Life With Three

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but life is a bit busier than usual and I was never that good at blogging to begin with. First of all, I just want to say that the transition from 2 kids to 3 has been my easiest transition EVER! Getting used to having one baby was harder than this, but getting used to two kids was sooo hard for me! And I've heard from many moms that going from 1-2 kids was the hardest, and from other moms that 2-3 was the hardest. So I did a lot of praying that going to 3 kids wasn't going to be harder than 1-2, cause honestly, that was hard enough that I probably would have had a nervous breakdown right now if this was harder! :) One thing that has been awesome is all the meals that we've received!!! I've never had people bring me meals before. Aside from my sisters and one or two close friends. But I got so many this time, it has been sooo nice!!! And Cyndi watched my kids every day for either the morning or afternoon, sometimes both, during the first week that Jeffrey went back to work!! It's been so nice to be taken care of! And again, can I just promote the placenta encapsulation!! HONESTLY IT HAS BEEN AMAZING!!! I encourage anyone who can stomach the idea to PLEASE DO IT!! Purebirth.ca. AMAZING!! I have had so much energy. Aside from having to nurse my baby every three hours, I don't even feel like I had a baby!! It's been so nice!! And it's been over a month now and I still haven't had any emotional breakdowns or signs of depression. Truly a miracle!!!

Thomas is such an amazing baby!! Since day 1, he's slept long hours in the night. As short as 5 hours to as long as 9 hours. It's amazing to actually feel like I sleep through the night. Makes the day a lot more manageable! I've had some nursing/milk issues, so I've had to pump a LOT and supplement that milk to him. He lost a lot of weight after he was born and didn't make it back to his birth weight by the two week mark. After all that pumping and supplementing though, he started gaining again. I was happy about that, but I sure don't like all the time spent pumping. Plus it HURTS! He is a very mellow baby, so easy! I think I've been so lucky, because my first two were easy as well! I guess that's what I get for being an angelic baby to my own mother. She said I didn't cry for the first however months of my life. Even when I got the mumps, I just kind of whimpered. :)

The kids have adjusted pretty well to having a baby in the house. They both love him to death. They want to be around him an annoying amount of time! It's hard to leave him anywhere without having someone stopping to touch him or try to put the soother back in his mouth. I'm trying to teach them that if he's not crying, he's happy and we leave him be!!!! Haha, Jaclyn literally just stopped his swing to kiss and maul him as I wrote this. Sighh... The only time Jaclyn shows any hostility towards us or the baby, is when she gets in trouble for doing something to the baby that she shouldn't. Only then does she get jealous, by trying to hit him, or professing her hatred for him or us. It's frustrating!! It's hard to share time with three children so that none of them feel left out. Obviously I know that the baby can cry and won't feel left out if I have to choose between the baby and the older kids. But it's still hard. That's probably the only thing that's been harder this time than it was when Jaclyn was a baby. There's less of me to spread around now! Oh well. We're managing!

It's so nice have warmer weather now! We've been able to get out a few times now to enjoy the sun and let the kids run wild!! I love it and the kids love it more!! I'm so excited for this summer and all the fun things that we're going to be able to do! We've got some plans to go out to Invermere and possibly Sandpoint as well. At least the kids and I do. Jeffrey's going to be working and I'm not sure if he'll be taking any time off. But it should be fun! Nothing better than sunning and swimming!

Okay, here are a few pics of our little Tommy. Sadly, we haven't taken NEARLY as many pictures of him as we have of our other kids. It breaks my heart, but when is there time???

