These Boots

Were made for walkin'...

Or maybe not!

Addison loves trying on my shoes and wearing them around the house. I thought it was too cute when she put these boots on because they're half as big as she is. They have a fairly big heel too. She actually did pretty good walking in them, there were just a few times when she stumbled.

The Incredible

BABY HULK!

I got this outfit for Urban to wear to church the Sunday before Christmas. I got it in the beginning of December and didn't try it on him until the morning of church. Well, as you can see, he is busting out of it everywhere. In case you weren't sure, the shirt is supposed to be long sleeved, (not just to his elbows) the pants are not capri's and his tummy is not supposed to be showing like he's a Britney Spears wannabe. I had to keep pulling his little sweater vest down because it kept rolling up over his belly. This was a 0-3 month outfit and he was not quite 3 months yet, and his other stuff that was the same size fit. Oh well! I was still going to have him wear it so it wasn't a complete waste of an outfit, but Jared wouldn't allow it. He said that it was too embarrassing for Urban, and probably pretty uncomfortable too. I suppose he was right. I thought it made for some funny pictures though.

"WE THANK THEE, O GOD, FOR A PROPHET"

President Gordon B. Hinckley

I heard the news last night that President Hinckley had passed away and I felt so many different emotions. At first I was just sad, so sad for our church and the world to lose such an amazing man and prophet. But then I felt so glad for him, I know that he must be so happy to return home to be with his sweet wife. They were always so cute to see together, it was very apparent how much love and respect they had for one another. It will be strange to not see him at the next general conference. I always loved watching him speak and reading his talks. I understood and could relate to his messages and loved hearing his cute little jokes and stories. I am so very grateful to have had such a wonderful prophet to lead and direct our church for so many years. We are truly blessed to be able to celebrate the life of such a strong, noble leader and example.

If you'd like to read more about him, there's a great article on the church's website at www.newsroom.lds.org I found it very informative and interesting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY-O!

I hope your day was a gasser! Sorry, I know I waited until the last minute to do this, but it's about the first minute I've had all day when I wasn't dealing with one of the kiddo's. Everybody else pretty much covered everything in their posts, but I just wanted to let you know how totally boss I think you are. I've gotten a lot from you, including my premature gray hair and my warped sense of humor, but there's plenty of good that comes along with that. You are such a unique person, but that's what I love about you the most. You have the absolute best laugh in the world, it's impossible to explain to people. You use words that haven't been used in decades, but still some how manage to sound cool. You're one of the very few people in the world who is so very proud of your pretty white feet and even make up a song to describe them. You sing songs like Fish Heads and Gene Gene Made a Machine. You some how convince your otherwise intelligent daughter that dead fish will come back to life if you freeze, then thaw them out or to climb into the trunk of a car to see if the light goes off or that I'm catching up to you in age because I'm now more than half as old as your are. And you make women around the world jealous because you can get your hair to do anything you want without any sort of product what so ever. I could go on forever, but it is all of these things and SO MUCH MORE that make you such a great guy and THE BEST DAD EVER. Thanks for being you. Happy Birthday!

Love, Ralph Grandpa with his girls, they just love you!By the way, HAPPY 31st ANNIVERSARY yesterday. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful parents. You guys are such a great example of what a marriage should be and how parents should be. You sure raised a fun family who truly enjoys being with one another. Here's to 31 more years (I know what you're thinking dad, and yes you will still be alive then...you better be)!

Daddy & Addi's Date!

Jared took Addison on her first date on Saturday. For Christmas Addison gave her daddy a date gift package. She gave him a shirt to wear on their date, a gift certificate to Fiddlesticks for a fun activity and a gift certificate to McDonald's for a bite to eat. It was so cute because they were both so excited for their date. All week Jared kept reminding me not to plan anything for Saturday because he wanted to take Addison out. Then on Saturday morning when we told Addison she had to get ready to go have some fun with daddy she was ecstatic. She's so funny when she gets excited about something because she sings everything she says. So she kept singing "I'm so excited, I can't wait to go bye bye with daddy"! She's also quite the little chatter box when she's happy about something, so we could not get her to stop talking or singing about her day. She wanted to wear a cute outfit and she wanted me to do her hair all pretty and asked me to put pretty bows in her hair too. They went to Fiddlesticks first and played some miniature golf, rode a kiddie roller coaster and played lots of games. Daddy won her lots of tickets, she even won some herself, so she was able to get some fun little prizes. Then they headed to McDonald's for some lunch. It was so cute when they got home because they were both so excited to tell me about their day. I'm not sure who had more fun, Jared or Addison? I'm so glad that they were able to do this together. I think we're going to make this a regular thing, maybe once a month or so. I might even try to sneak in a date myself!

