The End is Nigh!

Today marks 37 weeks, and I am happy to be home from our Christmas trip to El Paso, undelivered. Now that I'm home and a safe twenty minutes from the hospital, bring it. This baby and I are not too happy with the tight compartments and the fight for space can't last too much longer. In honor of Q's imminent arrival, we are going to play

"Predict the Pounds!"

Rules: Guess baby's weight closest and you win!
Rewards: A sense of pride in your psychic skills AND one pound of Sees Candy. We'll send you the gift certificate if you have a Sees nearby, if you don't, we'll mail the box of candy straight to you.

Some clues to get your guessing juice going:

• Marielle weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and Jenna weighed 8 lbs 11 oz.
  
• No gestational diabetes with this pregnancy
• I was overdue three days with Marielle, one week early with Jenna

If you want to really show your psychic abilities you can guess the birth date too, but know that if you guess anywhere past January 20th you are automatically eliminated. This mama does NOT want to go overdue. Happy Guessing!

Jenna

Marielle

Santa

I'm pretty sure we've posted in past years about Marielle's fear of Santa. For the last two years we haven't even tried getting Marielle anywhere near Santa. We thought Jenna might be different.

Nope.


And although Jenna's still a little skeptical of the red hat, here's a Santa she can really cuddle up to. :)
From our ward party to yours, Merry Christmas!

An Unknown Carol

If your house is anything like our house, you would start listening to Christmas carols sometime around Oct 1. Except your wife is a staunch Christmas-doesn't-start-until-after-Thanksgiving-ist. So come Black Friday, when other (crazy) people are standing in 4 hour lines at [insert favorite store here]*, you are breaking out the favorite movies and songs you only get to listen to for a few short weeks each year. You solicit carol recommendations on Google Buzz. You sing at the top of your lungs as you leave your office, and even as you go mountain biking with the scouts on Saturday morning. You host a Christmas carol sing-along and all your friends are impressed** you know all the actions to The 12 Days of Christmas.

And then, come Dec. 7, you find that you've OD'd on Christmas spirit. Just a little bit. I mean, you're still excited for the Big Day. But you just need a 3 minute and 19 second break. Something ... fresh. Well, that my friends, is why we have this sweet video:



*except Wal-mart. Please tell me you don't go to Wal-mart. I think 4 hours in Wal-mart is long enough for the fluorescent lighting to leach into your soul.
** you were impressed, right?

Happy Black Pete Day!

For those of you that aren't Dutch, Black Pete is Sinterklaas' helper who comes in advance of Christmas to leave presents inside children's wooden shoes. (Check out this awesome pic and more of the back story.) And for those of you that aren't Mullens, Black Pete started giving books as presents during the Great Toy Drought of '95, when the only toys available were Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger action figures -- even less cool than books to a bunch of teenagers. The ACLU got involved after a few years, on behalf of the United Toy Workers, and secured a court order for Black Pete to integrate non-book gifts into his distribution again. Since the North Pole exists outside all legal jurisdictions, Black Pete's compliance was completely voluntary. I think our home is one of the last literary hold-outs on his route, and thankfully our girls get excited. Marielle and Jenna immediately knew which books were whose and clamored onto the couch to get a closer look.

Hope it's a happy holiday for all y'all!

The Promise of the Fridge

Have you ever noticed that often couples look just like each other? When I was single my roommates and I coined the phrase "the promise of the fridge." It came from one particular wedding announcement posted on the fridge where the bride and groom to-be looked like twins. And moreover, they were both so, so, how do I say this, nerdy. Scholarly? (is that better?) They were a perfect match. So as single young ladies looking for Mr. Right, we held this couple up as our standard that there really was a guy out there just perfect for each of us.
Now to the present, this morning I was checking a friends blog and saw a post that made me think back to that promise of the fridge.

Meet Jared, Marielle's buddy from Sunbeams and preschool.

And though this picture is a bit dated, you can see these two have something substantial in common. What do you think? Match made in heaven? Marielle is (and will be for the next 18 years) way to young to make any marriage decisions , but I think this guy holds promise. :)