very cold and windy outside. Sam wasn't prepared for the gusts! I believe his exact words were, "Whoa! Winny!"

Our view of the city. We love it here on days like this.

The Big Boy

Sam has done a lot of growing up in the past month. It really took us by surprise.
First of all, Sam is officially potty trained. No diapers ever again! He doesn't even have them on at night any more. He is amazing at going to the bathroom when he needs and he has even started to go on his own without asking for help or telling us "mommy, daddy, I pee!" The greatest sound in the world is a toilet flushing from your 2 year old.  We started a sticker chart that really motivated him to go potty on his own. He gets a sticker every time he goes and when the chart is full he gets a new toy. Last week he chose a Bucket-o-Farm Animals for his prize. He used the chart to "pay" for the toy at Target.
This is a very exciting concept for him and I think we'll use the same idea for nights without a binky.Secondly, Sam is now in a big boy bed! We finally got around to rearranging his room so that it suited our toddler, instead of our baby. He still had a crib and a changing table in there.

When we showed him his "new" bed, he was thrilled and spent hours playing in it and even took his first big boy nap. Last night was his first night in the big boy room and it was a big success!Show me a big boy smile, Sam!Show me your big boy undies, Sam! (with Buzz Lightyear, of course.)
Give me a thumbs up!Show me your big boy dance!Now go to sleep! (He loves to pretend snore.)Such a big boy!