Items of import
Two things. One: I never gave the Christmas update. I just skipped right to New Years Day. Two: Little bites and Bryce is funny.
So without further Ado... Christmas.
It was a blast. Little loved it. We ended up doing our Christmas on Christmas Eve because we were headed to my sister's house to share the festivities and we didn't want to drag along our gifts. We were surprised that Little didn't like the wrapping paper more, but he did love all of his gifts. My mom gave him a Fisher Price Farm house and from the second it opened to when we left for my sister's house he was mooing as a result of the cow that came with the farm. The other big hit was a pooping squirrel that Mama Lowder gave us (which was pretty much the funniest thing anyone could have done knowing our history). After every gift was opened and he'd played with it for a minute, Little would come over and give me a hug and kiss as if to say, "Thanks, Mom!" I loved that part the most. He is such a tender hearted little dude and I get the benefit of it for the most part.
Some of the best faces of Christmas:
Oddly enough, most of our favorite gifts to each other came after Christmas. We came back with the need for a bird feeder (because Mikie has one and it is amazing how many birds we saw), so we went and got one the day we got back and are now the bird capitol of the world. I literally jumped around and squealed like a little girl when I saw them all flocked around. So much joy. We have at least 7 different kinds of birds who have become regulars (not the least of which are 3 cardinals and their wives who are arguably my favorite), so we sit with our bird book at the sliding glass door all day and watch. Little sits with his head plastered against the door and periodically turns around to flail his arms at me in excitement and make sure I'm seeing it too. The birds are all over the ground most of the time and they are getting used to us being around so it gives him a lot to look at. He sometimes gets a little too excited though and slams his head and hands against the door, frightening the birds, and then turns to me crying as if to say, "Make them come back!" There are also a few cats that have started frequenting our place and they are so fascinating for Little that I can't quite find it in me to shoo them away. They have yet to have a successful hunt though, so I suppose it's ok.
Also... With all of Little's teeth coming in, it has unfortunately brought out the cannibal in him. Whenever he wants something or just happens to see some available flesh he gives it a good chomp, not maliciously or anything, just a good hard chomp. I am less than enthusiastic about this as he seems to bite me more than Bryce.
It's been nice having Bryce home over the break. Little is going to be heartbroken when he has to go back to classes. He weeps and wails every time Bryce leaves (or even gets in the shower) as is. I may get all the hugs and kisses, but he is definitely a Daddy's boy.
As an aside: Bryce is pretty much the funniest human being on the planet. The other day I was trying to convince him to pick up something to eat because he was hungry and he responds: "Being hungry never killed anyone." Ummm... actually.... We were laughing about that for quite a while. The other funny Bryce moment was when Bryce had a bit of mysterious glitter on his face. His explanation? "I must have been hanging out with Anne Frank again." (I look at him curiously until he realizes his mistake) "Oh! I mean Lisa Frank. More unicorns and rainbows, less Nazis."
So the conclusion to this way too long blog post is that Christmas was a blast, pancake puffs are the best, and we're all rainbows.
Where the lame things are
Our New Year's Eve celebration this year was singularly anticlimactic. As it happens, New Year's is one of those holidays that loses almost all of its fun/importance when you have a baby. We decided that we were way too tired to stay up until midnight, so we elected our new year to start at 8:00 (Little has had the croup so we're all a little sleep deprived and crazy--not that that is abnormal). When 7:30 rolled around we were all too ready for bed, so we almost didn't even make it to our remodeled new year moment. All of our substitutions were borderline geriatric: instead of midnight it was 8:00, instead of party dress we were in PJs, instead of booze (or even sparkling cider) it was rootbeer floats, instead partying hardy it was a rousing game of scrabble, instead of banging pots and pans we were coughing and snoring. All told, we are now lame. And the sad thing is that we don't really care all that much.
However, much more exciting than us is the fact that there is a statue of a polar bear near campus and some clever, clever person dressed him up for New Years. Hooray! for people who are more clever than us (and more exciting).
