SCORE!

Jeff and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary over break. It is hard to believe it has been three years, and yet at the same time it seems like it has always been this way. I can honestly say these have been the best 3 years of my life. Now that is saying something, because I have had a pretty awesome life; in fact I have no complaints. But to be married to my best friend for time and all eternity has brought more joy then I ever thought possible. Now don't get me wrong, we still have our fair share of challenges but it is those challenges that strengthen us and bring us closer together. This past year will forever be especially memorable as it is the year we entered into parenthood together. It has made me realize even more so how amazing my husband is. He really is the best companion anyone could ever have. He is so good to me, far better then I deserve. He doesn't care if he comes home to a messy house, a grumpy child and as a result a grumpy wife and he immediately ...

. . . and I'm not talking about Christmas. There are only a few short days left in my 25 th year. It is kind of blowing my mind and I really and starting to feel old and I cant even believe it! I mean, it certainly isn't a bad thing and I like to think that I have accomplished a lot of great things in my 25 years of living. I am a college graduate, a wife, a mother, and countless other things. It has been a great 25 years and I can honestly say I don't regret any of it! Life is great and I guess I need to stop looking back and look forward to the next 25 and hopefully they will be even better!

I know this might seem silly, but I am so excited about the new Gospel Principles manual that we will be studying in RS for the next 2 years! I saw it in the Ensign last night as I was reading and I really did get so excited! I've been wanting to get a Gospel Principles manual for personal study, FHE, etc. for a while now and now I get one and we are using it in church too. I cant wait!! These manual lessons have been my favorite for years! I love studying the teachings of the prophets too but I must say I think it is a great thing that we are going back to the basic principles for a while. It will be a great reminder for me! I only wish I was still a RS teacher, I love teaching in Relief Society! Well, since we will be using this for 2 years, I guess I might have a chance in there, who know what our new ward will bring when we move. Anyway, just wanted to say I am excited!

Ok, so I actually started this post a YEAR ago. No I am not joking the exact date was Dec. 16th. And this story is mainly for our future entertainment as we look back at this little journal of sorts I have. But I hope some of you will still read it and tell me that we are not horrible horrible people for thinking this is so funny!! Now before I share this little story with you, let me give you some background. A while ago (3 years) Loyd Newell (Some of you may know him as the voice of the Tabernacle Choir) was doing a book signing at Costco for this book full of stories to read at Christmas. It is called "A Christmas Treasury: for Latter-day Saint Families." I flipped through the book and saw that he had come up with 25 topics, one for each day in December until Christmas. Me in my first year of marriage was so anxious to start our own family traditions I thought this would be a great one! Each night we could read aloud about the true meaning of Christmas and hear wonderful s...

Verdict, Snow Wins!! Ha Ha!! As you can see, this made me laugh pretty hard. At first I just laid him down in the snow and he was so bundled he couldn't even move. I decided to sit him up for the video, thought it was a good idea. How quickly I forgot that he doesn't want to sit still. He attempted to crawl, but the snow was so deep his arms sunk right in and caused his face to hit the snow. I wish I would have gotten a better shot of it, but I couldn't just let him suffer. If you look closely despite my bad filming you can see it on his face. Anyway, good times. We'll have to try again soon. Parker Snow Angel Trying to figure out what this weird stuff is. Not too impressed.

9 Months Stats Weight: 21.5 lbs Height: 29 inches Head: 98% percentile (I seriously see1 year olds that have a smaller noggin then this kid!) He really is a little giant! At the playgroup we go to, two of my friends have kids with in one and two weeks of Parker and he just is a beast compared to them. lol. It is fun though! I am still amazed at how quickly he is developing his motor skills. He is quite above average in this department which I'm not quite ready for, but I guess I better get ready because he does not slow down for anything! I guess one benefit is that since I'm chasing him around all day it is helping me keep my weight down for this pregnancy, HAHA! He is such an active little boy! As you can see below, he wont even sit still for 5 seconds for a picture! So our 9 months shots didn't come out very well just because he just wanted to move and play. This is probably the best one I got . . . O-well. I was at target a couple of weeks ago and they had litt...

