Laughter? Yes, Please!

Cohen's giggle is priceless.
Its not hard to induce.
Just wiggle your fingers like you might tickle him,
and there you go.
Not talking yet, just giggling.
Caden is the Champ at making him giggle.

(P.S. Please ignore the messy house surrounding the cute kids.)

Winter Wonderland

It warmed a little.
Not enough to melt the feet of snow that we have
but enough to make some fog.



Then it got dark and froze.
And then we got this for Christmas eve.


Doesn't it look magical?



I love winter. And even if you don't... Isn't it beautiful?
I am thankful for a world full of beautiful things.

Christmas Celebration

So every year,
well, for the past three years,
but whatever, every year,
I, My sister Holly, and Caitlin our BFFL,
(Holly that was for you)

(I had to explain to Holly what the acronym bffl meant after we saw it on a t-shirt at Kohls and she looked at me like I was nuts that I knew it meant best friends for life...duh...come on..., kidding, give me some credit, no I am not in middle school...I have worked with teenage girls for seven years...you learn things...anyway)

What I am trying to say is that we have a dinner and exchange gifts every year. We try to make it nice, but I, UNFAILINGLY mess it up.

Last year I was an HOUR late because I had to make rolls from scratch and they wouldn't rise and then they did and then I had to bake them at my house because if I took them in the cold they would deflate or something, anyway again, I was an hour late, and by the time I got there, nobody wanted to eat them because they were so full from eating the appatizers while waiting for me, that they weren't hungry.

So this year it was at my house.

I was excited because I can't be late to my own house right?
Wrong.
I can be late to anything!
Anything.
Ask Holly and Caitlin.
They know this better than anyone.
Caitlin came over to help and she patiently prompted me every five minutes
(Yes Cait, I know this is what you were doing:-) )
What do you need to do now? Where is this? Can I help you with this? Where are the dishes? Have you started this?

I think I am ADD or something. Luckily, they like me anyway.

So I hate reading blogs where people just write paragraphs, but you had to know the story behind the story, so
on with the real blog that includes the pictures.



Holly was in charge of bringing the sparkling cider (Holly and Caitlin are serious about this dinner business.)
She got four, but the 80 yr old man at the register rang her up for SEVEN so she had to go and get three more, or brave the customer service line at WalMart
to get her money back
(she got three more).


Luckily the weather provided us with a
perfect cider chiller.
A foot of snow and my barbeque grill.



I dug out my Christmas fancy glasses.
I always forget I have them and then I am so disappointed that I missed another year to use them.
Caitlin did not believe me that they were from Arby's.
Those of us that are old know that Arby's used to sell really cool glasses like these every Christmas back in the day. Maybe they still do. Who knows. Anyway, thank you Arby's.



And I got out my Christmas dishes and silver chargers. (After several "Where are the dishes?" promptings from Caitlin.)
I didn't know what chargers were until I met Caitlin.
Now I do.
They add a little something something to the place setting. Don't you think?
Go Caitlin. My bloggers and I thank you for making it look prettier.



Holly made place cards for everyone.



And dug the little picnic table out from under mountains of snow
so that we could have a
kids table
and lets be honest,
so that my dishes and fancy glasses had a
semblance of a chance of surviving unharmed.

She will kill me for posting this because the wind was blowing her jacket and hair but it truly illustrates the mountain that she had to dig through to unearth the table.
Don't worry Holly, all who know and love you know that you are beautiful and awesome for braving the blizzard.



Ta-da! Kids table. Caden and Saxon loved it.



It looked so pretty all layed out. They even lit Candles.

After, we exchange gifts, and then Caitlin wanted to take family pictures in front of the Christmas tree.


See how Beautiful this Family is?
Color Coordinated and all looking (after some candy bribery) and smiling.
Remember this, this is what I wanted mine to look like...
yeah right.



