Bridger's Birthday

A few weeks ago we got to participate in little Bridger's 1st birthday! 

 This kid is such a cutie!  We get to babysit him on Tuesday's for a bit and the girls love mothering him.  It's also good for me to remember the finer points of having a small child.  Most notably I think the girl's Polly pockets will have to disappear for about 2 years once 'Flower' becomes mobile.

 Bridger wasn't quite sure about the cupcake at first.  We weren't sure if we were going to get any of those good "messy baby" pictures you expect.

After a minute he caught on and then boy did he eat!  I've never seen a child actually finish their first birthday treat but Bridger was in sugar heaven- after the cupcake was gone he started sucking the crumbs off his little fingers and picking them from his pants.

 Everyone else got treated as well.  Heidi ate all the strawberries, Alex stuffed herself on tomatoes and I polished off the pineapple.  The decorations rivaled anything you've seen on Pinterest and I think we officially have a new family party planner.

A few weeks back we had an unofficial family Rave.  We had loaded up on glow sticks from the dollar store before Christmas and decided it was time to break them out.  Pandora helped us out with the dance tunes and boy did we heat up that room!  It may be a new family tradition.

It seems like this version of our family was so long ago.  Maybe it's just this version of me, since everyone else looks about the same.  I figured out a few days ago that the terrible back pain I'd been experiencing is actually my Sciatic Nerve acting up!  I am so relieved as before I'd thought I had something terribly wrong with my spine.
   I think we have settled on a name for the baby, but are keeping it to ourselves until her arrival.  Last week Alex told me that if we named "Flower" anything other than "Flower" that she would neither love or play with the child.  I gave her 'The Look' and informed her that was NOT an appropriate attitude and we were officially NOT naming the girl Flower.  She hasn't given up, but she has eased up.

For posterity

The semester started for Tyler on Monday and the warm wonderful feelings from our amazing weekend fell apart almost the second we awoke.
      Heidi had wet the bed and wasn't very happy about it.  This child flips emotions like a coin and it's exhausting.  We handled that crisis and went forward straight to her dumping her bowl of cereal onto the carpet.  Deep breath from Mommy, clean up, more cereal, all was good.  Strike 3 was when I discovered that the washing machine drain pipe was frozen and all the dirty water from the bed wetting and clothes came back up onto the floor in the laundry room. We hadn't even been awake an hour.  I'll spare you the rest of the details, but let's just say it's been that kind of a week.  Tyler did rescue me after an exhausting Monday by coming home from work with flowers and an entire bag of chocolate Oreo's for me, Twix for the kids and the curry paste I needed to finish dinner.
     It's going to take some adjusting but I think we can survive this new schedule.  Tyler is mostly teaching Physiology this semester but he has a few open labs and a section of Anatomy that he is looking forward to.  We will get him home for dinner Monday through Wednesday but the kids won't even get a glimpse of his smiling face Thursday or Friday.  We have vowed to make up for this with fantastic weekends, and with a baby less than 3 months away, the pressure is on to make these first 2 kids feel super loved AND establish some good habits that will carry us through newborn crisis time.
     I'm officially into the back pain and heartburn months.  I waddle like I'm 11 months pregnant and have had to establish some exercise routines so I can make it past noon upright.  My posture is abysmal.    Last appointment the doctor said "Flower" (this is the new name chosen by Alex, Snowflake got bumped to a middle name) was measuring 2 weeks small and so unless she had grown 4 weeks in the next 4 weeks, they would do an ultrasound.  He also said not to worry, but my thoughts immediately jumped to the 20 week ultrasound when they said she was measuring a week big- therefore I've reached the conclusion she hasn't grown in 3 weeks and it's because I'm eating chocolate and have therefore ruined her entire life before she is even born.  Oh, and my hormones have made me crazy.
    Tyler is glad to be back teaching and has vowed to be the greatest teacher ever.  I'm so impressed at what a good teacher he is and how willing he is to read textbooks and learn more so he can be an even better instructor.  And I'm sure he often wonder's how I graduated from college with my 2nd grade understanding of the human body.  But he has yet to let any disgust show.
      Alex blows my mind with the things she is learning everyday.  She picks up EVERYTHING she hears which is sometimes sweet and endearing, and sometimes makes me vow to never let her near another human being again.  She has a particular friend who talks down to me as though I were the child.  It infuriates me and I have to keep myself in check and not treat her in turn like a 27 year old that I'm displeased with.  I go back and for between banning Alex for ever seeing her again, and reasoning it's better that Alex learn through listening to me lecture her friend about inappropriate behavior and words- instead of learning by receiving the lectures herself.
      Heidi is STILL potty training.  2 months ago I was upbeat and optimistic that it would all be over soon.  As of today I've decided 2 days of labor pains is 1000 times better than 6 months of constant potty accidents and this never ending process.  We have gotten rid of all pull-ups and diapers so she has no crutch to fall back on, and she walks around the house in dresses with a naked bum (because for some reason she is unwilling to wet herself without panties on).  I'm pretty sure I'm the only one NOT grossed out by the constant partial nudity, but it's the only card I've got left.  She is getting better (knock on wood) and had no accidents today!  We must have completed this process by April or I will go insane.
    Utah is suffering through an inversion, with temperatures hovering around 15 for the last 2 weeks.  We are stuck inside due to bad air quality and frigid temperatures and have been playing a lot of pretend, and trains.  Life is going well though and we find ourselves happy to be here with our current future prospects.
   
