Christmas Morning

Okay, I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas. What a busy week its been! Christmas morning was so fun. We were up part of the night with James so we didn't get up as early as I had anticipated, but hey. When I went into Beth's room to get her up, she perked right up when I told her Santa had come and came running into the living room at lightening speed. We got it all on video, but once again we can't find the cord, so I'll have to post that kind of stuff some other day. Santa brought us all lots of good stuff, but thankfully didn't go too overboard, here are some before pictures.And then the aftermath:


My favorite gift was of course our entertainment center, but of the things I opened on Christmas morning my favorite so far has been Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight". I read it as non-stop as I could manage since the day after Christmas and finished it this morning. I think my family has felt a little neglected but I couldn't put it down! Now I have to go get the next book.
Ryan got an erector set so he could feel like a kid again. He spent hours putting together a helicopter a couple days ago and now he thinks it looks great as a decoration on our new entertainment center, can't say I agree...but we'll let me do it for a few more hours. :)
Beth seemed pretty pleased with everything she got, but of course her favorite has been the $1 ball that was in her stocking...why does Santa even bother with the big stuff?
James has enjoyed playing with the stacking cups he got the most I think. Although Christmas morning was all about the boxes and wrapping paper for him. He was in heaven!
So basically we all made out really well. We've been enjoying non-stop eating and friends and family all week. We spent most of Christmas day over at Grandma and Grandpa Owen's house for more gifts and a wonderful meal. Wednesday we just spent a little time recovering, and then Thursday we spent the day in Logan for more family fun. Yesterday we had a party at our friend Rob's place where he always puts on a fabulous gourmet meal and games. So much for the diet, but hey, its the holidays, you gotta splurge a little! We have yet another party to enjoy tonight, this one is at our house, fun fun! Hope you all had as magical of a Christmas as we did.

Christmas Eve

I have had a GREAT Christmas eve! This morning I made some Sugar cookies dough and invited Dion and Summer and kids over to help us decorate them. I love decorating Christmas cookies. Before we had a kids I spent hours decorating them, I loved spending a lot of time with each cookie, making it pretty and special. I don't have quite that luxury any more, but its still lots of fun. Here are the ones we are leaving out for Santa.

And the day got better when in the middle of decorating cookies in walked my husband (who I thought was working all day) with my father-in-law and my entertainment center!! That's right, I got it, its here, and its BEAUTIFUL! Here is a quick before and after shot.


Then to top that off my in-laws and my brother-in-law came over for dinner, the Christmas story, and singing Christmas carols around the piano. They were nice to indulge me with that one. I love singing songs around the piano, it really is one of my favorite things. It was a great day. Beth is SO excited about Santa and kept talking about it him bring our presents and dancing around. She even sang a new version of "Santa Claus in Coming to town." It went something likes this: "Better watch out, Better watch out, Better watch out, cause Santa is flying with reindeer to my hooouuuusse to bring presents to my Christmas tree." VERY CUTE! Anyway, we are now busy with our elf duties and enjoying the evening...Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas Sunday

Christmas is 2 days away!!! Woohoo!!! I am so excited. I'm excited to see how my kids react, I'm excited to see if everyone likes the gifts I chose for them, and I'm excited to see what I get too (come on, you know you are all a little selfish too! :) ) Tomorrow I plan to make fun shaped sugar cookies for Santa (and to eat), and of course we will read the nativity story, or try at least. I can't wait for Christmas dinner and to see family on Christmas day. That is just the best. On a sad not, our poor little nephew Jackson is in the hospital with RSV and pneumonia and I feel so sad for him. He will probably come home tomorrow or on Christmas, but they won't be able to participate in the family activities. What a Christmas! We plan to take them gifts and cookies at least...

Anyway, today was Christmas Sunday, of course. I sang with the ward choir for the Christmas program and really enjoyed it. I love singing, and its even better when its Christmas songs. My favorite part of the day though is dressing my kids up in their Christmas church clothes. They are just so darn cute! Aren't they?




You can't really see it in the picture but Beth has one of those package bows in her hair. I had some little tiny ones, so I stuck a bobby-pin through the staple in the bottom and made it into a hair bow. I am not a creative person, and definitely not when it comes to hair, so I was pretty proud of thinking of that. It was awfully cute. I know it isn't the greatest picture of her, but she has a little bit of her Father in her and doesn't like to actual smile and look at the camera...The Thomas train she is holding is the gift she got to open at the annual Owen Family Christmas party yesterday. Lots of fun.

Our other fun acitivity lately is that on Friday night Ryan and I got to go on an overnight date! Our friends Asiel and Jenny volunteered (I even tried to talk them out of it!) to take our kids overnight. It was a much needed break! We went to dinner and then to a wonderful choir concert that my Father-in-Law was performing in. Then we got to stay downtown in the Marriott and enjoy staying up late, sleeping in and eating a hot breakfast that I neither had to cook or clean up after! Thanks again Jenny and Asiel!!

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! We'll post again after Christmas so you can see all the damage.

Its Official

That's right. My life as I know it is now over. James is officially crawling! He's been trying really hard for a while now, but yesterday he finally figured it out. He's still pretty slow at it, but it won't be long before he is all over the house! He's already been driving his sister crazy with it today...what fun!

