The Real Meaning of Christmas

I loved this video, especially told from the viewpoint of a child. Please watch it!

Happy 27!!

Adam turns 27 tomorrow. That's right, he can no longer claim mid 20s, he is now in his late 20s... old man :) I met Adam when he was just barely 22. Five years might not seem very long, but sometimes it's hard for me to remember life before Adam. My life is definitely much better with him in it. I consider myself very lucky to be married to such a wonderful person. I'm grateful for his VERY young heart (sometimes I tell people that he's my third child), it helps me keep things in perspective. He doesn't have to make himself play with the kids, he just does it because he likes to :) He works very hard for us and he rarely complains about anything. Sure, I like to poke fun at him and call him nerdy and laugh about his love for video games, but he takes it well. Thanks for the past 5 years, love.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


p.s. a little better shot of the cake... adam was nice enough to let me make him a charlie brown cake for him this year

A Few of my Favorite Things

In tribute to the holiday season and my love for all things Christmas, I thought I would take a moment to tell you all "A Few of my Favorite Things". Perhaps it's also in tribute to my old friend Oprah (we broke up a few years ago due to a difference in morals and beliefs) who does her annual My Favorite Things episode... even though I can never afford any of the products.
So here we go, in no particular order.

The Pilot


I was worried that making this purchase was a little extravagant when we first bought it. We could afford it, but it still felt a little too luxurious :) However, I don't know that there's a single day that goes by that I don't think about how grateful I am for this car. Sure, we've only got 2 kids, we could squeeze them into a sedan, but it sure makes grocery trips, vacations, and large item maneuvering a breeze. I love it. And it has leather heated seats. Every mess wipes right off and I love heated seats when I'm pregnant. Weird? Yes. All pregnant women have weird things like that.

My Foundation


I love this foundation. It's water based, so it feels weightless and it moisturizes well. And it's only $7 (at Walgreen's, anyway)!

Satin Ice Fondant


I've sworn to never ever ever ever use homemade marshmallow fondant EVER again. This stuff is about 5 billion times better. I used to get so frustrated trying to figure out why my cakes wouldn't have that flawless smooth look like professional cakes do. Turns out they use this stuff, although I've heard Massa Grischuna is the best, but their smallest fondant order would cost me close to $100. Little pricey for me (or a lot pricey), even if it is 13 pounds of fondant... I'm just not sure how well it would store. I have yet to use Fondx, ChocoPan, or Fondarific, all of which I've heard are even better than Satin Ice, but I really do love this stuff. I can find it here in Vegas too, so I don't have to pay my life savings on shipping.

Water/Ice Dispenser


Ok, so this thing has been a blessing and a curse. It's wonderful to have because we all drink a little more water in our house because it's just so convenient. However, Hallie also likes to fill numerous cups and bowls up with it to slurp out of like a cat, only to dump it all over the floor. Oh well, at least my kitchen floor gets mopped on a regular basis.

2 car garage
I don't have a picture of our garage and I'm too lazy to go take one right now, but I love having a 2 car garage, or just a garage at all. We've become so used to going outside when it's raining or snowing and scraping off ice and snow. We live in Vegas now, so we don't really have to worry about the snow, but we do get nasty gusts of wind... and we live in the desert, so we get a lot of dust. It's just nice to have a little extra storage space too. I think that might have been our most favorite thing about getting a house :) (We have yet to put in a yard, but I'm sure that will be the new favorite once it's in)

The CHI


What an inspired product. This thing has saved me hours of time over the one year time span I've had it. Love it. It's a little more expensive, but I promise, it's well worth the money. My mom has the GVP brand which is cheaper, and she says she likes it just as much, so it's definitely something to look into if you're interested.

Mint.com


I'm the budgeter of the family. I feel like I'm a pretty serious budgeter too. I check it 2-3 times a week to make sure we're on track and I always know where all our money is going at all times. We've got our money in 5 different places, 3 different credit cards that we use regularly, the mortgage, and some student loans. All this can become really overwhelming if it's all with different companies and banks. However, mint.com will bring it all together for you, for free!! It takes a little to set it all up, but you'll never regret it once you do. It sends you emails reminding you to pay off credit cards, you can set up a budget for every category, it gives money saving tips, it shows ALL your transactions from all your different accounts on one page, it's a very secure and safe way to keep track of your money, and the list goes on. In short, it's marvelous. Do it. Now.

Christmas


I'm in love with Christmas. I love the lights, the music, the parties, the food, the gingerbread houses, the shopping, the cold weather (only until Christmas though, after that I want it to hurry up and get warm), the hot chocolate, the bell ringers, the magic, everything. I love it all. It makes me sad when people complain about the decorating or the hussle and bustle. To me, you do it all because you're celebrating the birth of Christ and to show other people you love them. I still wake up early on Christmas morning, it's still super exciting to me to see all the presents and stockings stuffed to the brim. I'm really really excited to go up to Idaho this year. I love my family, and I miss them.

My Hubby


There he is. The man that keeps me sane. He's my anchor in life. When the kids are driving me insane and the house is a disaster and I just want to run away, he helps me pick myself back up and gives me the courage to keep going, even if I don't want to. He wakes up with the kids every morning at 6:30 (or earlier) so I can get some extra sleep, and he always does his best to be home as much as he possibly can. He works hard for us, and he puts up with me, which is saying something :)

The Kids


I love my kids. Sure, they cause most of the stress in my life, especially the older one there, but I still love them. My life centers around them. I do what I do because I have kids. I love all the cute things Hallie says, and despite all the frustration she causes me, she has a good little heart. Ashton is impossible not to love. He loves all people. He's my little snuggle-kissy-food-eating-fat boy. I have great kids :)

the kidlets

I was putting up a photo frame collage on one of the walls in our house and needed some extra candid shots of the kids. So we packed them up and headed over to the Morris' to use their uber camera. Here's some of the goodness.

Roller Toasters and Hiccups

We had a very fun week! On Wednesday we made the trek down to Disneyland with Adam's family. The kids (especially Hallie) had a GREAT time. Hallie was always asking to go see Mickey or Minnie, ride on a "roller toaster" or the "hiccups" (aka teacups). The girl takes after her dad for sure. Adam and Hallie like to go crazy and do lots of things all the time while my favorite parts of any vacation is the relaxing, sitting in the hot tub, drinking hot chocolate, not having to cook or clean parts. Let's face it, I'm just the lazy terd while they're the go-and-doers. I have a feeling Ashton might be more like me. His favorite part of Disneyland was eating. I had never met a child that loves to eat more than Ashton until I saw this picture at the Anne Geddes store in Downtown Disney...



This kid takes the cake... and eats it too. He truly is fatter than Ashton, which is quite a feat in and of itself.

Anyway, here's some pictures of the kids at Disneyland!


Who thought that Hallie would be afraid of Mickey? Not I!





Naturally Ashton's first stop at Minnie's house was the fridge. He was a little upset when he found out that the food wasn't real.


Hangin' out with "Grampy"


I actually got part of my inspiration for Ashton's Cars cake from some other person's blog standing by this exact same Mater.


And of course, what would Disneyland be without Goofy?

We got back into town Saturday night just in time to hurry and change into costume and go Trick or Treating. I still need to get pictures from the actual Halloween night from the Morris' but here's one from our Trunk or Treat night with the ward earlier in the week.


We bummed our costumes off Adam's family. Hallie was pretty excited to be a kitty after becoming obsessed with my Mom's cat when we visited earlier in the month. Ashton was rather indecisive about his costume so he was a lion for Trunk or Treat and Superman for Halloween.
All in all, it's been a pretty fun week for everyone! We all just have some catching up on sleep to do and hopefully Adam won't be too far behind on his studying :)
(....right)

It's OK to eat the cake!

Many people have told me that they would feel guilty eating one of my cakes. It's true, a lot of time and love goes into my cakes, but if you DON'T eat them, they will rot, disintegrate, and just be nasty in a month or two. So PLEASE, EAT THE CAKE. After all, it's meant to be eaten. If you are still finding yourself a little nervous about taking the initial plunge, may I provide a brief visual tutorial.

Part 1. Seeing the cake for the first time, and feeling a sense of guilt knowing that it will soon be destroyed.






Part 2. The Birthday Boy


Part 3. Deciding what to eat first... (Mater or McQueen?!? It's so hard to choose, Mom!!)


Part 4. THE PLUNGE, YUM!


Part 5. Basking in the Deliciousness (No, he's not hemorrhaging from the mouth, it's food coloring)


Part 6. The casualty


The End.
Hopefully this little tutorial has settled some of your nerves about eating these cakes. I promise, they really are very good, and as long as you get a lot of fabulous pictures, you won't feel guilty for eating the cake.

Despite Ashton's grumpiness and refusal to smile for any of the pictures, his birthday was a success. I can't believe my little boy is already one! Happy Birthday, Buddy!! Mommy and Daddy love you tons!

Trip to IDAHO

Last week the kids and I went up to Idaho for a much needed love-cation. Since the move to Vegas, I have been a bit upset about my new surroundings and have really been missing my family. I knew Adam could use the time to work in some overtime or study, so we took off to the cold but oh-so-wholesome land of Rexburg. We had a fantastic time while we were there. Hallie and Tate got along great and rarely fought, Ashton eventually warmed up to the place and Hallie found her new best friend, the "kitty" (apparently my family doesn't wish to become too emotionally connected to the cat, which is why she doesn't have a name). We also got to meet our new cousin/niece, Sydney! What a CUTIE! (and such a nice baby)
It was just wonderful to be with my family and to know that they're always there for me, even if I am far away.



Sydney... love that expression, looks like she's trying to embrace her inner Elvis.


You can never get them to all look at once, so this is about as good as it gets. GO TRIBE


Hallie and Tate doing their favorite exercise... jumping off the fireplace. However, this exercise appears to be a gateway to other, more dangerous practices, such as jumping off the table, jumping off the couch ONTO the table, and so on, so close attention is required.

We had such a wonderful time! Thanks family, for such a great trip (hopefully the kids didn't destroy the house too much)! Can't wait to see you at Christmas!

BYU v UNLV 2009

So, I was able to go to the BYU/UNLV game this w/e. I had a pretty good time and awesome seats. My dad was able to secure 2 row seats on the 35 yd line! ...not too shabby.