 

Dating my Husband

For Christmas I gave Tyler a year's worth of dates.  Preplanned and prepaid.  It was difficult since while I was doing this I had no idea if we would be going to Maine or Pennsylvania and when that would be, but I did my best and I think I came through.  Tyler can't see the dates until the beginning of the month.  He then opens the envelope for that month and we set a date on the calendar to do the particular activity.
          Tonight was date number 1.  We got sucked into this british soap opera a few months back called "Downton Abby" and the third season premiered this month.  So January's date was fish, chips and chocolate biscuits on the bed while watching the first episode!  It was so fun!  The envelope contained a box of british type chocolate cookie things I got from World Market, and a paper describing the date.  Tyler was such a great sport and helped (did 90% of the work) cook the homemade fries and fish.  It turned out SO good!  We fed the kids sandwiches while we cooked and then put on a fairy movie for them in the living room while we took dinner to the bedroom and turned on the computer!  I was worried that it was going to be pretty lame, but Tyler had a great attitude and the whole evening was a lot of fun.  The food was fantastic, the company was even better and we didn't even have to spring for a babysitter (thank you Tinkerbell).
          Now that we are 99% sure that we will be moving to Pittsburgh sometime in July, I'm sneaking back through the envelopes and reworking a few dates.  It's pretty hard to plan fun and different things when you aren't sure if you are going to ever be able to leave the house again.  Being in a new city with 3 young kids.  There will still be that challenge of working around a newborn's schedule come April, but it will be easier to do fun things on our home turf.  I'm also looking forward to our tax return so I can finish "pre-paying" for the rest of the dates.
So far I highly recommend this idea if you are stuck in that dating rut!

Post Christmas

Two day's after Christmas we got to celebrate Uncle Stephen's birthday!

Alex insisted on being able to decorate a cake.  

She did a great job and went on to tell me that from now on I can make the cakes and she will decorate and eat them.

After the cake was decorated we got ready for our bonfire and sledding picnic!

It was a cold day.

We had hotdogs, marshmallows and hot coco.  Heidi informed me that she would like a marshmallow without any 'roast' on it.

Heidi loved the sledding!

Alex was great at pulling her own sled up the hill and even went down by herself!  She was so proud and I was so proud of her!

Heidi was pretty lucky there were so many adults willing to take her down the hill.......

And help her up the hill......

over and over.

