Christmas... part two!

We flew to South Carolina for a week. 'twas a much-welcomed vacation! (even though we had just got back from Florida two weeks earlier... )

Christmas Morning!

Paul, Jarom and Kevin stayed up ALL night and woke us all up super early!
I think everyone took a nap that day...

Jenna was an expert at opening presents by then, so she helped open mine as well. She was pretty excited about her fun new toys!

She also liked to play with the tinsel and popcorn on the tree. When she was picking the popcorn off of the string, her Uncle Jarom very nicely told her not to, and she FREAKED OUT like he had just screamed at her. And yet, it doesn't seem to scare her in the least if I scold her...

DOGS!

Jenna was really scared of the dogs for about 3 minutes. Then, she loved to feed them treats and pet them. These two dogs were more scared of her the entire time!

Rocky was Jenna's favorite, probably because he's her size. She pulled him around the house on his leash saying "c'mon Rocky!". It was really cute.

On Christmas Eve, we were wrapping some presents when Rocky came up behind us and peed right on Paul's leg. It was soo funny - well, except for for Paul... :)

Airplane rides!

Coming home marked Jenna's 15th airplane ride! Wow, I don't think I had been on that many planes until high school! And, it was her last free trip as she will be 2 in March. Here come lots of car trips! woo!
Everytime one of our planes has landed, people around us comment on how good she was during the flight. "Well", I say, "she is an expert!"


Remember when Jenna's elbow got dislocated? Well, when we were in the Houston Airport, about to get on our last flight home, it happened again. Oh, man - talk about bad timing!
I told Jenna she had to hold my hand in the airport, but she didn't want to, so she tried to drop to the ground. I was still holding her hand and I felt a pop! and said "oh no...". The airline people said it would take paramedics an hour to get there, and the only thing they would probably do is take her to the emergency room. Well, our flight left in 20 minutes, so that wasn't going to work. I called my mom and she told me how to pop in back in myself.

I tried... she cried... I was done.

Luckily, I had gotten a scarf for Christmas (thanks Kristy!), so we made a sling for her arm and gave her some tylenol. She fell right asleep and slept for the flight, the car ride home, and all night. In the morning, she was acting perfectly happy:


I simply credited her lack of pain to my amazing scarf-sling, and brought her in to the doctor. It turns out, I should have checked her arm before we went, because her elbow was fine. Either my attempt to put it back actually HAD worked, or it popped back in while she was sleeping. That's fine by me!
I just hope it doesn't happen again! We have to be super careful with her right arm...


Our other trip highlights include being lazy, playing games, puzzles, wii bowling and raving rabbids (sooo funny!), and Jenna being the ONLY nursery-aged child (we had already promised her nursery, so grandma and I played with her in the nursery room).

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well!
Happy New Year!

Christmas... part one!

Since we went to South Carolina for Christmas this year, we decided to have our family Christmas early! ...ya know, cause airlines are charging for checked bags now - we brought as little as possible. Anyway, it was a good year to do it - Jenna doesn't know any difference yet!

So, Santa visited on December 20th this year! Paul woke Jenna and me up early (a tradition, I suppose...) and we had a little Christmas before church. Jenna really enjoyed it.

This clip shows how much Jenna is like her Daddy:

She had to get every scrap of paper off before she could enjoy her presents!

sick days

How Paul and Jenna spend their sick days:

making piles of books on daddy and reading them all

...and

making insanely large bubbles:

...take two...

If you remember last year, Jenna didn't want much to do with the snow. I was expecting a repeat of that, but tried to act really excited when we took her out to play:

feeling pretty good... this stuff looks interesting...

...and SUCCESS! She had a great time getting pulled around the backyard with Katie and Kaden!

BUT, eventually her hands got wet, and she refused to put on her gloves! Her fingers probably started to sting, so we had to cut the fun short.

A couple days later, we went out with Daddy. She must have remembered the previous fiasco because she didn't even smile this time. :(

We went down a small hill in the cul 'de sac, then Paul pulled us home!

DISNEY WORLD !!!

Last week, while the rest of Utah was working, schooling, and freezing... we were having a blast in sunny Florida! My parents rented a house in Kissimee and we had a fun family get-together. I'm sure Jenna won't actually remember any of it, but she had fun while she was there, and the adults got to have our own fun at Disney while the kids are still free!

