Demolition

For Thanksgiving we went to Denver. The whole family was there. Every cousin, aunt, uncle, grandma and grandpa. That equals 16 people. Out of those 16 people 3 of those are girls.

What happens when you have that much testosterone under one roof? A lot of competition. Turkey bowl football games, card games, nerf wars, and the crowning competition, a pinewood demolition derby.

My brother Doug built a track:

All the crazy boys (and Grandma and Aunt Natalie) built cars.

And they raced them. And let them crash into each other until they broke. Once your car broke, you were out of  the race. Unfortunately, the cars were quite strong this year and a few of them never did break completely:

Here's Dallen about to race his car:

Here's my mom's Pretty Hippo car:

Nathan about to race:

The full lineup of crazy cars:

And a closeup of our family's cars (Nathan's on the left and Dallen's on the right):

 Jack's car:

My boys were a little disappointed that their cars broke pretty early on, but they still had a great time. My brothers are crazy.

Half a Year

Adam reached 1/2 a year old last week. He's so tiny though you wouldn't know it. He had his 6 month Dr. appointment last week and he's so little that he's not even on the growth chart for weight and just the 4th percentile for height. He's teeny!(13 pounds, 1 oz and 24 3/4 inches long)

He started eating all kinds of foods-rice cereal, bananas, apples, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes and squash so far and he has loved all of them. We notice that when we are all eating, he gets mad if he doesn't get to eat too.

He has started to be a little bit of a mama's boy, and I have to admit it, I sort of like it. Not that I am going to play into it really. I am still going to hand him off to other people and let him learn to like it, but it does make me feel good that he really likes me.

My favorite thing is that he has started to be very affectionate. He loves to put his hands on faces of people he loves. I will pick him up and he reaches out and puts his hands on my face and nuzzles in to me. I love it!

He still really wants to blow raspberries and still can't do it. He'll keep trying though.

His hair is getting a little bit longer and still just stands on end. I LOVE it!!!

And really, can you beat this kind of cuteness?

Here you can kind of see his fuzzy head:

 And here's our 6 month laundry basket shot:

Christmas Card

Our Christmas card and poem for anyone who hasn't already seen it:

Paradise Lost (and Found)

Hello from the Prices! As we finish up a year
We wish you Merry Christmas, with lots of holiday cheer.

We started out the year in San Diego, warm and sunny.
We’re ending it in Utah where the cold makes noses runny.

Why did we leave paradise?  You’d think that we were nuts,
‘Cause once we left, it all broke loose, no ifs or ands or buts.

We got to Utah, bought a house and moved in right away,
Dug sprinkler trenches, baptized Nate, and partied for Jack’s birthday

Within two weeks Josh started his new job at BYU,
Teaching O-Chem to the Cougs, who wear the white and blue.

Before we’d had a chance to catch our breath from all this change,
Life changed some more, and looking back, it all seems kind of strange.

Amber was expecting then, her due date in July
Another son!  “Woo hoo!” we thought, our fourth cute little guy!

We thought we still had many weeks to go before he came
But we were wrong.  Her labor started at a baseball game!

Five weeks early, and with pre-eclampsia to boot,
Emergency c-section, but our little guy was cute!

Amber soon recovered, though, and quickly Adam grew
(He spent his first two weeks in a small bed in the NICU).

It seemed much longer, but before the fireworks were done
We finally were able to bring home our little son.

Things began to settle and become much more routine
We quickly saw that life in UT could be quite a dream.

With friends, a job, and family, and temples all around,
It seems the paradise we lost can’t beat the one we found.


Merry Christmas!
Love,
Josh, Amber,
Nathan, Jack, Dallen and Adam

Merry Christmas to Josh

I'm nuts. Just ask anyone. Nuts for sure, but a happy, productive nut. So when Josh left town this week, leaving me alone with the 4 kiddos from Sunday afternoon until Thursday afternoon, I saw my big opportunity.

A few years back we bought a piano off of craigslist. It was old and beat up, but you couldn't beat the deal we got on it. It's a baby grand and though it was out of tune, it played well and had character.