Dinner was delicious Buffalo Wild Wings and cake.  I had set out the candles to put in the cake later and then wandered off.  Alex ran to find me awhile later and said "MOM! We need more candles!"  I came to see and she was distressed that there weren't enough candles to cover BOTH cakes.

It was a fun party.

At least for the girls and I.

The next few days were spent cleaning out the and dejunking the house.

I think I can officially almost say I have all my stuff (except for a toy box of blocks and some old highschool pots) out of the house!  I've almost graduated to adulthood and moved out.

The girls just wanted to be outside all the time.  No matter that it averaged 15 degrees.

There were lots of snow Angels made.

And red noses.

We drove to Worland for New Year's Eve and did our countdown and toast at about 9pm.

The girls went off to bed and the adults stayed up for another hour maybe before calling it a night.

January 1st we packed our car, bursting at the seams, and drove back home.  It was sad to leave, the time always goes far too quickly.  But I think we did a pretty good job of making it a Christmas worth remembering.

Christmas

Christmas in Montana was COLD!  The girls ventured out to help Grandma feed the animals a few times and jumped on the trampoline in the freezing cold.  It was painful to go anywhere because of the windchill and so we hung out at the house a lot.

We improved one of my new favorite traditions- Gingerbread houses!  This year we did tiny ones of Graham crackers and therefore got to spend a LOT more time on the fun part- decorating!
Plus the crackers actually got eaten in the end unlike the hard and stale gingerbread.

Heidi was pretty meticulous about hers.

Until it the roof collapsed and she got disheartened.  She then ran off and Tyler finished it for her.

The best part of the whole things was that Tyler built my house and then helped the kids with theirs so I could decorate in peace (I can get pretty cranky if i'm interrupted during a craft project).

Christmas morning was fun.  That night we had set out the stockings, cookies and milk.  Sprinkled the "magic reindeer food" on the porch and tucked the kids in bed.  Bridger came and woke us up in the morning by crawling all over Alex- who was pretty resistant to getting up.  

The kids discovered the stockings and were content cram their faces with chocolate and snacks all morning.  Opening gifts was especially fun because the kids didn't need to be poked and prodded and instead ripped through the gifts and even had to be reigned in a few times.

After gifts and a warm delicious breakfast I got a nap while the girls played and then everyone went outside for some sledding!

The boys drove the truck around the front pasture pulling sleds and inter-tubes!

Heidi was adamant about taking the milk box outside to play in the snow.

It was freezing, but fun.

Even Bridger was a trooper and suffered the cold for the thrill!

This picture makes it look like the girls are going a hundred miles an hour while the responsible adults are running to keep up- but it's not the case I swear.  We are more responsible than that.

New Year's Eve the houses were allowed to be eaten!  I still can't believe the kids didn't get sick from the sugar overdose on Christmas.  The next few days candy was banned!

The girls loved having Bridger to dote on and were pretty sad when he had to leave.  He was a fun little guy to have around and helped make mealtime entertaining!

Pre-Christmas

December was a fun and full month!  I had put together an advent calendar for the girls that was filled with activities instead of treats.  We did things like make marshmallows, make snowflakes and watch Christmas movies.

There was a "tea"party with a new friend from down the street.  Alex planned the whole thing and the girls had a blast.

Heidi was thrilled to find that her shirt and pants matched the towels in the bathroom one day and wanted a picture.

We enjoyed some fun days and family dinner's with Grandma Jake.

I'm glad I snapped this picture because the next day Grandma got sick and ended up in the hospital, a month later she still hasn't made it home but is doing a lot better!

I was distracted with something and turned around to find Heidi had crammed herself into the wet wipes box.  This picture doesn't depict how small this box actually was.

