Back to Blogging

I have verbally committed to my Grandma Davis that I would get back to blogging.  And since I’m pretty sure the penalties for lying to Grandmas are pretty severe, here I am.

2012 was crazy.  That’s really all there is to it.  We bought our house in April, worked around the clock 6 days/week to get it ready to move into, which we did at the end of July.  And then morning sickness hit and I just never did get my blogging mojo going in 2012.

(PS – I’m pregnant.  27 weeks, as of now.)

But I’ve been working on the kids’ scrapbooks and am lamenting the fact that the entire year basically went unblogged.  My memory isn’t as good as I would like it to be, and I’m finding it hard to remember details of what went on all year. 

Now I’m recommitting.  Got the blog all spruced up and everything.  So I think maybe an update is in order.  A very general update.  By person, perhaps?  Okay then.

Will:  He started a new job in March.  He works at American Express and I, quite frankly, don’t really know what he does.  I know he works with foreign currency.  And I know he talks to people in England and Australia a lot.  It’s been nice for him to be so close – close enough that we can meet for lunch once in a while at least.  He is excited that we now have a third-car garage, aka Will’s Workshop.  He is anxious for the cold weather to leave so we can build a shed.  We can’t have things like lawnmowers taking up space in the workshop now, can we?  As I type, Will is installing new shelving/closet organizers in the girls’ room, which he built.  He is still teaching on-line accounting classes at night.  Still likes teaching, still hates grading.

Me:  I’m really big.  I waddle.  I still have 3 months to go.  After 3 babies though, I realize now that I just get big.  I grow big babies.  And there’s not much I can do about that, so it is what it is.  This has been a pretty fast-moving pregnancy.  Well, as fast as pregnancy can go.  My due date is April 3rd.  We found out around Thanksgiving time that we’re having a little girl.  I am wrestling with the decision of what to name her.  Will and I have a name we really love, but it is an insanely popular name right now, and I have never been crazy about using super popular names.  She is not nearly as active as Calvin was, so I’m hoping that’s indicative of a mellow baby.  Fingers crossed.  Because honestly, I’m not sure I could handle another Calvin!  We have been moving rooms around this week so that baby girl can have her own room.  I have been quilting a lot lately.  Will got me a new sewing machine for Christmas, and I am excited to break it in. 

Jacey:  Is doing great.  I was nervous about her teacher this year because she’s brand new and hasn’t taught before, but she has been great.  Jacey loves her and I think she’s doing a terrific job.  Jacey has made a lot of friends at school and although she still talks about her Lehi friends and misses them, she has adjusted well to the move and seems to be happy here.  There is a family two doors down that has a girl Jacey’s age and they’ve gotten to be good friends.  It helps also that Marie and her family just moved to South Jordan too – they’re about 2 miles south of us.  We’re all excited about that.  Jacey isn’t terribly excited about the room re-arrangements – she’s losing her room and sharing with Londyn again.  She had 6 months of loving having her own room.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to put them back together, but Londyn sleeps on Jacey’s floor 95% of the time, so it didn’t really make sense to not put them back in the same room.  The good news for Jacey is that they’re moving into the big room, so she’ll still have plenty of space to spread out.

Londyn:  is loving Kindergarten.  She has taken quickly to reading, and she’s made some good friends at school.  She and Calvin are still good buddies.  She still reminds me so much of myself, it’s a little scary sometimes.  She is strong-willed and stubborn.  She has a lively imagination.  She loves to help.  We started up a new chore system recently and I am impressed with how willing Londyn has been to do her jobs.  She is kind of obsessed with the baby in my tummy.  Any time she is near me she says things like “Mom, there’s really 3 people sitting on this couch – me, you and the baby.”  She pats my tummy a lot.  Which I hate, but I can’t bring myself to tell her to stop.  She’s just so cute and sweet when she does it, and she obviously already loves this new sister of hers.  She was such a great helper when Calvin was born, I know she’ll be a fantastic help this time around too.  She really wanted to share a room with the baby, and she almost had me convinced.  But I just prefer my babies to have their own rooms.  So back with Jacey she goes, at least for a few years.

Calvin:  is two.  And he is very, very good at it.  My mom doesn’t like the term “terrible two’s”.  She prefers to call them the “teachable two’s.”  I try to remind myself of that . . . but it’s hard.  He’s hard.  He throws fits and he doesn’t listen or obey.  But we’re working on it.  And he’s learning.  He is also adorable.  He gives the best hugs.  If I’ve been gone, he gets so excited when I come home – he runs to me with his arms stretched out and says “You back!  You miss me!” and gives me awesome hugs.  He doesn’t understand that a baby is coming.  He knows that he’s not supposed to smash my tummy (he climbs on me a lot), and every so often he pulls up his shirt and says “I sick.  I a baby in my tummy.”  We moved him into a “big boy bed”, aka the toddler bed Will built for Jacey years and years ago.  He wasn’t so sure at first, but he’s really warmed up to it.  I was worried that he wouldn’t nap as well in it, but so far he’s done fine.  The only down side is when he appears beside my bed in the middle of the night.  It kind of freaks me out to open my eyes and have his face inches away.  Luckily that’s only happened a few times.  We moved his “nuggle chair” (snuggle chair – his name for the glider) out of his room and into the baby’s room, which he got kind of mad about, for about 5 minutes.  He’s had some success on the potty lately, which makes me wonder if I should reconsider my decision to wait until summer to tackle potty training.  Our pediatrician recommended waiting until after baby comes, so that’s been my plan.  But he wants to sit on the potty all. the. time.    And he’s having more and more successes.  I’m just not sure I have the energy to go gung-ho with it.  Plus, our carpet is still new. :)

I was going to post this as-is without any pictures, but I can’t bring myself to do it.  Besides, I’m pretty sure the pictures are why Grandma wants me to blog in the first place.  So here you go – random pictures from 2012 that never got blogged.

Reading together after church one Sunday in January.

First day of nursery in February.  He hated it.  Took him a full 6 months to get comfortable enough for us to leave him.  And then we got asked to sub in nursery indefinitely.  Irony.

 

March.

Preschool graduation in May.  Jacey’s baptism in June. 

Tennis camp, August.  We had a hard time finding a good week to do tennis camp.  We were working on the house so much, and then the kids started school about a week after we moved in.  (They’re in year-round school now.)  They ended up getting up early and playing for an hour before school.  

Disneyland in October.

(The new house – yes a real house tour will be coming . . . someday.)

A trip to the zoo in October.  Playing in his “boat” while we were unpacking boxes, July.

 

Thanksgiving with the Davis clan.

  

Our elf, Bernard, getting into mischief.  Will was out of town for 3 weeks during the holidays, so I sent him pictures every day of what Bernard had been up to.  He spent the first few weeks getting into trouble, but then the girls would scold him and talk to him about making better choices (Santa sent a letter asking them to help him learn about making good choices), so by the end of the month he had repented and changed his ways.  This is how we found him on Christmas Eve, delivering their new PJs:

And yes, for the record, I love pinterest.  :)

If you’ve made it to the end of this post, I applaud you.  I really am going to try and blog more regularly this year.  I’m not going to try and get caught up with everything I’ve skipped, but I do pledge posts for (1) Jacey’s baptism, (2) the house before/afters, and (3) Christmas.  Not necessarily in that order. 

Stay tuned!