Sooo Sleepy

You know you're tired when you fall asleep with a bite of breadstick still in your mouth!

Just can't let it go - it's so tasty!

Oh no, it's falling out!

Oh well - too tired!!

Caleb's Adventures

Anyone who knows Caleb knows what a B.U.S.Y. boy he is. He really never stops until he falls asleep, and he only knows two speeds: fast and faster!! He also doesn't have the best balance and we're constantly picking him up after bouncing off walls, tripping over his own feet, and falling off chairs.

Case in point: while playing at his favorite drawer in the kitchen, gravity got the best of him and he managed to fall onto the corner of the open drawer. This is what he looked like as we headed out the door for stitches.

Thankfully by this point the bleeding had mostly stopped. But the doc thought a couple stitches would help the resulting scar to be a little less conspicuous. Jared said he tied a ton of knots in the stitches. Caleb was a real trooper!

This is what he looked like when we got home. Can you see what's wrong?

That's right - there are no stitches in that lip!!! He managed to get them out some time during the 15 minutes it took us to get home!!

By this time, the doctor's office was closed. So we had to call the on-call service. It happened that the same doc was on call and still at the office, so he told us to come back.

This time he used glue. And it worked!

For about 12 hours!

By the next morning, Caleb had pulled off the glue and made the cut start bleeding again!

So now his lip just gets to heal however it wants, and someday he'll be able to tell his kids about the scar!

Peninsula

Should I be embarrassed that I didn't know that a PENINSULA is a piece of land that has water on 3 sides??

Should I be embarrassed that my 2nd-grader knew this, and I didn't??

Josh was spouting off geographical facts as fast as his little mouth could move (which is pretty fast!) today at dinner. Once of them had to do with peninsulas.

I also learned that Europe is the smallest continent, but has 40-s0mething countries and 60-something languages are spoken (he threw out exact numbers, I just can't remember them).

Josh likes geography - in fact, he made sure we all know that it's his most favorite part of the day! Those are his words. Really.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I have to get this off my chest - please don't hate me for it!

I really dislike Sundays. Really.

But it really has nothing to do with the Sabbath part of things. It's just that it seems like everything that can go wrong does go wrong! Every problem, emotion, and mess is magnified by what seems like 1000%!

Jared told me he loves Sundays, and I almost punched him! Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that he's more of a spectator to all of our "bliss" than he is a participator. {I'm typing this with the nicest of feelings, honestly! I love him to death and am so thankful is he worthy to get to go to so many meetings and watch us with a smile on his face from the stand! And when he's home, he really does do more than his fair share.}

I've been told {by someone who loves me very much, and is wise beyond his years} that I should record some of these moments, so that I won't forget about them {though I'd like to!} and can go back and laugh at them one day {can't wait for that day}. So, here goes...and feel free to laugh along!

Yesterday, the beginning of all our bliss: as we're ready to walk out the door to church, Emily decides that she's going to throw a fit {read: the biggest meltdown you've ever seen} because I, the cruel mother that I am, reminded her that she needed to put tights on! She went off screaming about how she hates to wear those shoes because they're too tight, and they fall off, and blah blah blah! I didn't recall telling her that she needed to wear a specific pair of shoes, so I told her to just wear her other shoes, to which she screamed that she couldn't find one of them! After 5 minutes of screaming and being frantic, she finally joined us in the van, wearing the shoes that are too tight, that fall off, blah blah blah. I asked her what her plan was before she was re-told that she needed tights. She didn't really have one! She went to church red-faced, teary-eyed and quite huffy! But thankfully she calmed down.

During Sacrament meeting - the continuation of our bliss: I had to take Caleb out to the foyer because he was being a stinker {read: nothing in the entire chapel would have satisfied him, because he's missing out on his nap}. Thankfully, I have a friend and her husband who sit on the bench with us, and they are LITERALLY my lifesavers. I would be in the foyer all the time without them! When I came back in, I couldn't see Rachel anywhere. As I sat down, I saw that she was laying under the bench in front of us, having herself a little Cheerio party. That, in and of itself, was not a problem. Caleb again wasn't satisfied with anything, so I put him on the floor. He headed to Rachel and joined in on the party. Within a matter of 10 seconds, the entire Cheerio container was emptied onto the floor {including all the powder at the bottom} and the Cheerios were scattered all over the place! I quickly got Caleb off the floor and told Josh to get down there and help Rachel pick up the Cheerios. I focused my attention on Caleb, to get him quiet, and then checked on the Cheerio party. I guess Josh was hungry, because instead of cleaning up, he was eating the Cheerios! Emily either wanted to be helpful or wanted in on the party, because she got down on the floor with them also! Who knew Sacrament meeting could be so much fun?!?! They managed to take care of every single Cheerio, and only the powder on the floor was left as evidence of their little party!