Isabel, Jenna, Marshall, Jackson = too cute for words!

Jenna and I flew down to Orlando the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Paul flew down the next Wednesday - he had to be at work for the BYU-Utah game. Go Cougars!
Anyway, here's some of what we did on our trip:

DAY 1: at the house

The cousins met and played together, we swam, we ate, we talked, and played lots of ping-pong!

Jenna liked "reading" to Isabel

The boys gave us a little concert. Jackson sang and played the banjo while Marshall took the guitar.

DAY 2: Magic Kingdom

Sadly, we didn't see many characters walking around. And the ones we did see all had 30 minute lines to take a picture. We figured it wasn't worth it. Good call, since Jenna wouldn't let any of them touch her!

We found these hula hoops in a random cafe and the kids all wanted to play:

this is Jenna's version of hula hooping!


The teacups:

Marshall loved it!

...so did Jenna, until she started to get dizzy...

Then we checked out Minnie's house in the little kids' area:

Jenna probably had the most fun with Isabel :)
She liked to push her around and "clean" her up with wipes!

The Haunted Masion:

I love Jenna's face here! I promise she had fun!

Carousel:

This was Jenna's expression on pretty much every ride! She's soaking everything in. It might not look like it, but she's having a great time! Afterwards, she asks to do it again!

Ryan and Dad racing

Daniel's racing face

I obviously didn't take pictures of everything, and my picture-taking only gets worse from here. We were having too much fun to think about pulling out the camera all the time. Oh well.

DAY 3: Animal Kingdom

Isabel thought the characters were a hoot! And it was so fun to see her enjoy them!

Jenna, on the other hand, liked them from afar. But she wouldn't even smile at them up close :(

This guy picked her a flower in hopes of winning a smile... nope.

My cousin Joni just had surgery on her ankle. wheelchair = no lines. We loved Joni!

Jenna enjoyed controlling our height on the dinosaur ride.

Best ride ever! Actually it was closed, so we didn't get to ride, but check out its name - it's got to be the best, right? :)

Me and Daniel on the Mountain Yeti ride ( i don't remember what it's actually named)

Me and Ryan: Same ride. It was awesome!

While we did the big-kid rides, the grandmas took the kids to the petting zoo. Jenna got to brush the goats. When she left, she waved and said "bye goats!"

DAY 4: MGM Studios

I didn't want to carry my camera around, so I put it in my mom's purse. Then, I lost my mom for most of the day. Hence, no pictures.
It was a good day. Jenna liked watching the 3D shows and street performers. My favorite part was when a street performer saw Jenna and said "you are really cute! Some kids aren't - but you are! [laughter from the audience] Good job to whomever made you!"
Thank you, thank you!

It was a 25-minute drive to Disney, and remember Jenna hates being in her carseat. So she watched Baby Signing Time on the ipod.

DAY 5: Epcot

I flat out forgot my camera. Oops.
When I was little, I had a Figment doll from ImaginationLand. Get it? Figment of your imagination... So we got Jenna one too! They also used to have a giant bush shaped like figment, but sadly that is gone.
Our favorite part was the candlelight processional. It's only done in December. The Disney choir and mixed high school choirs perform Christmas songs between readings of the Christmas story from the bible. It was beautiful. Paul performed there in high school, so he was singing along - it was fun!

DAY 6: Magic Kingdom again!

It rained. a lot. all day.
But, Jenna didn't mind and there were NO lines, so it was still a blast!

This is how Jenna and I spent the day - inside Paul's coat. Seriously, all day.

... and this is how she took her nap. See her feet dangling out the bottom?

We did the teacups again. This is my dad's favorite ride! My only memories of Disney world when I was a kid are getting Mickey Mouse's autograph, and injuring my neck on the teacups! My dad goes sooooo fast!

After that, Paul wanted to show off how fast he could go, so Jenna and I rode with my sister. It was a little slower:

DAYs 7 & 8: Haines City

My family left early Saturday morning and Paul, Jenna and I stayed until Sunday night. Paul took us around where he used to live and we met a lot of his old friends. It was really nice to be able to visualize some of the stories he's told me... and Paul was amazed at the changes to his small town. Well, small town doesn't really describe it well. This place makes Provo look like New York City! Whew!

