Christmas 2012 or A Really Long Catch Up Post

I am super far behind on any type of blogging so I figured I should probably get updating, at least a little bit. In my defense, we have spent much of the last 3 weeks rotating sickness and are just now finally recovering enough to do more than lie in bed and watch Netflix. PS I'm so thankful for Netflix, yes I am.
Anyways, we didn't get around to doing as much as we would've liked to but we still made time for most of our favorite traditions. We were able to attend our ward Christmas party which was so well done, I didn't see my kids that whole morning! We made our gingerbread houses. I was smart this year and shopped the Canadian Black Friday deals and wound up scoring a gingerbread kit with 4 mini-houses, so the girls could really join in with Steve and my "decorating challenge". It worked out that our Elf, Sparkles brought the kit for us one day, so the kids were pretty excited to help us with them. I do think next year I'll get the normal sized houses, the mini ones presented quite a challenge for Steve and I, but they were perfect for the girls this year.

From left mine, Brynlee's, Kalea's, Steve's. I got the "modern cottage" which Steve thought looked like an outhouse, but I tried to make it the most attractive looking outhouse ever, and I think I succeeded. I was surprised by how much the girls actually enjoyed this activity this year, I really didn't think we'd end up spending as much time as we did, but it was great and it's nice to know that we are establishing traditions that they love just as much as we do.
This year we did Christmas with Steve's family on the 23rd. It was awesome and the kids had so much fun with their cousins, there was pretty much zero whining this year?? I guess they're growing up, yay! That made it a lot more fun for us too! It's so fun for our kids to have so many cousins so close in age, we love seeing them altogether. Kalea has developed the "cousin crush" and has been talking non-stop about Jaxen since Christmas, "Jaxen is so handsome, he's a prince, I want to marry him" etc etc... Of course we do the whole, "you can't marry your cousin" schpiel about a hundred times a day now, but it's cute that she loves her cousin so much. I did neglect to get any pix of the two of them together, but this one is when Serena's kids were singing Christmas songs and Brynlee decided to join in and sing along, pretty funny.

We also managed to get out and drive through the lights at Spruce Meadows a few times this year. The first time we went I hadn't brought my camera or cell phone and I was kicking myself for it because I knew the combination of frost/snow that we had wouldn't last. It was so beautiful. It still was when we went the second time, Kalea loved it both times, Brynlee slept through it both times but got woken up for a picture in the cold the second time around, heehee!

I didn't get tons of pix this night because it was so cold, but they have a huge amount of lights strung all through the grounds, enclosed display areas that you can go into to warm up and take pictures in. Skating rinks, Santa's reindeer hang out there, an awesome Christmas market in November, etc... We love hearing girls high-pitched squeals from the backseat too, it's amazing how much kids love Christmas lights, they actually squeal just as much driving around our neighborhood at Christmas time as they do when we go see displays like Spruce Meadows.

We spent Christmas Eve with our McMurray family and ate way too much and had fun watching the girls dance to our stellar Christmas carol singing. The girls had probably way too much Christmas punch and were pretty hyper all night, they did lay down to listen to Papa read from Luke II, but it seems like he read it a little faster this year, that or they just bounced right up after. The girls were also very excited about presents this year and so we had them give Stephen and Michelle and Nana and Papa their gifts to open so that they could see their reactions, it was really fun for them. Once we got everyone home and into bed, Steve and I got busy doing what parents do on Christmas Eve....

I wrapped presents and arranged them under the Christmas tree like a good Elf and Steve...

Built this masterpiece! We were thrilled as we unwrapped each piece and realized that we did REALLY well with buying a very high quality gift at an extremely reasonable price. Our girls are pretty hard on things, so we were more than happy to find a sturdy wood alternative to what would inevitably end up a broken plastic heap of a dollhouse. So far so good, all the pieces are still in tact!