20 minutes before church ends, another moment of bliss {although this one I can, and did, laugh at} - The nursery leader brought Caleb into primary because he was poopy. He instantly screamed "Mommy" in his happiest voice when he saw me. Ok, so maybe it hasn't been such a cruddy day after all! I changed him, and decided to just keep him with me, since there were just a few minutes of church left. I stood up in the back, near a lady who teaches the oldest class of girls in primary. She and her husband are training a dog to be a seeing-eye dog, so the dog was laying on the floor at her feet, sleeping away. Caleb saw the dog and instantly went into his I'm-a-little-unsure-of-this-situation mode: he forces a really loud, high pitched laugh, all the while clinging to me as hard as he can! This made all the kids laugh, which made him laugh some more...can you see where this is going?!? He just kept on laughing, pointing, and woof-woofing until the closing prayer was said. I was sort of embarrassed, but mostly enjoying myself, because he was getting such a great reaction from everyone - adults included! How can you not love that?

As I read back through this, I'm wondering what the big deal was! The total time of absolute mania couldn't have been more than, say, an hour! I'll save the details of the rest of the afternoon/evening for another time. I'm sure you're laughing too hard to read any further, and I wouldn't want you to miss a thing!

New Room, New Ears, New Smile

It's been a pretty eventful month for us so far! Emily has a newly redone room, complete with freshly painted walls, chair rail, and a new quilt.

Caleb has "new" ears after getting tubes put in on Tuesday (the 5th). He had a lot of fun playing around while we were waiting for surgery - had everyone in love with him! Everything went well, and we can already tell there's a huge difference in him! Isn't he just the cutest?!?!
And Josh finally lost the tooth he'd been working on all Christmas break! It fell out during math (on the 4th) and he got a big thumbs up from his teacher! Now he kind of looks like a vampire who's missing his vampire teeth!!

December Happenings

Some of the things we did during December:

Jared, Emily and I took a trip to SL to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. It was fun to see Grandma and James singing! We gave the choir two thumbs up, and Natalie Cole was less than impressive...sorry Natalie! Here we are waiting in the freezing cold before the doors were opened.

Emily had her very first orchestra concert. She started playing the violin this school year, and she is picking it up so fast! She really has a lot of talent for music. She sure has learned a lot in 3 short months! It was neat to hear everyone play together - there were over 3o0 kids up there on that stage! An amazing logistical feat! I promise she's in this picture somewhere towards the right side!

We also went to see Santa Claus. Rachel has been completely fascinated with the concept of Santa, and talks about him like they're best friends! One day she told us all, with complete and utter excitement, "Ho Ho's getting happy at me!!" When it came time for the real thing, however, she was a bit more reserved!! Thankfully she didn't freak out, but you can tell she's nervous because she's chewing on her coat!

Caleb, who is Mr. Friendly, was more than happy to go sit on the lap of this strange man dressed in a very bright red suit with a fuzzy, shaggy thing hanging on his face! He was just as happy as could be the whole time, and even had a great big grin on his face! I wasn't able to capture any smiling, though, because I had nervous Rachel hanging on my leg!

And Emily and Josh were more than happy to tell one more person everything they wanted for Christmas, and to get a free candy cane for doing it!

We had an extended Ripplinger family Christmas, where Josh managed to get a goose egg on his head, and upon arriving home, Rachel was one big rash from head to toe! Never did figure out the cause, but thankfully it went away with a dose of Benadryl.

We also had a Larsen family Christmas party at Grandma and Grandpa Farnworth's house. It was fun to get together, but we missed not having Greg and his family there. Within 5 minutes, the kids had re-arranged all the Christmas presents into piles of presents that belonged to each child! We ate some delicious prime rib, and had fun playing in Grandma Farnworth's toys. Here are the kids dressed up in a wig that I remember playing with as a kid!

I made a promise to my mom that I would not post the picture of her posing with the wig on, and I intend to keep that promise! {but if you'd like to see, let me know and I'll email it to you!!}

We also made and decorated a gingerbread mansion! Jared almost burst into laughter when he saw how big the pieces of the house were! Hey - this is my first time ever making houses out of anything besides graham crackers! Cut me some slack! But seriously, it was huge!

And to wrap up the month, we saw a live nativity on Christmas Eve, opened a lot of presents on Christmas day, and reflected on just how thankful we are that our Savior came to earth as a precious baby all those years ago!

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!