Christmas 2008

Our family had a great time during Anthony's first Christmas. For the first time, Z & I hosted our families at our house. We celebrated by dressing Anthony in holiday appropriate attire (that his dad pointed out made him look more like Liberace than an elf) during our fun and festive Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, my brother Derek and his fiance Paige, Zach's parents, his sister Amie and her boyfriend Adam.

On Christmas day, my sister Malarie and her fiance Terah arrived from Florida and we all enjoyed a Christmas dinner of tamales and enchiladas. Anthony enjoyed being held nonstop by Aunt Mal.

My mom stayed with us for about five days and Zach and I were busy trying to figure out a way to convince her to never leave. We were spoiled with meals made, the house being cleaned, laundry washed and folded, the living room curtains I bought six months ago were finally hung and she was constantly changing Anthony's diapers. She even brought me Oreos and milk in bed the other day, I am not kidding.

We all had a great holiday; Parker and Sydney were even visited by Santa Paws who brought them new stuffed animals.

Hopefully you had a great holiday as well, and may your New Year be filled with junk food that is lovingly brought to you while you lounge in your bed. There really is nothing better than that.

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Reason #10,457 to have kids...

...Getting to dress them up in holiday-centered attire before they are old enough to defend themselves.

Anthony in his Santa hat, Christmas onesie, shoes and blanket



A close-up of his adorable Santa shoes

Hopefully everyone had a very merry Christmas, we'll be posting a recap soon!


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Monday Lovely: Childhood Christmas Ornaments

Zach & I are loving having our little guy home for Christmas. Today, Zach's parents brought over one of Zach's favorite childhood Christmas ornaments his "hohsie."

He has taken up residence on our mantle and I hope he'll stay here for many years to come.


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Pumpkin Party 2008

Last week, Z & I hosted our good friends Mark, Teri and Mr. Lewis for a pumpkin carving extravaganza. It was kind of a last-minute affair so we were sans actual pumpkin carving utensils but found that steak knives and dry erase markers worked just fine. And no trips to the hospital were required, which was a very real fear for most of the night as we poked, prodded and cut to create our jack-o-lantern works of art.

We also enjoyed some delicious Navajo Tacos, courtesy of Z Pizzeria's pizza dough, and Teri's perfect apple cider.

When I wasn't getting caught smuggling a pumpkin under my shirt, I put our bushel of apples (imported from my parents' tree in Price) to good use and made Martha's baked apples with Mexican chocolate.

It was a fun and festive night, but Parker was not impressed.

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Flashback Friday: Father's Day Family Outing

This year for Father's Day, my brother and I decided to team up and give our dad the gift of golf. My parents are avid golfers, playing every few days--my mom even played 27 holes in one day last week.

Since they rarely venture up to the Big City, Derek and I told my parents they must come up and spend the day with us so that we can golf together as a family (although we were missing one--our sis, Malarie). Sure it's supposed to be my dad's chance to pick whatever he wants to do, but since he's a good dad he lets us boss him around.



We had a great day, we golfed at Wing Point so that my airplane aficionado father could enjoy watching the jets take off and land at Salt Lake International.

[Update: I just realized the two pics above are actually from another golfing trip my bro & parents were on together. Somehow they ended up in my photos from this day, but since they're so cute I'm leaving them in anyway.]

I opted out of golfing myself, since, in my delicate condition I wasn't feeling up to playing 18 holes (actually, I was just being lazy but I've found that people are much more sympathetic if you blame things on being pregnant).

Instead I was Derek & Zach's cart companion. The three of us enjoyed speaking with accents, something that we always do whenever we're together although none of us are sure why. This day we alternated between "hillbilly" and "British" (we had to class it up a bit since we were on the course, you know) with an occasional bit of Irish brogue thrown in.

We also observed how much my brother and dad are alike. Ever since Derek was big enough to move around, he's always stood, walked and gestured exactly like my dad. Them' are some strong genes.

And lucky for us, he also inherited my dad's gift of telling stories and adding so much detail that we all feel like we were actually there witnessing his funny adventures. This explains why my stomach muscles hurt the next day even though I didn't do anything strenuous.

Laughing-related injuries are the best kind.


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Golf Carts Not Hand Carts

To celebrate Utah's favorite holiday, Pioneer Day on July 24, Teri, Mark, Zach and I hit the links in the early morning hours--emphasis on the early, our tee time was 7:40 a.m. On our day off. We enjoyed this day off work at our luxurious home club, Nibley Park. If you've never been to Nibley and plan to play there some day, you will need to know the dress code: cut-off denim shorts, sleeveless t-shirts and hopefully a cigarette dangling from your mouth. It's quite high-brow.

"See, Teri, that guy's mullet and midriff-bearing football jersey is exactly what
Phil Mickelson wore in the last tournament."

We played nine holes and had a wonderful time. A scout for the LPGA was there, saw Teri and me, and signed us up immediately to join the tour. OK, that didn't happen. But it totally could have because we really are that good. I even managed to play to the 1st-8th holes using the same ball. That's never happened to me before and I am very proud of myself.

Teri and I had so much fun playing together we even hit our tee shots
to almost the exact same spot.

Mark is demonstrating his golf attire modeling skills.