This has always been one of my favorite hymns for many reasons. But the last few years it has been for the same main reason. It is such a perfect reminder for me to trust in the Lord. Now, I like to think I do a fairly good job of this on a regular basis, but every once in a while I get a reminder from Heavenly Father that I do not need to know everything right now. All I need to know is that no matter the problem, no matter the circumstance, He will provide a way. I have gained such a great testimony about this which has really helped me to rely and trust in my Father in Heaven and that alone has brought me so many blessings!! So as you might have guessed, Heavenly Father recently sent another little reminder to trust in Him. It all started when we found out I was pregnant, again; without insurance, again; with no money, again. You can see why I might be a little stressed about it and why I might have gone to my Heavenly Father and pleaded for Him to tell me how it would all wor...

Well SURPRISE!! It is coming back! Believe me, we are just as surprised as you are! We are excited! We are nervous! And we have no clue how it will all work out, but this is Heavenly Father's plan for us right now and we know that it will all be ok. To answer a few questions that I'm sure are running through your mind: Baby #2 is due May 31, 2010 No, this was not planned We will be staying in Utah a few extra months after Jeff graduates to have the baby I am feeling great and am already in my second trimester Parker and his little sibling will be about 15 months apart (YIKES! That's what scares me most! But they will be best buddies!) We will find out the gender in January I am already starting to feel the baby move We have already had one ultrasound to find out how far along I was and the baby is very healthy and it's heart is beating strong. Any other questions . . . I think that about covers it. If you have any others, please feel free to ask, I'm an open bo...

Macey's, a grocery store here, does this awesome thing every November. As you purchase your groceries, you earn Turkey bucks which are good only until Thanksgiving to go toward the purchase of a Turkey. Well, this year since our family isn't coming out, we took it very seriously. We pooled together with our friends that we are having Thanksgiving with and we ended up getting a 23.37 lbs Turkey for FREE!!! And that is how you do it folks!! This made me even more excited for Thanksgiving. It will be such a blast! We will certainly miss having our family around, but it will be fun to celebrate with friends. So needless to say, this year I am grateful for many things, and one of those things is our FREE TURKEY!!! Hope you have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!

Here are some of the Wee One's new tricks! Among these he can also: Use his Pincer Grasp Feed himself bottle and snacks Do a silly laugh Pull himself to stand Follow mom and dad Always Make us Smile! (FYI, the first video is long, but the others are only about 20 seconds) Just talking and Playing Cruising around the table Clapping! Crawling Faster

Is it time for these pictures AGAIN!! Fine, I'll stand here but I don't have to smile. Here is one of my new tricks, Lizard Tongue! Here is me telling mom stories, as I show off my "grill" (aka Teeth)! This is my new favorite thing to do, Laps around the coffee table. He really is getting more and more fun each day! This is such a fun stage! He really makes me laugh EVERYDAY!!! He is still very talkative and EXTREMELY mobile these day. He sure knows how to get into every thing. We are kind of worried that he is going to start walking soon. His favorite thing to do is laps around the coffee table which is now turning into laps around the house. Each day he gets more and more courage and transfers from one object to another. I'll put him at the table and next thing I know he is in the Kitchen. YIKES!! I am so not ready for walking, but it is coming soon. Life he great! He is such a blessing and adds so much joy to our home!! Recent news: He just cut ano...

So about a year ago we decided to do a group Halloween costume with a bunch of friends. Jeff and I have never really gotten into the whole Halloween dress up thing. I always had good intentions, but it was like pulling teeth to get Jeff to do something with me. But this year was different, we were so excited, especially Jeff which made me chuckle. He started looking to things at the start of September! And he went ALL OUT as you can see!! I had a hard time finding something, but ended up just borrowing a dress from a friend (thanks Rachel!) As you can see, all in all it turned out great!! Mr. Green - Colonel Mustard - Professor Plum Mrs. Peacock - Miss Scarlet - Mrs. White We went to the ward Halloween party and were a huge hit! We won best group costume which was fun! Jeff and I had to work at our apartment clubhouse Halloween night, so after the ward party we invited some friends over to play games. It was a blast! We of course played CLUE since we were all dressed up. We also p...