Thomas Cameron

I know I'm going to be grateful to have this all recorded, but I'm slightly dreading going over it again. Wasn't the best time I've ever spent. :) So saturday morning, literally as Jeffrey was walking out the door I had my first painful contraction. You know....one that actually meant something. I yelled that out to him as he left just so he was aware that things might start happening. Throughout the morning I kept having more, nothing regular, and nothing major. It was enough though to be uncomfortable and to not want to have to take care of Jacey and Jaclyn by myself. So I called Cyndi and asked if she could come pick us up and spend the day at her house. We wanted to be there anyway because Kandice and Brady were in town for a short time and we wanted to see them as much as we could. So most of the family was over there for the rest of the day and it was so nice to have other people to help with my kids and to visit with to keep my mind off of what was happening to my body! Jeffrey joined us after work and we were all about to sit down to a delicious steak dinner that Cyndi had prepared, when my contractions started to pick up a bit. They were getting a little more intense and more steady, being consistently around 15 minutes apart. It was 7ish at that point and we decided to head home (after we ate really quick...we couldn't resist) and get things ready for the home birth. We left the kids and headed home to tidy up and get the bed "birth" ready. At one point, my contractions stopped for about half and hour and I was nervous that I was jumping the gun and that perhaps this was false labour! I was a week early afterall and I've never been early before. And I'd always "induced" labour with castor oil, so I thought for sure since I wouldn't do that this time, I'd go over. Thank goodness they picked back up again!! Cyndi brought the kids home just after 8 (my contractions were on average 6 minutes apart by then) and helped Jeffrey get them into bed. By 9 o'clock the kids were sound asleep and I was definitely getting into the more intense-have to breath through them to endure it- contractions. They were getting closer so we called Carol. We had already talked to her that night, before we left Palmer's and she actually was in SW calgary babysitting her grandbaby. Luckily, Mark and Emily's movie was full (not lucky for them) so they were actually on their way home and Carol was free to leave and come help us!! Funny how things work out like that!! I guess it's not funny, it's actually just one of those things that shows me how Heavenly Father micro manages our lives more than we realize. Anyway, so Carol headed up to our house to check me out. I was about 4 cm dialated and was definitely in active labour. The next 3 hours were pure torture, as the contractions got worse and worse. I had flash blacks of being in the ambulance with Jaclyn and it made everything feel worse and brought back some of that fear I had in those moments. Jeffrey was great, always by my side, letting me squeeze his hands and putting pressure on all the right spots on my back. He joked at one point that he used to think it was fake when women would hurt their husbands' hands on movies or tv shows when they were squeezing them during labour....but he was now a believer! Haha! It was great to be at home. I laboured on the bed for a while, the birthing ball, the tub...actually I did a rotation of those three places. It was just so nice to be able to try different places and positions to find what was the easiest place to get through the contractions. Obviously there was no easy place, but some helped more than others. I didn't like labouring in the tub when I was pregnant with Jacey, but I wanted to give it another chance because I've only heard good things about water births. It was a lot better than Jacey's birth, but I still didn't love it. It felt nice in between contractions, but it still felt like it magnified the pain a bit. Luckily for me though, I just so happened to be in tub when the baby came. I wanted it to be there because I knew it would be the easiest place to contain the mess. It was my second time through the rotation of bed, ball and tub when I went from just having contractions, to going through transition and having to push! And man, was that the worst few minutes of my life!! I know everyone will think that Jaclyn's labour is the worst thing I could have been through, but I feel like this one was worse. With the memory of Jaclyn's birth, plus the pain of this one, it was like DOUBLE. I felt like I was back in the ambulance and it was a moment where I felt completely out of control and full of fear!! I "kind of" freaked out (that's an understatement) and Carol had to get right in my face to bring me back to reality and let me know that everything was ok and that it was all normal and I was about to have this baby! Anyway, so I barely had to push, or rather, I didn't push for very long and I felt that amazing, incredible, miraculous RELIEF that comes with having a baby out of your body!!! I cried purely out of relief for about 5 minutes afterwards because I was DONE!!! I felt kind of guilty about that later, because Jeffrey was crying too and I think he thought we were crying for the same reasons, but we so weren't. He was crying about the miracle of birth, and meeting our precious little baby for the first time. You know, normal reasons. And I was also in awe of and was so excited to see our baby, but my mind was consumed with other things at the time. Anyway, so after discovering that it was a boy (our intuitions were right) and having those first few bonding moments as parents and son, I was rudely bombarded by more cramping. I never remember delivering the placenta. Well I guess I remember delivering it, but I didn't remember that it was a painful thing, but man, it felt like I was having another baby! And the cramping didn't stop. I felt kind if jipped because that relief that I was craving and thought I was going to have, was gone. I know that after birth cramps are worse with every child, but these have been so much worse than I imagined. And they still haven't left. I have been living with a hot pad on my lap ever since. Anyway, after I got warmed up and all those after birth "shakes" subsided, I was able to nurse little Thomas. He ate like a champ! I had to stop him after an hour so we could bathe. He would have kept eating, it was awesome! We both got in the bath and cleaned up. It was soooo nice to be at home, especially at this point, because afterwards, I was able to get into bed, put Thomas in his bassinet next to me and just relax. There was no packing up and driving home from the hospital. It was amazing!! Cyndi was there (which was perfect because about 10 minutes before I had him, Jaclyn woke up crying and she was able to go in her room and help settle her back down) and so she was able to see him and hold him right afterwards. She slept on the couch the rest of the night to help out if the kids got up again. We were so grateful for her help and presence! The midwives packed up all their stuff after making sure baby and I were both good and healthy and then they left. It's been so nice to work with midwives, especially Carol, because they are so thorough and they come to you!! I love that I haven't had to go anywhere to get Thomas checked out or anything, they've been visiting me at home and will be back again tomorrow to see us.

