Shalom, Y'all.

This is what the sign in McKay's parents' entryway says, and that is what greets us each time we arrive in Plano, Texas. Shalom, y'all. We are here!

The drive was quite a terrible drive, a 26 hour one instead of 20 hours. Too many little towns to drive through, too much fast food, and not enough choo-choos to keep a two year old named Tyler happy. But we survived it.

Christmas was wonderful, with quite enough choo-choos, thank you very much, and just enough cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas to keep us all happy and grateful for such a great family. But that is a post for another time, once I find my camera cord to the computer. And unless I get on that by Sunday, it'll be another week or so because we are going on a CRUISE to Mexico to celebrate being done with school. The cruise line sent me a sample menu, and I am ready to eat my weight in lobster and stuffed quail.

PS: Happy New Year!

Today was our second doctor's appointment for Baby #2. Twelve weeks this week, and we were ready to hear a heartbeat!

We talked to Dr. Jacobs for a little bit about our cruise and scuba diving. Then he got out his cool little heartbeat reader and his sub temperature tummy jelly. McKay had the camcorder rolling. But after a minute or so of all three of us listening to silence, Dr. Jacobs frowned. Then he said the battery was low on this one, and went to grab another battery. He was back in a minute with a fully charged heartbeat reader. But after a minute or so of skating around on my tummy, there was still just static. I was starting to feel panicked, and McKay's smile had disappeared. Our doctor referred us to the ultrasound part of the clinic right away. We had to wait to get in for about 15 minutes. We tried to read the office magazines, so we wouldn't have to think too much. Finally, they called us back into the ultrasound room. The nice lady in there brought out her warmed tummy jelly, and flipped on her monitor.

Baby Hinckley is fine! It's just fond of bending over in ways that make it difficult to read a heartbeat. We were so relieved to know everything was okay! It was too soon to tell a gender, but let me tell you, this baby is active. It was jumping all over the screen, flapping its little arms and swimming around. The ultrasound lady said it was holding its own aerobics class, but I think it was just excited to see us. It waved at us, too.

We showed these pictures to Tyler, and he thinks the first one is a monster. He kept roaring at it. It does sort of look like a skeleton face :)

We have some of the swimming recorded, but I can't find the cords in all our packing. Maybe once we're in Texas I'll try to post it, because it's really cute.

Also, I think this will be our last post while still in Utah, as all this packing and cleaning is wearing me out. See y'all in God's country!

Merry Christmas, Tyler

Baby #2 is gonna rock your world.

Also, I apologize for being a lump of a mother for the last three months, but at least we got to watch a lot of movies, right?

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.

Christmas At The Hinckley Home

The Christmas tree is up.

Half the ornaments are missing already.

We are selling candy canes (not really).

We've been out for Chinese food, as per Hinckley tradition.

And the countdown has begun ( until we move ;-)).

But I must say, the Christmas spirit has not spread to our home quite yet this year.

We are too worried about Michael Schofield.

We are so obsessed with this show, it is ridiculous. It's like 24 on steriods. When we're done with this season, we'll have time for Christmas. But until then, Fox River Penitentiary calls.

Thanksgiving

2009 is an Eatough year for Thanksgiving, so we packed our little family in the car and drove the torturous nine hours to sunny skies and large numbers of Eatough family members. Here were my favorite parts of our three days in California:

• The new Eatough Thanksgiving lay-out, in my parents beautiful, remodeled, totally baby-unfriendly home:



• Poker and Risk nights! I did not win either, although I attribute my loss at Poker to my Uncle Gordy farting until I left the table, and then Richard stole all my chips.



• Beatles Rock Band with most of my siblings. My favorite moment of that was Kristen and Lauren singing "I Am the Walrus," and neither knew the lyrics, which resulted in this line in perfect unison: "Yellow mustard custard dripping from a dead dog's eye...Ewww!"


• Annie Skyy! Just a little, little girl, who changed even over the few days we were there! I love newborns! (I'm making a weird face, but the other pictures were too blurry.)


• Disneyland! Including churros, 3D glasses, Dumbo and Tyler meltdowns in several lines:



• Lunch with Grandma Sandi at the scrumptious Calimesa Royale Restaurant. Best biscuits and gravy ever! Grandma crocheted me a new Christmas scarf, too!



• Multiple In N' Out trips:

Not so favorite moment:

• Tyler caught a cold and slept horribly the first few nights, resulting in this noise for much of Thanksgiving dinner and the ride home:

Except for that, we had a great trip! Thanks for having us, Mom and Dad! Love you, and hopefully we'll see you all soon!

This is Sir Reginald Dwight.

He has E. coli.

His Salt Lake City concert for tomorrow night has been postponed...until FEBRUARY.

We will not be in the state to enjoy his crazy glasses then.

Boo.

PS: Would anyone be interested in two tickets for the Elton John & Billy Joel concert, now in February?

I'm an Auntie again!

Annie Skyy Parsons is here!

November 15, 2009, 4:40 P.M.
6 lb, 4 oz.
18 inches

Grandma Eatough is calling her "a little peanut."
Congratulations to Lauren and Brandon! We can't wait to meet you next week!

Tyler's newest obsession: Thomas the Train, a.k.a, "choo-choo."

I think he dreams about it, because when I go to wake him up in the mornings, his little eyes pop open, and the first thing he says is "Choo-Choo? Choo-Choo?"

