Cooking Like Crazy

Now that we have our Christmas shopping completed, for the last two days we have focused on giving to others and making goodies for them. Yesterday we made 7 mini loaves of bananna bread. Today we worked on sugar cookies. McKay has helped me both days and of course makes a mess but has a lot of fun stirring, pouring, sprinkling, and eating. It was fun but a lot of work. Next is the best part, delivering them. We were planning on going sledding tomorrow for Christmas Eve but the temperatures have risen all week and the snow where we were going to sled is gone. We will have to wait for the next storm to come. That is okay, my list of things to do tomorrow will keep us all very busy.

McKay making a mess all over the table and face while he licks the beaters (an Adams' trait).


McKay sprinkling the sugar cookies and having a lot of fun. He was very good at this, a little too good.

Helping roll out the sugar cookie dough.

More beater licking to do.

Our completed project, ready to deliver (ran out of candy canes that is why most of the bread does not have any.

More Snow

We woke up to more snow today. Not quite as much as last time but still we were able to go out and play in it. McKay got to test out his new snow wardrobe that we got over the weekend. It was a good test to see how warm and dry he would stay. The snow was too powdery to make another snowman so we decided to go sledding. Just a little ways down the street is a steep road that goes from the top of the hill where the houses are and goes down to some stores and along the freeway. It is closed off to thru traffic and I thought it might be steep enough to go down with a sled. We drove over there and slid for an hour. It was fun and the more we went down the more packed the snow got and the faster we went and as we would go down everyone from the freeway could see us. It is supposed to be snowing and raining all week so hopefully the snow will stay and lots will collect in the moutains so we can really go sledding on Saturday. Not good traveling weather. Good thing Dad and Mom are not coming up for Christmas. Too dangerous.

Sorry pictures are so dark, flash was not on. McKay is posing his new outfit for the snow.

Off we go to play in the snow.

Christmas Program Over, Time for Fun

Well the stressful Christmas Program I was directing is now over and it went really well. The Lord has been helping me with this calling I have been really struggling with as I have been able to start lining up musical numbers and choir numbers for the next two months of sacrament meeting. I am now really excited about this calling and feel that it will fit me well and make me grow. We had a great and busy weekend. We helped clean the church at 8 a.m. and had a Christmas Program practice right afterwards. We went shopping for a few Christmas presents and to search for choir music I could buy before the year was up (very little luck with that). We also went shopping for snow gear for McKay. We were able to find some great sales at Burlington Coat Factory and Shopko and got him some snow shoes, snow bib, and gloves. We are planning on going sledding in the mountains on Christmas Eve and have invited Jared and Michelle and their family to come along. Hopefully everything will work out and snow will fall and we will be able to get up their okay and have fun. We ate that night and Sizzler and went to Jared and Michelle's house afterwards. We had a fun-filled Saturday (literally).

This is McKay's new friend that we tended. His name is Shawn. His mother is in our ward and is on bedrest due to complications with her pregnancy. She still has a long ways to go (she is due in April, can you imagine how hard this would be) and has to have help with watching her son in the mornings. I think he will be over a lot more within the next four months.

McKay is really into finding little beds for him to sleep in. This is one of is new ones, the top cusions of the couch. He also likes to take a laundry basket and put a pillow and blankets in it. He never stays there long but annonces to us all through the day "tired, sleep" and then crawls under the covers and pretends to be sleeping for a minute then gets up. Very cute.

After church and the stressful Christmas Program. I am very happy. McKay has on an angel hat that was given to the primary children for a skit.

Cute daddy and McKay.

Busy Weekend

We have had another busy weekend and have not had time to update our blog. With my new calling, I am directing our choir in a Christmas program being put on next week in sacrament meeting. This has been quite a challenge as I have never done anything like this before. I have had to find 7 narrators, hold practices, make copies, work with the piano player, etc. We practiced on Sunday though and it sounded great. I am very hopeful that everything will turn out. We have a small yet very good choir members who are very willing to help me and give suggestions. I was thrust into this position as being the director kind of late in the program and they have been very understanding.

For the last two years during Christmas I have been in a group where we play this song called Pacabelle's Canon/The First Noel. There are 4 singers, 1 piano player, 1 cello player, and 2 flutes. We played on Sunday in my ward, my old ward, and at a Community Christmas Concert which involved an entire Stake. Each year we get more and more requests to play this song because it is an amazing number. Busy, busy. I was not home very much that day.

I was right in my previous blog. This last Sunday, Kory was set apart as the 2nd Counselor in the Elder's Quorum. He seems quite excited about this calling and I know he will do a great job.