Anywho, I brought along my parents uber-camera, unfortunately, I failed to bring the uber-lens. I got a couple decent snaps here and there, but being a night game, the lighting wasn't ideal enough to get some good action shots.

ENJOY!

Game ON! CHALLLLLANGE!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaBTaok3qG0 )
 

Here’s some ACTION FOR YOU! This was the best, non-blurriest action shot of the night for me…what a budding photographer am I!
 

UNLV’s coaching staff has recently decided that recruiting high-school students wasn’t nearly as effective as recruiting Wild BEASTS! Yeah…and this one is lickin’ his chops. He must be hungry, like Julius PEPPERS!
 

Another recruiting strategy UNLV adopted, Mr. T! I got no time for the jibba-jabba!
 

Who needs Mr. T, when you can have KISS!
 

[meow]
 

Jake and Matty...Matty is pretty much a celebrity at the football games. He frequents the scoreboard with his wicked sick dancing movezzz.
 

-ADAM

50th Birthday!

My dear father-in-law just turned 50! My mother-in-law asked me to make a cake for his birthday in exchange for watching the kids all day for me. That was a fantastic trade-off for me, so how could I say no (I LOVE my kids, but it's just nice to have a break occasionally, ya know)? Anyway, he's quite the runner, he just ran St. George last week, so I made a cake to show off his talent.

A new 'do?

I need a haircut, BAD. Haircut time is always exciting for me, I like to try new things. However, I still don't know of a good stylist in Vegas and I don't want to pay more than $30 for a cut. So the first obstacle will be finding a good stylist (I prefer people that specialize in shorter hair) that fits my budget.
So until I figure that out, I need to find a cut!

Should I go with the trim and keep the cut I have?





Go back to the Victoria Beckham asymmetrical cut?



Try out this cute cut?







Or grow it out? (Not likely, I have no patience)

The Chaos Continues

I told myself I wouldn't post until my life settled down a little bit. Then I realized today that that will probably never happen, so I post now as I have just cleaned the entire house (it's still not perfect, but it's "clean"), haven't showered, and have a to-do list 8 miles long.

The move went well! Thanks so my awesome uncle and aunt who were divinely inspired to call us to see if we needed help moving, the process went quite smoothly. We left apartment living on Tuesday, August 5, and moved into our house on Thursday, August 7. It's so different having 2.5 times more living space than we're used to, and our own yard. The house is never clean (I'm so glad we opted for a smaller home) but I love the extra space. We've become quite the DIY-ers by painting the front living area... twice (didn't look so good the first time around), painting the banister and front door, finishing our kitchen table, putting in under cabinet lighting (still in progress) and painting our new entertainment center (also still in progress). I've been shopping like a crazy woman trying to make the house look more like a home and things are starting to come together nicely. Here's some before and after shots for ya.

BEFORE


AFTER

The stuff on the end table in the corner still needs a home and I need some drapery on the windows, but otherwise, it's lookin good!

BEFORE



The whole table was finished in this light color (not my favorite) and had a lot of dings and chunks scraped out, but after our little staining escapade...

AFTER




BANGARANG! Love the darker stain. We still have to do the chairs, but I'm saving that for when I have more patience (this project takes A LOT of work)

The Banister and Door
BEFORE
White and colorless (sorry, I don't really have a good before picture, you can see a little bit of the railing in one of the above "before" pictures)

AFTER

Beautiful chocolate brown railing and green door. Yes, we're missing a white banister piece, and no, I can't seem to find them anywhere.

And finally, just some other pictures...

The color I'm painting my new TV stand and hutch. I'll also be putting a brown glaze on the edges to give it more depth.
P.S. if you're ever shopping for an entertainment center, buying a TV stand and hutch separately will save you some major money. If they don't match, like mine, just repaint or refinish it yourself.


I LOVE that the fridge came with a water/ice dispenser. Divine.


My refinished coffee table that I found at DI. Love the old antique look it has.

Next, we had our friends Kristin and Cameron visit us last weekend! We had a blast with them, they're the greatest. Since I'm a terrible picture taker, I didn't get any pictures with them, but I did get some of the kids at the Town Center playground/water park.





We went to an outlet mall on the border of Nevada and California which had some AWESOME outlet stores... Gap, Old Navy, Children's Place, Banana Republic, Hollister, Williams Sonoma, and there were more, we just had to please the kids. Anyway, best outlet mall I've ever been to (even better than Patomac Mills in VA, which is supposedly THE OUTLET... sorry Patomac Mills, you've been demoted). Anyway, I saw a really cute cake mold at Williams Sonoma that would be perfect for Ashton's birthday, but my inner budgeter told me not to buy it. The last morning Kristin and Cameron were here, Cameron disappeared (telling me he was going to get something to surprise Kristin) and came home with the mold!!! I couldn't believe it. Not only was it super nice of them to get it for me, but the outlet was 40 minutes away!!! ONE WAY!! That's almost an hour and a half of driving! That's love. You guys are too awesome for words.



Finally, Monday night Adam asked me if I would make his 15 yr old brother a birthday cake since his mom was out of town. Problem was, his birthday was the NEXT DAY. But I never turn down a decent opportunity to make cake. So I thought and looked around for ideas. For those of you who are blog stalkers, you may know where I got this cake idea, and since I was in a pinch, I felt no remorse for copying someone else's creativity. The kids were pretty neglected on Tuesday as I tried to finish the cake, but they put up with me pretty well. You should see the mess I made though. It was IMPRESSIVE. I'm not the cleanest person by nature (I like to blame it on a creative mind) so if I think something's messy, it must be pretty bad, and it was just about the worst. Ashton found an "empty" can of frosting (yes, I cheated and bought the boxed stuff, I only had 20 hours to put together an entire cake, get 8 hours of sleep and take care of 2 demanding children), but he seemed to clean out the dregs pretty well. Here's what I found after 10 minutes...



After cleaning him up and putting on some finishing touches, I ended up with this beauty...





Yay! It was fun to make. Anyway, that's been our last 6 weeks in a nutshell. Now I need to go prepare my talk for Sunday, ahh!
Ciao

Angels & Spray Cans

Well, you might think this is the third installation of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code...sorry, not quite that suspenseful.

But, after a fun afternoon in Park City we had a trusty nail or two place itself in our back tire, and it was cause for celebration!...or not, b/c our tires still have acorn wheel locks on them (at least until tomorrow morning), and we are without key (a special keyed lug-nut puller). Add that to the fact that we were in Heber, UT on a Monday evening at 8 PM =]

...actually, I'm rather grateful we made it to Heber, about halfway between Park City & Heber, our little tire pressure indicator went off, so I pulled over and sure enough our back tire was hissing out air at a pretty decent rate. We still had decent tire pressure so I figured we ought to try and get down the hill. And with a prayer or two, we did. AFter seeing that there was ZERO chance of finding any auto-shop open, or at least still occupied by workers...I was able to procure one of these bad boys at Smith's.


Long story short it worked! I just don't want to be the guy that has to fix the flat in my tire tomorrow, I'm going to bet it will be a nasty job. I don't recommend these little cans if you can avoid it...but since I couldn't take my tire off to put on the spare, and there was ZERO chance of getting a mechanic to look at it, this worked very well.

So thank goodness for Angels & Spray Cans!

Family Pictures!!

My awesome cousin Breanne just took some pictures of the fam. They turned out great! If anyone comes to visit us in Vegas, these pictures will DEFINITELY be up around the house.






Look at that cute husband I have!


Haha, I love this picture of Hallie.

Happy Life

We've been having a lot of fun the past few weeks. We went to Vegas end of June/beginning of July, then the kids and I went to Idaho for a few days right after that, then Lindsey, Stu and Tate came to hang out with us for a weekend and we got to go up to see the Amazing Alec. Then we partied all day for Pioneer Day. Sadly, we only got pictures in Vegas (already posted) and on Pioneer Day (below).
We're getting all ready to move now! Our front room is growing with boxes by the day and I'm right on schedule to get everything done as stress free as possible. Adam's been doing an amazing job of getting up with the kids in the morning, studying, working, getting all the paperwork done on the house, fixing up the scooter to sell it, and finding the best deals on insurance for us once we move to Vegas. He's super amazing. The big day is next Thursday and Adam starts work the following Monday. Real world... here we come!!









Hallie and I getting ready to play the Joseph Smith Tug of War game (I'm sure it has a more official name, but I think Joseph Smith would appreciate this game being named after him, he was the best at it, after all)


Hallie desperately trying to beat Mommy.


Mommy wins this time! Maybe next time, babe.
(look at that tricep!! ow ow! all thanks to a 25 pound 9 month old!)


What would a post be without this handsome blondie? Especially with a piece of grass hanging off his chin :)

Sugar and spice and everything nice?

I challenge that little nursery rhyme...

I have scientific proof that Children are not made of sugar, nor spice, nor everything nice. They are made of love and crumbs.

Thursday, Whitney had a haircut appointment, and I had some errands to run, so I took the kiddos with me for a few hours. I transferred the car seats from Whit's car to mine, and we commenced our car-fixing, scooter-fixing, car-washing, Hallie-inhaling-a-McDonald's-cone-watching, once-there-was-a-snow-man-listening, afternoon. It was grand. And the best part, the kids were great, I didn't have to bribe the kids with anything while we were driving around (not one piece of food...especially nothing that produces crumbs).

[sidenote] Since we got the second car, it is amazing to me how clean my car has remained. I don't ever have to vacuum it, unless something crazy happens, like having to take Cookie Monster to the store, because he wanted some Oreo Cakesters[/sidenote]

So, the day was over. We unloaded, went home, saw our beautiful mommy/wifey and had some scrumptious dinner. The next morning, I unsuspectingly went out to put the car seats back in Whitney's car. To my surprise, after returning the car seats, I went back to close the doors and lock up the car, only to find that my ever-immaculate back seat was now full of CRUMBS! Tens and hundreds of little specimens! Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking...well, you're wrong. My kids really ARE made of crumbs. Ashton is always trying to gnaw on Hallie's delectable little fingers, not to mention his constant efforts to afford himself a few strands of her hair. Who needs the scientific method?

So, Hypothesis: Children are made of crumbs. Proof: my kids shed crumbs like dandruff, and yours do too...and dogs like to lick little kids' faces, because they are delicious.

