Marcus Tyrel: Our Christmas Miracle

Meet our sweet little baby boy, Marcus.  He made his much anticipated entrance into this world on December 19th weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20 inches long.  Marcus has been welcomed by his {slightly obsessed albeit eternally doting} big sisters, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and even his dog Bear.  :O)  He has touched hundreds of hearts, brought endless joy, triggered thousands {probably more like millions} of tears and has caused a more than a few hours of lost sleep.  He so far has peed on doctors, nurses, Birth Mom and Grandma, Madison {on the hand and spit up on her nose}, Maelee {on the head} and yes, myself {the last of whom he has also pooped in the hand of... nice aim there buddy!!}.  He smiles often, loves to snuggle {which his big sisters enjoy} and adores the sound of his Daddy's voice.  He has crossed the first right of passage toward becoming a man - and I very literally nearly fainted during the barbaric ritual; complete with a hot flash, walls closing in and sounds starting to blur!  But I was there for him and while he may in all honesty never thank me for it, perhaps he will appreciate the gesture and know how much I already am in love with him.  The first two phrases out of EVERYONE's mouths are, "He's SO beautiful!" and "Look at all that HAIR!".  I love it!

The last month has been a blur, especially the last 2 weeks.  A LOT of emotion, a lot of tears, smiles, hugs, compassion, gratitude, grief, peace, joy and amazement.  We are SO thankful to have the unique opportunity to be a part of this miracle.  We have been given the most wonderful Christmas present in our sweet little Marcus.  One full of responsibility, but one that we have been anxiously waiting for for years and we are humbled by Rebecca's faith that lead him to our family.  Thank you Becca and thank you Alex for entrusting us with your perfect little boy.  We already love him with more tenderness and purity than I thought our hearts were capable of and we promise to never take your sacrifice for granted. 

Thank you.  Thank you eternally for Marcus Tyrel.

"Dear Santa..."

For Family Home Evening tonight, we read a poem about catching the "Spirit of Christmas" and talked about ways we can "catch the Spirit": being nice, helping others, trying to be like Jesus, being happy... then we went on the commercial side a little {ok, a lot} and wrote letters to Santa to help jump start our spirit catching.  :O)

Our little letters made me laugh so hard that I decided I had to share.  So please, sit back and enjoy our wishes this year!!

"Dear Santa,

For Christmas I want a Baby Brother and a Christmas tree.  Not a doll, just a Christmas tree.

Love,
Maelee"

{We were SO impressed that her first wish was "Bebe Brudder".  Too sweet!!!  I think she can sense that he's almost here!  :O)  And it's a little ironic that she doesn't want a doll, cuz that's what Santa is bringing her...

"Dear Santa,

This year I would like a brbee {barbie} car and a Kanani doll.

Would you plees come to my Crismis prtee {Christmas party}?

Love,
Madison"

She wants the REAL Santa at our ward party, not just a guy dressed up like him.  :O)  Later she said that if she had more paper she should have added that she also wants Maelee to stop bugging her because if she asks Santa, then he will make SURE it will happen!  LOL

"Dear Santa,

This year for Christmas I would like a few extra hours of sleep.  I know I could change my daily activities in order to get this myself, but I have found that asking you for things is much easier.  If you were to give me two extra hours of sleep I would enjoy them most around 6 to 8 in the morning.  I will still get up at 6, then just go back to bed.  :)  Thanks Santa, you really are a good guy!

Do you have a phone number?  If you did I could just text you through the year when I think of things I would like.  Make sure you get an unlimited plan.  If I sell your number to the world I would hate for you to have to pay for all those minutes and texts that would come in. 

Also this year I am told you plan to bring us a baby.  I'm not sure how you can do that and the 2 hours of extra sleep, but you're Santa!  You make reindeer fly!  You visit the whole world in 24 hours.  I'm sure you will figure it out.  Can I ask that the baby be happy all the time?  Is that too much?  I believe in you big guy!

I hope your Christmas goes well, feel free to grab a Dr. Pepper from the fridge, Tiff made some of her cookies so make sure you grab some of those too!

Love you Santa.  Thanks for all you do.

Love,
Clint"

I bet you $100 you thought that was MY letter!!!  Ha ha Clint is too funny!  After THOSE letters, mine sounded SO cheesy... mainly because I was trying to set up our Family Home Evening activity for NEXT week.  I asked Santa to help the families who need extra happiness to feel loved this Christmas so that next week he can write us a letter asking if we will help him out and deliver cookies to some of those families.  We can learn about service AND come home to eat fresh cookies!  I have my smart moments.  :O)  ANYhow, since mine was SO dripping with cheesy-ness, I'm not going to share it {my blog, my rules ha ha} but I will say that I asked for kitchen stuff {for me} and extra-special goodies for Kiki and Rebecca.  :O)

Ah, my family gives me the giggles sometimes...