I hope Tyler finds a new thing to obsess about soon. I know way too much about the island of Sodor.

Old News

Halloween Pictures Are Here!

So we're blog-slackers! We've been pretty busy the last few weeks with getting our contract sold (but we did!). Here's the Halloween rundown.

We kept it pretty low key this year, and went to a few Halloween parties. In celebration of a magnificent yard sale find (a pair of adorable toddler sized cowboy boots), Tyler was a cowboy.

He spent half the day discarding accessories, like his hat, and his cute little sheriff badge:

As a stake, we planned a Halloween Primary party, and I think it was a hit! We had trick-or-treating stations set up in the gym (which Tyler LOVED the concept of: run up to the girl manning the station and demand "bites")

Here's some of our friends from the ward who came to party with us:

We also had a Ghost Hunt, where some of the other girls in the stake wrapped suckers up in napkins to looks like ghosts, and stuck them all in the ground outside, and let the kids lose on them:

Tyler got a bit distracted in the middle of the hunt:

A big thanks to everyone who helped with the party! We also went to the ward Halloween party, which was lots of fun. After all those parties, we decided to stay cozy at home Halloween night and have fun handing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters.

It was a fabulous holiday, but Halloween is one of those holidays that's sort of exhausting, but we are definitely getting geared up for Thanksgiving, which is in California this year!

Hope everyone else's Halloween was fun too!

Halloween Pictures To Come...

I am hesitant to post anything about Miley Cyrus on here, but I really think that everyone in the world needs to see this, especially if it's been a bad day:





I mean, really, who does this? I want to be friends with this guy.

Sick

+

Snow =
Yuck

Someone save us.

Birthday Fun!

Tyler had a joint birthday party last week at the park with his friend Sam. We had cupcakes, play dough and swings! What else could a group of toddlers need?

On Monday, Tyler got a fun package in the mail. See if you can guess where this sweatshirt came from!

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa Hinckley! (And David and Marie for the rest of the presents!)

We got Tyler his own piece of cake for his birthday cake because we don't need an entire cake sitting in the kitchen calling my name. Last year, Tyler seemed somewhat mesmerized by the candle flame, but this year, he was terrified of it! He kept saying, "Hot! Hot!" and backing away from it. I think this may stem from me training him never to touch the oven, the stove, candles, etc. Either way, he wanted nothing to do with the cake...

...until we blew out the candle for him. Then all he wanted to do was play with the candle itself.

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

Dear Little Man,

You were born two years ago today. I was in a bit of a drug-induced haze, but this is what I remember:

As soon as you were born, the nurses took you away from me to make sure you were alright. After all, it had taken two hours of pushing to get you here, and they wanted to check you over. I didn't get to hold you for twenty minutes after you were born, and I cried the whole time. When I finally did get to hold you, I was more than a little terrified for your sake, that it was your misfortune to be in my custody for the next eighteen years. You looked in my eyes right then, and it was like you knew who I was, and you were telling me you had complete confidence in me as your new mommy. I still didn't feel like a real mom yet, but I loved you more than anything right then.

Over those few short days in the hospital, I observed:

• You only cried for a minute after you were born, and then, it was like you realized there was a whole world to see, and you'd rather explore it than complain about your rough entry.


• You had your daddy's toes, the Carter pinky toes, and my nose.


• Your toes curled out rather than in when you got tickled.
  


• You were all boy, big and barrel chested, the second biggest baby in the nursery.
  


• You did not like cold wipes, and you were not shy about letting us know.


• You came into this world six days before my 20th birthday, and you were the best present I've ever had.

New Calling

Last week, the stake presidency asked to meet with me, and as of today, I am officially the second counselor in our Stake Primary Presidency.

I am so, so nervous.

I am being set apart on Tuesday along with the president, first counselor and secretary, and then we are going to be trained for a couple of hours afterward.

Holy smokes!

(disclaimer: I know it's all going to work out fine, like it always does, but man oh man this is a very scary thing to me.)

Shameless Plug

Hey, guys, really sorry to do this, but we need some help here (this is McKay, by the way). As most of you know, I'm in my last semester at BYU in Advertising, and my group is conducting a research survey for our client involving the use of suncare products. If you have a moment, I would appreciate you filling out a quick survey. It should only take about 5 minutes, and at the completion of the survey you can submit your email address to be entered into a drawing for one of several gift cards. Whoo!

Here is the link; just click and go!
https://byu.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_e5mfUZqCZY7jZNW&SVID=Prod

The survey will stay open until Sunday night, and your answers won't
be connected to you in any way. Thanks!

Lazy, Lazy Days

Tyler and I have been incredibly lazy this week, and I do not have anything worthy to blog about. It comes from any of the following:

a) Summer has ended; the sun comes up later, thus we wake up later.
b) It's getting colder, so it's easy to stay cozy in our blanket cocoon.
c) McKay has started school and work on a regular basis again, so we don't have another adult to motivate action.
d) We're still recovering from our trip to California.
e) We like lounging around and watching Dinosaur Train on two different channels, even if it is the same episode.

In any case, here are our ingredients for a very indolent week:

Favorite Sweats: Check



Good Reads: Check




Teddy Bear Chair: Check



Kill Bear Chair: Check



Lots of cuddling: Check