December in full gear!

This is a looooong catch-up post, since I haven't posted since Nov. 10!  Sorry if this take you an hour to read through (if you even get through it all)!

Nov. 11-17:
We didn't do much at all that week.  I played Bunco on Tuesday night while the twins had fun playing at Kiki's house and I had my weekly massage on Wed.

On Tues., 11/12, Makenna put her foot up on the table during lunch and I told her not to do that and went through some reasons why it's yucky, after which she rolled her eyes and moaned, "Nevermind." Ha!

On Wed., 11/13, at dinner, I told Makenna to eat more chicken and she said, "I'll eat one more and that's it!" She's getting so sassy!  But she can be SO sweet!  Avery has been having a lot of tummy problems lately (I might end up taking her to the dr.); the other day, Avery said her tummy was hurting and asked Makenna if she could use her lovey to help her feel better and Makenna said, "Of course!" and was being so sweet and compassionate with Avery.

Avery was sitting on the potty yesterday, trying to poop (just to get a treat), and I told her to just push it out and she grunted and said, "It's no use!"  Ha ha ha!!!  They say and do the funniest things all the time!!!

Wed. night FB post:  The girls are so excited that Jared is home. But he scared me again by not telling me he was coming home today, then coming around to the back of the house and looking in the doors from the deck to the kitchen, where we were eating dinner. He's gonna get shot one of these times. Glad he's home, though.

I was able to go hang out with Kiki and a friend on Friday, 11/15, while Jared stayed home with the girls and we went out to lunch on Sat., then went grocery shopping as a family but that's about it since Jared had been home.  We mainly just hung out together here at the house.  Jared's mom came over on Sunday, 11/17, after we got home from church and stayed until the girls went to bed.  During the girls' nap, she watched a Saints game with me, ha ha.  They beat the 49ers, yay!  LSU had a bye that week so we stayed at #18.

Nov. 18-Dec. 1:
So, when Grandma was at our house on the 17th, I told her and Jared that evening that my throat felt a little itchy and I hoped I wasn't getting sick.  Well, I did.  It was really hurting the next day, along with a headache.  By Wed., I had a full-blown cough/cold and Jared left on a trip that night.  Makenna started getting sick on Thursday and Avery joined her on Fri. night.  I wrote this last Sat. morning on FB:

Longest night EVER! Now both girls are sick and none of us got any sleep last night. I think the most consecutive sleep I got was one hour, if that, and only short spurts other than that. I'm so tired and now I have to miss a friend's birthday dinner tonight. I'm so sad! I really needed a night out.

One of the reasons we didn't get any sleep was that I didn't have any cough medicine for the girls.  They weren't able to sleep and wanted to sleep with me, which of course led to none of us sleeping well.  Because I didn't want to take the girls out sick in the cold, and I couldn't ask someone else to come watch them and risk getting someone else sick so I could go get medicine, I wrote to our ward email group asking if someone could pick up some for us if they were already going out shopping.  I wrote this on FB later that day:

I am so thankful for neighbors who were willing to pick up cold medicine for me and my girls plus bring me tons of food for dinner and lunch (went above and beyond). I got so many phone calls, texts, and emails today and I truly appreciated all of them. This is a wonderful place to live. Also, I'm thankful for my Tigers, who helped to lift my spirits even more today. Geaux Tigers!

One lady brought cold meds for me and the girls, 2 bags of cough drops, and huge container (like 4 quarts!) of chicken dumpling soup, a bag of three cheese bread sticks, a container of mini banana nut muffins, a whole bag of Cuties oranges, and a bunch of DVDs for us to borrow.  And she wouldn't accept any money for any of it!  A friend of mine also brought over food from a local meat pie place.  I really couldn't believe it!

They were both SO grumpy and Makenna had a low fever all weekend.  On Monday morning, she awoke with a really high fever, so I made a dr. appt.  By the time we got there, she had a fever of 104.4.  The dr. said her throat was really red and that she had a viral throat infection--which means there was nothing they could do.  So, basically, we will end up paying around $200 for them to tell me to keep giving her Ibuprofin to help with the fever and throat pain.  At least I knew it wasn't an ear infection or something, though.  She slept all day and night--from the time they got out of bed until bedtime, I don't think she was even awake for 6 hours--and that includes the dr. visit.  She was miserable!  The rest must have done her good, though, because the fever was gone the next morning.  However, the three of us have still been coughing (especially me) and still not feeling 100%.  And were still grumpy for the next week (nursery was a little difficult with them on 11/30).  We did make it to Thanksgiving at Jared's uncle's new house, though. Jared had come home  on Tues., so he got home after the major part of all the sickness (of course!!) and got here in time for Thanksgiving.

