Exasparating, yet funny and cute.

I was in the restroom when I heard a chair being dragged across the kitchen floor. I called to Jay to stop and put it back. I didn't hear him put it back, but it wasn't being dragged anymore. While I was washing my hands, I heard a crash, and "Oh, crap!" and little feet pitter-pattering around. I ran downstairs to find this: Jay already in "Time-out", and Karah licking the sugar Jayden had climbed up to get and dropped off the floor. The fact that he'd put himself in time out before I'd even left the bathroom subdued my anger from the fact that he'd climbed up onto the counter, gotten into the cabinet, and tried to sneak pure sugar while I was unable to stop him from the bathroom. He didn't even try to come out early, either, and then offered to help me clean up after the timer I'd set when I came downstairs went off. I am constantly shocked by what this child comes up with, and also with his sporratic "self-discipline".

Merry Christmas, Mommy and Daddy!

They watched an entire movie like this, without screaming once. Who says Santa and his magic aren't real??

Santa Came!!

About a week before Christmas, we decided to take the kids to the store and kind of investigate what they wanted in order to help them with their list for Santa. We went through every toy isle at Wal-Mart, and Jay wasn't impressed with ANYTHING! Well, he did like the $150 bike on display, but he wasn't interested in anything affordable. We'd gotten some ideas from Karah, and were wondering what to do for Jay's list when we walked passed the kid's bedding isle and a "Car's" character pillow caught his eye. He was adament that it was HIS pillow, he "needed" it, it was his "favorite". While we were trying to coax it away from him, he saw the Wall-E bedspread and went nuts. "OH WOW!! A Wall-E bed! Oh, this is awesome! Look, its Wall-E! This is MY bed..." and he kept going on and on and on! I asked him if he wanted to put that on his list for Santa, and he said "YES!" Unfortunately, he thought that meant we were buying that and the Car's pillow for him right then and there. We tried to explain that he needed to let Santa know first so that he could bring it for Christmas if he was able to, but Jay had a hard time understanding it. It took a lot to get him to calm down, and a very sweet couple were so wonderful in talking to him. The lady almost bought the pillow for him because she couldn't stand to see him so sad, but we explained politely that Santa would most likely bring it for him, if he was good. Jay eventually did calm down and we were able to see Santa a few days later. I don't know where Jay came up with it, but instead of asking for the Wall-E bed or the Cars pillow, he asked for money. Good thing I wrote Santa myself, because we had one very happy little boy on Christmas morning when he woke up to see that Santa brought him the Wall-E bedding along with a new (to him) bed from Grandma and Grandpa Richardson that fit the bedding. Dan and I ended up getting him the Cars pillow, and we have not had a Jayden want to sleep in our bed for the first time in his life! (Thank you, Santa!) Karah got a Princess chair so that she had somewhere to sit while watching shows like Jayden with his couch, and she loves that thing. She barely sits in it, but if a certain little boy gets close, her protective instincts kick in and take over. She has perfected the word "NO" and uses it quite often with anybody within earshot. She also got a baby buggy and high chair from Santa, and the Care Bears and new babies are well fed and well traveled now, all while she's trotting around in her little Princess shoes. She wasn't that great at walking in them at first, and even bit one and threw it across the room in a fit of rage because she kept falling down. She didn't want anything to do with them the rest of Christmas day, but the next morning the first thing she did was march upstairs, grab a pair of shoes, and then she stuck her feet up in the air and demanded I put them on her. She not only walked laps around the house perfectly, but she even managed to chase down Jay after he "kidnapped" her baby without falling down. Joanne was the perfect middle name for that child...We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and we hope everyone else did, too!

