2008 Recap

Well since I've been blogging pretty well for this past year, why not do a recap to tie it all up?

January was the biggest change of the year (duh) when Frik and I had our baby, Squirt. She was so tiny and adorable!



I got to stay home with her and recover for the next couple of months, then went back to work part time at verio. After a month or two of that, Frik decided that my income wasn't worth having to keep a poor little hungry baby from crying (always refused a bottle, that one...) so I quit and became a full time stay at home mom.

We took Squirt on her first roadtrip for my cousin's baptism in March or April... I forget which. We then proceeded to take her on roadtrips to colorado, Oregon, and repeated trips to St. George to visit her cousins who she loves. She is a well traveled baby. She took her first flight in April when I went to CO for one of my best friends from high school's wedding, then took another in October for the other best friend's wedding.

I tried out selling Pampered Chef for a couple months. It never quite took off enough to be worth the time that I put into it, so I've slowly let that dwindle away. In November, I found a part time contracting position with a hair bow company through a family friend. That has been a bit more reliable as far as income goes, and still lets me stay home and take care of squirt so it's been great.

Frik finished a couple more semesters in school, although we're still working to find the happy medium between too much class and not enough, somewhere that we'll be able to have 1 college degree in the family before too long, but not burn him out at the same time. It's been hard. He got promoted at work and moved to the salary club, which has been nice since it makes the income so constant and predictable, although overtime hours and holiday pay have been missed. He is loving his new position, though, so that is great.

We traded in our Forenza when it started flipping out in weird little ways... the brake lights not working, the seat belt not locking if it got too hot, the battery dying because the brake lights wouldn't turn off at all... someone trying to break in to the car by jamming a screw driver into the driver side lock and messing the entire door up so it wouldn't open at all... stupid things, and since it was out of warranty, we decided that fixing all the tiny things was not worth it, so we traded it in for a Mazda 3, a more reliable and more fun car overall.

Of course, there was the election which was a big deal at our house since Frik is the king of boring TV. We had the TV on CNN constantly for at least 8 months leading up to the election and then again for about a month afterwards.... Boooooring, but at the same time, it's nice to have a source of knowledge in the house (frik, not the tv...)

At the end of November, my Grandma died... just over a year after my Grandpa on the other side of the family died. Her death was violent right at the end so that is still hard for me to accept, but overall I know she is happier and in less pain now, so that helps.

Soon I'll have a 1 year old baby girl. She is getting so big and is playing so cute these days. She has decided that this roll of packing tape that got left on the floor makes the greatest bracelet. It's adorable to see her walking/crawling around the house with it pushed all the way up to her shoulder.  We tried to make a somewhat big deal out of all her first holidays, while still keeping them within the range of normal holiday celebration. Life has taken on a whole new meaning since she arrived and I find that almost everything I do now is for her in one way or another. I didn't expect that I would be a mom yet, but I wouldn't trade it, even for the couple thousand dollars a month that we're missing out on because of it :D

In the upcoming year, I would like to start saving some money just so that we have a bit of a cushion "just in case". Other resolutions or goals for the coming year... Kiss Squirt every day (should be easy), and snap out of lazy streaks where I let the house go to pot and never cook or do anything other than sit on my butt watching TV within a day or two (compared to the week or so that is typical now :D ) That's it. I don't like the typical make millions of resolutions at the beginning of the year  because it's so overwhelming and I know that I won't follow through with them all, so I'll just work on those 2... which is really just 1...

Good bye old man 2008! I'll miss you!

New Year’s Resolution

I realize I'm a day early here, but I just spent the better part of the last 4 hours thinking about it and I decided I should put it in writing before I change my mind. My new year's resolution is:

I will not spend any money.

By that I mean I won't spend money on anything I want to buy. Of course I can't stop paying the bills, putting gas in the car or buying groceries, but for the upcoming year my personal spending will be as close to $0 as is humanly possible. I'm going as far as to not carry any source of money (paper or plastic) with me on a daily basis. I thought about it a lot and I couldn't think of any unavoidable situation where I would need immediate access to money. "Unavoidable" is of course the key word there. With the right planning I should be able to avoid any potentially problematic situation that might otherwise arise.

