Baby James is 2!

James had his second birthday a couple days ago. Even though he hasn't yet learned to say he is two, he is definitely a two-year old in so many ways. He is so good at teasing his brother, he is such a little trouble maker, he is opinionated and determined and he can melt my heart faster than anything.

For James's birthday he opened up his birthday bike (a strider bike with no pedals) in the morning, then we postponed the festivities until the day after because I wasn't feeling well. Last night we celebrated with BBQ chicken pizza and a snowman cake. James did a great job of blowing out the candle, and a not so great job of eating the cake (I bet he got one decent bite and the rest of it ended up in crumbs on his plate).

Here are just a few of the things I love about my James:

- James loves to say cheese and give a super squinty cheesy grin every time a camera is on him. - James loves playing with Thatcher and is so good at picking up on what Thatcher wants him to do when they are playing pretend.

- James loves to be sung to at night and will sometimes protest when a story is being told because he prefers songs.

- He loves bath time and is happiest when he is in the bath with bubbles and can stay there for as long as he wants.

- James can be very sweet and polite when he wants to be. He is very good at saying, "thank you", "bless you" when I sneeze, at sharing when he is asked, at asking, "are you ok?" when anyone coughs, and at saying please and helping to clean up with a little help.

- James has some serious hoarding tendencies that crack me up. He loves to collect things (random things, like last week when he carried around first aid supplies all week and called them toys) and put them in any type of container he can get a hold of. Since he got a tent for Christmas he has been collecting things in his tent. When he gets out of his crib in the morning he likes to make sure he is carrying all three of his blankets and at least 3 of his stuffed animals.

- James has become a very impressive and determined climber in the last couple weeks. He can climb in and out of his crib and carries a kitchen stool all over the middle floor so he can use it to get on top of the counter and anywhere else that used to be out of reach.

- James is talking up a storm. His sentences are getting longer and longer and he can repeat long sentences and hard words which always surprise me.

- James is still the snuggliest little kid and will snuggle with anyone at any time, especially if they are good at tickling his belly.

- James loves to watch movies on the couch with a blanket on and is super cute whenever he decides it is movies time.

- He is defiant and doesn't respond in any way to punishment...seriously, the kid is never phased. He just knows he is funny and can basically get away with anything.

- James is in the 63rd percentile for both height and weight but his head is still off the charts. I think his huge head is what makes him so cute.

To sum it up, James is the funniest, most beautiful, smartest two year old in the world, and he wears me out every day with how challenging he is to control or even guide in some way. He is such a spit fire and is his own person in every way and will not be deterred in his temperament. I love my baby and can't believe he isn't really my baby any more.

New Year's Resolutions

Another year. Another set of goals. I have really worked the last few years on setting realistic goals instead of being overly ambitious, and still I fall short...but the few that I do manage to accomplish help me to feel like I am moving forward, even if it is ever so slightly, instead of remaining stagnant of regressing. So...here are my resolutions for 2012

- read to the boys for at least 30 minutes a day

- attend temple 4 times

- read the Book of Mormon

- pass group fitness certification exam

- don't watch Glee

- exercise 4 times a week (except the month the baby is born)

- go to Disneyland

- sell house, pay off high interest rate student loans, pay for baby with cash

- take a dance class

- potty train James

- run a race

- finish a blurb book for 2011, and 2007-2009

- pray every day

- FHE every monday

Family theme of the year: Find joy in the moment

I just want to decide to be happy. I love my life and we are so blessed, but I have a tendency to hope for they day that our house will be sold and when James will stop biting and head-butting and when we will be living in Salt Lake and when I will be skinny again and when Ty will be making a lot of money. I want to relish every moment I have with my sweet boys and make every day a good one. I think it is going to be a really good year! How could it not be with these two incredible boys (and a baby girl on the way)?

my crazy incredible boys

I love my kids. I feel like there have been more meltdowns and more time-outs than ever before, but they also make me laugh more and fill my heart with gratitude more than ever before.

Last night Thatcher wanted another story (he has really learned how to work us over at bedtime and usually ends up with multiple stories from dad and sometimes even a story from mom...these are made up stories told after prayers and lights out). As I was in there beginning my story James started giving his usual command, "Tickle here." He had stuck his leg out of the crib to show me what he wanted tickled. He then proceeded to expose different body parts and say, "tickle here." He lifted up his pant leg, then his shirt sleeves, then his pajama shirt. He was as happy as can be as I tickled every part he wanted.