Christmas

Clint says I'm crazy.  But last month I had a fun moment that made me realize something I didn't really know before.

You know all the hoopla about "Christmas in July"?  I honestly thought it was all a commercial thing to get you to start spending money NOW on Holiday Cheer.  Lo and behold, I have discovered that Christmas in July is, in point of fact, a natural desire.  How else can you explain my 5 year-old singing Christmas songs, begging to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Year Without A Santa Claus", and bugging over and over to make snowflakes to hang in our bay window?  There's no way that she could read my inbox and know that Better Homes and Gardens has been sending me Christmas Craft ideas, nor could she really understand the random advertisements on the sidebars of websites...  ESPECIALLY since she only is allowed to get on starfall.com and fancynancyworld.com. 

SO... I decided to follow her lead and actually opened one of those pesky emails from BHG, and you know what?  I'm suddenly SO excited for Christmas!  I've started my list, and am hoping to have the bulk of my projects and crafts finished by the end of September.  I SO want to be finished with Christmas prep by December 1st, so that we can ENJOY the Holidays without all the stress.  I've done it in the past {once, in 2008} so I know it IS possible!  I'm doing a 1/2 homemade Christmas, and I'm SUPER stoked for what I have up my sleeve for this year. 

Am I totally nuts?  Yeah, probably.  Am I totally excited?  You BET!!!!!  Anyone care to join me??

Funny ha ha

So I'm standing in line in the evil Wal-Mart last night and was bored so I let my mind wander.  Evidently I let my ears wander too cuz I started paying attention to these two ladies' conversation behind me. 

Lady number 1:  "Oh my gosh!  A secret wedding?  They got married?!"

Lady number 2:  "I thought they were already married!"

Number 1:  "No, they've just been living together."

Number 2:  "Wow!  I can't believe they finally got married then.  They have kids together and everything!"

At this point I take a peek back at them and realize who they're talking about.  On the cover of one of those celebrity trash talk magazines is the headline "Inside Brad and Angie's SECRET WEDDING!" {or something like that}.  I giggle and listen on as they go back and forth about this celeb and that celeb who are married, divorced or "just living together".  I guess the headline "Jessica is a home wrecker!  Details on how she stole her new fiance from his wife!" caught their attention because now they're saying,

Number 1:  "Wait, I thought he was already divorced when they started dating!"

Number 2:  "So did I!  I can't believe she would do such a thing!"

Number 1:  "She must have been just trying to out-do Nick because HE got engaged, like a month before!"

Number 2  "Wow.  What a tramp!  I always thought she was so nice.  What a shame..."

Number 1:  "I guess it just shows you that no matter how well you think you know someone..."

Number 2:  "I know it, I know it." {as she sadly shakes her head}

This next bit made me literally laugh out loud and be very grateful that I had the girls with me so I could pretend I had found them amusing instead of the 2 women behind me...

Number 1:  "I don't really follow celebrity gossip though, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by all those headlines."

Number 2{as she stares intently on yet another celeb trash mag}:  "Yeah, me neither.  It's really none of my business what they do with their lives."

Were they joking?  Did they then laugh at how ridiculous they just were?  Did they even realize how stupid they sounded and how ironic their whole conversation was?!?

Nope.  No-sir-ee.  Uh-Uh.

Wow.  Then they moved on to gossiping about "real" people and "important" matters.  Too funny.  Made me giggle, I tell you what!

***

Moving on!  The girls helped me make butter pecan toffee right before Christmas, and helped us eat it too!  Poor Maelee's teeth got stuck together and made her make some FUNNY faces while she chewed!  LOL  This first pic is Madi showing me the tiny MnM's and thinking they are so cute and "just my size!  Can I eat ALL of them?!?"  Yes, she is my child and no, I didn't let her eat ALL of them.

This is Maelee's "my teeth are stuck together" face

This little girl does NOT like her hands to be dirty, but the chocolate WAS pretty good...

I love these girls, and they made the Holidays so much fun.  Hope you enjoyed yours as much as we enjoyed ours!!

Christmas Eve lasts FOREVER!

Why is it that the weeks leading up to Christmas speed by, and then Christmas Eve gets here and draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags on? 

And on?

And on?

And on?

It's only 3 and already I've slept in {thank you girls!}, eaten too much, taken a nap, played lots of games, watched a few movies... And I know that tomorrow will zip by and be over before I know it!  *Sigh*  I don't want the season to end but this day is ridiculously long!  :O)

Merry Christmas everyone!

I agree with the Grinch

It's true.  I honestly do!!  There is one line from that story that keeps running through my mind...

"I MUST stop this Christmas from Coming!  ...But how?"

