we have never been outstanding when it comes to doing family home evening.

but, this year, we are making an effort to be better.

we picked a theme for the year:

TELL ME THE STORIES OF JESUS.

 our idea for this theme came from this talk, by elder neil l. anderson.

so far, so good.

we sing primary songs (until chet loses interest), read a story about jesus, do a little activity, and call it a night.

anywho..

for our activity last week, we planted 3 bean seeds.

one of the beans has grown faster than the others, and it has blown our minds!

just look at these pictures...

this is the bean on monday night - 1 week after we planted it..

this is the bean tuesday morning - 12 hours after the last picture!

crazy, right?!

if you have kids that you think would enjoy this, you should totally try.

chet loves watching his beans grow.

and it is so easy.

we bought a bag of dried red beans (for $1 at walmart), put a couple wet paper towels in the bottom of an old (large) pickle jar, tossed in 3 beans, put a couple more wet paper towels loosely on top, covered it with some plastic wrap and an elastic band, and poked some holes in the plastic wrap.

that's it.

the first couple days were kinda boring but, once things got going, it was great.

beans are magical things!

pictures:

chet insisted he wear his cowboy boots before church.

[we were relieved when he chose to remove them before we headed out the door!]

those boots are, honestly, the only good find i have had at a thrift store.

we bought them before chet was born.. and they almost fit!

we had a major break through at the library this week.

chet actually sat on the rug and participated! woohoo.

holden gets stuck in all sorts of places, now that he is a rolling machine.

but our TV table is the place he gets stuck the most. makes him livid.

luna and holden.

this morning chet matter-of-factly told us that he was going to eat a donut for breakfast.
haha oh, really?

soo.. we went and bought a donut.

chet picked the one with sprinkles. obviously.

at the beginning of november, i offered to play a piano piece in our ward's christmas program.

it was a shallow offer. i was certain that all the spots were filled already!

turns out they weren't..

i'm not an outstanding piano player, and the song i was assigned to play was really tricky.

and 7 minutes long!

i practiced EVERY SINGLE DAY from the time i got the music until the day of the program.

sometimes twice a day.
i would be lying if i said i didn't enjoy practicing.
it is a beautiful song. and it is was impossible not to feel the spirit when i played it.

but, it would also be a lie to say i always enjoyed practicing!

it took a lot of effort... before the practicing could even commence!
matt was busy finishing up the semester, so i tried to take the kids with me.

i had to track down church keys, load up the kids, and haul them [and their ridiculous amount of stuff] to the church.
and when i would finally get everything to the church, unloaded, and set up, it seemed like they were just never satisfied.
it killed me because i felt like things should go smoothly because i was doing such a good thing.
[i'm sure every mom reading this is thinking 'yep, i've so been there!']

if i timed it right, holden would sleep. but chet kept things interesting.

at the time, he was potty training. 

it felt like i would spend a silly amount of my practice time rushing chet and holden from the chapel to the nursery bathroom, and back.
back and forth. and back and forth.
[and we meet in a ginormous double-chapel building!]

i think chet just got sick of playing in the chapel after a while.
don't blame him.
it would have been more fun if i was playing with him. but i wasn't.

so it was almost like he would do anything to try and make me stop practicing.

i remember this one time when i got to the point where i kind of knew the whole song, so all i wanted to do was try playing it all the way through.
without stopping.

so i started at the beginning..

and i was still on page 1 [of 7] when chet starts bugging me:

chet: mom... mom... mom...

pam: [still playing the song] yes, chet?

chet: mom... mom... mom...

pam: [reluctantly stop playing] what?

chet: ... holden's sleeping.

pam: ...

eventually i got pretty good at the song, if i do say so myself!

and i loved to play it.

but i had never played it in front of anyone.. except my kids.

and doing anything in front of a crowd terrifies me.

even the thought of playing charades - with people that i like - makes me feel sick.

i hate performing.
the worst grade i ever got, in all my schooling, was 7th grade drama.
i had to take the class, and i hated it.

so, the day before i had to perform, i called my mom and played my song for her over the phone.

and i was shaking!

ridiculous, right? i know!

but i was.

so then i made matt go to the church and listen to me play.

i was nervous for him too. but i did it.

i had big hopes that i would be able to hold myself together the next day.

matt and i had joked lots about me messing up.
 we joked about me bursting into tears and tripping as i try to run out of the chapel.

it was fun to joke about.

but...

it wasn't funny when i actually choked!

oh, it was awful!