Obviously, I didn't take any pictures most of the 2 weeks we had been sick but I did get a few from Thanksgiving and a few from us decorating for Christmas on 11/30.  We put up the tree but didn't decorate it until 12/2.

 

 

 

 

 

 Football update, if you're interested:  We beat Texas A&M on 11/23 (kept Johnny Manziel, last year's Heisman winner, at bay, ha ha!) and beat Arkansas on Friday, 11/29; we ended up at #14 and are headed to the Cotton Bowl vs. Iowa on New Years Day.  Auburn, who was #4, beat #1 Alabama on 11/30 in an EPIC game ending!!  They were tied with just a few seconds left when a Bama player caught the ball right on the sideline.  The play went under review for several minutes for the refs to determine if he went out of bounds before the clock hit zero.  They ruled that there was still 1 second left, so Bama went for a field goal.  They put in a redshirt freshman kicker because their other kicker had already missed 2 and had one blocked!!  So the kick was just short but an Auburn player was in the end zone and caught it and ran it back 100+ yards for a touchdown to win the game!!!  It was AWE.....SOMMMMMME to see Bama lose but it didn't look like SEC would be in the national championship, even though either of those teams deserved to be, because they both had 1 loss (we were the ones who beat Auburn, ha ha) and were # 3 & 4 after that game behind undefeated Florida State and Ohio State; either of them would have had to lose their conference championship for Auburn to go to the big show.  Welllllll, Ohio State LOST their game so Auburn will play in the national championship game!  So Bama lost and the SEC still gets to go to the big game!  Woohooooo!

Dec. 2-8:
I'm just gonna copy what I wrote to Jason (Elder Crittenden) in an email on 12/8:

We are feeling much better, although I am still coughing a bit.  It has been really cold here--in the teens a lot and even single digits--and we've gotten a good bit of snow.  We decorated our Christmas tree last Monday, 12/2:

There is a cluster of ornaments all together right in the front bottom of the tree, where it was easiest for the girls to put the ornaments on, ha ha

We got snow that night, into the next morning (12/3). It takes an hour to get the kids ready to play in the snow for all of 15 min. It was way too cold to play out there too long--23*, 8* with the wind chill factor! Brrrrrr! The girls didn't want to come in, though, ha ha! They waited all day for the wind to die down a bit to go out:

A little hug to keep warm! Aaaaw!

Fun with Daddy one minute...

Ready to go in the next!!!  J/J We did go in right after this but they actually didn't want to go in.

They wanted to go out and play in the snow again the next day but it was 11 degrees, with wind chill factor of -6! I don't think so!!  We went shopping that day (12/4), then ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant--so you know it wasn't my choice, ha ha! The girls actually liked most of it, much to my horror (j/j). Avery wouldn't try the egg drop soup but Makenna ate most of the bowl by herself. They also gave the chopsticks a try--Makenna was hilarious. Here's a linke to a video of it:
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/xbvlfgu1cxyr9te/bjypPQM9Rn

Makenna loving the egg drop soup, with hair sticking straight up from having her coat hood on earlier, ha ha!

Makenna got some of the noodles with her chopsticks, ha ha ha!

Those fortune cookies are hard to open!

FB post 12/5: We sure enjoyed the Christmas caroling by the Cub Scouts tonight. After they left, Makenna said, "That was cool!" We really appreciated them going out in the bitter cold (probably ~10* at that time) to spread some Christmas cheer!

12/7: We had a lot of fun at our church Christmas party, which was held at a skating rink.  The girls liked roller skating and loved jumping in all the bounce houses.  And there were so many yummy treats!  I had fun skating for just a few minutes but did NOT have fun riding home on snowy roads!

Jared made the girls go down this huge dinosaur slide.  Avery seemed to have fun once she was sliding but wasn't interested in going on it again.

