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Yesterday afternoon I got super sick. It came on suddenly, and for an hour or so it was intense, horrible, and miserable. Thankfully, after that hour I slept a couple more hours and have felt fine since.During the worst of it, as I huddled in the fetal position on the floor of the bathroom, Bryce stood next to me patting and rubbing my back saying, "Okay, Mommy...Okay, Mommy." Though the sick part of me wanted to cry, "please! don't touch me!," it was strangely comforting to have him there and I couldn't help but be amused at the role reversal and touched that he was so concerned and caring.Mark came home from work and saved the day, allowing me to recuperate in bed. At that point, Aubree took over as my nurse-maid. She made sure I was covered from neck to toes in blankets and kept offering to "help me get up" when it was time for dinner. So sweet.
It reminded me of something else heartwarming that happened a couple weeks ago. I had to go to a church meeting in the evening, so Mark took over sole responsibility for the evening/bedtime routines. When I got home, I was confused to find a couple of my sweatshirts laying out on the couch. I asked Mark about them and he explained that after I left, Bryce really missed me. He came across the sweatshirt I had been wearing that day and carried it around with him. Mark put it on him, and soon he was playing happily. Aubree, of course, also wanted to participate and Mark gave her his sweatshirt. That worked for a while, but then she decided she needed a mommy sweatshirt too. So both kids spent the evening feeling content as could be just to be wrapped up in my sweatshirts.
Last Friday Aubree hosted her long-anticipated "Fancy Nancy Tea Party. " She invited four of her favorite friends and each arrived decked out in fancy apparel.
Emme, Ella, Aubree, Cheyenne, & Olivia
Mostly it was just an excuse for the girls to dress up and play together and it turned out to be a lot of fun. It was WAY less stress and hassle than a birthday party - I think we might just skip the birthday parties and host these kinds of parties instead. How long do you think I could get away with that?
Though I am a fan of setting New Year's resolutions and usually make long lists every Jan. 1st, at the beginning of 2010 I made only two resolutions:1. Read the Book of Mormon every day.2. Stay in my 2nd trimester till the end of this pregnancy.To help me reach my first goal, I enlisted Aubree's help. I explained what I was doing and asked if she wanted to do it with me. 
She readily agreed and we made up a sticker chart to help keep track of our progress. We decided if we read every day for the whole month of January, we'd go out to lunch to celebrate. Following a brilliant suggestion from a friend, Aubree is reading select passages from the Book of Mormon as outlined in the Jan. '08 Friend magazine. She usually only reads one column (or half a page) per day and we take turns reading (I do my own reading when we're finished). It's been an amazing experience doing this with her; she is full of questions and we spend quite a bit of time talking about each verse. Plus, she's great about reminding me that we need to read. As for my second resolution, well - that stems from the fact that I LOVE the second trimester. As I considered the prospect of heading into the third trimester, with all it's accompanying uncomfortableness, I decided that I'd rather just stay in the second. No, it doesn't mean the baby can't grow or come out when he's done cooking - he's welcome and encouraged to do both. It just means I want to maintain my energy and avoid the yuckiness. It's just mind over matter, right? I can do this. So, if you ask me how far along I am and I answer, "I'm in my second trimester," I might be telling the truth, or I might be due in a week. (For what it's worth, I'm 25 weeks right now).PS I'm a big fan of denial. ;)
In my opinion, this is the best time of the year in Florida. The weather is mild, the bugs are hiding, and no hurricanes threaten our survival. I'm always sad when these months pass, so I'm trying to take advantage of the opportunities to do things outside.**The week after Christmas we went "camping" at the Church ranch with some friends. That was the beginning of Florida's freezing weather, so we were grateful to be staying in a cabin with heat. The days were chilly, but still quite nice so we did a little hiking and exploring and the kids got their fill of playing in the dirt.
Aubree, Cheyenne, & Ella hanging out in the cabin
Aubree & Bryce playing in their "kitchen" cooking up pine cones - yum?
**The
other week I got brave and decided to take the kids to Animal Kingdom by myself. We'd rather go with Mark, but Saturdays always seem to get filled up by other things. The morning of our planned excursion, Bryce woke up and promptly puked. Scratch Plan A.The next morning we resumed our anticipated adventure and managed to have a fabulous time with only one minor potential set-back (reminder to self and others planning a long drive - make sure little ones have gone to the bathroom immediately before leaving as there are no bathrooms in the parking lot or before the ticket entrance to the theme park - thankfully, we [barely] made it).
What 
made our day especially pleasant was the fact that there were very few people in the Park. In fact, we walked straight onto the Jungle Safari ride without any wait! The animals were wonderfully active. We saw a number of areas we'd missed on our first outing and visited some of our favorites again. I think I liked the Lion King musical even better this time (if that's possible). Both Bryce and Aubree were completely captivated by the performance and Aubree got to participate in the finale "parade." Awesome!We all tuckered out fairly early and made it home before the evening Orlando rush hour. It went well enough than I'm planning to try it again...**The other day the weather was fantastic so we made last minute arrangements with friends and went hiking at a local sanctuary. With so many little people, 
I can't say the hike was very far or very strenuous, but it was fun. Aubree ran ahead with her friends and had a blast, except for two minor conflicts. In both instances, Aubree was accusing her friends of being "too bossy." To which I must reply, "Hello Pot, meet Kettle."Bryce was much more interested in the planes and helicopters that kept flying overhead than any of the birds or landscapes. At one point, there were three helicopters flying at the same time; Bryce was breathless with excitement. 
Yeah
, yeah, I know this is quite belated, but "c'est la vie."
We officially started our Holiday season shortly before Thanksgiving with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Winters. As is typical, they brought down a Suburban full of treasures and goodies, which led me to question whether we actually needed Christmas.
