PICTURES !!

Romy's letter to Santa and Polly's "Rapunzel Rapunzels" picture

More Play-Doh than I ever hoped to see at one time in my house. Thanks, Susie and Doug. ;)

Just wait till next Christmas, you guys. Seriously.

Post-Christmas disaster area.

The beautiful cake I made for Troy's Christmas party. I thought for sure it would get destroyed before anyone ever saw it so I took a picture. :)

Well, no pictures yet but it's been way too long since I've posted anything here, so let's catch up a bit. Christmas was great for us. We did have a quick trip to the emergency room to check up on Polly's big toe, but that turned out to be only a minor problem. She had an ingrown toenail that went from nothing to weird green-gray in 24 hours. We panicked and took her to get it looked at, but she's fine now. Scary how something can happen so quickly.

So from the AF hospital we went straight over to Dane's sister Danielle's for a Christmas party. She and John had a Cajun-style food fest that ended up being a lot of fun. The whole family wasn't there, but it was good to see those who were (except for maybe just one) and we watched the weirdest-ever Christmas movie. It's this bizarre claymation show hosted by dinosaur thingies and actually featured the California Raisins. Kind of dates it right there, doesn't it? But anyway, we hung out till the bitter end, last to leave as usual :) , and it was nice to see them even though Danielle's health is failing fast now. She's a tough chick still hosting these holiday get-togethers, and she's pretty much the only reason we see anyone from the family at all anymore.

So then Christmas Eve Susie and the family came by and we cooked up a ham. Dane also made a vat o' clam chowder that turned out really well. I'm a little tired of it by now, but I'll admit it's really really super good. My kids were so excited to see their cousins they barely slept the night before, and they're still talking about all the weird jokes we missed during the visit. That and every time Romy does something by mistake she says "Oh, poopy pants." That one came from Lizzie, apparently. Thanks, Susie. ;)

But it was great to see them, too, and the definite highlight was Doug entertaining us at the piano with old Grease tunes and Journey, and of course my favorite, Night Ranger. "ooooh, moooooootorin'..."

So then came Christmas Day. My god I thought the girls would never sleep. All night long of "Mom, what was that noise? I think I heard something!"

haha that reminds me. I was knitting Romy a hat and grabbed my needles and they made this jingling sound. It was probably two days before Christmas but they were watching Christmas specials all day and Romy spun around like I was Rudolph or something. She was so sad to see me there with my needles. Such a letdown. :)

But anyway, they eventually fell asleep and even let us sleep in till around 9 AM. Didn't feel like much sleep, but it actually was. Not that they needed us, really, though. Romy just about started without us. She was a present-unwrapping machine. She was done before Dane and I even started. Weird to think I used to be like that. All I could think about was how long till I could brew some coffee. Does that make me old?

So Christmas was beautiful, and we listened to CDs all day -- well, I did anyway. Dane napped a lot and I worked on a puzzle and stuffed myself with chocolate. Candy and Leonard Cohen are about all I need these days -- oh, and I did get my coffee, too. And the kids played hard and slept that night like rocks. All in all a good holiday.

Hope you all had fun festivities as well. And if I didn't get your Christmas card to you this year I'm sooooo sorry. Things sort of fell apart at the end there. We've been fighting the neverending flu at our house. I was the walking dead the week before Christmas, and now Dane's got it pretty bad. Night before last he coughed so hard all night I slept on the couch. I was actually bouncing clear off the bed, catching air. Poor guy.

But yeah, on that note, Merry Christmas to all. We love you, and thanks for reading my blog. It's kind of my last light touch on anything social these days. I miss you all so much and never seem to call anyone. So thanks for keeping tabs on me, and I'll try to be a better friend in the coming year. My resolution. Oh, and maybe a diet...

OK, so it's not the picture I was talking about posting, but how could I NOT share this??? Rock on, Wild Wil Wheaton! You people are soooooo lucky I'm too scared of clowns to actually knit any of you this bad boy for Christmas.

