Merry Christmas with the Greens

Our alternating Christmas and Thanksgiving schedule had us in St. George with my family this year.  My brother Jake and his family live there and we decided it was a central location for the Greens to gather.  We arrived last Tuesday just in time for the boys to head down to Las Vegas for the BYU bowl game against Oregon State.  The boys "froze their nuggets off" (as we say in my family) but at least they got to see a win!  While the boys were at the game, the kids and moms made a spectacular gingerbread house.

We spent most of our time lounging around and hardly preventing disastrous behavior from the 8 grandchildren.  We did get out for an afternoon of four-wheeling and the kids got plenty of play time with Grandpa.

Isn't it comforting that when things get busy, kids won't let themselves starve?  This is what I walked in on while we were preparing for our four-wheeling trip.  The parents were all in preparation mode and I guess the kids got hungry waiting.

 On Christmas Eve some of the kids participated in the reading of the Nativity story and as usually happens, there were more laughing adults than any reverence!  Aren't traditions wonderful?

 

Christmas morning was memorable.  Jonah was so excited to see what Santa had brought and especially that he had eaten the hodgepodge of treats he had picked for him the night before.  Mimi and Grandpa Green prepared some delicious pork spare ribs for dinner and after the kids crashed, we adults gathered around the puzzle table to finish the 1000 piece Noah's Ark puzzle we had started the day before.

My sweet Jonathan gave me a subscription to Runner's World fueling my excitement for next years running adventures.  I've got some goal-making to do...more on that later.

Mimi got all the girls matching Christmas skirts.  What beautiful children!

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Five

Jonathan and I celebrated our fifth anniversary this weekend. What a wonderful and adventure-filled five years it has been. Looking through our videos and pictures of the last five years has been fun. I put a video together for Jonathan and couldn't stop crying during production and watching it with him. Even Jonah got emotional when he watched it with us and wasn't quite sure how to react to such emotions. It was so cute.

Tonight we celebrated by going to dinner at PF Chang's--where we went on our first date and many special occasions thereafter. Then we saw a neat production of The Nutcracker. I pretty much cried through the entire thing (don't be alarmed, I cry during Wheel of Fortune, so...). Jon surprised me with tickets to the San Francisco Ballet's version of The Nutcracker five years ago on our honeymoon. I have yet to see one done as well as that.

Our PF Chang's experience.

 

 

I can't wait to see what the next five years hold for us and our little family!

'Tis the season

We've been celebrating Christmas all month and our activities are far from over.  Last weekend, we went up to Heber to attend the baptism of our nephew, Quentin.  It was a neat experience and the first baptism Jonah has been able to watch and be old enough to remember and talk about.  We talked about baptism with him before we went and made sure he knew it was a special occasion.  For the remainder of that day, Jonah kept asking if he could be baptized like Quentin.  I believe his exact words were, "Can I be bathtized in blue?" or "I can be bathtized when I'm eight, Mommy.  I'm two, Mommy."  We have since been hearing several variations of these.

On the same day, we ventured to Midway to see the Creche and gingerbread house exhibits.  It was bitter cold but we enjoyed and felt the Christmas Spirit.  At the Creche exhibit, there were Nativity scenes from all over the world.  People sang Christmas music and the kids dressed up in their own Nativity scene.  I believe we had more angels than anything else.  Sophie was a sheep and made games of taking off her sheep hat while the pictures were being taken.  Jonah was a little angel.

A beautiful gingerbread house, decorated both inside and out.

 

The cousins in the Nativity.  Don't worry, Baby Jesus is a doll.

Jonah loves the piano.  He loves all musical instruments, for that matter.  He asked me a few weeks ago, "Can I play the violin?  No, I want to play the blue guitar.  No, I can play the big cello."  Jonah loves to sit at the piano while Grandpa Bush pounds out his repertoire of oldies such as "Love Potion #9", Jonah's favorite.

The Feast

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we've all crossed seamlessly into Christmas mode.  We ventured out to Target yesterday to brave the Black Friday crowds.  We waited until the evening and found it to be a good choice.  It was crowded but we got some good deals and eluded any panic attacks.

Our Thanksgiving was a relatively quiet one this year.  We stayed here and celebrated with Jon's parents and his sister's family.  We ate plenty and walked between dinner and pie to clear out some room for dessert.  On our walk we saw Christmas lights, including a Nativity scene which Jonah referred to as "Ghosts".  I think he's remembering Halloween all too well.  We corrected him and then he pointed out the "dog" and the "reindeer" sitting next to baby Jesus (it was, of course, a sheep and a donkey).

I got up early Thanksgiving morning to run the "Earn Your Turkey" 4 mile race.  It was cold but there were a lot of people that turned out to run/walk or watch the kids' races.  We stuck around after the race to see children ranging from zero to eight be dragged across the finish line by their all-too-enthusiastic parents.  It was cute watching the little kiddies run until they started crying and dragging their feet, begging to be done.  I stayed around a bit longer to see if I'd won anything in the race and ended up winning first place in my division with a prize of a free turkey!  Good enough for me!  (Don't be impressed by "my division" as I registered in the Athena category.  For me, it was a fast race--4 miles in 31 minutes--but there were much faster people running that day and I knew the only chance I'd have at a turkey was registering in the embarrassing category.  What other woman wants to admit her weight in front of a bunch of sinewy, muscular runners?)

