what could be better?

What could be better?

My home, my family, my longest friends.
My Mexican joint, Christmas, Disney, Sea World.
My mom's Christmas cooking.
A new niece, a Skype call with my brothers, playing oboe in my home ward.
Games and movies.

It's busy, but it's awesome!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I was on TV!!!

We are famous!!!  Well ... sort of :-)

Check out our TV interview 

HERE

Can life possibly get busier right now???

I think not.

Tis the Season

I have explained this before but Evan's immune system pretty much sucks, which means that every fall/winter we are on constant edge about his health.  His first winter after being diagnosed Evan was sick every other month for about a month and a half (September-May).  He was on antibiotics each time because he just wasn't able to shake it by himself.  It was then that I became a mother on a mission.  How do I keep my child healthy without taking away the fun that life is supposed to be.  I am not going to limit his life but I want Evan to stay healthy ... how.  We are now well into our 3rd cold season since then and I have learned and tried a lot of things, and been able to narrow down to what really works.

Besides all of the things I do to keep Evan healthy (the list is really long).  One of the other biggies is that I stay healthy.  If I can keep myself healthy it is way more likely that I won't pass anything on to my kiddos.  Last week I was feeling a cold wanting to come on and I had my period.  Check out the pile of pills that I take on a week like that!!!

So far this season Evan has been sick once and it was pretty minor and short lived, which in and of itself is a huge miracle!  This house is the reason he was able to shake it so quickly.  I am so grateful for this house!

--------------------------------------------

Remember the demise of my ornaments?  Well some asked if they were at all salvageable.  One of them was somewhat saved .... this would be the outcome of the rest.

:-(

My Crazy Boys

 We got the boys these yeti hats when Justin and I went to Banff.  They love them and run around the house "roaring" at everyone.  Today there was a pretty major snow storm in Calgary and the snow monsters officially stepped out into public!

 During church I got called out by Landon's nursery leader.  He had pooped his pants pretty badly.  This is how he left church.  That should give you a good indication of how badly he blew out.

Some Landon-isms: "soom"= spoon
                                " firate"= pirate
                                " nigh nout"= time out (he is constantly putting his toys in time out for "two                           minutes!"  I wonder where he got that from??)

We made our neighbor/friend gifts for Christmas this year.  Landon is "ho ho ho-ing" like Santa.  

Justin took Evan to the hockey game and so I took Landon to an indoor play yard.  He loves that place and we really only get to go when Evan isn't with us because it is really difficult to haul him through all of the tunnels and ropes courses etc. Landon made a friend and boy did he run around.  I was totally out of breath trying to keep up with them.  He is such a little energizer bunny!!!

 Here is a picture Justin texted me of Evan at the hockey game.  He LOVES LOVES LOVES going to hockey games and guess what he was cheering to encourage his team???

GO TIM TEBOW!!!!!

(gotta love it!)

I don't know why I'm feeling like it is hard to keep up with my life, but for whatever reason I am.  We were able to have quite a bit of fun this last week.  First things first ....

CHRISTMAS has arrived in the Palmer home!  I love Christmas, love love love it!!!!  Because we are leaving this month we made sure we went early to get our tree.  The problem is that with the move and still having some of our things in storage we don't exactly know the location of all of our Christmas decorations.  We had fun putting up what we had available and figure there will be more ornaments on the tree next year.  We were loving how pretty it all was and then tragedy struck.  Our tree fell down (no idea how) and smashed all, and I mean all, of my breakable (special) ornaments.  I had my cry and will post a picture of the damage after I get them off my phone.

Justin and I have never had a night away together since we had kids.  Some of that is because we really like hanging out with our kids.  Another reason is because Evans needs are very specific that we really need to feel comfortable with who we leave him with.  The last reason is that we have never had the offer from anyone to allow us to go.

My wonderful friend Kristen knew that we were really needing some alone time to re-connect as a couple and she and her equally wonderful husband offered to come to our home and watch our boys.  We quickly took them up on their offer and will be forever grateful!  Justin and I drove to Banff for a night and a day while our boys played with 4 of their best friends.  I'm sure they got into all sorts of mischief but I know they had fun!!!  Justin and I needed that time together.  We ate at a fondue restaurant and then had the best brunch ever created (ever) at the banff springs hotel the next morning.  We loved that time together, THANK YOU!!!!

check out the meat cooking in front of Justin ....

that is a frog leg cooking in the middle!

I can't believe that more people didn't comment on my rocking night with vampires!!  

Breaking Dawn Release

 If you live under a rock I should inform you that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the twilight saga!  I love every little bit of it!  I am even one of those people who get a little angry if anyone says anything negative about any part of it ... books or movies.  I admit that I am fanatical about the story, the characters, the actors and I am NOT ASHAMED!!!  You can't see it in the pictures but I even went sparkly :-)

Last night I was, of course, in the first viewing of Breaking Dawn: part 1.  Luckily I have friends who are equally fanatical and Janae decided to throw a party beforehand.  Did she ever hit it out of the park!!!  She did such an amazing job!