i felt nauseous all sunday morning.
and, when my turn came to play, i was shaking so bad.

i started the song.
and then i stopped.
i regrouped.
and started again.
i was so stressed. my hands could not play. and my eyes couldn't focus on the music.

 so i just got up. and walked out of the chapel.

i was absolutely heartbroken.

it was obviously so embarrassing.

but i was also really disappointed in myself.

i knew i could play that song!

but i wrecked it.

and i threw away the 100+ hours of practice i had put into the dang thing.

i nodded at matt for him to follow me out of the chapel, but he had our 2 kids to deal with, so he didn't make it out for a while.

instead, this girl from our ward - that i hardly knew - came out to hug me.

i was so grateful that she followed me out.

i needed that hug.

but i still felt like poo.

we skipped out on the rest of church.
and i spent the rest of the day either in tears or on the verge of tears.

it was a sad sight!

we got 3 plates of cookies delievered that night.

but i hid every time the door bell rang!

the next day we got dinner.

and 3 days later i was invited to a girls night, with 3 girls in the ward (including the one who hugged me).

*our ward is unreal*

at the girls night, one of the girls shared a similar embarrassing story to mine.

she destroyed a piano solo in sacrament meeting too.
and then her bishop made he try again the very next week.
and she messed up that time too!
it was nice to know i wasn't the only loser.
and it felt good to laugh at my unfortunate event.

the next week at church, i had a meeting with my bishop.
i was so nervous that he was going to ask me to try playing again!
he didn't.
instead, he called me to be the relief society pianist.
what?! haha.
he said the relief society president thought i might feel awkward accepting the call..
no kidding!
but i laughed. and accepted.
matt laughed too.
and, after i was sustained, 5 people from our ward came up to me and laughed about it too :)

part of me wishes this all never happened.
i will definitely never make a shallow offer again!
but a bigger part of me is kind of grateful it did.
it has been humiliating, and heartbreaking, and disappointing.
and lots of tears have been shed. like, lots!
but it has also been a major growing experience for me.
i have learned that trials can be a blessing.
and that things don't always go the way you want, but that it's ok.
everyone else will move on. 
and i will survive!
other bonuses were the plethora of tasty cookies we got!
and the free meal.
and the wonderful people that i may never have met otherwise.
we have all these new friends that i consider some of the best we have made here in rexburg.

so bring on the embarrassing moments!

one more little detail:

matt and i just got called to team-teach a sunday school class.

so now i get to stress about playing the piano and teaching!

apparently someone wants me to step out of my comfort zone :)

wish me luck.

job hunting is scary and stressful.
oh, the stress :(
these big, scary career decisions make graduating less fun!
life is simple where we are at.
and simple is nice.
wish us luck as we try to figure out this next chapter of life.
we need it!

on a less depressing note..

i just bought a 10 pound bag of potatoes for $0.99

one of the perks of living in idaho.


this is hoey.
[hoe-ee]

that is the nickname chet has come up with for his brother.
and now matt and i use the nickname all the time.
so we have a kid named chetty, and a kid named hoey.
after all the thought we put into picking them such great names...
go figure!

holden got his 6 month immunizations today.
[even though he is actually 7 months. oops.]
he handled them like a champ.
me? not so much.
i'm guessing every mom is the same, but i can't help but tear up every time i hold my un-expecting child down to get a needle.
and i'm usually crying before my kid!
pathetic.

holden got measured, yet again.
he is 28.5 inches long [90th percentile].
and 15 lbs 3 oz [10th percentile].
still growing.
still a total string bean!

chet's friend had a birthday party at the craze.

this is matt and holden at it.

and this is chet and i.
chet is still going strong in his nasty-smile-phase.

chet and the birthday boy.
they rode that thing about 10 times!

do people actually buy these things?!

classy.

just chillin'.

chet cracks us up.

there is a field behind our apartment that they just started digging for a new complex.

there are lots of fun things for chet to watch - dump trucks, diggers, and such.

and we can see it all from the windows in our apartment!

is it weird that i am excited that our apartment shakes all day,

and that i hear trucks beeping constantly?

because i am!

it is the best little distraction for chet. he loves it.

a couple days ago, matt and chet were watching the construction from chet's bed.

it sounded like they were having fun, so i decided to join them.

and this happened:

chet: no mom! don't watch.

me: but i want to watch the trucks too.

chet: go watch the washing machine.

what?!