We had a hard time deciding what we wanted to dress Parker as for Halloween. We originally were going to have him be part of our group costume (the Clue crew) and dress him as Mr. Body but we hard a hard time finding a skeleton costume for a 8 month old. I also had imagined him dressing up all cute and adorable as most babies do. So we hunted and hunted and never really fell in love with anything in particular but decided that since we call him our little monkey we would just dress him as that. Now that he is crawling it seemed to fit even more! He is crawling around and getting into every thing so a Monkey he was! Unfortunately his huge noggin was too big for the head piece, so it kind of just rested on top. Needless to say, his is the CUTEST little Monkey I have ever seen!! This is his trick of the month, we call it his Lizard tongue, he sticks it out like this all day! Too funny! I love it! He really likes to stand on his own lately, so I stood him up next to some decorati...

Now don't be concerned, we are all doing just fine. This depression has to do with one thing and one thing only . . . IT's SNOWING!!! I am so NOT ready for the snow, especially now that I have a child. We will really be stuck inside now. Which is a shame, because sometimes you really just need to get out. I love being outside, and so does the P. How do you stay at home mom's function during the winter? Really, what do you do? Do you just go visit other stay at home moms? Do you bundle your child up and brave the snow? Really, what is a mother to do!!!?? On a plus side, it is pretty and I like that, but that is about it. I cant wait to get back to sunny California!!! LAST WINTER IN UTAH, WOO HOO!!!

So these clips are from at least 3 week's ago, I have just been slacker blogger and I apologize. But I figured some might still enjoy watching. This was his first forward progression. He is an EXPERT backwards crawler and likes to get himself stuck under tables and chairs. Going forward it not his favorite, but he gets better every day! Enjoy!

Honestly . . . this cant be true, but I guess the calender doesn't lie. If you thought time went by fast before, just wait till you have kids! It just FLIES. Anyway, my little man is 7 months and this is possibly my favorite so far! He is so stinking cute! Everyday I am in awe that he came from me and that he is mine forever. Having kids is so much more fun then I thought it would be. He makes me laugh everyday. It is so awesome to watch him learn and grow. I love his laugh, his smile, his everything. Now I have a better understanding of why we are to multiply and replenish the earth and find joy and rejoicing therein. Now don't get me wrong, of course there are challenges, but the positives completely outweigh them! So here are a few of my favorite things about the P right now: His adorable bottom 2 teeth His interest in literally EVERYTHING How he growls How he squeals How he LOVES too look at other babies both in person and pictures and he gets so excited it is so ...

This is what one of our friends says anytime you make a good purchase. So this is going to be a post about all of the items I am SO glad we got for the wee one. I figure I have a lot of friends who are also starting families and they might benefit from knowing what I could not live without! So here goes. BUMBO! The amazing all purpose chair. When the P was just a few months old, he just wanted to watch and see what I was doing. I would sit him in this up on the counter and he just loved to observe. It was perfect when he was not strong enough to sit on his own, it gave him support and still gave him the ability to use his arms and turn his head. Now we still use it. Mostly to feed him solids, but I use it for other things too. He still doesn't know how to get out of it, so anytime I want him to be still and just play it is perfect! I love this chair! Rubber Ducky This is our most recent purchase and I LOVE it! For the first 5 months or so we just brought the P into the ...

Hey Friends, I have never really shared a recipe on here before, but I appreciate when other people do so here goes. This recipe is SOOOO easy and it really was super yummy! I got it out of the "Worldwide Ward Cookbook" my mom got me last year. Salsa Chicken Ingredients: 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast per person, frozen (I used 4) Bottled or homemade red salsa (I don't even know what kind I used, it was a small bottle and Tostitos brand and was chunky) Salt and pepper to taste flour tortillas Lettuce, chopped Cheddar cheese, shredded Sour cream green onions, sliced black olives, sliced In a Crock-Pot, layer frozen chicken breast with salsa. (You don't need to completely cover the chicken with salsa; just smear a little pile on each piece of chicken. I did however use the entire jar for ours) Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook all day on low (we probably only cooked ours 4-5 hours). Before serving,shred chicken with a couple of forks. To serve place a smal...

So this is a little late, but still post worthy. We had a fun, yet relaxing Labor Day this year. We slept in, played Ultimate with some friends, and then cooled off at the pool. It was a beautiful day. Lindsey, Parker and I hung out while the boys played an intense game of water basketball which was a blast. Below are some awesome action shots. It was a great day! The only sad thing about it was that it meant Summer was officially ending.