All of December & Christmas!

I will catch up. I will catch up. That's my motto for the week while the hubs is in China. He's been gone for a lot of the month and I would like to think that I have been productive, but I sure haven't. Oh well!

December was a busy but wonderful month! 

There was a ghetto carnival that decided to strategically set up shop at the local grocery store located right outside our neighborhood and every time we would pass by the kids begged to go to it.  After a week or so, we finally caved in and payed way too much money for two dinky little rides. E & E were so beyond excited and happy that it was totally worth it. 

Ellie is really into dress up and loves to put on different princess dresses all day long. She finds either her play heels or my heels and is so sassy walking around in her dress, stilettos, and a purse on her arm. It so much fun to have some girl stuff in this house.

We made our annual trip out to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa and fully took advantage of all the free games and rides they have there. 

Is it just me or is Ethan's look of determination is a bit frightening! :)

And finally we got to see the big man in red. This years picture is the best so far I think. No screaming kids and Santa didn't even get hit in the face! 

Mason was sleeping so I opted to skip the Santa picture this year for him. 

I think this picture is so funny. I'm not sure if Ellie is lovingly holding Ethan's arm or is about to throw it off of her! Either way, it doesn't look like they were excited to take a picture together!

My parents flew in a few days before Christmas and we thoroughly loved having them in our home for the holidays. They joined us for the Smith family Christmas Eve fireside and then later for a traditional Mexican Christmas Eve dinner at Eduardo and Gladyss' house. 

Mason intently stared at Great-Grandma Chapman for the longest time. He would not take his eyes off of her and showed zero emotion in the stare down. It was hilarious!

Christmas Day and a Christmas Lesson Learned

We are lucky that our kids still aren't quite at the age of waking us up at the crack of dawn to see what Santa brought them, so we woke up around 8am and all went down stairs to see what awaited them. 

Now here is the Christmas Lesson Learned part....

Ethan was making some really poor choices and was lying about everything a few days prior to Christmas. He had been warned about Santa not coming to our house to deliver his presents and also had a few consequences for his actions. He still wasn't learning his lesson so we decided to put our foot down and we told him that Santa had written us a letter telling us that Ethan had been put on the naughty list and asked us what he should do about Ethan's presents. We told Santa to please not bring him any of his presents until he could learn to be obedient, not lie, and get himself back on the nice list. So on Christmas day, Ethan didn't have any presents to open. Well, he got to open one present from G&G Sims, which was a board game, but that was it. Talk about break your heart as a parent! But we were firm and stuck to our guns. 

Ellie however had presents from Santa which consisted of a Cinderella princess doll, some dress up clothes, and a board game. 

All Mason needed for Christmas was some wrapping paper! He was so happy ripping that stuff apart!

We spent the rest of the day playing games, playing in our newly put in backyard, jumping on the trampoline, and swinging on the swingset- those were early Christmas presents. 

Later that day, we went over to the Smith's for dinner and such. Daddy is always so much fun on the trampoline!

Ellie is busting out her best dance moves for us and enjoying electricity in the video below. She sure is a cutie!!

We live in an awesome neighborhood. Have I mentioned that?? Oh yeah, only like 500 times :) At the entrance to the neighborhood is a lake that gets stocked with all sorts of fun fish. These fish loves hotdogs and that is our go to bait! So during the break we all went fishing and fed the ducks. 

My parents were able to stay 10 whole days with us! Dad helped put the swing set together, hung up my curtain rods, helped Justin put up our garage storage system and helped with a few other projects around the house! We were so grateful for his help!

I think Ethan and Ellie ate most of the duck bread but the ducks weren't really that hungry anyways. 

Mason man just chilled in grandma's arms while watching the other kids catch some fish. 

                                            And finally, 3 days after Christmas, Santa decided that Ethan had made good enough choices to earn his Christmas presents for that year and even left him a note telling him how proud he was of him. 

Ethan was one happy boy!

And Mason, once again, was able to enjoy the wrapping paper. So easy to please :)

Well folks, that was our December! We also had teaching moments to talk to our kids about why we have Christmas and the meaning behind it, and how grateful we are for our Savior. We went to the temple lights and enjoyed our time with family. Thanks for coming all the way out to AZ Mom and Dad!

