Date night

Christian & I had a date the other night. We went to go see the comedian, Brian Regan, who Christian has loved for a long time. He's very family friendly, which I love. We gave Christian 2 tickets for Christmas, and then Mike & I proceded to try to persuade him which parent he should take with him. He saw right through it, of course, and would play us off of each other. In the end, I scored the 2nd ticket since Mike ended up having church meetings. Darnit.

Before the concert, we had dinner at a nice restaurant. I taught him some restaurant/date etiquette, which every 13 yr old just loves. He was a good sport, though. The waitress even said, "Trust me ... your future dates will love your mom for this."

Tried to get a decent picture of us pre-concert, but right as I took the picture he would pull this face. Every time.

Adorable, isn't he? :)

Smarty pants

Well, she did it. Haley was in the top 3 kids of her class for the class spelling bee so she went on to the school spelling bee, which happened yesterday.  It started out with 36 kids and was quickly whittled down, round after round.  Haley stayed in the running by correctly spelling words like valetudinarian, filibuster, epidemiologist, pharmaceutical and asphyxiate.

Down to the final few...

Part of our cheering section -- the adorable Olsen girls, who are thankfully also our backyard neighbors. :)

Haley placed 3rd in the school, which means that she's off to the district spelling bee soon! She couldn't stop smiling.

And then she promptly had to let out a little steam by rockin' out with Sarah.

Family party

Being in an LDS ward means that you get very close to your neighbors. You see each other multiple times per week sometimes (with church and then weekly church activities), you serve in callings together and so get to know lots of different people that you may not know as well otherwise ... There's book group, play group, craft nights, movie nights, girls night out, etc.

So moving out of a ward is a big deal. We only moved a few blocks away, so we're technically in the same neighborhood ('ish) -- same school, same church stake -- but it still makes a big difference in who you see every week. And while we love our new house and have felt so welcomed by our new neighbors, we still miss our friends from our last neighborhood & ward. So what do you do when you miss someone? You find an excuse to get together!

The kids & I delivered invitations to everyone in our last ward and had a Family Night open house to see everyone. They all brought food to share and it was a fun night of yumminess, kids playing and adults staying and hanging out for the evening.

Loved the pile of shoes at the door. :)

I wish I'd taken pictures all evening because the crowd rotated and changed often. The kids were playing in every room in the basement -- hide & go seek seemed to be the favorite. We had about 70 people and wish we'd had more. We'll have to do it again this summer, bbq-style.

Alternative use for the hall banister...

Notice the ipod set up on the floor. It was quite the dance studio for awhile yesterday.

Nothing new to report

I've hit a blogging wall. I used to blog several times a week and lately I'm good if I blog every couple of weeks. What's my deal, people?

It's funny how much just hanging pictures on the walls makes a house feel like a home. I've had things leaning against the walls to figure out where I wanted to hang them, and now I'm making real holes in the walls to hang portraits of the kids and other cool things that I've been collecting over the years. For example ...

I'm not very scientific when I hang pictures, unfortunately. The first one up is easy -- I just eyeball it. The 2nd one is easy, too, but the others are definitely harder to hang evenly. Hence, this grouping has 2 pictures hung while the others wait patiently on the floor.

When Paige saw me hanging these up, she asked if we were having someone "freakishly large" over for dinner. :)  Mike isn't entirely won over by the giant silverware either but they make me happy every time I walk by them.

I am just barely taking the Christmas trees down today. Why has it taken me so long, you ask? Because I don't have enough furniture to fill this house and so taking the trees down has quite literally left some gaping holes in my decor. Christmas lights just make a house feel magical, too. Don't people decorate with twinkling trees for Valentine's? Easter?

I'm kicking myself for not having taken more pictures over the past couple of months. Pictures of all 36 of our Thanksgiving guests, or of our Young Women's pajama breakfast here the other morning, or of Christmas morning, or of the private Orange Leaf frozen yogurt party that the extended Mayfield clan had. I didn't even take a Christmas pajama picture this year. Probably because I had the flu on Christmas Eve (so awesome), but still .... Here's a few random shots that I did manage to take, though.

My adorable niece, Ali, with my adorable Elle. There's some serious love between these two.