Christmas is only 4 days away!  I'm SO {get this!} bummed!!!  Most of the magic of Christmas is the anticipation of it.  Next week we'll be surrounded by fun new things, and my girls will be entertained with all their fun gadgets and gizmos... and I'm the goober who doesn't want it to be here yet.  I want to prolong the season.  Once it's over, life goes back to normal.  We find a home for everything, put all the decorations away until next year, throw the tree out on the burn pile, and then it's just cold without anything special to look forward to.  *Sigh*  Maybe the Grinch and I will go on strike!  Ha ha.

We've had a nice December so far.  I've tried really hard to not get stressed out and to not over-do it.  {Thus, I am still undecided as to whether or not I will send out Christmas cards... they would really be more like New Year's cards at this point... LOL}

Madi and I did a fun project a few weeks back, I taught her how to make paper snowflakes. 

It was hard for her little hands to cut through so much paper, but she did a great job

and we made quiiiiiite a mess!

It took about a week to finish up, not because it was hard or anything, but more because it just took me that long to get my iron out! We ironed them so they would be nice and flat,

then we sprayed them with glitter spray and hung them over our bay window in the dining nook. So fun!!

Next came our ward party. It was CRAZY!! There were so many people that we ran out of tables and chairs! They had to pull some out of the classrooms and seat people out in the foyer. The Primary did the Nativity, and as you can see, Madi was VERY interested...

LOL She actually really DID get into it, and was basically sitting backwards in her chair the whole time. It just got a little long for her... Ha ha Evidently it did for Maelee too cuz this is how she watched the performance

Clint is SUCH a trooper! He gets the Super-Dad award! Then the girls saw Santa, and I'm so annoyed at my camera and flash that THIS was the best pic I got. Grrr!

The guy had actually grown out his beard and bleached it so it was white. Very cool! The kids were SO excited, Maelee almost jumped out of my arms to get to him, then they both stroked his belly while Madi told him what she wanted. When I reached for Maelee, she defiantly told me, "NO!!" and turned back to Santa to pet him some more. He thought that was GREAT, and rewarded her with a few tickles - to which she cupped his face and gave him a love. Too cute!

Last week was the last this semester for pre-school, so we had a party during the last hour on Thursday. The girls were SO adorable. {Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Michele for the pictures!} First, we played "Hang the Ornament on the Christmas Tree"

All the girls got a few turns, and even Maelee and Marshall got a turn. :O)

Then we attempted to play the white elephant gift exchange game... Note to self, don't, repeat DO NOT play this game with 4-year-old girls! It's just not fair to the poor girl who gets her present taken! I felt so bad for Bentlee! Whoops!

Next, we had a junk break and decorated cupcakes to look like Rudolph. So cute!

That afternoon, Clint and I cashed in on some hour-massage gift certs he had gotten us for our anniversary back in June. HEAVEN!!! Then we went out to lunch {"This is like a REAL date! Wow!!"}, and got ready to head down to see my family for the weekend. As always, we were spoiled there and came home with heartburn from all the good food, a trunk full of fun toys and goodies, and lots of memories. I didn't bring my big, nice camera and forgot the SD card for my piece-o-crap-but-very-small camera... SO, I didn't get any pics of my family festivities. We also had a visit with Kiki, and I was able to get some from that before my internal memory was full.

Madi and Kapuai ran crazy dressed up like fairies, fun fun!

Maelee may look like she knew what she was doing, but she didn't stay on her feet for too long...

It was a great visit, and we are so happy to see Kiki and her family doing so well.

Merry Christmas too all, know that we love and are thinking of you!  And props if you made it through that!  :O)

I love... winter?

Before I get into all the hoopla for Christmas, I have to pass on the info that Madi had her staples removed this morning and it was quite the traumatic experience {almost more so than getting them IN!!}.  The nurse came rushing in to make sure we weren't killing her, that's about how loud her terrified screams were.  Of course, if you were being pinned to a table by your mom while a doctor came at your head with scissor-looking things, you'd probably be pretty freaked out too!  SO sad!  Trent, our family doctor and friend, did it as fast as he could - one staple actually flew across the room and the other fell and got caught in her curls in the rush.  Blah!! 

You MAY be able to tell in the pic, but rest assured that it's healing well and as a memo to all for future reference - he said that if you or your child ever have a head trauma like Madi's and you're out where you can't get to a doctor quickly, you can grab 2 pieces of hair from either side of the wound and tie them together.  He said that that works really nicely to close the wound back up until you can get medical attention!  Who knew?!

Last week was CRAZY 'round this place!  Aside from Madison's head-splitting adventure, she also had her performances for her FIRST play!!  They did "It's a Small World" and it was adorable!  She was a London Bridge - basically a cute kid in a school uniform who came out and sang the song.  Too cute!  I went to every show {except Friday night, I helped out back stage} and enjoyed all the little moments that the kids brought to the stage that weren't supposed to be there!!  LOL  Madi did great and I'm so proud of her!!!