well, that is awfully bad luck. don't ya think?
luckily, chet, holden, and i get to go to texas in just 2 short weeks.
so we have had something to look forward too!
we are going to visit my sister.
my mom is driving down to rexburg and flying with us, out of idaho falls.
(isn't she the best?! flying by myself with my boys would be scary!)
poor matt doesn't get to come with us.
but he will be in reno for the competition/job fair that he is participating in.
so, that will be kind of exciting too.

chet has a new friend. lyla.

now we have to buckle holden into his chair!

library craft - a party hat!

such handsome [squirmy] boys, all ready for church.

chet likes to announce when he looks handsome.
maybe that means we tell him how handsome he is too much!
but we can't help it. in our eyes, he is such a handsome little boy.
holden too!

and now he likes telling other people when they look handsome too.
i think it is cute when he tells me i'm handsome,
but i decided to teach him to tell me i'm pretty instead.
so now he will randomly tell me that i look pretty. and i love it :)
but, don't worry, it won't all go to my head.
he also likes to tell me when my hair is messy.
'oh no! fix it mom. fix your hair!'

holden ate carrots today!

we have been super slow with getting him on solids.

the doctor told us we could start solids when holden was between 4 and 6 months.

he is closer to 7 months now..

[sorry dude!]

we just remember being so pumped to start chet on solids and being completely disappointed in his initial enthusiasm towards them.

so that has made us less excited to get holden started.

and, in our defense, holden has shown about the same enthusiasm as his brother!

turns out both of our boys despise rice cereal.

and i don't blame them. i wouldn't eat it. no way.

so today i decided to move on tastier things.

carrots.

he didn't think carrots were to die for, but he tolerated them.

and i'm pretty sure some actually made it into his tummy..

which is the whole point.

chet is so concerned when we are feeding holden solids.

we have spent the past 6 months telling chet that babies only drink bottles.

so he thinks we are making a big mistake when we are feeding holden real food.

'no mommy! no! holden drinks bottles!'

other big news in holden's life...

chet and him are officially roommates!

we kept holden in our room up until we got home from christmas.

not because we like having him close, but because we didn't want him to disturb chet's way good sleeping.

he has always slept swaddled tight in his basinet.

but he has outgrown his basinet, so it was time to make the swap.

and it has gone so well! yay.

holden wakes up at 7:30, but chet sleeps through it. and still wakes up at 9:00.

our boys rock:)

one more holden announcement...

this boy has turned into a rolling machine over the past week.

seriously, he rolls everywhere.

i lay him on a blanket on one side of the room and 2 minutes later he is stuck under a chair on the other side.

it's nuts!

chet likes to practice rolling with him.

watching them roll around makes me so excited for when they can actually start playing together.

and, at this rate, it won't be long!

we were at the grocery store today. in the meat department.

and i spotted this icky fish display that i thought chet would think was neat.

so i picked him up so he could see it.

and i started pointing out all the [unfortunate] sea creatures when chet says 'pig!'

pig? what?

ooohh...

haha. is this appropriate?

i meant to post this picture of what our car looked like for the big journey.

real classy.

tank sat in between us (on a pillow, of course.)

and yes, that is a potty in the back seat!

there are lots of long stretches of nothing in montana,

and it was a little too chilly to introduce chet to a roadside whiz,

so we wanted to be ready!

i can't believe we have already been back in rexburg for a week.
this semester is going to go by way too fast.
the entire semester is only 14 weeks long, and we are already done 1!
the thought of only living in rexburg for 13 more weeks *ever* makes me sad.
i guess that means we need to soak in all the rexburg we possibly can in 13 weeks.

a couple pictures from our week:

we went to kiwi loco for some frozen yogurt.

and this is the creation we conjured up for 3 people with 3 very different tastes!

[it tasted better then it looked..]

chet, holden, and miles getting a sled ride to playgroup.

hanging with dad.

last night, one of our friends said that he thought holden's hair was 'coming in nicely'!

and it made me so happy.

i am dying to see that boy with a shaggy head of hair.

all i wanted was ONE picture with no goofy looks.

no such luck..

we are back in rexburg.
yesterday matt started back to school, chet had gymnastics, and holden had a doctors appointment.
so we are back to real life!
i'm not complaining though. it's nice to be home. and we were beyond lucky this christmas break.
we basically just played for 2 weeks solid!

i had really good intentions of updating the blog on our trip, but it didn't happen.
so now i have lots of catching up to do, and it seems overwhelming! shoot.
this is gonna be lengthy.
anyone who makes it all the way through deserves a prize.

