December - Part I

So my first outing with the two boys...alone...was almost a disaster! I was wanting to get a couple of cheap things from Burlington Coat Factory for a couple of my household projects. I figured I could handle the two boys if I could stick them both in a cart. Well, the problem was when I got there I realized the cart was a smaller one. The car seat wouldn’t fit inside of the basket area, so I had to put it up by the handles. That meant Charlie was walking beside me. I knew I would have to keep an eye on him, but figured he would stay within a good distance of me. I was in the knick-knack aisle and he kept going in the aisle next to me. So after a minute or two I would call his name and he would either run to my aisle or I would peek into his aisle. After a few minutes of this, I said Charlie’s name again and there was no response. He wasn’t in the next aisle either. I quickly walked down each aisle on the west side of the building. He wasn’t there. I was really starting to panic. Luckily, after a few minutes of this, I looked down the pathway toward the east side of the building at exactly the right moment, as he was passing that pathway by the shoes at the exact same moment. Mind you, this store is enormous!! I yelled his name, he saw me, and he came trotting over to me. Oh my gosh! If I didn’t happen to see look over that at that exact moment I would have missed him! I never would have thought he would have been able to make it all the way over there on his own in such a short amount of time. Who knows how long it would have taken me to find him! That was enough to know that I would not be shopping without help again. Ah, it was so scary! And of course, everything I ended up buying needed to be returned anyway...so I enlisted Camry’s help the next week to go with me.

At the beginning of December I also braved our first playgroup with both of the boys at Katie’s house. Charlie is definitely growing up and becoming more social. He wasn’t just sitting in my lap this time. He was venturing out to the toys and even down to the basement on his own. It was awesome!

I had my Christmas work party with PQI (even though I hadn’t been working since October because of maternity leave). This year it was a fancy dinner at the Red Lion Hotel in Salt Lake. George and Nancy came over and watched the boys while Jason and I went on our first date since Colson’s birth. It was fun to get all dressed up and enjoy good food. (The downside of working from home is you don't get to know your co-workers...so we didn't really know anyone, but we had a good time talking and meeting some new people.)

We celebrated Bryan’s birthday was a Sunday birthday dinner.

Kerstin, Alisha, and I had our monthly get together, and this time I had them over to watch our old drill video. We picked up Cafe Rio and enjoyed it while we took a stroll down memory lane. It was a blast!

This year, Jason and I lucked out to get tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert. We love it whenever we get a chance to go. It is such a treat! This year they had the Sesame Street characters there, as well as the voice of the prince from Frozen. Since it was catered to kids, we were also joined by Max, April, Alex, Mya, and April’s parents. It was so enjoyable! Having the kids there made it even more enjoyable as we got to see their reactions to the puppets and the amazing music! It was a very fun night. This time the boys were watched by my parents.

December is definitely a month of parties. We had our Ward Christmas Party (that we braved taking Colson to. We made sure to sit in the back and tried to keep him covered and away from others). We also had a fun Arbon Christmas Party. This year we had it at my parents house instead of Grandma and Grandpa Arbon’s. Everyone brought a treat to share (there were tons and tons of good treats and sweets), and we had rotations playing different games like Telestrations and the white elephant game. We also sang carols and watched the viral Live Nativity video. Amazing! It was a very fun night!

We had another Christmas party with Jason’s high school friends. We hosted this time. It has been so fun finally being able to host events...to have enough space to accommodate a good amount of people. Such a good feeling! We had pizza and everyone brought a dessert to share. Again, so many good treats...or should I say too many good treats! We also did a hilarious white elephant exchange.

Since Colson was born and well, the ward finally tracked us down and gave Jason a calling, or I should say callings. He was called as an Elder’s Quorum Teacher and the 2nd Counselor in the Sunday School Presidency (a couple of months later that was changed to the 1st Counselor).

I had my six week postpartum appointment. I was two pounds off from my pre pregnancy weight, so I was stoked about that...even though things definitely didn’t look like pre pregnancy body (thanks to two holiday months of delicious food and sweets...Thanksgiving and Christmas). Finally at this point I was feeling good and relatively back to normal. For a few weeks I was experiencing some intense itching thanks to the healing of my stitches. That was awful! But at the six week mark is when I really felt myself finally turning that corner to feeling pretty normal.

By December 18th, I was back to work doing surveys for PQI...starting out slow with a lighter load. They were great to work with me and let me take it at my own pace.

I just have to mention here how much I hate dealing with health insurance companies! Since Colson was born and was having his check-ups I needed to get him added to our health insurance. I will spare you the details, but let it be sufficient to say that anytime I have had to make a change with insurance it is the most inefficient and frustrating thing ever! I can never get everything done (or sometimes even anything done) in a single call. I am always given the run around and am told different things by different people. I hate it! Someone just take initiative and ownership and help me with what I need! These issues have only been intensified since having to deal with the utah.gov Marketplace! Steer clear if at all possible!

And to conclude, a few pictures of the house:

Thanks to Pinterest, we put up an adorable engineer print in Colson's room.

Charlie's version of decorating the tree