Mel's Fantastical Insights

Christmas I think went well in our house. Jason and I weren't up too late wrapping anything and Daniel doesn't really wake up too early so it was nice. I didn't wrap all the books I got Daniel so when he first saw the tree and presents he just wanted to look at the truck books that he got. After about ten minutes we convinced him to look at something else. Then we put all these new cars for him in his stocking and encouraged him to pull them out. Jason had wrapped one thing that was in the top of the stocking and Daniel pulled it out, looked at it carefully, threw it on the ground and then went back to the books. I pulled out the "sally" car from CARS and then the hunt in the stocking for more cares began. We had him stop every few minutes and open some more presents. After a lot of not interesting things we had him open his new Fisher Price Air Plane. He of course assumed that it was for transporting all of his new cars and his new trains. So now he j...

The doctor made our guesses official on Tuesday when we saw that clearly our little fetus is a girl. I am fairly excited. It is weird though when we found out that Daniel was a boy I wondered what I would do with a boy. Now I wonder what I will do with a girl. Especially because I can't even do my own hair how am I going to make a little girl have cute hair? Maybe I will take a class. Anyway, Jason has kind of given up on his Charlotte Webb name, but if you would like to vote on the real names that we have chosen, visit Jason's blog. http://bigjason.blogspot.com/

So we bought a van. I know I know, we only have one kid. We debated for a long time and then decided we could either buy a second car and then a bigger car when we have kid three, or just buy a big car now. That big car ended up being a van. We really like it so far. Mostly I just like having a car again and not having to work around Jason's work schedule. We are now official owners of a real family vehicle. Hopefully now I do my Christmas shopping. The second thing that made me a "real mom" this weekend happened shortly after we bought the van. We went down on Saturday afternoon thinking it wouldn't take long, and of course it did. Jason's work party (up in Layton), was coming up and so I left Jason to do the paper work and raced home to get ready to leave Daniel with babysitter number two for the day. My sister Tiffany showed up and I was half dressed and gave her all the instructions while I put my nylons on. I was telling her what to feed Daniel and ...

These are a few of my favorites from our trip. You have to click on the picture to see all of them. Hawaii 2008

Well we made it back from Hawaii and Jason and I decided we would write down all the things we hated about our trip so we would remember not to be talked into another one anytime soon. Like in the next ten years. Before we left I thought taking Daniel to a restaurant was a bad experience, now I know it is nothing like flying. So here are some of my reasons: 1. I bet before 9/11 it wasn't so bad, but security at the airport takes four years to get through when you travel with a kid. So it went something like this. We travel with a cpap machine, laptop, video camera, baby stuff and a tired cranky baby. You have to strip everything off, belts, shoes, the binky and any other security item that your kid has and walk through the security thing. Jason always has to go with his Cpap machine so I was left with Daniel and the eights bins of stuff to put back, trying to get me and Daniel redressed and had to move all the carry ons. It was insane. The first time through in SLC when t...

So traveling here was not too bad. Daniel was perfect on both flights He had a hard time with the noisy children. Nonetheless it would still take a lot to get me to come back here with small children. It's just too long of a day to fly. Anyway, this morning we woke up at 6am and had a lot of fun. We walked to the beach (which is a thirty second walk) and saw some wildlife. Daniel and I watched sea turtles bob their heads up and down for awhile. Jason went to take pictures of a seal on the beach. Daniel really wants to see a shark and I am hoping that does not happen. Whales and dolphins, fine but a shark, no thanks. The only bad part is that it is raining. I mean lots and lots of rain, so much so that I bought an umbrella and for those who don't know, I hate umbrellas. But I can't take pictures in the pouring rain and Daniel hates when the rain hits his face. Though that doesn't really stop his desire to spend all waking moments outside. I have been trying...

I had prepared and worried for weeks over doing sharing time, mostly because I was worried that I would bore the older kids and end up using words that the sunbeams did not understand. So today was the big test. This morning started out with a bang, Daniel woke up super grumpy and with a fever. Jason and I were both teaching so Daniel got dragged to church in his pjs, with his binky and blanket in tow. Sharing time comes right at the beginning and as I stood up in front of Junior Primary I was terrified. As a missionary when I got nervous to talk to people I would toss my scriptures back and forth between my hands so I looked down to grab my scriptures and due the crazy morning we had with Daniel, they did not make it to church with me. Ashley was nice enough to lend me hers and I ended up using the wrong scripture for Junior Primary but I don't think any of them understood it anyway so it really didn't matter. Our theme today was "I am thankful for my body." T...