March Madness

You know, having a baby right during the middle of busy season may not be the best time of the year considering how, well, busy David is at work. But, one can't complain about taking a week off during March Madness to hold a brand new baby and watch basketball! It will be surprising if Caleb doesn't end up liking basketball as much as his daddy, considering that the first several weeks of his life was spent cheering on our respective teams. 

We have a tradition of all picking our own brackets, even the kids. Lydia was old enough this year to listen to the team names/mascots and choosing which ones she wanted. David helped Austin pick his teams using a combination of colors, mascots, and team names as they went through and picked his bracket. 

David's winning team (Villanova) went out pretty early, but I picked Gonzaga and they made it to the Championship game! It's not often that I beat David at this bracket business, but I'm pretty proud of myself this year. (Not so proud, because I picked my bracket at 11:00 the night before they had to be finished and I was half asleep and pretty much just selecting teams at random. So any success on my part had more to do with luck than skill. But I'll take the win. 

David loves basketball. He always has. (I mean, when I met him he was regularly waiting more than 12 hours at the USU Spectrum before a home game so that he could sit on the front row of the basketball game.) He enjoys watching the teams play and it's something that he just really likes. I'm incredibly grateful for him, because although watching sports is something he loves and is really important to him, he never ever makes us feel like it's more important than us. We always come first. Sometimes that means that he turns on a game to watch in the background while he's playing with the kids or helping with things around the house, sometimes that means that he watches a replay of the game at midnight after we've all gone to bed, and sometimes that means that he simply misses games that he would have liked to have watched. But I'm glad for times when we can support him in this thing that he loves and join him to watch the games together. 

Also, after watching Taco Bell's commercial for their Triple-Double Crunchwrap Supreme fifty-eight times, we finally caved and picked one up one night. SO good! #advertisingreallyworks

So... March Madness has been good to us this year. We're already counting down the days until next year! (Not really - but it is a highlight of our Spring. :) ) 

It's March!

You know it's March at the Peaden home when a poster-sized NCAA tournament bracket appears on the wall. Nope, it doesn't get Marchier (made up word? maybe.) than that. 

On Wednesday night, we each picked out our teams to win it all. Austin picked colors using colored pencils as proxy. Lydia danced and jumped around David picking her favorite of each two mascots. David and I were more traditional in our selection methods, although in my case there was almost as much guess work and a similar chance of success. 

David watched the first matchups last night and is itching to get home to watch the games today. This might be David's very favorite time of the year. (Shhh.. don't tell Christmas!) We've got a full night of basketball and butterscotch cookies planned. May the best team win! 

And by that, I mean Oklahoma - because that's who I chose to take the whole thing this year. 

(David picked Michigan State
I picked Oklahoma
Lydia picked GreenBay
Austin Picked Oregon State)

Friday Five

Here are some of our favorite/most eventful happenings from our week:

1- Last Friday (pre-stitches), Lydia and I got to go hang out with one of the sweetest people in the world, Rebekah, and her little girls. Bekah just had her third beautiful little girl a couple of months ago - and we were so excited to meet little Norah. Lydia loved looking at the baby and really enjoyed playing with Adaliah and Zizzy. One of my favorite parts of the whole day (other than chatting and catching up with Bekah) was when Adaliah introduced Lydia to their pet dinosaur. They had Triceratops toy that was at least 2-3 feet tall and 4-5 feel long, and looked like a real baby dinosaur. Lydia was really interested and walked up to pet it when Adaliah turned it on. Immediately its closed eyes shot open and it started to roar. Lydia took one look at that thing and took off out of the room we were in, down the hall, and into a bedroom. It was so funny that I could keep from laughing as I followed her. It took her a while to warm up, but in the end she came up to pet his nose. We all had a nice time.