Insane

Last Monday night we had a couple over after FHE. We got to talking about homes and they told us that the average home price in Detroit (where they are from) is $10,000! That's right, my friends, I did NOT forget a zero... ten thousand bucks, that's it. I didn't believe them at first, but I googled it, and it's true!! Now, with the Federal Tax Credit of $8,000 for first time home buyers, that puts a person at $2,000 that they would owe of their own hard earned money for the house. Most people could pay off their house in a month!! So then I decided that I needed to check out these houses. So I went to the old trusty realtor.com and looked them up. Sure enough, the cheapest house I found in Detroit was going for $25... and the REALLY funny part is that they wanted a $1000 earnest money deposit!!!!!! I found that ridiculously hilarious (for those of you who don't know what EMD is... it's a check you sign over to the bank that indicates you're really serious about buying the house, even though the check is never cashed... it's their way of not letting you back out after the bank works with you on the whole closing process. If you do back out last second though, they can and will cash the check).
Then I decided it would be fun to look at houses there in our price range. Now, my absolute favorite houses in the world are really, really, really old houses. They have so much character and history, I just love them. So when I stumbled across this house, I almost died. Take a look...










I think the decorating could have been done better... in an old house, you HAVE to go all antique with the furniture, but I LOVE the house!! Even BETTER, it's actually a 2 unit house, and you get BOTH units, all for less than $730 a month! Too bad we're not moving to Detroit!

Addage:
....eh, yeah, too bad...

-Hubby

Living the Dream

It's official!! One of the homes we made an offer on a bazillion years ago (or 3 weeks ago that feels like a bazillion years) was accepted!! We paid a little more than we originally anticipated, but the home was first purchased for $279,000 and we're paying less than half that! We now have 2 kids... a girl and a boy, an SUV and a home (pending inspection pass). All we need is a dog and we'll be living the American Dream to its fullest! Below are some pictures of the cute little thing we're moving into. I'm sure there will be plenty of before and after pictures once I let my decorative capacities explode all over the place, but for those itching to see what we got, here she is.








We're not real sure what this rock river is in the back yard, but it has SO much more back yard than most of the houses we've seen, so we'll take it... and take OUT the rock.

A Trip to Vegas

Sorry for such a delay in posting... I'm actually leaving to go up to Idaho this week, so I knew I had to squeeze something in before I left again. We were in Vegas the past 10 days looking for a house and visiting family! The house hunting was insane and basically, we still don't know if we have a house yet, but we should be finding out this week. Basically it's a bidding war housing market, so after the first two days of looking around, we had to look for cheaper houses so that we could bid them up 10-20 thousand. Insanity. Then we decided to stick around for the fourth since Taylor and Stasi were coming down. Hallie loved all the swimming and jumping and hanging out with her aunt and uncles and grandparents.

Then yesterday (the 4th) Hallie was super excited about these fireworks that everyone was telling her about. We put a blanket down and watched them together, and Hallie laid down right next to me, putting her hands behind her head just like I was. We talked about what colors the fireworks were and ooo-ed and ahh-ed over the big ones. It was a great mother-daughter moment :)

Here's some pictures we took while down in Vegas... they're growing up!

Hallie picked about 82 of grandma's flowers this past week... and here's what happened almost every time...

Hallie picking her flower



Hallie admiring her flower



Hallie "picking" her flowers



Hallie suffering the consequences and looking for more flowers

-Whit


A few last minute additions to the Vegas-trip blogness. I must say, the older I get, the more cherished my family becomes. I've never disliked my family, or been bothered by them, but it's like each time we visit, I experience a new level of joy and a greater appreciation for the wonderful family that I've been blessed with. That includes Whit's family as well. I could not ask for a better bunch to be related to. My family is one of the spiritual constants that God has given me in life. One of the guiding stars, if you will. I know that I can always count on them to support me and help motivate me to become more Christ-like. Let's face it, I love my family!

While we were down, the extended family that was in town came over for Zach's ordination to the Melchizedek priesthood, it was a wonderful occassion. Here we are, minus Jessica of course (...she's playing broom hockey with tumble weeds, in the big TX):

From July 2009

Last but not least, Whitney and I were able to immortalize our little hippo man, the Tank, the Hungry Hippo, Porky-Boy...the list goes on. This picture sort of reminds me of Han Solo, when he was solidified in Carbon Freeze. It's a humorous little snapshot of the Ashtonat0r (if you can't quite make it out, shrink the image, or stand back a few feet):

From July 2009

That's all for now, just going to spend the next month or so admiring my beautiful wife and re-learning financial accounting for the CPA exam.

Oh yes, and sadly I must part with the little Harley, if anyone wants a scooter that goes 60 mph, gets ~85+ MPG, and pops wheelies, let me know. =]

-Adam

Me and my two cuties

I just realized I have very few (like, MAYBE 2) pictures of me with my kids. It's always me with one or the other or usually, just the kids. So after a few attempts, we got a good one.

The FANTASTIC news!

We got a JOB!!! Wahooooo! Adam was offered a job this last Monday at Swarts and Swarts in Las Vegas. We were so excited! The economy in Las Vegas is NOT good (it's really not good much of anywhere, is it though?) and we had been turned down by a few other places that Adam had extremely good connections to. I was a little nervous, to say the least. But now, we can breathe a sigh of relief and soon, we can move on to the fun stuff... house hunting!! The good part about a bad economy is that houses are dang cheap and the government will even pay you to buy a house, fantastic! Las Vegas boasts one of the cheapest places in the nation to buy a home right now... about the price of a VCR (see Cleveland video, below) :) I'm WAY excited to move into a house, where I can let my creativity EXPLODE!! In due time, at least. Anyway, just wanted to let ya'll know the good news and to buoy up your sagging economic spirits. Viva Las Vegas!

Silly Girl

So, today we were at the Seven Peaks getting our swim on, just enjoying our time. Our little Hallie was bouncing around the kiddie pool minding her own business, when out of the blue she came up and gave Whit a hug and a kiss. She hopped up and down and made her way over to me and gave me a little smooch and a hug as well. I asked her to give Ashton a hug and a kiss to, she took one look at his boogery little face and proceed to jump around the pool...that's our cute little Hallie-bean.

So, we kept playing for a while, when Hallie went back up to Whit and gave her another kiss. A few seconds later, she came back up to with to give her yet ANOTHER smooch, hah, Whit was excited with her mouth wide open as Hallie went in for the kill. Whit was about to pucker up, when instead a cute little kiss from her daughter, Hallie attacked spit a mouthful of water into Whitney's mouth! muwahahaha...the little schemester (she IS related to her Grandpa Morris after all) was successful in her plot to squirt her mama! What's better, and lest you think this was a mere coincidence (for surely such a cute little one could not be capable A few minutes later she tried to dupe her daddy with the same bag of tricks: first, with the cute little smoochie, and then, seconds later, with the feign-smooch-face-full-of-squirt maneuver.

And that's our cute, dainty little Hallie girl, who is still isn't heavy enough for gravity to push her down the water slides (haha, she has to scoot her way down). That's OK Hal, one of these days you'll be heavy enough to slide on down the slide without having to schooch down the entire way...unless you figure out how to trick gravity into pushing you down first. =]

-Daddio

New and Improved Cake Blog

So I've been reconstructing my cake blog to make it more instructional instead of just a place to put the pictures of my cakes once they're done. Let me know how you like it! If there are enough of you that want me to keep the blog this way, I'd be glad to keep it this way and let you know the how-to's of my adventures in cake decorating. However, if I don't hear from any of you, there's really not much point in me going to the extra work. Your comments are much appreciated!

whitneyscakes.blogspot.com

P.S. I still have have a couple more posts to put up and I need to update my side bars, but you'll still get the feel.

A Moment to Mourn

Firstly, let me take a minute to mourn the loss of the Cleveland Cavaliers....

I don't think Adam and I missed a single game that was on TV this year, we were die hard fans. Now, for all of you boo-hooing over how we just jumped on the bandwagon for LeBron, this is NOT true. I've loved the Cavs since I was 14 and my dad got me front row tickets to the game vs. the Wizards. They were 32-50 that year. MISERABLE. But I've always loved basketball, and I was living in Ohio, so I was a Cavs fan. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had heard of this human phenom about 20 minutes down the road named LeBron James. There was word that his games were becoming so popular, they were going to move all the high school games to the local University stadium. When I was a junior, this LeBron fellow showed up at one of our own school basketball games (we didn't play St. V... which is what it was called by the locals... because it was a private school). And finally, my senior year (and LeBron's too), the whole city of Akron was abuzz over what team LeBron would play for in the NBA and how his mom took out a loan before they even had any money to buy him a yellow Hummer for his 18th birthday. If you lived in the Akron area, you felt like you knew him, even if you only may have seen him once with his 3 horsemen at the local Outback Steakhouse (more commonly known now as the 4 horsemen, LeBron included). I only married Adam because he promised to become a Cavs fan... ok, jj. But as soon as I introduced him to the wonderful world of the Cleveland Cavaliers, he was hooked. For the past 10 years, I have watched the Cavs go from nothing to amazing. Two years ago when they beat the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, I think I cried I was so happy. Last year when Boston BARELY beat the Cavs (7 game series), I cried because I was so sad. And this year, this year I wept. This was supposed to be THE YEAR. Cleveland was the team to beat. I guess Cleveland is cursed. If you watched my video on Cleveland... it is in fact true that their main export is crippling depression :) I will always be a Cavs fan in my heart. Even if LeBron decides to move on to another team, I will still love the Cleveland Cavaliers (I might cheer for LeBron's team occasionally too... hey, he's my home town hero!). So until October... I'll be waiting with a hopeful heart.

hahaha, SO TRUE

I found this on my friend Darbie's blog. I laughed and laughed until it hurt. I remember going up to Cleveland with friends in high school every so often and thinking... there is something seriously wrong with this place. Thanks, LeBron, for giving Cleveland something to live for.

A little Morris family update (enjoy):

In addition to my latest post...

I just realized that you can't see the links to the houses we're looking at!! So for the "dream home" and the "runner up" links, you'll have to enter a username and ID. If you want to look at the houses, type in Username: Anonymous1 and Password: Anonymous1. That should get you in to the houses. Let me know if it doesn't work!

