We played hooky...

After a long night with two sick children and Macy's (and our) first experience with night terrors (thanks to Justin's DNA) we decided not to take our children out into the blizzard to attend church and thus infect the other child attendees. So while we played hooky Macy and I decorated our house for Christmas. She was very helpful with the Christmas tree ornaments and I am sure you will be able to pick out the spots on the tree that the did. She also insisted on dressing herself this morning as well...

Its been so much fun with her getting to really experience and understand Christmas this year. We watched the Polar Express Friday night and she loved it. Justin also bought her the Christmas TV Classics Movie pack at Costco the other day and she keeps asking to watch the "Reindeer Show" again. I love taking her out and seeing her get excited over Christmas lights and trees that are everywhere. She has figured out that Santa brings her presents on Christmas and also that Christmas is Jesus's birthday. She's been excited to go on an airplane and see her grandparents and aunts and uncles. But as far as she is concerned, the cousins are just competition for attention.

We are excited to see you all in a few weeks and I hope you had a good Thanksgiving!

Thankful...

I am grateful for:
Chocolate,
Justin having a job as a pilot (which he loves) when so many pilots are out of work,
My Sewing Machine,
My KitchenAid Mixer,
My Two Miracle daughters,
A great family and great in-laws,
Having a second car so I am not stranded home while Justin is at work,
Phones with free long distance,
the internet,
Airplanes so I can travel,
My church and beliefs,
and...

Rare, peaceful moments, such as this:

In between children's screams, laughs, cries and giggles...

Since our laptop has been getting repaired it has been difficult to find a spare moment to do a blog. The kids both follow me into our room whenever I try to escape for a brief moment to do anything on the computer and it drives me insane. Mostly because they get into everything they can get their little paws onto and I can't stand it. But Anyway...
Recently Justin and I have been enjoying a wonderful part of not having a nursing baby in the home... babysitters! Every Tuesday night we now ditch our loving babes and head off to a local bar/restaurant called Humpy's where they have "Pub Quiz" which is a big trivia game where each table is a team trying to get the most correct answers. We go with a couple from our ward, Ned and Rachel, and then a bunch of her lawyer friends and who ever we can get to come along, and we have a great time. Maybe I will post pictures if we do well this week!
Yesterday we hired a Young Woman from our ward to watch our spastic toddlers so we could go to a sports bar (again with Ned and Rachel, AKA Our "bar buddies") to watch the BYU -Utah game...yeah, I don't really want to talk about that one. Except to say how nice it has been to actually get to go on regular dates with Justin and to get socialize with other adults besides at play times (which are great but still involve the children).
Also this week, I was sick for 2 days or so and on the second day a wonderful lady from my ward with a 3 and 4 year old girl took Macy for half of the day. I will love her forever for this! I was able to rest and take a nap when Kylie did, it was wonderful. Plus I didn't have to listen to the two of them fight, so it ended up working out well.
Not much else happening! I am almost finished with all of the banners I have been sewing and I am anxious to finish Kylie's Christmas dress and some other projects I have planned. I will post more when more happens!And here's Kylie gearing up for yesterday's game...
And today we enjoyed a Sunday evening of no bake cookies and child torture for our entertainment.

Why Justin Rocks My World...

1) Yesterday he brought me home a dozen roses for now reason at all. How nice is that? After he gave them to me we realized that our vase assortment had not made the cut to travel to Alaska with us so they had to be trimmed down and put in a Nalgen bottle. I call it a bouquet with an Alaska flair.
2) Today he got his score on that big military test, you know the one that would determine our future? In the pilot section- the one that is obviously the most important to us- he scored a 98%. This is after he came home feeling like he didn't do as well as he could have. Yeah...I know, right? He's awesome. He did great on the other sections as well but we were extremely excited about that one. I know he will be embarrassed that I posted that on here, so don't tell him I told you, OK?
3) He took Macy out to play in the snow today when I was far too cold and sleepy to do it myself. He taught her to make snow angels, snowballs and a little snowman. She was thrilled to get to go out and play with him.

While Daddy was gone...

Macy kept asking, "Where'd Justin go?"

Kylie started saying "Milk," "More" and "Thank you."

Macy decided to "fix" the toilet like she had seen Justin do a few days earlier. I discovered her in the bathroom with the toilet brush in hand and toilet water Everywhere.

