Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 was magical. My parents rented a cabin for the week in Heber City, Utah and all of my siblings and their spouses and children were there. We were glad that we gathered in Utah this year, since that made it a easier for us to travel from Indiana to be there. Since Bennett was barely three weeks old when we began our Christmas break, I knew it would be difficult to drive 24 hours across the country with a newborn. So we came up with a 4 day travel plan: 

Day 1 (Wednesday): we left Indiana right after Dallin got out of school and drove to St. Louis. My good friend Grace was happy to let us stay with her, as always. Day 2: Mckay left St. Louis that morning and drove with the two older boys to arrive in Denver that night. They stayed with Mckay's parents. Bennett and I spent the day with Grace in St. Louis. Day 3 (Friday): I flew out of St. Louis at the not-so-bright and early time of 6am and and arrived in Salt Lake before noon. I spent the day with my mom and two of my sisters getting food/supplies purchased for our week long stay at the cabin. (I'm not sure why we thought it was a good idea to go to Costco on the Friday before Christmas with 3 kids, two being newborns, to buy a weeks worth of food for 40 people. It was crazy busy but we had a some good laughs.)  Mckay took Friday as a day to rest in Denver and visit with family for a bit before driving the final 8 hour leg of the trip to Utah. Day 4: Mckay left Denver and drove to Heber with Dallin and Connor. The rest of the Crapo Family (or most of them) arrived by Saturday night.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the house we stayed in. It was huge with tons of bedrooms and several bunk beds in each room. There was a hot tub, a sand volleyball court, a Foosball table and a pool table, several big living areas for everyone to visit and play, a huge kitchen and, while no table known to man could fit all 40+ people, this table could usually fit most of the little kids.

Julie and Christian (my sister and her husband) once again made a lot of the magic happen for the kids.

They brought an art easel, a train set, gingerbread housed to decorate, lots of dessert projects for the older grandkids, and a new Christmas book to read every night. They were always plenty to do. And there was plenty of snow so the kids got to do lots of playing outside.

Bennett and his cousin Annabel are only 3 weeks apart (she's older), so they did a lot of the same things: eating every 2-3 hours, dirtying diapers, sleeping in whatever set of arms was available.

They shared things too, like the bouncy chair and their pacifiers. (The pacifier sharing was unintentional, but all the pacifiers looked similar and with 15 other adults helping to care for the babies, no one could keep them straight.)

We did a few fun activities outside the house, like riding on the Heber Creeper North Pole Express.

We got to drink hot chocolate, eat cookies, sing carols and meet Santa!

The kids were all pretty hyped up.

As if the sugar-filled, Santa-excited kids crammed into a train car weren't enough to give all the adults a headache, they gave everyone a jingle bell. Now there were 80 jingle bells ringing right by your head. Fun times! It was actually pretty fun, but there's a reason why Christmas only comes once a year.

While we had all the family there, my parents hired a photographer to take family pictures.

Here's grandma and grandpa with all 17 grand kids, ages 13 years -3 weeks.

Me with my siblings.

 The whole group

Well, we're one short in this picture. My sister's husband had a last minute change in work schedule, so he couldn't be there for pictures. I hear there's a plan to photoshop him in later.

And here is our family.

I just love these two cute boys.

On Christmas Eve, we had our traditional talent show, complete with lots of singing and the best Louis Armstrong impersonation I've ever heard. (Well done Joseph!)

We gave the kids candy canes

and then sent them to bed so we Santa could fill the stockings.

I think we got a few hours of sleep before the kids woke up on Christmas morning.

All of the kids got a light saber in their stockings.

We did a round of opening presents. With so many people, it took a long time, so we had a breakfast break.

We ate delicious Kneaders french toast and home-cured bacon, all prepared by Nate.

Then it was back to presents!

Dallin's presents were mostly Star Wars themed.

And Connor got a stuffed minion!

It was a wonderful Christmas.

November and Thanksgiving

With Dallin being at school all day, Connor and I get to spend a lot of time together. And since he went to all my midwife appointments with me and helped me get out our baby things, he was really pretty excited for Bennett's arrival.

When I got the baby car seat out, Connor put his baby in and read him a book.

I would often find him with a stuffed animal down his shirt, pretending to be pregnant.

***

Thanksgiving was the day after I came home from the hospital with Bennett. It was a very lazy day. 

My wonderful parents cooked all of the dinner for us. I requested my favorite turkey recipe and my dad did a great job.

Here's our 7 pounder next to the 11 pounder bird.

 Ready to eat!

 For dessert, we had a delicious selection of 5 pies.

It may have been overkill for 4 adults, but we couldn't narrow down the choices. The leftovers made a good snack over the next week for a hungry, nursing mother.

A few days later Bennett got his first bath at home.

He doesn't like being cold, but as long as I kept him bundled and warm, he enjoyed it.

 I just can't get enough of his sweet face.

The excitement of a new baby hasn't worn off yet. Every morning, Dallin and Connor are so excited when Bennett wakes up and they ask to hold him.

Most of the time, they are sweet and gentle to him. We've only had to remind them a few times that Bennett can't wrestle yet.

 I made a quilt for Bennett while I was pregnant. 

The plan was to have it finished completely before he was born, but that didn't quite happen. I did manage to finish it before he was 3 weeks old, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I love the fabric and colors and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Halloween 2014

(Still catching up to present time...)

