Just Catching Up on Stuff, stuff, and more stuff

Let's start with Thanksgiving:

The boys and I at Costco buying all of our groceries to make Thanksgiving dinner. Will and I had just gotten back from LA the day before this picture was taken, and our fridge was quite bare.  Groceries needed.  And wow my boys look so thrilled to have their photos taken!  You'd think I was buying all veggies and no pie or something.

Here is me in our kitchen Thanksgiving morning - feeling particularly grateful to have such a nice kitchen that my lovely husband was so kind to indulge me on (I got the nice appliances - which make cooking a heap of food a lot easier; double oven, etc.)...

Since we had travelled a lot, we just wanted to stay home for Thanksgiving. So we hosted, and had the Nisbets over.

Here is my little pie-helper...

More photos from dinner....

The dinner clean-up crew :)  Ahhhhh yes.

So Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, we all ate tons, enjoyed the food and company and the next day swore we would all get back to the gym.  Just like every year ;)

Honey-Do's

As you may or may not know, we are still working on our house. We have a long, long, long list of projects that still need to be finished and just ONE maintenance man around who also happens to work full time as well. :)

So it goes without saying that projects take an incredibly long time to get started and finished, but we have slowly been chipping away at the never-ending list of things to do.

One awesome thing that Will recently did was install some light fixtures that we've had for over a year. I was ecstatic to get more lighting!

Above he finally installed my wall sconces in the living room, as well as the ceiling canned lights.

Below, he finished installing the bar pendant lighting.... 

And I don't have a photo of it, but he also installed the little stair lights on our stair case so now we can see the stairs in the middle of the night. :)

Honey-Do's + Babies

You may have heard last week that the Grammy nominations came out, and I was really hoping to see my name on the list for the Pop Instrumental category.  Well, it didn't happen.

I have to say I was a bit shell-shocked. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I worked my butt off to secure a Grammy nomination both in PR work, networking, sending out tons of complimentary cds to Recording Academy members and more.  I had soooo many members tell me my album was top notch and it not only needed to be nominated, but it needed to win.  I had a lot of support, and a lot of votes. But in the end, I did not make the final 5 for the nominations.

I was totally bummed.

What does this have to do with Honey-Do's and Babies? I will tell you in a second.

Well, shortly after Will and I found out that I didn't get the Grammy nom, Will said something to effect of "Well now we can try for baby #3!" and he was all excited.

I seemed to remember differently - saying that we could try for baby #3 either after the Grammys (if I got nominated), or after Christmas.  And since I didn't get the nom, Will thought it meant NOW.  "I've had Dec th on my calendar for months!" he told me.  (obviously for different reasons than I had Dec 5th on my calendar (the nominations)).

To make a long story short, yes, we plan to try to get pregnant in 2013.  But I also had hoped to have another 20-30 lbs lost before getting pregnant again.  My boys' pregnancies were soooo hard for me. Pregnancy and I don't get along.  I really don'g enjoy it, and while I do produce super healthy babies my body suffers terribly. Anything and everything that could hurt or go wrong during pregnancy usually happens to me, sadly.  If you saw "What To Expect" (the new movie), I'm totally the girl who runs the shop and ends up with the Csection and has the worst pregnancy ever.  Yep.

I also gain weight while I'm pregnant. Like lots of it.  Even when I try to eat healthy and work out, I still gain it.  And no, breastfeeding has never helped me lose weight either.  I'm telling you I'm just incredibly UNlucky when it comes to having good pregnancy genes or whatever.

BUT I totally do want another baby, so does Will (he's crazy baby hungry). This will probably be our last since it will be 3 Csections for me and I'm getting old LOL.

Anyway, I asked Will to please be patient with me and give me just 2 more months to lose a little more weight (knowing that if I at least start at a lower weight, I won't end up as big as my other pregnancies). I'm still not back to the weight I'm "normally" at (pre-kids). Of course he wasn't ecstatic about it, but he totally understands the havoc wreaked on my body during my pregnancies and understands that I want to give my body the best fighting chance possible for the next pregnancy.

So we struck a deal.

I'm always nagging him to get more house projects done.  

He's always bugging me to get pregnant.

So the deal is for X amount of pounds I lose, he does X amount of hours of house projects.

This way, I get my honey-do's done no if, and's, or but's.  And this way he gets closer to being able to have baby #3 :)

And afterall we do make cute kids, don't we?  

 Oh yeah, and so speaking of the Grammy stuff, here are a couple of photos from last Wed, the 5th, when we went to the Grammy holiday party in downtown Seattle. This was the night they announced the nominees as well....

This is Nancy Rumbel and I - she is a friend and fellow musician (and Grammy winner). She is actually the person who inspired me to start composing music in the first place. She's a hoot.

 Concerts

Christmas time is a busy time to be a musician, and so as of last night I have 7 concerts down, 2 to go.  My next performance is on the 18th with the Evergreen Philharmonic (I'm a guest soloist).  

Here are some photos from the past 2 weeks of concerts thus far....

So this photo is kind of funny.  You can see Taylor's little hand reaching to grab my bow. He actually broke my other bow that night - reaching into my violin case and trying to take it out. He busted it in half.  And then after he broke my other bow, you can see him here going for this one.  He did feel bad though, for like 15 min after he followed me around saying "Mama, I break it." With a very worried look on his face.

(Below: dress rehearsal)

Here is a little video snippet of me playing....


Here is the poster for next week's concert if you're local and can make it....

Random

And then finally, here are some random photos I took on my phone this past week.....

Making chain links to count down the days until Christmas...

The grocery store cops, complete with sirens. Yep.

The joy of finding one's dream Ferrari in the middle of the mall.

The boys decorated their little tree all by themselves...

And they also helped me put up all the other decorations. I can count 6 bulbs that Taylor dropped on the hardwood and broke. It was much harder to put up decor this year that is for sure - but still very fun memories. I can't believe how excited Preston is about Christmas this year - it's really fun to get into the activities with him and see his excitement.

Okay, well that's all for now.  Good night!

POST EDIT: I almost forgot!(How could I forget this?) Will was sooooo sweet, the day after I found out I did not get the Grammy nomination he made me this and posted it on facebook.This took a lot of time and thought.....

2012 MAMMY WINNER – JENNIFER THOMAS
Musical Academy of Musician Mommies with Younglings

Press Release – Dec. 6, 2012 – Yesterday’s sad news about Jennifer Thomas not being nominated for a Grammy has been offset by breaking news that she won the 2012 MAMMY of the Year for her standout album titled “Illumination” that she released all while being the amazing mother of two young boys ages 4 and 2.

When her husband Will was interviewed he stated, “I don’t know how she does it all. I've seen amazing musicians and I've seen amazing mothers, but to get those two together is a rare sight. Jennifer is talented on both ends beyond the norms. I am a lucky guy!” Jennifer’s 4 year old son Preston asked her, “Does this mean we get to go to Disneyland now Mom?” while her 2 year old son Taylor grabbed Jennifer’s MAMMY trophy and demanded, “No! Mine! My do it myself!”

It’s clear to see Jennifer is more than deserving of this award. When asked what the future holds for her she responded, “I haven’t really thought about it yet, I guess the sky is the limit. I think I’ll keep doing what I’m naturally good at; making music & raising my boys. I could see twins in the near future.” Her husband shocked said, “What?” And then Jennifer clarified, “You know, a new album & a new baby. It’ll take some work though.”

With a wink & a kiss to her husband Jennifer left the MAMMY’s with her family, leaving all of curious to what her future holds. But as we know with Jennifer, the sky is the limit and she just keeps getting better.

 —