I am absolutely serious about this.

Side-effects will hopefully include: significantly less fast/junk food, significantly less carbonated/caffeinated beverage, and hopefully, a little weight lost in the process. I'm also going to stop surfing bargain sites *gasp* so maybe I'll do some homework to pass the time instead, or maybe I'll get around to playing with all the toys, games, and gadgets that I already own.

I don't typically make new years resolutions, especially not written ones, but this is one that I intend to stick to. And you can all hold me to it a year from now. (assuming anyone still visits my blog, and I can't blame anyone who doesn't)

The annual progressive dinner

Frik's family does a progressive dinner for christmas every year. For the past couple years, we have always done appetizers, but this year, we switched it up and did dessert. It was fun and tasty :) As soon as we got to Lorna's house, Squirt and Katie were so excited to see eachother that they were squealing and laughing and hugging over and over. It was so cute: 

 



we then visited the rest of the family's houses in the valley from north to south, and by the time we made it to our house, Squirt was pretty much finished, so we put her to bed. One last shot of the girls before we put Squirt in bed:

 

Then we played some guitar hero world tour and Katie wanted to sing, too, so she found the most microphone shaped thing and started singing along:





It was a fun night! 

Squirt's first chrismas party!

Squirt climbed up onto the couch all by herself. She then proceeded to climb onto the top of the bookshelf we have sitting next to the couch. She was so proud of herself, and although I was equally proud, it was more of an"oh crap" proud :)

I've finished my chrismas shopping for everyone on my list. I did order some things on ebay for stocking stuffers that still have not come, so I'm hoping that they will get here in time.

Squirt had her first encounter with Santa yesterday at the "Sushi for Santa" party downtown. She doesn't typically like men with beards, and this beard was no exception.



She also had her first encounter with sushi... she didn't like the seaweed, so I tried picking out some rice and giving that to her. She was also not a fan of that, so they gave her a cooked shrimp. I didn't give her anything raw because I wasn't sure if that's one of those things babies shouldn't eat.



And a cruel Sukie also let her try wasabi :)



Frik and I decided that we weren't going to drag our christmas gifts over to CO with us, so we opened them yesterday :) He was happy about the shoes I got him, and I loved my gifts, too. We still haven't given squirt hers. She was asleep when we did the exchange.

I started planning Squirt's 1st birthday party yesterday, too. I should have invitations out soon! In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

Saw this on a friend of a friend's blog...

And I wanted to do it before I forget all the answers! (yes, i was reading the blog of a stranger...) *ahem*

1- Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? At my parent's house

2- Who was with you? It was just me in the bathroom, but Frik and mom were waiting right outside.

3- How did you find out that you were pregnant? a chemical reaction with my pee and who knows what on a pregnancy test.

4- What was your first reaction to finding out you were pregnant? Scared and happy

5- Your Husbands reaction? happy and happy

6- Who was the first person you told? Well my mom ran around the house waking every one up and showing them the stick I had just peed on...

7. Did you plan to get pregnant? No

8-Was everybody happy for you? Silly question... I'm pretty sure they were but I'm not them so I can't know!

9- Did you go out and celebrate? No not really, although we did go to McDonalds in Rawlins on our way home

10- Did you want to find out the sex? Yes

11- What was the sex? Girl

12-Did anyone throw you a baby shower? Yep

13- If yes, who? Sukie

14- Did you get any outfits at the baby shower that you just knew you weren't going to put on your baby? Not that I can recall...

15- How much weight did you gain? 20 lbs

16- Did you loose all of the weight that you gained? Yep

17- Did you get a lot of stretch marks? Yeah I look like a zebra now

18- What did you crave the most? all I can remember was not wanting to eat anything, and one time craving a pickle while we were in a hotel in caliente. Luckily, they did have pickles at the gas station.

19- Did you crave anything crazy? No, just food.

20- Who or what got on your nerves the most? hm...probably people thinking I was incapable of doing stuff because I was pregnant.