Failure to Thrive

Sweet Mason was labeled as a 'failure to thrive' baby about a month ago. My pediatrician has been worried about his lack of weight gain since he was about 2 months old but we were wanting to give it a little more time to see if he started following his own growth curve or not. At his 6 month appointment, he was only 11 lbs 8 oz and his growth chart showed no improvement, only a continued flat line. Doctors don't typically worry about skinny babies as long as they are following their own little curve. When they flat line, then they start to be concerned. 

Just for the record, Mason is and always has been a great eater. At the time he was nursing from me 4 times a day and eating 4-6 oz of baby food 3 times a day. He is a real good eater so it was a bit concerning as to why he wasn't gaining the weight he needed. 

So my pediatrician ordered Mason some blood tests and an appointment with the G.I. specialist to see what the problem was. When Mason's blood tests came back, something showed up abnormal with his liver so they sent me to Phoenix Children's to a liver specialist within the G.I department. By the time we got in he was  8 months old at 12 pounds. Long story short, they did more blood test and everything came back fine with his liver but they labeled him as 'failure to thrive' and had me talk with a nutritionist there about how we can get him to gain some chub. She  strongly recommended only nursing him 2x's a day and power packing his bottles with formula (3 scoops for every 5oz) and giving him 1.5 tsp of straight up olive oil in his baby food. So... that's what I've been doing for the past month! I was really sad to cut down the nursings but the nutritionist said that they cant control how many calories he is getting from my breastmilk but they can control it via formula and honestly I felt like it was the right thing to do. And you know what... Mason is chunking up quite nicely! I don't know how much he weighs now but his cheeks are filled out, he's starting to get a little double chin, and his hair is starting to really come in! I think that boy just needed some good nutrition in him... I must be producing fat free milk I suppose :)

Here are 2 pictures of Mason at the beginning of January, before we started the olive oil diet....

I didn't even realize just how skinny he looked!

And here is Mason a month later, last Sunday..... can you see the difference??

Turns out pouring olive oil into your meals causes weight gain :) Isn't he a cute kid?

So we go back at the end of February for his well check and we'll see how much he weighs but I think he's doing pretty good!

Oh and how could I forget! Along with Mason's blood tests they checked him for any allergies and the dairy allergy test came up negative- WHAT?! How long has that been negative?! Apparently he grew out of his allergy! Woohoo! So we've been slowly adding a little dairy back into our diets and he is chugging down milk-based formula just fine. I always thought that once I could have dairy again that I would go crazy and buy tons of ice cream and chocolate but honestly, I don't even crave it or want it. Sad huh. I'm sure ill eventually get used to it again and go back to my nightly bowl fo ice cream. :)

December- The Cruise!

About two weeks before our anniversary in December Justin told me that he wanted to take me somewhere for our anniversary weekend. We had grand plans of going to San Francisco, Yosemite, the Redwoods, staying in a cabin of sorts and snuggling up to a fire with hot cocoa at night. Then about a week before we were suppose to leave, Justin sends me our itinerary and I see that he had changed our plans and bought tickets to Orlando instead. I love Orlando and didn't mind the change of plans. I asked what we would be doing there and he told me it was a surprise. 

Now Justin has lots of different levels of surprises. He has surprised me in the past with a trip to Cancun, a new bike, a new computer, and now a trip to Orlando but he has also talked it up and surprised me with a date to see the Harry Potter movie (I really did want to see it though!), packs of starbursts and Sweedish Fish and, my favorite, a surprise trip home from China :) So really I never know what to expect! Isn't it so cute that he like to surprise me even with small and simple things? I love it. 

Anyway, he let me make dinner plans with our friends who live there, the Shilligs, and told me that we were staying in an all-inclusive resort and I just knew for sure that we were going to commit the ultimate parental sin and go to DisneyWorld sans children. 

