The Biggest Loser, part deux

It is time for the second annual Family and Friends Biggest Loser contest! For those of you who participated last year, you remember how this all works and what a great competition it turned out to be.

This year, we decided to open it up at bit and pass the word about the contest to a greater sphere. If you are reading this post and interested in a new year weight loss competition with $$$ for prizes send me a comment. I have an email with all the information just waiting to be passed along. There is a $20 buy-in and all buy-in money is what funds the prizes at the end. The contest begins Monday, Jan. 4 and will run for ten weeks.

Make those holiday pounds count for something and get ready to bring home some cash!

p.s. I will have a dedicated Biggest Loser blog posted on the side of my personal blog. After this post that is where all other Biggest Loser info will be found.

These are a few of my favorite things

1. Jesus Christ, whose birth gives us a reason to celebrate.

2. This gorgeous family of mine.

3. A truly wonderful Christmas.

4. The smoking hot new camera lens I got for Christmas.

5. Playing around with black and white photos.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

Plenty of precious progeny pictures

Waiting to see Santa !

This was from our "Trip to the North Pole" excursion on the Lake Coeur d'Alene cruisin' boat.

Live Nativity!

Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus Aubrey made in Sunday school, all sitting manger side.

One very unruly shepherd

Aubrey's "Remember the Manger" Christmas program!

Could the child look cuter, more proud, or more confident? She ROCKED Jingle Bells!

The Jones Family, pew side.

Gingerbread House!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, ONE AND ALL!!!!!

teaser

Oh, you lucky readers you. Tomorrow I will have pictures from gingerbread house making as well as a play by play of our "Trip to the North Pole" Coeur d'Alene boat cruise. Mark your calendars, it's a post to remember.

p.s. I love being Santa to the kids. It's magic I tell you.

Nightmare on Sinto St.

UPDATE UPDATE

The last two nights Nathan has not woke up with nightmares. However, Aubrey was full of jealousy in her heart that her brother got to sleep on a special bed in our room. The last two nights she has shown up around 3 a.m., feigning a nightmare so that she too can sleep on a special bed in our room. She shows up with her pillow and all her bedding and acts shocked when we aren't moved by her fear. Opportunistic little bugger!

Wednesday morning when Nathan woke up I said, "Nathan, you slept so well last night! Did you have good dreams?" He replied (and Greg was there as a witness), "Yeah, I did have a good dream. I dreamt that I got to spend all day at home with Mama."

Be still my beating heart, you are too precious for your own good.

As thrilled as we are about the upcoming arrival of our baby I still couldn't help but lament to Greg, "We are going to be SO tired. For like a year. SO tired. I mean, bone exhausted. Plus, I'm so used to getting an uninterrupted night's sleep now it's going to feel even harder."

Do you hear Murphy's Law laughing at me? Did I actually say out loud how well our children sleep? Rookie move Sara!

The next day Nathan woke up and crawled into bed in the middle of the night. After 15 minutes he was content to go back to bed. Then he did it again the next day. And the next. He would say in the morning that he was having bad dreams. He never seemed terribly upset and always willingly went back to bed.

That is until last night. He joined us 2:30 a.m. I put him back in bed around 3. At 3:30 I heard him crying, "MAMA! MAMA!" I went and picked him up. He ended up back in bed with us for a few minutes while I reassured him. This time though he refused to go back to bed. Hysterical crying and wailing about being scared and all his bad dreams came pouring out. He was clinging to Greg, begging not to go back to bed. We agreed to let him lay with us for a while longer but every time we tried to put him back to bed he started screaming all over again. We finally ended up making him a bed on the floor of our room and letting him sleep there. That finally happened at 5:30 a.m. and our alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. Ouch.

I will say this for last night. Greg and I both believe Nathan was truly scared. He wasn't acting naughty or bratty but out of his mind scared. I am second guessing every movie I've let him see. Our kids aren't allowed to watch t.v. but they do watch movies and certainly have seen things like "Monster's, Inc." a time or two. I think the more Nathan's imagination develops the scarier these images are to him. We are back to Winnie the Pooh.

