Mexican Jumping Beans

Elyse won these babies at school for reaching her reading goal last quarter. I've never seen them before and always thought they were a hoax. But there are actually moth larvae living inside these beans and in three to five months they eat their way out as moths. They love warmth and really get hopping when we place them under our dining room light. They make the perfect pets: no poop to clean up, I only have to remember to spray them with water once a week, and they make everybody giggle--especially when you hold them in your hand and they jump around.

Christmas

Here's all the snow we had after another storm on Christmas Eve. Two days later it reached 55 degrees and rained all day and now the snow is almost completely gone.

Every Christmas Eve we push some of our furniture together and make a pit full of styrofoam peanuts. We hide a couple presents in the peanuts, like pajamas and their sibling gifts, and they have to swim around and find them. They jump off the sides and splash around for a while, too. Strange tradition, I know, and a messy one. Matt and I think we're going to try setting up a tent in the living room next year and keep the peanuts contained that way. There's also a pic of the kids in their new jammies.

Making graham cracker candy house Christmas Eve.

December 23rd: Paul broke out in a rash called Erythema Multiform, which is basically a skin reaction to a virus and isn't contagious. These pictures make it look mild. The rash doubled the next day. It was in his ears, palms of his hands, all over his stomach and back, and the worst on his legs. Poor kid spent most of Christmas Eve on the couch while the rash went from itching to burning. He threw up a couple times and had a fever. But he was a good sport and joined in on most of our traditions. It's almost all cleared up now.

Here's the kids playing in the snow drift on our porch after the big storm. 3 more inches and I'll we have a record for the most snowfall in December. Luke had a hard time moving around in it. After Elyse drug him around for five minutes, he decided to come back inside.

Snow Drifts Continued

Since writing the last entry I've watched four cars get stuck in our little circle and a half of street--one right in front of my house for the last four hours with its owner nowhere in sight. Matt's dad picked him up at the hospital for me since there was no way around the car and no way Matt's car would have made it into the subdivision anyway. Then Matt's dad got stuck even in his four wheel drive. Ah...don't you just love Michigan in the winter? The good news is, it'll last another five months and we have another storm due to hit us Wednesday. Four more inches of snow. The snow drifts are over two feet high now, one is above the windowsill outside living room, and the wind keeps blowing. Matt just finished shoveling his dad out and is now in the process of helping the mysterious owner of the car in front of our house who miraculously showed up at the same time. They aren't making much progress. I, for one, am all for global warming.

Snow Drifts

Thursday night it began to snow, with eight to ten inches predicted throughout Friday. So they canceled the last day of school before holiday break. The kids were kind of bummed because they missed their holiday parties, but I thought it was great. They have lame Christmas parties anyway. The school doesn't do any kind of Christmas program and the parties don't involve Christmas trees or anything resembling Christmas. The last week of school Paul brought home some circular thing with flowers on it--a welcome sign from India. I think it's great they can learn about other cultures, but a welcome sign??? Come on. Elyse brought nothing home at all--no cute craft or holiday picture. Sad. So I enjoyed sleeping in and not budging out in the freezing storm all day long. Saturday Paul had a birthday party at the children's museum. So I braved the half plowed roads and took them all. Me, Elyse and Luke hung out an played until the party was over. I told Elyse we could go shopping without Paul, but Luke took one look at the museum and ran right into the exhibits and I didn't have the heart to pull him away. We hadn't been there in four months because I've been feeling so crummy. I told Elyse we could shop after. What a mistake. I totally forgot it was the last Saturday before Christmas. The dollar store line went around the store, but the kids were amazingly patient while they bought each other a Christmas gift. The streets were literally bumper to bumper and we often waited for five rotations of the traffic lights to get through the intersection and wait in line to reach the next one. By the time we reached the book store, Luke had run out of tolerance and sunk to whinyness. He usually doesn't ask for stuff when we go shopping, but suddenly he wanted everything on the shelves and had near meltdowns when I said no. Elyse finally picked out what she wanted to get and we waited in yet another line before heading home. Wow, remind next year not to leave the house the weekend before Christmas. Today we got even more snow with 30-40 mile per hour winds and white outs as I drove slowly to the church for choir practice. Thankfully, not many people were out on the road at 9--they were much smarter than me. After church, I got stuck twice in my in-laws neighborhood, but managed to get us going again and inching along. The wind has created snow drifts over roads that have been plowed and made the unplowed roads twice as bad. It's a miracle I made it through my own subdivision to the garage. The car really shouldn't have made it since the snow was higher than the wheels. I truly believe it was a Christmas miracle--husbandless and pregnant, Heavnly Father knew there was no way I was going to get the car unstuck on my own. I did get stuck in my own driveway for a little while, but eventually gunned it into the garage. I told the kids we weren't leaving the house until spring and they would just have to be home schooled until then. Elyse looked teary and asked in a tremulous voice, "Are you serious?" "No, I answered--you can hike through the snow to the bus stop and take it to school." We could live off foodstorage, I guess, until the spring thaw. I'd probably lose weight that way... Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas. Ours will definitely be white. It's kind of nice to be snowed in for a while. I don't feel pressured or rushed to go anywhere or do anything except hang out with my kids and celebrate the season.