Last night when Ty was telling the boys a story, Thatcher gave it a little spin. Instead of hiking up to the mountains to find a big black dragon, Thatcher decided he and James were hiking to find blackberries. And they found lots of them. After they ate a lot of blackberries. They started throwing the blackberries in the water to feed the fish. Then James and Thatcher put their hands in the water and the fish bit their fingers, but they got new fingers so it was ok...Isn't that hilarious. When Ty relayed all the things Thatcher said, I was pretty impressed with his story telling experiences.

Thatcher has such an incredible imagination and is always in some make believe story. I just love watching him play and seeing the things he comes up with. It is amazing what a three-year-old mind can create and come up with.

While in Salt Lake we had some serious problems trying to put James to bed and down for naps. He is the climber extraordinaire and would pop right out of his pac'n'play the second we put him in. One nap time Ty and I were working together to force a nap on him. He had already gotten out at least 10 times and we thought the battle had finally been won when a little head peeked out from the closet door. He had the happiest and proudest little smirk on his face like he was in on a big joke. Then he said, "Pop's shoes" and walked out with Darrell's flip flops on his feet. It was hard to enforce any sort of discipline at that point because we were laughing so hard.

Christmas in Salt Lake

Christmas in Salt Lake was a little different this year with only Ty's family to visit, but we had a really nice time and Thatcher has begged to go back to Nanny and Pop's house every day since we have been home. I was also able to see a lot of my friends which helped me be a little less homesick for my family.

The boys were perfect as can be on the drive up and we made it in 8 hours. They are amazing how well behaved they are on long car rides. Thank goodness for a dvd player and how fascinated my boys are with tv.

I got to spend most of Friday with Bekah. Her family had two extra tickets to a really cute kids play about pirates so Thatcher and I went to that and then we went to Bekah's parents for a while and then we got Cafe Rio. It was fun and only having Thatcher was so easy, he is such a great little companion. That night we had Ty's family party and the boys took on their normal roles. James was a little terror (notice the picture of James sitting on top of baby Crew in front of all the other kids trying to watch Santa) and Thatcher was a sweetie. Thatcher was very friendly with Santa and very excited about his present. James was the opposite (but he did like his present and went crazy for the candy). I had to include this picture of beautiful Ann Dee who is every bit as cute and naughty as James. I love that they are so close in age and so similar in their temperaments. It will be interesting to see what they are like when they get older. It was a fun night that ended with kisses for the snowman on his carott nose.

On Saturday (Christmas Eve) I spent all morning with Emily Mitarai, Martha Fetzer, and Martha Birk at Eintsiens. We stayed for three hours just talking and it was so good for me. I love those girls. I think it is funny that I am almost thirty and refer to them as my roommates. I battled with the boys to take naps all afternoon (and finally won) and then made a salad to get ready for our Christmas Eve dinner. We spent Christmas Eve at the Garfield's and it was so nice. They got fun toys for the boys, we had a fabulous dinner, the Garfield kids are always so cute with my boys and it was just a really nice night. We drove through Christmas street on our way home which was fun too. James is pretty good at oohing and aahing every time he sees any sort of lights and it cracks me up. We let the boys open Christmas books and set out cookies for Santa when we got home and then they went to bed (very late) and we got everything set up for Christmas morning.

Christmas was really fun. Thatcher didn't tire of opening presents and both boys were their typical selves. Thatcher was so excited about everything and James just wanted to eat Ty's stocking candy. The favorite gift of James was probably his toy dog and Thatcher was pretty excited about his sword, hook, and Buzz wings and gloves. It was a fun morning. We had a great breakfast and then went to church. The rest of the Martin clan came over after church for a nice dinner. I made rolls and a salad and we just took it easy the rest of the night, which of course included taking a bath in Nanny and Pop's huge bathtub.

Our last day in Salt Lake I was able to meet Heidi, Martha, Bekah, and Maggie for an early lunch to celebrate Bekah's birthday. It was really fun to be with my friends who have been there for so much and who continue to be such great friends to me. We left that afternoon for Flagstaff and as usual the boys did fantastically well. It was a really short trip considering all the driving, but we were so glad we got to spend Christmas with family and had a great few days packing a lot of memories in.

Christmas is in the air

We have had a lot of fun the last few weeks celebrating Christmas time in our own way. A part of it has been lonely not anticipating a fun trip to Salt Lake like last year full of Christmas traditions, but we have done little things to make it special. Thatcher has been helping me a lot in the kitchen. He wanted to make candy cane cookies, so we did that. He has also helped me to make other things like ginger cookies, chocolate cookies with candy cane kisses on top (9 dozen of them! I took them to a cookie exchange and they won the prize for prettiest cookie). We have done some fun activities like m&m wreaths, and paper trees, we made our own snow globe, and we made a tree with decorations out of felt. Thatcher gets excited about everything we do so it has motivated me to find some ideas for celebrating the season.