Makenna did not like it much at all, ha ha!

Jared liked it. :)

I took both girls out on skates for just a bit before we left (they had been on their skates earlier but Jared and I both just walked with them in our shoes, not skates).  Jared was too chicken to skate at all. :P  The girls loved skating.  It was a really fun ward party.

The girls got to leave nursery go to Primary for singing time today.  I was told they did really well, so hopefully they will still do well when it's time for them to go in for good next month!  I'm hoping they won't freak out when they have to start out in there and stay the entire time.  We, the nursery teachers, weren't told that they would be taking the soon-to-be-Sunbeams out of nursery today, so I wasn't prepared to see the girls go into Primary and I totally bawled.  Dumb, right?  :P

We went to Kiki's house for dinner on 12/8; she made seafood gumbo and homemade French bread and I brought chocolate chip pecan cookies.  It was all so yummy!  I'll be getting more gumbo and other great food in just over a week!  The birthday party will be this Sat. and they have several friends from church coming, so that should be fun and cute.

Dec. 9-15:
This was a busy week!  Besides birthday party prep (3 shopping trips, making stuff, decorating, Christmas and trip prep, etc.), I had a dentist appt. on Tues. after bringing my brother to SLC that morning plus my visiting teachers came over that evening, the twin's 3-year check-up on Wed., and our Relief Society Christmas progressive dinner on Thurs. night.  Grandma spent the night on Wed. night, on her way down to AZ but didn't see the girls at all, since she got here after they went to bed and left before they woke up.

FB post, 12/9: Just before their nap, the girls decided to grab a pillow and blanket and cuddle up next to each other on the floor. They even gave each other a sweet kiss. I love my girls!

 

FB post 12/10: So we went to get the girls out of their beds this morning and Makenna wasn't in hers. We looked all over the house and couldn't find her so I went back in the room and thought to ask Avery where she was. Avery said, "She's under my bed." Sure enough, there she was hiding and not responding when we were looking for her and calling out for her. She had us scared for a minute or two. Little stinker!!

FB post 12/11: I got my shopping done at two stores this morning then got to the twins' check-up appointment a few minutes early. I feel like a master of time management, if only for today, ha ha.
The girls got a flu mist and they freaked out more than they had with shots before. Makenna went berserk! They were happy with the candy canes the nurse gave them, though. BTW, Avery is still in the 10-25th percentile for height (35.5") and weight (26.6 lbs.) and Makenna is in the 50-75th (37", 30.5 lbs.).

12/12: Avery is crawling around the room, pretending to be a dog (panting and all), and keeps bringing me things to throw across the room so she can fetch them. 

12/12:

A little while ago, I heard a banging coming from the TV room so I want to check it out. Makenna was banging on the TV screen with this huge bolt which, apparently, Avery took out of my office chair somehow. I don't see any scratches or anything on the TV but I definitely let her know that it was not OK to do that!

  

Their birthday isn't until the 20th but we had their party (their first friends party!) yesterday, since we're leaving for Louisiana this week and will be there on their actual birthday. I can't believe they will be 3 on Friday!!!  The party was a blast!  They had three friends from their nursery class and 5 cousins at the party (although Judson wasn't counted as one of the kids). Here are tons of photos!

Welcome sign on front door

Birthday Banner and table with treat bags and mouse ears in foyer

Decorations in entryway from the foyer to the living room

Treat bags and sign

Tabletop decoration

Mouse ears for all the kids and a birthday sign--the girls all wore theirs but the boys didn't, ha ha!

Silly Daddy and some decorations in the entry from the living room to the hallway

The food table

Oreo cookies made to look like Minnie's head--I didn't have time to do the icing bows the way I wanted but I thought they still looked pretty cute

 

This was pretty delish, if I do say so myself! :)

 

There were Christmas decorations all around the house, too, so there were LOTS of decorations--that's what happens with late December birthdays!

Photo collages by year

The entry way from the kitchen to the mudroom and laundry room

The main table

Cupcake stand

Cupcake stand made by me, cupcakes not iced the way I had planned (I had to do them really quickly!) but oh well!

Hanging decorations in the kitchen

Close-ups of the rosettes I made

 

 

The doorway to the deck

My niece, Carma

Lunchtime

 

Pin the Bow on Minnie:

Makenna pinning her bow on

Avery was so excited and happy to play this game

She was a little off, ha ha!, but was eventually guided over to the window

Presents!  They got so many great things and we were so grateful to all our friends and family.

