Smart boy...

Loving his new Science toys!

(For the past week he has been begging me to teach him to sew. He actually does it pretty well as long as he can remember to put the foot down. Funny boy.)

While I am down the stairs, taring down the mound of Christmas boxes, I hear the computer come on. I had left Oscar and Poppy contentedly playing "space ship" in the two boxes I allowed to escape the razor, before I went downstairs.
I holler up the stairs to Oscar "Oscar what are you doing?" (we have a "must ask mom" rule with the computer)
He yells back down "I want to check something!"
Me- "What?"
O-"I want to go to NPR."
Me- "Why do you want to go to NPR?"
O- "I want to listen to the story about the dinosaur museum we heard in the car yesterday."

How could a mother resist such a nerdy request?

I came up and he had the computer booted up and said "I just have to go to NPR, it will be there."
I then explained that within NPR (which we have set as our homepage) there are a lot of different programs and that I would need to find it. Funny thing is, I didn't even remember hearing it. I had to call Rick to see which program we were listening to. It is amazing what my kids catch onto and absorb.

Now the only thing I have to worry about is curbing his Nerd genetic (certainly they are not my genetics, but i probably didn't need to tell you that) tendencies so that he won't be socially backwards, rather more well-rounded.

Progression of the shiner...

Day 4- Today we are getting better, more yellows and greens have appeared. Gravity also seems to be working on pulling the blue-green bruise and swelling down my face. I now have a bruise on the right side of my mouth. It has been really cool to see how may pretty colors have come out of the bruise. It keeps changing and the kids love to see what the new colors are each day.
I am their current physical science model. I suppose it's great to be good for something!

You wouldn't believe how many times I had to repeat my story at church today...glad to see that so many care, but tired of telling the story.

Day 4-I think I didn't get a photo on Friday (Day3) so here is Saturday's Pic.

Day 2- Christmas walk...Wow! I look really homely...

Day 1- Christmas-eve (sometime post-trauma)

Christmas Day

Christmas Day walk. I tried to get my kids to look at the same time, and smile, and this is what I get. I think they get this cooperative behavior from their father.
Poppy is loving her new set of "silkies" sent by grandma Edge. She loves putting on multiple layers and using them for all sorts of baby/toy things.
Oscar has been going crazy over his new science kits, cars and of course anything that Poppy received. I even have a great video of him dancing with her new ballerina doll. ( I was trying to post it and am having trouble. Maybe later I will figure it out.

Oscar also wanted to try out dad's new puzzle. He is the versatile gift kid. Anything that is new, must be explored!
Poppy received her first scooter. The only down side is that she won't really get to use it until spring. In the meantime she makes the rounds about the house.
Overall we had a fun filled Christmas that was very laid back.
The kids are loving their loot and I am about ready to pack up all of the Christmas stuff. Yesterday I loved it. Today I feel crowded. Tomorrow may be the end of Christmas at our house.

Shiny-er Christmas-eve Party

Edge Family 2nd Annual Christmas Eve Party

The Edge Family 2nd annual Mexican Christmas-eve party had a new addition this year. We like to call him Frosty. We spent the past week making him. The kids helped with the paper-mache and the painting. Little did we know he would be the bang of the party.(Notice that the "broom" in Poppy's hand has a blue handle...)

After a tasty Mexican dinner (short the heavily anticipated veggie tamales, due to Patty's kitchen miscalculating orders) we gathered around the living room for a bit of Pinata fun.
Soon it was Oscar's turn, and just as I snapped this photo (notice the missing broom handle) I was smacked in the nose with the handle.
To be honest, I truly had no idea what hit me. All I knew was there was a sudden gush of blood and I ran to the bathroom. Who knew just how much one's nose can bleed? After the considerate care of my house guests (which I really never got to see off properly) I spent the rest of the evening with a bowl, ice pack and tissues.
I didn't get to to wrap the gifts I was planning on, nor did I get to snuggle up to my spouse to play Santy-clause...nope, I was on the couch avoiding the blood going down my throat.
No need to fear, Ricky pulled off the whole Christmas story, putting kids to bed, played Santy clause, all while I watched/sat on the side lines.
Today...here is the shiner. It is getting better, but man it really hit me hard.
Oscar felt so bad and was crying. He even brought me Frosty's lower abdomen full of candy as a peace offering (that is, after he stashed a bag of his favorite pieces in his room). I felt pretty bad for him.
It did however take me back to his own shiner incident and made me remember just how bad I felt when he pulled the dresser on himself.
I'm sure this will be a Christmas party to remember. My friend Laurel who was there called today and said "We had a great time, until I was suddenly cleaning blood off your carpet." She also joked that this was a nice "Mormon" Christmas party (sans alcohol) and wondered if I could imagine what it would be like if there were alcohol involved???? It was also her husband Jeremy, who moments before we began the whole pinata process, joked that we should be video tapping it because someone always gets hurt...hahaaaa very funny!

