Christmas 2010

Christmas was a lot of fun at our house! For the first time the kids got pretty excited about things, and it made it very fun for Jared and me.

Our little Christmas spread may not look like much, but we knew it would be more than made up for by visits to the grandparents. Brittany and Sam each made quite the haul! Sammy got a pillow pet, a Thomas the Train track set with all kinds of engines and buildings and some awesome Lightning McQueen pajamas. Brittany got a singing Pretty Pony rocking horse, a Pretty Princess scooter cart (which Sam loves!) a baby doll, and new coat and a tea set. Sam also got several new cars. They both got several Dr. Seuss books to share.

For Christmas, I got a cold. It was mild Christmas day and then turned quite ugly the day after. Instead of Christmas carols being sung by a roaring fire, my racking cough can be heard throughout the house as I huddle in blankets before the TV. Poor Jared has the week off, and it's been a week of taking care of me and the kids. We're very grateful, Jared! I've been on antibiotics since Wednesday, so hopefully I'll get over this soon and have a healthy New Year!

Getting ready for the Holidays

Getting ready for the holidays has been so much fun this year! It's always fun, but now we have two little kids who are excited about everything that's happening and it makes it even more fun.

To kick off our holiday celebrations, Jared and I went to his annual Christmas work party. This year it was held at the Canyons Grand hotel. It was great! We've been to two other Christmas parties for Jared's work, and they've been wonderful, but this is the first year that I wasn't sick, and it made a big difference. The hotel was fabulous. We went swimming in their newly renovated pool - it had only been open for two days. Even the pool deck was heated. Our room had a fire place and a jacuzzi tub, and after our swim Jared and I relaxed in the sauna for a bit. Dinner was fun, too. Jared played his trumpet for the talent show and did a fantastic job - of course. Most of the "talents" that people perform at these even

ts are either silly or funny (there is a LOT of cross dressing) so it's funny to watch people's reactions when Jared shows off an actual talent. They don't really know what to do.

Jared's wonderful parents took our kids for the night. To thank them, we took them out to eat at an Eavenson family favorite, La Puente. They serve great mexican food, and they just put one in in Layton, so our little family will probably eat there on a regular basis.

Next on the holiday docket, we trimmed the tree, and some other areas of the house. Our tree this year was quite cute, despite missing a star for the top. Brittany and Sam love playing with the ornaments on the tree, and the location and distribution of ornaments changes every day. We also love getting Christmas cards, and most of them are displayed on our piano.

The kids and I went to see Great-Grandma and Grandpa Harris. It was a great visit. Grandpa has been feeli

ng a lot better lately due to his heart monitor. It was good to see him looking so healthy. Janette and Grandma seem to be doing quite well also. Sam and Janette's little white dog ran around and around and around the kitchen and wore each other out. This is how tired Sam was when

we got home:

Brittany started crawling about 2 weeks ago and is now enjoying the wonder or mobility! She loves to crawl around after Wally and Sam, and She crawls to the TV and the Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had such a fun, relaxed Thanksgiving holiday this year. We went to Grandma and Grandpa Eavenson's for dinner. Jared's grandma was there, and that was a lot of fun because we hadn't seen her in quite a while. It was especially fun because she's been sick a lot lately and she was finally feeling good enough to be out for a while.

The kids had a blast. Sam had his own little table so all his cars could eat with him. He only wanted to eat olives, rolls and beets - for some reason he loves beets. We couldn't even get him to try the yams (which were yummy!) when we told him they tasted like candy. Oh well, he had a good time anyway, and he did agree to have some eggnog later on in the day.

Brittany, on the other hand, was willing to try everything we gave her. She loves yams. and potatoes, and pumpkin pie, bread, and pretty much everything that's soft enough for her to chew.

She loved all the attention and had a great time.