When we prepared to move to Utah we decided to sell it. We listed it on craigslist for the same price we paid for it and not a nibble. After a week or two of this, some serious thinking started rolling around in our brains and we realized we would never find a piano like this for the price we paid again. We decided to keep it and pay the extra cash to have it moved to Utah. Someday, we told ourselves, we will refinish it, get it all fixed up, make it nice. Let's keep it.

Well, someday came this week. While Josh was gone, I refinished it. I have refinished exactly 1 thing prior to this in my life. Dal's dresser-I did that about 2 months ago. That went so well that I figured, hey, how hard could a piano be?

Thanks to pinterest and some nice tutorials on how to refinish furniture, I felt vaguely confident. At least confident enough to try it, though I admit I was VERY nervous and dreamed about it and worried about it a lot the week before I did it.

First thing Monday morning (Josh having left on Sunday) I got to work. I decided not to sand (after trying and feeling like it wasn't going to be worth it), so I got some primer that is intended to be used without having to sand. All day Monday I primed. Primed the whole thing that day. That was a lot of work. I also got help from my brother to move the big top piece to the basement to the work on it down there.

Tuesday I got paint and started painting. That was a little trickier because it was oil based paint and took forever to dry and I was on a time limit! And I was scared to death that I was going to spill it on our carpet or something.

After having my other brother help me lift the big lid part back on to the piano while it was still sort of wet, I had some touching up to do, but in the end, it got finished. (All except the bench. I didn't start that until today.)

Josh was scheduled to come home Thursday afternoon. His flight got in at 1:30 and he was supposed to go straight to work for a meeting at 4. I suspected he might stop by home to surprise us and say hi on his way to work. He did. Darn him. The piano tuner was coming at 3:00 that day and Josh was there when he showed up, so the surprise didn't go off quite as well as I would have liked. Also, the very first thing Dallen said to Josh when he saw him was "Dad, you gotta see what mom did to the piano" to which Jack responded "shhh Dallen! Dad, ignore him. Don't even look in the piano room." So much for the element of surprise that I was going for.

Anyway, that was a long story about this process. Let's just see the pictures now.

Here are a couple of before pictures:

 And here's the finished product:

It's not perfect. But it looks pretty neat. And, it's tuned and repaired and sounds beautiful. I love it when Josh plays it! And I may have found a great new hobby...

Little Adam

It's about a week and a half ok, now it's two weeks past Adam turning 5 months, but we were on our way to Denver for Thanksgiving, so I took the 5 month picture at the right time, but didn't post it yet.

We sure love our little guy. And he is really learning to love his brothers. I find him looking with complete adoration at them all the time. And they dote on him like crazy, so who can blame him? Today Dallen got in the car after Joy School and walked straight to Adam's car seat and got down in his face to say hi and play with him for a minute. Adam couldn't control his joy and I just sat and smiled and watched. So sweet.

As for being a little guy, I think his 4 month check up was after I posted about him turning 4 months, so I probably didn't post his stats. He was only in the 3rd percentile for weight! If you adjust for age (since he should be a month younger) he is 15%, but either way, this guy's little. I am curious to see what his 6 month checkup shows.

He started rolling just days after turning 4 months. Three times in a row I found him on his tummy in his bed one night. At first I thought it was a fluke, but after 3 times I realized that we had a roller. That was rolling back to tummy and he also does tummy to back too but less often.

He seems to want to be part of things but doesn't have the muscles yet to sit up so he gets mad that he gets left laying on the floor.I notice him trying to sit up in his bouncer chair. Good luck buddy!

I started him on solid food. And since he is my 4th kid and I am sick of fighting the rice cereal battle, I went straight for apples. Much better. He has only had them a handful of time so far and was frankly appalled at what I was putting in his mouth at first, but now he likes them better. That's good because this kid seems hungry a lot lately. I think we will try a veggie this week and then add another fruit.

He wants SO badly to learn to blow raspberries. As I mentioned in previous posts, he has his tongue out all the time, so I guess it's natural to want to make sounds with it, but he can't figure out how. He stares at us so intently when we do it. I hope he learns soon. That will be cute.

