2008 Q

Quilting


The last two years I have finally learned how to use my sewing machine. I have always wanted to learn how to sew, I figure it is my creative outlet. Some people can paint, others can write poetry, yet others are crafty. I am none of those things, however, sewing I can learn to do. I have really enjoyed it. I have to thank my friend Cori for getting me into it, she convinced me to take a beginners class with her when I was prego with Hunter and now look at me, I always have a project going.

Since we live in Vegas and have little to no need for multiple blankets I decided to make a quilt for each of my sisters and surprise them for Christmas this year. These are the end results. I used only a few different patterns, and they were definitely easy ones, and I finally completed them the week before we left for Memphis ( I started this crazy scheme in April, but I got so caught up in getting our house rented, packing and moving).

I tried to make each one unique and incorporate something about their personalities into the actual quilt.

The top left was for Allie, and you can't tell from the picture, but he green has little pink flamingos embroidered on the fabric. She loves Polo and really digs the seersucker look, so I found something that looked a little bit like that.

The top middle was Amily's. She loves neutral colors and I flat out fell in love with the pattern on the green fabric. She was a little tougher because there is not one specific thing that she really digs, so I went with a neutral I thought she would like.

The top right was for Alyssa. She was like Amily, she doesn't have a specific taste that she leans towards, but she does like color, and I liked this one so much I made one for our house. It was just fun and bright, but not overwhelming.

The bottom left was for Ariane. She loves girly, pretty things and I fell in love with the baby blue/brown flower fabric and searched for a while to find something to compliment it. I loved this one.

The middle was for Aunna. This was the first one that I made and the reason I decided to do a quilt for everyone. I was at my Block-of-the-month class and saw these fabrics on display. I fell in love with them and had to buy them. I didn't know what I was going to do with the finished product and thought, "what the heck, I can make one for all my sisters" and that gave me an excuse to sew and put together some really fun quilts.

The last one was for my Sister-in-law Jessica. She is a super cute girly-girl that digs the cute girly skater look and I saw this and thought of her. I really like how it turned out.

I loved this having this project throughout the year and loved walking the fabric stores, seeing a fabric and it screaming to me, "This one!" I feel like each one of them has a piece of me in them and hope they bring as much joy to my sisters as they did to me.

2008 R and S

Ryan

Since I am going backwards through the alphabet Ryan is the first one of us that gets a posting. Lucky guy, huh! Ryan is doing great, he is still working as the Controller of his uncle's workers comp insurance company. He loves his job and his co-workers. I do too! When we lived in LA we almost never saw each other, he worked between 50 and 80 hours a week and had between a 45 min and a 1 1/2 hour commute, it depended on which job he was working. It was so hard on us, but now he works 40 hours and gets to spend quality time with our family. Madison counts down to when he gets to come home, she looks forward to their time together.

His co-workers introduced him to UFC and he has become quite the fan. Thankfully he has enough friends that watch UFC that we don't have to order the Pay-per-view fights, he just has a guys night at someone's house. I watch the free ones with him and actually really like the reality show (shhh, don't tell him, it gives me leverage when I want to do or watch something he doesn't). He got to attend a UFC fight in February last year and snuck down to the floor seats to watch the entire night of fights. He gets to go to one this year too, I let him have one per year, and Parker gets to go with him this year. Apparently I got him tickets for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me!

Ryan and I team teach the primary at church and really love it. We have the 4-5 year olds and Madison is in our class this year. The kids are so cute and make the best comments. It is amazing how much they know about Christ and His teachings. I always end up learning something from them.

He is such a great dad, I had no idea when I married him that he would be so willing to be involved in our kids lives. I got super lucky there! Everything I do he can do too, which takes so much stress off of me. We have a great little routine going, the kids get up at 7am, which is when he wakes up, he gets to see them and visit with Madison while he gets ready, I get up when he leaves and take over from there. He gets off of work at exactly 5pm and is home by 5:45, which is right when the kids go to bed. I feed them dinner at 4:30 and get them ready for bed so when he gets home we take the kids upstairs, read stories, have prayers and they are both asleep by 6pm. It rocks! Jealous of our kids schedule? Read this book, it changed my life, but it is up to the parents to commit to the schedule, we don't have much of a night life, we don't go anywhere together at nights unless we have a babysitter, which explains why we watch so much TV.