Paul turns 6

Once there was a snowman...Talk about a lot of frosting. I don't do cakes. I can't. We always get prefrosted cookie cakes from our grocery bakery.

Here's the bowling pin Paul got at his bowling party--which he thinks is way cool. All his friends signed it.

New Pregnancy Sympton

Pregnancy has graciously doled out a new morning sickness sympton. You'd think at fifteen weeks, they'd be tapering off, but no. Now, whenever I bend from the waist to pick anything up off the floor, I gag and nearly throw up. You don't realize how many times you have to bend over a day until you can't anymore. You should see the floors of my house. There's toys, socks, food, wrappers, belts, blankets, backpacks, stray mittens, Christmas ornaments fallen off the tree, pencils, shoes, pillows, etc, etc. all over the place and it's driving me nuts. And I realize just how extremely clutsy I am now that I can't bend over. I drop everything from diapers to silverware, mail to tablespoons. Argh! What drops to the floor, usually has to stay there unless Luke understands what I'm asking him to clean up. And after dinner one of the kids runs around to pick the main level up for me, but kids don't see the minute details--the small stuff that I pick up later. I don't sweep because I can't get the dirt into the pan. How sad is that? My house is disgusting. I hope I don't go crazy before this passes. Paul's b-day party is tomorrow. After having twelve screaming girls here at my house for Elyse's, we decided to have Paul and five friends celebrate at a local bowling alley. The kids don't get a party every year, but it just so happened it was both their turns for parties the same year I feel like crap. Anyway, they provide pizza, pop, two bowling lanes and shoes, and paper products. I just have to show up with a cake and leave the mess behind me when it's over. And the great thing is, it's cheaper than Elyse's party was.Paul's pretty excited. Me, I can't wait till it's all over. When birthdays are on a Sunday, they seem to get stretched over several days: Fri: treat to the classroom (which I had to frost and sprinkle two dozen cookies last night thanks to a grandpa who brought sugar cookie dough over), Sat: party with friends and Sun: big dinner with all the fam in Saginaw. I convinced Paul to have an easy dinner, though: pancakes and precooked sausage. Hurray for me. I can make the batter and Matt can stand there and flip pancakes while I sit down. Our family has another ridiculous birthday tradition: breakfast in bed for the birthday person. In the past, this required me getting up half an hour early to make a breakfast that takes longer than filling a bowl with cereal. But this past year, I've discovered a little miracle in the frozen food aisle: rhodes cinnamon rolls. I pop those babies in the oven the night before, they raise all night, I set the cook timer to start while I'm asleep, and breakfast is done when I wake up. Bless you rhodes rolls! Elyse doesn't like them, but she was easy this year on her day: a pickle and a hostess cupcake. Yum, a pickle. She's a strange duck sometimes.

Trip to Utah

Connie, Rachelle, and me at McDonalds where all our kids ran around while we caught up.

Elyse and her cousin Erin. I think they kind of look alike.

Kids at temple square.

Inside the Tabernacle at Temple Square (Rachelle-there's a pic of my dad) We just got back from our Thanksgiving trip to Utah yesterday. Highlights: 1. Crowding twenty-seven people into my parents' kitchen and living room for Thankgsiving dinner. 2. Ice skating with the whole Smith clan at the Olympic skating center. 3. Having lunch with my two good friends Rachelle and Connie. 4. Lights on temple square with cookies and hot chocolate afterward. 5. Having dinner at the Roof with my parents overlooking temple square. 6. Singing Christmas carols in the car with the kids. 7. Hanging out with my sisters and seeing their kids. 8. Going to the Sing Along Messiah concert at Abravenal Hall (ha! I can't sing sixteenth notes) with some of Matt's family and some of my mine. 9. Watching my parents eat sushi for the first time and pretending to like it. My dad said he burped up raw fish the rest of the night. 10. Joining Matt's Utah siblings for a night of food and games.

We came home from Utah, where we ran around without coats, to lots of snow on the ground and a storm to drive through from Detroit to Saginaw. Luke woke up this morning and threw up, so I skipped church and spent hours following him around with a bucket. He didn't go very far, though. We mostly stayed on the couch. He did rally himself one time and crawled over to the Fisher Price manger scene, laid down to rest and throw up, then pulled Mary and a shepheard to the floor, took a rest, and then jiggled Mary and whispered "yes, yes, yes", jiggled shepard and whispered "no, no, no", tapped the two together, took a rest, and then repeated the whole talking thing. He then dragged himself back to the couch where, you guessed it, he threw up again. He's perked up now and actually kept some liquids and solids down. I'm just wondering which of us is next...

Matt was released from the bishopbric today. While I am shouting "Hurray!" he's a little bummed about it. He loved the other men in the bishopbric and he also liked visiting different organizations and helping out, but not really being in charge of them or knowing all the dirty details the bishop has to deal with. I'm just happy he's no longer in charge of taking care of the building, having to go to youth dances, doing tithing every week, and going in three hours early for meetings. We actually get to go to church together in the same car and sit together now. We might actually talk to each other on Sundays (because after eight hours of church, he'd usually have eight to ten hours of work or go straight home and go to sleep). It'll be nice with a new baby on the way to have a body in the pew to sit with the other kids. And for those of you who are curious, I think I'm fifteen weeks. The ultra sound is January 5th. Here's crossing fingers and toes for a girl!