This is the closet you will get to me providing any caroling this year.
Enjoy compliments of the Wilson family Christmas Party.
I found the products of a recent trip to Smiths somewhat tale telling. We have had quite the science fair with Ari's digestive system dysfunctions, goat milk helped and gluten free is our newest experiment. The Benadryl; well that was just a rookie mistake. At a recent B-Day party I was so disillusioned at how tasty the birthday carrot cake was I forgot to ask if it had walnuts. Ari ended up with a rash...all over his body. So between the itching rash, screaming, digestive bloating, screaming, teething, Joe being out of town, screaming and general lack of sleep due in part to screaming it's been quite the month...very effective birth control.
Joe had his oral comps today (he did the written part two weeks ago). Despite the fact that he flailed his arms a lot, forgot words like axis, plate tectonics, and accumulate; and apparently acted all around nervous...they passed him. We went out to celebrate at Indian Oven with his Professor and two lab mates where (as if comps weren't enough torture) I took a picture of his sweaty armpits in front of his compadres (photo above). Aside from playing Frisbee I have never seen Joe with sweaty armpits...or suffer from a lack of words. Yea Joe.
As you can see from the photos Ari really enjoyed the snow...for about 1.4 minutes. He soon lost his glove and decided he wanted to go in (yes all the snow on his hat came from an accidental roll). Turns out Ari enjoys the snow more when he's watching from inside the kitchen, especially when he's being blasted with snowballs.
These are all the photos I have to show for my thanksgiving break. Lacey took me on this "trail" that her and Seth discovered years ago while doing tortoise surveys. As you can see it ends with a pretty nice view of Snow Canyon. It was my first hike without Ari in about a year (he was home sick with Dad but as you can see Aden came along). I missed the little guy; but at the same time I had forgotten how nice it was to get to the end of a hike and just lay out on the rocks and stare at the sky.
The gruesome hand isn't so gruesome anymore as it's healing nicely; but I thought I would post some photos anyway since I had a request; I love a good request!
Upon re-assessing the wound on Sunday we discovered that we should have taken him to get stitches, it was pretty deep and gross. We loaded him up an hour past his bedtime and headed to insta-care. Because it was an old wound they couldn't stitch it so they cleaned it out good and steri striped it. Ari did really good, he screamed and cried a lot but he didn't try and pull his hand away, he just cried and cried and tried to take it like a man. I was glad we took him in, it really would not have healed well on it's own especially considering it was in a spot where it just kept ripping open. In photos were taken the day after the Doctor fixed it up.
I didn't set out to dress Ari in patriotic fashion, it just happened; in fact I didn't even notice until I completed the ensemble with a blue diaper. The first photo is of Ari kicking back on his trusty steed with a nice cold bottle of goats milk. I took the second photo of Ari and bear (whom Ari appropriately refers to as "bear") while they 1/2 watched a video as I cooked diner.
This weekend Myelle's parents brought her up to play with me. Our parents wanted to go climbing...LAME, instead we played with my toys, went out to eat, visited the "Zoo", and played at the park. I tried to impress Myelle by being really ornery that day...I think it went over pretty well, I got in several real nice tantrums. My Mom took a few photos, but not of the tantrums.
This is us eating at El Toro Viejo. I wanted a Chili Verde Chimichanga but instead I got Oatmeal and fruit with the occasional tortilla scrap from my Dad. Luckily Myelle shared her Macaroni and Cheese with me, I feel like we really bonded when she was force feeding me. 
At the park there was this thing where you got to see what it was like to live in a bubble. It was pretty scary especially with Myelle's Mom wearing that frying pan on her head.
Despite the fact that it's been a really bad week I'm still quite proud of myself for the following reasons:
1. Ari (who had the stomach flu) projectile shot puke in my face and down my shirt all the while I kept my cool and didn't puke back.
2. Ari cut his hand open (the fleshy part between the thumb and the pointer finger) on a can lid, there was an excess amount of blood and I didn't even pass out (refer to bandage job photo). Interestingly enough my first thought upon seeing my bleeding baby was to call Olivia to come patch it up...then I remembered she moved and thought about panicking.
3. I think we have pampered Ari's butt enough that his perirectal strep is clearing up...again.
4. I got over my own stomach flu in approx. 16 hours.
5. I got in 30 minutes of work this week.
As you can see Ari was a duck for Halloween, his Aunt Maren picked it out...being that duck was his first word and all. We did some serious trick-or-treating at the Washington County School District Office (mainly to see Ari's Grandpa) this Halloween. Ari was more interested in hugging everyones Halloween decorations than he was in collecting candy. Relatively speaking I didn't get too many photos, but I have a favorite; I call it "Libby the lonely Zebra". Here are a few photos of Ari and his cousins.