Surgery


This year each member of our family ended up with some type of surgery. None of us have had surgery before so it was quite an experience for our little family to end up with 4 in one year.

Hunter started us off with the normal surgery little boys get. I don't think I need to be more specific with that, let me just say that it about traumatized me, I told Ryan that if we have any more boys he has to take care of it. The Dr. had me in the room feeding Hunter a bottle, I cried the entire time, and if you know me I do not cry very often at all. It was really difficult for me. Poor little guy!

Madison got her surgery in March. What a blessing that has been. She had her tonsils and adenoids out, her tubanates (sp?) shrunk and her ears drained. Thankfully she did not need tubes. She has become a completely different kid, it is amazing how many different problems those things caused. She sleeps much better and she eats so well now, she has gained 8 pounds since March and she looks so much healthier, she looked a little bit like a Holocaust victim, her ribs stuck out so far and nothing fit her. She also speaks softer now and pronounces her words much clearer. The biggest thing for her has been her health. She used to catch every little bug that was out there. She always had a runny nose and about twice a month she got a 24 hour bug where she would throw up for a day. It was awful!

During her recovery she received her first flowers from a boy. It was so cute. Lindsay brought over a little care package for her and she put in a cute card that folded out into flowers in a flower pot. I consider it her first flowers from a boy! She still has them and knows they are from Riley, so thank you Lindsay, it was so sweet of you!

Here are her and Riley playing together. It seems like all of her friends are boys and so she has become quite a fan of swords. Don't worry, she is usually the princess, her friend is the prince and they often end up married after the sword fight.

Ryan was next. Sometime in the summer he had oral surgery. His root canal got infected so they had to drill through his gums to fix it. It was so nasty. I just felt so bad for him because his mouth was swollen for a few weeks and towards the end his cheek was all yellow from bruising. He looked like he had been in a fight!

I had my surgery in October. It was the most minor surgery ever, I got a deviated septum fixed. My nose looks exactly the same, which is great with me, but I was having headaches every day and nothing was working. I tried allergy medicine, migraine medication, sinus everything and nothing worked. I was mainlining coca-cola trying to get through the pain because nothing else even made a difference anymore. I was taking way too much Excedrin migraine. Finally I went to see Madison's ENT guy and he said that fixing my deviated septum, shrinking my tubanates (they are in your nose, I have no idea what they do) and clearing out my sinuses would give me a good shot at getting rid of my headaches. I am happy to say that since my nose healed I haven't had a headache. It is such a relief, it had really started to interfere with my life, I couldn't get anything done!

2008 T, U and V

Tunes

Reading our blog I am sure you can't help but notice our obsession with music. We have definitely passed that on to our children. Madison has figured out how to use my Ipod and regularly will go over and turn the music on. She likes to dance and twirl. She really enjoys listening to Taylor Swift right now, her favorite songs are Love Story and Picture to Burn, which funny enough, are my favorite songs by her, hmmmm. Seriously, who wouldn't love a song that says: "So go and tell your friends I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine, I'll tell mine your gay?" I laughed so hard the first time I heard that line. (BTW, it's only on her album, not on the radio version)

Another line that I just love is from Pink's So What song. Again, how can you not love a song that calls her ex a tool? Sometimes there is just no other way to describe someone, tool works very well in those situations.

Many of you will wonder why I have a Britney song on my playlist (or at least those of you who know me really well and know I can't stand her, she is such a mess), well, let me tell you why....Madison heard Womanizer ONCE in the car, with Ryan of course, I change the stations the moment she comes on, and all day long she wandered around the house playing and singing to herself, "I'm a womanizer, womanizer, wom, wom, womanizer." We both had to leave the room so that she wouldn't see us laughing so hard and wonder why we were laughing at her.