Holly and Cory and Bryn went next.
Holly immediately said, oh yuck, I don't have makeup on
and Bryn kept squirming and whining and we couldn't figure out why.
When we finally listened she was wailing.
"My pants fall OFF! My pants fall OFF!
Sure enough, when Cory pulled her up on his lap her pants had gotten caught and they were half off her bum.
We didn't even notice, she sure did.
Laughter, laughter, more laughter.
Bryn did not think it was so funny.
This picture was cropped in Brynley's Honor. Hehehe



Then it was my family's turn.
Remember i was rushed.
I forgot that I didn't put makeup on,
Kenna slept through dinner and had just woken up.
Cohen saw Saxon's candy and did not want to sit on my lap,
and Caden would not sit up, or make any kind of normal face for the camera,
and Ryan kept blinking so every other one his eyes were closed.

This is the best we got and even that is
far from stellar.
As is becoming my mantra
WHATEVER.
My life is too short to care that much,
but someday,
SOMEDAY,
we are going to have a good family picture taken.
Someday.

The boys had lovely faces for Aunt Holly. They love her!

So the dinner was fun,
the pictures, umm...lets say...entertaining.
Only Three cars got stuck in the mountains of snow outside,
and the dishes are almost done.

I would count it a success.

My Children are Junkies

TV Junkies that is.
They pretty much like anything animated.
Lately however, we have discovered Super Why?
Its on PBS, and whenever I turn it on they look like this the entire time.
They go into some kind of trance over the alphabet
and sounding out words.
I wish that I was so cool that they would hang on my every word.
Keep Dreaming Andrea.
Keep Dreaming.

Conversations in the snow...

"Hey Cohen."
"Wha?"
"Hey Cohen, Say cheese!"
"Ma!"
"No, say cheese, no stay there, stay there..."
"teese!"

"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I eat this?"
"Um. Sure."
"Is it yucky?"
"Probably"
"Oh."
And then she ate it.



"Caden look at me."
"Mooommm!"
"Look at me."
"The sun is too much. It hurts my eyes."
"Just try"
"Is that good."
"Yep. thanks bud."
"Can I go now?"

Snow Angels

Ever since my post on Saturday when we thanked Santa for the snow, (Thank you again!) my kids have been begging to play in the snow.
The problem on Saturday was that we didn't get very much snow, so there wasn't really anything to play in.
They didn't get it.

Last night however, we finally got snowed on for real.

Kenna woke me up by patting my face over and over so that I would get up and look out the window because it "snowded."

(Her cheeks turn this pink at the slightest sign of heat, or cold or anger, or excitement. She's going to hate it when she is old enough to understand being embarrassed!)

We had lots of errands, and then nap time and then a miracle happened.



Uncle Aaron (who is 13) came over to play in the snow.
This meant that all the pressure was off of me to play in the snow.
Yeah!



It took 20 minutes to get Caden and Kenna all outfitted. (mostly due to Kenna and her mittens. She could not for the life of her understand that the thumb went in the thumb whole, or for that matter, what the thumb whole was. Grrr...)



Then they were off to play on Uncle Aaron's sleds.



Cohen watched them walk out the door and immediately burst into tears and started wailing "Go! Go!" Translation- I want to go to!
So we rounded up a hodge podge of outgrown snow stuff and off he went too.



I got to be the photographer.
What a cush job huh?



How Kenna learned to make snow angels, I do not know, but man she was a pro.
That is all she did for twenty minutes.
She was very selective about location as well.




She would walk around until she found a fresh patch of unblemished snow,
then plop straight down on her bottom,
fall back,
and start waving her arms and legs
"Like a Crazy,"
as Caden would say.


I really wish it hadn't been too dark for the video to work. It was hilarious.
Snow flying in all directions.




Caden got in on the snow angel action as well.



Cohen tried, but ended up covered in snow which he then began to lick off his mittens.
He was all wet and shivering so I decided he was done.
Obviously he didn't think so.
He screamed and kicked and tried to throw himself out of my arms all the way in.


