The Week of Christmas

We left for Boise on Friday, the 21st, but unfortunately forgot our camera. Thank goodness my Mom took some pictures, so as soon as she emails them to me, I will post some pictures of the kids.

We had such a great time in Boise! On Saturday I went out to lunch with Karen who was visiting from Hawaii and my friend Rachel who moved from Saratoga Springs to Meridian. We went to my favorite place ever, Miss Tami's (formerly known as Cottage Expressions). It's this cute little tea room that has the best Monte Cristo sandwich and Cheddar Cauliflower Soup you will ever taste. It's in Meridian and I highly recommend it!

After the tea room, I picked up Ben and the kids and we went to Rachel's house to celebrate her daughter Brooklyn's birthday. Hyrum and Ella miss their friends so much and were so happy to see them again.

Right after the birthday party, my dad drove Ben and I up to this lodge place by Bogus Basin for our Christmas present. My parents got us this sleigh ride and dinner thing up in this cute little cabin in the woods. I've never been on a sleigh ride before. It was cold, but so beautiful. At the cabin they served everyone this amazing dinner. We had soup in bread bowls, steak, shrimp, potatoes, carrots, and cobbler. Then this hilarious guy did jokes and poetry. It was so fun.

Sunday we did a huge turkey dinner with the family. It was so good!

On Monday, we went out to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. The only other time I had been there was in Hawaii, so I was excited to go. Then we did our traditional Christmas Eve stuff, make cookies for Santa, look at lights, and open some PJ's.

Tuesday was so fun, but tiring. The kids got soooooooooooo much stuff. We had to take the backseat out of our van just to fit it all there and back. After we opened presents we had our traditional egg mcmuffin breakfast and got ready to go to dinner with the whole extended Braden Family at the church. I can't believe how much we've all grown. There were a million kids and our kids had fun meeting all their 2nd cousins.

We were supposed to leave on Wednesday, but it was snowing in Boise and Utah and we were all so tired, so we stayed another day. We still ended up staying up late playing games and eating pizza, but it was so fun. I was excited because I found this cute Christmas store that was selling everything for 75% off so I bought a million fancy stockings that will hopefully last for our current and future family.

We finally left on Thursday, thanks to the good weather. We were so sad to go, but happy to be home. The house just seems so empty now without everyone. Fortunately, all the kids million toys fill up some of the gaps :)

The Christmas Spirit

I've lost almost all feeling in my left shoulder due to the unprecedented amount of shopping I did on Saturday. Payday was on Friday so I went on Saturday to finish all the last minute shopping I had. I had the kids stuff pretty much done already, but no one else. So I headed to the mall since I would be able to hit a lot of stores in one place. What a nightmare! It was shoulder to shoulder shopping. I had to wait 30 minutes in line at the Disney store! It took me 5 hours to get everything I needed, but I'm done!

The interesting thing was everyone was still really nice. Christmas time brings out the charitable kind side in people, but it also has the tendency to bring out the ravenous rude shopping side as well. Everyone was all "please" and "excuse me" and people were very kind to pick stuff up for me whenever I dropped something, since I'm the size of a whale. So even though I was totally exhausted and sick of shopping (which is a first for me), I still came home with a renewed hope for the human race.

18 Weeks and Expanding

I've been fighting for some time now to remain in my regular sized clothes, but alas I finally lost the battle. I decided to wash and iron all my maternity clothes this week, thinking I could make it another week or two, but I only made it another day or two.

It's not that I don't like my maternity clothes, most of them are pretty cute. It's the acceptance that I am expanding. Now for alot of women that I know that's no big deal because they are out jogging 2 days after the baby is born and back to their size 2's after 2 weeks (this is no exaggeration). That's not my story. Every inch and pound I gain, although caused by the baby, does not leave with the baby.

I try to eat somewhat good and only gain about 25 pounds, yet those pounds just haunt me after the baby is born. I have to stay in maternity clothes for 2 months after the baby is born and I'm not back to my regular size (and when I say regular I'm not talking size 2 kind of regular) until 18 months after the baby is born! So how is it then that I have friends that gain 45-60 pounds during their pregnancy and are able to pop down to 100 pounds only weeks after having a baby?

I didn't mind so much with Hyrum, and I was doing o.k. with Ella, but this time around I am just dreading trying to get all those pounds off. I seriously broke down crying at the mall the other day, passing all those clothing stores full of clothes that I can't fit into now, and won't be able to fit into for another 2 years. It's not like I can diet or anything right now and you can't diet when you are breastfeeding either. And unfortunately, due to my herniated disc and my high risk factor, I can't do anything more strenuous than yoga.

So, that's my dilemma right now. I realize I am only getting bigger because I am pregnant, and I realize that I don't even gain that much weight; I'm just struggling with the afterwards. Maybe I just need to get fatter friends?

Thanksgiving and Other Stuff

I realize I haven't written in a long time, but I have 2 very good reasons. The first is we were in Ohio from November 17-27th. The other reason is we were transferring all our info. onto our new computer. That's right, the first new computer we have ever owned and the best part was it was free. Ben won it at a game they played at his work Christmas party. So we got a $600 Dell Computer absolutely free. The crazy thing was that all the gifts there were way nice. They had flat screen t.v's, video camera's, ipods, you name it. It was awesome. Anyways, here's the readers digest version of the last couple of weeks, that is if I can even remember anything.

Saturday 17th: Fly non-stop to Ohio. Less than 3 hours. I love non-stop flights and have officially been ruined forever. We even managed to arrive with all our luggage. I also discovered that it is nice to fly in the afternoon instead of the crack of dawn.

