Merry Birthday!

Christmas Eve we went to my aunt and uncles house for a a yummy prime rib dinner. Let me clarify that the only prime rib I will eat is my uncles because it is not still mooing at me. After dinner we put Anna to work to clean up the whole mess.


She really played in the sink for about a half and hour and we had to drag her away to take her home. The next morning Ross woke up early to 'put together' my present, or so he told me. When Anna woke up we were both allowed to come out to the living room. Anna was so excited. For days she kept asking 'When Santa come and bring my toys?'

While Anna went to town unpacking her stocking, I got to enjoy the present Ross got me. A yummy breakfast! He cut up a bunch of yummy fresh fruit for the both of us (he didn't buy any kiwis though), yogurt and roasted almonds. Oh the smell was heavenly.


This year was even more fun than the last because Anna seemed to understand what was going on a little more and was excited for all of her presents.


Yeah, she loves the markers. I don't know if I do so much. By the time we were done with opening presents her pajamas were covered in markers. Oh and ignore the fact that she is wearing her Halloween pj's. LOL. My family has the tradition of opening pj's on Christmas Eve; however, we were not with them so she didn't get them until Christmas Day. Oh well.

After we opened our presents, we packed up, braved the storm and drove to my parents house. When we walked in the door Bradee surprised Ross with balloons. You see, it is Ross' birthday on Christmas day. This sort of confused Anna because we had taught her that is was Jesus' birthday on Christmas and we didn't tell her it was her Daddy's birthday too (so as not to confuse her) but everyone else wanted to point out the correlation.


She would have been more confused if she wasn't distracted by all the toys. Grandma and Grandpa sure did spoil all of us and all of the grand kids as well. For Anna's birthday I had made her a tutu which she then started calling her 'princess dress'. Well, the only princess she knows is princess pea on 'Super Why' so she wanted a wand with her tutu. I told my mom that Ross gave her a fly swatter, which is why I think my mom gave her a new one for Christmas ;)

She loved it. No one else could touch her 'wandsup' (princess pea says 'Wands up! Spell with me) she kept telling us it was 'bootiful'. After they opened presents and Anna took a nap we headed to Ross' family for more presents, dinner and cake and ice cream for Ross' birthday (I made his fave cake, found here). Anna got spoiled again with lots of fun stuff, including this little ditty.

For Ross' birthday he really wanted to go to a Jazz game so we bought tickets for the 26th and then found out my dad could get tickets to the game in his works suite. So being the nice children we are gave our tickets to Ross' parents for Christmas and went with my dad to the game. Hey! They didn't want Christmas presents so it was better than nothing, right!?

It ended up being an awesome game with the Jazz winning even with a lot of their players out. Ross used our camera as binoculars so he could see who was dressed, on the bench, and who wasn't even at the game. Thanks dad for the tickets!

Too bad the drive home was terrible! They had closed a portion of the freeway down because of a multiple car pile up and it took us 2 hours to get home! Luckily we had dropped Anna off at my parents house before the game and we were spending the night. The next day Anna was so happy to wake up and play with her cousins again. Her and Maddie had fun jumping on the air mattress and pointing at everyone the could see in the pictures. I love that she has cousins to play with that are her age.

It was a great Christmas being able to spend it with all of our family - definitely the best part of the holidays!

I Don't Get

boys and computers. How computer stuff can be so exciting and how rebuilding your computer and modifying your XBox to be a DVR sounds like fun...although I am grateful for it :)

Why I feel the need to bundle my daughter up so much when we walk to get the mail. It wouldn't matter if she was in shorts and a t-shirt, she never seems to be bothered by the cold. How is that?

I don't always put snow pants on, but she also wanted to play in the snow that day.

Why when Ross and I looked at getting a new digital camera having one that could record in HD really needed to be a priority, but we have one now!

Why the news feels it is necessary to start of finish every story/segment with 'even in today's bad economy.' Yeah. We get it. But do you have to only mention the negative when it comes to the economy? Even when they do uplifting Christmas stories, do you have to throw that sentence in at the end? It is annoying.

How stupid shows, like The Wife Swap, make it longer than one episode and great shows like Pushing Daisies get's canceled. Who watches these crap reality shows regularly?

How my daughter who won't let food that most kids love near her, such as chicken nuggets or cookies, yet I have to constantly remind her not to put this stuff in her mouth.Why is that? My list could go on (and I am sure Ross could add a few about me to this list, especially right now..with the hormones) but this should suffice. What did I leave off? What is on your list of things you don't get?

Holy Friggin Crap!

I have a 2 year old and that is just weird! She made it very clear that she wanted balloons on her birthday. In fact, I think that is all she wanted. So after she went to bed Tuesday night I went to the dollar store and bought some balloons to blow up to put on the floor and then spent way too long deciding which Mylar balloons to get.