It was probably the most fun I've ever had playing golf and we made sure to refuel with a delicious breakfast at the clubhouse afterwards.

Our foursome after playing nine holes.

I find the fact that we spent part of this important day trekking over hills, through valleys and across streams in a cart without air conditioning the perfect way to salute our pioneer ancestors.

Peace on earth, Presents under the tree, Pacifiers and Poo

I know it's almost July, but it's never too early to start thinking about the good ol' Christmas list, right? Here's what's on ours:

Leg Lamp

Stocking Full of Oranges

Chocolate Santa

And... Diapers!

And lots of 'em. We're expecting a baby right around the holidays and will be sure to put these to good use. Maybe we should ask Santa for some cold, hard cash instead. It seems that December is going to be an expensive month at our house for the next oh, 18 years. But we're thrilled! And scared. But mostly thrilled.

Overheard: And what about the Fourth of July?

Him: What day is Cinco de Mayo?

Me: Um, May 5.

Him: Oh, right. I thought it was earlier this year.

I Told You So

Sorry for the blogging hiatus. I've been busier than usual although I feel like nothing exciting has happened. Don't believe me? Well, I will prove it to you with this post.

Since we saw each other last, I celebrated Valentine's Day and President's Day (which means a day off from work, woo hoo!); we have (read: Zach has) made significant progress on The Great Hardwood Floor Install of 2008, or as I prefer to call it, That Which May Cause Me to Turn to Drug and Alcohol Abuse; and things are crazy, crazy, crazy at work.

So, just to catch you up, Valentine's Day was a bit anti-climatic, since Zach worked that evening (I know, I know, you're soooo surprised). It was still a fun day, though, as I was able to surprise Z with a CD from one of his favorite bands and a DVD of one of his top, cheesy 1980's movies. He surprised me with an incredible, huge potted orchid that is seriously as big as our house. OK, not seriously. But close! ALMOST as big as our house. The pot itself is gorgeous and the orchids growing in it are so beautiful that I'm going to feel really bad when I accidentally kill them. Not that that's necessarily going to happen. It's just that it always does. My indoor-gardening skill is on par with my singing voice and my ability to play team sports. That bad.

I apologize for the crappiness of this photo, taken from my camera phone.
It doesn't do the flowers justice. A new camera would be much appreciated if anyone wants to buy me something and doesn't know what to get me.

The staff at the store where he bought these (which is one of my all-time favorite places on this earth) included a long list of instructions on exactly how I should go about not killing them. Hopefully I can make that happen. Or not happen? I'm so confused.

Last weekend was of the three-day variety, my favorite way to spend a Monday--not working! Diania and I were feeling ambitious and decided to head over to an early morning pilates class before we met up with Amanda and Natalie for brunch. The girls, two babies, my pilates-leggings and I met up at Eggs in the City for a fun-filled breakfast and way too much coffee.

Amanda & Diania's main squeezes
enjoying brunch with the girls
(Diania's Finn is on the left, Amanda's Patrick is on the right)

Nat, Finn and Amanda

D and me post-pilates. Don't we look extra lean and fit?

Then, Natalie and I went to the driving range where we amazed all in attendance with our incredible golfing skills.

This was a very active day for me and my body was not used to so much moving around. So I trekked home and took a nap for about 20 minutes. Actually, I closed my eyes while the dogs stared at me within inches of my face. Not the best way to catch some shut-eye.

Afterwards, Z came home and we took the dogs for a walk up to Trolley Square. While they waited outside because apparently Trolley Square is discriminating against its four-legged customers and does not let them in, I ran into American Apparel where I picked up one of the greatest inventions of all-time: thigh-high tube socks. Don't laugh, they are awesome. I am always freezing at night and must sleep in a pair of the ugliest, thickest socks I can find. However, my legs still freeze. It's probably all of that muscle.

Anyway, I can't sleep in pants because they always annoyingly slide up my legs. (I realize this is probably far too much information, but you see how boring my life is that I must tell you about my new sock purchase, so just feel sorry for me, OK? Don't judge.) So now I sleep in these and my life is complete!

[Editor's note: Keep in mind this is a "sexy" picture of aforementioned tube socks. These do not look like this on me, in fact they make all of my thigh fat squish out the top.]

Monday evening I headed over to book club with Teri where I had a fabulous time and learned all about the book that I was supposed to read but never even purchased. If you want to read--you really like the idea of it--but just can't make yourself crack open a cover, I highly recommend joining a book club. Now, if I'm at, say, a cocktail party (although I realize this is unlikely because who in Utah ever really throws a cocktail party?), and someone brings up "Water for Elephants" in a conversation, I feel fully confident that I will be able to discuss the themes of the book even though I didn't ever read it. Thank you, book club! Also, I was able to eat some yummy food, enjoy a delicious glass of wine and hang out with Teri and my fun book club girls. A win, win, win situation.

The rest of this week has been pretty boring. Work is super busy at the moment and Zach is almost done installing the hardwood floors in our bedroom. Which means we have the luxury of sleeping in our living room, on the couch's pull-out bed. Which means I am not getting any sleep but I am feeling very posh since I now have a fireplace and flat-panel TV in my "room."

I'm trying to look on the bright side.