Rolls

For Thanksgiving and Christmas I was on a quest to find the perfect roll recipe. I have made a lot of different recipes over the last few years but I had never found a roll I just loved. So the week before Thanksgiving I made like 6 different batches of rolls and I came across this one. It is the Lion House roll recipe and it is delicious.

Thanksgiving

We had two yummy Thanksgiving dinners this year. One with the Sudar/Pontious family the Saturday before Thanksgiving and one with my family on Thanksgiving. Both family parties were a lot of fun. We are truly grateful for all of our family members. We have wonderful families and we love them. We are also grateful for everything we have, especially the knowledge of the gospel.

Calvin learned a lot about the pilgrims and indians in preschool and he made so many cute Thanksgiving crafts. He also learned two thanksgiving songs. He was very excited for Thanksgiving this year but for some reason he thinks the Mayflower landed in Africa instead of America, he is pretty insistent about it too, it is funny.

I forgot my camera for the first party but here are a few pictures from the Nielson party.

We said we would never do it

When Jon and I got married we said that we would never buy a minivan. So, for the last few months I have spent quite a bit of time researching SUVs and driving them. For 2 years I have wanted a GMC Acadia. I just love those cars. But they are kind of expensive and after driving one with Lily in the backseat I decided they were not that great. The whole ride Lily was complaining because she could not see out the windows. I had never noticed how high the windows are in SUVs. And every SUV I drove had so many blind spots, it was hard to get the kids in and out and in most of them I couldn't keep two carseats by eachother and fold the other seat down to get someone in the back. I just decided they were not very practical because of gas mileage, price, and convenience for a young family.

So, I started test driving minivans. I actually really liked the Toyota Sienna. For many reasons, it has 3 bucket seats in the middle row, I can fit all three car seats by each other or take out any of the buckets and have a kid in the back or just fold one of the seats down. It has so many options. And it has stow and go back seats which fold into the floor. It also has decent gas mileage and not too many blind spots. We found a great deal on one and we got retail trade in value on our car, so we are now minivan owners.

Pros and cons: I don't love the look of minivans but this one is pretty nice. It is a 2007 Toyota Sienna with 39k miles. Everything about it just seemed to be right for our family right now. However, you are suppose to be so excited to get a new car and Jon and I were both actually a little depressed about buying a minivan. It was kind of a mid-life (not quite) crisis sort of thing. We both just realized we are getting older, we will have 3 kids soon, Calvin starts kindergarten next year and we now own a minivan. But I do have to say, that buyer's remorse wore off pretty quickly. We drive carpool for Calvin's preschool and it has been soooo nice to have the van. It also has a V6 which is more power than my car had and we also love that. The kids love riding it, probably because of the DVD player, but nontheless, they love the new family minivan!! Oh, and a funny sidenote, we bought it at a place called "minivans only." I think that is just funny, but the kids thought it was awesome because they had this fun play area for the kids to play in while we did paperwork.

4 months and counting

Here I am 17 weeks pregnant. I am feeling a lot better now. Finally stopped taking 1/2 a Unisom at night. I can eat what I want to and for the most part I enjoy it. I only get heartburn occasionally, which I know will change as I get bigger. I barely got sick with the other two kids, so this was a little harder to deal with. I didn't really throw up a whole lot, I just felt like I was going to all the time. And exercising made me want to vomit, which is such a bummer for me because that it what I love to do.

At my 16 week appointment I had gained 2 pounds. Which I don't understand because I feel a lot bigger than I was with my other two. I think it is because I have lost muscle mass from not exercising. And muscle weighs more than fat, right? All pregnancy symptoms seem to happen faster, stay longer and be more of a bother this time around. I am trying to decide if that is because this is my 3rd pregnancy or because I didn't ever really heal from surgery before the symptoms started, who knows.