We also made gingerbread houses with graham crackers. We made Thatchers and once James had completely devoured it (it took a few days of very hard work), we decorated James's and then the boys did the same on that one. I was pretty impressed that they managed to eat every last bit of both houses.

My mind is drawing a blank on other things we did to celebrate. Each day the boys would get a treat out of the advent calendar until a week before Christmas when James just couldn't handle it any more and ate all the candies that were left. We also kept track of the days until Christmas with a cottonball beard we built for Santa. Eugene the Elf was a fun tradition we officially started this year (he never got named last year and Thatcher was a little too young to understand). Eugene did some funny things like flying from the ceiling fan and the boys loved finding him in different places around the house.

We read Christmas stories every night and Ty converted the boys to 'Silent Night'. If you try to sing anything else to them at bedtime you will be rudely interrupted and told to sing 'Silent Night' instead. Thatcher embraced everything Christmas we shared with him and he loved learning about Jesus and playing with the "activities" (what he calls nativities).

At our ward Christmas party James spent the majority of the evening trying to eat all the butter, and Thatcher spent the majority of the evening in the nativity room looking at different nativity scenes and watching a short movie on the birth of Christ. I tried to get him to go to Mrs. Claus's story time or the craft room where they made decorations, but all he wanted to do was look at the baby Jesus. I thought that was pretty sweet.

Ty and I got to celebrate in other ways. We had a nice night at the Coconino County Bar Association's Christmas party where Ty was voted in as President. I also went to a fun Christmas craft night, an ugly Christmas sweater themed Bunco night, a cookie exchange where I left with a ton of really great treats, and I helped plan and put on our Relief Society Christmas dinner that was a mediocre success. I also helped teach a special Christmas lesson with the rest of the presidency the week before Christmas. It was a super busy month to say the least, but all the Christmas activities helped me to be a little less homesick for my family.

We got a big snow storm a couple weeks before Christmas and the boys played for a long time with their dad in the snow. They sled and built a snowman with chocolate cookie eyes.

I am so grateful for my kids to help make Christmas magical again. Without them it would just be a lot of decorating, baking, and party planning, with no one to really make it meaningful (and force me to stay in the 'nativity room' all night thinking about the Savior instead of all the other less important things).

scary snow

December 1st was a memorable day in my book. I took Thatcher to preschool and picked up two younger siblings to take home with me. There wasn't a snowflake on the ground, but by the time I got everyone back in the car to take them home to their parents and pick up Thatcher, there was a small blanket of snow and more that was coming. I thought I would be fine, but then decided to call Ty and ask him to come with me because he is so much better (and calmer) when driving in the snow. He helped me get the kids back to their parents and pick up Thatcher, but we had seen a crazy car accident on the opposite side of the freeway when we were heading out to Bellemont, so we knew we would encounter some traffic on the way home. Ty decided we should fill up on gas and get some McDonalds (which I think was very inspired because at that point the news said the freeway was still open, just slow moving from the accident). We got on the freeway and maybe went a half mile when we came to a complete stop. We were stuck there for 3 hours. From where we were stuck we could see 4 accidents (most happened after we got there). The boys did incredibly well as we sat there trying to come up with fun activities to keep them occupied. We had no toys, no snacks, and one silly movie. After sitting for 3 hours on the freeway we turned around and headed back to Bellemont on the shoulder of the freeway. We had to weave through two big accidents with semis and it really freaked me out. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the Pickups (which made Thatcher happy to get some extra play time with Simon) and the freeway finally opened up again around 8:00 at night. On our way home we passed three separate accidents with semis that looked more recent because all the accidents we had seen from earlier had been cleaned up at that point. It took us a very long hour to make it back home...but we did and we were so grateful to be able to sleep in our beds that night. Here are some pictures of the day. I thought to take a picture of Thatcher peeing out of the side of the van, but didn't take any of the storm or of the accidents we saw.

I have a friend who watched the first one happen and I don't know how she made it out of there. She said the three semis that were part of the 9-car pile up were basically surrounded her and she drove right through it as they all started sliding. One t-boned another, then a third flipped over. Crazy.

I felt so bad that Ty missed a day of work (especially because he went in at 4am that morning because he was so stressed about all he had to do), but I am so grateful he was there. I never could have turned around and gone back to Bellemont without him. I would have been stuck in that mess for 8 hours or more with no food and 1/4 tank of gas. I had slippers on and no coat, James had no shoes and no coat. We had nothing. It would have been unbelievably bad and I bet I would have slid at some point too. I feel so blessed. It was such a long day and I was pretty upset at the end thinking of all that could have happened and how scary it is to be responsible for my sweet kids, but we survived.

