Monday, December 28, 2009

Woah!

We went to visit my uncle and family on Saturday and all of a sudden he gets up mid-conversation and runs out the front door. "Hey come look at this!"


I've never seen one so up close or so close to the ground before! We got to watch it land, right there!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas Re-Cap

Despite my dismal/sarcastic "personal log" Christmas was awesome this year! Our downstairs was really cold, but luckily we have two furnaces, and the one heating upstairs was still working great. We moved all the loot into our bedroom and opened them up there. As you can see, we got quite the haul this year!

Here are some highlights!

At first, The Frog needed some coaxing to rip off the wrapping paper, but he soon got the hang of it! I loved that he wanted to play with each present before he moved on to the next one. As far as he was concerned, he would have been delighted with just one thing! What a sweetheart.

This is spoiled little me, hugging my new camera! I thought I had successfully convinced my husband to wait until we had saved up more for it, but he has been known to pamper me, and this is no exception. He also got me a tripod for it! I can't wait!! Also not to be overlooked are the kitchen gadgets from Jay's mom, and I'm especially looking forward to perusing my new Bread Bible!

Jay loves his enormous cat slippers (which were preceded by his ridiculously large monkey slippers) but I could see they were wearing out and so got him some new gigantic piggie slippers! All of his pajama bottoms were worse off than his slippers, so I made him these piggie pajama pants too. I'm also making him some monkey ones, so I can call him "monkey pants" :)

I think this might be his highlight, though. We've already started playing it together and it's very fun. Why didn't they make a multiplayer mario game a long time ago?

The Frog got embarrassingly spoiled, especially by his Nanny. He has a whole new set of wooden percussion instruments (and a harmonica that he likes to hold up to my mouth and slide back and forth), several new outfits, a tricycle, books, and a few other toys. I love the nesting blocks my sister-in-law pointed out to me at Target. Picture to come.

Finally, I just had to post a pic with my new camera. I can't WAIT to become a pro :)

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Personal Log, Day 4

Our furnace is still not working and temperatures continue to drop in the main parts of our lodgings. The kitchen reads at 53 degrees Fahrenheit. We have retreated to the sleeping quarters and only venture out when food is required.

The high today is to be 19 degrees outside.

Though Christmas was a bit unusual, we all made out like bandits, especially me. Luckily, the captain had a genius idea and decided that we should order Indian food, to save me from slaving away over a hot stove (though it doesn't sound so bad now...) which has saved us from spending much more time in the more frozen parts of our lodgings than needed to microwave our rations. We have much to be grateful for and this will be all over Monday morning when the needed part arrives to fix the furnace.

Until then, puffy vests, slippers and blankets will continue to be a staple in our wardrobes.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Frog Hair


I decided The Frog's hair has been getting quite long again, but have dreaded doing anything about it because he's so wiggly. I have visions of one wrong movement and getting a skiwampus shaved stripe through the top of his head, or WORSE- a missing eyebrow. Well, I did it anyway, and as all stylists to, I had to see what it would look like with product in it. Voila! Look at that model-pose.
Actually, he always pinches his neck while he sucks his thumb, or my neck, if I'm around. I can't understand how he can keep doing it! It hurts!

I think it's so adorable when he "reads" books on his belly like this :)

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Minstrels

I wish I wish I had taken a picture!

At around 3:30pm today, I was greeted at my front door by 3 boys, all about 10 years old, all wearing a white collared shirt and nice pants, and all toting a musical instrument. They abruptly serenaded me with Jingle bells (a vocal duet, featuring the violin) and Good King Wencelas, a trombone and clarinet duet.

I swear this would only ever happen in Provo, right?

My neighbors across the street happened to be driving away at the exact moment, and they stopped in the street and rolled down their window to enjoy the show :D

PJs

I made my sister-in-law a pair of pajamas for Christmas this year (she's 7). I found this fabric at JoAnn's on sale and then I bought the top from Ross and added the embellishment. It went pretty quick! I just cut a circle around one snowman and one snow-woman ;D and added some beads to make them special. After using HEATnBOND to iron them to the shirt, I went around the egdes with a tight zig-zag, so they'll be more sturdy and hopefully won't fray. (I also used fray-check, just in case). I thought that was all I would do, but then reaized she wouldn't know which way to wear the pants unless I marked them in some way, so I just sewed on a bow to the front- a faux tie of sorts. I think they turned out really cute! I just hope they fit because I didn't use a pattern in her size- I kinda finagled one that I got for free that was an XL woman's pattern.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Chillin'

Let me back-up to Friday.

So there we are. Minding our own business, when ALL OF A SUDDEN our fridge breaks out into song. Or perhaps it was preparing for take-off. It might even have been performing road construction. Whatever it was doing, it was doing it loudly. Increasingly loudly. After a hoarse meal, we took The Frog up for a bath. By the time we came back down for his bed-time milk, the mysterious noise had quieted significantly and by the time Jay and I retired for the evening, the noise was gone.