21- Were you married at the time? Yes

22- Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Gestational diabetes

23- Where were you when you went into labor? At home at a new years eve party

24- Did your water break? only when the dr broke it for me

25- Who drove you to the hospital? Erik

26- Did you go early or late? a week early

27- Who was in the room with you when you gave birth? Erik, mom, sarah, and Lorna

28- Was it video taped? No. yuk. there were enough people there already!

29- Did you have any drugs for the pain? they gave me percocet for the week before I was dilated enough and then I got an epidural

30-Did you go Natural or have a c-section? Natural

31- What was your first reaction after giving birth? I thought it was weird that I had a baby and I also wanted to hold her, but didn't know what to do with her when I got to hold her.

32- How big was the baby(s)? 7 lb 2 oz, 19 1/2 inches

33- Did your Husband cry?He's too much of a man to cry (yes he did)

34- What did you name the baby(s)? Alice Margaret

35- Did the baby(s) have any complications? Her Oxygen saturation was too low, so they had her in "special care" and I didn't get to hold her. Every time they'd take the oxyget away, her levels dropped again, so they got an iv ready and had me nurse her and it didn't drop again.

36- How old is your baby today? 11 months. She's getting so big!

37- When is the next one(s) coming? Later, maybe when she's 2

38-If you could, would you do it all over again? Yes, definitely. Frik and I were talking about it and how if we didn't have her, we'd have so much more money b/c I'd be working and we wouldn't be buying diapers and stuff... and we were home by ourselves when Guildy and David took Alice for the afternoon, and we both decided that while it would be fun if it was just the 2 of us still and we would have a lot less responsibility, seeing her face makes everything better and I would do anything to have her!

Is it too late to change the subject?

Another neat trick she's picked up from the dog...

Squirt was eating pizza today right after watching duke eat, and this was the new preferred method:



Silly baby :D

Thanksgiving was good, too. The turkey didn't go exactly as planned since I didn't cook it all the way, so that was a drag. I think I had the thermometer too close to the surface... so we stuck it back in the oven and let it finish. It was pretty tasty, though, once it was cooked. We're trying again tomorrow since we didn't take any of the leftovers anyway.

Katie has a little tent in the basement that squirt and her were playing in for a while. It was so cute to hear them giggling in there for no reason except that something was funny to them:





Squirt loved the stuffing, both the stove top and Sukie's apple bacon onion stuffing. Overall, it was a good first thanksgiving.

I also went to see the twilight movie today with Lorna. As cheesy as the books are (and that's pretty darn cheesy) the movie is 10x worse. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, since I did enjoy the story line, but it was also just a tad over the top. If another one comes out for the next books in the series, though, I'm gonna go see them too, if that's any kind of recommendation. :D

Looks Easy Enough

I. Put your iTunes etc on shuffle.

II. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

III. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

 

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Township Rebellion

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Give Me a Call

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? D.J.'s

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? The Noose (yikes!)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? What She Said

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Miserable (sheesh!)

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Under Heaven's Skies

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Queer (erm...)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? The Swiss Army Romance

10. WHAT IS 2+2? Sunday

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Secret

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Let Me Down

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Don't You Think

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Funk Ad

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Gotta Know the Rules

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Solutions

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Aliens Exist

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Breath

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? The Gift

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Days of the Week

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Scar Tissue

22. WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? Universally Speaking

23. HOW WILL YOU DIE? Bring Me To Life

24. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? Please Take Me Home

25. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? Self Esteem

26. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? Listening

I wanna play!

I. Put your iTunes etc on shuffle.
II. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
III. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? Chariot
2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Du Musst ein schwein sein
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Stellar
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Under my Thumb
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Breath
6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? New Moon on Monday
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? What you wish for
8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? What a scene
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Scarlet Begonias
10. WHAT IS 2+2? shoulder to the wheel
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Last Ride in
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? So like a rose
13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Breach Birth
14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Inaudible Melodies
15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Tear
16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? No More, No Less
17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Drowning
18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)
19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Cryin'
20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? X-girlfriend
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head
22. WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? The World has turned and left me here
23. HOW WILL YOU DIE? Underneath it all
24. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? Book of Days
25. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
26. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? Playpen

:giggle: (except that I did this on itunes on shuffle, not the ipod... same thing, though)

Little Climber

Squirt has been doing really well with crawling for the past couple months now, but she has recently discovered that climbing is MUCH more fun!

