Thanksgiving

I didn't bring my journal with me, so I need to bullet point some things about thanksgiving so I can write a full account later.

• Arrived at Faber's on Tuesday. Drove in the morning to avoid the massive blizzard that was scheduled to hit northern Utah. Stores closed, plows at the ready, campuses evacuated, families calling each other to check and make sure everyone's alright. We packed extra food and water for our normally two-hour drive and took an alternate rout so we wouldn't be driving through a trecherous-in-the-snow canyon.
• The massive storm was a no-show. Hardly a snowflake.
• Sick. Sore throat and aches. Just knew I had to get better so that I could do the make over with my sistas. Went to the mall with Lauren, Shelly and Kenzie. They rocked out to a song I had never heard before, but it was so awesome I paid close attention and could sing the chorus with them before the song was over.
• Kenzie's awesome make over. The first time she's had an eyebrow wax- or an anything wax.
• Lost my Arctic circle gift certs but that's okay because I'm feeling horrible and only getting more horrible by Wed. Evening. Mom finds the certs on Thanksgiving day, so we can still go out sometime later
• the plan is to go to Gma and Gpa Heath's for Thanksgiving at 2:00 pm, but since Reese normally goes down for a nap between 1 and 2, we try to get her to go down earlier. She seems tired and even asks to go to bed around 11 am. Awesome! I put her down upstairs, then go back downstairs only to hear her playing around via baby monitor.
• After a while I go and get her, give her some lunch, and she's crying so I put her back down. I forget about the baby monitor, but when Will goes to check on her she's playing again. I guess no nap today. Wrong. She's a crybaby at the Heath's so she ends up sleeping in Aunt Becky's bed. When she wakes up she has no idea where she is, poor child.
• When we first get to Gma and Gpa Heath's, I go into the kitchen to put together the salad stuff that I brought. Alice (MIL) and Steven (Will's Brother) are talking. I find out that Cynthia (Steven's wife) is in the hospital. She's been sick for the past week or two. Long story short, they thought it might be pancreatic cancer. When Steven googled it, he found that those diagnosed with this cancer rarely live longer than a year. They have four small children, the youngest a month older than Liam. Later, they found that it's not cancer! Cynthia in the hospital getting her gall bladder out. Hopefully home by Friday or Saturday. Steven leaves after dinner to go take something to her in the hospital.
• Nathan, Steve and Cynthia's 5-month-old isn't very cooperative with drinking from a bottle. I find this out when Maryanne (another sister-in-law), who has a 9-month-old, brings Nathan in and states that he latched on just fine and ate really well.
• After dinner is ready, I fill a plate for Reese, then Will (who is holding Liam and helping Reese eat) then me, but before dinner is over, Liam has the blowout of the century, all over dad and down to his own socks. It is at this moment when I realize I forgot to put an extra baby outfit in the diaper bag.
• Will Borrows a pair of pants and Liam's onesie, which miraculously didn't get hit very hard, gets a thorough wiping. Liam spend the rest of the evening with no pants.
• We clean up the table and pull out Ticket to Ride. Grant and Mike (Will's brothers), Trevor (Steve and Cynthia's 6-year-old) and I play. At this time Reese wakes up and is carried up to me by Gpa Heath. She spends the time sitting on my lap, accidentally knocking all my game pieces onto the floor and eating a candy turkey. When I get up briefly to wipe the chocolate off her hands, Maryanne (Mike's wife) calls urgently to Mike to come help her. Daxton (Mike and Maryanne's 9-month-old) has barfed all over her, so much that she needs help. She borrows a shirt. Between the two of them, Will and Maryanne are putting together a full borrowed outfit.
• Steven comes back just in time to console Trevor, who didn't finish all his missions and came in third place in our game. (I came in last with, I think, my worst score since the first time I played.)
• We try and work things out to help the Steven and Cynthia family. Maryanne doesn't have an endless supply of milk and her son doesn't take a bottle very well, either, but Liam does, so I offer my milk supply. I run to my parent's house to get some of my frozen milk for Liam and while I'm there I get to say a quick "Happy Thanksgiving" to my grandparents and other extended family. While I'm there I grab pants for Will (The ones he's supposed to be getting for Christmas, because he didn't bring any other casual pants) and pajamas for Reese and Liam. I feed Nathan and then the four ounces that I have for Liam in a bottle.
• I remember that, two weeks ago, I was losing milk and afraid that for some reason my body wasn't making enough. I began pumping more consistently to build up my milk supply, but that boosted it too much so I was making too much. I was trying to get the supply to even out just right, but still had to pump a little just yesterday. By today, I was making just barely enough so that I could give an extra meal to another baby by using the little extra I had. Funny the way things work out.
• Nathan went home with Maryanne and Maryanne's two older kids spent the night at Gma Heath's. Hopefully both Steven and Cynthia will get a good night's rest. They both need and deserve it.
• I'm thankful for my health. I'm thankful for Cynthia's health. I've started taking antibiotics for my sore throat, but I suddenly feel like I have no reason so complain.
• I'm thankful for a super husband who didn't complain when he got pooped on or when he had to change three kid's dirty diapers all in a row, or patiently held poor Nathan when he was so tired but so obviously missing his mommy that he had a hard time falling asleep.
• I'm thankful for all my family, Faber and Heath side alike. I don't know how I got so lucky with parents and siblings and husband and in-laws and grandparents and children. That's got to be a statistical anomaly to have 100% awesomeness in your close family. Especially a family as big as mine.

