Growing up

It is the first few weeks of the New Year, which means that there are lots of new toys to be played with and huge crowds at the gym and not a lot on the big Winn’s agenda. So I will tell you a little about what the small ones are up to. Jenna seems to be getting older at an alarming rate. She spends most of her time these days singing. She knows a lot of songs, but most of it is more like a musical- she simply sings about whatever she is doing at the moment. And she sings very loudly. There are only a few things that can get her to quiet down, and they include watching a show and listening to music. So those things probably happen more than they should.

This is what Jenna wants for her birthday

Jenna has also quickly become an iPhone pro. It is amazing to watch how quickly and easily little children can understand technology while their grandparents who have attended a few years of college (but didn’t graduate) can’t seem to figure out the most basic email functions. Some of Jenna’s favorite things to do with Lixi’s phone are an Easy bake Oven app, Barbie I Can Be, and Angry Birds. And she is getting very good with the more traditional uses of the phone. Her new kitchen set came with a cordless phone and she can often be found wandering around the house with it held up to her ear, having half a conversation with Opa or Kristi or Grandma or others. Her imagination has really started to blossom, and it is quite entertaining to watch. Last week she rescued an imaginary kitten from the play area at Chick-Fil-A and came running over to Lix with her hands outstretched to show it to her. She named it Furry Furry, and brought it home and has shown it to several momentarily confused visitors. This behavior baffles Alixa because she has no imagination and is unable to pretend anything.



Jenna has also started to interact more with Bo. They take baths together and she not only tolerates his presence but also shares toys with him and doesn’t freak out nearly as much when he happens to touch her. She talks to him more and more, includes him in her prayers, and generally treats him more like a brother and less like a piece of furniture, which is how she used to see him.

But the biggest sign that Jenna is growing up is that Lix straightened her hair for the first time. She’s been wanting to do it for a while, so she threw an episode of the Backyardigans on her phone and had Jenna sit through it. It went very well. Jenna loves it, and people seem to agree that she is pretty cute. Jarom thinks that it makes her look much more like Alixa’s daughter, although he still thinks they are both cuter with the curls.



Bo seems to have turned into a real person overnight. He has always been cute and fat and cuddly, but his personality is really starting to show up now. He is very curious and works quite hard to move himself around the room to get whatever it is that interests him. He is not a great crawler, and will only move backwards if he manages to find himself on the hardwood floor, but he is rarely in the same place that you left him when you come back into the room.

He also won't stay where you put him in the crib, refusing to be comfortable

He has also started to be more active in the tub. He loves his new bath toys and has learned that if he lays on his back and kicks his legs as hard as he can he will soak his mother and make her shriek for him to stop, which he thinks is hilarious and encourages him to continue. Lix is working on a few tricks that he is getting better at, like waving goodbye to people and raising his arms when she says “Bo is soooo big!” He has also begun to enjoy reading books, especially before bed. His favorite right now is Brown Bear Brown Bear and he will give you dirty looks and holler if you don’t let him turn the pages. And he is growing a few teeth as well. This, combined with a cold he has been fighting, has rendered him slightly more troublesome during the evenings, a development that neither Jarom nor Lix is thrilled about. But they and Jenna love him more than ever and are very happy with the kind of kid he is turning into.



There was also a surprise visitor who stopped by this week. Alixa’s dad is trying to land a contract with a company here in Dallas and had to fly in for 24 hours for some meetings. So he stayed the night in the guest room and got to the house in time to read Jenna her stories and help put her to bed. The plan was to meet him for dinner before his flight took off the next day, but there was a malfunctioning GPS that kept them from finding each other and the Winns just shared an appetizer at the Cheesecake Factory before sadly packing up the kids and heading home. It sounds like he might be coming back somewhat regularly, especially if he’s a good salesman, so we are looking forward to more of these surprise visits in the future.

Jenna fell asleep on the way to meet Opa for dinner

This is what happens when Jenna hides in Alixa's new blanket

A few funny Jenna-isms

Jenna: Flamingo is sitting on his eggs to keep them nice and warm
Jarom: How many eggs does Flamingo have?
Jenna: He has three.
Alixa: Is he going to be a mommy?
Jenna: No, he’s a daddy so he’s just waiting for a mommy.
Alixa: So where did he get the eggs?
Jenna: He got them from Target.

Alixa(as Jarom is lying in bed coughing): Tell daddy " I'm sorry your throat hurts."
Jenna: Daddy, I'm sorry your throw up hurts.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, it's the...