The girls had an American Girl rock concert. They made instruments for the dolls out of paper and then had a lipsync concert to Paige's ipod music.

We had quite a few cousin sleepovers over the holidays.  Lots of cousins running around together is definitely a good thing.

Elle's preschool gave a little concert at a care center for Christmas. Elle couldn't have been more serious during the concert but she sang every note and did all of the actions. For as animated as she normally is, she sure clams up on stage.

There's always lots of playing around with phone apps. There's the 'stachematic' mustache maker app,

... the 'fat booth' app that adds 100 pounds to your face (this is Christian's friend, Ian -- trust me, he's a cute kid),

... and the 'zombiematic' app that turns your precious daughter into this monster:

That's just wrong.

Back to tackling the garage and the remainder of the boxes that need unpacking ....

Aftermath

Every year, I wish I could take pictures of after hours Christmas Eve activities. Know what I mean? But I have young readers (namely my own children) and so the after hours stuff must remain a mystery to them. This year, there was a serious emergency on Christmas Eve. Many phone calls were made, frantic drives by several people out into the cold on a shopping mission ... Wish I could give more details. Thanks to the heroic efforts of several people, emergency solved resulting in a very happy child. Let me just say, if you ever buy something from a store and they rummage around in back and bring you an unmarked box of the supposed item, DOUBLE CHECK that the box contains what you hope it contains. Just do it.

Christmas morning in a new house feels a little different. I sometimes still feel like we're just visiting here. No real history, yet. But it was fun, too. We set up an air mattress in the guest room so all 4 kids slept downstairs. They aren't allowed upstairs until 7am, and then not before they've called the parents on the phone to make sure it's ok to come up. Grandma came this year to be part of Christmas morning with us. We followed our tradition (which Grandma started years ago) of having everyone drink a glass of orange juice before they can see their loot and dig into their candy horde. Mom always said it was to raise our blood sugar before we ate candy first thing in the morning but whatever the reason, the tradition continues in at least two of her children's households. Funny.

We've done a whole lot of nothing this week, which we've all needed. I've done more unpacking, my never ending chore, the kids have played non-stop on the new Kinect and Mike has slept in a drug-induced haze. Cousins are here from out of town so we had a massive sleepover last night. Isn't that what the holidays are about? We did slip in one movie so far -- "We Bought A Zoo." Go see it. Immediately. I want to go again already. The music, the sweet & sad storyline ... Perfection for me.

Still in my pj's at noon. Must be Christmas break. :)

Guess what Mike got for Christmas?

Surgery, a bunch of stitches and some good pain meds. Yay! Poor guy. He had surgery last year at this time, too. No more babe, k? Mike had a growth (the dr. called it a tumor -- I prefer the less scary term) right in front of his ear. He's actually had it since I've known him, but it started growing this year so Mike went to the doctor to have it checked. They scared him with phrases like "20% chance of cancer" and "facial paralysis post-surgery" and "We should operate fairly quickly." Merry Christmas to us! Poor guy has really been freaked out this last few weeks. But the 4 hour surgery yesterday went really well -- tissue was benign, no nerve damage (meaning his face moves as it should ... definite bonus), he's feeling good this morning and is home resting comfortably. We're both relieved, to say the least.

Now bring on the fun Christmas stuff 'cause we're ready to celebrate!

Surprise Birthday

My Noelle turned 5 a few days ago. She's been asking us to call her Noelle more lately. When people call her Elle, she now says, "But that's not my real name. I'm Noelle." Anyway, as her birthday got nearer, she started talking about how cool surprise parties are. She even drew me a picture of people jumping up from behind the couch yelling 'Surprise!' How do you then not throw her a surprise party? She wasn't due for a birthday party this year since she had one last year but we can always have a family & cousin party, right? So that's what we did.

First thing in the morning, Mike took her for a daddy/daughter breakfast date. She went in her jammies & robe and was seriously thrilled to have her daddy all to herself. When they walked back in the house afterward, Paige, Haley & I all hid behind the couch and yelled 'SURPRISE!' when she came in the kitchen. She loved it. Then we surprised her with this...

Remember that bear from Costco? When she initially begged for one, we lived in our last house that had not an inch to spare for giant teddy bears. Once I knew we were moving to this new house, though, and that we wouldn't have enough furniture to fill it, I bought the ginormous bear and hid it in our storage unit. She was pleasantly shocked, to say the least.

