I'm at Segullah today

Join me! Here's a hint about what I'm discussing:

One Successful New Year's Resolution

I'm working hard at New Year's Resolution #1: Eat as much chocolate as possible before baby girl comes just in case she decides she isn't partial to chocolate.

2012 Christmas Letter & Photo

P Family Christmas 2012 Update

MISTER(9 ½): Spent 2012 playing basketball, golf, flag football, and piano. So far, Mister seems to have gotten the raw end of J and my combined gene pool, as this year he donned his first pair of glasses and endured 2 more crowns and another root canal. Mister is our resident math maven; he’s one of seven kids in his grade who tested into the advanced learning program in math.

SWEETIE (7 ½): Spent 2012 thinking she is The Boss of The House, reading, tumbling, playing the piano, singing in a Broadway youth choir, attending art class, and racking up goals for her soccer team. In 2012 Sweetie traded her baby teeth for grown-up teeth (sob, sob on my part). Sweetie has recently teamed up with Mister and a neighbor boy in various engineering and entrepreneurial endeavors, including building various forts around the neighborhood with scavenged materials, constructing a “sleigh” from cardboard and skateboards, and whittling sticks into various weapons to sell to the neighborhood kids.  Her biggest sale was $10 for nun chucks until her dad made her return $9.

H (3 ½): Spent 2012 thinking he is The Boss Of The House, riding his scooter, bugging his siblings,  playing games, singing loudly, and looking at picture books (and smelling them—he loves the smell of paper, a boy after my own heart!). H is our resident dare-devil and was affronted at the fact that none of the city pools this summer would let him jump off the high dive and that there was an age restriction for the zip-lining during our family vacation to Colorado. H’s greatest 2012 accomplishment was successful completion of Potty Training 101. We love his hugs and kisses and his enthusiasm for life. We’re counting on all of his determination, energy, and stubbornness to one day finance our retirement in some way J

BABY GIRL (due 1/9/13): Spent 2012 stealing my energy so that she can kick my ribs with more force.  Loves to tumble and stretch.

C: I spent 3 months of 2012 focused on surviving morning sickness and the rest of the months engaged in the never-ending pursuit of balancing the demands of mothering, personal endeavors, church work (as the president of the children’s organization in our congregation), and my professional ambitions. I taught an online class for BYU-Idaho, presented a paper at Rhetoric Society of America, and sent off 3 journal articles (1 accepted, 1 rejected, and 1 pending).  My favorite parts of 2012 were vacationing in California and Utah with extended family, in Colorado with J and the kids, and in Kauai with J.

J: Spent 2012 working as a Senior VP in finance at Bank of America, golfing whenever possible, watching sporting events, serving as my “please bring me a treat” go-to guy, and teaching the kids all kinds of necessary skills, like Gagnam Style dancing, the art of witty comebacks (“your face is _____”), and how to achieve the perfect proportion of water to ice in his dinner glass.

We hope that you spend the remainder of 2012 enjoying the happiness and peace of this holiday season!

The Profits of a Prayer of Real Intent: Fearful Gratitude

Last night I was in a lot of pregnancy-related pain, and I started to get scared. Scared of labor, scared of pain, scared of possible complications. So I knelt down by my bed and prayed--one of those desperate prayers full of the "real intent" that Moroni mentions (9:7), the kind so full of real intent that God is sure to receive it.  I don't often pray that way, unfortunately, but I did last night. I prayed for peace and for assurance that I could do this.

As I prayed, my desperate fear shifted. It didn't go away, but my narrow focus on impending pain broadened to include the larger picture. I realized that this will probably be the last time I give birth, and I felt gratitude for the opportunity to carry another life inside me. I felt grateful for the experience as a whole rather than only the sudden and overwhelming fear I'd felt earlier.

I'm still nervous about the birth--I haven't prepared for it like I did before my last, when I listened to Hypnobabies cds and practiced relaxing and focusing. But I'm not scared like before and I feel some peace still lingering from my prayer last night. Let's hope it lingers until this baby decides to make her appearance!

I made J snap this pic at my sister-in-law's on my phone after church today. Not a great pic (he didn't even get in my awesome leopard-print heels, which are supposed to take some of the focus off my huge stomach), but it will have to do since I've only taken 3 pics my entire pregnancy! This is 2 days short of 39 weeks.

A Very Merry Christmas

We had such a great Christmas! J and I stayed up way too late Christmas Eve and got up a couple times in the night with kids, but other than that, everyone loved their gifts and it was good to be together. 

Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight. We had our "usual": tri-tip, twice-baked potatoes, Christmas jello, Martinellis, and, this year, we added grilled asparagus with pepperjack and prosciutto.

The Nativity with our small cast :)

Christmas morning!!

H loves his crane

Mister, happy with his remote control helicopter

H takes a spin on his new bike. We woke up the next morning to him riding in circles around the house. He's hardly taken off the helmet. 

Mister's face upon opening his Xbox

H tries out his new kickball right away, and Mister does the same on his skateboard.

The in-line skates were a huge hit.

Christmas day dinner at the Rocks, but this was the only pic!

The kids with all of their loot. We are blessed, indeed. 

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him

Nine days ago I was grumbling at a fairly last-minute request I'd just received to write the narration for our ward's sacrament meeting Christmas program. "I have enough to do," I thought. And with the recent Primary inservice, orientation visits to new teachers who didn't show up for the inservice, 2 sharing times, visiting teaching visits, and so on, I was feeling thoroughly "churched out."

But today as I listened to the narration, I felt very blessed for having had the opportunity to do the research and the writing.  As we sang together as a congregation, "Oh come let us adore Him,"  I felt deeply grateful for the chance to do just that today:  to go to church, to worship, and to express my adoration for a Father that allowed His Son to leave His side and for a Son who gave His life and with that life, gave us victory over the grave.

As Ammon said, “Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord: yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever.  Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord: Yea who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men?  . . . Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever.”

I'll leave off with some of this week's Christmas pictures:  making the gingerbread house, visiting the temple lights (and cousin Amy's concert), and making sugar cookies. Oh, and if you haven't seen this video, you've got to! The Manger of Bethlehem

  

What's Happenin' in the Hood

We've got some pretty sweet forts going on:

Super secret entrance to the most recent fort

Inside

 And Santa and his, er, "reindeer and sleigh" have been known to make an appearance or two.