These past few days have been sooo much better than with any baby I've had. Aside from the massive cramping that is. Thomas and I have figured out nursing with no problems. That has always been a problem with my babies. He loves his binky, the second night he slept for 8 hours. He is just a happy baby and has given me very little grief! One of the biggest things so far is that I haven't felt like crying 24/7. Without fail, on day 3, when my milk comes in, I cry all day. But here we are on day 4, milk has already come, and I am a different woman this time around! It's a miracle!! One that I could accredit to a few things. First being the lack of nursing problems. That has always been a reason for tears in past postpartum periods. Second is placenta encapsulation. Yes, I am indeed ingesting my own placenta. Thanks to purebirth.ca (thank you Emily for referring her to me) I was able to call a lady to come pick up the placenta the next morning and she took it away and basically dehydrated and ground up my placenta and put them into pill capsules. So now I am taking those pills daily and there are supposedly many benefits. Just to name a few; a boost in energy, a boost in milk supply, and the BIG one for me, helping curb the dreaded postpartum depression. And so far, I'd say it's working!!! The third reason, and the one that I am also giving the most credit to, is that wonderful Book of Mormon challenge that our ward did. Not having postpartum depression is something specific that I prayed for all the while, basically asking Heavenly Father to let this be one of the promised miracles that I could receive for accepting and achieving the Book of Mormon challenge from the Bishop. So whether or not the placenta encapsulation was the means for this miracle to come to pass doesn't matter so much to me. I am just happy that so far I've received this answer to my many prayers!!! Now I know that I could totally be speaking too soon and I know as well that having emotional ups and downs are normal anyway, but I've never felt this good at this point and I'm hopeful that it's going to continue!! I'm so grateful to Jeffrey who has taken the week off to be at home with us, to help out with Jacey and Jaclyn so I can focus on Thomas and getting my rest. I'm also so grateful to the many friends and family that have brought us meals/food and for giving Jeffrey a break by taking the kids for a few hours! I'm surrounded by so many loving, giving people and I don't know why I am so lucky to have that, but I sure am grateful for it!!

Speaking of Jacey and Jaclyn, they are absolutely in LOVE with Thomas! Anytime we emerge from the bedroom, they RUN to my side so they can "pet Thomas!!" That's what we get for getting a hamster before a baby. They treat him like an animal, always asking if they can pet him. Haha!! Sadly, both my kids got colds right as we had him, so I've had to make sure they stay out of his face and that hasn't been easy for any of us!! I can't wait for them to get better so I don't have to be so paranoid about all their love!! Anyway, we are just having a great time getting to know Thomas better. He is absolutely adorable. He has Jaclyn's nose exactly, and Jacey's mouth! He looks more like Jeffrey than Jacey does, if that's possible!! Today he's wearing one of Jeffrey's baby outfits, one that we have a picture of Jeffrey in..and it's like looking at twins! We are so blessed to have three healthy kids and have so much love in our home!! I love looking at the kids crowd around Thomas trying to kiss and caress him. And I love watching Jeffrey sleep with him in his arms. I just love my family so much and am honored to be apart of it!

ps. Tommy's stats @ birth - born at 12:38 am on April 10/11, 8lbs 4 oz, 21 inches long.