The first Winn Christmas was a wonderful success. It turns out that we don’t need any parents or siblings to have a great time. Lix decided to start the celebration by throwing a gift exchange party with a bunch of her new friends. This required that the house be put together, which meant that Lix and Jarom had to spend an evening repainting the dining room and its 12 foot walls. The room used to be a mustard yellow and is now drizzle, which is a sort of sea foamy blue-green. The painting was followed by the putting of stuff on the walls, which is one of Jarom’s favorite things to do. But things were all done by the time the party started, and it was a big success. About a dozen women came and had appetizers and shared presents and generally enjoyed the fact that they had left their kids at home with their husbands.

A few shots of the new room and wall decorations

For her gift, Alixa had purchased a wonderfully soft blanket from Marshalls, but they had forgotten to remove the security tag. So Jarom was sent back to the store to have it removed. While he was there, he purchased another wonderfully soft blanket because he thought it would be a nice present for Lix. He brought it home and hid it away, and didn’t really think about it again for a few days. Then he got a call from Lix while he was at work. She was going through the credit card charges and noticed that Marshalls had charged her twice for the one blanket. This was not something that Jarom had considered, because until recently Alixa would not have even been able to log into the accounts to see the charges, that’s how little she cared about the finances. But now that she is on a budget she apparently watches them like a hawk. So she quickly caught the double charge and rummaged through the garbage until she found the receipt that Jarom had thrown in the trash and then called Jarom to see what should be done. He did his best to calm her down and convinced her to wait until after the weekend to see if the second charge dropped off. She didn’t seem thrilled about this solution, but accepted it anyway. On Christmas morning when she saw the other blanket she was quite relieved. I’m not sure which she was happier about, getting the blanket as a gift or the finding out that Marshalls wasn’t overcharging her.

Jenna working the train table, some cute hats from Amanda, and the kitchen set

Christmas Eve was spent over at the Nate Winn house, having dinner and playing games with a few friends. The food was great and there were lots of leftovers. Lix made a wonderful chocolate cheesecake and none of it fell on the floor. After the party they came back home and watched some football games while Jarom assembled a new kitchen set for Jenna and celebrated his third consecutive championship in the Winn family fantasy football league. Christmas morning Jenna woke up and came downstairs to find her kitchen set, which immediately made her go to the bathroom. After that, she wanted to know where the food was, so some of that had to be ordered. She has been cooking all sorts of goodies for everyone in the house ever since. Jarom also put together a train table that is supposed to be for Bo, but he can’t use it yet so Jenna has been putting it through its paces. Jarom and Lix mostly just enjoyed watching the kids play with their new toys. The got to call some grandparents and cousins and had a nice brunch with Nate, Kenz, and Kenna, but mostly they just lounged around and enjoyed a day with the family.





On the 26th Jarom took advantage of his day off by getting up and heading out to play a round of golf with a friend from BYU who was visiting Dallas for the holidays. It was a little chilly, but very fun. Afterwards the Quigleys drove up to Frisco to eat lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and come over to the house to hang out a little. It was fun to see them with a little kid. The rest of the week came with wonderful weather, above 60 degrees each day. So Jarom left a little early from work a few days and took Jenna down to the park to swing and play and enjoy the sun. Those are the days that Jarom will remember in July when it is 110. On Saturday it was almost 70, so Jarom and Lix decided to get a real babysitter (the kind you have to actually pay) and go play a few holes of golf. Lix played out of her mind, making two pars and shooting a 50 over nine holes. She even beat Jarom on one hole, which prompted an immediate Facebook post. She was a little upset about a scrabble loss earlier that day so she took great pleasure in rubbing Jarom’s face in it. He was very happy for her. And the kids seemed to enjoy the babysitter, so they might start doing this more often.








For New Year’s Eve the whole crew headed over to the Bishop’s to play. Bo brought his pack and play and went down pretty quickly, while Jenna managed to fight off sleep until after 10:30, when they took her home to her bed. It was a good end to a good year. There have been a lot of changes and stress, but we are all quite happy with where we have ended up and very optimistic about our future here in Texas. We have already made lots of friends and feel very much at home. Hopefully your year was just as good and that the coming one is even better.

This is a current favorite pose of Jenna. She has to go potty.

Only one quote from Jenna this time, but it’s a good one. While shopping in Target a few days before Christmas Jarom was headed up to the checkout with Jenna when she looked over and saw the little girls section.
Jenna: Can we go over to the clothes?
Jarom: Do you need any clothes?
Jenna: I don’t need any clothes, I just want to look at clothes. C’mon, it will be fun.
This girl is going to be big trouble.