Sunday 18th: Church and ice cream at grandma's house. A very nice Rohrbach tradition.

Monday 19th: Go clean out grandma's food storage and garage (there was stuff in there from the beginning of time) and have a pizza party. Later go back to Ben's parents and watch I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which turned out to be pretty gross and disappointing (sorry for picking it out guys)

Tuesday 20th: Ben's Big Surprise! Ben had arranged to wisk me away for a night of shopping and dinner and that night stay in a bed and breakfast. It was the first night we had ever been away from the kid's so it was a much appreciated surprise. Plus I've never been to a bed and breakfast. This one was so cute!

Wednesday 21st: Kind of a blur, but I remember watching Hairspray and hanging out with family.

Thursday 22rd: Thanksgiving Day! Tons of food, tons of people, tons of fun!

Friday 23rd: Have dinner with Ben's friends. Laugh at Hyrum asking one of the little girls to dance with him.

Saturday 24th: Go to the Air Force Museum. Get stopped on the way by an accident. Everyone hops out (except me who stays in the car with the kids). to help a guy on the side of the road who is clearly going into shock and apparently still has 2 kids in the car. Fortunately, Ben's mom is an EMT and is able to help the guy and the woman who was driving the other car. After an hour later, and a million fire trucks (Ben's brother was driving one) and police cars we finally get to the museum. After the museum we went to a friends house and got to watch the BYU-Utah game which was awesome. Then we head back to Ben's parents house and sang karaoke on the top of our lungs until the wee hours of morning.

Sunday 25th: No voice from singing like crazy. Ice cream night at grandma's

Monday 26th: Do some holiday shopping. Have a girl's night out and see Enchanted. Very Cute!

Tuesday 27th: Come home!

The rest of the week was a blur of cleaning and unpacking, because my parents came for a visit on Saturday. Oh and Ben's work Christmas party. We were even able to get our tree up before my parents pulled in.

So that's what we've been up to the last couple of weeks. Busy, busy, busy! But so fun when it's with friends and family.

Happy 30th Birthday Ben!

Yesterday, we celebrated Ben's 30th Birthday. Birthdays, aren't a very big deal to Ben, but my Mom always made birthdays special for us, so they are a big deal to me. Naturally I love it when birthdays roll around. I love being sneaky and planning little surprises.

Hyrum insisted that we get balloons, party hats, and streamers. I started to decorate the house the night before and realized I couldn't reach the ceiling without a chair, which I knew Ben would be mad if he saw me climbing on chairs when I was pregnant, and I always have trouble blowing up balloons, especially when I'm pregnant. So, I had a bit of a dilemma since I knew Hyrum would be expecting to see the decorations he picked out. Ben therefore insisted that he put most the decorations up, despite my protesting. So, Ben decorated the house for his own birthday.

I tried to redeem myself a little bit though, by getting up early and popping some cinnamon rolls in the oven for breakfast.

I love surprises, but surprising Ben is really hard to do. He's just too darn observant. However, I totally got him this year. The day before his birthday I had made 3 loaves of pumpkin bread to bring to his work. When he got home, he asked what all the bread was for and I just lied and said it was for the people I visit taught (convenient since I visit teach 3 women.) He was so surprised when we showed up at his work yesterday morning with the bread. Needless to say, everyone liked the bread. Ben admitted to eating half a loaf by himself.

After work, we had another surprise, Ella was running a temperature, so we had to run her to the instacare and sure enough she had an ear infection (we had taken Hyrum just the day before for an ear infection and pink eye). Fortunately, we were still able to go to dinner and gorge ourselves with chinese food. Afterwards, we came home and opened presents.

Again, it's really hard to surprise Ben. He'd been asking for the Transformers Movie since he first saw it in the theater, but I didn't just want to wrap up the DVD or he totally would know what it was. So I was sneaky and put it in a shoe box. He had no idea what it was.

I also was able to get him his favorite game, Risk, but it was actually a Transformers addition, so he totally loved it. Now I just have to avoid him asking me to play.

The last present was a little unusual. A bunch of guys at work have nerf guns and they are always sneaking around and shooting people. So I got him the biggest one I could find. He looked like a little boy on Christmas. He was going around the house like a maniac shooting everything. I may have to take the toy away and hide it.

After presents we had one of Ben's favorite desserts, homemade apple pie. All I can say is he better love me, because pie's take forever to make.

Hopefully, it was a special day for Ben. We just can't show him enough how much we love and appreciate him. Happy Birthday Ben!

Another Side of Hyrum

Best Friend Babies

We are so excited because Ben's best friend in Ohio called yesterday to tell us that they were expecting their second child. The funny part was Ben hadn't told him that we were pregnant, because we were going to surprise them next week when we go to visit. So Ben decided he should probably just say something and was like "oh yeah, Arin is 13 weeks pregnant." Of course his friend thought he was totally joking and was so surprised when Ben finally convinced him he was being serious.

The coolest part is that this same thing happened when we were pregnant with Ella. Ben's friend called to tell us they were pregnant and then like 2 weeks later we found out we were pregnant. Since I have my babies so early, Ella was actually born first and their daughter Mallory was born 4 days later.

I just think it's so cool that you and your best friend would have kids almost exactly the same ages. Hyrum, unfortunately, is the lone ranger. We are hoping for a boy so that he isn't too out numbered. Ben's best friend has one daughter and his other best friend has 2, so Hyrum is definitely out numbered when we go visit. He doesn't seem to mind too much though. I'm sure he'll appreciate those kind of odds about 12 years from now.