 The cuisine was a nod to the Cullen's vegetarian diet and we even ate mushroom ravioli (the meal that Bella orders on her first date with Edward).  We drank "blushing bells" and an eerie blood red mixture.  I made "puppy chow" because Jacob ends up becoming a part of the Cullen family so he's going to need something eat ;-) but the best dessert (HANDS DOWN) goes to Erin.  She made bleeding cupcakes!!!!!  

INCREDIBLE!!!!

 Check out Kristen's vampire eyes!!!  

I got Andrea and Janae gifts.  Andrea got a Jacob barbie and Janae got an Edward barbie (yes, ladies and gentlemen ... Edward even sparkles!)

The theater was awesome and I had such a great time!!!  We were all giddy and giggly and kept taking various kinds of pictures with the cardboard cutouts.  It was soooo fun!!!

so it might be a picture with a werewolf and not a vampire but I had to include it!  Amy's picture ROCKS!!

Amy made this for me and I just can't get enough of it!!!  The whole drive home I would look at it and get butterfly's in my stomach.  I literally thought about the movie all day today and CANNOT wait to go again.  Hopefully it will be soon.

a great weekend

Before this next weekend hits I wanted to at least post this picture of last weekend.  We got to go to my nephew, Logan's, baptism.  It was funny ... when Logan was baptized Evan cheered with a loud "woot woot!!!"

Congratulations Logan

Landon went to a play place with his cousin and daddy today.  He now has a bruise over his other eye.  :-/

One of my favorite things about this time of year in Calgary???  Still no snow ... thank heavens.  Canadian Thanksgiving is over so people start getting really excited for Christmas (totally my style to start early).  Right now you can drive down the street and still see some halloween decor up in front of one house and Christmas lights and a tree in the window of the next.  

LOVE  

Landon's tough week

So this little guy has had a really tough week.

Tuesday he woke up with dry blood all over his face.  He'd had a massive bloody nose in the night and it would randomly bleed during that whole day.

Wednesday he fell and landed on his mouth.   He cut his bottom lip pretty badly and its still pretty puffy.

Thursday he fell and clipped his eye on the corner of a chair.  He cut the bottom and the top and woke up today with a pretty sweet black eye.

Today we were at the science center as a family and Landon was playing inside the jungle gym.  I watched a little girl try and take his ball away from him and Landon wouldn't let her take it.  She promptly scratched his face (tiger style) and stole the ball.  It takes A LOT to hurt Landon and I could tell that he was hurting pretty badly.  I managed to get my adult body up the child size rope course impressively fast and "save" my baby.  By the time I got him his face was really swollen and it was clear (on both sides of his face) where her razor sharp nails had got him.

I took this picture just after he woke up from his nap.  Now that the swelling has gone down it is clear to see the additional wounds to his face :-(  (there's a small nail scratch on the other side as well).

The funny thing is he keeps pointing to his face and saying "She scratched me."

Poor guy

Bella's Bridal Shower

I LOVE the Twilight Saga!!!!!!!

I DID go to Bella's bridal shower tonight at the movie theater.

I got to watch 20 minutes of extra footage before seeing Twilight on the big screen again.  It was one of the BEST nights ever being able to replay Twilight on the big screen.  I cannot even tell you how much I love it!  I love, love, LOVE it!!!!  I love everything about this story!  How lucky am I??  I am so glad that Janae and Andrea were able to go with me ... oh and they gave us flowers!  Oh how I can't wait for the premiere of Breaking Dawn!!!!!

More House Pictures

Alrighty, here is the remainder of our main floor.  We had to put a hold on some of the plans (you know that whole money thing) so forgive the music room and the office which can't be unpacked yet because of that reason.  I promise to show before and after pictures though.

Here are a couple views of our kitchen

This is the walk through from the kitchen ....

into the pantry........

into the storage room.  

Now this room is special.  Not only does it give a home to the games and crafts BUT its main purpose is to house all of Evans extra equipment.  In our old home his extra's would line our walls and take up so much space.  They are as small as they are ever going to be so it is such a blessing to have a room specially made to be a parking lot.  

(In case you are curious Evan currently has 4 pieces of mobility equipment that he uses on a regular basis)

Here is the main floor bathroom.

We put in progressive toilet seats so that we don't have to worry about potty seats and taking it on and off for Evan (he will always need a smaller toilet seat). 

The hallway just outside the garage and main floor bathroom.

wrap around from that and you are in our front entrance.  Do you see the white door on the left??  THAT my friends is the elevator.  The room on the right is the music room.

view from the front door.

picture of the stairs taken from the music room.

Finally you make a full circle around to the music room

and ending in the office.

 Well my friends, I hope you enjoyed the tour of our main floor.  When my life settles down a bit more I will post pictures of the other two floors.  Finished or not ... I promise they will come.  Now I am going to start getting ready for bed.  It is picture day in the symphony tomorrow and I want to look nice ;-)

Enjoy these sweet pics of Landon's play date the other day.  SOOOOO CUTE!