*This is where Christmas takes a turn...*
At around 2:30a.m. Steve started feeling pretty sick, I'd been feeling kinda icky earlier but thought I probably just stuffed myself with too much sweet & savory food. I was wrong. Steve and I basically alternated using the bathroom all night long, it was an awful night. On the bright side, the kids slept in?! Unheard of in this house! It gave us just a little extra time to try to gather some energy for the Christmas morning festivities. We do think we know what we had now, apparently there was a large outbreak of the Norwalk virus in Calgary over the Christmas holidays, and wouldn't you know it, we had basically every symptom of that! Lucky us!

So back to Christmas morning... It was really difficult to get a decent stair picture of these two this year, they were so excited and couldn't both keep still at the same time, story of my life. Oh well, the out-takes are cute too! It took forever to get them past their stockings this year and I can't figure out why, I literally put socks, a toothbrush & toothpaste, a couple small dolls and a hairbrush each in their stockings this year and you would've thought they had hit the jackpot. If I had known I wouldn't have bought anything else besides the dollhouse! Anyways, Steve was so sick that I think he was only really aware of what was happening, not really involved, so this year I got to hand out presents! That never happens! It was awesome, I had enough time to snap some pictures and the kids were actually able to get the wrapping off their gifts before having another gift tossed at them! Not that Steve would EVER try to rush the opening gifts part of Christmas morning...

There were some really fun reactions on Christmas morning. Our neighbor has two cats and so as gifts for the girls she found two stuffed cats that look like hers and got them each little collars and had them engraved with the cats names. I think besides the dollhouse those cats are their favorite gifts, we can't go to bed without Mia and Lucy, we can't color without them and we can't eat without them, it's really cute, we love our neighbor. Nothing really beats the reaction to the dollhouse though, Kalea and Brynlee were SO excited and so were Steve and I. The best part was hearing "Daddy, you built that for me?! Oh thank you!" it was the sweetest thing. I was smart and caught everything on video and on the still camera, someday I'll figure out how to put video's on the blog, until then, you can imagine how cute this morning was. That's pretty much our Christmas, we were pretty spoiled and are very grateful for the awesome gifts and food and fun we were able to enjoy this Christmas. The girls spent the rest of Christmas day and the following few days playing with their new toys while Steve and I basically took turns sleeping. It was super special. Then the kids got sick and I got this nasty head/chest cold and we've been passing that around ever since. We did get out sporadically but really we've just been spending a lot of time at home, together, resting and trying to get better.
We did have a great Christmas we just wish we could've been a little bit healthier to enjoy it a bit more, we have high hopes for next year's fun lasting a little longer!

