Christmas Partay!!!

Well, it's that time of year again- treats, hot chocolate, presents, and parties! We had our first annual friends Christmas party last night and it was soooo fun! We all went to dinner before at our favorite pizza joint-Dion's, followed by food, fun, and of course, a white elephant exchange. Just to give you an idea of some of the gifts in the pot: love affair s-e-x game, snow globe, LED light that you strap on your forehead, Bod Man body spray, a pooping santa, etc., etc. Yep, it was good times. The girls chatted together most of the night and then we played some mean foosball where Christian and I couldn't be beat. We love our little group of friends here in Albuquerque- they are the best!



A little extra one, for those of you Utahns that didn't believe we had REAL snow-- though you wouldn't guess by Christian's attire, this is the real deal.
Oliver scoots this thing around all day- a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Bell. Maybe one day he'll let go and start walking!!!

What is this kid doing???

Oliver has gotten in to the habit of waking up 3 or 4 times during the night. It's usually around 11pm, 2am, and 5am. This particular morning, he woke up at 4:40am. Usually, he'll go back to sleep if you rock him for a minute, but after 3 times of waking up that night, he decided he'd had enough of being put back to bed and so, for him, it was playtime. My sweet husband got up and watched him for a couple of hours while I tried to go back to sleep in our bedroom. At about 6:30 I woke up and relieved Christian of his duties. I fed and bathed Oliver and we hung out until I had to go to work at 8:30. I told a very sleepy Christian that I was leaving for work and then I was off. I called home around 11am and the still dreamy Christian asked me what time I had left earlier, thinking I had only been gone about an hour. "I woke you up at 8:30 and told you I was leaving, hon," I said. It was then he realized the wonderment of the circumstance above. He said through his laughter that he had woken up at 10:30 and come into the living room and this is how he found Oliver. He was asleep, face down, on the coffee table! What kinda crazies does this kid possess?! He was surrounded by a soft couch with warm blankets, a fuzzy rug and carpet, and pillows on the floor. Alternatively, he could have scooted himself back to our bedroom and crawled in bed with Christian. But, this son of his father chose to lay himself out on the hardest, coldest thing around to catch some shuteye. And, this is how we found him 6 hours after he woke up...

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

OK for all you Utahns that are getting "dumped" on. We in Albuquerque just wanted to let you know that you aren't the only ones with snow, much less the greatest snow on earth. Check this out if you want to see terrific...


As you can see, Oliver is admiring the blanket of fresh, white snow after a diaper change. (I had to snap this one quick- not because Oliver has a short attention span, but because the snow does- it melted about 15 minutes later.) No worries, though, we got about a 1/4 inch a few days later that took about 3 hours to melt. It might be a white Christmas after all!

Super stalker sense and Ollie stats

Rebecca made a bunch of cookies for our ward Christmas party tonight. Then she left and hid them from Oliver and me. We found them. Then had a wonderful time eating a few of those scrumptious cookies with some cold milk. After rearranging the remaining 2 dozen cookies on the platter to cover the voids left by their digesting mates, we wrapped the platter to mirror its original state. Then I drank all the milk in my glass and put the empty glass in the sink. As I was walking away, though, I realized that there was still that faint milky residue on the bottom of the glass. Knowing that Reba might have realized I only drink milk with cookies, and understanding her ability to smell a burp 4 rooms distant and see 1 chocolate chip missing from a bag of 347, I thought it would be prudent to fill the glass with water to overwhelm the almost imperceptible milk dust. Reba got home, looked at the glass full of water in the sink and said, "So how many cookies did you have?"

In other news, Ollie just had a Dr. appt. Rebecca, after a year and a half inciting my deep frustration at her coming home from every dr. appt. with hugely fluctuating weight/height stats. Through further questioning I have discovered the inconsistency was due to her and every one of Ollie's different doctor's and nurses somehow miscommunicating as to whether Ollie's height percentile is based on other kids in his weight class (and vice versa) or all in the age group, on top of how the strength of the yen that year plays into things. I know every other women in the world comes home with 2 straightforward percentile numbers; each based solely on the age group, rather than the weight and height having any bearing on the other, and I would simply assume the former. But given the impossible variation from visit to visit, when she comes home with a new criteria each time, I've been forced to live in darkness concerning my boy's standing in the world.