Now the only problem is Rick not feeling like an abusive husband when we go out in public...

Next post will be our Christmas-day re-cap...

Christmas Preparations...

Well, we've got it, snow, that is. Not only so we have snow, but sub-arctic temps to go along with it. The kids don't seem to mind. They still find the snow an adventure.
Poppy received a sled ride to and from getting Oscar from school the other day. On the way home all of the "bigger" kids wanted to pull. Here is Spencer George (who by the way loves Poppy) pulling her along.
She also loves to climb up on the counter to play with our nativity set. I love this set but parents beware...it is the playmobile set and all of the pieces of each character come off...that means that their hair beards, halo, turban, etc... Wonderful for play yes, but horrible for a mom who tries to keep track of them.
Our solution has been to place it ont he kitchen counter. Not as many pieces get lost in the couch and around the living room. One time Poppy put a couple of wise men in the bookcase for safe keeping. It was a few days before we discovered them again.
Oscar had his Christmas party at his class. This is their lovely graham cracker house village. It was so pretty.
Oscar's teacher this year is wonderful! He adores her and she has certainly earned it. We stayed a little after school so she could open her gift. It wasn't the main gift. All of the parents pitched in ogether to get her a digital camera. She was still in analog world. She cried when she opened it. It was wonderful!

Now with school out, both kids at home, and a TON of candy around...I'm finding myself constantly battling the picking on each other. They can't seem to get enough of it.
Today was a no-junk food day, that is until Family Home evening and then they each only had one cookie.
I currently have the threat out that if they keep fighting...all candy (including the candy train they keep sneaking into) will go into the garbage. I"m just waiting for my breaking point to actually enforce it. I'm close...we shall see.

(Update...The train went into the trash. Followed by Oscar telling me that we (me and Rick) want to make this the worst Christmas ever... Yeah, too bad for poor decision making. One day he will forgive us. Oh, that's right, I think he already has!)

Sassy girl...

(Notice how bundled up the boys are?)

When Oscar was about Poppy's age he went through a phase where, for teh entire winter he would only wear "turtle shirts" meaning, turtle neack shirts. When spring and summer rolled around he could not stand wearing short sleaved shirts and shirts without a turtle neck. I was suddenly rememnded of this phase when Poppy for the past few weeks has insisted on wearing her summer clothes. She will be sitting there, shivering adn refuse to put some warmer clothes on.
Therefore to those of my loyal readers this will come as no surprise when I tell you that Poppy chose to wear the above attire on our way to drive Oscar to school. She was not deterred by the fact that is was a mere 5 degrees outside, oh no, in fact she insisted that she would not be cold.
Being the lovin' logic (aka learn from their choices) kind of mom, I let her wear it. It may be the first time in a long time that I was happy that the car took it's time warming up. It may sound horrible, but the fact that she had to remain cold for the full 20 minutes of the drop off gave me a renewed sense of strength that, indeed she would have to suffer the consequenses of her decision.
This morining came in the midst of a week where she has been particularly pushing her boundries. In fact there have been three stores this week, that becasue of bad behavior, I have actually taken things out of the cart and let my child cry the whole way out to the car, and all the way home. Meanwhile maintaining my composure.
I think it began with the mass consumption of candy she ate Sunday night during the ginger train assembly. Then there is the nap problem...or lack thereof. But today, I won...she is currently napping (it only took 40 minutes of me laying there making sure she would not leave her bed).
I hope to find a refreshed princess who will let me be the nice mommy I want to be, and not the mommy that has to constanty be butting heads with her.

On a positive note...she has been (in her more pleasant moments) a great helper, and super fun to watch getting excited about Christmas. I think this is her first Chirstmas where she is really getting it. Nww if we could just get it together (her and I) we will be set.

Failed...