By the week's end, Jenna was really pooped out:

It was a wonderful break! I wish we could do it every year!

Ouch!

I love how when Jenna gets a "boo boo", a kiss is the magical cure! She'll fall down and be "sad" until she runs over to mom or dad saying "kiss! kiss!", and then the pain is gone! Unless, of course, another kid hurts her - then the cure is putting that child in time out. Justice must be satisfied in her little brain.
This made me think of the three injuries Jenna has had that couldn't be cured by mommy's kiss:

#1 A couple days before her 15-month doctor check-up, we were preparing to have a BBQ out on the deck. The chairs were out already, and Jenna saw an opportunity to climb! She was well into her climbing stage by then. She stood up on the chair and started to rock it... I think you see where this going... The chair fell backwards before anyone could get there fast enough, and Jenna's sweet little face hit the hard deck first! Needless to say, there was a lot of blood! Several popsicles and a bath later, she was left with a very fat lip and very bruised gums. I was worried about damage to her tooth, but people convinced me to wait and see what the doctor had to say at her appointment.
Her bruises lasted for a couple weeks, but luckily, there was no serious damage! Now, I'm just bummed that we didn't get a picture.

#2 A couple days after her 15-month doctor check-up, I was getting Jenna ready for bed. She was not enjoying getting her teeth brushed because of her bruised gums, but it had to be done. I had to hold down her arm with one hand while I brushed with the other. This night, she was particularly set against letting me brush her teeth and pulled as hard as she could to release her arm from my grasp. She immediately started crying differently - I could tell she was in pain! I felt absolutely horrible, thinking I hurt my baby! She wouldn't move her arm, so I thought that her shoulder had gotten pulled out of the socket. Paul was out of town at a conference, so I brought her to Andrea (it's nice having a nurse around) and called my mom (it's also nice having a nurse for a mom!). We all agreed is wasn't her shoulder, and thought it was probably her wrist. Hoping it was just bruised, we decided to see how the night went. It was terrible! Poor little girl woke up almost every hour, and I held her till she fell back asleep. The next morning she wouldn't even reach her arm out to eat sugary cereal, so I decided something was wrong and brought her in to the doctor. The doctor said her elbow was out of the socket, and popped it right back in! 5-seconds later, Jenna was happy as a clam!
Then,

Doctor: Did I say anything about her ear last week?
Kali: No...
Doctor: Hmmm. Well it looks like she's getting an ear infection.
Kali: figures...

#3 About a week or two after that, Jenna was once again playing on the deck with Kaden. All of a sudden, she starts to cry. At first we think they were fighting over something - nope. We conclude that she must have stepped on something. I held and comforted her until she stopped crying. Finally, I looked at her hand.

Kali: Wow, her finger is really swollen.
Spencer: Hey, there's a wasp nest over here!

2 + 2 = Jenna tried to get a little too friendly with a wasp, and got stung. Poor girl.

here's her finger:


That must have been a hard month for Jenna. The only major injuries of her life all occurred within weeks of each other.

On an unrelated topic, I found this picture, courtesy of Andrea. Isn't it cute?!?

Handygirl

We brought Jenna to the Kids Workshop at Home Depot, and she made this cute little boat:


Okay, Paul did most of the work, but Jenna enjoyed herself! Here she is in her cute little work apron:

Trick or Treat

Jenna was a big ol' fat giraffe for halloween. We thought it was fitting because they're the first animal she learned what they "say" and she likes to talk to the giraffes on her bedding all the time! We "girled" it up a bit by putting a little yellow bow on its head!

Jenna loved wearing her costume. She got to wear it 3 times!

So cute! I love the fat giraffe belly! She even won a prize at our ward's party!

Kaden and Jenna had a blast trick or treating. Kaden would say "frick or freat" almost every time, and when they tried to give him some candy he said "I pick some" and reached for the bowl! Jenna would only say "wick or weat" before they answered the door, and when they tried to give her candy, she just stared back at them... But once they were gone, she loved her treats!

In order to maximize the short amount of time we could stay out with 1-year-olds, we eventually resorted to strollers:

Now THIS is trick or treating, eh? :)