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?