It started with the stairs, so we got the gate. Now she's trying to figure out how to get past it:





Now she climbs on just about anything, including the dog:







Guildylocks says that as soon as Squirt can fit into a kid harness, they're going climbing :)

We had a "Fakesgiving" dinner with friends on saturday, which was awesome. Instead of the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, etc., we did steaks, potatoes, empanadas, 7 layer dip, and impossible cake for dessert. That way, we won't get turkeyed out before thanksgiving even comes.  The cake came out pretty good, although it was way to big for the pan, so I'll have to work on it since it baked over the top and into the water. For those of you who don't know what I"m talking about, impossible cake is a flan cake, where you put regular cake batter into a pan, then put flan batter on top of that, and then as it cooks, the cake gets lighter and so moves to the top and the flan sinks to the bottom. It is really weird, but tasty. I thought the cake was too dry, too, so we'll have to figure that out also. It may have been just because it was a regular box cake.

I'm making the turkey a la Alton Brown for thanksgiving this year. We got a new roasting pan since ours is pretty tiny and it was a good price with the rack and all at Costco. We also got a probe thermometer that you just put in the turkey and leave in until the external display tells you it's done. I'm excited to do the turkey b/c I've only ever done it in mom's roaster before, so it'll be different and I'm also worried for the same reason. :D Hopefully it will be delicious.

Squirt's favorite "person" in the world

Squirt LOVES duke. Absolutely loves him. She's apparently learning from him, too. Today, I followed her into the kitchen to see this:





Duke soon saw that she was in there and started getting jealous:



So I took the baby out of the kitchen and filled up duke's food and water. I even blocked off the doorway into the kitchen with Squirt's baby walker and the trash can so that duke would be able to eat uninterrupted. Then I went back to the computer and played "Geo Challenge" on facebook (a newly discovered app from playfish that I am currently addicted to). I kept looking over at squirt to make sure everything was ok, and she was just standing up on her walker and waving her arms in the air, babbling at duke. I'm sure that if I spoke baby, I would have heard "Help me in, Duke! I'm stuck out here!"

Well so a couple minutes later, I heard the splooshing boing sound of Duke's water bowl hitting the ground, so i looked over and Squirt was no longer there. I have NO idea how she could have gotten through, and the barricade was completely sound still. I walked in and saw her sitting in a puddle of water. She was so pleased with herself, and just thought it was hilarious when I picked her up and she stuck her dripping feet up against my stomach, making me scream.

So I called my mom and was telling her about the recent shenanigans when I looked into the front room and squirt was no longer anywhere to be seen. Then I looked over at the gate blocking the stairs and realized that it had been left open (again). I went upstairs and saw her chasing duke around the hallway. I'm just glad she didn't fall!

Needless to say, though, she loves her duke:





He's not totally picked on, though. She always has fun throwing her food over the edge of the high chair for him to eat.

Catch Phrase

We had some friends over tonight and had dinner then played catch phrase, which is now Squirt's favorite toy. She was pushing the button then watching it while it beeped. Then when we actually started the game, she was being SO cranky because every time the game would finally make it all the way around the circle to her (me), I would pass it off to the next person. Poor thing doesn't understand how to play catch phrase ;)

She has also discovered where her toys are kept:





I think the first of these two is my favorite picture of her (recently) because she's trying so hard to reach whatever it is that she's looking for and she's stretching up onto her little toes... It just makes me smile.

Here she is a few days ago doing her best impression of Steve Urkel:



We also went and got professional pictures taken of her and Katie at Sears with a coupon the other day. Normally their individual sheets are $19.99 each (total rip off) but Sukie gave me a coupon that was 1 8x10, 2 5x7, 16 wallets and 16 minis for $4.99, so that's less than $1 per sheet. pretty good if you ask me, and I thought that it would be a nice gift for my mother in law for christmas... don't correct me if I'm wrong, Lorna, b/c it's what you're getting. :D (Although I didn't draw your name so it's not the only gift you'll get, so don't be too disappointed).

