Going Private

  If you don't mind following a private blog and you want me to add you as a reader, give me your email address.  I have decided that the private blog thing is what fits me right now.  I have changed my blog philosophy and I want to write for myself, more in journal mode, rather than write for the public.  I will write truthfully about our accomplishments, failures, opinions, etc without worrying what anyone else thinks.  So if that sounds like something you want to read, let me know.  I am all for keeping in touch.

One Year in a Flash

Reese turned 1 year old on December 5th.  I can’t believe a year ago she was my newborn baby.  She is getting so big.  Every day when I look at her, her beauty takes my breath away.  I honestly can’t believe how lucky I am to be the mom of such a beautiful little girl.  I compiled a quick flash of pictures each month.  It’s amazing to see the changes from month to month.  Sadly I lost a lot of my pictures when my computer crashed and died a few weeks ago, but I think I have some good ones here.

5 Minutes Old

 2 Weeks Old

1 Month Old

 2 Months Old

3 Months Old

4 Months Old

5 Months Old

6 Months Old

 7 Months Old

8 Months Old

9 Months Old

10 Months Old

11 Months Old

 12 Months Old

Hip Hip Hooray! He turns 26 today!

One special guy in our family had a birthday while we were in Las Vegas.  He is the most awesome, wonderful, smart, funny, best choosy dad that I know.  And I know two little kids that would agree with me.  Especially Reese, who has made it very clear to everyone who her favorite person in the world is, that’s right, her daddy.  We had a family dinner with J while in Vegas and opened presents and ate cake.  I made him a score bar cake for his birthday.  My mom made him a ham dinner with company carrots for dinner.  Yum.  Then he opened up presents.  Jif and Reese got him each a piano book to play from.

Which he did take advantage of from time to time. And I took him out on a birthday date.  We went and saw Real Steel in the Las Vegas drive in theatre.  It was a really cool date.  If you are even in Vegas look it up, it is 6 bucks per person for two movies.  We only had time for one, but it’s awesome because they give you the radio station that your movie is on and you use your car speakers to listen to the movie on the big screen.  While we were waiting for the movie to start we saw the end of twilight which is good because I was never going to pay money to see that movie and it was really good because it skipped over all of the gross, TMI stuff that happens in the beginning and middle of the movie (so I hear).  We just got to see the good part where she (spoiler) turns into a vampire.  We really liked Real Steel and I really like my husband, J.  I am so glad that he was born 26 years ago.  

So we stayed a couple more days in Las Vegas.  On Sunday we went to church where their nursery gave Jif a peanut butter cracker even though we told them in the beginning not to have peanuts anywhere in the nursery because if he got anything with peanuts or peanut butter he could have a life threatening allergic reaction.  Anyway they came and got me out Relief Society to tell me, “you know how you said not to give your son peanuts, well we gave him a peanut butter cracker because we forgot and now he is having trouble breathing”.  Seriously, I just don’t get it.  How can you just forget when someone tells you, please watch my precious baby and protect him from PEANUTS because PEANUTS could kill him.  Seriously, if someone says “life threatening reaction” my ears perk up and I can assure you that they will not be exposed to that one thing.  That may be the last time I ever trust him in another ward’s nursery.  So we spent the next few hours giving benedryl, cleaning up vomit, and telling him to breath through his mouth because he was panicking because he couldn’t breathe through his nose anymore.  The benedryl got him through it though and I didn’t have to use the epi pen or take him to the hospital, but I did have to cancel on my friend to go and visit her.  So sad.

Well Monday morning we left back home and said goodbye to my wonderful parents who we miss very much.  We made sure to stop at Tropical Smoothie on the way out, which is a must when you are visiting Vegas.  When it was time for lunch we stopped at In-N-Out and let Reese have some cheeseburger and fries and I am proud to admit that this meal was the first time Reese ever called anything “yum yum”.  She has good taste.

Annual ULF Bowl

So my husband took one day off of studying in the month of November to have a fun Thanksgiving with us (one day off means that he only studied half the day). My husband, Aunt Charli, my mom and my dad all woke up early to go to the pet stores to feed the animals.  Me and the kids stayed home and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.  I tried to get Jif excited about it, but all he cared about was the spiderman float and then he was over it.  After the parade was over and my family came home we rallied up the groups and went to the park for the annual ULF bowl, which we may need to change to the UCF bowl (United Choosy Family).  We taught Jif how to play football, he really liked it.  Even at his young age of 2 ½ he catches on quick to sports and athletics, his favorite part of football was hiking the ball to us.

Even Reese got to catch the ball once in a while and run with dada and make a touch down.

Grandma was the one we all had to watch out for, she’s one tough lady.

 We played for a while and then Jif insisted on playing a short game of soccer (his favorite game).  He is really good at dribbling the ball with his feet, changing directions and kicking the ball through a goal.  He’s going to make me a lot of money some day.  When we got home we were exhausted, but we still had to make Thanksgiving Dinner.

