We’ve been spending a lot of time inside for the past few weeks. We got a good amount of snow, and UNC even closed down a few times. The public school kids were out of school for essentially two solid weeks! We did take advantage of the snow on the day that it really came down by making a pretty fantastic snowman! But mostly we have just been hanging out inside, safe and warm.

In other news, we are currently in the middle of our official house-hunt! We are really excited about the idea of having our very own house (whose walls I can decorate in whatever way I desire) and a yard for our kids to play in!

I love Valentine’s Day! I have always had positive feelings about it, even for the several years where I was as single as a nun. I attribute that, in part, to the fact that my mom always made it a fun day for us kids by having a fancy dinner with the table all decorated cool! Also, my dad always makes sure that his girls (daughters included) are well taken care of on Valentine’s Day. I got flowers from him every year until he let Josh take over.  I kind of pride myself on the fact that I have never felt threatened by Valentine’s Day, so thanks Mother and Daddy!

This year, I tried to make it a special day for my family too!

The idea was just to make the day feel different from all the others, and I think that it worked because many times during the day Fay said “Today Valentine’s Day!!!”  We all wore festive outfits, though I forgot to document us all together. Here’s the kids, though.

Oh, okay. I’ll put all the pictures I put on facebook in. They are too cute to resist! Aren’t they adorable?! Incidentally, I took those pictures (I’m pretty proud) but Josh is the one who perfected them by editing them!

We had a great Valentine’s Day with fantastic food–Josh made perfectly fluffy blueberry biscuits, and for dinner we had the most AMAZING spaghetti and meatballs (thanks Maria!)–and lots of pink and red!

 

Today is a snow-day because we got an inch of snow. We’ve been hanging out at home, and enjoying playing some in the snow.  Here is a video of Carter helping Josh with his work. It makes me happy to see him geek out when he’s only 9 months old! The world needs another ruggedly handsome nerd like Josh!

 

Things around here have been a little crazy. Since about April 21 of last year. Okay let’s be real, more like since May 7 of 2012. Alright, fine! Realistically speaking, my life has been more or less a story of crazy since July 24, 1990. Fortunately for us, however, I’m holding on by providing my children with only the most wholesome of nurturing.

Okay, so maybe everything isn’t as “wholesome” as it could be. BUT

• Fay is being a total trooper at potty-training! She even reached a large enough milestone that she got to go to Chick-fil-A last week! She totally had an accident while we were there, which was just so delightfully ironic!
• Carter just got two new teeth in (his upper lateral incisors)!
• Josh has figured out how things are going to work with school and work, which is very good!
• And I have figured out a way to squeeze somewhat regular exercise into my life!

So, we’re still just putting along! And while it genuinely is crazy, life is very good, and we feel very blessed every single day!

 

We have finally started the new year!  We were in denial about vacation ending all the way up until this past week, it seems.  Anyway, here is a little bit of what went on during our second month of vacation!

We started our year off right by partying with some friends and eating lots of “freezer foods” (chicken nuggets, pizza bagel-bites, fries, ice-cream bars, etc) It was delicious and delightfully fun! But, of course, you can’t have New Years Day without eating black-eyed peas and rice!  I found out too late that we were also supposed to have had collards  with them. Mother said that the three items represent health, wealth, and happiness in the new year. We decided that the collards probably represent wealth, but we’re used to being without that. ha ha!

About a week after the new year began, we had a visitor!  Josh’s mom came to visit us for a week!  It was so much fun to see again just how well kids know that they love their grandparents, even if they haven’t been around for a long time!Mom’s visit was one of the reasons that we didn’t get back into real life. We were way too busy going to the park, and going swimming, playing games, and eating delicious food to do any work!  Another reason that we didn’t get back into real life very quickly was because some crazy stuff happened with Josh’s school/work schedule.  One minute we thought he was going to have 40 hours of stuff to do each week, the next we found out that he only had about 12.  It has all worked out now, though, and we were just starting to get back into life when…

There was Martin Luther King Jr. Day!  Josh didn’t have school, so of course we had to go do something fun!