Here she is all beautified and ready for her date. Oh wait, one last finishing touch, gotta have the shades!

One final goodbye, then off they go!

We have ourselves...

A THUMB SUCKER!(I got this picture after he fell asleep on tummy time while sucking his thumb. He NEVER falls asleep on his own, but the thumb helped!)

So I'm not too sure what I think about this. On the one hand, a little baby looks so cute sucking his little thumb and it's nice because sometimes he's able to sooth himself in the middle of the night by finding his thumb (which allows for a bit more sleep). Although sometimes he sucks that thing so darn loud it wakes me up anyway! But on the other hand, how do you break a baby from sucking their thumb? It's not like you can take it away like a pacifier and I don't think it would be too cute to see a 10 year old walking around sucking his thumb. Also, I've heard it can do damage to their teeth (once they get them) and I just can't afford those dental bills. Oh well, there's not much I can do about it for now. I guess I'll just focus on how adorable he is and worry about the rest later.

Very Sad!

I don't know if everyone knows this, but we are planning on moving back to Vegas sometime this spring. So we've been looking around a lot for rentals and let me tell you, there are some very shady people out there. It is very sad to me how many scams there are. I would have to say that we've probably come across more scams than legitimate houses for rent and it just infuriates me. Even more than that though, it makes me very sad. I know I'm a fairly naive person, but I like to think that for the most part the majority of people are good, descent people. It breaks my heart to find out how many bad people are willing to take advantage of others, and for what??? MONEY! How pathetic! We came across this one house that sounded a bit too good to be true, but we decided to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He said that he and his wife were in Africa doing missionary work and just wanted to find someone who would take good care of their home while they were away. Luckily we were very cautious and looked into it some more before giving any info or money because needless to say, it turned out to be a scam. I was shocked that someone would go to so much trouble and time to make up such an elaborate lie. We had exchanged several e-mails back and forth and phone calls and it makes me sick that he would use the Lord's work as a way of luring people into a trick. Anyway, I just had to get this off of my chest. Even though we figured everything out I still feel betrayed and taken advantage of. It makes me so sad to know that my children have to grow up in a world where they need to be skeptical of everyone because you never know who's trying to hurt you. I still like to think most people are good, I have to think that, I very much want to think that. I just know that I need to be very careful when dealing with others. This is hard to do without being cynical, but I very much don't want to turn into a cynic.

2-4-6-8

My word is APPRECIATE!

I got this idea from Heather, who got it from somebody else, (you can check out her blog for the link) and I just love it! You're supposed to choose a word that means something to you to represent the year. It's so true too that you don't really pick the word, it picks you. I was reading my scriptures last night and this word just popped into my head and I couldn't get it out. The more I thought about it I realized that it's a great word that can have so many different meanings. I want to more fully "appreciate" and act on this word so it's the one I chose.

I want to appreciate all the sweet little moments that are sometimes taken for granted.

I want to be better about showing my appreciation to others.

I want the value of my house to appreciate so I can sell it! ;-)

I want to appreciate myself and feel appreciated by others.

I want to appreciate my husband and children (obviously I love them more than anything, but I want to truly appreciate them and express it).

I want to appreciate my trials and look at them as lessons that need to be learned and be strengthened by them rather than let them bring me down.

APPRECIATE [uh-pree-shee-eyt]

Function:verb

1 a: to grasp the nature, worth, quality, or significance of (appreciate the difference between right and wrong)b: to value or admire highly (appreciates our work)c: to judge with heightened perception or understanding : be fully aware of (must see it to appreciate it)d: to recognize with gratitude (certainly appreciates your kindness)

2: to increase the value of

synonyms: appreciate, value, prize,treasure, cherish

Although I already knew what the word meant, it seemed even more perfect once I looked it up. I love how it means to "grasp the worth" of something (like other people) and to "appreciate the difference between right and wrong". I love that it's a verb because I need to get better about acting on things. I also love the synonyms because I truly do "treasure" and "cherish" my family and friends. I am very excited about my word for the year and plan to do a scrapbook page to display it somewhere in my house.

A NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! I HOPE YOUR 2008 IS GREAT!

We had a pretty fun New Year's Eve. We decided to invite some friends over to say goodbye to 2007 and hello to 2008, but since we waited until the last minute (Sunday night) only one couple was able to come. We still had a blast though, and there was a ton of food for just the four of us. =) Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures. We just stayed up and talked, ate and laughed, watched some t.v., played Balderdash and laughed some more. Then at midnight we had a sparkling cider toast and kissed our spouses.