Once during the day, I said to her, "I can't believe you are 5! That's so big!" She sadly said, "I really miss being 4."

Birthday evening, cousins, siblings, aunts and grandma came over in time to surprise Elle once again.

She was giddy that she had a surprise party just for her.

Showin' the love to Aunt KK.

Oh my, how I love this little girl. She is my little sidekick & shadow and I love it. She loves her alone time with mom or dad (preferably with both of us snuggling in our bed). She's a cuddler. She's an eater ... loves food, much like her mom. She's feminine and tough at the same time. I just adore her. Happy Birthday, baby.

Do you ever... ?

When you drive to a store and pull into a parking stall, do you turn off the car and just sit in the quiet for 20-30 minutes? Cause I do. All the time. I turn off the engine, look over at the store teeming with people and try to muster up the energy and desire to actually go in. Like right now, for example .... I dropped Elle at preschool and drove here to Walmart to pick up a few things. But I've been sitting here for 15 minutes now, listening to a little NPR and catching up on blogs. I'm so cozy in here that I can't bring myself to get out of the car.

Twenty quiet minutes in the car (preferably with my phone and a Diet Coke) and I'm good to continue the marathon that is often my day. Here I go...

Nothing says Christmas like an icy mug of rootbeer, am I right? Well, for our family anyway because we always make a stop at Hires Big H while we're at Modern Display to see the villages and trees. Last year, we added a stop at the Grand America hotel to see the window displays and play in their toy store. Tonight was the night that we covered it all and it definitely feels even more like Christmas now.

We added a new experience to our Christmas season this year; we went to a live nativity that a local neighborhood has been doing for years. Live camel and sheep were impressive, along with a town center/bazaar, lots of 'townspeople' wandering around and even soldiers who were protecting the city gates. The kids agreed it was a cool experience.

Another tradition that lives on in our family is making gingerbread houses with Preslars. This year, Rachel discovered a village set, which meant that every child had their own miniature gingerbread house and that I could decorate my very own larger house. Sweet! Check it out.

How cute is the littlest Preslar?

How great is this time of year?

Biker chicks

How cool are these bike helmets??

Especially this one!

Rock Star

How cool would it be to play with a band? Especially if you're just a kid? My brother-in-law, Ben, is an amazing musician and incredible pianist. He's taught piano for years and does one thing for his students that I think is genius: he has a yearly rock & roll recital. The student plays keyboard, Ben plays drums, my other brother-in-law plays bass and they all play while a singer belts out whichever song the student chose. So very cool, right?!? Check out my cute cousin, Calvin, playing Coldplay ...

I know, right? You're awesome, Ben. And you totally rock, Cal!!

It's Done!

Well, almost.  The house is 95% finished and we're living both upstairs and downstairs now.  Mike & I both knew this house had great potential but we both agree that it turned out even better than we had pictured.  Here are some before & afters...

Remember the old front room & dining room?  We knew that this would be the perfect space for a fun, open kitchen.

Here it is now ....

We opened up the original doorway, took down a wall or two and now have this amazing, open space that fits everyone and then some. We fit 13 cousins around the island before the kitchen was actually finished.

I love that! We've been entertaining nonstop, which is exactly why we bought this home. I stand back and look at this kitchen and can't believe it's really mine. I've been dreaming of this kitchen for years.

Elle's favorite part of the kitchen is this:

Can't tell what that is? That was exactly what we were aiming for. It's a hidden pantry. The door looks like regular cupboards but hides this great space behind:

It's become the kids' favorite escape. On Thanksgiving Day, I found Christian and his cousin, Tyler, hiding out in the pantry playing games on their phones. If you ever play hide-and-go-seek with my kids here at our house, be sure to check for them in the pantry.

Here are a couple of shots of the family room before:

And here it is now...

Here's the entry before:

And here's the new entry.

I love, love the flooring -- both the tile and the dark wood.

The old casual dining room was transformed into our formal dining room:

I don't have before pictures of the bedrooms but here are Elle's and Paige's rooms. They're bright and so fun. :)

There's still some work to do but we're loving this house and are grateful that we found the right thing for us after 4 years of looking. Home sweet home. :)