This is a horrifically bad picture. I apologize. We went to the Natural Science museum in Raleigh, and the whole family loved it! Fay loved seeing the stuffed animals (like, they used to be alive and walking around, but now they are on display in the museum habitat displays) and the fish. She wasn’t quite sure about the enormous dinosaur skeletons.  Carter enjoyed looking around, but he LOVED watching the butterflies in the butterfly room!  He would track them with his whole body, trying to figure them out!  Josh and I learned some interesting new things (like how introduced species can have pretty dramatic affects on the environment) and super enjoyed watching the kids both have so much fun!

But now we are done with vacation (we think), and beginning to figure out a new routine.  Fay and I are working on potty-training this week. It is going well, but it turns out that potty training is really taxing even when it goes well.  Josh is working on more and more projects. Carter is mostly eating. He nurses and all that, but he LOVES eating real people food! The doctor said to let him do what he wants, though, so we may have to increase our grocery budget soon…

The biggest news of the past month, though, is that Josh has accepted a job in Salt Lake City! We are excited to have a job, and we are excited to move back to the land of temples that are open all the time, and babysitters abounding, and cousins, and Western Family Alfredo-sauce packets; but we are very sad to be leaving the land of party-at-the-playground-every-evening-between-3:30-and-5:30, and Bullock’s BBQ, and trees galore, and people being impressed by the fact that we have two children.  Fortunately, we will be here for a few more months!

 

The week of Christmas was so fun! We did our last minute purchases (like we finally got ourselves some eggnog!), we did some fun Christmasy things, and we hung out with cool people!

In Durham, they have what’s called “The Triangle Christmas Tree Challenge.” A bunch of businesses and charities and churches and stuff decorate trees, and they are on display in a park in downtown Durham. We love going because it is as close as we can get to the Festival of Trees. We took a picture in front of Fay’s favorite tree. She loved this one because it was about swimming, which she loves.

Another fun Christmas/winter thing we did was make the best hot chocolate in the whole world! In Paris, there is a little café/teahouse called Angelina that serves this hot chocolate. A single recipe of this stuff has nearly 1000 calories! And it is worth EVERY SINGLE ONE! You are basically drinking a 70% cacao chocolate bar! It was so delicious!

In France, they have a Christmas tradition of making Bûches de Noël (Yule logs). I have been wanting to have one for Christmas ever since we got married; but I am never on-top of stuff enough to actually do it. Josh, however, made it happen for us this year! He said that in France, they decorate them to look like they have foliage and whatnot all over them, and, of course, we had to do the same! We had the Sister Missionaries over for dinner on Christmas ever (alas, I did not think to take a picture of them) and shared the fun of our bûche de Noël with them!

This was our first Christmas Eve on our own, and our first chance to start some of our own traditions. In my family, we always do a “stage production” of the Nativity on Christmas Eve night. In Josh’s family, they read the Christmas story from the scriptures together before heading off to wait for Santa. We decided that we would add to the tradition of reading the Christmas story by also reading The Living Christ. It was really special to remember that Christ’s birth in Bethlehem was only a tiny part of His life and mission in bringing salvation to all Heavenly Father’s children! I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of who our Savior is, that His church is restored to the earth, and that because of His sacrifices I can be with my family forever! That knowledge is what makes Christmas the most wonderful time of the year, and what makes life so sweet and joyful even when things are hard.

 

We had a fantastic Christmas! We were all spoiled rotten, and we are so grateful! Fay didn’t really understand the concept that she was getting multiple gifts for a while. We would ask her if she wanted another one, and she would say that she was busy playing with the one she had just gotten. By the end of the day, though, she would randomly come up and say that she needed another present. It was pretty cute! Carter just enjoyed the general excitement of the day!