Nothing gets by her.

If you doubt our obsession with music, please review a previous post that lists what we have seen the last two years. We will NOT being seeing quite so many people this next year or two. We now have two houses, that is our entertainment!

For Christmas Madison got 2 musical things from my mother and father. She got a Hannah Montana guitar, she loves it. It has a head set that she can sing into and it amplifies the singing through the guitar, so it is like singing into a microphone. Yep, it's as fun as it sounds. She does love it, and I am just excited she is interested in playing music. She also got a Barbie jeep which has a radio. She rides around the backyard with Hunter and they take turns turning on the radio and seeking through all the stations. She is way too much like me, she is not happy listening to just one stations when there is a possibility that there is a song that you would like to listen to more on a different station. It drives Ryan absolutely mad.

Udder Disbelief

This is one of my favorite stories from this last year that I never had time to blog about. Every other year Ryan's mom raises 2 cows from about April until October and then they slaughter them and we buy a quarter, Ryan's parents keep a half and they sell the rest off to whomever is interested. They were out of town, I can't even remember where now, but the cows got loose and my sweet cousin-in-law blogged about their experience rounding them back up. Read about it here, I couldn't stop laughing, then I called Ryan in to read it and he couldn't stop laughing. Every time I take a piece of meat out of my freezer I think of their wonderful sacrifice to get us our delicious meat. Thank you Brittany, Jason, Cody, Natalie and Grandma Ainge! We would eat a lot of chicken if it wasn't for you!

As a side picture, here is one from our wedding (I can finally put in old pictures now that my dear, sweet hubby bought me a scanner. I couldn't go another year without one). His mom made a cute sign to hang on the barn for us, so of course we had to get a picture. There were no cows or chickens at the house for our wedding, so I didn't worry about getting trampled :) We did, however, stop at Wendy's after our reception, Ryan was hungry (read the story and you will get that reference!).

Videos

I took some really great videos of the kids this last year. I missed so many sweet moments with Madison because I did not realize our camera took videos, (Yes, I am a natural blond), but how was I supposed to know? I even read the booklet that came with it, I just didn't realize I could take them....who knew? Anyway, the one thing I wish I had gotten of Mads was her sneezes. The first few months of her life she would sneeze twice and then sigh. It was the sweetest thing and just melted your heart. I would give just about anything to have gotten that on video....we were so sad when she grew out of it. She just all of a sudden stopped one day to our great sorrow.

So, back to the point of the entry, the videos I got of the kids. Some of them I have published before, some are new. It seems that almost every day Mads comes up to me and asks to have me take a video of her and Hunter. She loves flipping through all the pictures and especially loves the videos of them together. She gets such a kick out of it!

This one is of Hunter swinging, mostly I love it because he keeps laughing when he swings. He was just loving it that day. I think he even laughed so hard he gave himself the hiccups. We took this when we went to Louisiana to see Ryan's grandparents over Christmas. It was perfect swinging weather.

This one cracks us up when we watch it. We went to Lily's birthday party in October and she got a ball from Brado. All the kids wanted to play with it so they were in the grassy area and one of the kids would throw it and the rest would chase it. When one of them ended up grabbing it they would get tackled. They were tackling way more before I got to my camera, but it was so cute watching the kids come up with their own little version of football with the princess ball. It was such a fun night for all of us. We miss having them close by and hope they are enjoying Utah.

What are our other favorites from the past year? Well of course we have to review Hunter pushing Mads around the house, that was too funny to pass up.

We have to watch Hunter walking around the kiddie pool in Hawaii again, he did that for hours on end.

And Madison's preschool graduation, she is just little miss helpful.

Here is my dear, sweet daughter being taught Soulja Boy by my sisters. They are available for babysitting if anyone needs someone, ha ha.

Hunter finally figuring out his sippy cup was a classic. He hasn't done this since, but we sure enjoyed it that night.