The last few days I have been quite the homebody and have not wanted to go anywhere in the snow. Because of that we have made our own fun here. Thatcher and James have had a blast in the snow. They love sledding with their dad, Thatcher and I made a snowman, Thatcher is an expert snow angel-maker, and he loves to ride his plastic boat down the hill like a sled too which is hilarious. I am glad there has been an upside to that awful snowstorm!

November

November was a long month. We have had a lot going on , but most of it hasn't been all that exciting.

- A few days after we got home from Switzerland I started bleeding and after a few days of that, I went down to Phoenix to get an ultrasound and see what was going on. I was put on bedrest until my subchorionic hemmhorage healed which meant until a week after I stopped bleeding. That meant for a long few weeks, but people were so kind and we got through it. I was so touched by how many people showed concern and it helped me to realize how many friends I do have here in Flagstaff. Everything seems to be fine now and hopefully that will be confirmed this week at my next appointment.

- Even though we are not leaving Flagstaff any time soon we decided that we are still going to sell our house. That has taken a lot of phone calls and time and stress over what we are going to do when our house sells. I am sure it will all work out, but sometimes it is hard to have faith when you don't know what is going to happen.

- We spent a really fun and cold day down at the cabin raking and playing in the leaves. I was on bed rest so it was a mellow day, but the boys had a blast and Ty was so fun with them (as usual).

- I have had a few talks with Miss Amber (Thatcher's preschool teacher and nursery leader) about some concerns she has about him and his development. Even though I am sure he is fine because he is so social, and kind, and smart, and imaginative, she has still put thoughts in my head and they have really affected me. I feel like I am constantly observing him and wondering if something really is wrong or if Amber is just off her rocker.

- We spent Thanksgiving in Phoenix and had a wonderful day with family and fabulous food. We just drove down for the day, but it was so worth it. Thatcher loves being with the cousins and the warm weather was so refreshing. Thatcher helped me make cute turkey hats that ended up not being a big hit with the kids, but at least I have them for next year.

- Thanksgiving weekend we took the boys to the Muppet Movie which was a fun thing we don't ever do. Thanks to an extra-large refillable popcorn, we all made it through the movie just fine. We also went to the Little America where they did their annual lighting of Christmas lights. We got free cookies and cider and then waited in line to see Santa. It is funny how the hour that we were there felt like 4 thanks to James being such a handful.

-James update: James is a riot. He always has had a strong personality but I feel like it just continues to get stronger and funnier. He is talking so well and is so smart. He knows a bunch of his colors and he is getting good at counting as well. He loves Thatcher and is now really good at saying his name. He is always saying, "Thatcher, where'd you go?", "Thatcher help me." and other things that make me laugh. They boys take turns keeping each other up at night. It seems like one night Thatcher will be telling James stories for a long time, then another night James will be jabbering away while Thatcher is silent. I love that they share a room and have that connection. James is getting very good at figuring things out like puzzles and putting together train tracks. He loves playing make believe with Thatcher and will usually follow along with whatever Thatcher initiates. He can be so naughty and difficult, but he is also so fun and can be very sweet and obedient.

- Thatcher update: Thatcher's three new favorite phrases are "How about we do this", "Here's another plan", or "Here's a better deal". He is getting really good at talking his way in or out of doing exactly what he wants. It is pretty clever, but I am not used to having such an opinionated little boy. He is enjoying preschool even though I have some concerns right now about that whole thing. He is such a nice boy and a great helper. He is always looking out for James and loves to help me too. The other night we had Thatcher come in our room in the middle of the night because he was coughing a bunch. He could hear James coughing and even though he was half asleep, he said, "Will you go help James? He is sick." I thought it was the sweetest thing. We have been doing more projects together, and last week Thatcher was a huge help when I made chocolate chip cookies and then candy cane cookies (which were his idea). Thatcher continues to be super imaginative and is always pretending to be some character or create a story of some kind. I love seeing his mind work and think he is so special. He loves Christmas and once again, is going to make this Christmas very memorable with his excitement about everything.

- Besides all that, we have been busy with Thatcher's preschool, with fighting off colds, with spending as much time outside before the weather got cold, with teaching aerobics (I just started again last week after my bed rest), and with calling stuff which always takes a good amount of time with meetings and visits. We decorated a few weeks early and so the boys are already in the Christmas spirit of things (Thatcher even helped me paint and decorate the trees for outside to change things up a bit). We read Christmas books every day and they love everything Christmas. It has been a crazy month for a lot of reasons and I am hoping we can have a nice December and focus on the things that really matter this month instead of all the worries that have been occupying my thoughts for the last little while.