 

I love Christmastime so much! And this year seems extra special because I feel like I am really coming to understand the principle that “the Christmas Spirit is the Christ Spirit.” We still have all sorts of gifts to secure, and we aren’t very lavishly decorated this year, but I feel like I am thinking more about Jesus Christ than I have in years past (and I feel like I have always made an effort to think about Christ, especially at Christmastime). And the times that I have been thinking about Him the very most have been the times that I have most strongly felt that warm, cozy excitement about Christmas that always makes me think of being a kid.

I love that the Christ Spirit is so strong that even completely secular and commercially interested people have to latch on! Absolutely, Christmas has been enormously commercialized. But in taking advantage of the commercial opportunities, I feel like people can’t help but catch a little bit of what Christmas and Christ are really about.  They are about love!

Oh man! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is just so wonderful! I can’t get enough of it!

Also, my kids are adorable! Check them out some more!

Thanksgiving is such a fantastic holiday! I feel like it is so perfect that a day devoted to giving thanks is also the kick-off to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ! We have no greater blessing than God’s gift of His Son! And I am going to take this opportunity to say that I have a testimony of the living, resurrected, Lord, Jesus Christ. I have a testimony that He was born in Bethlehem to a virgin mother; that He lived a perfectly sinless life; that He suffered and died for my sins and those of all who will ever live on this earth. I have a testimony that He was, indeed, resurrected on the third day! And I have a testimony that He lives today and that He leads His Church–The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints–through His Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. And the testimony that I have of Him truly is something to be thankful for!

Anyway, our celebration this year was particularly lovely! We spent Thanksgiving with just our nuclear family, which turned out to be great for several reasons. One reason was that we didn’t have any kind of dead-line on getting our food ready–it was a really good thing because we didn’t defrost our turkey long enough. 🙂 Another reason it was great was that the kids got to take their normal naps, and therefore better enjoy the day. It was also fun because there aren’t very many times when we get to spend an entire day with all of us together!

This was our Thanksgiving Dinner!

 

Thursday evening, we set up our Christmas tree! Fay LOVES the Christmas tree! She loves putting on and taking down ornaments; she loves when we have all the lights on; and she loves getting “Christmas tree medicine” when she has “owies.” Carter also got really excited about putting the tree up. He could tell that something significant was happening, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

On Friday, we got a Black Friday deal of a new couch. It actually wasn’t a deal from a store, and the couch isn’t really “new.” But the couch is new to us, and it was a great deal, and we bought it on Black Friday!

We had a great Thanksgiving! And we are so grateful to be an Eternal family!

I can’t believe we are half way through November already!  Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK! Josh has two fly-out interviews in the next month (one in Salt Lake, and one in San Francisco)! There are only two more weeks of classes! It’s all just so exciting! (Especially the part about school being close to over!)

We had a fun Halloween. Fay dressed up as Rapunzel, Josh dressed up as Flynn Rider, and Carter was our sweet little Pascal. I dressed up as “So and So” from Teen Girl Squad. Apparently a lot of people grew up in the dark, because there were very few who appreciated my “mock UN medal.” 🙂

In other news, Carter now has four little teeth. He loves standing (with help), grabbing at anything and everything, and riding Fay’s little tricycle (also with help). Fay loves drawing–she can do some pretty impressive spider drawings–as well as running in the hall, and playing doctor or picnic or sandwich. Fay and Carter are SO CUTE together! If Carter sees Fay he is instantly happy and starts flapping his arms! Whenever Carter wakes up from a nap or for the morning, Fay will happily exclaim “Good morning, Carter!” They LOVE taking baths together. Fay actually refuses to take a bath without Carter now. It makes me so happy to see them be so sweet and happy with each other.

Josh’s job hunt continues. We have realized that applying for jobs is much different than applying to schools. When you apply for schools, you start about a year in advance (or more depending on your program). Job hunting doesn’t quite work that way. But people are being patient with us, and seem to still be excited about Josh even though he won’t be available to work for another 6 months. We are excited about going somewhere new, and Josh is REALLY looking forward to being able to do actual programming instead of reading math textbooks all the time.