Looking for a House

We've been looking around the Las Vegas Valley for a house to buy!!! It's very exciting, and very tiresome at the same time. I'm pretty picky, I have to admit. If I'm going to be staying in this place for the next 5-10 years and spending all sorts of money, I better like it! I really prefer hardwood flooring with as little carpet as possible (just the bedrooms, ideally). I don't want to have to worry as much about spills, cleanings, etc. and I just like the look. I HATE the style of Las Vegas homes, the majority of them all have a very southwestern facade. No thanks. In a perfect world, I would be moving to a community where homes looked like these.
We found a beautiful home in Sun City Anthem (go figure, it's one of the nicest areas in the whole valley, yet this house is listed at just $160,000). Then we looked to see how far of a commute it would be for Adam. Too far. I was disappointed, but there's only like 5 million homes for sale in Las Vegas, so I kept looking. Last night, Adam showed me a house I liked even better!! It really doesn't top this thing. Nearly 1700 square feet, hardwood floors, fun cabinets, beautiful appliances, I LOVE the island in the kitchen, it's my dream home (at least, from the few pictures I've seen), and best of all, it's listed at $119,900!!! Holy cow! That's so affordable it's ridiculous. Then I went to go see what area it was in (holding my breath that it wasn't in the NE area) and how far of a commute it would be for Adam. Turns out, it's just 20 minutes away from his work, which really isn't bad! However, it's in Lone Mountain, the very NW edge of the Valley... not ideal. I looked up the school ratings and they were fine, I talked to a realtor (who we're not working with, so no strings attached) and he said it's an area we would enjoy. I've looked through probably about 1,000 (no kidding) homes in our price range and haven't found anything quite as good (or as inexpensive). So what do we do?? It's kind of out there... though the land around it has been developed with retail and restaurants, but we're definitely nowhere close to any of the main attractions. Perhaps it's a good thing?? I don't really know that I want my kids being raised in the hussle and bussle of the busy city... but it might be nice to be a little more inland for eventual resale.
Any thoughts?

P.S. Another runner up (but a little further to work)

To Alec

P.S. If you want to see more pictures, clicky:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ajmorris13/HarryPotterCake

Happy Mother's Day and My Children's Amazing Abilities

First off, I want to say happy mother's day to all mothers out there!! You deserve a day to just enjoy yourself. Being a mom is DANG hard sometimes. I remember when Hallie was little and so fussy all of the time, I really thought I would have to be institutionalized. I've never been through something so hard as raising that child those first 6 months. Then came Ashton, he's so much better than Hallie was, but it's still 2 kids. In mother math, that's

2 kids ages 2 and under = HARD

Not only are they constantly demanding, they're even demanding when they're asleep because you spend all of that time cleaning up all the messes they made when they were awake. They spit up on everything, a neglected diaper will make itself known QUITE quickly, they find your bath salts and dump them all over the living room, and the list goes on. So here's to you, Mom, for putting up with all of it and remaining completely and totally so in love with your children you can hardly stand it.

That said... I was noticing this morning that many of my friend's/family's children have amazing capabilities. Our friends Jake and Kat's daughter isn't even 2 and is already potty trained. My sister's friend has a little boy Hallie's age that can recognize every letter in the alphabet. My sister's little boy has amazing aim and can shoot (with his all-powerful finger gun) anything moving with impecable precision. I was feeling a little distraught that perhaps I wasn't being proactive enough in my children's development, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how talented my children really are.

Hallie

1. Hallie has the ability to desroy all things in her path unlike any other child I have ever seen. She can open ANY type of makeup and apply it directly in every spot of the house that it should not be. She has mastered the chair and it's ability to help her get to things out of reach, and she is even willing to climb to get to her desired weapon of destruction.

2. She can count to ten. Not in order or with every numeral present, but she always arrives at ten eventually.

3. She can make out. This, albeit amazing, is a little concerning. Occasionally, Hallie will walk up to one of us, take our face in her hands, and kiss like she was never going to kiss again. Watch out, boys!

4. Hallie is a natural born fish. Last summer, she had no problems with jumping into the pool without supervision or floatation device. She is truly a woman without fear.

5. She still sucks on a binki! Amazing, I know. I'm pretty sure our friend Jake will have to work on her mouth someday.

Ashton

1. Ashton holds the fabulous talent of puking. He manages to spit up on everything within view at least 10 times a day. This not only makes for extra laundry but for a lovely stench that demands prompt attention.

2. He also has managed to become extremely fat. At 7 months, he weighs roughly 22 pounds, a weight Hallie managed at one year. He seems to be quite content with his size, however, as you'll see in #3.

3. Ashton is probably one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. He's got a smile for everyone in the world and has no problems with being held by anyone. He can bring a smile to anyone's face, no matter what kind of day they've had.

So even though Hallie isn't reading and Ashton isn't even sitting up yet, my children are still quite talented in their own way. Don't be jealous, but maybe someday you'll have kids as talented as ours.

P.S. Thanks, Adam, for making my Mother's Day so wonderful!

I love you!!!!!

The MOTHER of all posts

This post is going to be an eternity long, just to warn all those who prefer short snipits of information. This post will be more like a novel, so brace yourselves. To start, we moved... again. This time, we went from this...



To this... (or what felt like this)



I miss the family, but I DO NOT miss the weather. Provo is beautiful, I'll take it any day, even in the winter.

Not even 72 hours from when we moved into our new apartment were we on the road again. This time to sunny Las Vegas for job interviews and to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Adam interviewed/visited with 4 different firms and liked just about all of them.







(These were Adam's top picks, now we'll just play the waiting game!)

Hallie and Ashton had a lot of fun, too. The Morris' bought a new camera for their trip to Africa this summer, and it's AMAZING. Zach was running around taking pictures of Hallie and Ashton. Here's some of the goodness...

Pretty fun stuff. Last Thursday was my birthday. Adam took me to dinner at one of my most favorite restaurants!



After some delicious food, we went to a park and just enjoyed being together, alone (this is a RARE treat as we have kids and homework to tend to). Then we went back to the house for presents and cake. Julie got me some beautiful jewelry (which I've worn just about every day since) and my parents got me some adorable shoes, an awesome purse, a WAY cute watch and some fake potted calla lilies for my kitchen! Then came Adam's gift. I really had NO idea what he was getting me, so I was pretty dang excited when I opened up this...



What is it, you ask? This, my friends, is an airbrush for cake decorating!!!!! Ahh, I'm SOOOOO excited to use it!! I just ordered some special airbrush food colorings and I'm itching to give it a go. It also came with a humungously awesome air compressor, so I feel pretty cool.

We drove back home on Monday and we've just been trying to get situated ever since. Hallie is doing marvelously with her potty training (we had to postpone her training due to an accident on one of my mom's kitchen chairs) and she has officially moved on to a big girl bed. We figured since this apartment came with the beds, we might as well use them. Tonight is her first night in it, and she didn't even try to get out! However, it may take some time to get her from rolling all over the place...




Anyway, that's been our last month in a very compact nutshell. Until next time, Ciao!

The Refiner's Fire

I have a few things to post about (our trip to Vegas, my birthday, our move back to Provo, job interviewing, etc.) but I found out just yesterday that my little cousin has a tumor just below his brain. So instead of writing about me, I thought I would write something for him... and for another friend who just recently dealt with cancer. (I had some issues with the formatting of the first 2 stanzas, sorry about that!)

A new mother holds her son with eternal love in her eyes,

She holds him close, and while she pleads with the Lord, the mother cries.

What will the future hold for her babe, she can only wonder,

As she feels her perfect world has been completely torn asunder.


Four months before mother was to bring home her first child,

the doctor said there was cancer in her neck, not knowing whether it was fierce or mild.

The piercing words of chemo and radiation stung in her heart,

Feelings of fear , anger and despair began to start.

The mother prays fiercely that the cancer will somehow be lifted from her body,

As she feels that her baby is forced to grow in a body broken and shoddy.

Days after baby is born, the chemo treats mother so harsh,

But she knows it is the only way to give her body a new start.

The pain is unbearable, the fatigue never ends,

But daily she feels the love of her family and friends.

The mother, so faithful and true,

Asks how could this happen, what more can I go through?

The refiner's fire seems too hot to bear,

But deep down she knows that the Lord will sustain her in every moment of despair.

A boy, no more than eleven,

full of life and love for all, who knows his Father in Heaven,

Suddenly struck with nausea and headaches,

Is told he has a tumor by his brain, there is no mistake.

The family, so faithful and true,

Asks how could this happen, what more can we go through?

The Lord's ways are not always our own,

But we will one day look back to see how we've grown.

If we can hold on tight to the iron rod,

We will not be forsaken by our creator, our God.

When tragedy comes to your life, will you hold fast or waver?

Remember then, all things are possible through Christ, our Savior.

One PHAT dude...

Father Morris reporting in. Just wanted to give y'all an update. Tax season is over, I came out unscathed. However, there have been some strange side effects that have plagued my family. As some of you may know, our daughter Hallie was a dainty little string bean of a child. Last time we had her in, she was 93rd percentile for height and 30-something for weight.

Well, with Ashton, we've been witnessing something quite the opposite. Fairly quickly, Whitney and I knew that we had a little porker on our hands, but we had no idea he was such a tubby dude. I weighed him today and he's definitely 21+ lbs of sheer MANLINESS (yeah that's right, can you say 95th percentile? Not too shabby for a dude that's run of the mill for height. I've been looking into local chapters of martial arts, AKA Sumo...unfortunately, Rexburg is fresh out of Sumo dojos. Provo?

So for now, we'll keep feeding his face...hey, he's happy as a clam. He's getting little snapper teeth, 2 in front on the bottom and 2 more on the way (the meat-ripper teeth...I told you he was MANLY).

As for that, we're packing/cleaning again, 4th time in 12 months, yeah! Fortunately this time we're not packing a truck or a storage unit, just a couple cars...but then again, now that I think about it, we have to unpack a storage unit and consequently cars, and then unpack it into an apartment...

On another note, the week school starts we'll be heading to Las Vegas to see if I can find employment. We have DEFINITELY been blessed already in this department. With the Las Vegas economy in shambles, we were quite worried about finding a decent job. But with the help of both of my F(f)athers, we have a few excellent leads/opportunities that hopefully will turn out for the best.