Happy 3rd Birthday Jaclyn!!

Before I can post about the most recent happenings in our life, I have to document Jaclyn's THIRD birthday!! I can't believe she's that old already! She's my baby!! It started out rather early, I woke up in the night and found my husband MIA, and I tracked him down in the kids' room sleeping. I couldn't resist taking pictures when I discovered the position they were in! It was too adorable!
First thing we did when it was actually time to wake up, was get Jaclyn dressed up in her "ladybug dress". She asks me to wear it all the time, to which I usually reply "No, it's just for sundays". But how could I turn her down on her birthday??? So she got all dressed up. We decided to open presents in the morning so that Jaclyn would have some fun new things to play with throughout the day. She loved all her presents, her favorite being the bean bags I made her! Hooray for little kids not knowing how bad something is! :) This is pretty much the first thing I've sewed on my own and as easy as it sounds, they still weren't perfect. But I was happy with them and Jaclyn doesn't know any better. :) I made a poster for her too so that she had something to throw them at/through. Jacey and her played throughout the day and had lots of fun!

Later that evening, we had Jeffrey's siblings over for some cake and ice cream. The kids had a lot of fun and Jaclyn loved her rainbow cake! I still can't believe she's 3! I guess it does feel like a million years since she was born, but it doesn't seem real to me that I have a 3 yr old and a 4 yr old. Crazy! Jaclyn is such a sweet girl, but she's got a lot of fire in her! She is no pushover. In fact, she's more often now the pusher rather than the pushee. She's definitely coming into her "terrible threes". Everything's a bit more of a challenge with her, but she's just trying to figure out the whole independence thing. It's a lot more work, but we love her and she's worth it! She's still the super loving, snuggly little girl she's always been. She's always been more of a Daddy's girl, but to Jeffrey's dismay, she's gotten a little more attached to me. Always wanting mommy to do things for her. And even though that just means more work for me, it also means more affection from her. :) I like it! I'm trying to think of more things to say about her, but let's face it, my brain isn't functioning at 100% right now. She's a doll and we absolutely love her and everything she brings to our family!! We are grateful for her in our lives! Happy Birthday Jaclyn!!

Pictures...

On Elizabeth's birthday, I took her girls for the afternoon so she could go
shopping alone! We had fun! These girls play so well together!

I love the way Jacey makes Jaclyn laugh!

Apparantly this is one of Jaclyn's faces, she's doing it in the picture at the top as well! :)

I can't express enough how much my heart melts whenever I find my kids snuggling like this!

And this...

We invited Claire down for a karaoke party one afternoon!
It was soooo fun to watch and listen to them! We got some great video footage!

They're singing their favorite primary songs :)

Jacey got really into it!!!

Jacey has been climbing off the top bunk lately to sleep with Jaclyn after she falls asleep.

I absolutely LOVE doing Jaclyn's hair! She is soo good for me too, sits like
an angel for as long as it takes! She asks me to braid it all the time, so I've started
experimenting with different ways to do it! Ahh...so fun!

This braid is made with a series of knots. It's soo easy and fun to do,
but her hair needs to be a little longer! As soon as we got in the car
and she rested her head on the back of her car seat, pieces started
falling out. By the time we got to church it was destroyed! :(

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I never liked doing crafts as a child. I hated it in fact. Actually I hated anything to do with developing skills, such as cooking, sewing etc. I pretty much only read as a child. And played the piano. I obviously regret that now because I feel like I fail in the "housewife" department. I don't know nearly enough about the things that I'm supposed to be able to do effortlessly! But I don't mean to get into all of that, I'm getting off track. Now that I'm a mom, I LOVE doing crafts!! I think it's so fun and I love getting my kids excited about whatever craft I can. So I love special holidays that bring out an even greater desire to create. But because I never had much practice doing crafty things, my finished products look like a child did them. Because, well...that's the level I'm at. So I feel kind of dumb posting what we made today for Valentine's Day. Most people post professional looking products that could be sold for money!! But that's okay. :) My kids don't know they have an "underdeveloped" mother. Okay, now I'm really laughing at myself, because I didn't even come up with these crafts myself. I found them online. I'm not a creater, I'm a copier. But I still had tons of fun and so did my kids! That's all that matters, right?? Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!

