Christmas Day

Booker sprinting towards the tree, clutching his nerf gun. Santa left him one present outside his room so that when he woke up (much, much earlier than the rest of house), he'd have something to play with.

Booker opened one more gift after his nerf gun (some Star Wars action guys) and declared it to be "THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!!" Which means that Santa bought a lot of unnecessary presents this year.

Clark totally surprised me this year with a bicycle and a trailer. I'm so thrilled. I've never owned my own bike before! I think I loved the surprise almost as much as the bike itself. Usually I hand Clark a list of exactly what I want for Christmas. So when I went out to the garage and found this, I was pretty excited. How he got the bike and the trailer home in his little Jetta, I'll never understand.

We had a great Christmas. I loved having Marie, Kyle, Amara and Danny with us. Christmas with little kids really is the best. As they get older, their gifts get more expensive and not as abundant. I love that I can wrap up some crap from the dollar store and Ike is overjoyed.

After some much needed Christmas naps, we headed up to Mesa and had dinner with the Proffitts. It took some negotiating, but eventually Booker and Ike agreed that bringing three Christmas toys each up to Mesa would be sufficient. Thank goodness all the Christmas toys made it back to Tucson at the end of the night.

Christmas 2010 = Epic Win.

Christmas Eve

I've been meaning to blog about all things Christmas for a few days now. I've also been meaning to get over this lingering cold/cough, meaning to take down the Christmas decorations, meaning to do lots of fun things with my kids over winter break, meaning to...

Instead I've been lying around on the couch, devouring this book and avoiding any and all reasons to leave my house. It's been a very nice, albeit germy winter break.

Christmas was awesome. My brother and sister came down from Prescott and we took full advantage of the warm weather. We spent Christmas Eve day at the Ostrich farm.

Does anyone remember those "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals" sketches on SNL? If not, click here. That totally reminded me of Ike... "Hi Donkey. How doin?"

We decided to take the monster truck tour, which never disappoints.

Ostrich feather duster.

Fishing for Ostriches using grapefruit.

After the Ostrich Farm, we returned home and Marie and I cooked up a delicious Christmas Eve dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole, corn pudding, rolls, zatar and the most scrumptious relish tray.

System and Method for Being Happy Even When You Don't Feel Like It

This year, our annual Proffitt Yearbook contribution is a patent for our family, a System and Method for Being Happy Even When You Don't Feel Like It. I've got Clark to thank for coming up with the idea which is half the battle when it comes to these yearbook pages.

We've had a wonderful year filled with too many blessings to name. 2010 was good to us and I'm excited to see what 2011 holds. Happy Holidays!!!

Click to enlarge.

Behind the Scenes

My friend Cherise wisely pointed out that when it comes to family pictures, you only see the end result. The precious few (of hundreds) that have been meticulously edited down with swapped heads, smoothed skin and whitened teeth.* The one perfect photo that ends up on your Christmas card. You never see the throw away images of bored teenagers, cranky children and annoyed husbands. And trust me, there are plenty of those.

And you don't hear about the dirt covered knees or burr infested fields that you go tromping through to get the perfect shot. Or in the case of one of my favorite abandoned shacks last week, the SNAKES you might run into.

I still get the heebie-jeebies thinking about it. He was bigger in real life. And not dead, like we initially thought. Ick.

*In the case of the Garn family who happen to be unfairly photogenic, NONE of that was needed. Seriously, none. Five kids, five beautiful smiling faces in almost every frame. That's unheard of.

Apparatus for Simulating a "High Five"

It's Silly Patent T-Shirt Time!

If you recall, every year Clark gifts a patently absurd t-shirt to his coworkers for the holidays. This works out well. I'm much better at making t-shirts than I am at making cookies and it gives Clark an excuse to spend valuable work hours browsing Google Patents for crazy inventions.

As usual, it was really difficult picking the winner. The runner-ups included a urinal forehead rest, vibrating body jewelry, an anti-eating face mask and one of my favorites, the "Target in a Urinal to Attract the Attention of Urinating Human Males."

But the winner for the Hayes Soloway 2010 Christmas T-shirt is...

Make custom t-shirts at CustomInk.com

I think I need one of these in every room of the house. Next time I change a particularly stinky diaper or start, finish and fold 5 loads of laundry in ONE day, I'll just give myself a little high five.

Thanksgiving 2010

Man, do I love Thanksgiving. Almost even more than Christmas. It's all about food and family without that added pressure of presents. Best holiday ever. Even better if you get to spend it with the Proffitts. We have the best food, hands down. Plus, for the past few years we hold the Proffitt Family Olympics and have a bouncy house/slide. Then when it gets dark, we project a movie onto the side of the house and curl up under blankets with hot chocolate. I love it. Thanks to the Garns and Dunyons for hosting such a fun party.

This year, I was glad to share it all with my brother Danny. On Wednesday, we drove up to Prescott to get him. The boys experienced winter for the first time in their short little memories. I wasn't so great about getting my camera out on Thursday, but I did get some shots of the three legged race and the sack race.

Trigg won by a hair!

Remember when they were all so little!

That night we headed back up to Prescott. The next day, we had brunch with Danny, hit up the candy shop and then went and saw Megamind at the theater. It was good to spend some time with Uncle Dan.

A Note to My Future Pregnant Self

Blogging has felt a little bit like a chore lately, but there are a couple of reasons I keep it up. For one, it's a great form of record keeping. The other day, Clark was wondering why Ike is so slow to potty train and I reminded him that it's no where near time to start. He didn't believe me, so I checked the boys' blog and sure enough, Booker was closer to three years old before we started. Sigh of relief. I've got a few months. And no, I don't care if I have two kids in diapers. You never want to start potty training too early.

Anyways, the point is that I check my blogs all the time to remind myself of certain milestones and sometimes just to reminisce. Today, I want to make a record of something so if I decide to go ahead and have that fourth baby (boy), there will be a light at the end of the tunnel...

I'm nearly 20 weeks pregnant and I'm feeling so. much. better. It's amazing. I'm reminded of the person I used to be. I can finally put in a full day's work around the house and still have the energy to be excited about the America's Next Top Model finale (Ann!?! Really, Tyra?). I'm much happier, much healthier and much muchier in general. So remember this future Margaret, the first trimester is HELL but just endure it because things really do get better.

(Speaking of feeling better, I've been busy designing Christmas cards so put your orders in now. Also, just because I've already seen your card doesn't mean I don't want it hanging on my fridge!)

And in the spirit of pregnant record keeping, at my ultrasound yesterday I was told that I have a low lying placenta which in most cases will resolve itself by the third trimester. In some cases though, it doesn't move and you have to have a c-section. The tech reminded me that I've "been there and done that so you know, no big deal." Except that it is and I'll be incredibly pissed off at my placenta if I end up with another c-section. Any success stories of migrating placentas, blog readers?

Now it would be appropriate for me to end this post with a photo of my "baby bump" like so many of my cute, petite pregnant friends have been doing lately. But I promise you, that photo does not exist. Mostly because there isn't much of a bump but rather an itchy layer of blubber. Just imagine me but even fatter and with really bad skin. JOY!