I ended up going with a Sesame Street one (guaranteed not to disappoint) and two shiny star shaped ones. Right now every time she sees a star it is always a 'twinkle star' so I thought she would like them. And of course when woke up Wednesday morning she saw those balloons that is the first thing she said, 'OH! Twinkle star mommy!'

I am glad she is so easy to please. She was just so happy to play with her balloons. Even after her nap the first thing she asked for was to play with 'my happy birfday balloons.'

Ross took an early and long lunch and we went over to Thanksgiving Point to the dinosaur museum. Anna had a lot more fun this time around, as compared to the $2 Tuesday. She could run where she wanted and I could keep an eye on her and not worry about her getting lost in the crowds.

She loved going from room to room to showing me the 'big dinosaur' , running up and down the ramps, finding dinosaur bones at the 'fossil dig' and playing in the erosion table. Ross had a little too much fun at the erosion table building dams, waterfalls, ponds and rivers. I am still trying to decide who had more fun, Ross or Anna. One lady was there with her grand kids watching Ross and said 'I think some people have kids just so they can act like kids again.' LOL.

It was past lunch time and pretty close to nap time and she was still so happy - I was surprised. Then Ross and I thought it would be funny to get a picture of us showing our teeth, like the shark, and this is how Anna felt about it.

Ah yes. Now that is more like it. Later that night we told her we had one more present for her. She was so excited.

Then we had her friend/our friends over to celebrate and I didn't even take pictures. What a slacker mom I am. I didn't make a cake this year, because she doesn't like the stuff, so we had brownies and ice cream instead..which she also doesn't like. So we gave her big bowl of M&M's and she was quite excited about that. Happy Birthday Annabelle!

Recently

December is a friggin crazy month. I know everyone agrees, but I swear I get through this month and I want to collapse. Any who, this last weekend we braved the storm to travel up North and attend Ross' grandma's birthday party/his mom's family Christmas party. The roads weren't too bad, even though we still passed 12 wrecks on the way up. Do people not understand that if the roads are wet, they should drive slower?

So we made it to the party alive and had fun playing a few games, opening presents and eating. Usually I would bake something, but the smell of things baking is still not desirable so much right now, so I just made 7 layer been dip instead - always good, right? Anna had fun playing with all the other little kids and going up and down the stairs. (Please note the candy dish in the lower left of the above picture - it comes into play later) Ross tried to get a picture of her smiling, but she wouldn't show her teeth, she just kept smiling like this.

He then realized she mad a mouth full of m&m's she had snuck. Dang kid!

After the party we dropped Anna off at my parents house and then drove to Salt Lake to go to Ross' work Christmas party. It was at the Grand America, so I was super excited for dinner, naturally. And I must say that it was all very tasty (minus the large amount of red onions on my dinner salad - once again, the smell!) I was hoping for salmon, but settled with halibut and it did not disappoint. What was disappointing was that we went another year without winning anything in the raffle. They give out a bunch of $200 gift cards to places like Lowes, Best Buy, Target and the like (I know, but they are nerdy boys) and a flat screen TV. Oh well, there is always next year.

We spent the night at my parents house so we could be there on my mom's birthday (Sunday). We went to church with my fam and when we got home it was time to start making dinner. My mom wanted a Cafe Rio like dinner and it was going to take a while to make everything that we wanted. Oh and this dinner was heavenly. We made everything. The yummy pork and chicken, the tortilla soup, and all the delicious sides and toppings. Some of my faves include:

Guacamole - my brother in-law made this because he makes the guac at Sonora Grill and it was muy bien if I do so say so!

Pico de gallo - made by yours truly. Hey, my husband has taught me a few things from his mission...so what if they are food related ;)

Cafe Rio rice - made by Ross. We decided it was the most 'authentic' Cafe Rio dish on the table.

After dinner Anna and my mom opened their presents (we did a combined birthday party).

The grand kids were fighting over who got to sit on grandma's lap. Anna was literally pushing Maddie away because she wanted my mom all to herself - which was probably my mom's favorite present.

Happy Birthday mom! Thank you for all that you do for me, my family and everyone else. You are a great example to us.

Road Trip!

Many weeks were spent religiously checking Ellen's website for when tickets to her 12 Days of Giveaways would go up because when they do, they are gone within the hour. Finally the day came. I applied for tickets and then called Chelsie to do the same. During the 12 Days they only let you apply for 2 instead of 4 and our plan was to have a girls trip with my sisters and my mom to go see the show. Well, I was only able to get standby tickets and when they called Chelsie they said they had no more tickets for the date we applied, but they could give her guaranteed tickets to a different date so she took them.