Their visit consisted primarily of game playing, 
bike riding (well, adults walked, kids rode bikes), book reading (lots and LOTS of book reading - I was afraid Grandpa might lose his voice reading to Aubree so much), and hanging out around the house. The kids were thrilled to have extra attention and even Bryce warmed up quickly.
One beautiful Florida day we ventured out to Magic Kingdom.
Grandma is very adventurous and particularly enjoys the fastest, craziest rides. Since Aubree isn't nearly so daring, Bryce isn't big enough,
and I'm pregnant, sometimes we'd stick to the more mild attractions while the others went off thrill-seeking. Strangely enough, my most fond memory of the day was seeing the Country Bears Jamboree show. Now, to be honest, the show is pretty lame, but you wouldn't know it to see Bryce's reaction. I don't know that I've ever seen him get so excited. He was literally spinning around in circles in his glee and kept grabbing Mark's face saying, "look, Dad, LOOK!" He was five times as entertaining as the show.
I love that Grandpa is the only one really smiling in this picture!
**One Christmas tradition we've had for the past few years is to go to the local hospital for Breakfast with Santa. It's fun to get a picture with Santa and the kids always leave with a little bag full of little gifts, too. I figured Aubree wouldn't have any problems with Santa, but wasn't sure how Bryce would react. He ended up doing pretty well. You can see in his picture below, he mostly just seemed confused as to why his mom dropped him on the lap of a funny looking stranger.
The funniest part of our morning came when we got Aubree's picture back and noticed something strange (look below and see if you can figure it out)...
Did you notice how her shirt and one of her bows exactly match the background? Pretty good planning on my part, right? No. Aubree was wearing a green shirt and a green bow, which, when paired with the green screen behind Santa resulted in her unusual coordination with the background.
**This year we decided it was Mark's turn to run in the Reindeer Run 5K
. Despite great intentions, he didn't train as much as he'd hoped prior to the run (translation - he didn't train at all). Thus, he was disappointed in his finishing time and I had to roll eyes because even without any preparation he still did WAY better than anything I've ever done.
Mark and Larry, pre-race
I got to "run" with the girls, yet no matter what I said, I couldn't convince them not to hold hands the entire race.
**Another fun Christmas tradition is decorating Gingerbread houses. Bryce was way more interested in eating the decorations than using them, so house decorating duties fell mainly to Aubree. Soon after she started her work, Ella came over and the two girls conspired to decorate the house together. In their final masterpiece displayed below you can find two gingerbread girls (Aubree and Ella, of course) standing at the door of their "real house" welcoming visitors inside. They worked together amazingly well and it's obvious they were thrilled with their final results.
I know we did a trillion other fun things around Christmas (like parades, work parties, ward parties, nativity scenes, preschool parties, visits with friends, etc.), but these are the things of which I have pictures, so it will have to suffice.
As a side note, I LOVE the Christmas season. I love all the activities and the hustle and bustle. My only complaint is that it goes by too quickly and there's just not enough time to enjoy each individual activity. So, here's my idea...how about we move Thanksgiving forward two weeks and have it on the second Thursday in November instead of the fourth Thursday? That gives us two extra weeks for Christmas fun! Whad'ya think??
Christmas's just keep getting more fun! Right now Aubree and Bryce are both at ages where they're super easy to please and it's hard (very hard) to not go overboard with gifts. As a result, both were duly spoiled at Christmas.
How Santa left the family room looking on Christmas Eve
Aubree and Bryce just before going to see "Christmas" for the first time
There were lots of favorite gifts. I knew the books (thanks Grandma & Grandpa Winters!) would be a big hit and the expression on the kids' faces in these pictures tell it all...
Aubree also got a tent (from my visiting teacher!) and a sleeping bag (thanks Grandma & Grandpa Graff!) that were big hits.
Bryce's favorite gifts were probably his Thomas trains. Granted, he's never actually seen the Thomas TV show (the boy will not watch TV), but he adores trains. After a fun-filled (and probably overwhelming) morning, Bryce disappeared. This is how we found him:
One of the favorite gifts I gave Aubree will come to no surprise to those who know me well:
We spent a bit of time batting that afternoon and I was surprised at how quickly she figured out how to hit the ball! Oh- the fun times we have ahead of us!!!
This is for my sister Lauren - she was complaining that I hadn't posted any pictures of my pregnant belly. I told her it looks just like the last two times I had a pregnant belly. To appease her, though, I had Aubree take a couple pictures (they didn't turn out too badly for a 4-year old!).
Up until about a week ago, I could frequently forget that I was pregnant and many people seemed surprised to learn I'm almost halfway through my pregnancy. Then - POP - all of a sudden my belly's in my way, I have to wear maternity shirts, and everyone's commenting on my big baby belly.
What a difference a week makes!
PS A few people asked if Aubree was disappointed to learn that she's having a brother instead of a sister. I think she took the news remarkably well and hasn't seemed disappointed at all. The only comment she's made is that, "boys names are much harder to think of than girl names!" Amen to that!!!!
It reminded me of something else heartwarming that happened a couple weeks ago. I had to go to a church meeting in the evening, so Mark took over sole responsibility for the evening/bedtime routines. When I got home, I was confused to find a couple of my sweatshirts laying out on the couch. I asked Mark about them and he explained that after I left, Bryce really missed me. He came across the sweatshirt I had been wearing that day and carried it around with him. Mark put it on him, and soon he was playing happily. Aubree, of course, also wanted to participate and Mark gave her his sweatshirt. That worked for a while, but then she decided she needed a mommy sweatshirt too. So both kids spent the evening feeling content as could be just to be wrapped up in my sweatshirts.