So the other day Romy asked what makes a rainbow. I really hate the science questions. But I got lucky that Dane was there and could field that one. He went on and on and talked about the prism effect et cetera and I had one of those parenting moments where you can't believe how big your kid is getting. She's so smart and interested in things. So then yesterday she asks me if people live in the North Pole. So I start telling her about the North Pole Environmental Observatory and how people CAN live there but really only under super controlled conditions. Yeah, you guys all probably figured out she was talking about Santa Claus. Damn. Way to go, Jenny. Bah-****ing-Humbug.

I'm not a total Christmas failure, though (at least not yet - haha). I've been baking like a crazy person lately. I've decided that instead of doing two nights of nonstop baking marathon like I usually do that I should start early and just do one thing each night. So far I've made four poundcakes and a batch of almond crescents that require and extra super grande cup of coffee to wash down. They're fabulous, but for some reason I ended up making them really ginormous, and really, nobody needs that much shortbread all at once. Ever.

On a different topic, I talked to Amity last night. For those of you who know the Goldings, Kevin has been moved to the care center across from Utah Valley hospital and is doing a bit better. She says he's progressing but that they really want to get him more physical therapy each day to kind of speed things up a bit. So, good news, all things considered, and it should be easier to visit him now that he's a bit closer to home.

Anyway, I've got some more pictures to post. I'll try to get to those tonight, but don't set your watch by it or anything. Nothing major, just some fun stuff to show. Love you all and hope you're surviving the Christmas crunch!! (Sounds like a snack. I think I'm hungry.)

So today every muscle in my body hurts. I had to shovel the driveway (the steep downward sloping driveway) TWICE!!! Actually my neighbor helped me and that was nice, even though I'm really too out of shape to attempt conversation while shoveling heavy piles of snow.

So that was most of my day, really. I sorted puzzles with the kids that we should have unpacked back in March, and we actually had more pieces than I'd expected. They had fun, anyway, and talked me into another really long game of Cootie Bug after that. So once they got tired of me I got a bit of time for myself and started knitting a cool new hat. It's a pattern I've never tried before but it's a cute hat; now to see whose it will be. See, it's SUPPOSED to be for me, but it might be Romy's once it's done. I've never seen a picture of the lady who designed the thing, but I'm guessing she looks like that guy in the waiting room in "Beetlejuice" with the shrunken head because I followed the "for an extra large hat" instructions and even did a gauge swatch and it's still way too small for my big ol' mega-melon. Thing is I don't actually have a big head or anything (do I?) but this thing is seriously child-sized. >:(

And one more thing before I get back to work here, do any of you know anything about night terrors? Romy's been waking up in a panic every week or two lately and then going back to sleep and having no real memory of it later. If you push her to, she'll say she had a bad dream, but it doesn't seem like she really is. I read an article on the internet about it that said kids her age get night terrors when they're over-tired so I'm trying to get her into bed a little earlier at night. Hoping that's all it is. So anyway, if you know any more than I just mentioned, let me know. It's new to me and I'd like to help her out as much as possible with this.

Hope you liked the pictures -- it took forever to post all of those. We had a great Thanksgiving, though, and hope you all did too. Everything turned out really well except for the rolls and a pumpkin pie that looked more like a drink than a food. But even the lemon pie turned out OK. :)

So then we launched straight into Polly's birthday. I can't believe she's three. Today's her actual birthday, but we celebrated on Saturday so Dane could be there with us. We went bowling to a place called FatCats, and like a total moron I didn't consider for one second that there would be a really big creepy cat-costumed guy looming around the whole time. She hated it. She actually LOVED bowling, but she never really stopped looking over her shoulder.

And Romy survived not being the center of attention even though it was a little rocky a few times. She's going to be a holy terror when HER birthday comes around, I can just feel it. She's a good kid, though, and that's tough for anybody. And speaking of Romy, she totally cracked me up yesterday. She was telling me about some kid at school who went to see his favorite "rockstar" Kirby. Apparently the kid got brought up on the stage and this Kirby guy gave him a big hug. Guessing he's like Raffi or the Wiggles or something. Anyway, so Romy says, "If Joey Ramone was still alive I'd go to his concert and hug him on the stage." Isn't that a riot? I wasn't having that fantasy till I was AT LEAST fifteen!