This Thanksgiving we wanted to make things easy on us so we got most of the food pre made at Costco, so it took us about an hour of prep work and hardly much clean up.  We got a pre-fried turkey which was the tastiest turkey I have ever had, all we had to do was reheat it.  We had rolls, stuffing, sweet potatoes, potatoes and three different types of pie.

After dinner we all went to the couch and watched a few more episodes of He-man.  By then we were all hooked.  The kids were sure loving spending time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Charli.

September...October...Nowonder

So October turned into November and soon started the season of the absent husband. Poor husband J really made life hard on himself this semester. He had 3 really hard, time intensive and reading intensive classes. Federal Courts, Immigration Law, and Con Law II. Not only are these classes notorious for being really hard classes, but for the first time in his life as a law student he would need to prepare for 2 closed book tests. To add on to things J had been working on a paper for another class all semester and when he had completely finished the first draft of his paper he decided that he didn't like or agree with his topic and decided to start over. It was a really difficult thing to do, but I admired his integrity so much for this decision. He really could have just finished up his paper and most probably gotten an A according to his professor, but he wasn't looking for easy. He wanted to produce something really valuable. I'm sorry to brag, but I am really proud of him for choosing the hard road on this one because he wanted to create the best work product possible to contribute to the community of law.

 Anyway.... My beautiful cousin Becca was getting married in Salt Lake City in November and at first I didn't know if I was going to make it. It is a really hard time of year for J. But then I asked J if it would be beneficial to have the house to himself for a week to get some intense studying done. I've asked him this question before and he has NEVER said yes, but this time he said YES. I knew it had to be bad because ever since J's mission we don't like to take trips away from each other. So we decided that I would go to my cousin's wedding with out him. Before I left I had to take care of quite a few things. I was going to be gone for 2 weeks, and that is a hard thing to do when you are Relief Society President. But since I have such able counselors I knew that I was leaving things in good hands. Then I Packed up my car, packed up my kids. Put in our portable DVD player with 2 screens, one for Reese rear facing and one for Jif forward facing (a must have for car trips longer than an hour) and we drove to Las Vegas. The kids were excellent in the car. Even though Jif had been sick earlier that week. He is always sick for weddings, something I have just learned to accept.

 So I got to Las Vegas where my parents live and spent one night there. My parents decided that they need to stock up on grandparent toys to make their house more fun. So they got Reese a baby doll that she carried around the entire time and Jif a humongous car ramp. Their house is always fun though, Jif loves his grandmas and grandpas. This grandma gives him all the juice and cereal he wants, and he admires grandpa so much.  He follows him around all day and wants to do everything that Grandpa does.  Grandma and Grandpa also have a real doggy, which Jif has since put on his Christmas list. They also have 2 big pet stores that the kids just love to visit. So in the morning we all squeezed into one car and drove to Salt Lake City. The grandparents bought 3 new movies to watch on our road trip. Cars 2, Mater's Tall Tales, and ...He Man. Yes. He Man. 20 episodes which I was forced to watch. And now Jif is obsessed with He-man. Any given day, any given place (such as the grocery store) he bursts out as loud as he can "BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL- I HAVE THE POWER!!" He still asks me every day if we can watch He Man. At first it was torture, but then I got a little bit hooked on He man too. I mean they are so terrible, that they are almost entertaining. It would be a lot easier to watch if He Man were wearing a little more clothes. I just hope that Jif doesn't want to be He Man for next Halloween. At least the costume would be cheap.

So we drove up to Utah and the car ride went surprisingly fast seeing as I Was wedged between my two kiddos. We had good snacks and good conversation. We arrived in Salt Lake City just in time for my cousin's reception (which was before her wedding). She had a adorable little purple tutu for Reese and the most adorable suspenders, bow tie, and train conductor's hat for Jif. Maybe it was being cooped up in the car all day, but my children didn't last very long at the reception. They just wanted to cause havock, so after saying hello to everyone we went to get some dinner and had the best meatloaf we had ever tasted, hands down.

 The next day was Becca's temple sealing. I wanted to go in with her, but I didn't have a babysitter, so my parents went while me and the kiddos went to the Church History Museum at Temple Square. I didn't realize that they had a whole children's museum there, and the best part was we were the only people in the whole museum. My kids had a blast. We stuck magnets of quilt pieces on a wall, we played in a pirate ship (really Nephi's boat replica), we drove a car, we played in the garden. It was a blast. We made our way back to the temple and got ready to take pictures.

 My kids were perfect angels for me at the children's museum, but when we got to the temple they decided not to behave. One of the pictures was with the bride and groom and all of the children in their outfits. All of the kids were so well behaved, except for mine. I can't wait to get that picture because half a dozen kids are smiling with the bride and groom, Jif is running as fast as he can up and down the temple steps and Reese is mooning the camera with her little tutu tooshie.