These would have worked a LOT better with cardstock. The hearts are made with crayon shavings melted by the iron between wax paper.

About to devour their heart sandwiches. And yes, it's lunch time

and we're still not dressed. Some days are just like that!

I know this is more of a girly craft, but Jacey still wanted to make one. :)

Miracle #1

This month our Bishop gave our ward the challenge to read the Book of Mormon in 85 days. The past few times there have been Book or Mormon challenges, I've had good intentions, but never did anything about them. This time (same as all the other times) the Bishop promised us miracles in our lives in accomplishing this goal. It hit me this time that if there was ever a time in my life that I needed some miracles, it was right now!! I won't list off all the reasons why! :) Anyway, I had faith that regardless of what the miracles or blessings would be, my life could only improve and be happier if I accepted and accomplished this challenge. So it's been almost a week and a half and I've been keeping up to the schedule and last night, I realized that I've already witnessed my first miracle!! And it is HUGE. Huge. I've blogged many times about how bad of a sleeper Jacey is. Whether it's him being in our bed all night, or parts of the night. Or whether he's having periods of insomnia when he's WIDE AWAKE for 2-3 hours a night. Ever since just after Jaclyn was born, he has been a thorn in my side as far as sleeping goes (literally, he's glued to me in our bed) and especially now that I'm getting more pregnant and my back and hips are failing on me, getting good sleep is crucial. I can't even recall all the things we've tried to get him to sleep in his own bed. But there have been many!!! And sometimes we've been successful for a couple of nights here or there, but it always reverted back. And even the success we had, was minimal and recquired a lot of work. For example, he would go back to his bed, but after fighting us on it, then cry about it forever and we'd have to sit in his room for an hour, stuff like that. But this week, when I explained to him about the pain in my body and how sleeping alone was so important for me to be healthy and not hurt, he just got it. It clicked. It's been 4 days now, and he hasn't even woken up at night. I can't even remember a time when he hasn't woken up at night once. Even when he slept with us, he always woke up at least once. But he's been sleeping straight through and not sneaking into our bed once!! And in the mornings, he calls out to me to ask if it's morning and if he can get out of bed! I can't even believe that this is happening to us!!! I've been waiting for this day since he was about 17 months old!! And he's four now! Actually, the first night, he did wake up once. Jeffrey went into his room and Jacey was the one that told Jeffrey that he couldn't go to mommy's bed because her back hurt. And then he went back to sleep. That was when I knew he got it. He's never been rational about staying in his own bed at night before!!! Now I know many people will say that he's just old enough now to get it, or all this time and work has paid off, but I KNOW that this is a miracle!!! I know Jacey. And he is stubborn!! He doesn't just give in if it's something he really wants. And sleeping with me has always been what he wants the most! So the fact that he so easily gave it up and we haven't had to fight him on it, I know it's a miracle!! And I credit it directly to my obedience of the Bishop's BOM challenge. :) I'm happy!! If this was the only miracle that came out of reading the BOM in 85 days, I'd be so happy!! But the Bishop said miracles, and now I wonder what else is in store for me! :)

Looking back over the years through pictures...

I will admit, I loved snuggling him in bed and I will miss that sometimes. But I now cherish my own space. And I am WELL aware that I created my own problem by allowing him in my bed in the first place. :) I learned this lesson the hard way!

The end of an era.