Achy Breaky Ear

We took Squirt to the Dr. today. She has just not been doing well with this cold and I was starting to think that she may have an ear infection. Our Dr. is the best pediatrician I have met. Granted, I haven't met a whole lot of pediatricians, but I love this guy. He checked her ears and said that the right one was infected, then gave us the option of a few different medications: an oral medication for a few weeks, or a one time shot in the office. Since Squirt tends to spit out as much medication as she swallows, we opted for the shot. I felt bad when the nurse came in and said, "this is going to be a pretty painful shot, so you'll want to make sure to rub it for about 20 minutes to help it spread out". I still feel like we made the better choice, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel bad for torturing my poor child.

She's sleeping better so far tonight, though. Her nose is also not running quite so much, so that makes me feel hopeful.

I'm taking Katie and Squirt to get portraits on Saturday morning, then we're going out for lunch with the rest of the in law gang. It's to celebrate my father in law's birthday. It should be a good time, if not completely bittersweet.

Meryl showed me some family pics they had taken and they turned out really good! It made me want to go get pictures taken. I'll probably wait until spring some time... but I have been thinking about getting family pictures for a while now. Maybe I'll just do it when we do Alice's 1 year pictures.

I can make this pencil disappear... only not...

Squirt was playing with a mechanical pencil yesterday, so being the wonderful mother that I am, I took it and pushed the lead back in so she wouldn't scratch herself and then gave it back. A few moments later I looked over at her and she had the pencil next to her eye and she was squinting, so I took it away at that point thinking that she had stuck herself in the eye. I was wrong though, which I knew when her nose started bleeding. Poor Squirt's first little nose bleed :'( I think the worst part for her was not the scratch or the blood but the fact that I was holding her nose to make it stop bleeding (which it did within a few minutes). Mother of the year award over here!

She has been playing and sharing a lot lately. We got her vanilla wafers, which she loves... not because she likes to eat them, but because she likes to feed them to the dog. It's kind of cute to watch him gently take them from her hand...but not so cute when he doesn't quite get it and she then puts it back in her mouth. yuk!

She was playing right inside the front door yesterday when the UPS guy came with a package. He always rings the doorbell and knocks 3 times. Well I was in the kitchen and when he knocked, I came over to the door and she was crawling away as fast as she could, screaming. Seems that the UPS guy's knock is pretty startling.

She's starting to get better balance, although she still holds on to things in order to stand and won't walk unless you're holding her up. She is doing so much talking and babbling though. It reminds me of t-rex because she'll just be talking to her toys or herself and it's just so adorable.

I got a surprise in the mail today from Archie:



I was jealous of one that she has that is similar (read: the exact same), so she got me one. Thanks, Archie! I love it!

We've all been working over here for the past couple days on building our immune systems up. That is to say, we have all caught a cold. It stinks, but it's the worst for Squirt. I hate seeing her so miserable and sick. Hopefully we'll get over it in time for goonies night this weekend!

I give in...

Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not. Answer the 30 questions at the end.



( ) Gone on a blind date

(x) Skipped school

( ) Watched someone die

( ) Been to Canada

( ) Been to Mexico

(X) Been to Florida

(X) Been lost

(X) Been on the opposite side of the country

(X) Gone to Washington, DC

(X) Swam in the ocean

(x) Cried your self to sleep

( ) Played cops and robbers ... not very recently

( ) Recently colored with crayons

(X) Sang Karaoke/Tried

(X) Paid for a meal with coins only

(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't

(x) Made prank phone calls

(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose

(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue

( ) Danced in the rain

(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe

(x) Watched the sunrise with someone you care about

(X) Blown bubbles

(X) Gone ice-skating

(X) Been skinny dipping outdoors

(X) Gone to the movies



1. Any nickname: carebear

2. Mother's name: mickey mouse

3. Favorite drink? milk (but maybe I'm just thinking that because I'm eating cookies...)

4. Any Tattoo's? No

5. Body piercing's? Ears

6. Do U love your job? Yes

7. Ever seen or been in a tornado? No

8. Favorite vacation spot? Disney World

9. Ever been to Africa? No

10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? yes

11. Been on TV? on the news at a broncos game, being interviewed about why I came.

12. Ever stole a traffic sign? No

13. Ever been in a car accident? Yes, I ran into a truck in a parking lot while he was backing out and then when I got out to check the damage, locked the keys in the car. Luckily, he was a locksmith.