As soon as he was undressed he gave me his evil eye temper tantrum.
Notice the folded hands. This means he is very mad.
(I think. He doesn't actually talk. When he does this, however, if you try to talk to him, or touch him, he screeches, stomps his feet, refolds the hands and gives you the "eye" again.)
He is clearly saying "Don't mess."


The only Not Fun part about this was the aftermath.
Wet soggy clothes and shoes covering my entry.
I probably won't clean them up anyway.
They are calling for even more snow tomorrow.
I'm sure I will be recruited back to snow duty.
So whats the point.

As my friend Megan would say "CURSE WORD!"

So at my company party, (which was fun because I sat with my friends the nurses and not because the party was actually that fun) I won this candle thing in the raffle. I was not that excited because I invested a small fortune in the Sentsy candle warmer thing, and this seemed similar, but my scentsy is way cuter. See?



It was called a Candle Breeze. Evidently they are "THE THING" this season in Utah. See below.



Whatever. I am all for my house smelling good, instead of like the million poopy diapers that I change every day, so I plugged it in and hid it behind this huge platter thing that I have on an easel In my formal living room..

I didn't want the kids to find it. You see, they would make a mess for sure!



The scent that came with my Candle Breeze was cinnamon. You can all imagine what color that wax is. Imagine a whole bag of Brach's Cinnamon Red Hots all melted in a little metal tin. It did smell lovely. Like those Cinnamon Pine cones that make all craft stores smell so good at Christmas time. I thought...hmmm...maybe this Candle Breeze isn't so bad. It has this little fan in it that blows the scent of the wax around.




So I set this little reindeer candle holder on the table next to said platter.



The easel holding the platter broke. No, didn't tip over, the metal actually broke in two.
The platter hit the cursed Candle Breeze and red hot red cinnamon wax was splattered EVERYWHERE.



I upon occasion curse. I'm not going to lie and say I don't. But I don't generally curse at the top of my lungs over and over. Ryan came running.
He automatically asked which one of the kids did it. I couldn't even pass the buck. It was me, well, the damn easel, but me.

It looked like a bloody CSI crime scene on my white walls and very light beige carpet.



I just wanted to turn, and walk away, and go to bed, and pretend that it was going to be gone in the morning. Instead I cursed, and got to work.




Ryan got the iron and the paper towels and then we realized that we had lent the wax paper to a neighbor, so he drove to his moms house and got wax paper. We used a whole roll of paper towels trying to absorb the wax out of the carpet.


For future reference for all of you, if you get wax all over your walls and carpet ( I don't recomend this!) The old paper towels and wax paper trick works on walls as well as carpet.



A magic eraser got most of the pink left after the wax off the walls, but the carpet is forever scarred. Less shocking a red perhaps, but yeah.

A nice reminder of the day that obscenities abounded in the Price Home.

Thanks alot Megan, for saying this thing was so cool! I knew then that I should have just given it to you on the spot. This post, and the use of the phrase "Oh Curse Word" is dedicated to you.

Yeah! Snow!

Wish Granted! Thank you Santa for your Speedy Reply!

I finished the last post,
posted it,looked out the window,
and there was Snow, and more coming!
Yeah!

We're Dreaming of a White Christmas

Its almost Christmas right? December? Then why can't it look like this outside? Hats and mittens needed, cheeks rosy with cold, noses dripping snot...

Or like this? Bundled up warm and cozy, taking a peek at the snow falling.



Or like this? Driveway shoveling needed. Before it turns from snow to ice



And if can't be snowing...

Why can't it look like this? Sunshine, swimming suits, kiddie pool hair.




Or like this? Good buddies with their shirts off and their "gobbles" on.



Or like this? Nap in the shade on a sandy beach after a long day of playing.



Instead it looks like this. Leaves dead and falling off. Not pretty anymore.


Dead grass, bare trees and over cast skies. Blah.

Here in Lehi we're dreaming of a White Christmas.