Happy Holidays to all.  Let's all remember what this season is truly about--the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and the life he sacrificed for all.  I am truly grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and in my family's.

Dear Sophie,

Yesterday was your first birthday.  We can't believe it has already been one years since we brought you home from the hospital to meet the rest of your family.  The autumn months and the upcoming holiday season have brought more warm memories for us as we think about your first few months of life.  You were only one week old last Thanksgiving and still so tiny at Christmas time.
You have such a darling personality and have learned to say "Uh-Oh", "Momma", "Hello", and "Peek-a-boo".  You love to eat yogurt and anything else put in front of you.  You especially like to eat paper.  So far we've found such things as cardboard and an earring in your diaper.  You must have a steel tummy.  You love bath time and dancing and singing while playing the piano.  You are so beautiful and we are so blessed to have you in our home.

Twelve Month Stats 

18 lbs 4 oz (10th percentile)

Length - 28.8 in (49th percentile)

Head - 18.1 in (75th percentile)

You had a wonderful birthday party with your Bush cousins, aunts, uncles and Mamou and Grandpa.  You opened presents and got your first baby doll, cute handmade hats from Aunt Celine and Lauren, and cute clothes Mamou brought back from France.  Mimi and Grandpa got you a rocking Zebra which you find quite fascinating.  Jonah likes it too.

 

 

You ate yummy chocolate cake and enjoyed it just as much as we thought you would.

We love you,

Momma & Daddy

Waiting for the cold

I wake up in the morning and see the newly arrived brown-ness outside and immediately expect it to be cold.  "Bundle-up!", I think, as I get the kids clothes ready for the day.  We finally venture outside for some play and eventually peel the excess layers off because it is not cold, in fact, the sun is warm and the air has no hint of crispness in it.

Cold.  This one ingredient is missing from the winter soup.  When will it get here?

 

I made these countdown blocks at craft night last night.  Since the numbers only go to 31, Jon used a post-it to get us where we need to be. 

Bush Family Pictures

It's been 4 years and 4 babies since our last family picture with Jon's family.  So we gathered the screaming children and scrambled to get a few decent shots.  The shoot was full of classic, accidental funny faces and hand gestures from the children.  Luckily, we managed to take some keepers.

The family 4 years ago:

At present:

Happy Halloween, Mamma.

We've been talking about Halloween for weeks, mostly because I love it.  Jonah has been giving orders on how I need to finish painting his costume and he can't stop talking about the pumpkin patch and "carring" pumpkins (I'm not sure what he thinks this is, exactly).  So when Halloween morning arrived, I went to get Jonah out of bed and said, "Happy Halloween!"  I was greeted throughout the day (and following days) with Jonah saying, "Happy Halloween, Mamma!"  What a blessed boy.

Sophie tolerated the trick or treating just fine and even enjoyed her first Dum Dum sucker after her brother was so kind and asked for 2 treats--one for him and one for his Sophie Sue.

Jonah was too grossed out to put his hand in the pumpkin--you can see he's obviously troubled.

Bob the Builder

Our little leaf fairy

Jonah trick or treats like a pro

Happy Halloween!

All in the name of Fall

Fall is my most favorite time of year.  It invokes a need for all things cozy, colorful, and nostalgic.  I took the kids to a pumpkin patch this year and we had so much fun!  We'll definitely be making this a tradition.

Jonah with cousin Kenneth

Sophie waits patiently

All the cousins on the tractor train

St. George Marathon

I can't believe the marathon has come and gone.  To be honest, I've been dreading it all summer.  I didn't train the way I should have and I wasn't confident in my ability to have a good race.  But we saddled up last weekend and drove down to stay with Jake and Annie for the weekend.

I got about 3 hours (a generous estimate) of sleep the night before the race.  Thank goodness it doesn't really matter how much sleep you get the night before, but rather the few days leading up to the race.

I felt really good during the race and wasn't surprised with any weird pains or cramps even at mile 20.  Once I looked at my watch at mile 22, I knew I was going to get a PR.

I waited at the finish line for a while thinking Jon and the kids would be there momentarily to claim their runner.  I ended up using a nice man's cell phone to call Jon and he had no idea I had finished.  He was moving spectator positions just as I went by!  Oh well, the guy pushing a wheelchair in front of me produced wild cheering from the crowd, which I conveniently used to propel myself to the finish.

Anyway, I'm thrilled with how I did and contrary to what I was saying before the race, I'm looking for more marathons in the near future.

We had a great time with Jake and Annie and the girls.  We left exhausted and enjoyed the rest of the weekend listening to General Conference and snuggling in sweats and blankets.

Post-race snow cones

 

The Ball Pit: The source of much fun

 

Story Time