Silly Women

So I need to vent and I'm going to do it here, for conversations sake of course- that is if anyone still reads this.
What the heck is with this "wear pants to church movement"??? It is driving me mental. I can admit there are some things about our church that make us different, a lot of them are more cultural than doctrinal, really truly. Tonight I am so happy that I don't live in Utah, or any of the places where the women who started this crazy facebook page live. I'm super extra happy with the fact that when I was in a leadership role over the women in our ward, we were able to basically tell the women "Wear whatever you want to church as long as it's your best and it's modest", I like that every activity didn't come with the mandate to wear a skirt. I like that we didn't have to stage a "pants protest" during sacrament meeting to let everyone know that "By golly we are not wearing skirts anymore, we are feminists and feminists wear pants!". Good gosh. The amount of eye-rolling I've done today has rivaled the total sum of the eye-rolling I did between the ages of 12-18, that's A LOT. My head hurts. What I have loved, and what I still love are the comments from women around the world, outside of the "cultural hub" of our church, their comments about how they wear pants/skirts/kilts/etc... and nobody says anything are so great.
Dear Utah church members, there is nothing in any current handbook that says women must wear skirts, I know because I had one of those blessed books and no man in his right mind would try to dictate that to a woman in this day and age, at least no man that I know. I go to church with lots of women that wear pants, or have worn pants. Heck I wear cotton tights with above knee-length dresses *gasp* and nobody says a word, are those tights not really pants? Any other day of the week they are... I know a few women who have worn dress pants because they have rowdy kids that they have literally had to crawl under and over pews to catch, and obviously a skirt isn't attire for dealing with kids that crazy. I know women that wear pants or even long skirts because they don't like showing their legs, or they really just hate skirts, had some traumatic experiences as children and will never wear a skirt again, etc... Who knows, but who really cares? Maybe in the bubble it's just another thing for people to nit-pick and criticize each other for, but where I come from if some wonderful lady wants to wear dress pants to church, I'm not judging her.
I don't think God expects any of us to come to church with some sort of agenda. I think He expects us to come to worship Him and His Son. Sacrament meeting, we've been reminded recently, is similar to a funeral service, in the fact that we're remembering our Savior and all that He did for us and continues to do for us. If for some reason it becomes a place for protest, don't you think that's a little disrespectful? If a bunch of women wear pants to church on Sunday, good for them. If the issue is reflective of a deeper concern on the part of a collective group of women, they should probably get together and find a way to reach out to church leadership, write some letters, talk to Bishops and Stake Presidents and use the channels that are there for communication, there are plenty. But please, don't pollute one of our most sacred rituals with your "pants protest". The fact that this is even happening is so silly since, once again, there's nothing anywhere that says you can't wear pants to church.
Rant completed.

Funny Conversations

Me: Kalea I like you, I think I'll keep you.
Kalea: Keep me? Okay but not in the dungeon, then my hair would be stinky.

Kalea: Mom what's that ring? (while tugging my engagement ring as if it might not be stuck on my finger)
Me: That's my special ring from Daddy when he asked me to marry him.
Kalea: And he cried? Boo hoo hoo
Me: Um no, not really.
Kalea: Oh, but you cried? Boo hoo hoo
Me: Well yes but not boo hoo crying it was more like happy crying.
Kalea: Oh happy tears... Boo haa haa?
Me: Totally like that

Kalea bawling her eyes out on the way home from Sunday dinner at our friends house: I want to say thank you!!! Sob sob I not want to go, i want to say thaaaaank you!
Me: You should've thought of that before you walked out the door and across the street to go trick or treating.
She will knock on doors and yell trick or treat until next october especially if the patio light is on.

At the beginning of the Disney movie Brave, Merida talks about changing her fate...
Kalea: Mommy I want to change my feets too, like Merida!

On the way to a Christmas party...
Me: Kalea can you see the temple on the hill over there?
Kalea: Yup!
Me: Who lives in the temple?
Kalea: Santa lives there with his reindeers and gives me presents!
Me: Silly girl, Santa lives at the North Pole with all his elves, remember? Who lives in the temple?
Kalea: Oh ya! Um... My prince is at the temple, he's waiting to marry me and then the scary dragons come...

Me: Kalea do you think you're getting a baby brother or a baby sister?
Kalea: Um, it's a baby sister.
Me: Oh, well Brynlee thinks it's a baby brother, why are you so sure it's a sister?
Kalea: Because I'm old.

I was browsing some kids clothes online the other day and noticed Kalea showing some interest, so I asked her if she liked a particular dress and she says, "Ummm, nope that's not for Kalea... Oh what about that one? That one is Kalea's". As if she knows what she likes, she's only 4?!?!?!

I got distracted before reading a book and Kalea thought she was being funny, it took me a long time to figure out she was saying
"Read the book dammit!" oh dear...

The One That Played Hard to Get...

I am so behind on this blog, mostly because I was feeling like I couldn't really post without alluding to this big excitement, and at the same time I was really worried that maybe it was all just a figment of our imaginations and somehow it just wasn't really true. It's been kind of a long couple of years in the baby department and I didn't want to be super upset if it wasn't for real.