The next day we relaxed and Saturday we went to visit grandma and grandpa Henrie because my brother and his family were in town from California. Their poor little guy who is a little younger than Sam got pneumonia on their trip so he wasn't feeling the best, but it was a fun visit all the same. Two of the cousins have birthdays a few weeks apart, so we had an early birthday party for them. It was a very princessy party, with a purple coconut cake and lots of balloons. It's always insanity at my mom and dad's house when everybody is there, and it wears my kids right out, but they love it.

Brittany has been teething for the last few weeks, but this morning she woke up smiling and laughing!!! We can see her little teeth right under her gums, so they must be close enough that they don't hurt her anymore. She also started crawling this week and is getting good at it really fast. Hooray for Brittany!!!

Fall is here!

We love having fall finally here! Except for the fact that Brittany is sick and we've each taken our turns being sick as well, it's been a lot of fun. Even though she's sick, she's been a super cute girl lately. She has gotten over her colicky, crying all of the time - whichhas been a problem for quite a while. One day she woke up and decided to be darling!

We had our primary program last Sunday, and I had her with me through the rest of church while I did sharing time. She hadn't had a nap that morning, which is usually a recipe for disaster, but she was a little doll the entire time!

For my birthday (which was a while ago) We got to help Jared go hunting for part of it. I had just gotten my new camera and I had a lot of fun trying it out.

Sam was so excited to help daddy "Catch" a deer. too bad we didn't see anything. But we did have a lot of fun!

Sam loves these pictures, and always likes to see the picture of Sammy in the flowers (leaves).

My Marathon

Well, I ran my marathon! It's been a goal for so long that it's hard to believe it's over. I'm glad I had a friend, Taryn, run it at the same time because she really encouraged me to do it and kept me going when I had second thoughts.

The training was fun, but it got really intense and I was ready to be done about two weeks before the marathon. Luckily, that was when the training schedule started a taper to get me ready to actually run the marathon. I thoroughly enjoyed the taper period. Instead of running 16 or 18 miles on Saturdays, I only ran 8. It was a welcome change.

Race week was interesting. Sam and Brittany were sick, so sleep was a little low. I was quite proud of myself Tuesday because I wasn't nervous at all, and I thought maybe I was over getting nervous before races. After all, a marathon is just a really long Saturday run, right? Well, then Wednesday came. I woke up jittery, my kids were ornery, and top it off my neighbors started burning their yard when it was 82 degrees out. I had to close all the windows but I didn't want to turn on the air conditioning for just a few hours so it got REALLY hot. Jared came home and had had a rough day at work. Finally, kids were in bed and it had cooled off, and it was time to wind down. But I was so nervous and generally ticked off that I couldn't sleep and I didn't get to sleep until 1:00 that night. At about 12:30 I had Jared give me a blessing. In it he said that despite not getting a lot of sleep this week I didn't have to worry, Heavenly Father would help me finish the race. The next day I woke up and I felt fine. I got a few little bouts of nervousness but they only lasted a few minutes. I was calm and able to enjoy those last two days before the race, and that was wonderful.

Friday night we drove up to Logan because Brad was letting me stay in his apartment that night. I told Jared and the kids goodbye and had a nice dessert with a bunch of Brad's friends who were running the next day. It was a fun evening. Brad had a room all ready for me and he was a very gracious host. He gave me his bed and went to sleep on the couch so his roommates wouldn't wake me up. Thanks, Brad! We got up at 5:00 the next morning and walked to the park where they were loading busses. We met Taryn and rode up the canyon. When we got there the lines for the Port-a-Pottys were huge! After waiting about 20 minutes in line I decided to take our warmup clothes to the bus before it left. I didn't really have to use the bathroom and I was worried I wouldn't have tome to stretch sufficiently. I got my stretching in and started about 10 minutes after the starting gun was fired.