Oh, on another note again, since I've been commuting to Idaho Falls from Rexburg every day, I've had quite a bit of road time. Well, I found this SWEET website called librivox.org (www.librivox.org). Essentially it consists of volunteers who take titles from the Gutenberg Project (royalty-free books/novels) and read them into FREE audiobooks. Some books have one reader, but most have multiple readers. I have LOVED listening books every day. The first book I listened to was The Count of Monte Cristo (thanks Jacob!)...what an AWESOME/FUN/AMAZING/etc story. Unabridged, to be sure. I loved it. I have also listened to Treasure Island (the reader for this one is AWESOME), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (depressingly "wretched"...if I can steal one of the most used words from that book), and currently about to finish the Three Musketeers (another AWESOME story!). Gotta love the classics, at least I do.

That's all for now. Ciao-time!

P.S. Lest you think I was lying about the progress of Ashton's growth, I have included the latest photo:

Hannah Montana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kelsey and I were WAY excited for the new Hannah Montana movie to come out this past weekend. We went to see it on Saturday night, squealed like little girls when it started, and squealed in our heads the rest of the movie. It was SO much fun!! I just love being able to let go of the side of me that has to be the practical, hard working (but loving, of course!) mom every once in a while and just feel like a carefree teenage girl again. For those who don't care much for the Hannah Montana show, don't bother seeing it... but for anyone that likes the show, it was FABULOUS. I'll be so sad if Miley doesn't do more shows on the Disney Channel, I'm hoping she'll still have some popularity over the next 2-3 years so that Hallie can start to like her... she does occasionally ask me if she can watch Hannah Montana already, and she's just 2!

Ok, maybe not...

So I took about a two day hiatus from cake making, but that doesn't mean I wasn't sketching and looking online for ideas. Then my mom tells me that I need to make a dessert for dinner on Easter Sunday with all my mom's kinfolk, so OF COURSE I had to make one! This was actually a pretty simple, straightforward cake. The flower took some doing, but it wasn't all that time consuming. Stay tuned for more pictures of the kids!

P.S. I know the ping-pong table wasn't exactly great staging for the cake, but until things take off, this is how I'm gonna have to roll.

P.P.S. We're moving back to Provo in less than two weeks for those who may be curious!

A break from cake

Here she is! The cake that caused me SO much grief. I had more problems when I delivered the cake, but you'll just have to ask for details if you want them :) I would have recommended larger tiers if i would have known how huge the floral arrangement on top was going to be, but I think she was still happy with the finished look. Even though I love every opportunity to make a new cake and learn new things, I'm glad I can take a break for a while. I need it, BADLY. Visit my cake blog for my other 2 recent cake developments!

P.S. Here's some Morris kid cuteness, just in case you're feeling a lack thereof.

Buttercream FIASCO

Ok, so I've been conversing with fellow cake decorators on forums and such, trying to find the perfect buttercream frosting for a wedding cake I'm doing this weekend. I was hesitant to tell the girl I would do a buttercream cake (since most of my experience is working with fondant), but I was up for the challenge. I started my experimenting by fixing a cake for Carla, who wanted a dummy cake to take to bridal shows and for display in her shop and whatnot. The first 2 batches would NOT smooth out at all. It was a kind of cool texture, but it wasn't what Madison (the girl I'm doing the wedding cake for) wanted, she wants SMOOTH... like silk... like fondant... except not fondant, ha. So then I just decided to cover the "trial" cake with fondant because I knew Carla was waiting for the cake. So I get it all done, lookin'good (after covering the top about 4 times)... I drive down to Rigby, open the back of the pilot, and what do you know... the top edge TORE from the bumpy ride. I wanted to cry. Because I was feeling rather emotional, I didn't even go into the store to tell Carla what had happened because I was afraid of bursting water works. So I went and bought a big ol' tub of Wilton buttercream. Not the tastiest, but no one was going to be eating it, so it was ok. After re-doing the cake about 3 times to get it just right, I was forced to settle for decent, not perfect. I went back down to Rigby, thinking the shop closed at 4... and then finding out it closed at 3:30. RAAAAAARRRR!!!! I was one maaaad mama. So with all this experience, I have asked, begged, pleaded with instructors on a really NICE, smooth buttercream. A dear lady from New Orleans showed me her blog and youtube video and I was so excited to try it out. I ordered her special flavoring and started mixing away. When I was done though, the stuff was soooooooooo grainy, it was like white sand. I figured my shortening was wrong, but I didn't have time to order the right stuff. So Adam went to a cake store in IF and asked the owner what I should do. She pointed me to a different type of shortening I could find in town, so I went to work again. Again, grainy. I'm pretty sure I was in tears at this point. Fortunately, my dear, sweet husband went to work trying to find a new recipe for me to use that didn't call for crazy baker's ingredients. We found one that looked decent, so I started following the recipe. AGAIN, it turned out WAY grainy. I was so mad, I just went to bed and figured I was cursed. The next day, I really watched her video online and followed it as EXACTLY as I possibly could. FINALLY, I got a decent frosting. I'm not saying it's perfect, hers turned out better than mine... I still have some air bubbles and slight graininess (if that's a word), but it still crusts (forms a crust and looses it's stickiness after a few minutes so you can smooth it out) and the slight graininess actually adds a bit of a shimmer to the frosting. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for me that everything else goes smoothly this week. I'm definitely taking a break from buttercream after this!!

Cuteness

It's a little fuzzy, but don't they look so much alike??

Bracketology

It's that time of year again!!! Time to fill out your March Madness brackets! I've used CBSsports.com in the past, but this year I went for espn.com. Fill out your brackets, create a group with your families or friends, and let the madness begin!! I made a group with my family... winner gets to hang out with our adorable kids for 5 whole hours, free of charge :) Ok, we're not THAT mean. We're pretty excited for the games, we Webbs (including Adam) are basketball freaks of nature. Have fun!!

Potty Training

I decided on Monday to go out and make the ol' potty purchase. I wasn't really all that sure that Hallie was ready to be potty trained, but I thought it would be good to have around, just so she could start to understand that it was for her, whenever she was ready.
Hallie was so excited about her new potty once I put it together, she would just sit on it while she watched TV (fully clothed). I thought this was a good first step. Then today, I figured I would try letting her run around clothes-less and encourage her to use the potty when she needed to go. I was fully prepared for accidents and many failed attempts. I went about cleaning and later on asked Hallie if she needed to "go". I looked in her little potty and bless my soul, I never knew I could get so excited over urine. She had gone all by herself without any help, or any accidents!! She is now down for her nap (and I'm not expecting the impossible, I did put her in a diaper for her nap) and she's gone to the bathroom 3 times already, no accidents at all.
I know I'm extremely fortunate to have things go so easily, we'll just keep taking things one step at a time. Hopefully, she'll be completely trained before you know it!

P.S. I posted my latest cake for anyone interested.

A little this and that

So I've been running again, and I'm starting to get to the point where I like it. When I first start, I HATE IT, pretty much more than anything else. It's like a self-inflicted trial, and I try to avoid such things like the plague, so it's basically torturous those first few weeks. Then finally, after about a month of consistent running where I'm up to about 5-ish miles, I start to actually like it! This is where I am now... I have to admit, I'm pretty excited for about another month from now when I'll start getting my runner's high. A marathon is on my list of goals before I have another baby (which gives me A LOT of time, since I always tell Adam that I'm waiting until Hallie can babysit to have another one, ha).
Ashton and Hallie are doing quite well, I realize I haven't posted many pictures of Hallie lately, it seems as though Ashton's getting all the love, so I will try to do better about not picking favorites. Our camera has been sapping the life out of all of our batteries though, so pictures may have to wait.
Finally, Adam continues to enjoy his internship and hate the commute. We're (or maybe just I'm) getting a little nervous for our prospects for work after we graduate, as Vegas has seen a major hit in the downfall of the economy and it's getting really hard for recent college graduates to get jobs anywhere. I know that the Lord has helped us out so much in every trial we have faced together so far though, and I know that He will lead us to where we are supposed to go. What a blessing it is to have the gospel! I would be a nervous wreck without the anchor of the Savior in my life. I'm grateful to be able to feel of His love for me and my little family daily. I know He's watching out for us!

A little bit of Ashtonian

Well well well,

I've finally sat down to throw Ashton love on the blog. He's a pretty cute little dude, and I figured he needed a little representation on the Blogosphere.

So here we go:

First, little Ashton, watching some Bron Bron:



Here's a few videos of the little guy, he's starting to coo, and gurgle, and smile quite a bit. It's pretty fun/fascinating/amazing to watch as these little ones progress. Seeing a young child smile for the first few times is nothing short of priceless...and then when he/she starts to giggle AND laugh, well that's just a little bit of heaven.

Well, unfortunately, the uploading of videos is not going so successfully up here Iceberg, ID...must be the polar winds or something =]

Linkies:

Here is the little guy, just hanging out:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xFMmLF9m4Z0GzpUjwLZzvg?feat=directlink

Haha, so we got Hallie this little toy stroller...this is almost priceless, enjoy:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/roMwDj84IWFCy7XfwazG-Q?feat=directlink

And last but not least, a little bit more of the wiggly little dude:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/uoKydOdEJ1DoY3jjSm6a7g?feat=directlink




If this doesn't make you smile, you have little life left in you!



As for me, just doing taxes and listening to the Count of Monte Cristo during my commute (I'm enjoying the tax season thusfar and LOVING Monte Cristo...you can get audiobooks for free at librivox.org). Better yet, I get to spend the majority of my free time with my family, instead of with my books...so even though my time is pretty well used up, it still feels like a vacation.

Quick Update

I've been a little slow on posting lately... life just seems to get crazier all of the time! We still love living here in Rexburg. The winter has been pretty nice to us and it's wonderful to be with family for a little while. Ashton and Hallie are doing awesome. Hallie asks to play with cousin Tate every day and Ashton is happy as long as he is well fed and rested. Adam's only complaint is the 35 minute commute to work every day, but otherwise, he's loving the experience. We just found out that Adam gets to graduate in June instead of August, which we're really grateful for (hopefully he can get the studying he needs to do for his CPA test done sooner)! We also got to make a trip down to Utah to see the Cavs annihilate (or win by 5) the Jazz and get really frustrated with our car inspection... which we will NEVER do at Jiffy Lube EVER again. Finally, I made a baseball field cake for Nathan for his 10th birthday. You can look at those pictures on my cake blog.