We have been working on finishing our Christmas decor and we finally finished last week. The house looks great. We decided not to put up lights outside because no one can see them from the street and it has been very cold (20s in the day, teens in the night). Oh well. My Christmas Village we put over our fireplace. We have had this collection for 4-5 years and have never put it up because we have never had room in all the places we have lived. It took hours to figure out how to set it up and make room for it on the mantle (especially with McKay helping me it took especially longer).
I finally had time this morning to make a nice breakfast for us. Bisquick waffles (we usually pop the Eggos in the toaster). McKay loves to help make his own waffle. He can almost do it by himself.
McKay loves our Choo-Choo Train under the tree and always wants it on and he just sits and watches it go around, around, and around.

Emergency Room Visit

This last Saturday we had to visit the emergency room for McKay. The morning ran smoothly at first. Kory was at home taking care of McKay and relaxing while I left to go to a baby shower. While I was at the baby shower, Kory had called there wanting to talk to me. When I got on the phone with him, McKay was crying in the background and Kory yelled to me "Get home, McKay cut his eye open!!!" I freaked out and ran out of the baby shower yelling "my little boy got hurt, I've got to go." As you can imaging, the girls at the shower were very concerned. I rushed home not knowing what to expect and when I entered the house I was very grateful to see that it was not his eye that was cut but just above the eyebrown had a huge laceration. Apparently McKay was running around and went to get another bite of cereal when he tripped and fell and hit his head on the edge of our kitchen chair. It was like living the accident Chase had a year ago all over again. It was very deep and we took him to the ER to get it stiched up. The doctor and nurses were very nice and gave him lots of stickers, juice, popcicles, and shows to watch on TV. He was very hard to deal with there and the doctor had to sedate him a bit. They had to put a few stitches inside the cut and more on the outside. He is doing very well now and we are going to get his stitches out tomorrow. What a memory.

I have been very busy this week with my new calling. I am now the Ward Music Chairman and Choir Director. It is very challening and I have been stressed out with our Christmas program we are putting on in 2 weeks which we are far from ready for. I am sad to say good-bye to my old, fun, and very easy calling of Primary Secretary. It always seems that when we go to a new ward we start out with very easy callings that very soon after turn into very hard and stressful callings. It is Kory's turn next. He is the Cub Master right now (very easy, he hardly does anything). I think that will change too very soon.

McKay loves his Elmo bandaids. We have to change his bandage, clean the stitches, and put antibiotic ointment on a couple times a day. He is very good at letting us do this.



That night we babysat his friends. Fun night.

SNOW!!!!!!!

We got dumped on with snow overnight. It started out with just a small amount a couple of days ago and then when we woke up this morning we had 3-4 inches. It was great. Kory slipped a little on the road to work but is fine. I had to go to a primary meeting and drove in it and had a blast in the new SUV. McKay and I played outside in it and made a big snowman (I don't think I have ever made a snowman, it was fun). Hopefully more will come, we love it. McKay digging in the snow with the skooper you use with a broom.
Mommy's snowman
This was the first of it 2 days ago.

THANKSGIVING VACATION

I am a little late getting our recent blog up. We have had Internet problems and have finally gotten them resolved with a new modem. We went back home for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We had a wonderful time working on Mom and Dad's sprinklers (mainly Kory did this). We ate out at all our favorite restaurants that we don't have in Boise (Famous Dave's, Fazoli's, Pizza Factory, Frost Top in St. George, and Cafe Rio). We saw and visited with many family and friends. We went to more movies in a week then we had in a year. We enjoyed 2 Thanksgiving dinners. In all had a wonderful time. Below are some pictures that I took of our vacation:

More pictures:

Relaxing

Watching everyone work from above enjoying breakfast.
The trenches are ready.
This was a rare moment. McKay was tired and wanted to lay on my lap. He never does this, so I wanted a picture to remember the moment forever.

Sunday Dinner
Dad on his tractor as we picked up and hauled big, heavy rocks.
Leif, Kory, and McKay having a chat at the Sunday Dinner.
Kory got to play on a digger getting the dirt ready for the sprinklers and digging up big, heavy rocks.

Daniel, in one of his comments, asked what my profession was and what it entails, so here you go: I am a Medical Transcriptionist. I work for St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise. As you can see from the picture below, I work from home using the computer, Internet, and my dictation machine. I log onto the the website that I type my reports in and turn on my dictation machine and start typing. I work from around 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.(with breaks in between and making dinner), 8 days a week, Monday through Friday. The first thing I type is Radiology reports and when those run out, I work on Emergency Room reports, then Occupational Medicine reports, and last Discharge Summaries. It is a great job but also has its disadvantages. It is definately not for everyone. It was very hard training and getting used to all the doctors and their lingo, it takes a lot of concentration so I don't mess up on the words, and it is menotenous work, by the time Friday comes I am wiped out and sick of the computer and typing. This has been a great job for us and helps to have the extra money. I am not planning on doing this forever, just till we get settled into a house or a baby comes, but I think I will gradually quit by cutting down my hours to part-time then going from there.

McKay trying on a whole bunch of my necklaces (most of which I do not wear anymore). He really likes them and wears them all day.