So we fly into Orlando early in the morning, rent a car and drive to our destination. We were kinda driving for a ways but the view was turning more into ocean views so I just thought we were staying in an all inclusive at the beach. As we were coming up to Port Canaveral I commented to Justin that I had no idea that Orlando even had a port. Yeah, I definitely didn't do my homework. Turns out there are cruise ports all over Florida. He then takes the Port Canaveral exit and I very excitedly said, "You're taking me on a cruise!!!!! No way!!!" and then proceeded to laugh like a little school girl, giddy with excitement! We have never been on a cruise before so this was a first for us! We just did a simple 4 day cruise to Nassau via Carnival Cruises. 

It was SO perfect and just what we needed! 4 days with out cell phones, kiddos, schedules, and work...ahhh...it was so nice. I will admit, it was hard to break away from the kids, especially sweet baby Mason. 

Here we are on the ship looking super awesome after a red eye flight.... :)

Goodbye Orlando!!!

It was pretty chilly in Orlando but it warmed up quite a bit once we got into the Bahamas.

The first night on the ship was so fun. We just did our own thing and explored the ship. I guess the colder weather made the water super choppy and the boat swayed SO bad. Justin and I were cracking up at each other stumbling over everything as we walked the boat. Playing mini golf was hilarious. Skill didn't matter as the boat took the ball wherever it wanted to go. 

It was awesome to do whatever we wanted to do whenever we wanted to do it! If we wanted ice cream at midnight, we ate it. If we wanted to go to the hot tub, we went! It was so great. 

We woke up the next morning to beautiful Bahamian weather. We sat outside on our balcony and read scriptures and talked every morning. 

As we pulled up to Nassau, we saw the Atlantis Resort. We actually went through and explored some of it. It's pretty cool and looks like a place we'd like to take the kiddos someday. 

Pretty sure I have an obsession with pretty blue water...

We hopped off the boat, rented a ridiculously cheap scooter and took off to explore the island! We somehow got off of the typical tourist path and found ourselves in the heart of downtown Nassau and were the only white people around. We stopped at a local grocery store for some water, which we saw a pack of Oreos there for $17- yikes, and then headed over to the Atlantis hotel to check it out.  The beach there was so pretty. 

Unfortunately the water was a little chilly for me to swim in (I like bath water temperature), but everyone else seemed to be enjoying the waves. 

Not our boat, but ours was just like it. 

We decided to hop on the scooter and drive to the west side of the island to enjoy a beautiful Bahamian sunset. Unfortunately, all the rich people on the island must have bought up all the property out there because there was no public beach access! We had to pull up into someone's driveway to get this view. 

Still, it was romantic :)

After the sun went down, we decided to head back to the boat for dinner and the hot tub. Just as we were making the 20 min or so drive back, we realized that the gas was on empty. Like completely empty. We couldn't remember there being a gas station any where close so we hoped and prayed that somehow we could make it back into town. Well, our prayers were answered and somehow we were able to make it to a gas station! We must have went for like 15-20 minutes on fumes!

We've never been so glad to see a gas station before!

The rest of our time on the boat was spent relaxing at the pool, reading, going to the gym and just lounging around. A true vacation. 

For those of you just tuning in, Mason has a dairy allergy and I read online that it takes around 4-6 hours for the dairy to make it into your breastmilk and about a half a day to get rid of it so since I wasn't nursing Mason and was just pumping to keep up my milk supply, I ate whatever the heck I wanted for 3 whole days. 

And ice cream never tasted so good after 7 months of not having ANY sweets with dairy in it (which is like everything)!

The cute waiters in the dining room brought us a Happy Anniversary dessert plate and sang happy Anniversary to us in all kinds of different keys and pitches... it was really sweet and cute! They really liked us because we could speak Spanish and have visited their home country, so they treated us extra good. 

We decided that we could definitely do another cruise again and even though we were excited to see the kids, we were a bit sad to leave our independency back at the cruise ship. I guess that's why we are told to consistently date each other...turns out it's good for a marriage to get away from our everyday responsibilities and just focus on one another :)

Huge thanks to friends and family who watched our kids for us and huge thanks to my sweet, awesome, thoughtful, fun and handsome husband. I love you and happy 7 years!!