Back to life, back to reality

We're Home! We had a great vacation and we've been home for two days now. I would start blogging about our trip, but I don't have the best internet connection at the moment and it would take a lifetime to upload pictures at this speed so that will have to wait.

Does anyone out there go through post-Christmas let down? I'm experiencing it right now. For me it's not that the excitement of Christmas is over, it usually that I just had a chance to spend time with my family and it's so hard to leave them and go far away again. I was doing ok this year because I was happy to be home after two weeks of traveling, but then I realized that Larry works all weekend and that's been depressing. He's on overnight call tonight and it feels especially lonely after spending so much time together over the past two weeks.

That said, I'm sounding pretty whiney so I'm trying to get over it by thinking of all the fun things that I have to look forward to. My friend Cat hates this time of the year in Columbus when the holidays are over and everything is gray and cold so she makes a special effort to plan fun things to look forward to. Here's what I've come up with so far: our ward chili chocolate cookoff (two separate items, chili and chocolate desserts), my wonderful friend Alicia's wedding in Colorado, Valentine's Day, our second annual snowflake cutting competition, hopefully another ultrasound that will comfirm the sex of our baby, decorating the nursery, and of course the arrival of Baby Ford.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that Larry will be taking his next step of the boards (he was supposed to take it in October and then in December, but due to some errors processing his application he'll be taking it at the beginning of February). He'll also be interviewing for fellowship positions around the country. He just received his first invitation to interview at Oregon Health Sciences in Portland and we could not be more excited! Unfortunately Larry has some really busy rotations scheduled for the next three months so we have no idea how he will be able to take any time off to interview, but I'm sure it will all work out. It looks like I need to do some planning to keep myself busy in the meantime.

City of Brotherly Love

We made it to Philadelphia just in time to have Philly Cheesesteaks for dinner. After find our hotel (which is in the perfect location downtown right above lots of fun shopping) we headed to Pat's and Geno's, the two restarants famous for both claiming they created the orginal Philly Cheese steaks. Of course we had to try out both.

Random fun things

I have kids rooms on the brain so I noticed this "tent" in a recent Land of Nod ad.

Isn't it cute (and pricey)? As I kid I would have loved a little place to myself to snuggle up and I think this would be relatively easy to make.

And I have noticed these stuffed animals in articles on kids rooms in a lot of magazines, but it never said where they are from, but I saw them in a store last night.

There are all sort of versions of these little monsters and they are called Uglydolls. I think they're non-scary and cute!

Busy busy Fords

So, I told you that we're going on a cruise, but what I didn't tell you is that Larry and I both get two whole weeks off so we have a few extra days before the cruise (I can't remember the last time I had two whole weeks off). We decided to take full advantage of the opportunity to travel pre-baby and we're spending a few days in Philadelphia and New York before flying down to Miami for the cruise.

We've booked our hotels, but we haven't planned much further than that and we're leaving soon! Any suggestions? We finally do have one thing set in stone, I got a call today and answered a trivia question right to get tickets to a David Letterman taping! It worked out perfectly because we'll only be in New York for two nights, a Monday and a Tuesday, and Broadway shows don't run on Mondays so we can only try to see one on Tuesday and luckily the David Letterman tickets are for Monday evening. I'm so excited!

Ugh, if only we didn't have so much to do before we leave! I still have to finish designing some wedding invitations and then I have to design our Christmas cards and get them printed and I have Christmas shopping to do and gifts to mail and books to read for the Cybils Awards . . .

It will all be worth it. I love this time of the year!

Weekend Jaunt

Larry and I went to Louisville for the weekend to visit my sister Candice's family. We had a lot of fun, but we barely took any pictures. We did get a picture of Grant with the Gameboy we gave him as an early Christmas gift (we bought it two years ago and have never even opened it so we figured we better pass it along). It was a big hit.
Candice and I were able to check out a few stores downtown while Larry watched Grant and Cole. There is a huge antique/salvage store called Jimmy Ley's and it's one of the weirdest places I've ever been to. They charge you a dollar just to enter the store and all of the items are priced in code so they give you a slip of paper with an explanation about how to decode the prices. They also have a few rooms where nothing is for sale, it's just Jimmy's private collection on display. He really likes freaky old clowns.If you're ever in Louisville, you have to stop by just for the experience

Holiday cheer

I started the day off with a tire that was beyond "flat"; it was completely destroyed, but a link Candice sent me really cheered me up. You HAVE to check this link out and then create your own.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=f3c08abbfbac2f187abe2e4G06121406

I promise it will make you giggle!

Old School

Way back when Larry and I were just friends I thought Larry’s taste in shoes was amusing. That changed when we started to become more serious. I could deal with the scary knee high black combat boots and the ugly orange snake skin Doc Martins and the maroon boots with bubble toes that made them look like they could belong the Ronald McDonald; it was the beat-up old school Vans that looked like Mr. Rogers style boat shoes that I couldn’t stand, and he wore them all the time (partially because he knew I hated them, and I think he liked to torture me).

