Little Charlie's Growing Up!

 Whew, what a relief! Our last ultrasound shows that Charlie has 2 legs and 2 arms. Perfect. He also has a head, although it is not shown in this picture. Oh, and they also think it might be a "he." We won't have confirmation of that for another month or so when we have the next ultrasound. It is a little weird though. I guess someone didn't get the message about how I am only having girls. Hmmm. Oh well, I've boxed up all the cute girl fabric I bought for quilts and last week even managed to find a couple yards of boy fabric.

The pregnancy is getting better. I'm not sick too often (although I can't brush my teeth in the morning without vomiting and that is a bit annoying. Then you have to rebrush of course and then the cycle starts all over again). I am only sleeping 9-10 hours a night now instead of 12, so that's another improvement. The best improvement is that I'm finally starting to look a little pregnant. I was getting tired of just looking fat. Of course this, too, has its downside. For example, people say things like "Wow! You're getting so BIG!" and I am just not accustomed to taking that as a compliment. What am I supposed to say? "Yes! I am really starting to look like an elephant, isn't it great?!" or maybe "I know! It's always been my dream to be a little more enormous and it's finally coming true!"

Here's the other thing I don't get. Why does being pregnant turn your stomach into public property? In our culture you just don't go around touching other people's stomachs. A shoulder, an elbow, sure. But not the stomach. Yet now that I'm pregnant all of the sudden it is okay for strangers to come up and rub my tummy. Any ideas on how to put an end to this?

In other news, tax season is upon us. Or at least upon me. It is fun to see all the "friends" who come out of nowhere this time of year. I spent about an hour on the phone with the IRS the other day to apply for an EFIN. That's a secret code they give me so that I can file other people's returns electronically. All went smoothly and now all I have to do is wait a short amount of time for the secret code to come in the mail. Oh wait, did I say short amount of time? By that I meant FOREVER! It takes them 30-45 business days....which puts me at the end of March before I can do any efiling. That will make for some super happy clients....I guess I should've planned ahead on that one.

Last weekend I finally got the nursery cleaned out so the painting should start any day now, I'll keep you posted.

Licky World

Licky World is short for Liquidation World, so I'm guessing it's actually spelled Liqui World or something like that. But since I didn't know it was short for anything, I always thought it was Licky World. Which sounded really gross to me. It's a closeout store that operates mainly in Canada, but luckily for Aunt Kay their Spokane WA store remains open.

I'm not sure of the history, but every year Jerel's family gets together for a Licky World gift exchange. The idea is to find something inexpensive, oddly useful, and although it's not stated in the official rules I think it is also supposed to be tacky. Then there is a random gift exchange and whoever brought the gift that is the most Licky World-ish has to take home this horrible trophy. It seemed like people wanted to get something cool, but not so cool that they'd be stuck with the trophy. This year some of the final contestants were a pen that has a Connect Four game in it, a singing/talking/moving mini Christmas tree, a Santa apron that someone mistook for lingerie, and a few other gems. The ultimate winner was a fly swatter that had a lighter built in to the handle.

We won't be there for next year's Licky World party since we rotate holidays with my family, but I want everyone to be warned that I have already selected my gift for 2010 and it's a great one!

Homemade Christmas

This year all the Atkinson Christmas presents were homemade. Karee learned some new sewing skills to make Jerel these new slippers. I'm so glad because his old ones are getting kind of crusty. Plus these are really roomy in the toes which will be good once our webbed feet grow back with all this rain we're having. I've never attempted a project like this so I was quite impressed. She also made me a scarf from the same soft material and it's great! Ryan & Karee also got us started on our Year's Supply of food. We haven't been good about getting that going, but Karee told us not to worry, we only need something like 420 more pounds of grain...

