Christmas Flu Bug

Last night we went into check on Jack before getting ready for bed, and I smelled something gross. I went over to peek in at him and he had thrown up and just gone right back to sleep. He was covered from head to toe....disgusting. So we woke him up, changed his clothes and bedding and he fell right back asleep. He had been acting normal all day and even put on a little show for us right before going to bed, so we had no reason to think he wasn't feeling well. He woke up today feeling fine, but doesn't have much of an appetite, which is unusual for him. He took a four hour nap (which I was super happy about) and woke up acting totally normal, again. We have all been pitching in, trying to get Christmas Eve dinner ready and my dad says, "Umm...Stacey, Jack is throwing up all over the carpet!" They have brand new carpet (of course) so Justin and I quickly cleaned him up and the carpet. This is my first experience as a mom cleaning up grown up throw up. I used to think that baby spit up was bad...I would go back to that in a heart beat. So now I am praying that the throwing up is done and that no one else gets it. We are flying to Idaho on Saturday and if we aren't done with the bug, I have a feeling it will be great fun. :)

Merry Christmas!

The sky is falling!!!!!

When my sisters picked me up from the airport, we were having a friendly conversation when my sister, Angie, starts yelling "Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!" As we look, a huge tree falls on top of the truck right in front of us, then rolls back and we crash into it. The tree stretched across the whole road. After we hit it, there was tree EVERYWHERE! A bunch of people got out of their cars and cleared the road before we even realized what had really happened. Luckily, Angie's car isn't too bad, even though it will still be expensive to fix. But the truck in front of us, was totaled! The tail gate got ripped off and landed about 100 feet behind us. The girls inside though didn't even have a scratch. We were all so lucky! It was the weirdest thing that has ever happened.

We sat on the side of the road for almost two hours with crying boys in the back, waiting for the intern policeman to figure out how to give us a police report.

Notice the tail gate that the fireman had found a ways back...it's a little smashed.

This is our scared faces....Aaaggghhh!!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

I LOVE this time of year!! I feel like I start anticipating Christmas
in July! We've been able to do a few things to get ready for the Christmas holiday, despite Justin being M.I.A. right now due to boards.

I made this wreath at our enrichment, and totally love it on my red door!

Sarah dropped by this super cute Christmas calendar!! It was a small price I had to pay for so much in return... I am in love with it! She is the most creative and talented friend I have. If you want to visit her blog and find the link to her Etsy shop, click HERE. This is only a sample of all of the cute things she has made.

Last night we went to the Lake Metroparks Farm Park, in Kirtland. We took a wagon ride through a display of lights, and we also got to see Santa!

Waiting for the horse-drawn wagon.

The excitement!

We tried about 50 times to get a cute picture of us and Jack (actually looking) and we failed. This was the best option.

Jack and I had been talking about seeing Santa ALL day and when the moment finally arrived...

...meltdown! Jack had a death grip on Justin's sweater as he was trying to put him on Santa's lap. He was so sad!! I was laughing to myself while we were waiting in line because it seems like all the parents want to get their child's picture taken with Santa and 9 times out of 10, this is the reaction you get out of the kids. Why do we torture them so??

The second Justin picked him back up, Jack turns to Santa and happily says "Bye, bye Santa!"

Figures. :)

Thanksgiving in D.C.

This Thanksgiving, we were able to spend the weekend in Washington D.C. with Scott and Denisse. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (Denisse and I did the whole thing!) with Denisse's family. When we weren't eating, we spent our time seeing as many sites as we could possibly squeeze in. We were able to see so much, but we are already making an intinerary for our next trip there. In some of the museums, you could spend days there and not see everything. Here is a sample of what we did get to see...

World War II memorial

The Washington Monument

This is the ONLY picture I have of all three kids! I can't believe I didn't take any more. They were pretty good for being strapped in their strollers for 3 days! This is at the Lincoln Memorial.

On the steps of the Lincon Memorial

Scott, Briell, Jack, and Justin at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Standing in line for food at the FDR Memorial

The Library of Congress. My FAVORITE building. The inside is so beautiful!!

Jack on the steps inside the Library of Congress.

View from the Library of Congress.... BEAUTIFUL!!

One of Dorothy's original size 5 ruby slippers from the film Wizard of Oz, inside the Museum of American History.

The Hope Diamond. 45 karats!! Inside the Museum of Natural History.

Checking out the butterflies at the Museum of Natural History.

As we were walking by the White House, President Bush landed in a helicopter on the White House lawn...random!

This was one of my most favorite vacations of all time. We had so much fun. It was non-stop and packed full of fun and interesting things, and engaging conversations. Seeing all the monuments and memorials, and reading quotes from the Founding Fathers, made me realize that they were truly inspired men. They were led here by our Heavenly Father to establish this wonderful country that we live in. Hopefully we will always remember the values that this country was founded on and that we never stray too far from the country these men established.

A big thanks to Scott and Denisse for letting us stay at your house!! We miss you guys already and we can't wait to come back!

Get Better!!