14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? 4 door

15. Favorite salad dressing? Outback Ranch

16. Favorite Pie? Elsha's apple pie

17. Favorite number? 1 million

18. Favorite movie? I like TV shows more because there's always something new.

19. Favorite holiday? christmas, thanksgiving, and most of the others.

20. Favorite dessert? outback chocolate cake

21. Favorite food? I'm not picky

22. Favorite day of the week? Weekends b/c I can spend time with people.

23. Favorite brand of body wash? Anything that smells good.

24. Favorite Toothpaste? Colgate total

25. Favorite smell? Clean laundry or clean house

26. What do you do to relax? sit around bein' lazy

27. How do you see yourself in 10 years? living in a big (ish) house with a couple more kids and having a husband who makes lots of money (same one as I have now... just making more money b/c he'll graduate)

28. How many siblings do you have?5

29. Furthest Place you will send this message?

30. Who will respond to this the fastest?

(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
(X) Been lost
(X) Been on the opposite side of the country
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
( ) Cried your self to sleep
( ) Played cops and robbers
( ) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke/Tried
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone you care about
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
( ) Been skinny dipping outdoors
(X) Gone to the movies

1. Any nickname: Frik, Shaggy(many years ago)
2. Mother's name: Lorna
3. Favorite drink? Coke Zero
4. Any Tattoo's? No
5. Body piercing's? No
6. Do U love your job? Yes
7. Ever seen or been in a tornado? No
8. Favorite vacation spot? Disney World
9. Ever been to Africa? No
10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Yes
11. Been on TV? No
12. Ever stole a traffic sign? No
13. Ever been in a car accident? Several, but never with me at the wheel
14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? 4-door (hate 2-doors)
15. Favorite salad dressing? Ranch or caeser
16. Favorite Pie? Apple
17. Favorite number? 1
18. Favorite movie? V for Vendetta
19. Favorite holiday? Christmas
20. Favorite dessert? Not Sure
21. Favorite food? Yes please
22. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
23. Favorite brand of body wash? whatever's cheap
24. Favorite Toothpaste? Colgate Total
25. Favorite smell? Food
26. What do you do to relax? Surf the net
27. How do you see yourself in 10 years? graduated
28. How many siblings do you have? 4
29. Furthest Place you will send this message? Virginia (physical location of my server)
30. Who will respond to this the fastest?

Is this guy for real?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaOCWYpPk4]

For the last two months we've watched the most desperate, disgusting, and vile political tactics coming out of the McCain/Palin camp, but they're really stepping it up in these last remaining days. This clip is almost unreal!

Even KSL, Utah's dyed-in-the-wool neo-conservative news radio, is catching on to it (20 mins):

Edit: I am pleased to present next year's winner of American Idol:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlwwFZdXck]

Ninety-Two!

I took a midterm last week, for one of my CS classes, which I was beyond unprepared for. I may have spent 10 minutes studying, and I missed my fair share of lectures. Going into it I fully expected to bomb the test, but coming out of it I felt a little better; I thought maybe I did as good as an 80% optimistically.

The scores were finally posted today and I got a ninety-two percent!! woot! Exciting news to say the least... for me anyway  :D

Presidential Debates Are Serious Business

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfd5g8Y_Jqo]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSI3ydJtKoA]

My next post will be a real blog post, but I couldn't resist posting this video.

Cute Cousins

We had Yoshi and Meryl over for dinner on Sunday, which was fun! We had cake, so naturally, Alice needed a bath. When I took her upstairs to give her a bath, Katie followed us and started trying to climb in the tub, so I took her clothes off and let her get in, too. It was so cute, they were both splashing and laughing at eachother. Adorable.

Took a couple of pictures of them together, although I wish I had gotten some of them in the bath:





Then tonight I made soup for dinner and Alice loved the little star noodles. She actually took the spoon from me and put the soup in her mouth with it.



