We think we're funny

This year, Carmen was actually old enough to appreciate stories about Santa.  I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the whole thing.  When I was 5 or 6 years old, my sister came bounding down the hall and informed me the Santa wasn't real.  Somehow, even though she was 2 years younger than me, she figured out about Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy long before I did.  I guess I just never thought to question it.  I bet she asked where babies came from first, too.

Anyway!!!  Our family went up to Salt Lake this past Christmas to stay at Grandma June's house (Dad's mom).  She was actually spending Christmas in Maryland with Uncle Bart, so it was kind of funny staying at Grandma's house with her not there to spend time with the OTHER side of the family. :)

We didn't find out the gender of our baby until a few days before Christmas, so Grandma June gave her usual gift of gender-neutral baby blankets.  She also bought this gorgeous crocheted heart blanket (maybe I'll get a picture of it some day, but right now I'm lazy.)  The most precious part of this gift, though, was the note she left behind:



(Carmen had fun coloring on it before I could take it home and scan it.)
"No need to rush ..." .... It's just so Grandma!!!


We decided to start some Christmas traditions ...

When I was little, sometimes we'd leave notes to Santa or give him cookies and milk.  One year we gave him carrots and celery because he might think he's getting too fat.  This year, none of us wanted to eat any cookies so we only left him a letter.  It's kind of funny having a bunch of teenagers and a 2-year-old at Christmas time.

Mark started out by writing a sweet note to Santa about Carmen and how good she had been that year.  Then Torrey, my 13-year-old sister, wrote a more interesting, personality-filled letter that reflects our family's twisted sense of humor.  It was a whole-family effort.



None of us were sure whether or not Santa would write us back or anything, and on Christmas morning I woke up with this GREAT IDEA of how Santa could respond.  So before the rest of the family got out of bed (which was late - they're teenagers and Carmen didn't know she was supposed to wake up excited at the crack of dawn) I threw together a note (er, Santa wrote a note) and left it for the family. :)


Well, we think we're pretty clever. ;)

We're trying to figure out other Christmas traditions.  We're thinking although Santa comes with some presents, he won't necessarily give our kids the BIG COOL PRESENTS.  We want to be the awesome ones!!!  We had no idea what Santa would give Carmen this year, so we just kind of threw things together ... We gave Carmen "Rainbow Bear" before Christmas.  If you press her leg, there's a recording of Mark and me singing the beginning of "Twinkle, Twinkle."  It must've been a good present, because she still shows it off to her friends and announces that it sings!!  Anyway, Rainbow Bear helped deliver Santa's presents - an Ariel figurine, some lip gloss, a coin bank thingy, and a pretty fan.  (Ooh, fancy, I know.)  .... Santa's choice in gifts had nothing to do with our non-desire to find a way to wrap them or put them in a gift bag.  *shifty eyes*

Events to blog about

This is a personal list of things I'd like to remember to post about (with pictures!):

• Moving to Austin and living out of a hotel for 2 weeks because our stuff was late (I would never hire movers - we only had them because Mark's company paid for it)~Our annual Oregon Coast trip (but Mark's family is switching things up in 2012 ... we're going to Lake Michigan instead!)
• Maybe something about Washington, but it was less exciting than expected because I was busy being a hibernating first-trimester pregnant lady
• Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas - whatever I happen to have pictures of.
• Our random semi-impulse cruise we took this week because Mom had to cancel her Disney World plans and I'm exactly as pregnant as you can be while they'll still let you get on the ship. ;)  Wednesday (yesterday) also happened to be the 6th anniversary of us meeting.  Awwww <3 ~~ !

Then I will be caught up enough to not be embarrassed about whatever I write. ;)  You'll probably hear a lot about Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, and Disney movies.  OH YEAH MY LIFE IS AWESOME.

Too embarrassed to write

September was a little busy because I was preparing to go to Washington to house-sit while my parents took my oldest younger sister on a Mediterranean cruise.

Then I found out I was pregnant (yay!) shortly before going to Washington.  When I'm pregnant, I spend approximately 6 weeks unconscious on the couch like I have mono, only with nauseousness instead of the sore throat.  I had secretly been hoping to write all sorts of blog posts about our summer adventures and moving!

I was tired and nauseous out of my mind until a few days after Halloween, then I got food poisoning or something and threw up for a whole day.  I'm one of those lucky people who doesn't throw up while pregnant ... but sometimes I wished I could just throw up to make that constant nauseous feeling go away.  Oh well. :)  My mom was sick and barfing the whole 9 months; I can handle being sleepy and nauseous for 6 weeks!

By the time I thought about blogging again, I was too embarrassed by my long absence to come back.  "What would I write about?  Do I have pictures?  I have so much to catch up on!"  So instead, I just continued writing in my semi-private LiveJournal, which I've kept for about 10 years (on a few different accounts).

But you know what?  Darn it, it's the end of January and I'm going to have a BABY BOY in MAY (when I got my 8-week ultrasound, they moved my due date to Carmen's 3rd birthday!) and I'm to the point where I don't particularly enjoy walking because it makes me feel like my pelvis is going to split in half (it seems so early for that!) so hey, I should do something useful and start blogging again.

So that's my goal.

I love Austin, I love Texas, I love my ward, I love Carmen, we have tons of fun, and I will take the last six months' worth of pictures off my camera and post some kind of blog about something some time soon.  This has been the best six months of my life, and I'm really excited to see what this new year brings.