Dear Grandpa Brownell,

I am coming to your house in two weeks! You need to get lots of rest so that you will be ready to play with me. I hope you and Grandma had a Happy Thanksgiving! We are in Washington D.C. We went to the Jefferson Memorial today and at first I thought he looked like Jesus, but then my mom told me it was Thomas Jefferson. We get to go to a museum with airplanes tomorrow. I am excited. I can't wait to see you... get better!!

Love, Jack

Twilight

Here is a picture of some of us

I went and saw the Twilight movie last night at the midnight showing with a big group of girls. I think there was about 20 of us. I really liked the movie! There were a couple parts that I thought were kind of cheesy and definitely better in the book, but overall a good movie. It was 3am before I got into bed and for some reason I couldn't fall asleep until 5am!! It must have been the Diet Coke I was drinking during the movie to make sure I wouldn't get sleepy. I am not a happy camper this morning...just ask Justin. :)

Forever Thankful

My Dad had quadruple bypass surgery today. It was around a five hour surgery that was very successful and everything went as planned. The doctors said the surgery was pretty boring, which in the medical world is definitely a good thing! He found out a week ago that he would be needing the surgery. It all came on so fast, but both of my grandpas have had bypass surgery when they were the same age as my dad. It runs in the family. I am so thankful that we live in a world where the medical technology is so amazing and that they are able to save so many lives. The area where my Dad's blockage is, is in such a bad spot that if they wouldn't have found it now, he would have had a fatal heart attack. We are definitely blessed and ever so grateful that he didn't.

We love you Dad!! We hope that you will have a speedy recovery and we are counting down the days when we get to see you!! ...only three weeks left! :)

Little Smarty Pants

Jack started talking pretty early. Ever since my parents came in May, when he learned to say "hello" and "grandpa", it seems like he has learned a new word everyday since then. My friend, Janelle, asked me one day how many words he could say and I had no idea. So over the course of the next few days, I kept a notebook with me all day writing down each new word I heard him say. After I got above 200, I stopped counting. Not bad for just a little guy! :)


He gets distracted in this first video when he hears Justin coming in through the front door. :)

Don't worry Mom and Denise....now that he knows who both his grandpas are, we are working on the grandmas. :)

A week late...

So since Halloween was a week ago, I decided I probably shouldn't put off blogging about it any longer.

Can you guess who we are? :)

Spencer probably had my favorite costume of the night. He was the "Duct Tape Man". And his wife, Suzy has had her little baby since this picture was taken!

Most of the clan, minus the Sanford's who were taking the pictures. :)

Cute little Hailee

Stupid squirrels ate my pumpkin after it had been out about 24 hours. If you recall my incident with the squirrels last year, I was pretty mad when they did it to me again this year. Next Halloween, I think I'm going to cover my pumpkins in squirrel poison! ...if there is such a thing.

Pumpkin Carving

We had the Gowan's over on Sunday to carve our pumpkins. As you can see, Jacob has mastered his pose for the camera....nice Jacob. :)

We all had to go outside to see the finished product!

Justin's is on the left, mine is in the middle, and Kat and Jacob's is on the right.

Ooooo......scary!

Trunk or Treat...kind of

We went to our ward Trunk or Treat on Friday. It was raining though, so we had to move it inside to the gym. Jack was super cute in his lion costume! He does not like wearing the hat but I have been making him put it on everyday hoping that he would get used to it. I was so surprised because he left it on all night!
Jack and his friend Bennett the pirate.

His friend Samuel, the ER doctor. His dad is in a medical residency here, so I thought his was super cute!

Jack and Crew were looking at each other like...."Why do you have that weird thing on your head?" It was hilarious!

There were so many cute costumes there and I am retarded and only took a few pictures. Jack caught on pretty quick that every new person we went up to would give us more candy to put in our bag and he was having a lot of fun. The good thing though, is he doesn't even really know what candy is so basically I have been eating it ALL!! Justin helps a little, but I definitely am the one caught red handed in the candy bowl throughout the day. There's no limits on candy at Halloween....right?

House Hunting

We went for a drive yesterday to look at some more beautiful homes in our area. I think I am going to live in Ohio. Well, not really...but I do LOVE all of the beautiful homes there are to see.
These first two were in the same neighborhood that had the most beautiful landscaping.

And this last one, I think we have decided to buy. We'll see if they take our offer next week.

Hee hee.... I wish.

5K

We ran a 5K with some of our friends on Saturday in Lakewood. It is a really cute town right on Lake Erie.

Here we are gearing up for the race and trying to warm up in the 45 degree weather! So much for our 80 degrees of the week before!

Jack was the youngest participant. :) Justin pushed him in the jogger. He's mad in this picture because he couldn't get his mittens off.

The race was in an awesome location. We ran through a neighborhood where everyone's back yard was Lake Erie. How fun would that be? It was nice to catch a glimpse of it in between the houses.
Our goal was to not be dead last......we did it! :) We definitely didn't finish first but ended up somewhere in the middle. That's good enough for me!

After the race with the lake behind us.

It was really fun to do it with so many friends!! Thanks guys for bearing the freezing cold weather!! Maybe we should make this a tradition?