The baby kicks all the time, which I love. Lily and Calvin are very excited. Lily always talks to the baby, it is so cute. Calvin thinks this is a boy and Lily thinks it is a girl. Jon says he doesn't know. I think it is a boy. Because of the following reasons: Now that I can look back on both a boy and a girl pregnancy I can see the similarities this one has to the boy pregnancy. I am carrying pretty high like I did with Calvin. I can still button my pants and with Lily I swear she was so low she was threatening to come out even at 4 months along. I didn't get hardly any sickness with either but pretty much non at all with Lily, I was more sick with Calvin. My ultrasound is on Dec. 17th, we are going to have the ultrasound tech write Boy or Girl in a Christmas card and seal it for us to open on Christmas morning (thanks Tisha for the fun idea), so we will find out what it is soon enough. Either way, we will be thrilled!

Potty training update

Lily did so great for 2 weeks. Hardly no accidents and she was very excited. And then for the next two weeks she has had accidents left and right. It is like the newness wore off and she was done with it. She would be busy playing and just pee as she was running to the bathroom, leaving a little trail behind her which was pretty funny, but it got old in a hurry.

Someone told us to do cold showers after every accident. At first, she hated this and she would say "why mom?" It was sad. And then after two or three of those she looked forward to getting rinsed off. Someone else said to give a treat for the successes, she loved that, and wanted a treat every single time she went on the potty. And that wasn't going to happen. Someone else said to do time out. She doesn't mind that too much and she wasn't connecting it to accidents. Someone else said to put a potato (a whole potato) in a diaper and make her wear it if she has an accident. We tried this yesterday morning and she was so confused, but she hated it! She said it doesn't fit and where are my undies. We told her pee doesn't fit in her undies just like a potato doesn't fit in a diaper. And that she can't wear undies if she has accidents. We put the potato on the back of the toilet as a reminder and gave her back her undies. And low and behold she has told us every time she has to go potty. It has only been like two days but it seems to have worked. She sees the potato on the toilet and says "I don't want potato diaper." Such a strange suggestion. But my friend swore that it worked, and so far it has. We will see how long this technique lasts.

She still wears pullups or diapers to bed because she is such a deep sleeper that she doesn't wake up even if she is wet. I figure this might take a little longer with her, which is fine. For the most part she has done really well and she is so dang cute it is hard to find the right technique for accidents. Because she always says, "Sorry" and "I was playing" and "I don't know why." She is just so adorable.

But I have to say whoever says girls are easier to potty train than boys, they are wrong. It depends on the child, not the gender. Calvin had like one or two accidents. He hated being dirty so he did not want to wet his pants. He did not pee the bed ever. Maybe 3 or 4 times in the last year and a half. Lily is just more carefree and so she doesn't care as much. She is a few months younger than Calvin was though.

My thought for the day is: Parenting is an adventure. No technique will work for every child. Every child is different and exciting. And we love them all for their differences.

Pictures

We took family pictures with my whole family about a month ago and the photographer emailed me a few of our pictures. Unfortunately, I do not have one of the whole group, I will get one and post it soon.

Raking Leaves

We love raking leaves, and this year we got to help Papa Jeffery and Grandma Nielson rake their leaves too. The kids loved this because we made a huge pile for them to play in.

Primary Program

All of the work and anticipation led up to today. The Primary Sacrament meeting program was today and the kids did a great job. We got a new singing leader a couple of months ago, which was kind of stressful, but she also did a great job. But I have to say it is such a relief to be done with it. It was Calvin's first year in the program, The Sunbeams all had the part of saying "I love my Eternal Family" at the beginning. Calvin got to sit right next to me in the front and he did a great job singing all of the songs. I was surprised, all of the kids did such a great job memorizing their parts, I only had to help a few kids out. I helped one little girl, Megan, and she looked at me for more to say and I said that's all and she said "that's all" in the microphone, everyone laughed. We gave the kids a little party in primary for all of their hard work. They got treats and a movie, "Johnny Lingo." They loved it and I loved not having sharing time today.

I also had the priesthood preview tonight. That is always a great meeting. I am just in charge of organizing it and bringing treats, it is fun to go to.

Now it is time to get ready for the new year. Organize new classes, teachers, binders, and the list goes on and on. But even with a lot to do, I love my calling.