Make Over

I've been wanting to do a sister activity for a while now because I love my sisters but, lets face it, we don't hang out together nearly enough. So I asked my youngest sister, Nikenzie, if we could give her a makeover. She was excited about it and I was excited to hang with my girls.

My sisters were a big help. Megan, the Mary Kay consultant, helped us with makeup and the new outfit. Shelly was our official "Personal Shopper" since she's super talented at finding cute clothes at second-hand stores (Yay for Plato's Closet!) Lauren came with us to our fruitless trip to forever 21, but helped us brainstorm a vision for the look, finished styling Kenzie's hair, and took all the "before" and "after" pictures.

Missing were Jasmine and Jessica, who are too far away to join in. But we love you guys and miss you!

So here is just one before/after photo set of Nikenzie. Please click here for Lauren's blog to see other photos.

Before:

After:

Oodles of Video

Warning: most of these videos are pretty uneventful. I just don't have anything else to do with them than post them here.

***

Daddy was reading the scriptures to the family. It was intense. Something about if you don't follow the Lord's ways then you will be cut off from his presence. He finishes and slams the book shut with drama. "Dun dun dun!" chants Mama ominously. "Dun dun dun," repeats Reese in an intense whisper, which is now repeated every time we finish scripture reading.

Reese decides to read the scriptures on her own. The video is long because we're hoping she'll stop with her signature ending, but instead when we ask her if she's all done, she just says "more."

Then when Daddy reads for real, she finally does it:

Reese's rendition of "Twinkle Star"

Liam had started swatting at and gripping things: (Both toys and Mama's hair.)

Some Footage of our happy boy right before jammies.

Playing with Mama:

Playing for the camera:

And here are some picture, just in case you have trouble with the video and want to see my cute kids:

Liam and his dangle-toys

Reese all ready for our bitter weather

This Past Week

On a crepes kick. Will liked our ham and cheese crepes for dinner this past week, but I love the sweet ones with strawberries and honey. (Pictured are the chocolate crepes with strawberries and Nutella, and white crepes with cream cheese, honey and strawberries.)

I think taking pictures is going to be the new trying on shoes. If that makes sense.

Here's how her picture turned out.

We went to the mall because it's getting really cold here. I can't wait to finish school and move someplace warmer. I dream of Phoenix.

Reese playing on the giant junk food.

I'm pretty excited because a Chick-fil-A just opened up really close to us and it has an indoor play place! They're going to get our business just for that. Smart move, Chick-fil-A.

Today after stake conference we were eating lunch. Will and I got to talking when we both noticed at about the same time that Reese had disappeared. Turns out she had put herself down for a nap. She turned out the lights, shut her bedroom door and crawled into bed. I love having a little girl that understands the complete awesomeness of nap time.

Reese has been very into writing letters lately. Most of her letters look like "e" or "o" but she often asks me to write and spell her name. Then she pretends to write her name, but usually she includes a lot of letters that don't belong in "Reese". But the fact that she seems to be making the connection between words and objects is pretty cool. I'm excited to start teaching her about letters in earnest.

4 Months

Liam is 4 months old today.

Here are some things about him:

Takes cat naps during the day (usually less than 20 minutes at a time) . Still has a pretty severe look-to-my-left head turning reflex . likes it when we play with his legs and move them around . likes to held high above your head so that he's looking down on you . Smiles at Mama from across the apartment (good eyesight!) . doesn't like lying on the floor . can roll over only part way . sucks on his fingers (though prefers the binky) . first non-related babysitter . will cry for attention . likes to stand (with help) . wears 6-9 mo clothes .

Some Stuff

Reese carefully made an apple slice sculpture. "This one is the playground," she said.

Visit to Grandma Heath's:

Liam laughs with Daddy:

Found Reese's Camera Again

We lost and them found Reese's camera again.

Turns out the camera was on video mode and I didn't realize it, so we ended up with some pretty embarrassing footage of me playing model for Reese.

...But Mom, the camera is already on!