I really couldn't tell you any magic secret except to say that when being on the pill stopped regulating my cycle, I felt like I needed to stop taking it. And then nothing happened, my cycle was still only 2 days long and we were thinking maybe that was it for us and any more kids. I was still thinking it would be good to get that referral to the fertility clinic to start that tediously long process of figuring out what the heck was going on, but decided to just wait a little longer, since nothing was happening.

For whatever reason I started asking other people how they managed with just the one or two they were able to have and putting out feelers to help me adjust, because there aren't guarantees that even the fertility clinic can solve the problem for you. Steve and I were both settling into the idea of our two girls and us- Steve being a lot more comfortable with the idea than I was, he encouraged me to go back to work, since we had some help with childcare and Kalea would be in school 3 afternoons a week.We joked that my plan to go back to work might "backfire", because last time I had done that I found out I was pregnant with Brynlee. So I decided to apply for my sisters reception job since she was leaving to go back to the States for school. I ended up getting the job, which I kind of wasn't excited about, but I was sort of looking forward to a break from the kids.

The week leading up to starting that job was awful, as we got closer to the day, I sobbed harder every night that I put the kids to bed, and I hadn't really cried like that um, ever, not even post partum. I worked one day and felt like that was really not a good fit for me or for the kids, even though we were in a really tight financial place. Anywho, the long and short of it is because I was going to work, we qualified for a really decent mortgage, then after one day I quit that job, Steve ended up quitting his job the next day and the mortgage is now kind of up in the air, so that weekend I went to the Dollarama and bought a $1.50 pregnancy test just to make sure I wasn't pregnant and it turns out that I was.

If I wasn't a person of faith I would think that was a cruel cruel joke, but it's been the hugest blessing. Steve's working regularly as his own boss, he's able to make a lot more money this way, and as awesome as it would be to be getting into a house right now, we're not too cramped quite yet. I wasn't wanting a 3.5yr gap between kids but now, knowing Brynlee's personality better, I can see that sometimes God's timing is a lot better than we think it is, and He knows what's best for us. I cannot imagine having a baby in the house right now, I would be a complete nutcase and Brynlee would be having major issues adjusting, she is a crazy person these days. By the time this baby comes, Kalea will be almost at the end of her school year and will have hopefully improved a lot with her speech and interpersonal skills, etc... and hopefully will have had her eye straightened. We'll have the whole summer to get to know this new little person and then in the fall Kalea will be in Kindergarten and Brynlee will be in Preschool 3x a week. We're so glad we live so close to school so we'll be able to walk without much of a hassle while it's still nice, and that Steve's able to have the flexibility to kind of set his own schedule enough to be able to at least help with shuttling little people around in the morning, etc...

Besides all of those great blessings, we are so SO thankful that the Lord has chosen to bless us with this answer to our pleadings with Him. Arriving at this pregnancy has taken a lot more out of me as a Mom than I really thought it could. There were some really negative thought processes happening for a while even knowing how much Heavenly Father loves us and has blessed us already. I still have a lot to learn and I'm grateful to have been able to feel His love through the process of working through those feelings/thoughts. What was really special to me was to finally feel like it was okay, accepting the situation and being happy with it and then being surprised with this blessing. We know and recognize the tender mercy that this is for our family, and we know that there are still unexpected things that could occur, you just never know what's coming, but we are grateful.

We are learning in our marriage and in our family, over and over again that our perspective has to be broader, that His will for us is greater than what we could conjure up for ourselves and that His timing works for our family SO WELL. We have no other choice but to trust Him and as we do, we see things clearer, we recognize Him more frequently and we have opportunities to grow in ways we didn't think we could, because we're allowing Him to work something in us.

