Homemade Gift for Tom From Ben

The new crown molding in the entryway

The beautifully painted baseboards

New laundry room door

New master bathroom door

New upstairs bathroom door

New crown molding in the entryway (and yes, spackled and repainted as well.)

Another view of the new crown molding in the entryway

7-Up Junkie

BIG bottle

Emerson hasn't been very good at taking a bottle ever since we've moved to Columbus and never go anywhere...ever. It's just a no-brainer to nurse him when I'm home all day. So in my efforts to eventually wean him, I thought we'd try a bottle with something a little sweeter than formula. Success. Ok ok, I'm just joking. We didn't give him any 7-up, but the bottle did serve as a good motivator for him army crawling across the room. The stupid bottle was a difficult shape for him to grasp, so he kept accidentally pushing it out of his reach and had to crawl after it. And did he get any help from mom or dad? Nope. He's got to learn sometime.
*Side note: I would like to add that Tiger is back in Emerson's good graces. They've been on the outs for awhile manifested by Emerson pooping on him (through a blowout). But Tiger is laundered and ready for friendship and has knocked Blue Bunny out of the standings for favorite stuffed animal for now. He's glad to be back after months of being ignored and taken for granted.

Happy Birthday Grandma and Grandpa J!

Well Grandpa J, here you go. It's your little buddy and he's wearing his University of Utah gear. And sorry he has dandelion hair. (What kind of a mother am I?) What more could you ask for on your birthday? (On the 5th anyway....sorry it took me awhile to post this.)

I have the best parents in the world. Their birthdays were both on the 5th of December. They were born the same day, same year, in the same hospital. Now is that fate or what? All of us kids thought we had to marry someone with the same birthday as us when we grew up. Thankfully, I realized I didn't have to when I was about 18 or so and the options really opened up. ;) But anyway, my parents are the most generous, thoughtful people I know. They've always supported me in everything I've done and I always know I can go to them for help. I can call them anytime, night or day, whether I have a medical question, or are worried about something, or just need to talk. I just don't know what I would do without them! They have accepted Ben as one of their own and are always so welcoming and inclusive. It's been more fun than I could ever imagine to watch them as grandparents. I love watching both of them and Emerson light up when they see each other. I'm so grateful to have parents that love me and I'm growing to appreciate them more and more since I've become a parent. Thanks Mom and Dad, for spending hours on the phone just talking, and being thoughtful, and making sure all of us know you love us. We love you! (This is my big-girl version of the little notes I used to leave on your pillow when I was little.)

Decorating for Christmas

Emerson staring at the Christmas tree

He rolled under the tree, grabbed a branch, and immediately started shaking it.

Examining his bell

Sigh...precious

"What are these cool colorful things?"

"I should taste them..."

"Pretty. Maybe I should shake them. I do LOVE to shake things."

"Yeah, shaking is definitely the way to go."

We have been so excited to experience Christmas with Emerson for the first time. I couldn't wait to see him stare at the lights, shake the Christmas tree, reach for the ornaments, and I still can't wait to see him tear the wrapping paper and shake it. (I'm not hoping for more than that, cause I know he doesn't care a bit about the actual present inside.) Let's just say that he hasn't disappointed mommy and daddy so far with his reactions.

Date Night

This picture demonstrates the fact that Ben and I did, in fact, go on a date...with each other. We left Emerson with a babysitter (thanks M&C!) and went to the Ohio State hockey game. Ben won some tickets earlier in the week, and we don't get out much, so we figured why not? I forgot how much fun being alone with my husband is! I'm pretty sure we even carried on a full conversation without interruption. Don't get me wrong, we love our little man and wouldn't trade the world for him, but it was so nice to be together alone. If you haven't been out in awhile, I would highly recommend it.