Well this time I sent her with strict instructions to sort things out with the nurse, which she says she did. So unless there was another mix up, Oliver is in the 5th percentile in weight, and 95th in height. Hard to believe, if you don't know his dad. But knowing me, I guess it's plausible.

Cozy

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a die-hard summer fan. Trivial Pursuit question (from the real game), and one I happen to personally agree with: “What’s the one bad thing about summer?”Answer: Sharks. I’m liking summer less and less as the sharks are getting cockier and cockier. For real, what exactly do they want from us anyway? Haven’t they taken enough from us? Seriously, what else can they take? Our self respect? Well, news flash, sharks of the world, we haven’t had that since you bozos started attacking (gratuitously, I might add) us in our own rivers a century ago. But that’s a post for another day.

Anyway, I’m a big summer guy; always counting it my favorite season. But lately I’ve awakened to the benefits of cold weather. Everything you do inside is so much more gratifying when it’s cold outside. Think about it. Eating in, eating out, reading, watching movies, sleeping, driving, hanging out with friends. Then you add Christmas decorations to the cold weather and HELLO you’ve just made a cozy time even cozier. Add Hanukah to that and you’ve made a cozier time even Koshier. I usually think of winter as depressing, so I can’t get over how happy I’ve been during this one. It also can’t hurt that this winter I love my work (CEO of a prestigious company here in Albuquerque) and have a puppy-boy to play with everyday. So here’s to good times in the winter.

Love,

Wishing I was back in NY!

(Reba and I lived there for a while and for those of you who haven’t, don’t even try to understand. For those who have, you totally know what I’m talking about!)

The never ending Thanksgiving...

I've been putting this off for a week or so now, but since this blog also serves as my journal, I figured I better get it done before Christmas. So, we went to Utah for T-Day to spend the holiday with Christian's fam in Fruit Heights. It started out great- we were given buddy passes to fly from Albuquerque to SLC from Christian's buddy, Logan. We actually got on the first flight we tried for, which is a miracle on T-day weekend. Arriving early on Wednesday, we had plenty of time to hang out before the big day. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Christian's extended family at a ward building and after eating turkey, potatoes, stuffing, veggies, and the yummiest pear and pomegranate green salad I have ever tasted, we played soccer, chatted, and had fun letting all that food digest. Anyway, the whole day was topped off with my personal favorite, banana cream pie- yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

And then there was Black Friday. Well at least we made plans to take advantage of all the sales. We didn't end up shopping, though, until Saturday, and even then, it was only Target. (BTW, I LOVE Target.) And, we made it to the Park City Outlets on Monday, but that's a whole other story. We had a fabulous family game of tennis on Friday in lieu of shopping and after an obviously frustrating 30 minutes of doubles (Christian and I vs. Greg and JoLynn (Christian's parents)), I was exiled to the neighboring court with JoLynn to "learn" some basics (JoLynn, being the teacher- she's practically a pro). That night, we had a get together with some of Christian's high school friends and then met up with the fam again for an adult night out. On Saturday afternoon, we met up with our friends, Carrie and Jeremiah, at Ange's (Christian's sister) to watch the BYU vs. Utah game (Go cougs!). We all know how that ended:)! The day was topped off with the baby blessing of our niece, Molly. Tired yet?? There's more!

So, my brother Beau, drove up to share Sunday dinner with the Bell family and it was so good to see him. I loved catching up. We planned on flying back to Albuquerque on Monday morning, but when we got word that all the flights were overbooked, we extended our trip one day. I wasn't bummed at all though, mostly because I really love hanging out with Christian's family, but also because we got to do some more shopping. Oh, and by the way, I'm not usually so in to shopping, but the selection in Albuquerque REALLY struggles.

Well, we had a great going-away present on Tuesday as the snow started falling in SLC while we boarded the plane back to Albuquerque. Now I won't feel so bad if we don't get snow this winter! The Bells are the best and made us feel so welcome and comfortable. I honestly could have stayed another week!

Ok, this was before T-day, but I love how Oliver tries to stuff the whole apple slice in his mouth.

Cousin love... although Oliver doesn't look like he's loving it as much as the others.

More cousin love, and this time, Oliver's in to it. Oliver and his cousin Benny really bonded.