She's still figuring out the whole spoon thing, though. :)



Her hair is getting so long!

New Server. Woot!

If you're a diehard fan that reads my blog posts over and over day-in and day-out you may have noticed that the site was taking a looooong time to load. Turns out that the server I was on had some serious performance issues so I moved my blog to a new server and it's super snappy now :D

Create a Caption

That's it. Come up with a caption and post it in the comments!

Holy Huge TV, Batman (part 2)

Chaelomen requested a picture of the huge TV with something near it to compare sizes to. So, here it is:

So, as you can see, it's quite massive.

Squirt has been so cute for the past couple days. She's getting better at doing stairs, which is cute but scary, because when she's done, she just tries to sit down on whatever step she's on, and if I weren't there to catch her, she'd probably go tumbling all the way down. She's started playing peekaboo with a blanket or by ducking behind a door and then popping out to look at us. She's enjoyed when we play peekaboo with her for a while now, but it's new for her to actually be making the movement herself. It is so cute.
We had Frik's mom and brother over yesterday for dinner and games. It was fun! Lorna started a blog. Her link is in my blogroll for those interested :D

Squirt also had her 9 mo dr. appt on saturday. actually... it was on friday and I THOUGHT it was on saturday. The nurse who made the appointment with us 3 months ago asked what day we wanted to come in, and I told her saturday would be best. So she scheduled it for 10/10 at 10:00. That was great, except 10/10 is a friday, but I didn't realize that. And then since july and august both have 31 days, my watch was off by a day on the date, so I thought it was the 10th on saturday, and thus we showed up without an appointment. :)

So anyway, Squirt is in the 90th percentile for height, the 55th for weight, and the 75th for head circumference. She is almost 20 lbs (19-14) and so we're in the market for a new carseat, since ours is made for kids under 23 lbs. We've got another couple months I'm sure, but I want to be ready.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I got a better picture of Squirt's teeth:

Still too soon?

I promise this will not disappoint :}

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAg5KjnAhuU]

Another Codorado Wedding!

We drove over to colorado last weekend for a high school friend's wedding. A drive that normally takes 8 hours took nearly 10 because of a sick, fussy baby. She had a fever for a couple days before the drive, then the day before, the fever had been gone for almost 24 hours and this rash showed up. We took her to the Dr. who told us that it was Roseola Infantum and that it was no longer contagious. She'd only ever get it once and then she'd have the immunities, so that's good to know. Here she is being all sick and tired before we left:

Regardless, though, it made the drive suck rocks.

We stopped in Ghettoville to visit Archie and eat at OTB, which was awesome. Seriously, if anyone is interested in moving to utah and starting up a restaurant, I'd be eternally grateful if the restaurant was an OTB. We then went to Archie's house and washed off our guacamole baby. I made the comment of the century when talking to archie's room mate... seriously, if you've heard bad things about someone's boyfriend, don't say, "you must be the boyfriend i've heard so much about".

We then went down to t town and stayed at my parents. We slept on their mountain bed. Seriously, that thing is weird. usually a bed will sag in the middle after years of being slept on, but not theirs. I had to put a pillow on the edge of the bed to keep from rolling off. I was sad that they were out of town, but it was better than the futon.

We spent some time on saturday with friends and then went up to MJ's parents' house and hung out there for a while. Then we got sweet pizza with Berserk and Val and the boys and hung out for a while. I was pleasantly surprised at how well Jack Jack and Squirt played this time. They were so cute!

Jack Jack is really standing so well, too!

Being cute:

In her party dress eating green beans:

Pretty Samara:

The wedding was great. It was fun and the food was surprisingly good! I made a slideshow for the reception and that went off without a hitch. Funny thing... the girl who got married is a twin, and I was standing next to her sister and dad for the whole slide show. Her dad kept asking "which one of you is that" even after we told him that ALL of the pictures in the slide show were of the twin who was getting married... seriously!

Bride dancing with a tired baby. She was being such a good sport!

The happy couple:

On the drive home, I got some pictures of Squirt's teeth (sort of)

I really had a great time! We should have more weddings!

Any Takers?

Some kind of morbid curiosity makes me want to try these, but not enough to make them myself.