we spent all our time with family.
like, all of it!
so it's a good thing we really like our family, huh?
we bounced from leavitt family gatherings to shaughnessy ones.
and sometimes we even combined the two.

chet was in heaven with all his cousins around. they were all so kind to him.
he has been asking about cousins since we got back.
actually, he has been asking about cousins from the minute we left the calgary city limits!
poor kid :(

holden got lots of love while we were back home too.
it was so nice to have extra hands to hold him!
holden grew up a lot during our 2 weeks up north.
he is much more vocal - he laughs and chats to himself. i love it.
he is also rolling both ways now, grabbing everything in sight, and learning to play.
he is easy to love. [even if he does spit up a lot.. which is strictly against my rules.]
he weighed in at 14lbs 11oz at his appointment yesterday.

tank loved christmas too!
my parents were dog-sitting a little yorkie named lenny while we were there, so tank had a buddy.
tank isn't usually very friendly with other dogs, but he was with lenny.
sometimes they were even a little too friendly! haha so gross.
anywho...

here is a quick run down of what we did each day:

we left tuesday afternoon, but we didn't arrive in calgary until late wednesday night.
we broke the trip in half because matt was taking an exam in helena on wednesday morning.
an exam in helena, you ask? yes, the LEED exam.
[LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design]
i don't know a lot about it. but i do know that matt passed.
and now he holds the title of a 'LEED green associate'.
fancy!
after the exam, we drove.
the drive was pretty uneventful.
our kids got little sleep at the hotel (ugh, hotels..) so they slept most of the way to calgary.
it was super.
chet woke up just in time to get a slurpee in claresholm.
oh, how we miss canadian slurpees.

thursday morning matt had a job interview.
what a way to kick off your vacation, huh?
we spent the rest of the day visiting family.
no time to waste... so many people to see, so little time.

friday we did the majority of our christmas shopping!
haha ya, we left it a little late. but we still rocked it.
our boys are still really easy to shop for, and we didn't end up buying each other anything, so our list wasn't very tricky.
matt and i decided what we wanted most this year was date nights with NO children.
and we definitely got some of those over the break. yay!!
friday night was the leavitt adult christmas party.

it's always one of the favorite leavitt gatherings of the year because there are no kids allowed :)
there were lots of neat appetizers, a silly game, a gift exchange, and hanging out.
matt sported his christmas sweater.
he got it a few years back. from walmart. in the women's section.

saturday morning we went to the science center.
does it make us nerds if we had a lot of fun at the science center?!
chet thought it was pretty neat, but i'm certain us adults had more fun!
ben rau's wedding was that night. yay for ben.
we got to catch up with lots of our friends that were there.

[matt and i had to sit in the very back on the way to the science center!]

[a thermal picture of my hand and matt's hand.

see matt! i'm not just whiny.. i am legitimately cold!] 

[i kicked matts butt at hula hooping!]

sunday we hit up our old ward.
it was the christmas program, of which my dad was a part. it was nice.
we skipped out of church early because i managed to get my kids, husband, and parents all sick. oops.
and since snotty chet wasn't welcome in nursery, we decided that gave us the right to skip out too!
we spent the rest of the day watching movies and playing games.

monday we had the leavitt family christmas eve party.
my parents joined in on the fun too!
we had a homemade nativity, a talent show, and a pajama delivery from santa's reindeer.
the talent show was priceless!
a group of cousins did a gangham style dance that was too cute.
we were really scrambling to figure out a talent that chet could perform.
but chet came up with this magic trick where he pulls an arm in his shirt and hides it there until someone asks, 'where is chet's arm?' and then he pops it out.
soo.. he did that for his talent. like, 8 times!
he was just so dang proud of his trick. and the family all made him feel super special!
oh man, that boy is too cute :)

[holden was baby jesus this year.]

[opening his first present of the season - christmas pajamas!]