 

One of the gifts from Mommy and Daddy--others were a kid's app tablet and some coloring/activity/sticker books for the plane ride

 Cupcakes and Candles!!

 

 

 

My nephew, Wyatt

After their nap, we let them open their treat boxes:

Playing "Jingle Bells" on the kazoo

 

We all had a great time at the party and it was well worth all the effort I put into it, although Jared would probably say I didn't need to spend that much money, ha ha.

Now we just have some last-minute Christmas prep to do, do photos with Santa tomorrow, I have Bunco Tues. night, do tons of laundry and pack for the trip, and leave Wed. evening!  Yay!  So much to look forward to!  I'm sure I won't post again before we leave so expect TONS of photos after the New Year! :)  :)  :)

We wish all of our friends and family and very Merry Christmas and and Happy New Year!  We love you all!

Already a third through November!

[FB posts in white.]

I gave potty training another try on Monday, 11/4.  Here's a couple of FB posts from that day:

(9:30am) Potty training take 2. I've already wiped pee off the kitchen floor and neither of them has gone on the potty yet. *sigh*

(11:30am) I am going to lose my freaking mind! I had made Makenna sit on the potty for a long time and nothing happened so I let her get off. I asked her every couple of minutes if she needed to pee and she was standing on the couch and just stood there and started peeing! I told her to sit down so it wouldn't get everywhere but, instead, she ran across the couch, still peeing, so there's literally pee on every single cushion. There's a big puddle on one cushion, then a trail of pee across the middle one, and another big puddle at the other end of the couch where she ended up. Not even a minute later, Avery peed in her panties, too. Is this worth it? Or should I just let them stay in their diapers? I'm so frustrated. Thank goodness I have a carpet/upholstery cleaner!

After a lot of feedback from friends, I decided they still aren't ready and it's not worth the fight to try to make them do it before they really want to.  They just don't care to be out of diapers yet and I don't want it to be a completely miserable experience for all three of us.  Plus, it doesn't help to try to do it when Jared is out of town.  So, I'm gonna hold out until it's their idea to use the potty. 

11/5:  I asked Avery what Mommy's real name is and she said, "Abracadabra!" Not sure where that came from. Then I asked her what her daddy's name is and she said, "He's a boy." Makenna knew the right answers, by the way, so at least one of them knows the correct answers. 

Avery thought she was pretty funny.  :)

11/6:  We went to Mommy & Me Story Time at the library that mid-morning.

Calgon, take me away! The twins woke up from their nap SO GRUMPY!!!! Crying over everything!

And that was after my relaxing weekly massage. *sigh*

11/7: Who else has seen "Room on the Broom"? My girls call it the witch show. We have probably seen it over 25 times since last Wed. Thankfully, it only takes 20 min. to watch. Makenna would watch it 20 times a day if I let her. It's a really cute cartoon but I don't know how many more times I can watch it! 

 I bought our tickets to Louisiana for Christmas!  Yay!  I can't wait!

11/8: I love when Avery enters a room and says, "Hello, everybody!", even though it's just me and Makenna, haha! She is so cute and funny.

On the flip side, I want to scream when Makenna asks for something over and over and over again like just now with "Witch show, witch show, witch show!" about 50 times before I was able to turn it on. Aaaaargh! Good thing she is also cute and funny most of the time. 

That evening after the girls woke up from their nap, we picked up Ashleigh (one of my former Young Women in Louisiana) from BYU and she spent the weekend with us.  I made her a home-cooked meal of garlic butter tilapia, baked potatoes, and garlic sauteed squash (frozen, from our garden).  After the girls went to bed, we watched a movie.