Craftiness Galore

Yes I made these. No, I did not come up with the idea. Yes, they're double-sided so that my house isn't completely decoration free once Christmas is over. No, I couldn't decide where to place the ribbon and which paper to use, so I enlisted a lot of help in the decision-making department. And yes, Joni, you can just steal the pictures since we totally copied each other! ;)

Happy Thanksgiving

E with friend turkey

Yup, it looks about done

Our table

The food

Emerson and cousin Taylee (and Candice's arm)

This Thanksgiving was our first away from home. We thought it would be extremely lonely, but fortunately my brother Scott and sister-in-law Ashley drove out from Pennsylvania to spend the whole weekend with us! We took them to see a few things around Columbus, but spent most of the time watching season 2 of 24. (We're all addicted!) Ashley and I also got to go day after Thanksgiving shopping with all the crazies. It was a blast with them here. We were really sad to see them go.

AND lucky for us, our good friends the Richards had plans that fell through so they were able to join us as well. It was a really fun day, complete with overeating and a good game of cornhole. I'm so glad I had my wedding china to use! (See Ben? I told you we'd need it someday...) Cooking the turkey wasn't as scary as I thought. It turned out just fine, but it was pretty gross giving it a bath in the sink with all that salmonellaey stuff floating around. Ben and Scott thought that preparing the turkey was a lot like anatomy lab except that the organs aren't all nicely bagged to pull out like the turkey giblets. And on that note...Happy Thanksgiving!

Just Because

E enjoying his time in the laundry basket

His square little body fits just right in the square little basket

Daddy and Emerson spending quality time together doing their favorite thing: shaking keys.

I Flippin' Folded a Fitted Sheet!

Yes, that's right. I folded a fitted bedsheet. (Mental fist pump.) It actually resembles a folded square instead of a mass of cloth shoved in the linen closet. I never thought I'd get to claim that as one of my skillz. I'll go ahead and mentally check that off of my "Things to Learn to Do Before I Die" list. Why just mentally check it off, you ask? Because I never wrote it down, and if I don't write it down then I automatically meet all my goals, don't I? For those of you looking for help learning this skill, (Kristie ;) ) I wish I could help you. I don't think I could explain how it's done. And I don't know if I could ever do it again. And if you can't do it already, I'm not sure if it's learnable. I've had more than one lesson from my mom on how to do it, and it never stuck. I guess it's one of those things you blunder through until you have an epiphany. Lucky me.

Yet Another Trip to Utah

A scary, yet well-dressed pirate with his earring and patch

We took another trip to Utah last week for Ben's grandpa's funeral. Man, it's crazy. I was glad we were both able to attend, but I just had no idea it would be so soon. I'm glad that Grandma and Grandpa McMullin only had to live without each other for 30 days. I know the above picture totally doesn't go with the funeral theme, but the truth is, I've been slacking in my picture taking. My memory card is full, and I just barely sent the pictures in to be printed, and I should've done it like a month ago...but I'm too cheap to buy another memory card...and yeah. So this picture is documenting Emerson at my brother Brad's play. Brad was Jukes the pirate in Peter Pan, and may I just say he was definitely the best one! His girly scream was by far the best...and certainly painted a picture of impending doom for the audience when he was attacked by the lost boys.

Emerson traveled the best he could on the airplane for a 7-month-old. I'm not looking forward to the plane ride home for Christmas though, to be honest. The rest will be really fun, but blah to the plane ride. As I said before, we were glad to be able to go to Grandpa's funeral, and it was good to be back in Utah and see the fam. To those of you who are pondering death: just hold off and stay alive, because we can't make any more trips home for awhile. :)

Visitors!

All 3 cousins riding the tiger (Alli, Kennedy, Emerson)

Emerson and his tiger friend

Our niece Alli

Emerson-bear all snuggled up

I'll give you one guess who put E on the train tracks....

Emerson-bear and the lion have the same expression

We had visitors in Columbus! Ben's sister, Brooke, and her family drove out to visit us from Virginia. We had a fun 4 1/2 days of adventure. We went to COSI, the zoo, Bob Evans, the Waffle House, watched 24, played games, and watched in amazement as our niece, Alli, ran around nonstop with Tim chasing her. It was so fun for Emerson to have his little cousins around (even if he did have to share his toys). Thanks for coming Alli and Kennedy (oh, and Brooke and Tim!)