Any advice on nightmares? This is new territory for us. You know, because in parenting if it's not one thing it's another. Greg had the audacity to say this was prep for the new baby. I kicked him in the shins.

Tea for two (or four)

After receiving a darling homemade apron and a book on tea parties from Auntie KayLynn, Aubrey knew she needed a tea party. We called three of her friends, set a date, and prepared. We planned a menu, decorations, and what to wear. (We're girls, the clothing was essential.) Nathan and Dane were going to have a date with their daddy and it would just be little girls and their mamas.

Aubrey was in heaven but I WAS IN HEAVEN. These are the sort of things I dreamed about when I thought of having kids. The party was set at 4:00 on Friday. Around 2:00, while the boys napped, Aubrey and I put on our aprons and got busy in the kitchen. Women's lib, eat your heart out! We were the picture of female domesticity and lovin' every minute of it.

The party was a great success and every little girl whined when they had to leave. Aubrey wants to know when the next one will be. Sometimes I wonder if my heart can take this motherhood stuff. It can jut be so good.

Aubrey made the place mats, picked out the cups and plates, and set the table herself.
Kid tea party version of jelly rolls: Wonder bread, slathered with raspberry jam, no crusts.
Waiting, waiting, waiting for her guests.
The party goers, who consequently had impeccable manners and beautiful tea party attire.
Sara the hostess. I wore the only thing in my closet that was dressy and fit over my stomach.
Aubrey's first hostess gift: a beautiful poinsettia from her friend Sarah.
The boys getting the heck away from the estrogen and lace. (Fine, they didn't want to go but I promised them ice cream sundaes upon their return. Rumor has it they they weren't treated too badly on their daddy date.)

The Guests

Sarah

Jillian

Jorja

Me, the master sundae mixologist. Yes, we at these at about 5:00 p.m. and I considered it dinner. Hey, we first had lemonade and meat and cheese and crackers. The quote of the night was from Jillian. "Hey, it's good that we are eating these (meat tray food) first. They are healthy. Then we can have the treats. I try to eat from all five food groups. Except dairy. I don't drink milk! But I do make an exception for ice cream!"

The tea party was a smashing success. Auntie KayLynn, thank you for inspiring such a memorable, special evening.

A Yuletide tradition

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Go west young man

It is time to head west when baby number four is on the way and you begin to wonder if bunk beds can be stacked three high.

So that's what we're doing. We're moving west.

By west I mean 20 minutes west of our current house. But west, nonetheless.

And moving. A true move of buying one house and selling another. Except that we're not really buying the house. Or we are but it's already in the family. Confused?

We are buying Greg's grandmother's old house. It was left to Greg's dad after she passed away and has been a housing option that we've known about for a while. But we were comfortable and the house had renters and we just never put that much thought into it.

When the renters moved out though we went looking with different eyes and the one things we both thought was, "Why on earth wouldn't we do this?"

It's a much bigger home, over 1000 square feet larger than where we are now. It is a rancher with three bedrooms next to each other on the main floor, 2.5 baths, a huge lovely living room, double sided fireplace, large fenced backyard, over sized garage, and STORAGE. Did I mention the storage? It might be the best part.

There is also a fully finished basement. It has one more bedroom as well as this massive expanse of a family room. Whenever we are over there the kids ride their bikes in the basement because it's that big and open.

This house really fits our image of where we want to be now and years from now. A basement for teenage entertaining in the future and a playroom for now. No more worrying about crawling babies falling down stairs. Bedrooms close together. A master bathroom!!

I'm not to the best part yet. The house was built in the 1960s I think and while in very good shape does look a little dated. This is where father-in-law Doug (otherwise known as coolest remodelingest Daddio out there OR the statue of David (inside joke, hahaha)) comes in. He's remodeling this place for us. New main bathroom and half bath. Fully beautified kitchen. New carpet. Carpet ripped up in the dining room and new flooring through there, the kitchen, and laundry area. New stainless steel sink for the laundry room. Greg and I are going to paint and take down a bit of wall paper and put up new drapes. How do you say thank you for that?!?!?!? THANK YOU DOUG AND MARIAN!!!! It's really so much more than a person can dare even ask for. We're giving them our fourth child as a gift.