 After pictures we had a wonderful family luncheon and then we headed to Provo to see Aunt Jacket. It was so good to see Aunt Jacket, but I am still sad that I went all the way to Utah where my sister the massage therapist lives and I didn't even get a massage. Oh well, that just means I get two next time I see her. Huh Jacket? I call her Jacket because that's what Jif calls her. We had a fun evening of Brick Oven Pizza and talking. However, Jif was having some pretty bad asthma so we had to leave their apartment early and it was a good thing we did because we left as a snow storm was starting. Oh! Utah is so cold. Before we left Uncle Matt taught us how to do chocolate bombs. Basically the concept is that you make a cup of hot chocolate and you take a chocolate cookie and bite the top end and bottom end off it. Then you suck the hot chocolate though the cookie like a straw until the cookie dissolvesa nd then you quickly pop it in your mouth. He describes it as an explosion of chocolate. It was pretty fun.

The next day we met Jacket and Matt for breakfast at my parent's favorite restaurant. IHOPs. I love IHOP too! Jacket and Matt gave the kids a little Cheetah that sings "Wild Thing". Reese and Jif did the cutest dance when the Cheetah sings. Reese shakes her head while looking at the ground back and forth as fast as she can while shaking the rest of her body. Jif just jumps up and down. Where do they learn these things? Then we drove back up to Las Vegas.

 Then I got to hang out at my parent's house with them until J flew in Wednesday night. My parents worked a lot of the time, but I got to see them a fair amount too. We played with the doggy, played with some more toys that my parents added to their grandparent's toy collection, some foam letters and a ball and hammer toy that Jif loved. We watched a lot of He Man. I did some Christmas shopping. We played at the pet store. Jif still loves the fish the best and Reese loves the dogs. I visited my Aunt and hung out with her family a little bit. It was great. One of the things that I love about staying with my parents is the food. They always have about 3 or 4 different vegetables for dinner. It's such a great habbit, one that I try to imply with at least 2 different vegetables per dinner.   Then on Wednesday Aunt Charli arrived and that’s when all the real fun began :)

Let's finish up October

Yes, I Have not written in a very long time and that's not really like me. But after I catch up I think you will understand why I have not been a good blogger. These last 2 months have been a whirlwind. But let's finish up October, if I can remember October. Think...think...think... Oh yes... So Peter Jif and Tinker Reese had a slew of fun things to do. And I was so happy to report that no one got sick over Halloween, like last year. We went to the apartment complex carnival (already posted), we went to our tri-ward trunk or treat, we went to our ward Halloween party,

we went to disneyland in our Halloween costumes, we went to law school trick or treating, we went to our pre-school Halloween Party,

and yes we went trick or treating on Halloween itself.

 We had so much candy, but then the teenagers started coming by and grabing handfuls out of the bowl and we were soon cleaned out. But I did save some of my husband's favorites for him and some of Jif's favorites for him. I even repurposed the candy to go in our Christmas advent calendar. Yes, I made it last that long! One of my favorite things to do over Halloween was to go to disneyland with my wonderful two friends Em and Jen. We went with our kids (each of us have two kids) and without our husbands. I was scared to do it, Jif usually throws a tantrum per line that we have to stand in. But it was a miracle. Jif loved being with friends so much that he actually behaved himself! The only meltdown we had was on Pirate Island (a bad place to have a melt down because you have to take a boat to leave the island). It was a blast to go with Em and Jen and I hope we get to go again soon with some more friends.

 Trick or treating was way fun. Some may say that Reese is too young to take trick or treating at 10 1/2 months, but that is my favorite time to take them. It was adorable. Every bowl she would look for a candy that would make noise, like a box on nerds. And she would hold on it and shake it until she found another fun candy to shake. One October night we had Em's kids over and we had a Halloween party. We ate mummy pizzas. My husband then started to try to explain to the kids what a mummy was. Not a good idea in my opinion, but the kids seemed to be intrigued and not scared at all.

 My husband encouraged me this year to do some fun Halloween decorations. I was so glad that he did because we had a lot of fun in our spooky house this year. I made black bats hanging from the window. Bat shadows in the lampshade, and creepy crawly wreath of snakes, centipedes, and spiders, and spider webs everywhere.

 On the day of Halloween itself we had our little family party. We turned on Pandora's Halloween station and ate our traditional Halloween meal in a pumpkin. This year it was especially delicious, potato soup with all the fix ins.

It was a fun fun October but when all was said and done I think that we were all Halloweened out. I'm having fun still seeing Jif play dress ups in his Halloween costume of Peter Pan. I do feel guilty about buying him the Peter Pan costume though. He identifies with and loves Captain Hook so much more. Oh well, there is always next year. Since Halloween Jif's ability to pretend has really sky rocketed. I often hear him pretending to be either Spiderman or Captain Hook. Reese always gets to be a crocodile.

Ch..ch...ch...changes

A lot can happen in a year.  This little baby skeleton can turn into....

A big baby robot.  And give it one more year and he can become...

A big boy...

with a new little sister to dress up too.

P.S.  The baby skeleton and the baby Tinkerbell are pretty close in age.  Do they look anything alike?