Happy New Year

Ok, so happy New Year everyone. 2010 seems to be promising for more people other than just us. Not sure what was so odd about last year, but we were ready for it to end. Now on to another quick blog. I promise I'll get a slide show soon, I just wanted to get through the holidays.

A few days after Christmas Danny and his family stopped by. We both can't believe how much Brett, Braden, and Ashley have grown. We shouldn't be surprised since it has been a long time. After all they've never met Lisette, and Franklin wasn't walking or talking last they saw him. It was a very short visit, but it was great! Franklin ran around in circles, showing off. Rizzo was social and played fetch with the kids, and Lisette was loving Uncle Danny; I think it was the goatee that did it. Now that we've had a teaser of the Danny clan, we are definitely wanting more, and hope to do something about that this year. (We also hope to do the same with Randy's family, and Christian's family. Haven't seen the Randy clan since before Franklin was born, and have only seen part of the Christian clan in the last 4 years)

Stephen was on-call this week; nothing too eventful. We did get a LOT of snow between Monday, and Wednesday. Snow is beautiful, but hard to appreciate it when people who should know how to drive in it, because we get it every year, drive like morons. Some snow drifts fill the air with glitter, and its very beautiful. Moving on.

Stephen has been on and off busy. For New Years Eve he didn't get home till after 10 at night. Franklin stayed up till 10:30. He watched 3 movies (I know, I'm horrible) while I opened up shop and made a couple of ties; ties do take some time to make. Out of the 10 I started, only 4 are actually done all the way; 3 movies worth of time (of course Lisette had something to do with taking up some of that time). After that I couldn't just stay sitting in front of my machine anymore, so I set up the Wii to play tennis with Franklin. He's funny to watch. I'll have to video tape it.

He's been calling me mom for a week now, so I believe it has stuck with him what my "name" is. He's gone to bed twice in the past week without dinner, but that's just part of the struggle to get him to eat what we give him. After all, we are the parents. And Lisette is huge. I say it all the time, but she is. She's 7 months old, and just at 21 lbs. She laughs at the cats and Franklin all the time. We're incredibly blessing wish such easy kids, and extremely lovable. As we've been out and about strangers have been complimenting Franklin, and "ooh" and "aah"-ing over Lisette and her many rolls. We all know chubby babies are hard to resist.

In response to my last blog about what new tradition we'll start, here it is:
As a family we will give to someone in need. On Christmas morning as a family we will "open" that gift, and take it to the recipient. Not a huge change but we hope to teach the kids, and remind ourselves what Christmas really comes down to, and not get caught up in the commercialism of it. (Utahan's are kind of crazy during Christmas, and we don't like it)

Christmas

To save my sanity, and get dinner out of the oven on time I'm going to do highlights, and not get into detail. Thanks!

So Inga and her family came our way on the 14th and stayed till the 21st. So much fun to see them!! Shemp is a little stud!! Annie of course is a knock out. It was so fun to see the whole family, we've missed them so much! Christmas was fun! I made dinner for just us on Christmas Eve, nothing too extravagant, and then Christmas dinner was at Greta's. She made fabulous ribs! I'm so getting that recipe.

Stephen did take a call that night, after dinner, but only because they said they'd pay him a big gratuity, so I agreed to let him go. Franklin has had so much fun with his cousins, and with the White's cousins too! Lisette has been great with all these visitors, as long as she's fed, rested, and gas free. She's way more picky about that than Franklin was. She's better at eating though. She at least doesn't spread food all over her face.

We had a great Christmas, went to see Astro Boy the day after. Stephen and I have agreed to a new, well, agreement. The past 2 Christmas' have been tight for us, and we're good with that. The kids have had a great time, and that's all that matters to us. So we don't really want Franklin to learn to talk about his presents, and what we got. Afterall, Christmas is truly about giving! We're going to do a new tradition starting this next year since things will be better for us, and those will be the things we will want to share. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a wonderful New Years, ringing in 2010!!

Just a few little things while I'm thinking about them. Sheesh, I never thought I'd struggle to have to remember, and make the time (not like I'm busy all the time anyway) to do blogging.

Lisette is a sleep talker. It was cute at first, and maybe even a little endearing, but now its not so. She'll have her outburst, wake us up, and then after she gets one of us out of bed she's quiet again. I have to confess, its usually Stephen who gets up. Most of the time she doesn't bring me out of consciousness enough to get me up before he's on the move. Poor Stephen!

Franklin doesn't like Wal-mart. Once he sees where the car is pulling up to he begins to get mad, and sometimes throws a fit. What can I say, he's such a drama king! Its odd though because he's happy to be there when we're inside. I guess he just hates how it looks from the outside. Maybe I should tell Wal-mart so in the future they can make them more appealing and inviting for when you arrive. But if its only Franklin who cares, then I suppose there's no rush.

He loves to sing and does it more often everyday. Whether its the TV, the radio, or one of us, he just might randomly sing along. After he sings he always wants a high five. Usually its not just one; so its more like a high 50. He also plays it up when there are others around. He gets really silly, and constantly laughing at himself. What a funny kid!

