January 19 - January 25

Sunday, January 19: McKay filled in for the organist, and I filled in as primary chorister. Tyler passed off his 2^nd Article of Faith, which he’s been excited about. He did the first one a few weeks ago. I then spent pretty well the rest of the day studying. McKay took the kids to the park with Bronx. They had a fun time throwing the ball across the field for Bronx and watching him tear after it. Our Sunday afternoon movie was Hello Dolly! Tyler and Jamie were very entertained to hear "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", which they know very well from Wall-E. 

Monday, January 20: My visiting teacher came over, and I had totally forgotten about the appointment! I was in my gross cleaning clothes when she called to say she was 5 minutes away. At least the house was clean, right? It was MLK day, so Tyler, Jamie and I were all home from school. We all loved having the down day. I spent the evening building the number 100 out of legos with Tyler for his 100 Day celebration the next day.

Tuesday 21: Tyler’s 100^th day of school! Dressed up like a newsie, I didn’t really understand you were supposed to dress like an actual od person, there were kids with canes and robes and rollers, and white wigs. Ah well, the teachers just fawned over him J He’s a pretty cute kid.

 McKay took Jamie to the library, Target, and Great American Hero, picked up Tyler, worked on accordion musical number, went to Kroger, watching Breaking Bad. I spent a lot of today at school being a little sad about being done with hard science classes. Now that nursing school has actually begun, a lot of it revolves around learned to be a nurse, as in learning to chart, to change sheets, and small things like that. I loved microbiology and anatomy, and I especially enjoyed pathophysiology. But I was glad today to discover that I still feel excited about actually being a nurse. I have a few good professors, and a few who are not so great. The good ones keep me excited about my chosen career, and the not so good ones? I guess I'll just have to power through :)

Wednesday 22: After the kids went to sleep, McKay and I watched Captain Phillips. What a stressful movie!

Thursday 23: I had to go get my second round of immunizations. At least it was only two shots today instead of five like last time.The best part of it all was when Jamie looked up from reading her book, saw me watching the nurse poke the immunization in my arm, and glared at me and shouted “MOM! Close yo eyes! And fink of sumfing HAPPY!” If you aren't a Daniel Tiger fan, this makes no sense to you, but if you are, you'll laugh as hard as I did :)  After we got home, I practiced taking my own blood pressure until my fingers were cold and numb, but I did it! I heard the sounds! We watched the Bitters' kids that night. The kids snuck off with my phone and recorded all their silly Mr. Potato Head creations:

Saturday 25: We had two birthday parties on Saturday, and they took up most of the day. First, we had our neighbor Carter's dinosaur party to go to. We got him a pirate ship, and he was very, very interested in it as we were leaving. Clarice, his mom texted me later to let me know that we have created a pirate obsession in him since J 

 Allison’s party was a really cool fairy princess party.  Eve always does such a great job with her kids’ parties. It was a dress-up party, mainly for the little girls to dress as princesses and fairies, but Tyler really wanted to dress up too. His choice was a little less magical, though:

 Yes, that's the Hulk. At a fairy princess party.

 But Jamie let me dress her up as Merida, and that was so awesome :) A dad who was there kept saying "Someone needs to instagram that little Merida!"

 Jamie really wanted to keep the fairy princess necklace we got for Allison, and kept sneaking the little present off the present table during the party while I wasn’t watching.I got to talk to my old friend Claudia, who is also in nursing school, but at Collin College in Frisco. I had to swing by the grocery store afterwards, and  everyone at the store loved the costumes, especially the idea of the Hulk at a fairy princess party. I spent the evening baking cakes with McKay for the next day while we listened to Dane Cook’s greatest hits album.

Funny Things:

•  McKay: "One of the more sublime parts of my job is listening to scammers trying to pass themselves off as women. They sound like Mrs. Featherbottom.”
• Tyler: "There was a really funny, silly song I heard. It goes...umm....super...docious...fragis...salad."
• Tyler: "Long neck dinosaurs are nice, right? But carnival dinosaurs are not."
• Jamie has been running around all week playing with a surgical mask I brought home from clinicals. More often than not, it is the only thing she's wearing.
  