On our way to Christmas

I've been a terrible blogger as of late.  Not feeling the need to write if I didn't have any pictures to post along with the message, putting off updates in case they would soon be invalid and I would need to issue a redaction... so many excuses.
   Beginning of November Tyler flew to Pittsburgh to interview at Chattham University.  He loved it.  He raved about it.  The school, the city, the rivers and bridges.  This was the place for us.  But all I could do was picture myself in a tiny 7th floor apartment with 3 kids- trapped in the middle of a giant city.  I was scared but I've since found some positives and am looking forward to this possibility more than I thought I would.
   December 5th Tyler flew out to interview in Maine.  We had been dreaming of going to PA school in Maine since we started looking for schools and applying.  Our lives are so centered here in the West and we love it, but we figured that if we were going to have to leave and go out East for school, we might as well go as far as possible and have an adventure!  Plus I've always dreamed of having 3 little girls and taking them for walks on the beach.  Tyler loved the school and the interview went fairly well but we soon found out that he has been placed on the waiting list. Somewhere.
    We talked about it on the drive back from Christmas.  Maine was the dream, it would have been easy.  But despite the romance and appeal of Portland I find myself with misgivings and forbiddings when I picture Maine these days.  Perhaps it's my irrational fear of the ocean and sharks- but Pittsburg is feeling a lot more like home in my thoughts and that is where we are aiming our lives for now.
     January 1st marks 3 months exactly until my due date.  I've been so nervous lately because it seems so many women close to me are having miscarriages, some early- some late in their pregnancies.  As I see pictures of baby funerals and shed tears for those whose hopes have been crushed I find myself so grateful for this opportunity, and so nervous that I might also lose my child.
     On our way to Montana we were driving over some terrible roads.  We had just begun listening to the Les Miserables soundtrack and in the midst of the son Red and Black, our car started to spin.  It was dramatic and so quick but agonizingly slow at the same time.  We were driving about 60 on a built up road when the back of the car slid right and then left and then I knew we were in trouble.  I looked back at the girls and told them as calmly as I could that we were probably going to wreck and to hold on to something.  I then braced myself against Tyler's headrest and the handhold above my window- suddenly realizing how open and unprotected I was in the passenger's seat.  As the car spun around backwards and we whipped around to the side and started to slide off the road I just kept thinking "This can't happen.  WE CAN NOT FLIP."  At that speed and with the side of the road being as steep as it was, It was a miracle we didn't.  The car hit the snow sideways and it must have been deep enough, and slowed us quick enough that we just slid down the hill, nothing more dramatic than hitting a small snowbank in a parking lot.  We had Angels watching over us.  I went from being paralyzed with the intense fear of knowing that I would lose at least one child in a rollover, to laughing with Tyler as we found ourselves stuck in the snow miles from civilization.  I've never been so relieved- and therefore it seemed almost comical that our tires were so bald that it was impossible to climb the hill back to the road.  I can't quite describe how we got back.  We had no traction and the snow was so deep that even driving alongside the road was near impossible.  As I stood on the road halfheartedly trying to flag someone down for help (knowing inside there was nothing anyone could do for us if they stopped, and the chances of them crashing into me or the ditch were greater than a successful stop anyway) Tyler backed the car up and then rammed it forward over and over, making progress of a foot or two at a time.  All our hopes rested on him being able to get the car over what had at first looked like a side road off the highway, but what turned out to be some kind of buried pipeline I'm guessing.  Alex did not like this at all.  She was frantic about the entire turn of events and would much rather have been standing with Mommy- freezing on the icy road- instead of sitting in the car while Daddy rammed it into a hill over and over trying to get OVER!  Our salvation ended up being someone else's misfortune.  It seemed as though the day before another car had met a similar fate to ours, going off the road just over the hill from us.  We drove in their tracks until they met up with the road once again and barely made it up the steep embankment.  Les Miserables was turned off and we drove quite anxiously the rest of the way to Grandma's house.  I turned around to talk to the kids about our little adventure after we were safe and found Alex clinging with one hand to the car seat and the other to the windowsill.  She was the most shaken by our little detour!
    Christmas was great and I'm hoping to post pictures soon- but I had to write about our little miracle before it left my mind!