Rhyming schemes and other things
Sometimes Bryce and I are weird. The should come as no surprise to anyone who knows us well enough, but as one example of many, we often accidentally get into rhyming conversations and then run with it (making it less of a "run with it" and more of a runaway train situation). Tonight we somehow got into a conversation about a head and continued far longer than we should until this little beauty popped into the conversation.
Bryce: “We should’ve busted out a sled.”
Me: “But then we may have bled.”
Bryce: “Red…red…red.”
There wasn't much more to add after that.
Also... on a side note, Christmas is over. I have mixed feelings about this. But on the upside... we rearranged our entire house and instead of feeling like a storage shed, it feels like a mansion (Barbie's play mansion, but that is still a significant improvement).
Christmas Joy and Joyness
Merry Christmas! Seriously! I love this season so so much. There really aren't words. Christmas has always been a favorite time of year, but this year it seems to be a hundred times what it has been in past years. I don't know if it is the excitement of sharing it with Little, or starting new family traditions, or just that it is a much needed break from all the craziness of life, but this Christmas feels different. I've been looking forward to it for longer than I care to admit and now that it is in full swing I can't even contain myself sometimes. Christmas lights everywhere, bursting out into song constantly, an entirely unhealthy diet of eggnog and chocolate covered macadamia nuts... I even broke out my Christmas socks early this year. I'm not sure that this is even healthy, but man alive! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!
Since this is probably as close as we're going to get to a Christmas card this year I suppose I should do a bit of a recap. Looking back, we've had quite an eventful year this year. We had a baby, moved across the country, Bryce started law school, we were driven from our home by squirrels, learned that Wahoos and Hokies are not a Dr. Suess story... all sorts of new adventures. All-in-all it's been a good year; challenging and crazy at times, but exciting nonetheless. We are finally settled in here and getting the hang of this school thing. Bryce survived his first set of finals with his brain mostly intact, so I guess we're looking good. I've set all sorts of goals and done well with some, but have a lot to work on still. I haven't gotten much writing done in all the hullabaloo, but hopefully when the new year comes around I'll be able to focus on that more as well.
We've decided to start a family tradition this year wherein each Christmas we take a little box and at the beginning of the Christmas season write down one "gift" that we can give to the Savior throughout the coming year so that we can place it in the box and make that the focus of our Christmas season as well as life in general for the next year. It has been fun to really start combining family traditions as well as start our own traditions this year. It's amazing how much having a little one adds to Christmas, and holidays in general. 
We've decided to start a family tradition this year wherein each Christmas we take a little box and at the beginning of the Christmas season write down one "gift" that we can give to the Savior throughout the coming year so that we can place it in the box and make that the focus of our Christmas season as well as life in general for the next year. It has been fun to really start combining family traditions as well as start our own traditions this year. It's amazing how much having a little one adds to Christmas, and holidays in general. This winter has been a blast so far. Little got to play in the snow for the first time, and by "play" I really mean be completely unimpressed and a little bothered that he had to be wearing a big marshmallow suit. From the moment we put him in his snow suit to the moment we took him out he stayed in pretty much the same position: splayed on the ground with a look of complete indifference.
Bryce even made a little snow angel around him and he didn't move a muscle. We eventually got him to crawl around a bit, but he found the whole experience more of an ordeal to wait out than an adventure to be enjoyed.
In honor of Bryce finishing finals and the dread of grades to come, we threw a pity party--literally. We wrote our own epitaphs (the best of which being: Here lies Bryce - who left the world he only saw the left of). And we of course wrote some angsty poetry (with titles like: Snow in the Black Black Cold Cruel Unfeeling Treacherous World). And drank our sorrows away (with sparkling cider of course). I made shark attack cupcakes (because really, what worse thing could happen?) and I intended to make a pinata to beat after the festivities were over, but that got a bit too complicated. Maybe next time. Either way... we pitied ourselves away and came out feeling surprisingly refreshed. Little even got in on some of the action (not the drinking of course, but he did write some very nice poetry).