Bacon chocolate chip cookies-

1 cup butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon hazelnut or almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups bacon bits

*An important note- Be sure to use real bacon bits, not Bacos

You can also make your own bacon bits, just make sure you pat down the bacon chunks with paper towels to remove as much extra bacon grease as possible. It takes about 2lbs of bacon to make 2 cups of bacon bits, just for future reference.

Directions-

preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Beat together the butter, sugars, flavouring and eggs until creamy. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together. Dough will be slightly soft. If you want a cakier cookie, add another half cup of flour. Add in chocolate chips and bacon bits. Stir until well integrated. Place dough on a sheet of waxed paper and refrigerate at least an hour. Remove dough from fridge, pinch off 1 1/2 inch pieces of dough and roll into balls. Set dough balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten dough balls slightly with your fingers in the center.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on a cooling rack while you ready the glaze.

Maple cinnamon glaze-

2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon maple extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
enough water to make a thick glaze (about 3 tablespoons)

Mix all ingredients together until smooth and creamy. If lumpy, use a whisk.

Spread a small amount of the glaze on the top of each cookie and top with a small piece of crisp cooked bacon.

Voila! Delicious!

Holy Huge TV, Batman

So Frik and I decided to get a new TV so we can hook our mac mini up to it. Well, being the little researcher that he is, he went online and picked THE perfect TV and looked for the best deal and finally decided to get this 50" TV from costco... Well I came downstairs after putting the baby to sleep to see

a box that is at least 6 feet tall standing in our living room and this monster of a TV that came out of it leaning up against our current entertainment center (it is too big to fit in our entertainment center, by the way...) Humongous. We'll have to see how it looks once we have our old TV out and everything all hooked up.

Is that a challenge!??!

Yes, it is. For those of you who enjoyed my short lived "couch to 5k" idea, here's a new challenge that I'm taking up with frik: One Hundred Pushups Now, in my defense, the c25k thing was hard because I couldn't really leave the house and frik couldn't go with me so we had weird scheduling problems... not to mention my friend that BAILED on me... I have started that up again; I'm in week 1.

So, who's in on the 100 pushups? Frik is totally doing it and I was surprised that I could actually do I think 12 pushups. I thought I was WAY weaker than that (not that 12 is a lot. Do I even want to know how many Berserk can do?)

In other news, I started watching Fringe. It's pretty good. Kind of creepy but interesting. Really, it wasn't what I was expecting from JJ Abrams, but I have been enjoying it. We'll see how it goes. Also saw the first couple episodes of the new season of House, which I love.

I made some salsa the other day. Last time I made salsa, I used a habanero and i deseeded the whole thing and it was so not spicy that I ended up using a couple serranos too to try to bring up the spice. It still was pretty weak (and I don't really care for hot salsa, I'm more for the flavor, which is why I love habaneros and pretty much hate jalapenos). So this time, I bought 2 habaneros and did not deseed them at all... well that was a mistake.



Wudan can attest to the spiciness and he didn't even try it until after I added an extra 3 tomatoes, a can of diced tomatoes, and a can of tomato sauce to try to mild it out. We all thought berserk would like it though. It had a great flavor, but the burning on my tongue was pretty bad. Next time: 2 habaneros, deseeded, and we'll go from there.

Teeth!

That's right. 2. on the bottom. She got one a few days ago and then I felt the other one today. She's been really good. She's drooling a lot more than usual, and right before the first one and for a day or so after, she was in a lot of pain, but now she's doing fine. We'll see if any more pop through. They're such cute little teeth! too bad I can't see them because she's always got her tongue out. Ever since the teeth grew in, she's been stickign her tongue out. I think she likes how the teeth feel on her tongue: 

 

She was crawling around and chasing and laughing at duke today, so he got a little excited and started acting like he was going to play with her. He ran and got his ball and started jumping up and down. I told him no since he was getting a little too rowdy, and he dropped his ball and looked down at the ground like he was so humiliated that he had gotten out of control. Then she put her head up against his neck and cuddled with him and he started licking her ears like he only does to people he really loves. It was so sweet. She loves her doggy!