  
  
  

January 12 - January 18

Sunday, January 12: Our first Sunday back home started off at 9AM, which is killer to get used to (we had 11:30 last year). It was also Jamie’s first day in Primary! She did so well! She did want to sit by McKay at the piano, but otherwise, she really enjoyed it! I decided that Sunday afternoon is a great time for good old movies. We watched Meet Me In St. Louis the last Sunday we had at home, and today we rented The Wizard of Oz on iTunes. I've been hyping it up for a few weeks since we got that crazy Wizard of Oz pop up book. I had even sung some of the songs for them, to their delight. Their favorite part of the movie by far was when the lion sings “the noive (nerve)” from “If I Only Had a Brain.” Since then, they’ve been going around saying “the noive!” I got really nervous that night about school starting the next day, and had a little cry after church. Then I got to explain the physiology of crying to a very interested McKay (stress hormones being released and all).

Monday, January 13: My first day of school, and the first of many, many orientations this semesters. So much threatening, so very little real information J

Tuesday 14: First day of Pharmacology and also for Concepts. I was pretty exhausted when I got home, but we needed to get ready for dinner with my dad, who was in town for business again. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to see not just my dad, but my mom with him! I was actually stunned! She hasn't visited Texas since Jamie was born, and I was completely surprised. She was so pleased :) We had dinner with all the grandparents, my parents and McKay's parents at Love and War in Texas up in Plano. My parents had rented this sweet Mustang for the week, and though they acted bewildered, I think they secretly enjoyed it :)

Thursday, January 16: My mom came over while my dad worked, and we had a really great day. I actually kept Tyler home from school, because how often does he get to spend all day with Grandma Eatough? I took my mom to Central Market to get her favorite Texas souvenir, freshly made almond butter. Tyler and Jamie got their regular: Central Market balloons! My dad finished work, and we went out to Black Eyed Pea for dinner. My dad got actual black eyes peas with his dinner, and my mom got the sweet potato sides. I love how they really enjoy all the southern stuff while they are here.

Friday, January 17: Mom came over early to be with Jamie while I was at school, and she brought waffles for everyone’s breakfast. I had a hard day in lab. My teacher was also a mom while she was in nursing school herself, and she really wanted to talk about being a mom while in school. I absolutely did not want to discuss it, because it's hard to think about without crying. Which I ended up doing. In the middle of lab. So embarrassing. It's easier to just compartmentalize, leaving thoughts about the kids at home while I’m at school, and working hard to fully be with them when I’m home instead of worrying about school. Anyway, I got home in time to see Dad for a few minutes before he left town. My mom stayed at our place that night, and we had Papa John’s for dinner, yum! Tyler and Jamie watched the windows for half an hour, looking for the “pizza taxi” :)

Saturday 18: I woke up extra early to take my mom to the airport for her 7:30 flight. Would you believe TSA made her throw away her almond butter?! L McKay had to work, but the kids and I took it easy after such a long crazy week.

Funny Things: 

• Tyler: "I saw a possum, and it was extinct!"
• Tyler: "I baptized myself a little bit."

January 5 - January 11

Sunday, January 5: The end of our fun vacation finally arrived. We spent the morning packing up, and then began the long, long, drive home from Utah. It was such a fun week, thank you Coxes for having us! We left Salem at 10 in the morning, and stopped at Costco on the way out of town to pick up a bunch of yummy road trip snacks. I am not ashamed to admit that McKay and I ate our way through a whole bag of Chocolate Covered Acai berries. The kids did so well in the car the entire two days back home. We hardly had to stop at all. Older kids are definitely better at road trips! We had fun picking out red box movies to watch on each day, since we could just return them at any red box on the way home. We stopped for lunch at the famous Burger King (in Hinckley family lore, that is) for lunch, and treated ourselves to these enormous cinnamon rolls.We drove through to Albuquerque that night and stayed at Kurtis and Megan’s house. (Kurtis is McKay's old friend from junior high.) We put our sleepy kids to bed, and then stayed up way too late talking with Kurtis and Megan. They have a very interesting life. He’s an engineer working for Sandia developing and testing nuclear weapons. When asked about the non-nuclear testing agreement, he declined to comment except to say that the official position is that we don’t do any testing. Megan has her degree in special education, but she stays home with their three boys.