We just recently discovered that though we may be lacking crows that curse our apartment and squirrels that invade it, we have other avian visitors that frequent our new place. We have two cardinals, a few bluejays and mocking jays, a hawk, and uncountable other little birds who sing and play all day long. Who knew winter would bring them all out? We're definitely asking Santa for a bird feeder and a new bird book for Christmas.
In conclusion, life is good, we're excited to have Bryce back from the jaws of law school for a month, and we are very blessed and grateful for this season and the chance to celebrate all the Savior has done for us. Merry Christmas all!
While we were standing in line at the store yesterday, there was a pile of those "Snuggie" things that are everywhere these days and Bryce says, "I don't understand why those sell. Why don't people just put their bathrobe on backwards." Note that Bryce is probably the world's warmest human and thus doesn't fully understand the appeal of being wrapped in any blanket, much less one that wraps so wonderfully around you, but he has a very valid point none the less.
Nothing Worse
Raising a baby seems to have more “nothing worses” than I ever thought it could. The current nothing worse? Giving your baby the flu…on purpose. I mean, I am extremely grateful for modern medicine and that my child will no longer die of smallpox, or the bubonic plague, or any number of bizarre sounding infectious diseases, but that doesn’t make me loathe Little’s immunizations any less, or make me feel like any less of a traitor when he looks at me like, “Mom! How could you?!” despite the fact that I am indeed not the one stabbing a needle into his poor little leg. And why is it that the nurse always makes you hold him down? That is almost the cruelest part of the process. I prefer to be the one to save him after the assault is done. Not that I would want to avoid being there for him, but I just don’t want to restrain him.
However, even worse than the actual shot, is the ride home when he sits in the back whimpering almost inaudibly while I can’t reach him to comfort him. Then we get home and he tries to sleep it off for at least 3 days (if not more), but wakes up crying because his leg hurts, or his nose is clogged, or he has to cough, all while he is dealing with a raging fever.
And the worst of the worse? We walk into the doctor’s office willingly every two months with the complete knowledge of what will happen when we walk out.
There is nothing worse than immunizations.
'Twas the Night Before Finals...
Welcome to finals week! Where there is insanity and adventure for all!
Little has been teething (read: a grumpy, grumpy-but still cute-monster) and we've all been pretty sick, not to mention Bryce has finals for the next two weeks, thus we've been lacking sleep and have unfortunately dissolved into sheer lunacy. The result? Last night's exploits:
I have the usual dreams of little green men and missing socks.
Little man wakes up periodically either screaming because his poor teeth hurt and he has way too much gala-gala in his throat/nose, or laughing to himself because he's discovered yet another way to make a binky disappear.
After snoring to wake the dead, Bryce stops breathing several times and has to choke to get himself going again (welcome, sleep apnea).
He grinds his teeth until I start sleeping with a hand to his cheek because that seems to be the only thing that will save his molars from being nubs in the morning.
He leans over me and starts saying something that sounds like Russian meets Chinese-which come to find out may or may not have been a result of a dream about Harry Potter-until he comes to enough to announce, "What I just said makes no sense." and rolls over to go back to sleep while I laugh out loud.
And last, but not least, he jumps out of bed not one, but four times during the night, throwing the sheets aside, violently ripping the ear plugs, and rushing to get ready for the day until I literally pull him back into bed. Once, when actually conscious, he got up and went to the bathroom and I didn't notice until he hopped back into bed. I instinctively grabbed his arm and pulled, commanding him to get back in bed. He of course defended himself and I of course didn't believe him (thinking he was still asleep) until he could prove that he was in fact in possession of all his faculties. He doesn't remember most of this, but this morning he feels like he didn't sleep at all.
All together an eventful night.
Welcome, finals! Please be over soon.
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