Temple Square

We decided to go to Temple Square to see the lights and Nativity scenes on Christmas Eve's eve. I took a lot more pictures, but they didn't turn out very well. Jayden LOVED to see "Baby Jesus" and made us stand there forever looking at the realistic looking one with Luke 2 playing in the background. It was awesome to see how he marveled, his big eyes barely blinking. We had to take a break and dash inside the visitor's center to use the restroom and to warm up. While we were thawing out, we walked past the paintings depicting Christ's life, and Jay was just precious with his explanations! He knew everyone in the Nativity picture by name, and when we got to the picture of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus, he was so excited to see "Nephi" and Jesus together, swimming. We explained that it was John the Baptist and not Nephi, and he started singing a song from Scripture Scouts about John. My heart melted! We went along and reached the picture that shows Christ on Palm Sunday, riding on a donkey. Jay looked puzzled for a minute, then exclaimed "Jesus is pretending to be Mary!!" I love his little mind!!

After the paintings, we went back outside to see more lights. Every corner we turned was accompanied by an "Ohhhh WOW! Ohhhhh PRETTY!!" from Karah. We walked by the Tabernacle and heard the organ playing, so we went inside to see what was going on. The organist was just practicing, and Jay loved it. I love the picture I got of him peeking over the pew to watch! We walked around the temple and saw the white Nativity family in the reflection pool. Jay loved the "Snow-Baby Jesus". It was getting late, colder, and starting so snow again, so we decided it was time to leave. Jay did NOT want to leave Baby Jesus. He cried half-way to the car about how he missed Baby Jesus, and how he needed him. We got a lot of smiles from people we passed. Dan was able to finally redirect Jay's attention and cheer him up by taking a little time to play in the snow. We went home and had a little bit of hot chocolate, read Grandpa Rick's Tom and John Christmas story he wrote for me two years ago. It was a very fun-filled, spiritual evening that I will always cherish.

Christmas Tree Fun!

Why do I hate myself? j/k

A friend of mine had the brilliant idea of "trading kids" for our anniversaries this month. I would take her 3 kids (Lily age 1, Brynn age 4, and Isaac age 6) overnight for hers, and she would take my 2 kids overnight for mine. Dan and I spent Sunday night getting the house ready, cleaning the kitchen, straightening the living room, and so on. We got things looking good, and I spiffed things up even more before they came on Monday afternoon. Being the self-loather that I apparently am, I decided that the kids would help me make dinner. Not just part of dinner, but EVERYTHING, including dessert. We started at 3:00 pm (dinner was at 5:30) by baking homemade bread. The kids did everything and I helped them count. While the bread was rising, I had the brilliant idea to bake sugar cookies. So, we did that, too, and the kids rolled out the dough and cut out the cookies. While they were cutting out the cookies, I found this recipe for homemade chicken nuggets! "Oh, that would be so much fun for the kids!!" I thought. Where was the person that was supposed to tell me "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, WOMAN?? YOU'VE ALREADY BAKED BREAD AND COOKIES!! JUST GET OUT THE MAC AND CHEESE!" So, we cleaned up the cookie mess with the promise we'd frost them later, and we set out hammering the chicken flat (in baggies, of course) with our fists, and then doing the same with the crackers. We soaked the chicken strips we'd pounded in egg and milk, then each child got to shake a few in a bag of cracker crumbs with dash of Italian seasoning. As if I hadn't done enough already, I decided that I would make up a sauce to go over noodles (it tasted great, by the way). As the kids sat down to eat their dinner that they had made, I looked at my formerly spotless kitchen and decided that I must indeed hate myself. I could have just done easy macaroni and cheese and the cleanup would be 5 minutes, but no. I had to turn my kitchen into a flippin' 5 star gourmet restaurant for kids. I'm pretty sure that when I swept up my floor, I would have been able to make another batch of cookies...