Here is a video from when Mads was about a year old or so. She was so in to her food we loved it, so enjoy her Um, Yummy video. Allie and I still talk about it every time we see each other.

Last but not least is little helper Madison getting Hunter for me. This is still a daily occurrence and yet he still regularly gets in to mischief. Apparently that comes from Ryan's side of the family, I was a perfect angel of a child :)

Christmas Letter W-Z

Walking, see also: lack thereof

Hunter is just not that interested in walking yet. He is just so content with crawling, (I am not worried, I could really care less when he walks as long as he is developing fine, which he is). Over Christmas we were sitting on the floor cleaning out some cabinets at my mom's condo and Mads was playing kitchen with some of the cut and bake sugar cookies she and my mom made. Hunter came over and, of course, wanted to eat some. The boy thinks that if anyone else in the room is eating he should be too! So what did we all do? We made him "walk" for it. We made a triangle and he would walk to each of us and get a TINY little piece as a reward. We figured if it works for dogs why not for kids too? So, now he will walk a little bit until he falls and then he crawls to his destination.

Xylitol

This letter is so hard to fill, but I was so happy to find out about Xylitol I had to share with all of you mom's out there. I took Mads to one of her dentist appointments and she had to have a few spots scraped off so they wouldn't turn in to full blown cavities, the hygienist told me about Xylitol to see if that would help in the future. She said that 80% of cavities are gotten by 20% of people, they are caused by a bacteria in the mouth/body and no amount of brushing and flossing can completely get rid of them if you are predisposed to getting them. She recommended getting a form of Xylitol for her, I guess Xylitol kills the bacteria that causes a lot of cavities. So I ran to Whole Foods and grabbed some raspberry flavored mints and gum (my daughter has an obsession with gum, she loves it) and she gets one per day, in addition to brushing and flossing as usual. It hasn't been six months so we shall see if it helps. It is not very expensive and I feel like I am helping her with future pain and discomfort :) Check it out!

Youth

This year was a milestone for both Ryan and I. Ryan turned 31 and I turned 29. One of my sister's, I won't say who *Amily*, talked about how she couldn't believe she had sister's in their 30's. I told her to speak for herself, I wasn't the big 3-0 yet! For those of you confused, I am the oldest, so if I am not in my 30's yet none of us are. Her math is a bit circumspect. She was talking about her boyfriend a few years back and was telling me how she couldn't believe she was dating someone almost 40. I asked her how old he was and she told me 32, but, according to her, 32 is almost mid 30's and that is almost 40. I didn't put too much stock into her comment, it just shocked me a little bit.

I have noticed from talking to some of my friends that it seems 29 and 31 are harder birthday's than 30 is. Needless to say I am not super excited about my birthday this year. I have such a hard time reconciling that Ryan and I are older than the college kids we run into all over the place.

For Ryan's birthday this year we flew to Memphis and he got to go with my dad to the University of Memphis vs. University of Tennessee game and sit in my dad's club level season ticket seats. We were totally bummed that U of M lost, I still claim it was because of free throws, that is my pet peeve with basketball, if you play you should have basic skills down, there is no excuse. If you want to read about our fun adventures that weekend click here for my previous blog post (Just to remind all readers: I had a 2 month old baby in these pictures, so yes, I was fat- it takes me forever to lose it after having a baby). We were also supremely disappointed with their loss to Kansas during the National Championship game. You can see my cute kids dressed in appropriate "Go Memphis!" attire that day here.

