pinkeye is the worst

As I type this, Kate has pinkeye. Again. For the third time. I'm about ready to kill myself. Anyway, here's the end of December and beginning of January.

Gray also got pinkeye around this time. His case was the mildest and over the quickest. Yay!

I wanted to do something special for our neighbor Mary, who is also my children's best friend, because she was turning 18 and it was Christmas. So I decided to make her a tshirt quilt with some Maple Mountain High School cheerleading shirts of Kate's. I asked her mom if she had any other old ones I could use too. I bought fabric at Joann's the day after Black Friday, but it was fleece and not flannel like I wanted (because there wasn't any flannel in the colors I wanted). And her mom never got back to me, so I had to rethink my project. I decided to make a couple of pillows from the shirts and a jean quilt backed with fleece in MMHS colors. I think it turned out okay, but I would do so many things differently if I ever did something like this again. I am not a seamstress.

We wanted to go over early to give it to her, so she would still be in bed. The plan was for the kids to put the blanket on her then wake her up.

The plan didn't quite work, because the kids were too loud so Mary woke up before we got to her room. Oh well. She was happy, and the kids were happy.

Playing Jenga as a family. Jude would wait until the game would get really good, then run by and destroy it. That happened four times, then we quit playing. And strangely enough, when I play Jenga with only Jude, he doesn't knock it over. He actually plays by the rules. Weird.

Nate tried to keep Jude away from the game. It didn't work.

My aunt gave me and my mom gift cards to McDonalds for Christmas. I had to run to the temple on the 29th to help my mom with something, and she suggested we go to lunch. Since those gift cards were burning a hole in my purse, we went to Mickey D's. And now the gift cards are gone and we never have to go back. The kids had a good time though.

Jude eating with his eyes closed.

I'm naively thinking that no one else will get pinkeye. So silly.

On the 30th I drove to SLC with Gray so he could be part of a TV spot for Cahoots Fitness on KUTV's Fresh Living. It was adorable and exciting. I've never been in a TV studio before (I think).

Gray watching himself on the TV. He was very excited. I'll post the link to the clip in my next post, because it isn't assimilating well here.

We had our Primary meet your teacher activity on January 2nd. It was easy and fun, just the way every activity should be.

When we got home from the activity, I noticed that Colin now had pinkeye. Great. Grand. Wonderful. Perfect.

We had some friends from DC (Paul and Bren Larsen) come to visit with their children, and I sent the girls home with extra dress up shoes and princess crowns—because they appreciated the toys and my girl does not so much these days. Also, we had like 8 of those crowns, we could spare 2. Kenny tried on one of the crowns when his nieces weren't looking.

I love a baby in an In'N'Out hat. And I love when the children play nicely together with old toys. Jude is the cutest with the food. He stands behind the counter and says, "What you want?" It's adorable. But I'm not sure it made it onto the video.

They really were having fun. Gray just got mad because I told him to stop moving the kitchen around.

I saw this on Facebook and it made me laugh. So I sent it to Nate. His response, "When did you buy coffee?"

And this is from the 9th when Jude developed pinkeye in his other eye. Yay! (He originally got pinkeye a day or two after Colin.) Also, Nate had pinkeye last week too. His is gone now. (Or should I say, for now?) I have been washing bedding and towels daily for weeks. I have been sanitizing everything I can think of several times a day. My house is cleaner than it has ever been, and yet pinkeye continues to haunt me. So far my eyes have been fine, buy my mental state is suffering. My confidence in my ability to clean and mother is super low. I feel judged. I feel like a failure. Happy New Year.

Christmas!

More picture from my birthday! See, I knew I had more.

I made myself some Darth Chocolates for my birthday. I got a huge kick out of them. I also made some white chocolate storm troopers, but they weren't as punny.

I convinced Nate to take me to our brother-in-law Austin's band's battle-of-the-bands concert in Provo for my birthday. I thought it might be fun, and that maybe I could feel young again despite being 32. Turns out the opposite was true. Well, it was still fun, but I am too old and we left early. But it was still an Experience, and I enjoyed it.

Hanging out waiting for it all to start.

Just how I like my selfies, dark and blurry.

I told my friend and only blog reader Diana that there were too many man buns and slouchy beanies for me to feel comfortable at the concert.

Nate's wife: Ale, Austin's wife: my sister, and my sister's wife: Jessica.

I believe the band is setting up here.

The boys threw out a tshirt and it landed right behind me in Nate's hand. He knew how much I wanted a free shirt for my birthday, and he gave it to me, and I put it right on. It was a magical evening.

Nate's Great Aunt Margie passed away and her husband sent each of the great great nieces a piece of her jewelry to have. Kate felt very special and grown up.