We are especially thankful for the eternal family that we have and are hoping and praying for those close to us, who are struggling to have the opportunity to help influence and raise just one of these precious little people, through any avenue they can find. I hadn't ever had feelings of guilt about having kids or wanting more of them until I found myself pleading for just one more, knowing someone immediately close to us is pleading for it to happen just once. Now we add our pleadings to theirs and hope and pray that whatever their answer is, that it comes in the timing that's right for them, in the way that's best for their family.

Our Night at the Temple

There are few things in life that compare to the peaceful tranquility of spending time in the temple. This week Steve and I were able to take our girls INSIDE, for the open house of the new Calgary Temple. It's hard to put into words just how special that experience was.

Our ultimate goal in life isn't to convert a bunch of people to our faith, although that's a nice idea,

our goal is to be together as a family, forever.

The promises that we make in the temple help us to achieve that goal, through faithful obedience,

and hopefully our kids will want the same for themselves and their future families.

We loved being inside this holy place with our girls. We loved seeing Kalea's face light up as we explained different things to her. We loved watching her grab her sisters hand and walk the halls more reverent than we've seen her in the last 4yrs.

We loved the smiles on their faces as they spun in front of the mirror in the Brides Room,

where someday I'll help them into their "princess dresses". We loved hearing them chat to each other in the backseat on the way home, about how they love the temple, about the "sparkles" aka chandeliers, and hearing Kalea exclaim that she wants to go back.

Brynlee's take on it was a little different, she seems to think the temple is a castle and Jesus fights the dragons. She also thinks that the font in the baptistry is a pool and told us that she wants to go swimming at the temple... We have a little work to do on that one :)

If anything, we hope and pray that the girls remember the feelings they had inside the temple,

at one point I asked Kalea how her heart felt and she said "My heart is happy, Mom!"

It's true, in the temple our hearts are happy, if you haven't gone for a tour, I highly recommend it.

www.calgarymormontemple.org

Thank You!

Kalea had her appointment at the hospital last week so we got to take in her birthday gifts for the Children's Hospital. I kind've spaced and didn't get a picture of her with the GIANT gift bag of toys, but the hospital did! It was really cute to watch her carry the bag up the stairs and put it up on the counter at the Foundation office. The ladies were so sweet and thankful, and when they asked Kalea about the bag she said very matter-of-factly "This presents is for the kids at the hopspital". Then they asked where she got the toys and she told them "For my birthday!", which totally made me a wee bit misty eyed. It was to die for cute. Thank you so much to all our friends and family, your donations are so greatly appreciated by us, but most importantly by the kids at the hospital. We've decided to leave our fund page open until Kalea's next birthday so if you ever have a hankering to make a donation to an awesome cause feel free to use her page to do so! www.childrenshospital.ab.ca/goto/Kalea.Stringham
What was so great about the actual process of giving was seeing Kalea so happy. It's hard to know if kids so young "get it", but this experience has taught me that she does. I was a little overwhelmed at how grown up she seemed and how much she understood. Later on we saw a little girl being wheeled around the hospital by her Mom, she had a feeding tube taped to her cheek going up through her nose and down into her stomach. Kalea asked what it was for and if she was okay, and Mom reassured her that she was just having her lunch through the little tube and that she was doing really well. It's sweet to see little kids so interested in each other, I'm hoping that Kalea learns to follow up with her own story too. Sometimes I feel like because she doesn't look "sick" people get annoyed by her questions, so we're trying to teach her that if she's going to notice something different about another kid there, she can tell them about her "funny eye". She also mentioned to the little girl that she brought presents to the hospital, so I think she was feeling pretty proud of herself.
Our appointment this time was with a doctor in Endocrinology. It was neat to see another wing of the hospital and for Kalea it's a lot easier to be well behaved when she's occupied with something new, so she loved finding the little table and chairs in the exam room. She felt pretty grown up and really, this appointment was a lot of talking amongst adults, so it was great that they had coloring stuff ready and waiting for her. She was weighed and measured and had a head to toe examination. They were really happy that she is in the 90th percentile for height/weight, it's a really encouraging sign that things are functioning normally. We still have to go and get all her bloodwork done which I am not looking forward to in any way. We will have to go first thing in the morning so that they can get an accurate measure of the hormones that they're looking for and to be honest, I don't know if I can stomach it, so that might be a daddy-daughter date. Needles are not my strong point in life. We are still in love with the doctor's at the Children's, they really are so interested in helping kids. They've referred Kalea to a pediatrician so they can make sure that she's being weighed and measured properly every 6mths and who will act as the point of contact for our whole team of physicians, we have a "case worker" who's in charge of referrals and test results, etc... She's the person we call if we don't hear from the doctors themselves and who can give us results, and she was super flattered that Kalea thought she was a doctor too. It's amazing how all these angel people just swoop in and take care of all the details. I leave each visit with about a million pieces of paper, and she noticed that I was kind've shoving everything into my purse and recommended this FREE binder that the hospital has that has spots for all the different info sheets, doctors cards, appointment sheets, test results/requisitions, referrals, etc... Bless her, she has saved my disorganized self from the nightmare of cleaning out my purse :) As a bonus, that day was the anniversary of "Annie's place" where siblings of sick kids can play while mom and dad take the sibling to an appointment, so they had cake and cookies, balanced out with some fruit of course. It was fun to reward Kalea with a little treat, she kept saying "Caaaaake? For my birthday?! Oh boy!" yes, she still thinks it's her birthday a month later :)