Here's a HILARIOUS video of me giving the girls some Warheads candies.  If you've never had them, they are hard candies that have a really sour coating on them.  The idea is that you suck on the really sour part for 5 to 10 seconds, then you get to enjoy the sweet hard candy.  This is what happened when I let the girls try one; it was pretty mean of me--they were so excited to be getting candy:


11/9: I got ready to have a football party that night.  I cleaned, shopped, cooked, and cleaned (trying to keep a house clean with kids is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing).  Our neighbors, who are big LSU fans (the husband grew up in Louisiana) came over, as well as Kiki and her family and Timmy.  I made shrimp and corn soup and bread pudding, which were so good, if I do say so myself, ha ha!  Kiki made ribs and baked potatoes.  It was all so good and we had a great time, even though LSU lost (which was expected, since we were #13 and Bama is #1).  We were chatting so much that it saved me from watching most of the awfulness of the game.  It sure SUCKED to lose to Bama again!!!!!!!

Ashleigh came to church with us today and stayed in nursery with us.  The girls were really good today, except for just a few minutes that Avery was being ornery.  After we came home and ate lunch, we took Ashleigh back to her dorm.  The girls fell asleep in the car but I was able to get them back into bed, where they finished their nap, thankfully!  I was still so wiped out from yesterday and from staying up talking with Ashleigh until 1am after everyone left last night.  It was worth it, though. :)

P.S.  The 5th marked 2 years since the girls were sealed to us.  Crazy, huh?

Not too much has happened since Halloween, other than just hanging out here at the house.  On Friday, I had a couple of friends and their kids who aren't yet in school over for lunch to help me eat some of the left-over chili from Halloween the previous night.  The girls had fun playing with the other kids.  Funny story:  While those kids were over here, one of the boys got down the Cootie game and the girls were playing with it so, of course, a couple of the tiny pieces were misplaced and I drove myself crazy looking for them.  I found them the next day under the couch, along with a bunch of stinkin' candy bar wrappers and other trash!  Jared is such a stinker!  He said, "Wait until you find some of my other hiding places."  Good thing he's out of town.  :)

I took all of the Halloween decorations down yesterday and the girls miss them.  They were so sad when they woke up from their nap and the big spider and all the ghosts and skeletons were gone.  Funny, since they were scared of it all at first, ha ha.

Our new thing thing is for the girls to run around the kitchen island while I hide in the pantry and jump out and scare them as the come around the corner. I got this video yesterday.  About 50 seconds in, Avery gets mad at Makenna for pushing her. It's pretty funny. I showed it to them and Avery was laughing so hard and wanted to watch it over and over again. I had tears in my eyes from laughing.
 

After their little "fight", they got right back to running around:

After bathtime last night, I got Avery dressed first, then I was getting Makenna dressed and I yelled and asked Avery what she was doing and she came in and said, "I'm watching football!" and ran back to the living room (I had left a football game going on the TV). About a minute later, she came in and said, "Give me five, Mommy!" and ran back out after I did so.  As I put her in bed and left the room, she threw a fit  saying, "I want to watch football! I want to watch football!" This makes me smile.

It snowed just a tiny bit this morning before church (didn't stick and stopped before we left for church).  The first thing the girls said was, "We need our jackets!" And Avery wrapped her arms around herself and said she was cold. Drama queen.

Makenna put Elmo in time out this afternoon. Meanwhile, Avery yelled, out of the blue, "Surprise!! Happy Birthday!!!"  So random.

And she was combing his fur later:

This morning before church, Elmo wasn't feeling well, so Makenna wrapped him up in Avery's blankie and they were giving him medicine:

Makenna fell and hit her head on the stove right before bedtime tonight and has a huge bump on her head so Avery wanted to sleep with her to help her feel better. So sweet but it didn't last long.  They would chat and laugh for a bit and I'd go in or tell them over the video camera to go to sleep or they'd fight and cry over a blanket or Makenna would tease Avery, etc.  At one point, Makenna actually asked for medicine for her head, so I went in and gave her some Ibuprofin.  After just a few minutes, I had to go in there again for the 50th time and I'd had enough so I put Avery back in her bed and she threw a HUGE fit for several minutes, saying, "Makenna's bed!!!" over and over and over and over...  She finally gave up and went to sleep, though.

So that's it for now.  The time changed last night and I already hate it.  The girls are gonna start waking up earlier now so I have to train myself to go to bed at a decent time.  It shouldn't be a problem right at first, because it feels later than it is and I'm already tired and it's only midnight, but, as I adjust to the time change, it will be harder to make myself go to bed at a decent time to get at least 6 hours of sleep.  

I think I'll try to go to bed now.  Might as well start out on the right foot!  Love ya!!