Gailan Christmas 2015

 

Hello family and friends,
We can’t believe it has been a year already and what an amazing year it was. We have been so blessed this and are so glad we were able to spend much of this year with all of you. Here’s what went down in Gailanville.

Dana -  After many years of discussion, it was finally time to make some big changes in Dana’s career this year. For the record, he has loved being an attorney and will continue to keep his license but won’t be practicing in the near future. That’s because he’s going back to school to retrain as a Registered Nurse. What? Yep, a bonafide stick you in the arm with a needle nurse. And he couldn’t be more excited.  In February he changed to part time work at home and has been taking prerequisite classes at YVCC. Fingers crossed he’ll soon be accepted to the WSU BS program starting Fall 2016 and graduating May 2018. So far he is loving the classes and truly feels this will be an amazing career for him. In his spare time (ha!) he’s a baby tickling, constantly exhausted, fantasy football crushing, just generally loving life type of guy.

Kelli – With Dana’s decision to go part time came the wonderful opportunity for Kelli to flip back to full time at Leonard Rickey Investment Advisors. The timing really couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. She received a promotion in June and is now the new Operations Manager at the company. It has meant learning some exciting new skills and challenging herself this year. She also received a new calling at church working with the Stake Young Women. That means she gets to spend her days planning Winter Camps, Summer Camps, rappelling and whitewater activities for the 12-18 year old young women in Ellensburg and Yakima. It’s been a blast!

Clark – What can we say about “little man”? He turned 1 this year and even though he did not want to touch his cupcake, we are pretty sure he’s happy to be getting older. He’s a fast runner, loves to climb on anything that stands still (and doesn’t) and will give cheesy grins to anyone who catches his eye, especially the “ladies”. For Halloween this year he was “Clark the Shark” and was very ferocious when he found out Mom and Dad ate all his candy. Clark is truly the most lovable, inquisitive, happy little person. Because Dad is in school and Mom is at work, Clark has been spending part of every day at his good friend, Norah’s house. If they ever got married we’d have some pretty cute stories to tellJ Right now his favorite thing is sucking his thumb and trying to sneak his toys into the trash can when no one is looking.

It truly has been the most blessed year. We have felt the Lord’s hand guiding us down these new paths and we’re so grateful for the advice, love and support that we’ve felt from each and every one of you as we’ve made these changes. We wish you all a truly blessed and merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years!

Love,

Dana, Kelli and Clark

Christmas Festivities

 

 Merry Christmas everyone! Going along with our awesome December theme we continued with a crazy amazing Christmas. It started with a few white elephant parties (the best gift by far was this crochet bra - thanks Penny!). We threw in a work party at Len's house which had some new faces, great prime rib and lots of laughter.

I also got to participate in a really special musical experience put on by the stake. It was like being in a professional choir, complete with full orchestra. Because of the time commitment, I only did one double trio but Dana and Clark came on Saturday and we got to watch all the other numbers which we just blow you away awesome. It was a great way to start the season. Finally, we kicked off Christmas with the ward Christmas party. Clark's santa photo was much more satisfying this year:)

And then the weather started to get into the season as it snowed...and snowed...and snowed. For days we just got more and more snow. The neighborhood kids were enthralled (we haven't had snow for almost two years). Those of us who had to drive in it (especially back from a conference in Seattle) were less excited. Dana tried to manage the driveway with our tiny red shovel but it got ridiculous so we had to "borrow" one from the Farmers and eventually caved and bought a nice ergonomic shovel. Now it will probably never snow again.

Christmas arrived with fun activities and time with family. We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve. Clark made out big time with a cool dog guitar from Aunt Sarah, some very noisy trucks from Grandma Tina, and lots of new books. Dana got the Operation game from Taylor:) It was a great morning opening gifts and just relaxing. That evening we went to open gifts with the Gailan crowd and enjoy some good laughs. Clark got the cutest outfit from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kristen. It's his new Sunday outfit.

One final funny gift was this stocking stuffer from Sarah. I opened it and was like, great a sheep. What's the sheep for? I figured it would be obvious in a later gift but...not so much. So I sent Sarah this picture in a text cause this is all we could think for Mr. Sheep. Turns out he's a steam released that sits on the edge of your pot when you cook. Ingenious. And fairly cute

 

Christmas Day we headed up to Ellensburg to spend time with the Washburns. It's so great to have Kristina's family so close. We made it in time for Christmas tree waffles and egg casserole. Then we watched them open fun gifts and Clark entertained himself with the balloons in the living room.

 

The rest of the day was just lazing around chatting and having a delicious salmon dinner. We did venture out into the freezing cold for an hour to try out the Ellensburg sledding hill. It's baby sized which was just right for these little guys. Dana and I both went down with Clark (who was a little unsure about the whole experience). Dana and Fred then decided to show the hill who was boss and go full steam down the ramp and almost destroy their backs. Ahh old men.

Such a great day. Made even better the next day when the Washburns came down to Yakima (to buy a TV!) and stopped by for fondu and more cousin fun. After they left, we continued our current endeavor which is to watch all 6 Star Wars movies in anticipation of seeing Episode 7 next month. We've just finished the crappy ones and will start the good ones over New Years.