A day goes by...

Sunday. So there I was. Minding my own business, making some orange juice from "frozen concentrate" when ALL OF A SUDDEN I realized that my concentrate was not frozen.
And the freezer was more refrigerator temperatured.
And the fridge was room temperature.

Ew.

Luckily, it is that time of year where it's about as cold outside as it is inside the fridge, and we moved everything out to our unheated garage.
Luckily, my generous grandmother gave me her chest freezer when she moved into smaller accommodations and we filled that thing to the brim with our freezer contents.
Luckily, I hated our old fridge, and though this is a bad time of year for extra, unexpected expenses, I was secretly glad for the new fridge potential.

Turns out, our fridge is dead. Turns out, we got a new one. :)

Sadly, even though we went out in search of a fridge as soon as stores opened on Monday, and even though RCWilley said they'd bring it by that night, we got a call at 8pm saying they wouldn't be bringing it until the next morning. :( They ended up coming at noon! It was noon too soon! (I kill me)

In the meantime, haven't you always wanted to try getting into your fridge? I always thought that would be an awesome hiding place, if it were possible. I probably didn't realize the light turns off when the fridge closes. There's also that whole "cold thing" that might be a problem, since you'd be there awhile because nobody would think to look for you there. But other than that, it would be awesome, right?!

This would be The Frog, living my dream. In case you couldn't tell, he's just chillin'. heh heh. (well, he would be if our fridge were cold.)
Out with the old...

and in with the new!

Monday, December 14, 2009

I did it!!!

I recently made a goal to go through all the emails in my inbox, give them all the appropriate labels, and then archive them.

You heard me. ALL of them.

ok, not the starred ones.

But guess what! I did it!! It's official!! I used to have over 2,000 emails in my inbox and they are now nicely tucked out of view, and filed away in my virtual filing cabinet that is gmail. What's amazing to me is that I'm only now using 25% of my available space. I don't even know if that's a lot.

How much are you using?

I think the second best part of this filtering process was looking through all my old emails and reliving some fun conversations, remembering the event planned for, and feeling relieved that I'm done with school.

The best part being the uncluttered, purified, cleansed, inbox. This is the new me.

*sigh*

Swank Robes


I just got this vest for FREE on freecycle in Provo. I had to fix the dangling buttons, but it's now good as new and sooo cute. I completely have a thing for a man in a vest.
However, he didn't own a plain white collared shirt to go under the vest, and I ended up getting 3 for the price of 1 at Ross. It came with this hip jacket and a pair of jeans (not shown- still too big.) What a little stud!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Cousins Reunite!


Today we trudged through the slushy yuck to meet up with the fam at Uncle J and Auntie A's home. As always, the place was decked out for the occasion. Here is their REAL Christmas tree with all our white elephant gifts :) We had a delicious ham meal with all the fixins and I brought the mashed potatoes and blackberry cobbler- both of which I managed to keep warm during the 1 hr commute by wrapping them with a towel.
The most fun is just watching all the little cousins run around together. I love this picture of The Frog and cousin S making eye-contact.
Cousin N and cousin S hanging out on the floor.
Cousin W loves his pacifier and The Frog thinks it's amazing and totally novel since we put his away once he wouldn't take a pacifier anymore (7 mo). Here you can see they're "sharing".
And now The Frog is making off with it! Little scamp!
After years of drawing names, we have decided to do white elephants instead. It was nice to get rid of some of our usable stuff that we no longer wanted. We ended up with a puzzle of Starry Night by Van Gogh and a little travel game set with backgammon, chess, checkers and a deck of cards.
We had so much fun! Many thanks to the Day family for hosting it!

Friday, December 11, 2009

GIggle Fit


Today during snack, I got The Frog to have a giggle fit. Those are the best :) He begins by offering me some of his snack.

Then I come in to take it with my mouth and he either takes it away and pops it into his mouth, or I get it and slobber all over his hand.

Either way, he finds it hysterical.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Let it Snow!

It's official! Christmas can finally come because today we got DUMPED on with snow! I went outside to shovel (the first time) at about 8am this morning and fantasy: The Frog frolics and plays in the snow while I remove the snow from our driveway and sidewalks; Reality: Adding a bulky snowsuit to a wobbly toddler and then actually making him walk around in a few inches of snow doesn't actually work out so well. The Frog spent most of his time falling over and then trying to get back up again. After giving it what he thought was sufficient effort, he would then scream until I could come to his rescue. Needless to say, shoveling took a bit longer than anticipated, but I was so excited to get so much snow that I really didn't care. Plus, The Frog looked so stinking cute.