I also did the HS Wrestling pics and Clint helped out at our local HS's Invitational.  Needless to say that by Sunday we were pretty exhausted and the girls both took a 3 hour nap... at the SAME time!!  LOVED it!

NOW FOR CHRISTMAS!!

The weather has been so screwy around here lately, we had a freezing cold front move in around Thanksgiving and stay for a while, but thankfully it has since passed on.  This week it's been back to flip-flops and short-sleeves!  Crazy.  And yet the mountain is starting to collect drifts of snow!  Gotta love the dessert!  :O)

We finally got our tree up and it's so pretty!  Madi did a great job helping me decorate it this year.  I told her the cardinal rule of tree decorating: You never, ever put 2 things that are alike next to each other.  You need to spread them around so it looks nice and even.  This was her plan of action: Place her princess ornaments all around the bottom of the tree {good}, then place a fairy ornament right next to each princess so that they all would have a friend.  "They're not the same, Mom!  Princesses and fairies are different!"  Well... sigh... yes, that is correct.  Can't fight that logic!  LOL  It's adorable and I love it.

Since our tree was up, Madi insisted that it meant our presents needed to be wrapped, so I made a trip to the devil's store {yes, I mean Wal-Mart.  We SO need a Target!} and knocked out a big chunk of my shopping, then spent a few hours wrapping... the large amount of time was mainly due to the fact that I was half wrapping, half watching a movie.  :O)

We got our house lights up right after Turkey-Day, and our other house decor up before that.  It's been so fun to see it slowly come together, and now we're all decked out, narrowing down those last few purchases and almost ready for the big day.  Of course, Madi keeps insisting that we open the presents right now cuz Santa will bring us more and we need room under the tree for when he does... Oh, she is SO my child when she thinks like that!  Ha ha ha!

Now that Christmas is over...

I thought I'd have time to update this thing... yeah right!  Seeing that this will probably be my last entry for 2009 ~ I better try!

So, this year has been a little more hectic than most {I can't imagine why!  We only added another kid ~ sheesh!}.  :0)  It took us longer to get all of our Christmas decorations up.  Well, small correction.  I put up all our inside stuff November 3rd, while Clint was in Texas.  For all you humbugs out there, let me say I'm not ashamed that I decorated so early, I SO needed a pick-me-up and it did the trick!  As for the rest of it... yeeeeeeah.  It was a slow process {we have been SO BUSY!!!}.  BUT 2 weeks before the big day we finally got our lights up and tree bought.  Madi was really excited all that day and then KONK!  Fell asleep on the way to the tree store.  We tried to wake her up...

Nothing doing. 

It took me a week before I had the time to decorate it with Madi, and then I had to {ok, ok, ok, DECIDED to} make a new tree skirt {and matching stockings}, but it finally got finished and was beautiful.  Madi tried to be such a big helper with wrapping presents but mostly used up an entire roll of tape making bandaids {for anything that would sit still!  I still need to clean up Keahi's high chair!!}.

We got spoiled again this year, my dad got all of his kids 72-hour kits for their families and my brother gave us 12 #10 cans of Mountain House freeze dried meals.  Either they know something we don't or we just got hooked up for food storage!!  :0)  We also got a shredder, a camp table and a Camp Chef Stove.  Kiki's family gave us a beautiful frame and gave Madi a cool keyboard/book.  I got Clint new razor blades, clippers, a mag-light {our old one bounced off into the dessert on a 4-wheeling expedition} and some XBOX 360 games.  He got me 4 Cricut Cartridges and other Cricut accessories {WOOHOO!!!}.  Santa brought Madi the Littlest Petshop Adoption Care Center and Jonnet added a pack of 20 Littlest Petshop animals to fill it {and drive Daddy crazy with all the little pieces!!!}.  She also got a tea set from Clint's grandma, pots and pans for her kitchen set, Princess hair doing toys, UP, earrings... oh, I could go on and on!  Keahi got a pop-up toy, a shape sorter ball, clothes, earrings, a crinkly book that you put pictures in, diapers, a savings account... sheesh!  PLUS both girls got a $20 gift card to Wally-World from my dad!  I'm telling you, we got SPOILED!!

Since this is our last hoorah for 2009, I put in a LOT of pictures.  Some are from before Christmas

some are from our visit with Kiki before Christmas and on Christmas Day,

some are from Christmas with my family

and some are from our Christmas with Clint's fam.  The white knit beanie I made for my niece and wanted to show it off :0). 

So, that's it.  Our Christmas in a nutshell, a very BIG nutshell!  :0)  Merry Christmas to everyone!  Happy New Year!  Signing off 2009 ~ bring on 2010!!!!