Dylan's 1st Birthday

We did this cowboy themed. I thought it was only fair since we did pirates for Halloween. People, I have learned my lesson. I went way too overboard with this party for a baby. The food wasn't ready and I didn't even have makeup on when people started showing up, further elevating my stress level. I spent way too much money and decided to make food way too complicated for too many people, even though it was just family.(Turks are family) Dylan got spoiled rotten. Someone tell me birthday hype dies rapidly with age. Thanks to my parents again for all of thier help. I wouldn't have been able to pull this off half so well without it.
Dylan was way more psyched about opening presents on his birthday than he was on Christmas. He yelled and clapped with each one.Check out this cute boot cake made by Shelly Urry from Granite Bakery. It was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. One of the few cakes I'll eat and it was delicious.Dylan smiled and waved his arm around while we sang Happy Birthday. Just after I almost burned my poor grandpa with wax.Wes and I got him this pop up tunnel and tepee set that he wasn't too thrilled about going through. So I'm going through with him, but just barely.
I am so grateful to have this happy healthy little boy. Because I never want to do this again. For all the trouble we had getting him here then keeping him here those first couple of weeks, I will never take for granted the true blessing and miracle that he is. I just expected him to be walking by now. He did everything else early.

Smith Ugly Sweater Party

The Smith parties get a little out of control, but I don't stop laughing the entire time. We had an ugly sweater contest where Melissa wore this homemade doosy, courtesy of Laura. Wes was the runner up. Wes' grandma with dementia opened the condoms in the white elephant exchange at first exclaiming that she didn't know what the purple box was, then when she was told saying, "I don't want any sex." Her grandkids were however kind enough to award her with the most beautiful sweater in the contest. This is Wes' Uncle Lane wearing his Uncle Gary's favorite hat that his wife managed to sneak here from Georgia to put in the exchange. I would say Gary is a pretty easy going dude, but he was throwing things when his favorite hat got opened.

Christmas

Better late than never. I got an awesome new camera for Christmas and took a bajillion pictures. Lucky for you Blogger can't handle them all. So these are the highligts.
We got a Wii and didn't even see it coming.Sledding down the stairs at Wes' parents.

We're spoiled rotten. Thanks so much everyone.

Sick Baby

I feel awful. Like the petri dish I gave birth to is infecting the world. Ok, really he doesn't act all that sick, just a little grumpy. But yesterday during sacrament, I started having this sneaking suspicion that Dylan had pink eye. (Sorry Tates. I tried to keep him from touching your kids' stuff.) It was confirmed today at the MD even though it looks a lot better. But lucky for him the pink eye came with double ear infections. I'm a little slow on the uptake. He's been a little grumpy and sleeping terribly. I thought it was just that last pre-molar coming in. In my defense, he never had a fever. How was this first time mom to know?

The selfish side of me is really bummed because now I can't go skiing on Wednesday. Whether in-utero or out, he seems determined to keep me from hitting the slopes.

Winter Sun 10K

It's most appropriately named. It was freezing when we got up to run, but was kind of warm once the sun was shining in beautiful Moab and we were done with the race.

My goal was to run it in under an hour. Which I did. Just barely. My time was 58:26. By far not my best time, but I still achieved my goal. I was feeling good through the first 4.5 miles, then because we had to run on the left side of the road, my right IT band really started freaking out(in other words it felt like a stabbing knife that also has a sticky hinge). I was past mile five and still feeling really good aerobically. I knew it ended at the high school, so when I saw it I turned on the boost so I could end really well. Low and behold we still had to run a quarter mile around the track. My enthusiasm sank. Evan had come back to run with me then. What kind of brother won't carry their sister across the finish line? Oh, well. I did well enough. I hurt really bad the next 2 days since we just got in the car and drove home for 4 hours after the race.

The Polar Express

Last night we went on the Heber Creeper with Wes' family. There were elves to serve us Mrs. Clause's special chocolate chip cookies complete with special ingredients such as elf giggles and a gallon of joy. Then we had super chocolaty hot chocolate. We read the Polar Express as we reached the North Pole and saw Santa Clause. He came and asked all of the kids what they wanted for Christmas then gave them all bells like in the book.

We were all wearing our Christmas jammies...and I'm just coming back to writing this post after a week. What the heck was I talking about? It was lots of fun. Look at some picturesCanyon and Dylan are BFF in their matching cowboy jammies.
Have you ever seen a cuter bunch of cousins?
.I love my sisters-in-law. We're wearing our super awesome "bed coats".

I am so embarrassed!

This will probably shock a few people who think I am beyond embarrassment or shame in any form. I don't embarrass easy and mostly think it's irrational to care so much about what other people think of me. I wasn't even really embarrassed on Sunday evening when Merritt and Schooler came to get their computers from my messy house, while I was still in my pajamas and unshowered.

We went to dinner tonight for Drew's birthday. It was pretty much us and Drew's family. Not a big deal we've spent time with them all on various occasions. One of Drew's nephews was a bit out of line after dinner when he was crawling behind all of our chairs and under the table and was probably the biggest kid there. All of this I can look the other way for and chalk up to parent neglect (he has a 3 week old baby sister). But while he was under the table he began to punch Wes in the leg, apparently too close to some valuables for comfort. Wes claims he tried several things to get the kid to stop. In the end, he pulled the kid's hair and made him cry. I don't have a problem with what Wes did, I support him, but I with he hadn't made him cry. I was embarrassed because his mom didn't seem too happy about Wes making her son cry. And everyone else was looking like, that's just not done. Jenny understood why I was embarrassed, probably because she was embarrassed herself by her not-afraid-to-discipline friends. So we left after dinner because I was too embarrassed to go back to Jenny and Drew's for cake and spend more time with the scowling mom.

Reason #2 to be embarrassed is much more irrational. Drew's friend Jake Shied came to dinner. I went to high school with him and I had a huge crush on him. He was in the Mr. Hillcrest competition and I don't remember how it worked, but he kissed me on the cheek for some contest. In my little 15 y/o heart, it was the real deal. (I'm blushing right now for those who can't see me. Jenny will make fun of me later.)He was a senior when I was a sophomore and I'm sure he had no idea who I was then as much as I don't think he knows who I am now. Thank goodness. Regardless, I feel like he can sense my awkwardness and trying to avoid him, because I still feel like the silly teenager with a crush when I see him. How irrational is that?!?!?

And just to further run down my day backwards. I had the eval from Hell as my last patient of the day. It was a vestibular problem, which I'm trained to treat, but NEVER see. So I'm glad the dude was old (my voice is still gravely and I had to yell at him the whole time to get him to hear me)and hopefully not so quick on the uptake, that I was really fumbling. Once he was gone and I looked up the words for what I was doing like saccade and VOR and otolith, I realized that I was doing tests and treatments and had no clue which semicircular canal was effected. So good luck with that patient in the future Jared. I hate feeling unsmart and it should have made me feel better that the other therapist had no idea either, but it didn't.

Also I read the entire Sexiest Man Alive issue of People in between treating my morning patients. First of all, it's about time the realized how hot Hugh Jackman is. Secondly, they had scratch and sniff on the guys so you could smell their scent. That kind of creeped me out just to read it. I sure as heck didn't smell a single one. It was really wierd