Another successful Turkey Day!

HHappy Thanksgiving to everyone! We are in Cedar City for Thanksgiving this year. So far, it has been a great one. We drove to Cedar Tuesday night and the next morning Maren woke up with what we affectionately call "Gooey Eye Disease" (GED for the rest of this blog-not to be confused with FED, or Funky Eye Disease, Jacque). Avery had it on Sunday, Maren got it Wednesday, and little Ryan now has it. It is lots of fun and if anyone would like it as a special gift for Christmas, call me and our kids will do lunch.

I was in charge of pies this year-my choice because I LOVE to make pies. So all Wednesday night was spent preparing pies for the big day. We made pumpkin, apple, pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate cream. Yummy. I read once in a how to get your kid to eat book that you should just let your kids eat their dessert first because they will still eat their other food if you do. Yeah right they'll eat the other food too. Although we've adopted the "just eat dessert all day" policy. At least I have. It's the holidays for crying out loud!

Thursday morning my dad saddled up the ol' horse Spiffy and we all took a ride. I personally am not the biggest horse fan. It could be because I got bucked off once on a date in college. Or it could be because of my dad's psychotic horse Babe who ran at high speeds as soon as you turned her toward the direction of the house. Either way, I didn't want to ride, but succombed to peer pressure and giddye'd up (or rather, Spiffy did). I acted very brave for my two daughters and took a little (very little) ride around the corral for the token picture.

The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent in preparation for the meal of the year, which was absolutely delicious of course. And it will be for the next four days, as well. Just like everyone else in the world, we all stuffed ourselves as full as we could possibly get and then had to let our food digest while we watched some old movie on tv with our top pant button unbuttoned. It was great! A few hours later we stuffed ourselves again with lots of pie.

The women in my family have a tradition to get up early and go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. So even though I didn't get to bed until 1:30 AM because of Ryan's yucky cold and GED I still got up at 4:30 AM so that we could join the rest of Iron County at our local Wal-Mart (the only store Cedar has to shop at--literally). But don't worry, our early rising wasn't in vain! I bought diapers, infant tylenol, nose saline spray and one Christmas present. So now that my immune system has been weakened by lack of sleep, I should be next in line for the GED. Lovely.

Today there is a skiff of snow, so we will probably be headed out with the kids to sled down Grandma and Grandpy's little hill in the backyard. Our kids were very excited to see the white stuff out the window and Avery was especially excited to wear her new snow hat I bought her. The hat is a size 4-6X, the biggest I could find in the kid's section and is extremely tight on her head. Yes, her 4 year old body is the size of a two year old, but her head is bigger than a 6 year old. Lots of brains, I guess. It's genetic, I'm sure.

Merry Christmas!

As some of you may know, or may have noticed by my music on this blog, I LOVE Christmas. I mean, I really love Christmas. On the day after Halloween when they start playing Christmas music on KOZY 106.5, I feel a twinge of sadness. Not because Christmas has become so commercialized that they are pushing it before Halloween even gets over, but because that means that there are less than 2 more months left before it is over! Not that I totally love the commercialization of it, although I do love to wander the aisles of trees, singing Santa's and toys. It's just that Christmas is the happiest time of the year. Everyone is happy and thinking of others. I love it so much, that I start listening to Christmas music in July or August (this is not a joke). Bless my dear husband, who puts up with a lot.

Some people may dread all those fattening, sugary treats that will pile up around their house. I say, bring on the sugar!! Others may not have time to fill out those tons of Christmas cards. Are you kidding? I am a stay at home mom. My favorite time of day is about 1 minute after the mail comes. I fill those cards out happily, with the hopes of receiving that much mail from everyone I sent one to (why yes, this is a subtle hint that I really want a Christmas card from all of you because I love getting mail almost as much as I love Christmas). I get to tell my kids to stop fighting because Santa Claus is watching, and it actually works! I love everything about it: lights, decorations, shopping, eating, giving gifts, anticipation, singing, making of Christmas chains. And believe it or not, I do know that the real purpose behind it is to celebrate the birth of our Savior, and I love that part of it too.

So roll your eyes if you will when I put my tree up before Thanksgiving. Make fun if you want when I do TWO advent calendars--one in November, one in December. But just remember, there is a naughty list, so you better watch out...

Family Night at the Wibergs

This is what I walked in to the bathroom to find tonight. When I asked her why she did it she said "I wanna play wid dis" (pointing to the empty toilet paper roll). Like "duh, Mom, why do you think I did it?" So I gave her the empty roll and she played with it for about 45 seconds and then moved on to the next toy. Then it was time for Family Home Evening. Dustin helped the girls get in a really reverent mood by playing "Raging Bull" with them (in case you are not familiar with Raging Bull, this is where Dustin lays on the floor on his back, the daughter of choice tightly wrapped in his arms and then he violently jerks and wiggles his body all over the floor-thus the raging bull). After prayer we sang "Doe a deer" (Maren's choice-we are huge Sound of Music fans), "Twinkle Twinkle" (also Maren's choice), and "I've been working on the railroad" (Avery's choice). Then I gave a 1 minute 30 second lesson on the wise and foolish men. Then we played Animal Game, where Dustin was a kangaroo three different times with each child being his joey. His shirt will never be the same. Maren by this time was quite wound up, as you can imagine, and in her excitement she hit little Ry man. Don't worry, he's fine and becoming a very tough little boy. Then I tickled him until just before he got the hiccups because I'm slightly addicted to his cute little laugh. For our treat we had Halloweeen candy and pie and then all good little girl's and boy went to bed by 8:25. They are all still on the old time. Another successful Family Night. Anyone is welcome to attend next week-same time, same place and more than likely the same activities.

Ode to my husband

I love my husband. If we were on the playground and you all were complaining about your husbands (or if you are a boy reading this, your wife)(who are we kidding, what boy will be reading this), I wouldn't even be able to say anything mean about mine and then you'd all be mad at me because I'm so lucky. This morning my husband let me sleep in until 9:41 AM. Those of you who don't have children might not think that is sleeping in, but it really is. And this is after a night where our three children alternated visiting us every half hour or so from 3 AM until 7-ish when Avery woke up for good, which, if we had remembered it was daylight savings, would have really been 6 AM. Now Dustin doesn't exactly hear our kids when they wake up, in fact, he wouldn't even hear it if a fire truck was driving through our house with sirens blaring. But don't you worry, when one of the girls comes in, I generally roll him out of bed to take them back to theirs. And so I did this last night too. And then he still let me sleep in. What a wonderful man! Sorry all you playground friends. Plus, look at what I'll get when he's 50. Hubba Hubba.