The race was fabulous. I felt great. The canyon was beautiful. The leaves were starting to change color and the temperature was about perfect. Luckily, I had remembered my gloves because it was chilly enough that my hands would have been pretty darn cold without them. Plus, they were cute gloves and they made me happy. I talked to a few people running down the canyon. The time went really fast, and soon I was at mile 14 and out of the canyon. It was warming up nicely but it never got hot. At mile 15 an 18-year old decided to run with me because he liked my pace, and we ran together for about two miles, but then he started to have some trouble so I went on without him at mile 17. Jared met me at mile 18 and we walked it together. So much fun! There was a donkey at the side of the road at mile 18, and we had a good laugh at that. Weird. Mom and dad met me at about mile 23 and we walked for another half mile. - It was so fun to see everybody on the course. Thanks, guys! - At that point I was getting tired but I still felt really good so I just ran the rest of the way and never had a problem. The finish was fun! I ran in and started to cry a little, but then they had us pose with our medals for finishing pictures so I had to stop. Jared and Sam met me, and they had flowers! It was fun and a great finish.

The whole day was a lot of fun. I've had some time to reflect on it all by this point, and I'm really grateful I was able to do it despite having a 7-month old baby, injuries along the way, and poor Jared doing young men and a master's degree at the same time. Thanks to Jared's mom for helping with kids on race day and making it possible for Jared to support me so much. Thanks for all the help of family and friends during my training and on race day. And thanks especially to Jared who sacrificed so much time and all hope of sleeping in on Saturdays for four straight months. You are wonderful, and you made this possible for me!!!

I don't know if I'll run another marathon, but this was a great experience that I'll have for the rest of my life. I wonder what's next!

June-August

Well, it's been a couple months, so I'd better post about our family.

Sam had a great 2nd birthday. He got nine dinosaurs, or "saurus" as he likes to call them from mom and dad. They have a nice home on one of the shelves of his bookshelf. His Grandma and Grandpa Henrie gave him some neat magnifying I spy books and some cars with a really neat little mat that zips up into a box to store his cars. Grandma and Grandpa Eavenson and Aunt Becky gave him a cute cuddly bear, a neat little stop-motion book, and a book of nursery rhymes. Of course, he also got new cars from them, too. He got new clothes from everybody, and one of mom's favorite gifts, a new set of Sunday clothes. A very good birthday indeed.

In June we went to the Shakespearean festival in Cedar City. We decided only to go for three days this year instead of the usual five, because Jared's dad had eye surgery a few weeks before that ended up having some complications. He had a hard time traveling. The plays were great. We saw Much Ado About Nothing (probably my all-time-favorite Shakespeare play) and Macbeth. I was surprised that Macbeth ended up being my favorite this year. They did such a great job!!

About three weeks ago we went fishing with the kids. Sam had never been, and he absolutely loved it. When we got to the shore he found an old soccer ball that soon ended up in the water. It kept floating out, and he kept asking Daddy to go get it. We could still see it after being there for about an hour when it finally disappeared. Sam thought it was great that we kept catching sticks for him (no fish for us on this trip, there were about 10 boats on the lake making some big wakes) . So, we caught him some sticks and he'd draw in the mud with them. Later on he discovered there were some tiny shells in the sand, so he had a fun time collecting them. Next Sam discovered the joy of throwing rocks into the water! We had a hard time pulling that kid away from the water when it started getting dark.

Surprisingly, little Brittany LOVED the whole trip. She was content the entire time - about 3 1/2 hours total. She laughed and talked and giggled, but mostly just watched us. It was a great time for everyone.

Last week Jared's work had the annual Lagoon party. It's getting more and more fun for us as the kids get older. Sam was big enough to go on Puff the Magic Dragon this year, so he and Dad went and had a great time. Brittany and I waved and cheered them on. You can always tell when Sam is really enjoying something because he is completely focused on what he is doing. He won't smile or look around, but he'll concentrate until he's finished and then you'll see the biggest smile in the world. We went on the train ride as a family and they had all kinds of tigers and lions awake and prowling. It was a great little ride! When we asked Sam if he liked the train ride he said "Oh yeah"! The day at Lagoon had Sam's stamp of approval. Brittany, on the other hand, was not a very big fan, but she was a good sport to let the rest of us go and have a good time.