Hawaii/Christmas 2010

I should have done what lots of you do and blog as you're on vacation, or at least document things as you go so that when it's time to make a big post about it, you don't have to try to think back and remember everything. But I'm not that organized so we'll have to see what I can come up with! So this year for Christmas, Jeffrey's parents gave all of their children a 2 week vacation to Hawaii to stay at their condo in Ko'Olina, Oahu. Within a certain time frame, we could choose whichever 2 weeks worked for us, but we all wanted to overlap and be there together for Christmas. Jeffrey and I decided to go earlier than the rest of the family and we left on Dec 10. We had 5 days alone before Kevin and Cyndi came out and a few more days with Kandice and Brady after that before the rest of the gang got there. When we first planned this, I was a little sad that we would be alone for the first week, but I am now very grateful that we did that! We had a lot of fun with just our kids and it was nice to be able to do our own thing and not worry about making plans with 10 other people. Cause we all know that can sometimes get chaotic! We had great weather pretty much the whole time! Only 3 rainy days. Two of which fell on sundays which was AWESOME!! And one on a monday. But even some rain in Hawaii isn't bad. It was still warm and we were able to drive around and see some of the island and not feel bad that we were missing out on a beach day. Our kids were sooo well behaved on the flights both there and back and they were GREAT in Hawaii. I kept imagining myself chasing them around the entire time and basically getting no time to relax. But they were really good about sticking around, and not going too far into the ocean. It was really fun to see Jacey and Jaclyn play together, they are truly best friends. They made some good memories! We were lucky enough to have a great pool to lounge around at and a very quiet beach to go to. And neither one was better than the other. So if one was a little busy for our liking, we'd just walk to the other and were just as happy! Jaclyn loved the sand and was constantly burying her legs in it. And they both loved the waves pushing them around at the shore. Because of the rocks around the lagoon, the waves were pretty much nil, but to a 25 lb girl and a 35 lb boy, they still were enough to push them a bit. I love that both of my kids love water and aren't afraid to swim around on their own (with lifejackets and water wings of course). They were basically in heaven the whole time we were there and have asked several times since we've been back if we can go back to the condo in Hawaii!

While we were out there we were able to celebrate Jacey's 4th birthday!! He was so excited to be able to do that in Hawaii!! It was pretty low key. We were still the only ones out there at that point. He opened his presents in the morning, then we spent the day swimming at the pool, and we ended the evening with personal size chocolate lava cakes! I'm so glad he's too little to realize his mom bailed on making a cool cake! :)

One day we decided to head to Honolulu and try to find some places to do some souvenir shopping. We had no clue where we were going and were lucky to stumble into a little strip mall type place that backs onto a port for cruise ships. The prices weren't too bad and we got the kids each a Hawaiin outfit and some puca shell necklaces and Jaclyn got some cute flower clips for her hair. If we had waited till everyone got there, we would have gone to a much better place for souvenirs where they apparantly got more stuff for much cheaper! Oh well...live and learn. :)

When Kevin, Cyndi, Kandice and Brady got there, we walked over to the Mariott time shares and we (as in Jeffrey, Jacey, Jaclyn and me) experienced our first SHAVED ICE. Mmmmm..... honestly it was the best thing I'd ever tasted!! So light and fluffy and delightful. And it was topped with condensed milk...mmmmm. I'm making myself crave one right now! Now that I'm home I wish that I went over there more often to get them. Oh well...another live and learn experience. Haha!