He has maybe 1/2 inch of hair on the top of his head and it sticks straight up, especially after he has a bath, so he looks fuzzy. I love it. Speaking of baths, he finally likes them! So I am making an effort to make sure he gets to have one more often:

Here's our 5 month laundry basket shot. Filling this basket up now!

 Oh, AND, at Thanksgiving he got to hang out with his cousin Billy who is the same age. Not the best picture what with barf on the shirt and things but I thought it was cute how Billy's hand is on Adam's head. They're pals.

He is happy most of the time, sleep pretty well and is just a dream to have around. I am so glad he is mine. Adam, mommy loves you!!

First Snow

Josh and I woke abruptly to the noisy squeals and shrieks of three little boys at 7:15 Satruday morning. This was strange because they are usually pretty good about just playing quietly on weekend mornings. Then they burst into our room and the reason became clear. "It snowed!!!"

After three years in San Diego, these boys missed snow. And remember, Dallen is only 3. He's never done snow. They immediately bundled up and headed outside for several hours of snow playing in the 1 inch of snow on the ground. My favorite part was when I looked outside and Dal was sitting there eating snow...in a pile of bark and dirt. Yum.

Sleep

This is how we typically find Dallen when we go in to check on him before we go to bed each night:

 Weirdo.

Friendship

For this week's "I'm Grateful for" post, the thing that comes to mind is friendship. Old, new, rekindled, all types.

Since moving to Utah I have spent some time with an old friend and roommate (Colleen) from college after not seeing too much of each other for about 10 years. It has been so much fun to reconnect and I am reminded what a good friend she is and it is fun to let our families get to know each other. (Well, she knows Josh. She can at least partly take the credit for helping hook us up.)

Today I had lunch with a friend from San Diego (Bronwyn) and it was so much fun to reconnect with her even though it has only been 5 months since I last saw her. Again I was reminded what a good friend she is and how much I miss her. But friends are friends, not matter how far away or how often you see them.

And I really am grateful for the friendships I am forming here in Utah. New friends who I hope to form deep relationships with and spend a lifetime developing I hope. I had a friend who was going to come over and play today (well, the kids were going to play, she and I probably would have just talked) :) and she was flexible and willing to reschedule to accommodate my surprise visit from Bronwyn which was very sweet.

I am a people person through and through. I love people and I love friends. I am so grateful to have so many good friends in my life. Friends, family, cousins, brothers, my mama, Josh's family, everyone.

What if...?

There's a quote floating around the internet these days that says something along the lines of "What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you thanked the Lord for today?"

That thought hit me profoundly and has played around in my mind repeatedly over the last few weeks. It's made me more aware of what I say in my prayers and the "amens" I add to others' prayers since those thank yous count for me too.

And since it is November, I decided to record some of the things I am grateful for. But I am not going to post it daily. I will write them down throughout the week and maybe post them weekly or something.

So here goes for this week.

The first thing that came to mind this week was the temple, and specifically the Mt. Timpanogas temple. I had the chance to go there twice within a week. It was the first time I went since moving away from here 8 years ago and that temple is such a special place to me. It feels like that's where it all began. Outside that temple is where Josh held my hand for the first time, where he proposed and where I was endowed.  Until San Diego it was my favorite temple, but now I have a very soft spot for San Diego too.

Now, I have a view of the Mt. Timpanogas temple from my home. When I rock Adam in his room I can see it there, off in the distance. From our bedroom I can see it and it makes me feel like life has come full circle. When Josh held my hand there what, like 12 or 13 years ago I never dreamed that someday I would look out my window while rocking his baby and see that very place. Very special to me.

Other things I felt grateful for this week:

Three year olds who wear Dash masks all day long even though they can barely see out.

Warm soup at the dinner table with my favorite boys in the whole world

Good books-oh how I love to read. Happiness is a nightstand piled with books to read and mine is VERY full right now.

Bacon Blue Burgers. Oh yum.

Teaching a gang of cute 3-5 year olds in my house and having a blast with things like an impromptu dance party with glow sticks in my closet.

This wonderful, wonderful ward here in Utah that has made me feel so welcome and where I already feel like I have so many friends.