Jude showing off his "glubs," and then getting made because his fingers weren't in the finger places.

We finally got some real snow! The kids were overjoyed.

Ugly Sweater and Crazy Hair Day at school. Since I don't own any ugly sweaters, Kate pulled this gem out of a DI bag from a neighbor. Her hair was half little braids pinned up with crazy bows, and the other half was a side ponytail.

I put the rest of Kate's hair in little braids after Crazy Hair Day. She wanted her hair to be big and pouffy for Pajama Day.

Well, it didn't turn out too pouffy, but she was happy with it. I felt like it was NOT worth the effort.

More snow! I did a lot of shoveling over the course of the week.

We went to my in-laws on the 19th to watch the BYU football game and open cousin presents. At this point in the BYU vs. Utah bowl game I wasn't too sure if I wanted to continue to watch and/or live. Turn out the game wasn't as big of a disaster as the first quarter led me to believe it would be. Also, I like my jersey.

We waited for hours for Scott to get home from work, but he never did, so we finally opened presents without him. Hannah was Hannah Claus and handed out the goods.

Jude demanded, and was given, an apple.

My husband is a turd. I wonder where my kids get it from.

Kids opening presents.

I got a sweet Darth Vader sweatshirt. Fun!

And then it was Christmas Break! Fun, right? Well, it was for about a day, then disease struck our home once more.

Marble run was/is a big hit at our house.

Kate came down with pink eye on Sunday, I think. I eventually took her to the doctor for some drops because her eye was so swollen and gross.

So, I had a car accident Tuesday after dropping Colin off at a friend's house. A guy wasn't watching and backed into me as I drove by. It was raining and I didn't see him until it was too late. Thankfully, everyone was okay. I scraped the side of my van along his bumper, but my car was fine. He was visiting from out of state and had a rental car. I was freaking out thinking I was going to be in huge trouble and have to pay and insurance companies and police and whatnot, but he was the nicest guy in the world and took responsibility for everything (which he probably should have anyway, but I was feeling partially to blame too) and because of his credit card company he didn't have to get insurance companies involved and the damage was small and my car was fine and no one was hurt and he even called again to apologize and double check that everything was fine. I was a mess the rest of the day, but seeing Star Wars with Nate helped me calm down a little.

White out! There was a crazy storm/blizzard one morning. Wednesday, maybe?

I made banana bread bars to take to the neighbors, but Colin is a turd and he kept snitching the frosting along the edges. It didn't matter how often he got into trouble for it, he kept on doing it! Blerg!

My kids were in heaven with two large cardboard boxes, courtesy of Uncle Grant and our new water softener.

Granny was kind enough to make pajama pants for our family for Christmas. The boys all match, and Kate and I match.

My pants are a little on the large side. I think I could fit three of my legs in each pant leg.

I both love and hate cinnamon rolls. I love eating them, but I hate making them. I'm not sure the love outweighs the hate, simply because it takes SO DANG LONG to make them. Maybe I'll do it again in a few years. I made these for Christmas Eve Breakfast Dinner at my brother Grant's house.

Christmas Eve morning Santa Claus came to our neighborhood to visit the kids. He was very sweet and kind.

More fun with boxes!

We got together with my family on Christmas Eve because my brother had to work the rest of the week. Colin loved playing video games with his uncles.

Kate loved playing with her baby cousin. She loves babies.

I was very vigilant with the hand sanitizer to try and prevent the spread of pinkeye. Also, I thought pinkeye was pretty much over. I was so wrong.

More presents! I swear, at this point I felt like the things I had bought for them were completely superfluous.

Christmas!

I left out some books and a flannel board nativity for the kids to play with while they waited for everyone else to wake up. It didn't work out that way.

Colin and Kate dove into their stockings and the family basket before the rest of us got up.

Jude loves candy canes. I think by the end of the day he had eaten 4 of them. Plus a lot of other candy. (And no, I didn't give them to him. He definitely snuck and stole them when he was poorly supervised. I can only guess at how much he ate based on the wrappers and candy bits I found under his bed.)

The kids got a big kick out of watching Nate open the presents they picked out for him. Nate was convinced every present was socks, because that was the only thing he asked for and knew he was getting. But the joke is on him, because the socks were in his stocking, not any of his presents.

We are so cool. I didn't realize what a hipster I was until I looked at these pictures.

Photobomb.

Fun with Legos.

Fun with lacing cards.

Jude preferred to drag his lacing cards around while singing the instructions.

Christmas was great. It was low key and enjoyable. And aside from the spread of conjunctivitis, it was perfect.