2- Saturday was a really nice day. It would have been absolutely fabulous if David hadn't had to work, but unfortunately he did. I wasn't super thrilled about spending Saturday morning at home alone - and the weather was decent so I hopped onto KSL, wrote down several addresses, and we headed out yardsale-ing. The first couple stops were a bust (in fact, I didn't even get out of the car), but then I found a couple of estate sale-types and really got into the swing of things. I've recently developed a love for all things dishware/glassware and was just keeping my eyes open for something fun. I found a darling little Christmas Morning 12 piece set with a large plate, small plate, and mug for hot chocolate, but I passed it over because 4 place settings didn't seem to be enough for our future little family - but part of me wishes I had just gotten it because it was so darling. I did end up with 8 gold chargers (the large decorative plates that go underneath a dinner plate) for $1 and I am SO excited. I made David go after-Christmas shopping with me to look for some charges just like that and I can't wait to set my pretty gold-rimmed china on them for a fancy meal. I also found a family that had a giant tub full of gently used children's shoes for $1 a pair and I picked up several pairs, some of which are too small for Lydia but looked practically brand new so I couldn't pass them up for future children. After David got home from work (and Lydia had taken her nap after a long morning of yard sales) we decided to head over to the farm. About a week after I got my individual pass to Thanksgiving Point, I realized that it was SO worth it and David needed one as well. He finally had time to come with us during the day so we bought a pass for him, and I'm so excited to get even more use out of it! It was just so nice to walk with him as we followed Lydia around all over the farm and as she showed him all of the animals that she loves.

3- Saturday night (I split this into two because I got so carried away talking about my garage sale finds that #2 started getting a little long) David helped make me crepes. I'd been craving some yummy crepes for weeks, and had even purchased all of the supplies - but every night I would be just so exhausted that I never ended up making them. I was so sad when I realized the last two strawberries and the last banana (that I had been saving for my crepes) had gone bad. David helped me make our pudding, went to the store with me to buy strawberries and bananas (and sour jelly beans) and then after we put Lydia to bed, he helped me make the crepes. I honestly wouldn't have made it happen without him, and I'm so glad that we did because they were delicious! Recipe HERE.

4- On Wednesday afternoon, I took Lydia in to get her stitches removed. Honestly, it was more traumatic to have the stitches removed than it was to get them put in! I was expecting some time to sit in the waiting room and let Lydia get used to being there. She had fallen asleep in the car and was a little groggy as we were walking into the building and as soon as she realized where we were she started crying hysterically. The lady at the desk looked worried and asked what was wrong/what had happened to her. She looked surprised when I told her we were just there to get some stitches removed. Lydia wasn't even 1/10th so upset when we first brought her in, bleeding eye and everything. She had me walk right in and head right back. They asked me a few questions, had me sign something giving permission for them to remove the stitches and then took me into a room. I was literally out of breath, everything had happened so fast. I felt like asking them if I could just have a minute to calm my crying baby. But everything was a whirlwind,  they didn't even tell me how everything was going to happen - a nurse just came in and instructed me to hold down her body while they removed the stitches and two seconds later she was on a table with someone holding her arms above her head to immobilize her, me basically laying on her body looking at her face, a bright light shining in her eye, and a lady pulling at her stitches. Needless to say, she was screaming and crying and it was terrible. Because it was so close to her eye her tears kept covering the stitches and the teeny tiny scissors that they were using the clip the stitches slipped a couple of times and cut her skin - I was so upset, even though I knew that I really shouldn't be. I guess I was just overwhelmed with how quickly everything was happening and I felt like they were going so fast that they weren't being careful with my sweet babys skin so close to her eye! Thankfully it only took a couple of minutes and then they told us we were done and we could go. I sat in the room just holding Lydia for a little while, even though all of the nurses cleared out in the first ten seconds. I felt so terrible for not preparing her more - we had been talking about going to the doctor to get our stitches out ("Doctor? Stitches? Eye?" as Lydia would say), but I had planned to have more time to say "Lydia, this is your doctor... he/she is going to take out your stitches okay? We are going to hold you down, but it will only take a minute". It all worked out in the end I guess, it was just much harder on her and ME  than I expected it to be (definitely more stressful than the first time around). One of the cutest things though is that as she was crying, I was right above her face telling her that I loved her and trying to talk to her. Through her sobs, she cried "Animals?"and I said "You want to go to see the animals? Okay! We'll go as soon as we are done at the doctor's and she finishes taking out your stitches. I promise we'll go see the animals" and then again through her tears she said "Okaayyyyyy." It was so sweet and she actually calmed down for a half second as she thought about the animals. It's true that she loves those horses, cows, and goats!

