What's Up with the Thomas Family?

Our poor neglected family blog.

I would love to be able to look back someday and read about all of the wonderful Christmas experirences the Thomas family had in 2010...if I could only just find the time to blog about them!

So instead, I shall give you a short, condensed version of what we've been up to...

~ Will ~

Job hunting. Painting houses. Scouts. Re-arranging our bedroom into his office. Playing with the boys. Bought a bunch of sweet shoes at a sample sale and resold on eBay and made bank. Bought some old school Nintendo games on eBay. Just got picked to run in the Western States 100 Mile race in June 2011 (superbowl of trail running races). Fixed the alternator in his car all by himself. Helped out with a local 5K race on Thanksgiving.

(Sorry I don't have any recent photos of Will this time)

~ Jenni ~

Taking care of the boys. Accompanying violin students. Performing in a string ensemble for Christmas events. Playing in a symphony for The Messiah. Decorating the house with Christmas decorations. Baking. Exercising. (Those last two shouldn't be side by side). House hunting. Writing (for WTE blog). Making Taylor laugh. Finally saw the 3rd Twilight movie. Has been easily stressed out.

~ Preston ~

Helping Mom put up the Christmas tree (we decided to do a small tree this year since we are short on space right now). Playing with trains. Playing with cars. Playing with the stable and nativity scene that Grandma gave him. Watching Toy Story 3. Going for walks with Mom. Helping Dad empty the garbages. Going to a birthday party for another boy in nursery. Talking a LOT. Enjoying cereal a lot right now. Going poopy on the big boy toilet seat. Going to bed too late and waking up too early.

~ Taylor ~

Busy being cute. Chews on his fingers a lot. Great eye contact. Holding neck up like a pro. Giggles and laughs. Squeals and screams a lot (it is funny). Still wakes up WAY too often during the night to eat, and wakes up WAY too early in the morning. Loves to watch Preston. Is wearing 6 month clothing even though he is only 3.5 months (they are just slightly too big). Is a really good baby and people often say that they have never even heard him cry before.

~ Other Stuff ~

We haven't really been telling people because it's not official yet or anything and we have no idea when or where, but we are looking to move. We've been living at our current residence for over 3 years, and when we originally moved in, it was just Will and I. Since then we have become a little family of four and 2 bedrooms/1 bath is no longer enough.

The boys are not at a stage where they can sleep in the same room together, and so Taylor has been in our room - which is fine because even if we had a lot of bedrooms he would have been with us for the first few months anyway. But it does make it inconvenient for everyone during the day - since he sleeps a lot, it makes the bedroom off limits. Preston often plays right outside the door and wakes him up. Recently Will got frustrated with having his computer in the kitchen and not having the quiet time to concentrate to apply to jobs - so he moved his computer into our bedroom. So now our bedroom is his "office", so Taylor has been kicked out of our room and the bathroom is now his room. So now Taylor and Preston are sharing the same wall and are constantly waking each other up with their noises (Taylor's crying, and Preston's talking).

We are just kind of on top of each other. Nobody is getting very much sleep lately. We are all kind of frustrated and feeling a little cramped. We would also just like our own space with a yard and the freedom to do more.

So we've actually been looking at rental homes up where my parents live on Camano Island. The prices are cheaper - we can basically get twice the house for the price we are paying now. Since Will is not working, we can technically live anywhere. So for the time being it would be fun to live closer to Grandma and Grandpa and pay cheaper rent. And have more space.

We haven't found anything yet, but we've already looked at a couple. We are just waiting for the right home to pop up.

So anyway, it could be as soon as next month if we find something. We will be heading up again this week to look at some more homes.

In other news, we have been having a great Christmas season so far. This past week we went to our stake's Nativity Festival twice - because it was so good. It was at the church building right behind the Seattle Temple. I'd never seen an LDS church decked out so much - they had decorations everywhere. It was impressive how much detail went into that event. It was very spiritual and uplifting - and a really wonderful way to kickstart the Christmas season.

We are planning to have an FHE tomorrow on Christmas to teach Preston about it. He knows that Christmas is Jesus's birthday and that is why we give presents. But that is about all he knows so far. I suppose this will probably be the last year of Christmas before he starts asking for presents and knows about Santa, etc. So we should probably enjoy this while it lasts :)

We are planning to go to Will's family's house for Christmas this year. Hopefully the roads will be forgiving, and our kids will last the 14+ our car ride. I'm really not looking forward to that part at all. We will be looking to borrow a DVD player for our car :)