For my birthday we stayed in Vegas and got to eat at my favorite restaurant, Morton's. I have eaten some really good food, and I LOVE steak (I also dug Jessica Simpson's shirt and had to put it with this posting) but nothing beats Morton's. Best steak ever, best menu ever to be more accurate. I have eaten everything on it and haven't had anything that wasn't wonderful. They used to have veal and would do it sicilian style, it was incredible. I keep hoping they put it back on the menu. Anyway, back to the story. So we went to dinner and Ryan had told them it was my birthday so they printed a menu especially for me and then the Maitre 'D came by and took a picture of us, printed it out and put it in a nifty little picture envelope. That is where the picture of us comes from. They just do things right there. We only go once a year and last year for our anniversary they offered us liquor as a congratulations. I declined due to pregnancy :)

After the amazing dinner we went to see Mamma Mia! at the theater. We love that musical and I loved the movie too. I didn't think Pierce Brosnan ruined it, he just didn't shine when he sang. Who cares? I don't, the movie really brought the play to life, I was fasinated by it. I love when they make movies from the play. We love Chicago, Rent, and Phantom of the Opera. Chicago definitely tops the list with Mamma Mia! I just love watching them over and over and we don't live in NYC so I can't.

***As a side note... funny story, I was typing out this posting and Mads looked at the picture of Jessica Simpson and asked me if it was Aunna. I told her no, but it does look like her, doesn't it? I thought Aunna would enjoy that one....I think all my sister's are beautiful, but at least Aunna is a little sharper than our dear, sweet Jessica. I am still a fan of hers (JS) even when she leaves her "thinking cap" at home.

Zeta Beta Zeta

Now, for any Greek fans you will recognize this Sorority. This obviously has nothing to do with our life as a family but we are so in love with this show. Ryan and I watch a lot of TV, for a few different reasons. First, it is something we can at least do together, and second, our kids go to bed between 5:30 pm and 6 pm. No, I am not joking. What else are we supposed to do with all of our time together at night? If we didn't have shows to watch Ryan would surf the web and read WAAAAY too much about Guns 'N Roses (have I mentioned that he has become obsessed since their new album came out? He can spend hours in the GNR's chat room) and BYU Football (he also loves the cougarblue sports website). What would I be doing? Probably reading in our room by myself. I already have a hard enough time finding good books to read, I can't imagine what I would do without TV.

What other shows have we discovered this year that we love? Here is my list of our favorites:

Greek - This show is actually much better than I thought it would be, it is not near as risque as many college life shows are. Way to go ABC Family! WE bought season 1 and rented season 2 and watched it during the summer. It's not like there is much else on...except for So You think You Can Dance- we think it kick's Dancing with the Stars trash.

Gossip Girl - I am so glad for the TV strike and Aunna's "gentle" prodding to get me hooked on this show. Ryan and I look forward to it every week.

90210 - Of course we watch this! We loved the original. I am collecting the season's right now. I am up to 5. I figure when 7 comes out season 6 will go on sale. I fell in love with the original when it was aired live, and then fell in love with it all over again when we were in LA for Ryan's internship. He was working full days and I only worked at Chevy's during lunch, from 11 to 2. It did not take me long to discover that FX was showing 4 hours of BH 90210 IN ORDER at 9 am, 10 am, 3 pm and 4 pm. Could it have been any more perfect? We didn't have any money so it's not like I could shop all day, the library wouldn't give me a card because I didn't really live there and I didn't know 1 person in LA. I watched a lot of TV and hung out at the pool in hopes of going back to Utah with a tan- have you seen my skin? That didn't work out too well.

Psych - If you are not watching this show you HAVE to start. We bought seasons 1 and 2 and have gotten almost all of Ryan's family hooked on it. You have to pause the episodes to finish laughing it is so funny. USA hit a home run with this one. We also love Burn Notice on USA, the season premiere was this week, whoo hoo! Thank goodness for DVR.

House - Ryan doesn't watch this one with me, but I love it. Parker and Jessica got me hooked on it, it is an awesome show, except I am a bit disappointed with the story lines of the new doctors. The only one I like is Kal Penn as Dr. Kutner. He is awesome....I could completely do without Thirteen- I fast forward through most of her scenes.

Bones - I can't remember if I started watching this last year or the year before, but I have to say it is my absolute favorite show on TV. If you missed Thursday night's 2 hour premiere, you missed out. The Circus episode was the funniest episode I have watched in months.