Here is The Frog's first spill. You can see him taking advantage of his position to (what else) see what snow tastes like.

Here is The Frog at the end of his rope, right before we went inside.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Holy Shirt!

I went to pull on one of my favorite shirts after having been in the wash and hung dry. Last time I checked, was perfectly whole, but I looked down and saw this:

ok ok, I've heard of dryers eating socks (and have been a victim of this many times) but is my washer now eating shirts?! I am completely baffled! How could this happen?

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Awww

I went looking through the pictures on Jay's computer, trying to find something in particular, and stumbled across this jewel. Aren't we the cutest?

I can't believe how much bigger The Frog is, even just since July!

Monday, November 30, 2009

sick

The Frog has the flu. The only thing that he liked doing today was this.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Look what I caught him doing

I found the The Frog holding a white erase marker eraser and fervently scrubbing down the floor. I ran to get the camera, and by then he had moved on to other things...

such as the cabinets

the wall

the kitchen chairs

don't forget the bench seats too!

who can play on toys this dirty?!

Please tell me this isn't just a phase, and is sign of a bright future full of clean toilets, empty garbages, and no whining.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Despite the cold, The Frog still loves to take rides in the stroller.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Day after...

The day after Thanksgiving, we all seemed to be sick. After finding The Frogs temperature to be 100.3, he insisted on taking Jay's.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Your Favorite Christmas Movies!

Jay and I watched "You've Got Mail", the other night and I loved that it is clear that it takes place partially during Thanksgiving and Christmas and it got me thinking... what other great movies out there have Christmas references, but aren't necessarily explicitly Christmas movies? I'm sick of watching "Home Alone", "Christmas Vacation", and other traditional Christmas classics. Help me switch up my Christmas movie list this December!! What are your favorites?!

Thanksgiving Spread

Before I get onto talking about the delectables, I would like to brag about how awesome my amazingly amorific husband is. On Thanksgiving, he woke up earlier than I did (I woke up at 6:30) and not only emptied the dishwasher, BUT put in the huge pile of dishes left from "the-day-before" preparations and ran those dishes AND then emptied those so that I would have a cleared counter, every possible kitchen item at my disposal, and a completely empty dishwasher. YEAH. He's just that awesome. You're the best Jay!

Thanksgiving was not typical (though I seem to have lost a sense of "typical Thanksgiving" ever since I went away to college) but turned out much better than I thought it would. Since my parents are on a mission, all my local family did Thanksgiving with the in-laws, and so I was expecting to have a huge feast for just us- as in 2.5 of us. For me, that goes against all things Thanksgiving. Luckily, my long-lost friend from 7th grade and I have recently made efforts to hang out and discovered that we were both suffering from a lack of crowd for Thanksgiving dinner. We decided to merge and it was quite lovely!

I was pleasantly surprised about how non-stressful it was. Kathryn, was oh so kind to take on a side, rolls, AND dessert, even though she was working graveyard shift the night before (unbeknownst to me. I promise). So that just left me the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and another dessert. (I don't care how many people are there. You need at least 1 dessert for every 2 people!) At the last second I decided we needed greenery, so I threw some frozen peas in the microwave. The end product?

My favorite item would have to be the rolls. Don't worry, I got the recipe. :)


I stupidly, forgot to take pictures of the people- a common flaw of mine. And I didn't manage to get a shot of Kathryn's pumpkin cheesecake. mmmmm. BUT here are my pecan pies. Why did I make two, you ask? Because I have trouble following butter instructions in recipes. I don't know what it is, but if they don't tell you how many sticks you need, I'll probably screw it up. I accidentally put in twice the amount of butter, so had to double the recipe to save my skin. This is a bit risky, as I had never made pecan pie before, but ours turned out ok. (We gave the other one to Kathryn and her hubby, Jared. How was it Kat?) I surely had fun decorating them though! :)



And of course, I must include the cutest part of the meal. Doesn't he look adorable in his train conductor overalls?

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Love Song

Love it!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Alternative Thanksgiving

This year, since my parents are on a mission in Chile, the only local family I have is doing Thanksgiving with the in-laws, SO I took matters into my own hands and did something early with everyone. I'm saving my turkey for Thursday, though there will only be 2.5 people eating it, so instead I just made chili and potato soup and the other families brought corn bread. It was yum.

Here's little cousin S. He has the longest eyelashes! I didn't have my camera out enough, so he's the only kid who got a close-up.

Here's Audra with her white w/ chocolate truffle frosting cake. I was ill-prepared in the candle department (I can't even count how many times that has been the case) so her wish was a bit easier to obtain than it should have been. Oh well, she probably deserves it :)

Before everyone left, I insisted on a sofa shot. This is the one closest to getting them all to look at me. I think two pictures later, cousin W started smacking everyone on the head :D