Sorry about the bad video, I can't find the cord to get it off the real video camera, so its just from our little digital, but you get the idea!

Snow Day

This weekend we had a lot of snow pile up in our yard. I wasn't sure what Beth would think of it, but she actually had a great time playing in the snow with Daddy. They even got to build her first snow man.

James was a little confused by it all, I think, but he looked awfully cute doing it! :)

We also got into the Christmas spirit by trying on our Santa hats. I wore mine to our ward Christmas breakfast and the kids just had to join in the fun. Can they get cuter?

Celebrate!

Today is a landmark day. Not only are the kids FINALLY getting better, and my house is in a semi-clean state, okay well maybe just the kitchen, but hey. But best of all, I hit the 20 pounds lost mark! That's right everyone. Diane is 20 pounds lighter than she was about 3 months ago. And not only that, but my waist is 1 3/4 inches smaller than it was last time I measured, which was one week ago! The medication and diet I was put on for the metabolic syndrome seems to really be doing the trick. The doctor said it would probably help me lose belly fat and it seems to be working! Let's hope I can keep it up and lose the next 20. I am so proud of myself for sticking to my goals, and so excited to finally be making some real progress. It feels so good! By the way, Ryan is doing really well too, I think he has lost about 15 and he has been doing this a little bit less time than I have. Watch out world, the Owen family is getting healthy!

Tagged

I knew it couldn't be long before someone tagged me in one of these blog games (Thanks Mary :) ), so here we go, 6 facts about me:

1. I'm very weird about how I eat food. For instance, I eat a slice of bread by eating the corners, then the rest of the crust then the middle, preferably in a circular motion (weird I know). If I am eating crackers or chips I eat any broken pieces first, smallest to largest, and then the whole ones, and I always save the best for last in whatever I'm eating.
2. I am just about done reading Jane Austen's complete works.
3. I love Gilmore girls and watch it every chance I get, even thought I've seen every episode several times (Ryan hates it!). Other current favorite shows: House and Pushing Daisies.
4. I have just been diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome, which means my body has to produce more insulin than it should to keep my blood sugar under control. As a result I've been put on a diet that took away just about every food I love, I'm rather sad about it, but surviving.
5. I have lost 18.5 pounds in recent months. I have a goal to lose 21.5 more, but I am so thrilled that I've made it almost half way! (Some of the is thanks to that new diet, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much).
6. I love to be touched. Ryan calls me a "rub-a-holic" because I almost go into withdrawal if he doesn't get a chance to sit down and rub my skin or play with my hair, it my biggest calming mechanism. It is how I survive two little kids! This started young, I used to insist on having my back rubbed to fall asleep as a kid.

So there are 6 facts, they may not be terrible interesting, and they may be strange, but its me. Now I tag Emily Benson, Jenny, Emily Aune, Summer, Emily Foley, and Andrea. (Gosh I know a lot of Emily's!)

Ginger Bread House

For family home evening last night we built a ginger bread house. It was great fun. Beth of course enjoyed eating the candy and frosting the most, but she was also pretty enthused about decorating the house. It was from a kit, so I didn't have to do any complicated ginger bread making or anything, I kind of cheated, but it was still fun!

By the way, the kids are doing better. Beth is still coughing and sneezing and James is still a little wheezy, but they have at least been able to sleep the last couple of nights, and they seem to be on the road to recovery, or at least I hope so! Poor little James has been pretty miserable, but he's playing and eating a little more today, so I hope that is a good sign that its almost over!

New Curtains

I've been having a real need to decorate my house lately. Probably because I sit in the house staring at these walls ALL day long! So I've been trying to slowly add a few things, and this past weekend, I got curtains for the living room! I am so excited about them! My mother-in-law went shopping with me on saturday and helped pick them out. I know its hard to tell what color they are, and they are kind of hard to describe. They have gold thread running vertically through them and then its just sort of swirls of browns and beiges with a little bit of maroon and kind of a turqouise color. Sounds a little weird when I desribe it that way, but trust me, they are cool! They will look even more fabulous when we get the entertainment center I think. The rod and tie backs are pretty too, they are kind of bronzy/gold leaves. Anyway, that's my latest exciting thing.

Emergency Room

Isn't the Emergency Room every parents worst nightmare? I think it was definitely on the top of my list of things to avoid, but last night at midnight I made my first trip to the ER with one of my kids. Both Beth and James have been a little sick this week, but nothing horrible, just bad colds I thought. James got worse yesterday afternoon and had a fever and sounded a little raspy, but I figured he was just dealing with the same stuff Beth has been so I didn't worry too much. But, James woke up at midnight last night and could NOT breathe! He was crying and gasping for air, it was awful! He just sounded like he couldn't get a full breathe and was working so hard and breathing so fast. So I rushed him to the nearest hospital. We were of course ignored for a while (isn't that how the ER goes?) But then they took us back and gave him a breathing treatment and some steroids to control the swelling and inflammation that was causing all his troubles. The official diagnosis is Croop, but a bad case for sure! So we spent 3 hours in the ER in the middle of the night. So we are all a little sleep deprived and he still sounds like he's struggling a little, but its better than it was for sure. It was scary! My poor little boy! Well, I better go take care of my sickies. Hopefully all of this will be over very soon!