Macy told Kylie to get out of the bathroom because she needed her "Privacy."

Macy started begging for things by saying "Pretty pretty pretty please?!?"

I restrained myself from beating my children as they played in bed last night, keeping each other up past eleven. What was worse was the girls sleep deprived grumpiness in the morning.

Macy got to see a snowman, Santa Claus and Christmas Trees at some Christmas craft and food show we went to yesterday downtown.

I ate the rest of our left over butter cream frosting. It was wonderful...

I spent way too much time checking to see if any of my friends had posted new blogs. People don't do enough blogging on the weekends.

Justin's in the Dog House

Not really, but last night it seemed like it. The sad reality is that last night something happened that has happened only a handful of times in our 4 1/2 years of marriage- Justin and I slept in separate beds although we were in the same house.
The only times this has happened before has been for one of the following reasons:
1) Just after Justin's shoulder surgery he couldn't lay down flat so he slept in a recliner in the living room for a week.
2) When Macy was 8 months and I was deathly ill and recently knocked up, she would not sleep unless I was holding her, so we slept on the couch so I could prop my arms up on the arm rest. Not a fun few nights...
3) Our entire family of four was ill with a stomach bug so I slept holding Kylie and Justin slept in the other room with Macy. And by slept I mean, dozed between periods of one of the four of us vomiting or running to the bathroom for... other purposes.
4) And then a couple of times Justin slept in another room when Kylie was a newborn who liked to wake up multiple times a night and this was not conducive to Justin getting as much sleep as possible before his 4 a.m. flights.

That's it, really. I have to say, I am not a fan of not sleeping with my husband. There is no one to cuddle with, to help warm up the bed, to scratch me with his talon like toenails, no chance of making out once the kids are asleep. It really isn't a cool thing. So why did this rare event occur last night? Well, I have a lovely cold which prohibits me, and as a result, Justin from sleeping well. This would not do for he had to report at 6:00 in the morning to the recruiting office for the Air National Guard to take some see-if-you-are-smart-enough-to-fly-our-planes-without-killing-yourself-and-costing-the-government-14 million dollars-for-crashing-the-plane test.

He has been studying for weeks and hopefully once this test is over and he is able to apply to the units we have talked about, we can make some decisions about our future. Right now, everything is in limbo and I seriously despise Limbo.
So wish us luck as we try to plan our future....
And I am going to the fabric store in a couple of hours so if anyone else wants a banner, let me know soon! I am happy to ship or Justin may even be able to take some to Utah this weekend when he goes.
thanks all!

P.S.

I also am willing to do tutu's like the ones pictured below. Those will be $15 a piece as well and they would be easy to mail. I promise they will look better than my girls' ones because now I have had practice ;)
Anyway, just let me know if you are interested.
Thanks for all of the positive response so far! This will give me stuff to do this weekend while Justin leaves us to go to a BYU game!
thanks again!

Help Baby Mia

So I was reading my friend's blog today and she had a link for this little girl on hers to here.
I couldn't stop crying while I read the blog that one of their friends started for the family. I can't imagine the stress of having a baby who needs a heart transplant and then not even being able to hold that child. My heart really goes out for that family!
Anyway, I am always looking for an excuse to make something and I know many people are into banners now (like the one I made for Halloween) so I have decided to sell them to whoever wants one and then donate the profits to the family. I am going to make Thanksgiving and Christmas ones (or even birthday ones if someone requests) so let me know if you are interested. I am going to advertise on Craigslist but if anyone of you out there wants one, just let me know ( I will ship to people who email me if they don't mind paying a small amount for shipping). They will be $15 a piece and $10 for a single sided one.

I know how hard it was for me having Macy in the Hospital for over three weeks and we were blessed that nothing was wrong with her and we didn't have to pay a cent for that stay (thank-you double insurance coverage). I just want to help them so if you are interested at all, leave a comment or email me. If you aren't, just go to their blog and and give them a few bucks.
thanks!This is the back. Each flag is the same on back but this makes it nice to hang in a hallway or archway.
Each banner is 3 yards (nine feet). Please leave a comment with a way for me to contact you if you are interested! I also just had a request for one in certain college colors. These would be fun to have during football parties so that would be an option as well!
thanks!

Unfortunately, with an average camera and average house, if is hard to get a good picture to show off how cute these turn out.