New Year's Celebrations

New Year's Eve was a blast. We played games with the Melanie and Jared and their little crew, Leah, Jamie, Michael and Catye and then kept with our family tradition of banana splits. The games of choice were Ticket to Ride Asia, Golf, and Screw Your Neighbor. It was fun to play new games! I loved it.  Leah made some pasta for dinner and Melanie brought split pea soup. Hence, we ate well and partied hard!

The first day of 2014 was a lot of fun also.  We had the pleasure of spending the day with our very good friends Amy and Stan O. and their kids. Rinar served a mission with Stan and that is how we became friends many years ago in Henderson. They saw each other at Stake Conference and then we later had dinner together at their house. Raef and Zach were toddlers and homeschooling was a naive dream for me...and for Amy!  We hit it off immediately and have always stayed close.  She has six children as well. Although I would bet you that they have seven or so. We shall see.

We spent hours talking while the kids played and then went to get some Mexican food for lunch while the kids stayed home and ate Little Caesar's.  Now that we have reconnected, I think we will be doing a lot more stuff with them.

We are blessed with wonderful friends.

15 Years

What do you do when you have been officially married for 15 years?

Well, I don't know about you, but today I did my mom stuff: diapers, sick babies, homeschool, grocery shopping, etc.  Rinar stayed home today and he got to help me. He took the boys to their music lessons and helped with the kids. I even had him do geography with Raef and Zach while I went to the store. 

Then we planned to go to dinner tonight. He was going to take me to a nice restaurant. However, my friend Amy had invited me to come to the home birth of baby #5. The baby was overdue and finally I got the call this evening around 5:30.  I was so happy I would be able to come. So Rinar and I did a quick dinner at Cafe Rio and as I was halfway through my chicken tostada her sister called to tell me she was dilated to a 5. I was glad because I knew I would be able to finish my dinner. 

Then we went over there and Rinar waited out in the living room with the kids. Amy was sitting on the toilet and I had no idea how close she was to giving birth. Sure enough, 10 minutes after I got there she calmly (and I really mean that) eased out a baby boy.  Yes, the kid was born on the toilet.  But gravity was a good thing tonight.  It was amazing. I am so grateful I could experience the miracle of birth the natural way and that it wasn't me.  She looked fantastic and the baby is beautiful. He has a lot of hair and a nice loud cry.  The name is yet to be decided.

We talked for a little bit and then went to finish our date at Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Then when we got home I spent some time drawing with Raef.  He is quite the kid.  

So now you know what you do when you celebrate 15 years of marriage.  The good thing is that I will always remember the birth date for Amy and Stan's 5th child, November 24, 2010.

Happy Anniversary Rinar. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were married, and yet it has been in a blink of an eye.  Time really does fly. I am a totally different person than that 19 year-old girl you married. You make me a better person and you are my love for eternity.

I Guess I Ought to Blog Something

I have been in a blogging funk. Sorry, Grandma(s). I have just been so busy trying to get my life back to normal around here. My house is in complete disarray and I am trying to re-array it.

I almost have all of my Christmas decorations up. Rinar just needs to put some on the outside of the house. I cleaned up a lot of corners and stacks of clutter downstairs. This weekend I also purged all baby clothing, separated it, and put things in proper bedroom spaces. I cleaned out three bookshelves and re-put things in new places. It is all so convoluted because when I was pregnant we moved all of the kids' bedrooms around. Raef and Zach's new room is pretty set, but the other two are just sketched out. They both need to be painted and redecorated and everything. So I am just trying to take it one step at a time. Lots of little things add up to big things. I am a big believer in that.

On top of trying to restore order to my home, I also have to nurse two babies, change loads of dirty diapers, and shuttle kids to music lessons and such. My one saving grace is that I started a little dinner group co-op. Hence, on Tuesday and Wednesday I don't have to cook. I have a lovely meal delivered to my doorstep. Then on Thursday I cook for me and the two other families. I have been able to be more thoughtful about my cooking day and plan for it without the burden of daily cooking duties. It has truly been a huge blessing.

Harry and Julia are doing fantastic these days. They are growing like crazy and are sleeping longer at night. Last night they did 6 hours, from midnight to 6:30am. Hence, I slept for about 5 1/2 hours uninterrupted. It was great. Each night it gets a little bit longer, so I would guess that within the next 2-3 weeks they will probably sleep 8-10 hours. I look forward to normalcy.

We had a wonderful double Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day we spent it with our good friends Stan and Amy O. They have 4 kids about the same age so it worked out well for all of us. It was a very traditional dinner that was a breeze to put together because we split up the cooking duties. Then on Friday we went to St. George to have Thanksgiving with Rinar's family. We have been doing this for many years now and it works out great. There is no conflict with other family functions with all of his brothers and sisters.

Here are a couple of random photos from the last couple of weeks.