An Early Merry Christmas

I've always been a "gamer". I have 2 games that I like to play in my spare time (ha). Warcraft 3 and Halo 2. Dan and I had gotten an Xbox Live account when we got married so that we could play with some of our friends that lived across town without going out into the frigid Idaho weather. We kept it after we'd made some good friends and played with the same people for years. There were a few points where we either didn't have internet, or we were too busy to play and we'd forgotten we even had the account. After Karah was born (and she would only sleep if I was sitting up with her) I began to play again. It had been about a year since I'd last played. Online it is so easy to forget your standards because no one can see you. I decided that I wasn't going to let that affect me. I was a mother holding my child while I played, and I was going to act like it. No swearing, and only promoting niceness. I developed a close knit group of friends over the last year, even emailing and chatting with some outside of Halo. Once the economy got bad, and Dan's job became uncertain, we've been looking for areas to but back on our spending. My Xbox Live account fell into that category. I explained to my friends (not all of them were guys) that I probably wouldn't be back for a long time, if ever. My account was about to expire anyway, so we just let it. I got a few emails begging me to find someway to get back because everyone was now fighting and they all missed my "Mommy humor". I explained that until things got better for Dan's job, I wouldn't be able to. A few weeks later, I got a card in the mail, and part of it said this:

"When I heard that your account got cancelled, I rounded up some of the guys from the clan and asked them if they'd like to donate to me through Paypal to try and get you back online. Hott Karlz, Johnny2xs, and firecake were all for it! I went online and bid on a number of auctions on a year of Xbox Live for you and I ended up winning one! If you aren't on as much, we all understand, but at least you'll have it for a year and you can hop on whenever you have some spare time to relax. So Merry Christmas from all of us!" He went on to explain how to make a new account and then said this: "Merry Christmas again and I hope your whole family, Dan, you, Jayden, and Karah get to spend a lot of quality time together throughout the holidays! Thank you for always taking the time to go out of your way to care about people."

I had no idea that I meant enough to this group that they would pool in and get me back for a year! I cried when I read the letter, and it was just an all out awesome experience to realize I'd made a difference to people all over the world for sticking to my standards and reaching out to listen to people. This is a huge example to me that even though it may seem like no one is watching, someone always notices you. What they notice about you is what makes the difference.

Thank you, Johnny!! It really meant a lot!!

Fine.

Mom has said she won't listen to me until I blog, so here it is.

Jaydenisms:

"Mom! I'm so sick of Karah messin' with my movie!!"

"What does a fire dog say? OUCH OUCH I'm BURNING!!"

"What does a mad cow say? (deep voice) MOOOOO!"

"What does a happy cow say? (giggle-like) MooOOOoooOOO!!!!"

"What does a crab say? PINCH PINCH" (while he pinches you)

"Karah Jo-MANN!!!" (when he thinks she should be in trouble)

"Your feet stink, Dad."

"Superman can beat up Batman, hands down!" (made me so proud)

"There's a naked boy in the house!!" (as he's running around naked after a bath)

"Don't go, Daddy! Don't leave me here with HER!!!" (Dan was going to the store and Jay and I were butting heads that morning...)



Karah is all over the place. She is understanding so much lately, it is awesome. She is Jayden's shadow. Sometimes he likes it, sometimes he doesn't. It is because sometimes she'll do everything he tells her to, and then sometimes she gets fed up with him and wants to be the boss instead. That doesn't set well with Jayden, and he comes to me complaining how he's "so sick of Karah thinking she's all that."

We've all been sick this week, starting last Friday. Fun stuff!! Jayden has taught himself how to use the DVD player in the office and pretty much crashed in there watching Kung Fu Panda and Baby's Day Out while I tried to manage Karah. Neither kid slept a wink the first three nights of the illness, so neither did I, and I welcomed the fact that he kept himself quietly occupied. Now we're all feeling better I've locked the office door andI have been meeting resistance. We had a 30 minute melt-down today after he only got to watch one movie one time, and then he proceeded to find other things to be offended by for about an hour or so.

Both kids are excited for Christmas, and Jay's been very good about not opening the presents. He will sit there next to his presents and just rub the box and tell me how he's going to open it on Christmas morning, and he makes guesses about what it will be. ("I fink dis one will be a cow.")

The Richardson Family in a nutshell this week.