After-Halloween Party

Emerson and Tucker (it was past Emerson's bedtime)

Our little family of candy (I have a Reese's shirt on, and Ben was a dum-dum sucker, but he took off his hat)

The night after Halloween, we went to a party at the Bowcutts' house. We went as candy to match E's costume. It was a fun party with lots of good food, a pinata, games, and pictures. Thanks Kevin and Allyson!

Happy Halloween!

My little tootsie roll

Emerson sucking on his tootsie roll. I didn't give it to him to eat, but I let him hold it for the picture and then got distracted by trick-or-treaters and he went to town drooling on it and dissolving the wrapper. He cried when I took it away...it tasted so good!

Doing a scary face

Helping mom pass out candy to trick-or-treaters

Emerson and his "cousin" Taylee. Candice and I decided that since neither of us have family in Ohio, we'd just create our own here to supplement.

Halloween is my favorite holiday...after Christmas of course. I don't know what it is about it, but I just love it. I'm always a little disappointed with Halloween as an adult though because I remember it being just awesome as a kid. We'd have the fun parties at school that the room mothers would put together and we'd get to play games, touch gross stuff, and decorate sugar cookies. We'd have the traditional Halloween dinner, and then my dad would always take us trick-or-treating. It was always so dang cold, and I hated wearing my coat over my costume because it totally ruined the effect, but every year my mom made me. (Love you, mom! And I'm sure I'll do the same thing to my kids.) Then we'd always visit the grandmas when it was either really early or too late to do regular trick-or-treating. They always had the best candy, and Grandma Johnson always had something extra special for us.

Halloween is a little different here in Columbus. The city assigns each area a specific night and time to do trick-or-treating. And they don't even call it trick-or-treating....they call it Beggar's Night. (What?) So pretty much everyone in our ward lives in Hilliard, and their assigned time was the 30th from 6-8 p.m. And we technically live in the Columbus area, so our time was on actual Halloween from 6-8. They also don't ring doorbells. If you are participating then you sit on your porch to pass out candy. Man, talk about efficient. Just think about all the extra houses I could've hit as a kid without ringing the doorbell and waiting for the people to answer the door! Maybe I'm weird, but I made every kid say trick-or-treat when they walked up to me and opened their candy receptacles. Especially the teenagers. I picked out the hard candy to give to them. Hee Hee. I just figured that since they don't even have to ring a doorbell, the least they could do is say the words. We didn't take E trick-or-treating for real, but we took him around to a few ward members' houses mostly just to show off his cute costume (which I did not make...). Ben went to the McCain rally that night, so he missed most of the trick-or-treating stuff :(. We finished out the night with a Little Caesar's pizza and an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I wish I could tell you how it went, but I fell asleep. This Halloween was pretty good, but I can't wait until next year when we can take Emerson trick-or-treating....or begging....or whatever you want to call it.

Our Jack-E-Lantern

Emerson with his self-portrait jack-o-lantern. Or should
I say jack-E-lantern? I know, I know, go ahead and groan...

Halloween Fun

The boys struggling for victory

Trying not to lose their donuts...

Before the contest

Yeah, we're hot

Candice, Melinda, Joni

Measuring mouth size

Our awesome jack-o-lanterns

Taylee and Melinda

Carving pumpkins

Toasting marshmallows

The crowd

On Friday night, to celebrate the end of Anatomy, we planned a little Halloween get-together with the Richards and Wrights. We started off with the traditional Halloween dinner (from the Johnson family...thanks mom) with witch's brew punch, monster claw breadsticks, and chili. Then we toasted mini marshmallows over tea candles with toothpicks. We had a few mini raging infernos, but it worked out pretty well. After dinner we carved pumpkins. We made ours into an Emerson face because he has such a cute little jack-o-lantern grin right now with his two bottom teeth. After pumpkins, we took a short jaunt over to the Richards' house where we put Emerson and Taylee down for bed. Then Mike and Candice cooked up some fantastic pumpkin donuts and we had a donut eating contest. Candice won out of the girls and Rocky won out the boys. I guess they just had the biggest mouths...;) Thanks for the fun night guys!