Almost 4 months old! And definitely the cutest boy I'VE ever seen :)

Somehow Ashton ended up in Hallie's doll stroller...

Adam and I at the Cavs game.

Ashton snoozin' while I'm getting ready for the day... I used to do this with Hallie, but she NEVER fell asleep. What a good guy.

Hangin' out with Kels, Nate and Tate and Blast-Off in Idaho Falls.

And we're back!

It's been quite some time since I last posted. We moved up to Rexburg at the beginning of the month only to find that we were internet-less. I really thought Adam might die. There was no way that he could fix it either, since was a problem with the company. Three weeks later, we finally have the internet back and Adam is regaining his sanity (fortunately he did have the internet at work, so he didn't completely lose his mind). We love it here so far. My parent's basement has proven to be quite comfortable living quarters and Hallie loves having 10 times the amount of toys she's used to. She also LOVES playing with her cousin, Tate. They have become good little buddies despite their occasional knock-out sessions. Adam is really enjoying his internship and is getting some great experience. Ashton is just content with life, no matter where he is (what a champ). And finally, I am really enjoying being close to family and I even got to make my first wedding cake a couple of weeks ago (and I actually felt like it was a success)! I am hoping for some more business and remain a very busy mother! Here's some recent pictures of our happenings...

Another Move

We had a wonderful Christmas down in Las Vegas visiting Adam's family. The kids did much better than I anticipated, and Hallie LOVED opening her presents. She didn't quite understand the whole Santa thing, but she knew that she was supposed to wait until Christmas to open all of her presents. The toys Santa brought her were a success, she loves them! Santa also treated Adam well with a new iPod touch and Whitney got lots of new clothes :) We got back into town on Saturday and have been packing and cleaning ever since. It feels like all we do is move anymore... and we still have a couple more moves to go (back to Utah in April, then to Vegas in August... we hope). We'll be moving up to Rexburg in the next few days, which we're excited for (minus the wind and snow). Adam has a great internship lined up with my uncle's accounting firm in Idaho Falls, which should give Adam a decent feel for what it's like to run a tax practice. Hallie's excited to play with Tate every day and Ashton is excited to have his own room. We are going to be quite spoiled with our living quarters seeing as it's at least twice the size of our apartment, has a playroom for Hallie, we will be getting meals 3 times a week, and it's all free99 (as Adam calls it)! Anyway, back to cleaning for now.

Mario Cake!

So I'm on a posting palooza this week... but I HAD to show ya'll my latest and greatest creation for my dear husband's birthday (yes, Hannah Montana is bringing out my inner southerner). The pictures uploaded in the exact reverse order that I meant for them to upload in, but I'm feeling a little too lazy to fix that :)

1. 

New Car!

So Adam and I just made our first car purchase in our married lives. We will be heading up to Rexburg this winter and wanted something that would drive better than Ola (a CAR named OLA, get it? Car-olla... hehe) [Disclaimer: Contrary to some popular belief, the Toyota's true name is Yota...as in To Yota or NOT To Yota...others have called it "The Maggot" -Adam]. We'll also be done with school for good in August and will be needing a second car anyway. Since our family is growing, we thought it wise to get a bigger car so we could keep it longer. After much research, we settled on the Honda Pilot. She's a beauty. Thanks to Adam for finding us such a great car for an amazing price!

The Holiday Hussle

So this past week has been insane. Adam has had so much to do with school, and I've been at home with the kids trying to pack, get into doctors before we're off our awesome insurance, make a sweet birthday cake for Adam and finish up Christmas presents for parents and other family members. I feel rather frazzled, and I'm really not cut out for the part of motherhood that involves lack of sleep. Normally, I would just sigh and hope that the next week would be better (after a bout of tears). However, it really bothered me this week because as I've been doing all of these things for Christmas, I haven't felt much of the usual Christmas Spirit. Today at church I realized that I haven't enjoyed the holiday season much this year... it just feels like I'm always running on empty, scurrying to get things done. This coming week isn't looking much more promising, but I'm hoping the week of Christmas will be glorious and make up for all my recent "scrooge-ness". As for now, I will try to be more like Tiny Tim and count my blessings, even when they're the ones that demand all of my care and attention :)

Cookie Cutters

Around the Christmas season Whit likes to bust out the cookie cutters. Well, I've come to the realization that this sort of behavior extends beyond baked yum-yums. Apparently she uses a cookie cutter in other aspects of her life.

Below are pictures of our two little cookies, can you guess of whom each picture is?

Make your guesses on pictures 1-7, Hallie or Ashton?

Adam got 74663D

Welcome to the Adam Morris edition of "TAGGED"...electronically known as "74663d"

8 TV shows I love to watch:
1. Cleveland Cavaliers Basketball
1a. NBA Playoffs
2. Cosby Show
3. Ace of Cakes
4. Everybody loves Raymond
5. BYU Football (when they're not under-performing)
6. This is a lot of TV
7. My computer
7a. Mickey Mouse ClubHouse
8. I love my Lappy

8 favorite restaurants:
1. Lucilles
2. P.F. Changs
3. Buffalo Wild Wings
4. Tucanos
5. King's Fish House
6. Outback Steakhouse
7. Cheesecake Factory
8. Chilis

8 things that happened yesterday:
1. I breathed
2. Went to lunch with my Dad to Ottavio's
3. Went to Den meeting with 3 little hellions, they're parents should be proud =)
4. Went to the park with Hallie and my Dad
5. Played Settlers:Cities and Knights online at 1AM with Ashton
6. Went to bed before 10pm!!!!!
7. Talked with my wife for quite some time
8. Watched segments of Fishies, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Monsers with Hallie

8 things I'm looking forward to:
1. Christmas at home with my entire family
2. Ashton's blessing on Sunday
3. Playing Basketball
4. Preparing taxes full-time this winter
5. Not having to do homework at 2AM
6. When Ashton can smile and starts to laugh
7. Even better, when Ashton starts to interact with us (especially Hallie)
8. Seeing a picture of my face when I get my birthday present next month [clueless] S^)

8 things on my wish list:
1. A motorcyle (a nice Honda Shadow or maybe a couple rides on a bullet bike)
2. A sweet Mario Cake for my birthday
3. Making millions of dollars with my fleet of Oompah Loompahs
4. A decked out, $1,000,000 computer rig...all I want is to play on it for a couple hours, no need to purchase
5. Passing the CPA Exam on my first Attempt
6. An old-school Smash Bro.'s session with Thomas, Jake, and another worthy oppoenent [le sigh]
7. More time
8. A Googleplex of children of happy, healthy children

I hereby Taggeth Thomas, Jake, & Roy...if you so choose to accept this quest.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Kari! I've been tagged before, but this is my first time actually following through. So here goes nothin':

8 TV shows I love to watch
1. Cosby
2. The Cavs dominating any team in the NBA
3. Ace of Cakes
4. Food Network Challenge
5. Good Eats
6. Oprah
7. Everybody Loves Raymond
8. Hannah Montana (as of late)

8 favorite restaurants
1. Cheesecake Factory
2. P.F. Changs
3. Buffalo Wild Wings
4. Outback Steakhouse
5. Chilis
6. Olive Garden
7. Cafe Rio
8. Baja Fresh

8 things that happened yesterday
1. Got up at 2 to feed Ashton
2. Got up at 5 to feed Ashton
3. Got up at 8 to feed Ashton
4. Actually got up for the day
5. Fed Ashton at 10
6. Fed Ashton at 1
7. Cried because I feel like a cow being milked all day
8. Went to bed and actually got 4 1/2 straight hours of sleep thanks to a fantastic husband who... got up to feed Ashton!

8 things I'm looking forward to
1. Not feeding Ashton so much
2. Ashton's blessing on Sunday
3. Thanksgiving in Rexburg!
4. The holidays... although I have already started celebrating :)
5. Grandpa Morris heating up the pool over Christmas so Hallie and I can go swimming
6. Moving up to Rexburg next semester
7. Ashton sleeping through the night
8. Seeing Adam's look on his face when he gets his birthday present next month

8 things on my wish list
1. That Ashton will start sleeping through the night... NOW
2. Skinny jeans
3. Getting back in shape so i can fit into those skinny jeans :)
4. A haircut
5. Graduating and getting a real job
6. Moving close to my family
7. A cute house
8. No more kids (if Adam would ever fall for it!)

People I'm tagging... hmmm, I'll go with... Shiloh, Breanne and ADAM :D

Artsy what?

Confession time...
I took every art class offered back in high school. I loved all of them. I loved my teacher and a couple of my best buds were in all the classes with me (yay Julz and Ahdom!). Then I went to college. I knew I had some natural talent, but I didn't feel like I had enough to go into an art major. Julie and Ahdom were both voted artist of the year (and rightfully so, they are quite amazing) and I think I just felt like I could never be as good as they were and I didn't want to feel inferior in every college class I walked into. I was also "encouraged" (ha) to find something that might be a little more promising financially, in case I ever needed to support myself. So I forgot about art. I went on with my life and majored in Exercise Science (which I really do love). Then about a year ago my grandpa and grandma Linda asked if I had done any artwork recently. I told them I had not done anything in quite a while, that life just got too crazy, but I would like to pick it up again someday. From that day forward, I missed it. I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what. My dear husband bought me some really nice paintbrushes for mother's day, but I was scared to use them... I didn't know if I was ready to jump into painting after a 5 year break from it! So I've started at the most basic level... drawing. I did this picture for my brother in law for Christmas. I know it's nothing crazy outrageous, but I was happy with it for how long I've been out of practice.



Who knows? Maybe I'll go out on a limb and do COLORED pencil next time :)

Tricks or Treats

We had a fantastic Halloween! We started off the week by carving pumpkins. Adam and I like to go a little crazy and opt for designs a little out of the ordinary...




Adam's beloved John Wayne only lasted about a day... but he was still pretty cool! Tigger lasted through Halloween, but then started to shrivel and die.

Hallie made an adorable Minnie this year, compliments of her grandmother. She LOVED trick or treating, and Adam even got her to say trick or treat at a few of the houses before she started looking for the suckers in every bowl. Ashton was a champ, he guzzled a bottle and stayed nice and warm in his blanket in his momma's arms as we all walked from house to house.