McKay gets very tired of eating in the same spot. It seems things only last a week for him. First we pulled out his booster chair that he got sick of long ago and he loved that for awhile, now he is back to sitting in the regular kitchen chair. Then he started to like to eat lunch upstairs in the office on his little table. However that ended too and now he likes to have a picnic with his lunch on a blanket with his pillows. How fun. I wonder what will be next.

Today we took the new computer into my work so that they could download the hardware on it I need to work. I was a little worried about taking it because it is heavy and I would have to walk aways to get it into the office (not very close parking where the office is) plus watch McKay hoping he stays close to me and is cooperative. I thought about putting it in one of his strollers but its rectangle shape did not exactly fit to well. I was forced to carry it. Suprisingly we got a fairly close parking spot and I was able to carry it to its destination for a few days.

Mmmm, Mmmm Cereal

Heavy computer

Traveling to our old ward's playgroup at McDonalds. McKay loves the pancakes, sausage, and orange juice.


Heading out for a walk.
Kory helping McKay play some Barney games on our new computer.

We have had a really busy week last week and weekend and have not found the time to update our blog. We have been visiting teaching, playgroup, doctor's office getting blood drawn for me and McKay's flu shot, taking walks, Temple, Elder's quorum party, primary program practices, choir practice, etc.

We had a problem with the Library. We went there on Thursday and got some Barney movies and books and when we came home, and I went to get the move out of one of the Barney movies and there was no DVD inside. I immediately called the Library and they said they would take care of it and to bring the case back so they can trace it back to the previous loaner. They wrote big long notes in my account so that we hopefully would not get blamed for it. We went to take the case back on Friday but they were closed. So, we made another trip Monday and were able to finally say goodbye to that mess. Word of caution to everyone who checks out movies: Make sure it is in the case before you check it out to save you from this same headache. We have also had fun with the doctor's office. I went on Friday to get my blood drawn for the second time to see why I can't get pregnant. When I got there they said that I am too early and am supposed to come back 21 days from my first blood draw (Oct 31) but when I made the appointment the doctor told me 11 days. It was no big deal except that on the 21st, we were going to be in Southern Utah. I told them this and they were quite concerned (and these shots are expensive, I did not want to have to start all over again). Kory and I were going to try and juggle the days around for our trip so I could stay and get my last blood draw but we did not have enough days off for that. I put it in the Lord's hands at that point and waited to see what would happen. So, the doctor's office called me up Monday morning and said they made a mistake and it was really supposed to be 11 days and to come in right away. So we made ANOTHER trip downtown and got that finally taken care of. Now we can go on our trip on the days we had planned. I guess we are meant to go. I can't wait to see what this week brings as I have a list of things to do before our trip. Wish us luck.

We like to give McKay baths at night. We let him play in the bath all by himself while I am working and listen for him and check on him once in a while. Well tonight he was taking a bath and I was working in the other room down the hallway and Kory was downstairs working on his laptop when all of a sudden Kory yelled up to me saying there was water leaking from the celing in our kitchen. I ran into the bathroom and low and behold there was McKay dumping the water from the bathtub onto the floor and having a great old time. The floor was covered with water and it took 5 bath towels to sop it up. Luckily no harm was done. The water I guess leaked into the heating vent and dripped down into the lights in our kitchen. I guess we will have to switch bathtime to the morning and I will have to keep a better eye on him.

Today McKay had some friends over to play in the morning. They had a lot of fun together. We watch them once a month and they watch McKay once a month so us parents can go on dates once in a awhile without our children. Afterwards we cut Kory's and McKay's hair, which was an hour long process. We went out and braved the busy Costco and ate dinner at Chili's. It was a great Saturday!!!! Miles, Jayna, and McKay eating snacks.
Cutting hair

Since my last blog, we have had a relaxing couple of days trying to take care of some cleaning and odds and ends. Kory's foot seems all better and he is walking fine on it. We are excited for the weekend and have many plans.

McKay helping mommy with watering the plants. He is always a great help with chores and cleaning.
McKay loves Saltine Crackers and loves them as his snack.
We thought McKay was getting sick because he has been cranky and wanting to sleep more and lay down. However, today he seems fine. I am glad, I don't like it when he is sick. Here he is watching Barney (his favorite show) while Mommy is working.

Halloween is over so today we took down the Halloween decorations. McKay did not like that but did get to play on the step ladder which he loves. We put up our measly Thanksgiving decor in their place (a wreath and little scarecrow). Oh well, we are not going to be in town anyway this year for Thanksgiving.

Kory plays basketball 2 x a week with two different wards and tonight he came home early with a badly sprained ankle. After intense ice and heat, he is doing better, but the ankle still does not look so good.




Puffy ankle on the right.

Putting up the Thanksgiving Decor with McKay's help.

Another view of the puffy ankle. More pictures to come as it continues to bruise and get worse over time.