Let the Learning Begin!

I feel like I'm so far behind on this blog that I'm never going to catch up, so I'm not going to try too hard and I'm just going to start from where we are right now!
Kalea started Preschool 2 Fridays ago. I still find myself wondering what to do with myself and Brynlee in that two hour time span, mostly clean, but I find that Brynlee loves afternoon quiet time even when Kalea is home, so I get some reading done too, which is great!
Here's our big girl on her very first day of school! She was so excited to put her new school clothes on and wear her new shoes that we bought on vacation.

She let me do her hair without any fussing and was just SO excited to go, which was great. When we pulled into the parking lot, she finally showed a bit more of how she was feeling. Kalea says to me "Um, mommy, this is my school?" and I said "You bet it is!" and she says to me "Mommy, I'm scared!" But really, I think she was just nervous, when she's scared she usually starts to cry, and she did none of that! I signed her in and she met her teacher Ms. Sue and the classroom helper Ms. Julie, we found her name-tag which was thankfully her favorite color, green, so she let us pin it on and then it was time for me to go. That was a really odd feeling. Besides leaving her with grandparents/family or in Primary (the children's class at church) I've never really left her with complete strangers before. It's a good thing I had Brynlee to occupy me for those few hours because I might not have done so well if I had been all alone!
Kalea loves school. She is so excited when I come pick her up and I love that her teachers are so happy and excited to see her when I drop her off. They're a great fit for Kalea- it helps that one has a British accent, Kalea will listen to most people with an accent, so that's a plus!
We're also really excited for the help that is offered through the preschool. In Alberta, preschools can decide whether or not to have kids "assessed" at the beginning of the year to see if they're on track with their age group for motor skills, speech, etc... We've been increasingly aware of the fact that Kalea has a hard time with her speech and being understood, and were hoping that the assessments would happen right away and they did. The speech therapist was great and super patient with Kalea, it was hard for me not to laugh through some of Kalea's awesome behavior for her though! Part of the behavior, is a direct result of being frustrated with the testing, so we're excited to see how her behaviors change when she's able to understand and express herself more clearly. Kalea will get an aide in the classroom and at home for about an hour a day, which is great. We're excited to have some new friends and we're looking forward to seeing the progress that Kalea makes with their help this year. As always, we are extremely grateful for where we live in circumstances like this, knowing that we have access to funding and Kalea will be set with aides at no cost to us for at least the next year, it's a pretty huge blessing. Bonus points for Alberta Education!