Time passed and fortunately medical school didn’t allow Larry to wear his favorite shoes too often (who would risk getting blood on such a precious item?) I was hoping Larry was beginning to forget about them when we met his sister Keri’s fiancé (now husband). Keri warned us that Matt was a lot like Larry, and she was right, they’re alike right down to their love of old school Vans! Larry and I found some white slip-on shoes for Keri that we drew a checkerboard pattern on so she could match Matt’s favorite pair of old school Vans.

Now Keri has returned the favor!

I could not stop laughing when I saw these. It looks like Baby Ford is going to follow in his Father’s footsteps!

My bags aren't packed yet, but . . .

I looked in the mailbox yesterday and what did I see?My new passport! And I was so happy to see that I got my old passport back because I was a little sad to let my stamps to Japan, Mexico, London, and France go (but not so sad about letting go of the picture of me at age 16 before I left to be an exchange student in Japan).

It arrived at the perfect time because Larry and I are going on a cruise with my parents and my little sister Marissa and her husband Mike! We booked the cruise, but I've been looking for flights to Miami for ages and I just got the BEST DEAL today. I immediately booked the flight and as soon as I finished I did one more flight search just for fun, and the flight was already twice the price. To top it off I just checked Oldnavy.com and found a maternity bathing suit on super clearance (which was one of my biggest worries because I don't have any summer maternity clothes, and where do you find a maternity swim suit at this time of year?) Hopefully my luck hasn't run out and it will actually fit when it arrives.

I'm ready for the beach!

PS- If I wasn't pregnant I'd totally be ordering a Modbe suit because they're cute, modest, and half off!

Deck the Halls

It's been quite awhile since Larry has had the whole weekend off so we took full advantage and caught up on lots of sleep and were as lazy as possible (we still had to be in charge of the Ward activity on Friday but we didn't do much else). We did manage to finish decorating for Christmas because the boxes in the middle of our kitchen were driving me crazy.

So welcome to Christmas at the Ford home, where there are a million Christmas picture books everywhere you look.And there are snowflakes on the table in my entryway just waiting to hold the cute christmas pictures that I know you are going to send me.I love these reindeer that hang around our candelier. We aren't getting a Christmas treet his year so this little one will have to doLast year this green wall was painted colbalt blue and I was afraid the living room wouldn't seem very Christmasy so I hung these glittery snowflakes all over the wall. Larry wasn't sure that that would work with the green wall, but I think it's kind of fun.And it wouldn't be the Ford home without more picture books on display.
And this picture is just to show you how I display some of my ornaments that are really too heavy for a Christmas tree, I put away my candles and use the candle holders to hold the ornaments (these ones have semi-flat bottoms, but if they don't you can set a rubberband underneath them to keep them in place).

Activity Advent Calendars

I read a great idea on the Kiddley site (A fun site that you have to check out if you have kids) to create an advent calendar that lists a family activity for each day. That would be even more fun than discovering a piece of candy each day.

This picture is an advent creating using match boxes that slide open to reveal the activity of the day. The Kiddley author made one by creating simple origami envelopes that she sealed shut, but I think it would be better to set it up in a way that you could easily make changes so on snowy days you could slide in a weather appropriate activity like building a snowman. Be sure to consult your calendar as you create your list of activities so you'll which days can allow more time consuming activities and keep a separate list of the activities so you can plan ahead for them and have the supplies that you need ready.

The Kiddley list of activity ideas includes some warm weather ideas since she lives in Australia so a came up with some Christmasy ideas of my own like:

• Write a letter to Santa
• Cut out snowflakes
• Make a gingerbread house
• Camp out around the Christmas tree
• Call Grandma and Grandpa and sing a Christmas song to them
• Spend time dancing to Christmas music
• Buy small gifts for the Giving Tree (A family in my mom's ward was worried about their kids focusing on receiving more than giving so they came up with the idea of creating a Giving Tree separate from their normal tree. They take the kids out to buy inexpensive gifts to decorate the tree like stickers, and candy and then everytime they have a visitor the kids get to take them to the Giving Tree to let them choose a gift.)
• Drop off gifts to the neighbors
• Have a hot chocolate tea party
• Make paper chains to decorate kids’ bedrooms
• Visit friends and family around town and take pictures of all of them wearing a Rudolph nose or Santa Hat. Develop the pictures and you them to decorate (hang then on the fridge or put them in frames that hold multiple pictures
• Watch a Christmas movie like The Santa Clause or How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Work on Christmas cards – mom and dad can write theirs while the kids create their own
• Drive around to look at Christmas lights
• Buy a new ornament – let each child choose their own and record why they chose it in an album, then when they leave home let they take their collection and album

I can't wait to have kids so I can start this! I would have loved this when I was little. Actually I would love it now. Maybe I should make one for Larry.