We didn't know if we were going to go. We didn't really want to make the trek and spend the money if it wasn't for a 12 Days episode. Then on Tuesday's show before Thanksgiving she mentioned the 12 Days would be starting the following week. Our tickets were for the Thursday (December 4th) evening show, so I knew from my previous Ellen experience, that our taping would air on a Monday. Booyah. Our tickets were for the 12 days! Plus since gas was so cheap, we decided to do it! ROAD TRIP! Meet my travel companions...

Chelsie

and Lola - she was especially a great help navigating us around the city. And we would usually get a could laugh when she would say, 'Head south on 1-15 for 300 miles'. Okay. So we didn't laugh at that. But we enjoyed her company and even made up a song for her. Hey! It was a looong drive.

We left Wednesday afternoon and drove to St. George where we stayed at my friend Ashley's house. It was a grand ol' time to hang out with her, her hubby and her kids. We even got to meet her husband's mistress...food storage. I have never seen someone so excited about food storage. Here she is in all her glory :)

After dinner Ashley cut up some fabulous kiwis and Chelsie and I practically inhaled them. A couple of minutes afterwards my throat decided to close off, it became painful to swallow, hard to breath and I had pains in my chest. They gave me some Benadryl, but it didn't seem to help at first so Chelsie called her father-in-law (who is a respiratory therapist) and asked him what we should so. Basically, if it got worse I needed to go to the doctor, but it might take 2 hours for it to get better from the Benadryl. Fabulous. In about 2 hours it was gone, but it was one of the the freakiest thing that has ever happened to me. I have no allergies. I guess now that I am pregnant this child doesn't want to me to partake of kiwis. Who knew?

We got up early Thursday morning and made the trek to Burbank. We got there much sooner than we had anticipated, so we decided to stop for lunch. Of course we had planned all along to hit this place up. YUM!

I was sad we missed breakfast by an hour (cue the moment from 'Big Daddy') because that is my favorite part of this restaurant. But our lunch was still excellent.

After lunch we walked around for a bit and then decided to go over to the studio early since there would be a lot of people there. When we pulled up to the gate and showed security our tickets so we could go park the man told us that the show had been canceled, but that they were showing highlights from the Lakers game if we wanted to stay and watch. My stomach dropped. I said to him You have got to be kidding me! and Chelsie yelled Shut up! He then smiled and gave us our parking pass. What a mean trick...but it was funny afterword.

At this point we waited, met some new friends and chatted, waited, went through security, waited, waited, stood in line to get our numbers, waited, waited, walked into the building where she tapes, waited, filed into her studio, and started to dance!

No cameras were allowed, but once again I snapped a quick pick with my phone. Chelsie and I freaked out when they put us at the very end of the row that Ellen dances through! The 4 and 1/2 hours of waiting were definitely worth it now. That is right people, Ellen danced right by us - mere inches away.

The show was great, the guests were funny, and the giveaways were awesome. Oh, do you want to know what we got? You will all have to watch Monday's show. Okay. Kidding. We got a $100 gift card from American Express, a roku with a 1 year subscription to Netflix, a canon 10 megapixle camera, the game Lips, to play on the new XBox 360 she gave us along with a 1 year subscription to XBox Live! Booyah! I was so happy to win the XBox (even though I would much rather have a Wii) because Ross has wanted one since they came out. Plus he thought I was so weird for wanting to drive so far to see this show. My friends, he no longer thinks that.

We had such a fun time and we were super hyped after the show, which was good cause we still had to drive to Vegas. But the car ended up having a way low tire so after finding a gas station in the ghetto and filling it with air and then stopping after a half an hour of driving to make sure it still had air, our energy was gone. It was about 10 o'clock our time and we were beat. We also hadn't eaten anything but some snacks since lunch, but we had long ago decided to hold out for a restaurant in Baker that we had seen on Diners, Drive - Ins and Dives.

By the time we got to Mad Greek Diner it was midnight our time, but we didn't care. How often do we drive through Baker, California and get to eat a dive like this? So we split the yummiest gyro we had both ever eaten.

Oh but we still had over an hour to drive to Vegas. This was by far the worst section in the car. We were exhausted. It was heaven when we got to Chelsie's cousin Lori's house and crashed. The next morning she took us to breakfast and we made the long trek back home. Not before we stopped in St. George again to get gas and stop by one of my favorite places there.



You all are going to think we are pigs. No. We didn't go in to eat. We were both still way full. But I had to buy some of their yummy Bear Paw Muffins to take home to eat another day.

We were gone 50 hours, 21 of which was spent directly in the car, we each spent $40 in gas and put a lot of miles on Chelsie's car. But we had so much fun and it was definitely worth it. Thanks again to Ashley and Lori for letting us crash at your houses and to my mom for watching Annabelle while I was gone. Don't forget to watch us dance like fools and scream like idiots on Monday's episode of Ellen. You might even see her blow us a kiss when we come back from commercial break (we don't know if it was recording then or not, but the heart she makes with her hands and the kiss she blew was to us). Yep. We were kinda excited.