The day we were waiting for Melinda, Heather and children to arrive, we walked around the Ala Moana mall in Honolulu. The kids saw Santa there...which was kind of weird. A big polynesian Santa. My kids were too shy to even look at him though, so I'm pretty sure they didn't even notice. That mall is pretty cool, most of it is outdoors. It was amazing to be able to be outside so much of the time and be HOT! It definitely made it NOT feel like Christmas though. But it was really fun and a great break from the freezing cold Calgary that we live in. The next day was slightly rainy so we started to drive to the North Shore to see some of the beaches up there. We first stopped at the Dole Plantation and had some yummy pineapple ice cream. After that, we only made it as far as Turtle Beach, where we saw 4 or 5 turtles surfing the waves. It was really cool! Jeffrey got some pics, but it's hard to see what it was like in person. After we stopped there, it started to get really hot, so we decided to go back to the condo and enjoy the sun where the kids could swim (the North shore does not have kid friendly beaches..too many gigantic waves). On wednesday of that week, Kevin chartered us a private boat to go do some whale watching and snorkelling! It was AMAZING!!! We saw 5 humpback whales throughout the tour, all of which were amazingly close to our boat!! And tons of dolphins. And there was even a big sea turtle swimming with the group while we snorkelled. I actually wasn't in the water with the turtle, I was on the boat with my kids waiting for my turn, but to be honest, I wouldn't have liked that anyway, I'm too much of a pansy. Even snorkelling with the fish freak me out. I don't really like sea life, it's kind of a fear I have. Seaweed scares me too. :) But when it was my turn to snorkel, after I got used to the breathing again (seriously makes me feel panicky and claustrophobic) I really enjoyed looking at all the colored fish. It was pretty cool! I didn't think my kids would want to get in, but they both did and Jacey even put on a mask so that he could peek in the water. It was really fun! We got to see the big "Black Pearl" from the Pirates of the Carribean movie, it was sitting in the same marina that our boat was in. We got to drive right past it and see all the detail on it. It is a beautiful boat and SOO big!! It's called something different in the next movie though, something about Queen Anne's Revenge. Actually, I think that is the name of it. Anyway, kind of fun. Like seeing a celebrity. :)

Christmas Eve was kind of surreal. We spent it on the beach, building sand castles, turning the girls into sand mermaids, swimming. We tried to end our beach activities early that day so that we could have a nice dinner and watch some Christmas stuff. We watched the Andrea Bocelli (there you go Katie) Christmas Concert on DVD and also the Nativity movie (you know the one, like 5 minutes long). And those helped it feel a little bit like Christmas, but other than that, it was a normal day! We did have a small tree up and some lights on the balcony, but it just doesn't feel like Christmas when you are wearing your bathing suit 90% of the day. Christmas Day felt even less like Christmas. We had all decided to do our own Christmases with our kids either before or after Hawaii (we chose to do ours after) so there was no present opening that morning. Weird. We spent that day at the pool (it was our last pool day) :( and then had a HUGE traditional Christmas dinner with the Seidels down by the pool. The dinner was Christmassy, but eating outside by the pool vetoed any Christmas feeling the turkey and potatoes brought. We were so excited that Angie Takahashi and her husband Mike and kids came to hang out with us that day. They were able to spend some time at the pool and then eat with us. The kids became friends quickly and later we had them watching movies together in some of the rooms while we played some fun games out on the balcony. It was great and I was glad they were able to come spend time with us!!

The next day was our last day, and after church and packing up all our stuff, we headed to Pearl Harbour. It was great to be able to go there and see the place where such a historic thing happened. It was sad to read all of the names of the people who had passed away there, and sad even to see the names of the people who survived it. It would have been very hard to overcome those events. We were able to go down into a submarine and see where some of them lived for months on end. It was unbelievably squishy and again...very claustrophobic. The cots were all smushed together, 3 on top of each other. And definitely not built for a man...really short. The kitchens were puny and the eating area was small too. And every opening into another area, was a small hole that you had to step up to, to go through. Unbelievable what those men went through just in living in those conditions, to fight for their country. And that's not even thinking about the actual fighting that they did! We walked through a museum there and saw lots of things from their time. I love nostalgic things like that, they have a special feeling about them.