[it is basically impossible to get a group cousin picture.. especially on christmas eve!] 

tuesday was christmas!
chet rolled out of bed at 9.
it was a magical morning for him.
santa came!!
and he left all sorts of presents for chet and holden. such lucky boys.
chet loved opening his presents.. and holden's presents.. and everyone else's too!
and we all had fun watching him.
we spent most of the day with my parents, playing with our new things and doing puzzles.
we had a nice little christmas dinner that night.
christmas is always a good reminder of how blessed we are.

wednesday we stayed far away from the boxing day madness and just hung out as our little family.
we celebrated holden's 6 month birthday!
well, we didn't really celebrate per se, but it did cross our minds!
6 months? wow. when did this happen?!
i love watching him grow, but i can't stand how fast it is happening.
slow down, dude!
matt and i went on a date that night - dinner at joeys, followed by the movie guilt trip.
we always love to go to joeys when we are up in calgary.
and have i mentioned that i love going on dates with matt? because i do.
LOVE it.

thursday night we went up to the brand spankin' new calgary temple to do baptisms.
we went with my parents and some of matt's side of the family.
(mitch, marci, chris, melissa, larry).
i got to be baptized for my dad's mom!
a couple years ago i got to be baptized for my mom's mom.
and, lets just say, i consider myself a lucky girl for those 2 opportunities.
after the temple we went out for pizza at famosa's.
and on the way home matt had an unfortunate occurrence :)

friday afternoon we took chet to the wave pool to swim with some cousins.
then we went to dairy queen for lunch and dilly bars.
the weather had finally started to 'warm up' so my mom took chet sledding, after a much needed nap.

saturday we got us some timbits. mmm.
getting donuts is always on matt's calgary bucket list.
in the afternoon we ditched chet with matt's parents and went on another date.
we planned on hitting up another movie, but the theater was insane.
so we went out for a romantic dinner date instead.

sunday. we were supposed to make it to 9am church, but that didn't happen.
we are used to our 1:30pm ward!
 a lady at church saw holden's mustache binky and says:
'i saw that at the store yesterday and thought 'who would ever buy that?''
haha... umm. we did, you nut!
that night we met up with the foxes.

monday was new years eve.
matt went snowboarding all day.
the deal was that he could go as long as he promised to be back early enough - and not too tired - to party with me that night.
while he was gone my mom and i did each others hair.
i definitely got the better end of that deal!
i am decent at dying hair, it is the washing part that i struggle with.
the hose/faucet/thingy is hard to control!
i always get laughing and then water ends up everywhere!
we rang in the new year with the fox and ady families.
combined, we have 6 children. so we kept it pretty low key.
it was perfect. i loved catching up with our friends.
some highlights from the night were:
one: we played a heated game of in a pickle.
i could have guessed that scott would be feisty, but i had no idea the foxes were so sassy!
two: scott somehow got like $50 dollars worth of pizza hut food for free.
three: we got all 6 children to sleep by 9:30pm.
so i think we deserve an award or something :)

[ready for our new years shindig.]

tuesday we saw les miserables.
we met the cichys, the raus, and ethan and mckenzie there.
about a month ago, i saw a trailer for the movie and realized that 'i dreamed a dream' was not a song susan boyle wrote.
oops!
soo.. you could say, i didn't know much about the movie.
but i knew more than matt!
as we were literally walking into the theater matt says to me,
'dave just said this movie is all singing.'
haha matt! it's a musical!
i like matt.
while we were at the show, chet helped my dad take down christmas lights.
my parents waste no time taking christmas down!

wednesday we took the c-train downtown to devonian gardens for a picnic.
it was so fun to watch chet on the train. he was fascinated.
that boy loves trains, so this was like a dream come true.
i used to go to devonian gardens with my grandma when i was little.
being there brought back fun memories.
although the gardens have changed a lot since then - they are much classier these days.
we are pretty sure that train adventure was chet's favorite part of our calgary visit.
he talks about it a lot!
and that makes it one of our favorite parts too :)
matt went on a movie date with his brother and dad that night.

[sooo tired after the adventure!]

thursday morning matt had another job interview.
while he was schmoozing his interviewers, we met my dad for lunch so chet could see grandpa's big work truck again.
chet even got to drive it a bit.
we got to have a little visit with our niece, kayla.
and then we had a farewell dinner/farkle party at matt's sisters house.
..where i unknowingly ate elk!
..and where chet had the biggest poo disaster. and we literally cut his underwear off!

[oh, if only holden had the coordination to get that in his mouth!]

[a perfect chinook arch to send us off.]

friday we packed up, said our goodbyes, and hit the road.
we broke up the drive on the way back too.
so we stopped in great falls and stayed at another hotel with a pool.
for some reason the room with 2 beds was crazy expensive, so we got a room with 1 bed and decided we would would tell chet that the arm chair/ottoman was a "special bed" just for him.
... and he fell for it!

[goodbye kisses for lenny.]

aaand i think that about wraps things up!

it was a very merry christmas.

the end.