Monday, January 6: We woke up in the morning to yummy biscuits and gravy, thanks Megan! Tyler and Jamie played the morning away with the three boys and big fluffy black dog while Kurtis showed off his dirt bikes to McKay. The "boys" had a fun time riding around while the kids chased after them. We managed to be back on the road by 10am, and we drove, drove, drove. We stopped for lunch in Amarillo at Blue Sky, a famous burger place, and it felt wonderful to be back in the state. Why does New Mexico feel so gross? It's the same landscape, desert-y plains, but just crossing the state line out of New Mexico feels refreshing. Sorry! The red box movies du jour were Turbo and Epic. I actually climbed into the back seat to watch the movies with the kids while poor McKay had to drive across all of Texas. We pulled into Plano at about 9:30 and picked up Bronx from the Canos. He had had a great time all week running around with Hitch and Bandit, while staying out of his mama Koda’s way. (She gets growly when he gets too close.) Temperatures were in the 20s when we got home, and the house was freezing. You could see your breath anywhere inside the house. Unfortunately, our bedroom is the slowest room to get warm, and in fact doesn’t get very warm at all. I think I slept the whole night with the covers pulled over my head. We stayed very wrapped in blankets from head to toe. Even still, it was really nice to be back in our own home.

 This girl has got country in her soul.

 She could not stay in her seat when "If You're Going to Play in Texas" came pouring out of the speakers.

 She cracks me up :)

Tuesday January 7: Our first morning back presented us with a problem: frozen water pipes, directly behind our washer, which we didn't notice until halfway through washing the first load of clothes. Can you say flooded kitchen? McKay spent the morning dealing with that, while I started to take down all our Christmas decorations, which were still up. There was so much, it was a little ridiculous. McKay finished with the washer and came to help, and we all watched a Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War while we worked. Later, McKay went to Target for a new microwave because yet another one has died on us. We have the worst microwave luck!

Wednesday, January 8: While I took Tyler to school, Bronx helped himself to chewing up the camera strap. It was my fault, I had left it on the couch the night before while I had uploaded vacation pictures, but I was still plenty mad. Poor Bronx knew it was a naughty thing he had done, because as soon as Jamie and I walked in, he rolled over and peed all over the place. I can't help but laugh when he does that, even though I know I'm about to discover something awful that he's done. Tyler got a purple at school (YAY!), and McKay’s last Christmas present finally arrived, the DVD set of A&E's Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, which I’ve wanted since before we were married. I love having it on in the background while I'm home :)

Thursday, January 9: Donut Day! After McKay got home, I finally had enough time to shop for all my textbooks and supplies. I dropped about $1200 at the bookstore. Kill me now. I wanted to yell over my shoulder as I left “ENJOY MY MONEY!!”

Friday, January 10: We literally had a countdown to this day, because today was the day to buy Elton John tickets! If you recall, we tried to see Sir Reginald once before, but that did not pan out. The stars have aligned (Elton put out a new album), and we are going!

I took the kids to the library after school, and I found this sign in the bathroom. I haven't seen anything else that so aptly describes the part of town we live in :)

Funny thing was as I was investigating details about Elton's concert, another concert popped up on my radar. Who's Bad returned to Dallas, and it was that night at the House of Blues! We jumped on that right away, called some friends, and had a blast! Tyler and Jamie spent the night at their friends' house so we wouldn't have to worry about picking them up so late.

It was amazing!

Saturday, January 11: While the kids were still at their friends' house, I spent the morning getting CPR certified (another nursing school hoop to jump through).

Because the kids were so good the whole morning and because I was ready to have a fun day, we trekked out to Grapevine for a Legoland kind of day. Jamie had a grand time with the karoake part of Princess Palace, belting out various Daniel Tiger songs into the microphone regardless of which song was actually playing. (She sang "when you have to go potty, stop, and go right away" as the song "ABC" by Jackson Five played.) The interesting part is that the music doesn't carry beyond Princess Palace, but the feed from the microphone certainly does, and so the entirety of Legoland is treated to Jamie's singing: “CLOSE YO EYYYYYES AND FINKA SOM-FING HAPPEEEEE...”

Funny Things:

Jamie playing with her zipper and smiling: "it sounds like a song!"

Tyler called the hotel a "little bit house, because you stay there for a little bit."

Jamie: Talking about not going to nursery anymore, since she's a Sunbeam: "Yeah, I'm too tall for nursery", like it's a ride at Legoland.