Other stuff has been going on (like work for church callings, and watching Studio C) but I know you all really just want to see pictures. So here they are!

So, this January, when we made our goal to stay up-to-date on the blog, the goal was to do an entry at least weekly.  Obviously, that hasn’t been the case of late.

Here’s why.

Josh has a really tough semester this time around. He basically ALWAYS has at least one thing he should be working on for school. He goes to work at 8:00 or earlier and comes home for dinner at 5:00ish. He has dinner with the family, spends his precious hour and a half with the kids, and then works on school again until bedtime–and bedtime keeps getting later and later. I realize that for many people in this world, this is just the reality. Talking to Mother the other day, she acknowledged that this is indeed a rough time, but she noted “At least for you there is an end in sight.” For her, life like this started 2 months after she got married and stopped…oh wait. It hasn’t stopped. She’s still going strong after 34 years and ELEVEN children!! And I find myself wondering HOW she and Daddy did it/do it. Between homework, church callings, and kids we are essentially always sleep deprived. The house, dishes, laundry, etc are usually more or less in a state of catastrophe (That would be because of me being sleep-deprived). Our idea of a family outing is a walk to take out the trash  (not a joke). So I don’t know how Mother and Daddy did it (especially with little kids). But we are doing it by entering a state I think I will call “safe mode.”

 

You know how when your computer is about to die–always crashing and going really slow–and when you reboot it for the 90th time you finally go the “safe mode” option which basically means your computer will do only the basics? Aesthetics are the first thing to go. Speed is a close second. And you’re so worried about your computer completely self-destroying that you don’t even dare look up that document from 2009. Well, that is our life right now.  Our aesthetics: gone. (For those of you who have ever lived with me, you will be amazed to know that YES I can shower even less often than I used to. And I already told you about the house. yikes.) Speed: not happening with as little sleep as a teething/sick/who-knows baby (who literally woke up crying with pain at the same moment we were laying down to go to bed multiple times last week) gives us. And as for any other stuff. We generally just don’t even attempt.

 

But in safe mode on computers, they still do the REALLY important stuff, right? Like, you can still connect to the internet. You can even use Skype. I know this because my computer was basically dead in so many ways when I was in France while Josh and I were engaged. But I could still Skype him every night!  And guess what! Our safe mode does the same thing. We may not look good (or smell good). We may yawn every third second. But we still connect.

 

A conference talk from April keeps coming to mind. Sister Linda S. Reeves said “Some of you have heard me tell how overwhelmed my husband, Mel, and I felt as the parents of four young children. As we faced the challenges of parenting and keeping up with the demands of life, we were desperate for help. We prayed and pleaded to know what to do. The answer that came was clear: “It is OK if the house is a mess and the children are still in their pajamas and some responsibilities are left undone. The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.'”

 

So we do those things. It might be all we do, but we have family scripture study every night, we have family prayer morning and night, we have family home evening every week.

Thinking about all of this has helped me understand the peace of the Atonement a little better. I look at my world–the things I must do, the things I should do, the things I want to do–and I feel like I have completely lost control. But I remember those words from Sister Reeves, and I remember the Savior, and I there is something inside of me that says “You’re going to be okay.” And so far, we have been okay. Not great. But we turn on, and we do the bare essentials. And we are going to keep doing those things until somebody comes and gives us a new OS or hard-drive or just scraps us. (We’re hoping all we need is the new OS. We’ll see. 🙂 )

Who looks most like Josh? Incidentally, Josh and Carter are wearing the exact same onesie in their pictures (courtesy of Jenny Monson). You can see that 26 years has had an effect on it.Also, I don’t have a picture of Josh at age 2 on hand; but I wanted to show a comparison with me too!

I look at these pictures and think that our kids mostly just look like themselves. But I’m very interested to see what you all think. Do they look like Josh or me? Or maybe a little bit of both?