I'm not quite sure the last time I have actually FAILED a test, and yet today at 7;30pm, my Dr. called to inform me that I did indeed FAIL my glucose test. dum, dum, dum...
One of my Doctors is in my ward and is a super nice guy. Tonight the message said something like this: "Hi Collette this is Dr.___ remember how we were hypothetically saying that you would have to do the three hour glucose test if your sugars were to high? Well, it isn't hypothetical, give me a call at the office and we will set it up."
He says it so nicely, just like earlier today when the scale revealed that I had indeed gained 6lbs this past month. His oh, so kind comment was "Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. You are above the curve (the optimal weight gain range) but your blood pressure looks great."
We then proceed to discuss exercise and diet (which really haven't changed)...and then I FAIL the test.

To be totally honest, I'm not surprised. I have failed this particular test with Poppy's pregnancy and I have done the three hour test before...but it stinks! You have to go fasting and they then give you this miserable drink, and it makes you want to throw up and dizzy(which if you do throw up you have to start over) and you have to stay there for THREE hours getting your blood drawn every hour...

This all happens after a Sunday full of inquiry of "when are you do? you are huge!" Yeah, I suppose I'm showing more these days than in the past.
How is it I can go from one month (Nov. appointment) where she tells me that I'm petite and that the baby is petite, to now I seem to be HUGE!!!
Ugh...gotta love pregnancy, here you have very little control and some foreign little being takes over and dictates what my body is going to do. These little souls have quite the ability to manipulate and change things at their own rate, regardless of how many spinning classes I teach, or the laps I swim, or the food I eat (Ok, so I do have some control there), they ultimately put my body in auto pilot and I am mearly the vessel with very few controls.
HUmmmm....so now I just hope to pass the next round so i don't have to have a resricted diet where I am certain, chocolate won't be on the menu.

Look'n like Christmas...

(Our last veggies from the garden)
What? A bountiful garden harvest doesn't sound like Christmas to you???

This year our last harvest made it a bit longer with the cold frame. The carrots were amazing!!! I have never tasted a sweeter carrot. I think the frost may have done them some good.

Hello, merry little tree from our front yard...My, you look grand in our front living room. You now get the grand exit from our front yard as our Christmas tree.
You shouldn't feel bad, considering your life was sentenced this past summer, and then spared for this grand exit. And boy, don't you look pretty...

Here are a few of the trimmings we have been working on...Feather ball ornaments. The kiddies spent the better part of an hour gluing all sorts of feathers to these paper-mache balls...so cute!
Each of the kids made a nest for their birds. Can you tell who's bird is who's?
These two love to pretend they are birds and build nests out of all sorts of things. It was fun to see how much care went into each of their nests.

Yesterday, they both created a Christmas masterpiece for me to hang. I LOVE them. It was great to give them their own canvas ans to watch them go crazy...especially Oscar! I can't help but love all of his art projects lately. He is at the stage where he finally is getting it and the results are great!
Next, although it is hard to tell...is our gingerbread train we decorated tonight.
What you don't see it? Just try deciphering the candy heap and you will discover a cute little engine, four train cars and a caboose. If you want to make one of your own here is the sight where I found the recipe and the templates.
We made these a couple of years ago with the Workman family and Betina made this great discovery, when you are printing the templates off, if you choose the two-pages-per-page option it scales the train down a bit. The original is pretty large. This half size seemed to be just about perfect. With the extra dough we made two extra train cars.

We've also had our first snow. We went from mid 30's with no snow to freezing temps with 6-8 inches. The kiddos are loving it!

Poppy is loving the snow this year (as evidenced by her sassy face), which gives me great hope that one day she will want to ski.

She doesn't even mind getting it in her face, that is until she goes down the sled hill face first and gets a little too much...She decided she had had enough of the cold and wanted to go home.

Oscar man (AKA snow boy) doesn't seem to notice the cold. First thing the last two mornings at 6:30am he is out in his winter-wear shoveling the drive.

We are in full Christmas mode, music, lights, decorations and a few more Christmas projects to go...we hope to make a snowman pinata tomorrow! I love Christmas!!!

Now, I just need to pass my glucose test tomorrow morning (having eaten a ton of candy during train building this evening)...we shall see, wish me luck!

Post # 250!!! Note to self...

Dear Pregnant self,
In the event that you wake up on a spin-teaching morning, and think that you do not want to teach, please remember the last 2 weeks without spinning and you will quickly remember just how great it feels to move your body!