So any time we weren't doing any of the specific things I talked about, we either were at the pool all day or at the beach. I discovered that I absolutely love playing in the sand! I'm totally a sun worshipper, but with kids it's just not possible to lay in the sun all day. So when they wanted me to play with them, either in the water or sand, I discovered that it was just as good as sun bathing. And in fact, more fun!! I seriously loved organizing sand castles and giving all the kids different jobs, either bringing more water, more sand, rocks, whatever it was while I was heading up the main sand castle area. :) I remember as a kid it was always soo much more exciting when an adult participated in whatever it was that we were doing as kids. And I'm glad I was able to do that for my kids and neices and nephews. I'm also glad that Jeffrey loves the water as much as he does! I can only stand being in it for so long and then I get cold. I'm constantly in and out as I get hot and cold. But if the kids wanted to play in the water for a long time, Jeffrey was their man! It was perfect! I manned the beach, Jeffrey manned the water. (Is that how you use that term?) We are the perfect beach team! :)

Sadly, that brings us to the end of our trip. It was a very bittersweet feeling. It was the perfect amount of time to have been in Hawaii, but coming home to the cold did not sound appealing! I'm really glad we had our Christmas to look forward to, because I think it would have been harder for me to leave otherwise. Our kids did great on the flight home again! I had a terrible flight, didn't sleep at all..and it was overnight..and when I got off, my feet and ankles were the size of an elephant's!!) The kids were really reluctant to leave though. They fully understood what leaving Hawaii and going home to Calgary meant. And they were not happy about it! Again, having Christmas to look forward to really helped. When we got home on the 27th, that was our Christmas Eve. We spent the first part of it sleeping to catch up for the lack of it while flying. And actually, I'm completely drawing a blank as to what we did the rest of the day. I was definitely jet lagged! That evening the kids opened their Christmas jammies and we watched that new Owl movie and had some goodies and hot chocolate. The kids fell asleep REALLY easily about 9ish and I got to work on the presents and stockings. And can I just say, that it was the most fun, satisfying, happy Christmas Eve I've ever had!!! I LOVED wrapping all the gifts and getting the stockings ready. I've never done my own kids' stockings before (good ol' Nana Palmer has always done that) and I absolutely loved it! They were no where NEAR as amazing as past years, but my kids have been too little to remember and so there was no disappointment the next morning. Christmas morning was sooo fun with just our family. This was our first year doing that as well, and I had more fun than ever!! Jeffrey and I didn't get any presents this year. We must have been naughty or something! :) But it didn't even matter. It was just so fun to watch the kids open theirs. Jaclyn got a purple princess dress and accessories and not only is she in love with purple, but dresses as well! So it was the perfect combo! Her body was literally shaking with excitement as I helped her dress up in it. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen!! She wears it every day and loves it just as much!!! Jacey's favorite gift was his Iron Man "heart". It connects to whatever T-shirt he's wearing and when you push it, it makes various Iron Man noises and he runs around pretending to blast things to pieces with the guns in his hands. He wore it for 48 hours straight! It was pretty adorable! With Grandma and Grandpa Draper's Christmas money, he was able to buy a mask to go with it. Now he's really in heaven!!! :) So Christmas was a complete success and the perfect ending to our trip!! New Year's was a lot of fun too. We had a games' night with WAY too much good food with my siblings, Gannon and some of the Stehmeiers at the Palmer Home. Our kids were not good to us that night, they only let us get 2.5 hours of sleep before they woke up at 6am and decided they wanted to get up for the day!!! My wonderful and amazing husband got up with them and let me sleep in to my heart's content. He's so good about doing that on pretty much ALL of his days off. I love him for it!!

I know this is a lot of writing and most of you won't read it, but I wanted to document it for ME. So it's okay if you just look at the pictures. Although I will say, I'm a reader and I never skip people's written portions. So maybe that will guilt you into reading mine. :) Haha, just kidding. It truly doesn't matter! But just to sum things up, we had a fabulous December and Christmas/New Year's! I don't necessarily want to do another tropical Christmas again, but I"m pretty sure I would never turn down a free trip! :) We were excited to welcome home Michael, Melinda, Heather and their kids today. They were definitely sad to leave, but we are excited to have them back! Kevin and Cyndi are still there for another week, enjoying the peace and quiet that's for sure!! Okay, anyway, now I'm just blabbing. I hope no one is still reading! :) Hope you all had fabulous holidays!!! Now on to the depressing part of winter..blah!!!!

Okay, I decided to post this now and do separate posts for my pictures. Just because it will be wayyy too long if I do them together! And I posted way more pics on facebook, cause blogger takes way too long to load them. FYI. :)