The best part was that I got pictures of ME for Christmas! Yipee! Seriously. I had this great idea once that Jerel and I would have a framed 4x6 or 5x7 snapshot from each year of our marriage and keep them on our dresser. It's like a walk down memory lane. Okay, it's still a really short lane since it hasn't even been three years, but I think it's a cool idea. So we have one from our honeymoon but then I got stuck. I knew Karee was super creative and talented and scrapbooky so this seemed like a perfect project, and she did a beautiful job! One is a picture of us at the French Open in 2007 (the only picture taken of us that whole year!) and she put cute little France button-ey things on it. The other is us at the Dome of the Rock earlier this year and she put darling sparkly flowers and also put the year on the frame, which I thought was great idea! I think I may have to number the backs of all the frames because I'm sure when I get old (in like 2 more years) I'll forget which picture is from which year. Anyway, I was absolutely delighted with what she did! I've already warned her that in 5 years when the gift rotation lines up with her shopping for us we'll have 5 more pictures for her to frame!

Let's see, what else. We got a cute winter outfit & a rattle for Paisley from Jeff & Nicole, lots of books for Paisley from Jerel's mom, darling Christmas decorations from Aunt Kay, a calendar from Jerel's mom, and a beatiful framed picture from Jerel's dad. I don't know how to describe it, it's not a picture. It has a drawing of each of the Prophets of our church from Joseph Smith all the way to Thomas S. Monson. I don't know how he got them so quickly since all you can currently get is through Pres. Hinckley, but it's beautiful.

Anyway, we had a great time visiting with everyone and are excited to come again next year and introduce Paisley to her 12 Atkinson cousins!

More of the Cutest Kids in the Whole Wide World

Here you have it, the final installment of the 2008 Christmas Pajamas Series. Here's a brief run-down of the results: Sadie (8) has horse pajamas, which she loves. After I took in the elastic on the waist they fit perfectly. Brigham (6) has amazon explorer pjs with geckos on them. No alterations required! Bonnie Ann (4) has a princess nightgown. Aunt Amanda loves nightgowns because they always fit! Isaac (4) has rocket pjs. He LOVES rockets. But the poor kid pulled up his pj pants and they fell right back down. I took out about 6 inches of elastic from the waist so now they don't fall down, but they're so big they sort of look like Hammer Pants. Oh well, 3 more years and he'll grow right into them! Taylyn (3) has cars on his jammies and in his nonchalant sort of way seems to like them. Zachary (2.5) has football pjs which he insists on wearing 24/7. He even already ripped out a seam! Luckily Aunt Amanda the tailor was there for repair work. Lincoln (2.5) has animal pjs and he loves them because he loves dinosaurs. True there are no dinosaurs on the pjs but he apparently thinks giraffes, elephants, etc. are dinosaurs so he is quite happy with them even though they are way too long. Sweet Ellie (almost 2) has strawberry jammies and looks just adorable in them. Rexton (1) has elephant pjs which he absolutely hates. He screamed and screamed when they put them on him. Can't win 'em all I guess. Kayla (7 mo.) has flower pjs because that was the only knit fabric they had at JoAnns. Luckily she is too young to care! The hat is my favorite. Well, that and the fact that hers have ruffles on the bum.

So there you have it, 16 pairs of pajamas. I will use this posting as official notification that this will never happen again. While Jerel and I have enjoyed our run as favorite Aunt & Uncle next year we plan to have Paisley in the shopping drawing with the other cousins and call it good. We are getting too old to be the spoilers and I'm guessing once I'm chasing around a little one I won't have time for so many pajamas. It doesn't help that everyone keeps procreating! By next Christmas there will be at least 19 nieces/nephews and I just can't keep up! Let me know if any of you are interested in the favorite Aunt/Uncle title and we'll pass the royal crowns along!

Why Jerel Loves Snow

 After a couple days stuck at home there was one day when I had to get to work. It was payroll day and if I didn't go in none of our employees would get their paychecks. For some reason that tends to upset people. We had chains for my car so all that needed to be done was shovel out the driveway. (Surprisingly my car just doesn't have the clearance to make it over a foot of snow). The really fun part is that we don't own a snow shovel. This is Oregon! We have a rain shovel of course, but who needs a snow shovel? Anyway, it took Jerel three hours to get my half of the driveway dug out. You can tell from the picture that not only was he having tons of fun, but he also LOVES it when I take his picture.