5-Would you expect anything less than an update on our March Madness brackets for our #5 today? I finally buckled down and got our 2014 poster made, so we can follow along with the NCAA tournament. We've enjoyed watching basketball games together (even if David and I have differing opinions on which teams you should cheer for, regardless of who is on your bracket) and are looking forward to another weekend filled with yummy food and basketball games. David is picking me up some Costa Vida on his way home from work today, and then he is going to get some Carls Jr for his dinner. Then a fun evening filled with cheering on our "favorite" teams.

Also, after last night - David is killing me in points and I am grumpy about it.

FHE & March Madness Kickoff

Ya'll know that we love March Madness around this house. The basketball, the brackets, the insane emotional investment in a team that you know barely anything about. So I thought that I'd share our FHE from Monday night.

We started out with a song (we LOVE the primary song player on lds.org/music) about making good choices, "Choose the Right Way", had a prayer, then David taught an awesome lesson about how the choices we make affect our happiness and that we should always try to make good choices, but when we make bad choices - we can use the atonement to repent and get back on the path to Heavenly Father. We talked about some examples of good choices and bad choices (ie. listening to mom and dad vs. climbing on the back of the chair). Lydia was so cute as she repeated the words "good choice" and "bad choice". I love how much she is talking and internalizing. 

We followed our lesson by making our "choices" for our March Madness Brackets! It was so funny. We put Lydia in her high chair and tried to get her to choose the team colors. She would just repeat back whatever color we said last, so then we started using colored pencils to have her choose - and she always chose whichever color was on her right side. So then we got her colored stacking toy and let her stack the rings a million times, and whichever color she picked up first out of the two competing colors was the one that we put down for her. She thought that it was SO funny when I would dump her rings off after just a few seconds. It was very successful! David and I later made our picks and we are all ready to go! March Madness, here we come! 

Also, in the spirit of making choices. Lydia was dressed in a white turtleneck and pink pants, but throughout the day/evening she requested her "coat" and wore it around the whole night. Then right before FHE she came walking up with her hat on her head. She's already starting to dress herself - and I'm sure that many more choices just like that are in our future! I think that she looks darling, and it makes me so proud to know that she picked out her little outfit. 

March Madness

We love basketball in this house! Okay, I love basketball and Shantel loves me. But she also does enjoy watching games with me and especially picking her brackets each March. We really love march madness  Watching the NCAA tournament is the sports highlight of the year for me. Each year we have faced off in our own little Peaden Bracket challenge. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 I dominated the bracket challenge. However, in 2012, Shantel came out of nowhere to beat me and claim the title of bracket champion. 

As you can see, it was a big party when Shantel won last year, 1,350 points to my 1,200.

Once again we were really excited for the tournament and after Selection Sunday, Shantel made a giant bracket it and hung it on the wall so we could keep track of the results.

We both picked our brackets without the other one seeing so no one had an advantage. 

Shantel picked Indiana to win it all....

...and so did I! Great minds think alike. 

We even got Lydia to make her own bracket picks. I sat at the computer and told Shantel the school's colors, and then Shantel had Lydia pick between two colored blocks to make her choices. 

Here she is showing how good she feels about picking Michigan (blue) to make it to the final four. So while she picked Wisconsin to win it all (who lost on the 1st day of the tournament) she was right on with her upset pick of 4th seeded Michigan making it to the final four. 

With all the upsets this year- neither Shantel or I did awesome, in fact neither of our teams we picked to play for the championship are alive, so the results are in, Shantel 550, David 520. Shantel is your back to back champion! It looks like I will need to step up my game for next year. I'll just have to watch more college basketball next year. Which, as a side note- my bracket methodology is to watch a lot of basketball and then go off my gut. Shantel does not watch any basketball, but then she closely examines the information that pops up about each team and makes her pick. Last year I had special insider access that would tell her the percent chance of each team winning- but didn't renew this year. Shantel was so distraught when she saw she did not have access to her stats this year. I guess she did not need them, now I'll have to wait 12 more months to get back to being, bracket champion.