 The boys love Halloween, Dallin especially. It's strange because he doesn't like to get scared, but he loves skeletons and zombies and Darth Vader and The Nightmare before Christmas. They were very happy when October rolled around and I let them get out our Halloween decorations. 

They got to decorate pumpkins with stickers--much easier than carving.

 The sticker kit we got was supposed to give you a few different "face" options for your pumpkin. Dallin and Connor went with Picasso pumpkins and put all the stickers on randomly.

Whatever makes them happy...

We went to a Halloween party at our friends' house. I took advantage of my pregnancy bump and dressed it up.

That's no moon.

 For our church Trunk or Treat, we did a family costume theme of "Plants vs. Zombies." (If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a video game.)

Dallin and Connor were Conehead zombies and Mckay was Crazy Dave. I, once again, dressed up my belly and went as a sunflower.

Halloween night was rainy with barely above freezing temperatures. We made our traditional homemade pizza and took found a little break in the rain to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood for a bit. We got cold pretty quickly and the rain started again, so we went to only a few houses and then came home.

The boys inspected their stash.

Connor drank some hot chocolate.

Then we passed out candy the rest of the night. Since there weren't many trick-or-treaters out due to the weather, we had a lot of leftover candy that we didn't give out. We might still have a lot of that candy 3 months later...

October

Pictures from October:

We went to a friend's birthday party that was "Frozen" themed. Although our house has somehow avoided the Frozen obsession that has swept the world, Dallin and Connor still had fun and enjoyed the "build your own snowman" kit they got to bring home.

***

Mckay is getting really creative at plating our Thai food dinners.

This one is "Turtle swimming through massaman curry."

Still trying to convince Dallin to eat rice, Mckay made Dallin's rice a pizza shape.

It wasn't very effective...

***

We went to the Purdue research farm again this year to pick pumpkins.

We remembered to dressed warmly this time and I even brought a blanket to keep us warm on the tractor.

Connor was very helpful picking the pumpkins and tasting the apples.

He's also pretty helpful around the house.

Even if it was him who made the mess in the first place.

***

The boys have been really into puzzles. 

They put together this 100 piece Spongebob puzzle at least 20 times in October. Connor can do the puzzle by himself! (100 pieces is impressive for a 3 year old.) And he will sit patiently working on it for a solid hour. It's marvelous.

***

Dallin and Connor like to join in when Mckay does his workout at home.

Connor can do a decent pushup.

I did a lot of yoga during the last few months of pregnancy and sometimes the boys would join in with that as well.

***

I spent much of October getting ready for the new baby, doing things like pulling the baby clothes out of storage and washing them.

Looking at all these baby clothes brought back a lot of memories. Maybe it's because Dallin was so tiny and he wore all these 0-3 months size clothes a long time. I attach a lot of sentimental value to my children's clothes for some reason.

***

I held my annual piano recital and only took one picture the whole night.

Since the recital was in October again like last year, the kids wanted to do a minor key/Halloween theme again. Mckay talked me into learning and performing "Raindrop" by Chopin. It was more difficult than I wanted it to be but I figured I should set a good example for my students by practicing a lot and setting high expectations for myself. While my performance was not perfect, it sounded pretty darn good and I'm glad I wasn't afraid to learn a new song.

Half Marathon and Connor's Birthday

Connor turned 3 in October! The day before his birthday, we took him out to lunch while Dallin was at school.

I think Connor felt pretty special having time just for him with mom and dad.

On Connor's birthday, we all woke up early to take Mckay to run the Purdue Boilermaker Half Marathon!

This was Mckay's first half marathon.

It was a cold, drizzly morning.

The boys seemed rather annoyed that we pulled them out of their warm beds.

The runners were off!

If you look closely, you can see Mckay in this picture, just about to run under the archway.

Since we were close to home, we went back to eat breakfast, get dressed and make a sign for Mckay. Then we returned to campus to greet Mckay at the finish line. 

I knew what time Mckay expected to be done, and planned to be waiting for him well before that time. Being hugely pregnant, it took longer than I expected to push a double stroller with two kids in it up the hill from the parking lot to the finish line. I still figured we were ok on time and we watched and waited for Mckay to cross the finish line.

After about 20 minutes at the finish line, Mckay called my phone. He had finished running about 20 minutes before (we must have just barely missed him!) and was now freezing and waiting for us to bring his jacket.

He finished in 2 hours and 2 minutes! We were all so proud of him. He has plans to run a marathon someday, maybe this year. I think that next time we'll make a better plan for meeting up with him afterward.

After we all took a long nap, we celebrated Connor's birthday.

He got lots of good things (books, trains, cars, clothes, treats). One of his favorite presents was his very own baby.

Connor is definitely a rough play, loud, energetic kind of kid, but when he plays with his baby, he gets very quiet and gentle. It's sweet. I made some felt diapers and a simple blanket for Connor to use with his baby. After Connor unwrapped "Charlie," he changed him and dressed him in pajamas.

Then Connor said that baby needed to sleep and ran to our real crib. I thought he would just drop him into the crib.

Connor climbed in...

...and very gently laid the baby down for a nap.

It's really fun watching Connor grow up into a sweet, smart, fun boy.