Adam and I have decided that we're officially a family... and officially old. Not only do we have 2 car seats in the car, a house and a car that looks like it's constantly being bombarded by children, but we also have a child that is old enough to appreciate Halloween. Pretty soon our teeth are going to start falling out.

Finally, no post would be complete without a picture of Ashton, so here he is :)

What a handsome little guy!

Answered Prayers

I have to admit, I was pretty nervous before Ashton came along that life would become impossible. Hallie was a pretty hard baby and demanded LOTS of attention. I thought Hallie might beat up on little Ashton and try to pick him up (only to drop him) when I wasn't looking. I was planning for the worst and hoping for the best. Thus far, Ashton has been a gem compared to Hallie at this age. He's awake for almost 3 hours each morning and night, sometimes a little bit in the afternoon, and he just sleeps the rest of the time, unless he's hungry :) He's a fantastic nurser and Hallie is so nice to him. She shares Minnie, her blankie, her binkis and even her bottles with him. Our only troubles come when she wants to give him fives, sometimes she misses his hand and lands on his face, but he's been a good sport about it.
We've really appreciated the meals from our ward, Adam's mom for coming out last week, and I'm really excited for my mom to come in today! I've never been a passionate dinner-maker, and I think having my second baby has completely extinguished any small flame of desire to cook anything anymore. I've been watching the food network every day to hopefully rekindle some desire to make dinner for my family again, and I'm just grateful for the service of others so that we're not eating frozen pizza every night! We're hoping things continue to go as smoothly as they have our first 2 weeks... so far, so good!

More Ashton

More recent Ashton pictures! Sorry we haven't posted much info lately... I'll put something up soon.

World's cutest baby!

 

Ashton James Morris

Well well well...a bunch of contractions and a few hours later, and Ashton (Lebron) James Morris was born into the world. I'd save this entry for Whitney, b/c she is a little more eloquent than I, but she's all shacked up in the birthing suite (it's actually REALLY nice) at Orem Community Hospital, and wireless isn't working for some reason. So, you're stuck with me =)

I'll jump to the details, Whitney started contracting regularly around 9 o'clock while I was playing some basketball down the road. She called me home a little over an hour later and we rushed to the hospital after Jessica & Brad so graciously came over to spend the night with Hallie. We arrived, and some what disappointingly, we found out that Whitney hadn't dilated any more since our last visit (she was a 4+ then). So, we had to wait an hour while she continued to contract so they could check her again. 60 minutes and several prayers, from ourselves and many of you (thanks!), later, she was dilated to almost a 6!

So, they made her official and relocated us to one of the nice rooms. Luckily the anesthetist was already there, so Whit didn't have to wait too much longer for the epidural (for which we were both grateful). A couple hours and a few naps later and she was ready to push! It was easy-cheesy from there. Whitney only had to push for about ten minutes! 3-4 sets of pushes and the little guy was born. He had quite a bit to say in the whole matter. We were a bit worried about his lung development because he's almost 4 weeks premature, but he let us know that his lungs are juuuust fine.

Ashton was born at 4:15 AM of Oct. 15. Coincidentally enough, he measured identically to Hallie (perhaps except his head). He is 6lb 7Oz & 19in long, and he has the cutest full head of blond hair...the CUTEST!

Well, enough of my jabber, here are a few snapshots of the little guy, enjoy!




Awwww, look at the little guy...he's a little upset because mom told him he was 'cute'...not a very manly thing to say to your son.



You can't really tell from the picture, but he was going to town on his fingers!



LOOK AT THE CUTE LITTLE DUDE!



Juuuuuust snoozin' =) ...so far, this is what he likes best.



Check out that blond hair!!!

A little sweet and sour

So we'll start with the sweet... our favorite word Hallie says is "porcupine". See for yourself (the one at the end is a little better).



Also, I'm off bed rest! Wahoooooo!! It's been wonderful... but the "sour" part of the whole deal is that I HURT like crazy. This baby is putting so much pressure on me that it makes it miserable to move much anyway. I'm getting really close to being full term though (37 weeks), so hopefully this baby won't stay in too much longer, we'll keep you posted!

Oh Baby

I went back into the doctor both yesterday and today to get things checked out. I told him about my hospital visit and he wanted to do a different test to find out for sure if I was leaking amniotic fluid-- turns out I'm not, whew! However, I am having a lot of discharge that contains a ton of white blood cells. This translates to an inflammatory response which in turn means that there's some sort of infection going on inside of me. The doctor doesn't feel comfortable with delivering the baby now (and neither do we), but I'm going to be watched closely over the next week or so. I just worry about possible birth defects that can be caused by the infection. Keep us in your prayers, we're just a little anxious.

Update

So today I thought I had a reaaaally slow leak, and especially since I'm so dilated, I figured I'd go in to check it out real quick. I really didn't think it would be any problem, it was so slow and it seems like all sorts of funky goop comes out at this point of pregnancy, but I thought I might be a neglectful mother if I didn't at least find out for sure. So I go in, they ask me about 5,483 questions and then they finally swab me. Well.... the nurse couldn't tell if it was positive or negative. So she calls the doctor to ask him what to do, and he tells her to wait an hour and do it again. So I hang out and then 2 nurses come in to check me the second time. Same results... it was just too hard to tell. So they call the doctor again and just decided to send me home. Before I left, they checked my cervix again and I'm still at a 4, but my sac is bulging out... so basically i could explode any second. So I'm resolving to do better about my bed rest for the next week. I haven't been terrible, but it's just hard with Hallie. I'd really prefer this baby to stay in a little while longer, but it's a pain in the neck to have to stay down all day long. I still need to get this baby something to sleep in too, so it would be nice if he would give us some more time :) Anyway, we'll keep you all updated as things progress. Happy Conference weekend!

Bed Rest

So I went to the doctor's office today for my 34 week ultrasound. The technician was telling me that the baby was sitting surprisingly low and asked if I had been having any contractions. I told her that I've had more with this baby than with Hallie, but that they weren't painful, just uncomfortable. She thought it might be a good idea for me to meet with the doctor just to get his opinion on the matter. I explained to him what had been going on and he asked if I wanted him to check to see if I was dilated at all, but he didn't seem too worried. I told him that I would be interested in knowing, just for fun :) It turns out that I'm nearly 4 cm dilated!! That's almost half a labor! Fortunately, I'm 34 weeks along so I don't have to sit in the hospital for days, but he did put me on bed rest for the next two weeks (too bad my bed isn't as cool as the one in the picture). I'm sure I'll survive just fine, I just don't think Hallie will be too happy. If any of you have any fantastic self-entertaining ideas for children, PLEASE let me know!

It's all about the kids

So my life has transformed in the last month quite dramatically. For the past 18 years (or so) of my life, I have been going to school and getting my education. I got married after a couple of years of college, had a baby a year and a half later, and still went to school, despite the odds :) I finally finished, and now, I'm officially a "homemaker". No school, no work, just a house to clean, cooking to do, Hallie to take care of, and a pregnancy to survive through... amongst other random tasks of homemakery. I really like it a lot, actually. I thought I might lose part of my "identity" once I was done, but I haven't felt any loss thus far. I'm really liking the lower stress levels, in fact. Because I have more time to enjoy Hallie, Adam and I have been able to capture some fantastic moments of her young life. Enjoy! :)




Hallie takes after her mother... some of her favorite foods include peanut butter...

and sour cream. YUM

Hallie's sweet kicks... she's already attempting to whip her little brother into shape.

Motherhood

I always enjoy being Hallie's mom (ok, there are some rough days when I just can't wait for her to go to bed, but they aren't super often)... but some days stand out more than others. Today was one of those days where I just basked in all the glories of motherhood. I woke up to Hallie wanting to crawl into bed by me to drink her milk, which lasted the typical 3 seconds before she wanted down. We had bathtime which is always fun and she was awesome during our grocery shopping trip. Then I came home to put her down for her nap and she just wanted to rock in her chair and have me sing primary songs all day long. After about 10 or 15 minutes, I decided she really did need to go down for her nap, and she was pretty sad that the "wocking" and songs were over, but I promised her more after her nap. She woke up singing songs to herself in her crib, and we played for about an hour before running more errands. After those were through, she wanted to go to "schoo" to visit daddy, so we made the trip over to the Tanner building (we're trying to reinforce this love for school, hopefully it lasts for many years to come). She was delightful the rest of the evening... and I was one happy mom. I know this probably means she'll either be awful tomorrow or something traumatic will happen tonight... like going into labor 8 weeks early without insurance, but as for now, I think I'll just continue to bask in my joy :)

Trip to Zion

I would have to agree with Roy that Idaho is, in fact, Zion. There are parts that are a little more "zioned" than others, with Rexburg topping the charts in my opinion (it does help that all my family lives there now). We were able to visit my parents new home up by the temple this past weekend and just hang out with everyone. The house was gorgeous (but I didn't expect anything less, as this is my mom's dream home) and the company was superb. We had a lot of fun going up to my grandpa's cabin in Island Park and trying to keep Hallie from destroying Tate. Our first stop was at Bear World, where we got to experience a grizzly bear charging our car :) We also got to pet the dear, hold the fluffy chickens, and Adam had the opportunity to abuse an arthritic pig (ok, this information was provided after the encounter). We then went to Island Park and floated down the freezing buffalo river (luckily the three of us were in a canoe), and then we just hung out at my parent's the rest of the weekend. Here are some photos of the events...

Doesn't get a whole lot better than all the sisters petting a goat.

The original Webb girls... I think we're a pretty cute bunch, despite my melon of a stomach.

Breakfast with Hallie and Tate... one of Hallie's better moments with her cousin.

The gorgeous Rexburg temple at sunset. The sunset was actually better a few minutes before this, but the temple wasn't lit, so you couldn't even see it in the pictures. This picture was taken right outside my parent's house. What a view!