Now I always hear people say how dumb they think it is to make new year's resolutions because you just end up breaking them, but I always look forward to making them. I figure that whether you keep them or not you should at least try to set goals to improve yourself, otherwise we just stand still, never progressing. I do not however think the beginning of the year is the only time to do this, it's something we should work on year round.

I've been having a bit of a hard time lately. I have not been happy with myself because I know I could be doing better in so many areas of my life. I really want to try to make some changes so that I feel better and I know in turn this will improve my family's lives as well. So anyway, here are a few of my resolutions.

eat healthy & exercise regularly

These are goals that I set for myself every year and never keep up on. I hate telling people these because they always look at me like "yeah right, you're just saying that for the attention" and really that's not the case! I know that I'm thin, and I don't just say I need to do these things so that people tell me how good I look (trust me I'm not that insecure). I just figure that if I can look this good when I don't eat right or exercise, just think of how great I could look if I did! =) I'm so just kidding, I'm really not that full of myself. Seriously though, just because I'm thin does not mean I'm healthy. I've been lucky so far and been able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want without exercising and it doesn't show, but I'm sure this won't last forever. And I really need to start setting a better example for my children. Jared and I have decided to play tennis at least three times a week. I think this is a great start. I love to play, it's great exercise and it's a nice time for us to do something together. My ultimate goal is to get in shape enough to be able to wear one of those cute little tennis skirts. I think they are so adorable (is this stupid?)!

be more patient

This is something that I really need to work on and I'm sure my children and husband will be very glad that I do. I used to consider myself to be a very patient person, but lately I'm not sure what happened. I think the no sleep thing probably has a lot to do with it. =)

read my scriptures more regularly

I've been really bad lately about finding the time to do this, but I've realized that I need to MAKE the time because I will NEVER be able to FIND it. I really do notice such a difference in my day when I'm doing the things I should be (like reading my scriptures) so I've got to make this happen.

stick to a budget

I'm not quite sure how to plan a budget when you don't even make enough money to pay all of your outgoing expenses, but we have got to figure something out! We have cut down on just about as much as we can but we need to find a way to be more thrifty. We really need to set allowances for things and then stick with it.

don't gossip

This is a very unattractive quality, and I don't want any part of it. I've realized that everybody goes through hard times and bottom line, we're all just trying to do the best that we can and be the best people we can be. There is no point in judging others because we never know their circumstances.

be more affectionate

This may sound kind of dumb, but it's something I've been sad about lately. I've noticed that I'm not always that affectionate towards those I love. Not that I'm cold, but I could be more lovey (and I don't mean in a gag me sort of way). Jared is a very affectionate person and he is so good about showing it towards me and the children. Unfortunately I'm not so good at it and I fear that I'm rubbing off on Addison a bit. I'd much rather her take after her father in this area, so again, I need to become a better example.

Well, I could go on forever but I've probably already bored you all to tears and made you all think I'm the worst mother and wife in the world. Some of these things I've shared are pretty personal, but they're things that have been weighing heavily on my mind lately and I know I can count on you guys for support. I feel that I need to do everything I listed so that I can be a better mom and wife and so that I set a better example for my kids. I want them to grow up to be happy and healthy and better than I'll ever be.

What are some of your resolutions? I'd love to hear about them. Good luck to everyone with keeping up on your goals. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Have a great year!

This Christmas!

Watching the kids open presents.

Being surrounded with family.

Doing something nice for others.

Eating good food.

Spending time with my husband.

Relaxing & laughing.

The feeling of Christmas.

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

and this Christmas was filled with them. We had such a wonderful Christmas and I feel so blessed to be so close to my family. It was so much fun to watch the kids get excited about opening their presents. Well, actually, Urban is still too young to really care and Addison kind of shows enthusiasm like Nick (love ya Nick), but I could still tell that she liked everything and she got more animated later in the morning. It was just nice to all be together and be happy. Later in the evening my mom suggested that we take some goodies to a fire station that is just down the street and I'm so glad that we did. I think we'll make that a new family tradition. The firemen were all so friendly, we had a really good time talking to them. They were so nice they gave Addison stickers and candy canes and told us to come back during the day when it was light out so they could take her on a tour of the fire engine. This is a very pleasant time of year. For the most part people seem to be a bit more compassionate and service oriented, and I wish that was a feeling we could keep all year long.