Sewing. I love to sew. I love to create and this week I spent a little bit of time sewing some very fun Christmas projects.

My house. And not just because I like how it looks or anything like that. It just feels so good to have a house that is ours. And this one just feels so right for our family with it's location, with it open layout that allows me to be in the kitchen while the kids sit at the bar doing homework or are nearby in the living room playing wii. I just love it.

More to come in the next week...

Halloween at our House

Happy Halloween...a week ago. It's been a busy week. OK, every week is a busy week, but anyway, getting my Halloween pictures up now. 

After we bought our pumpkins and brought them home, Adam happened to be wearing cute overalls and an orange shirt and I thought it would be a great idea to try snapping some pictures of him with pumpkins. He was less enthusiastic. 

First of all, it was so bright outside for his little eyes, he could hardly keep them open:

 Doing a little better:

Still trying for a smile without success:

 

Now we are falling:

Maybe from the back would be better? I don't think so mom:

OK, enough is enough!!!

Now, on to the big events. For Halloween this year we had a Ninja (from the newest obsession in our house, Lego Ninjago):

A Cougar football player-JJ Di Luigi (I even embroidered Di Luigi's name on the back and it is the correct number-10):

And this little monkey was going to be another BYU football player, Rylie Nelson. Wait, let me back that up. He thought he wanted to be Jake Heaps and we told him no, you definitely don't want to be Jake Heaps. You Cougar fans will understand that. So Rylie Nelson it was. Until the Halloween events started and then he wanted nothing to do with that costume. Instead, throughout our Halloween events he was an astronaut (no picture), a Jedi:

and on the big day, he was Dash. Dash is what I wanted him to be originally and he refused. Until Halloween morning when he put on his super suit (which I made him a few months ago) and the asked for his mask. No mask had been made since that was not what he was going to be. Luckily I was able to whip up a mask in about 3 minutes and he wore it ALL day even though he could barely see out. So cute! (We have a large collection of costumes-that's why he had so many options):

And Adam? He was the football. :)

Oh, and the only, ONLY, adult who dressed up for the church Halloween breakfast?

Oh Josh thought that was so funny. That's cool. I am ok being the only fun adult in the place. :) And that's not really a subtle costume either.

Projects

I have always liked doing projects...just ask my mom, she can attest to that. (It may have been the bane of her existence when I was a child.)

Something about having a new home has really unleashed a beast in me. Poor Josh. But I am loving it.

And then, add to that my new addiction to Pinterest (a site that gives me LOTS of ideas of things to create). I may or may not be totally obsessed. 

I have promised pictures of some of my projects to a few people so, here they are:

Dal had a boring old dresser that didn't really add much flair to his room. So, I spiced it up. This is my first refinishing project, and it may have unleashed a new beast.

Here is the before:

And after. As you can see, I need to add some paint between the orange and green drawers. Didn't realize that part needed to be covered.

Also for Dal's room: I built this from crates on Joann's

 Monster:

A couple of Halloween decorations: Did this one on a whim after seeing something similar in a store. Mine is cuter than the store's. :)

This idea just came straight out of my brain:

A cute candy corn dress I made for a friend who just had a baby girl.

And the rock wall we built in our front yard:

Chubby and Bald

Bet you can guess who this post is about just by the title. There is only one person in our family who is chubby and bald...and now he is 4 months old!!! Here's his 4 month pic:

I'm not going to post all the other pics in this post because they are just 2 posts ago, but you can click here if you want to compare.

He's really cute and he's really sweet and we really love him.

He's pretty much happy all the time. Rarely cries and is smiley and fun.

He loves to stick out his tongue. 

He looks at me like I am the most amazing thing in the world.

He is starting to almost roll over...but it might be a fluke. He did it twice today but it may have been just luck. I am not sure he is fully capable yet. That's from back to tummy rolling. 

He has chubby cheeks and a double chin. And is bald as can be still. So, we tried on some hair today:

  He's not so sure about it. :)

Eye Candy

How about a little treat for your eyes on this lovely October day?

Say "Trick or Treat!"

OK, here you go:

 You're welcome. :)