Oh, and be grateful that you can still do it! With the narrowing of previous abilities, take joy in the fact that there are still things you CAN do! Oh, and stop whining...after all, your body is in the process of creating a whole other being and you only get the chance to do this a few times in your life.
Be patient!

And while you are at it, please devise a holiday eating strategy that does not involve eating pie-crust, for it seems to give you heart burn...no matter how much you love it.
As compensation for the pie crust, I give you freedom to eat as much Chocolate as you like, as long as it is dark.

I'm not sure this is a quality post for #250...but then again, one day I will look back and laugh.

Thanksgiving part 2 (prepare for overload!)

Because I'm sure all of you didn't get enough of the chicken education...here is the bird.

In a visit where there are lots of people to see, we opted to have a sister's pizza party at Verena's house. After, I made them work on thier own Christmas gifts...aren't I so nice? Here are a few of the sisters: Verena, Katrina, Joanna, me and my best friends from High school Angie (who made a special trip to come see me).

(I must say this is one of my favorite pictures of Oscar...what a cute boy!)

After a delightful time at the grandma and Grandpa D's house, we shuttled down to Utah for the Grandma and Grandpa E segment.
Oscar, Daddy, Auntie Emily and Uncle Carvel spent Wednesday Skiing up at Alta. If you sense a slight hint of jelousy in my writing you would be correct. This year they had a bunch of early snow and they had a wonderful time skiing.

I don't think they look happy...what do you think?

One piece of our trip that was really cool, and not pictured was our trip to see the exhibit "Body Worlds" it is the exhibit where they take human bodies and plasticize them. It was really cool and Oscar kept great notes about the things we saw. If you get a chance you should check it out.

(Oscar's pocket's bulging with golf ball findings)

We then made sure to get in our annual Golf ball hunt.
Not only did we find a bunch of golf balls, but uncle Reed and Ricky found some sort of cryptic message stowed away in a little capsule of sorts. If any of you know this language, maybe you can decipher it for us. It was a funny note that was spinkled with some incense of sorts.
Cousin Willie, Auntie Meg, Uncle reed and baby sam came along. Aunt Natalie was there too (just not pictured, as well as grandma)

Daddy and Poppy walking the line...And lastly was the trip to see the temple lights. We rode the train downtown and spent a bit of time shuffling through the crowd. Althoughit is always very crowded, I was delighted to see how much the kids liked the pretty lights and the Temple.
The next day after a few last minute stops we headed on home.
We spent Saturday night in a hotel in Boise where we stuffed ourselves with Pizza and went swimming. Sunday mornign we stopped in to see great Grandma Dilworth and made the last of our journey home.

Thanksgiving break part 1 (Grandma and Grandpa Dilworth's)

(Grandpa's pep-talk, notice the knife in his hand)

In every child's life there comes the point of discovering how the world really works. This Thanksgiving, Grandpa Dilworth shared with our kids the lesson of life and the food chain.
During our visit Grandpa had a chicken that was crippled and severely picked upon by the other chickens. It became evident that it was time to put the poor chicken out of it's misery.
Oscar was especially sensitive to the poor chicken's plight. The night before grandpa put it out of it's misery he told Rick "Dad I think it might be better for that poor chicken to die, so it won't be in any pain anymore."
The next day grandpa pulled all the kids together to teach them the lesson of life. During his pep-talk to the kids, he told them that deep inside each one of us is a sad feeling when we have to take the life of another animal. He said that God gave us this feeling so that we would only kill what we need, and not any more. He told them that the best way to put the chicken out of his misery was to cut off his head so that his brain wouldn't feel the pain anymore. The kids took it really well. They saw grandpa cut off his head and watched as it's nerves reacted post-beheading. This is a picture of Poppy checking out the severed head.
They then watched briefly as grandpa hung it up and skinned it.
Overall I think it was a great life lesson.

Meanwhile they spent the majority of thier time at Grandma/pa Dilworth's playing in the hay fort. Grandpa had constructed a fort with thier hay bales and the kids loved playing all day in there.
When they weren't in the fort you could find them building nests and pretending they were chickens.

Nest building

Grandma put the kids up on Montana's back for a little bare back.

This is just a little of the trip and I will be adding more later...it seems I'm in slow-poke mode in getting caught up from the last week. So, more to come...