Holly Jolly December!

What a fantastic December the Gailan family had!! Bitter cold, tons of snow but fan-freaking-tastic. It started with Dana finishing up a very hard semester (and rocking his classes, by the way). He was so relieved to be done, although I will miss being his anatomy model and getting free arm massages:) Dana celebrated his newfound free time by making an awesome fort which Clark promptly destroyed.

Clark, meanwhile, has had cabin fever all month and it's turned him a little strange. He spends his time in this position all over the house (ooookay). He's climbing all over the house, using all of his toys as ladders and I swear he just keeps growing and growing. He had his 18 month appointment and is in the 6th percentile for both height and weight (20.8 lbs and 31 inches). That's small on the scale but he feels so grown up to us. He's a babbler and very picky eater but just generally happy little man.

One other funny memory we have to capture is his recent fascination with toilet paper. He found out where it was in the cupboard and now spends every morning pulling each roll out one by one and relocating it to the bath tub. Eh, whatever keeps him entertained right?

Another wonderful event was our new couch arriving. It was quite the drama deciding if it was the right time but eventually we pulled the trigger. After 3 months of waiting, it showed up. We had planned to move our beloved black couch into Dana's office (for a man cave setup) but no amount of shoving or pleading was gonna get that couch through the door. So- it got a new home with a family in the ward:) We LOVE the new couch. It's amazing and firm and Clark cannot get enough of bouncing on it. Lately he's figured out how to use the cushions as trampolines to get extra air. Awesome.

 

And finally, this happened:) Don't ask me how, I wasn't there. I just got a text at work saying Dana had cut Clark's hair and it was, ahem, short. It's made for some cold December days and he did spend the first day running his hands over his head with a confused look but at least he's got the head to pull it off. And it's already growing back fast! Happy December Everyone!!

 

Tis the season to be nauseous

Well folks, we made it to December by the skin of our teeth. November ended on a bang. First, Dana and I tried our hand at Grandma Tina's famous Cheese Gems. They were amazing but I seriously overestimated how many we needed for the ward party so we stopped making little ones and made big fat cupcake sized ones instead...which was quite awesome. Unfortunately, we never got to see the amazing, awe inspired faces of our friends at church because we missed the Harvest Dinner because I was, erm, indisposed with the stomach flu. A day I would like to forget. I feel bad for women who don't have sweet hubbies like mine to cook them dinner, rub their feet, and then do the dishes even with a curious little baby at their heels:)                                                                            The same weekend was Dana's 33rd birthday (and Clark's 18 months - nursery woo hoo!!) so we tried to make it nice even if I wasn't feeling great. You may notice a change in the normal "blow out the candles" photo. Don't adjust your eyes - that is a chocolate cake NOT a banana cream pie. Not sure what inspired the change but I'm hoping this is Dana's mid-life crisis.

But one birthday tradition we never miss is putting up the Christmas tree early! Because we at the Gailan household LOVE Christmas. Love. Love. Love. Also, it gets dark at 4:30 these days and I'll take any extra light in the house I can get. Clark was amazing by the tree and keeps squeezing the branches. We had to move all the ornaments to the top but so far he's resisted the urge to open any presents prematurely.

We spent Thanksgiving at Sarah and Taylor's in Utah. The drive down was good except for some fog on the pass and oh yes the chatting weirdo sitting in the back seat. No, he was pretty good the whole weekend except when it came to sleeping. We learned a valuable lesson - Clark does not like sleeping in his pack n' play, he can absolutely see Mom and Dad if they are in the same room and he is very vocal about his displeasure. So vocal, in fact, that we gave up most nights and let little man sleep in between us - a first...and last. Actually, it was pretty cute even if it did make us walking zombies and get Dana kicked in the head frequently. It was nice to fall asleep and wake up with his little nose pressed up against my pillow.

The rest of the weekend was great. We went to the Hunger Games final movie, ate so much delicious food prepared by Taylor and just generally enjoyed time together. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took the whole time and it's of Clark being silly on the floor. But we did have the best time hanging with the Woodburys and the Washburns. Clark was quite sad when we came back to our quite, lonely house.

And that's when the fun began. We knew it was gonna be a busy first week of December with Dana studying like crazy for finals and my work schedule just exploding before Ben leaves for Australia but we never expected all the extra fun we could expect like:
1 - The Subaru's tire springing a leak on the drive home causing us to have to reinflate it every day this week in 10 degree temperatures (super fun!)
2 - Clark coughing so hard he threw up on Monday night, twice
3 - Clark pooping up his back twice on Tuesday
4 - Clark blowing out right before Mom left for work on Wednesday and then throwing up on Dad right after he got him all cleaned up.
So needless to say, today we are a little afraid of our baby and handle him gently. If this is him being sick, however, it's not so bad. Gross, yes, but he's still chatty and chipper all day long.

Let's leave this blog on a not so sick level. One day before Thanksgiving Dana and Clark went a little off the farm at home and built a fort. Rather, Dana built a fort and tried to convince Clark to join him. Clark decided to just dive bomb the thing.

And finally, this is our kid lately. So weird. So random. And all ours. Hands off people. We got him first.