Today is Jared and my anniversary so we decided to go out and have some fun. Our friends watched Sam and Brittany and we went to check out a local hot springs up Ogden canyon. We were relieved to see that there were no skinny dippers present. There were four pools, ranging from lukewarm to scalding hot. We tried several, including the scalding hot one that we agreed would be a lot of fun to try in the winter. It was a beautiful setting. The hot springs are right next to a gorgeous waterfall and right next to the river. We saw several hikers walk by and we even watched a guy catch a fish! The Mexican guy in his whitey-tightys wasn't quite as picturesque as the rest of the scene, but overall it was a great, fun experience. We later went to the Ruby River steakhouse for an excellent dinner. A great way to celebrate being married four years.

On Sunday our cute little baby Brittany was blessed. She looked like a little angel. Amazingly, she acted like a little angel during the entire meeting too! Jared held her for most of the meeting following the blessing and he leaned over to me at one point and told me that she was the calmest she'd ever been while he was holding her. Good little girl! Sam, on the other hand, was not calm, but we had lots of family there to help out and keep him entertained.

We are done taping and mudding the two rooms we're finishing in our basement, and I will start priming them tonight. Finally! It feels like the mudding and taping jobs

took forever. We were super picky about getting everything very smooth, so we hope everything will look nice and smooth when it's all painted. With any luck the rooms will be painted (not just primed) this weekend.

My running is going well. I have to plan the night before what time I will get up in the morning and which course I want to run. That eliminates all thought processes when I wake up, so I just go and don't have to think about it. I really am loving running again. My knees hurt quite badly last week, but I got some good rest during the weekend and so far they are feeling fine this week. I think my muscles and tendons are getting stronger and it might

take a while for them to get into running shape. I'll just take it easy until they do!

Thursday Sam, Brittany and I are all going to visit a friend from my

mission who is living in Provo. It should be a lot of fun. I've talked with her on the phone s

everal times trying to get things set up, and my Portuguese is just awf

ul!! Hopefully this vi

sit will help bring it back. (later) The visit was great! Here are some more pics.

Meet the Eavensons

I decided to start a blog about our family because of a conversation with a friend about a year ago. We were talking about kids and scrapbooking and how bad we both were at it. She mentioned that blogging would be a good way to record what was going on with the family. I agreed. So here I am, my first blogging attempt. I'm setting my expectations for my self nice and low - posting once a month with five pictures of our family - so I don't feel overwhelmed and I actually do it. If I do more than that, I'm doing great!

So here's a little about each of us:

Jared is currently working at an engineering

firm that does a lot of jobs for Hill Air Force base. He (and I) LOVES the job, which is quite different from what we could say about his last one. He is the Young Men's president in our ward and a county delegate for the republican party. Those two things coupled with finishing a basement, completing a Master's degree, being a dad and husband and working on cars whenever he can squeeze it in keep him a pretty busy

guy.

Sam is one and a half years old. His days are spent playing with the dog, throwing balls, transporting toy cars from one windowsill to the next, "helping" and entertaining his little sister, avoiding Mom's attempts to change his diaper, watching the kids in the cul de sac from our front window, and being very cute. He lives to go outside. He also lives for the minute Dad comes home from work.

Brittany is 9 weeks old. She is a little doll who fills her parents with great delight when she's happy. Unfortunately, she likes to scream a lot, but that's getting better. She has a beautiful smile that likes to surface one or two times a day and makes it all worth it. She started sleeping through the night last week. Yay! Her days are filled by sleeping, eating, talking to mom, and watching Sam. It is fun to see her grow and develop.

I am a stay at home mom who's trying to keep it all together after having the second baby. I am in the primary presidency in my ward. I teach piano. The kids and I have a lot of fun playing in the yard, working in the garden and going different places during the week. I have had a goal to run a marathon for a long time, and decided that this would be the year to do it since I turn 30 in October. A friend lent me a book that convinced me I can do it even though I haven't ran in a long time, and she and I are going to run the Top of Utah marathon in September! I started training last week.

Wally is our beagle. He's two years old. He's great at entertaining Sam and he has a certain power over Jared. He's a good dog.