You will have to check with him to find out if it was more fun shoveling the driveway or installing the tire chains. He got the chains on just like the instructions said and off we went. About 15 feet before the awful ch-chunk, ch-chunk started. He says "grremppff" and I say cheerfully "I think it's normal to have to retighten them after a little ways." So he got out and tightened them and we were all set. For another 15 feet until it started again. WARNING: this is going to be a long posting.

So I say "Let's stop at Les Schwab and have them check to see if they're on right." NOTE: never accuse a man who just spent 4 hours getting things ready to take you to work of doing something wrong. So we (along with half of Hillsboro) show up at Les Schwab and we get in a really long line. The old lady in front of me in line said "The snow sure does bring people together doesn't it?" And I said "grremppff." Finally they get our car up on a lift and tighten up the chains. That's great and all except that we don't happen to have a lift in our garage, so how are WE supposed to do it next time?

Anyway, off to work we go. This time it was at least 50 feet before the ch-chunking started again. I called my boss and he said he'd take care of payroll since he has the ability to work from home. So that was off my plate, but we still have this chains problem and we are supposed to leave for Utah that afternoon and chains are required on many of the roads along the way.

Back to Les Schwab. I find the same guy who helped us earlier and he says he'll swap us out for a smaller set. So Jerel gets to go out in the snow and take off the old ones. I bring them in and ask the guy "Is there any way someone can put these on for us? We're heading out of town and we want to be sure they're on correctly." He says, surveying the line of the other half of Hillsboro that showed up, "Not really." He heads outside to give Jerel the new chains and discovers that we're heading to Utah and are LDS. So is he! Suddenly we're at the front of the line and someone is installing our chains and he's telling us how to get reimbursed for a new set of hubcaps since the first set of chains ruined mine. I guess it pays to be a peculiar people sometimes.

In the end I made it into work for a few hours and then we headed off to Utah for the holiday festivities.

Where's My Handcart when I Need It?

  We'd been stuck in the house for several days and Jerel ran out of milk. It was my fault because I'd skipped out on the weekly grocery shopping. I offered him the use of my soy milk but he declined. Understandable. For those of you who aren't aware, Jerel has a rare medical condition which requires him to consume at least two bowls of cereal per day, along with a bowl of Nilla wafers in milk just before bed. I can't remember the name of the condition, but it's something like stuckinthecollegeyearsitis or maybe it's cerealholicism. One of those. I offered to walk to the store to get some, as there is a mini-mart just a few blocks away, but Jerel didn't want me to. So of course as soon as he jumped in the shower I snuck out to go get his milk. I made it to the mini-mart only to find that several other people had the same idea as me and the mini-mart's entire selection of milk had dwindled down to single-serving bottles of strawberry milk.

Off to Albertson's. Only 1.51 miles away. But the fact that the only other person I saw walking was the yellow man in the picture above should have been a clue that I wasn't really in ideal walking conditions. Anyway, I made it there and got Jerel's milk, some soft taco shells for dinner, and a loaf of that gross 88 cents a loaf bread that Jerel loves. Fortunately the Albertson's has a Starbucks inside so I stopped and got an egg nog creamer with white chocolate. Yummy. It is idea for those of us who love egg nog but find ourselves saying "If only this was a bit richer and sweeter."

Did you know a gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds? If I'd known that Jerel would've only gotten a pint. It didn't seem that heavy at the store, but after walking more than 2 miles home I was seriously tempted to just pour some of it out to lighten the load. This is when the handcart would've come in handy. For those of you who pay attention to detail you might be wondering why I walked more than 2 miles home when it's only 1.51 miles each way. That is because I get lost everywhere I go and ended up talking a "shortcut" which was actually called a "dead end." Anyway, in the end there was cereal to be had and tacos for dinner and we gathered around the fire to sing Come, Come, Ye Saints and Atkinson Children Sang as they Walked and Walked and Walked and Walked aaaaand Walked. Well, not that last part, but everything else is true.

Home is Where the Snow Is

  Did you wake up in the middle of the night wondering "what would Jerel & Mandy's house look like with 14 inches of snow?" Well, I am here to answer that question. It looks like this. Actually it doesn't look like that anymore, now it is just wet and rainy, but it was beatiful while it lasted. I took this picture after I left the house with my really good idea to walk (walk?!) to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk for Jerel...more on that later.