Enjoy the pictures of our new house. These are the before pictures and I'll post after pictures in the spring. Our goal is to have our current house on the market by the first of March and pray it sells in a timely fashion.

So there it is, the big news. Did you guess??

One shot of the backyard

More backyard. A great size for a family.

A picture taken standing in the corner of one of the bedrooms.

The dining room. This picture doesn't do it justice, it's twice as big as our current dining space. It will fit a table that actually seats all six of us!

The kitchen, which is obviously adjacent to the dining room . The cupboards over the range are being taken out to open up the space more. Another good father-in-law idea.

One side of the two sided fireplace. This side is in the living room, the other side in the dining room. I think it needs a mantle for six stockings next Christmas!

The living room. Another large space, separated from the kitchen and dining room by a wall and the fireplace.

A teeny glimpse at the storage area in the basement.

This picture was taken standing at one end of the basement family room.

This picture was taken standing at the other end. See the other fireplace off to the left?

Next summer we should have room for visitors and guests. Book your reservations now!

It's alive!!

It being me. Because I am alive. I lost my blogging mojo (not to be confused with baby Mojo) for a while but am back and running.

What have you missed? I turned 30 and my head didn't fall off. We celebrated a truly wonderful Thanksgiving with my family in Yakima. Four days of eating, family, games, shooting of guns, laughing, and general merriment. And I'd like to say for the record that it was NOT the sisters' idea for the men to take on the FOUR SISTERS in Taboo. Seriously? You cannot compete with that kind of common history. And freaking good Taboo skills. Rematch anyone? Hannah and I were also the pinochle goddesses. Yes, really cool people play pinochle. They also kill everyone else in it for days on end. Here's a cyber high five to you dear sister Hannah and your mad card playing skills.

In other news, Dane was diagnosed with strep throat on Friday. That was loads of fun. He was twice as upset by that as he was his broken arm. By upset I mean hysterical and heart breaking all day. He's doing great now and so far no one else has succumbed which is a blessing. We had no phone service all weekend but we're back in business today. Aubrey has a tea party scheduled with three little friends on Friday. We are loving our Christmas decorations and the excuse to drink a ton of hot chocolate. Life feels good. We are cozy and warm and happy. Plus, I am feeling better!!! Pregnancy nausea will not kill me and we're onto the second trimester of being cute and increasingly round.

This is a quick update. I have BIG news coming up but want some pictures before I post on it. (Some of you already know so don't think we're having twins or won the lottery.)

God bless us, each and everyone! (I shouldn't quote things if I'm not sure they are correct.)

Sara is insane, part XIII

Without a second thought I just tossed Dane's dirty clothes in the garbage and his dirty diaper into the clothes hamper. I caught my mistake when I threw a container in the trash and said, "Hey, who put their clothes in the garbage?!?!"

There is no excuse for me sometimes.

Things I learned yesterday

1. You can't keep melting white chocolate. Eventually it gets hard and granular and burnt. And tastes nasty.

2. Pomegranites are the most fun we've ever had eating fruit. It also looked like we slaughtered a goat in our kitchen afterward.

3. Christmas music on Pandora is perfect. Until it stops letting you skip songs and you are forced to listen to "Alien Santa."

4. I have been reminded, once again, that circumcision is for the birds. And for lesser mammals and not children. (And yes, my boys are circumcised and I still feel that way.)

5. Dane is already a master blamer. Yesterday after I watched him color on our counter with a pen and reprimanded him he said, "No, brother did."

6. I have never known a kid that can be as exasperating and endearing in the same moment as Nathan.

7. Aubrey is getting a PhD in Tattle Tale.

8. TGIF!!!!! (Okay, I learned that today.)