Of course the sillier (is that a word) he gets the more memorized Lisette is. She wants to do more with him. She's finally got the rolling over thing down, not perfectly, but she does it more often. Now that she's accomplished that she wants to get moving. Having an older sibling sure rushes things along, sometimes. No, she's not crawling but last night, after rolling over, she kept pushing her self up, and wiggling her head as if she was trying to figure it out. She determined to play with Franklin. At least that seems to be her goal; to get to play more with Franklin.

She does love to be thrown around. We're not overly doing it, or anywhere like we do with Franklin; she's only 6 1/2 months old for crying out loud! When she's laid on a bed, or the couch she wants to be bounced, and tossed (lightly) onto pillows. She seems to have developed that fearless trait that must have skipped over Franklin. Don't worry, he's getting more brave, and I'm sure when Lisette starts showing him up, he'll do more.

Oh, and another thing about Franklin. So I believe I already shared, and if not here it is, that he says "Wha deer dur?" which stands for "What are you doing?". Now he calls the cats "cow" or "kitty cow" sometimes. He still calls them kitties, or says kitty kitty, but sometimes he throws in cow. I think its because of Fatty. Just kidding. He still recognizes a cow, but somehow he says it to the cats. Oh, and "Bobby" is cake. How weird is that? I guess he's making it easier for me to learn Franklinese, but won't give in to learning english 100% just yet. You should hear us sometimes.
F(ranklin): Bobby!
M(ommy): cake
F: yeah! bobby
M: no, cake
F: yeah, yeah, bobby
M: C-a-ke
F: Bobby!!!
M: Ugh! CAKE
F: yeah, yeah!!
...and so on.

Yep, that's how it is with the Cat/Cow thing too. All birds are "guck" (ducks) except for the seagulls, they are "burr". I'm wondering if I can get him to do the whole "Look, pájaro", "no, da bird" with me, just for a laugh. I know most of you are wondering the significance of that. Well, I grew up in Panama from 9 months to 4 years old. We had a maid, who was also like a nanny to me, and she tried to get me to learn spanish. So now you should see how the conversation fell into place and why I still don't know Spanish. Of course I just had an epiphany as to why Franklin won't speak more english.

So now I wrote an entry far longer than I anticipated, but that's ok. This was fast and easy to do. Lisette is still asleep and I have to try for a second time to get Franklin in bed. Have a great one everybody!!

A little for now

Franklin is currently entertaining himself with Sesame Street, and Lisette is asleep, so this is my chance to write something. Not that they keep from it, but somehow I forget, and have been forgetting for a few weeks. We are doing well, just sad that its now December and no snow. Stephen has been kind of busy, but not the way we'd like. Franklin has been duking it out with his natural self, and his inner 2-year old thats been trying to take over. In short, a lot of unnecessary drama. Lisette adds a little to that too.

Franklin sings along with Elmo, and some of his other favorite shows. Sometimes he sings with me, or tells me not to. He tries to play with Lisette, so I'll be glad when the two of them can. Lisette is mad more often about not sitting up on her own. She has a problem though. She's fat, she's chunky, she's got multiple rolls on her legs, and though its really cute, and makes people smile, I think it hinders her being able to sit up on her own. She'll do it for a few seconds, but she's only 6 months so we're not worried. I'll have to post a picture of her chub, she's too cute for words.

We've been trying to get her to eat baby food, but that tongue of hers sure can launch things. I usually give up, after she and I both have cereal, peas, or sweet potatoes all over us. I'm trying to conquer with the spoon before I add in the sweet stuff that all babies love, however, I'm starting to rethink my strategy. She shows a lot of enthusiasm but its not fast enough for her. Franklin has been on an all grains diet. We've been tired of the fits and drama that we've decided to let him have cereal, breads and crackers for all of his meals. I try to add other things to it, or changing the flavors. But I decided when it 9 at night, and he's not falling asleep because he's still hungry, I no longer care how his stomach gets full as long as its full. I gave up about a week ago, and he's been sleeping better, and happier much more often, and less drama.

Ok, the past few weeks over view. My birthday was calm, and relaxing; what all moms need/want. Stephen met the kids demands, and let me relax a little at home. That evening we went to Greta's for dinner, games, and cake. It was so much fun! I really enjoyed it. On Tuesday night we dropped off the kids at Gretas, and we went on a date. Dinner ended up being very short, even though we had originally given ourselves 2 hours before the movie began.

Less than a mile from our place in Thanksgiving Point, and there is a MegaPlex movie theater. No lines, ever! You purchase your tickets in advance, and reserve your seats, so there's no need to wait in line forever to get tickets to something that could sell out, nor fighting to find good seats. Stephen bought our tickets to New Moon nearly a week in advance. New Moon was done so much better than Twilight. Apparently not all agree, so that's all I'm going to say. The audience was 85% girls, and 15% guys. There was one point where the guys (along with me) laughed first, then the girls. It was funny.

Well, there's all of a sudden a lot of drama, so I better end there. I'll do a review of Thanksgiving later.