We had a great time! It was nice to break up all the moving and just relax for a few days. We're back into the swing of things now... Adam's started class again and I'm doing the best I can to get us all moved in. I really don't believe pregnant women are made to pack and unpack though, I think I've had to bend over about 5,234 times. Oh well, just one more room, one more trip to the storage unit and some wall hangings left and we'll be all done, wohoo!
-Whit

In case you were wondering, here's a little bit of the Hog's Wart encounter (just finished Harry Potter 7 for the second time)... I wish I was a wizard, my patronus would be a spider monkey.
-Adam

P.S. Turn up your volume for the full effect =)

The Move

So the big move takes place tomorrow morning for me.... Wednesday morning (most likely) for Adam. We rented a U-Haul truck to move our stuff and Jessica's, and Adam gets to play truck driver for a day. I think he should buy some sweet trucker shades to really get into the role. Here's the picture of the MESS Adam gets to pack tomorrow while I drive up with Jessica and Hallie. This picture was taken as Adam was looking for an ipod so he could listen to some Harry Potter on the drive up. I thought it might be a lost cause after realizing half of our boxes were mis-labeled from our first move, but alas, we finally found one for him!

Playing Catch Up

So I realize I haven't posted in nearly a month... and it's not because our lives are so boring we have nothing to report, but that we have been so busy I haven't found time to report them. We start with Taylor's (Adam's brother) wedding. They were married in the Las Vegas temple and it was as lovely as ever. Taylor was quite the stud and Stasi looked gorgeous! The reception was a blast as Hallie danced the night away. We had a fabulous time.

Exhibit #2-- The end of my internship and classes! This was quite the stress reliever. I had been working all summer, trying to fill hours for my internship, but to no avail. Finally I asked Adam's cousin to come babysit for a week so that I could just work, even if it meant I had to just sit there, I was going to get my hours in! Fortunately, my supervisor finally stepped on her high horse and found things for me to do and I was able to finish. I was also working on my last 2 online classes and had to overnight my final to get it done in time. What a relief when it was all done though, whew!

Exhibit #3-- Cake decorating. I've had this sudden urge to create cakes after watching "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. I have read online, gone to the library, and have found other ways of teaching myself how to make these fabulous cakes without having to take an expensive class where only one night was focused on fondant. Here is what I made for my parent's 25th wedding anniversary...

Exhibit #4-- The Olympics... I have LOVED watching the Olympics ever since I was little. I'm definitely a bigger fan of the summer games than the winter games, and I even dreamed of being an Olympic swimmer when I was little. I would take my stop watch to the huge pool in our neighborhood and work on my breaststroke every day and compare my times... oh the dreams we have in our youth :) Needless to say, I have been staying up way too late every night for the past week, but loving every second of it. We are convinced that Hallie will be a swimmer or diver someday with as much as that girl loves to swim and jump into the water.

Exhibit #5-- Graduation. We hauled ourselves up to Provo on Thursday to go to my graduation ceremony. Elder Scott was the speaker and it was just wonderful. My parents and grandparents came down and we went to dinner afterwards. To my surprise, Adam, my parents and in-laws all went in together to buy me a new laptop. I love it! I really didn't think I needed a new laptop, but now that I have it, I'm wondering how I survived with my old 5 year old beast of machinery :) Thanks to everyone that came to support me! I love you all!

Exhibit #6-- Jessica's Wedding. Jessica and Brad were married on Saturday in St. George. It was fabulous! We got to stay at a hotel the night before and Hallie had a blast at the pool. Hallie's dress was sooooooo cute on her, and we even managed to keep it mostly clean even after she ate about 8 strawberries at the reception. This picture doesn't do justice of the event, but we're still waiting on better pictures.

Exhibit #7-- The move. We are now getting ready to move back to Provo, which will take place about mid-next week. I'm really not looking forward to all of the cleaning we will have to do, especially in my very pregnant condition. For the next year, we will be moving once every 4 months, which is really not very favorable, but we gotta figure out where we want to end up after all this school business is over!

That about sums up our lives this past month. We're excited to be back in Provo for the fall semester. Adam is really looking forward to starting school again (weirdo) and I'm looking forward to not starting school again (at least one of us is normal). We're both excited to go to the football games and just enjoy our last year as college students as much as possible!

Choosing a Name

So I definitely wear the pants when it comes to choosing our kids' names. Adam doesn't really take much initiative though, he'll just let me come up with a list of names I like and approve or disapprove my picks. The top candidate thus far is Ashton, although we're still open to options. If anyone has any suggestions, shoot them our way!

Nice times, growing bellies, and happy holidays

So quite a bit has happened in the past few weeks. Adam and I are insanely busy with work, school, Hallie, and being pregnant. I feel like I barely have time to breathe, but luckily the responsibility of being a parent has allowed me to have some fun times swimming and being with family, which offers relief. Lindsey and Tate came out for a week in June to enjoy some warm weather, and the kids had a blast...




























Kelsey came out the week after and saved my life when Adam had to be gone for a whole week. Unfortunately, we were poor picture takers when she was here, so we have no visual documentation of the event :( We had a lot of fun, though!

Our Father's Day and 4th were fabulous as well. I made my first semi-fondant cake for Adam for Father's Day and we saw lots of "boom booms" on the 4th. Hallie did great! She stayed up and played on the golf course during the evening and loved the fireworks show.

















































And finally, the biggest news of all. Hallie, my mother-in-law, and I got to take a nice LONG trip up to Utah this past Wednesday to see my OBGYN (all of the doctors refuse to see me here in Vegas, which is absolutely ridiculous... oh well). I got an ultrasound and what do you know...










we're having a boy! I have to admit, I'm really nervous about the whole prospect of having a boy. I'm afraid he'll turn out to be a bully with a bad attitude, in which case, I'll just throw him in his room with his scriptures and let him come out when it's time for his mission :) Despite my nervousness, I'm really excited. It will be fun to have a little guy around to add some variety to the mix!

Viva Las Vegas

So I don't have any poolside pictures yet (which is where Hallie and I spend most of our time), but I thought I would post what we do have. We love the weather here so far. It's warm, but not too hot (yet) so we can go swimming, eat dinners outside, etc. I am doing my internship right now and I love it, and Adam hangs out with Hallie and does some work for his dad on the side. I probably need to pick up the pace on my homework, and that should be a little more do-able now that the Cavs are out of the NBA playoffs (of course, I'll probably watch all of the rest of the games while I'm doing my homework anyway). I'm feeling pretty good, although last weekend was quite the upheaval of every kind of sick a pregnant girl could get. Fortunately it was pretty short-lived. Anyway, life is good, we really enjoy it here, and we're wishing we never had to go back to Provo... oh well, just two more semesters!

















Yum! I love applesauce and Grapenuts.
















Sweet shades.

















Adam and I hit the strip for dinner and a stroll for my birthday. It was nice to finally get to go on a date!















This would be Tate-the-great, Hallie's favorite cousin. He's one handsome dude. Way to go Linz and Stu, you guys produce great offspring.

Update

Well, it's been a while since our blog has seen any changes, but our lives have been nothing shy of crazy. Finishing up my last semester on campus was exciting and exhausting. I'm looking forward to just being a mom for a little while. Adam and I both finished our semesters better than we had planned, so that was exciting. Hallie is nuts. The girl has a motor that never stops.
We moved to Las Vegas a little over a week ago and will be here for the summer. Adam and I both have internships, and I have 2 online classes to finish before August. Hallie loves the nice weather, going over to grandma and grandpa's house, and swimming. She has no fear... in fact, she doesn't even have a problem with jumping in the pool when I'm not even in it yet. She just has a couple of coughs and sputters, no crying, and tries to drown herself all over again. Of course, as a mother I worry to some extent, but it's pretty funny too :)
I am pregnant again. Hooray! This came as a complete shock to Adam and I, but we are starting to come to terms with the fact that we will soon be a family of four. At least I'll be done with school before the baby comes. Hallie will make a great big sister. She loves to pat little babies and oos and coos at them. I haven't been too sick this time, which is SUCH a blessing! I was worried that life would basically be impossible to be pregnant, in school, and running after the world's busiest body. Fortunately, Adam has been a great help. He just seems to know when I'm not up to running around after Hallie, and he takes over without a complaint. He's a great dad, too, I think Hallie's starting to become a little Daddy's girl.
Life is great for us in all, it's nice to have a change of scenery and be here in Las Vegas for a few months! Adam has posted a few videos of Hallie below, so enjoy!

Hello there party people, this is the 'ole grizzly bear Adam, doing my duty to society and propagating the cuteness of my daughter and the dazzling beauty of my wife.

ENJOY!


First stop, the savanna to see the Lioness:


Never leave home without your toofbrush!


Oh yes, for all you Waldo fans out there, here's a little game of "Where's Hallie?":


Last but not least, a few remarks from Hallie:


CHEERS!

Going to Church

Adam and I got to skip out on Primary today as the Young Women took over so that we could go to Sunday School and Relief Society/Preisthood. It was wonderful! I forgot what I was missing out on every Sunday, although we really do love our Primary class. We studied Jacob 5, a chapter that I either always skipped or took as a botany lesson on growing olive trees. I had a lot to learn about this chapter, and I did! It was amazing to study all of the allegories and meanings behind what the Lord was trying to teach us. It's always amazing to me how simple even the "hard" chapters can become if you just take a minute to study and ponder them (although a lesson manual is a nice companion as well). I find as I get older, my list of favorite chapters in the scriptures grows, which is probably just me maturing and getting more out of the scriptures than I used to. I'm just really grateful for the gospel and for the people who plan and study so thoughtfully so that we can all feel the Spirit. What a wonderful blessing to be a part of the gospel, where I know exactly what I am doing here on this Earth and what I am striving for after this life. I know it, with my whole heart I know it's true and I hope that I can live my life in a way that shows my testimony (even if it just means being patient and loving Hallie anyway after she destroys my house for the 432nd time in one day).

Reflections of Christ

I was reading through some emails this morning and I received a link to this blog from Sister Zitzman back in Ohio. I thought the video on it was just wonderful, and I had to share it. The video is the one under the Reflections Slideshow post.

http://mabrystudios.typepad.com/reflections_of_christ

Wahoo for Easter!!!

This is Adam, the 'ole grizzly bear, I don't make too much noise on the blog here, but I thought I'd share some of Hallie's first Easter with y'all. I have two videos, one pre-easter egg hunt, and the other of the actual HUNT!

I'll stop blabbering, they speak for themselves.

So I haven't much time for an update, but I have had a few pretty significant happenings in the past few weeks. First, I have started training for my first marathon, wahoo! It's been good so far, I always feel a little sore after the long runs, but I feel like I could keep going if I wanted, so that's good. I also just had an article published at here. It's been pretty exciting to actually have other people read my work (besides my professors) and like it so much they would actually pay me. I might keep it up and make it a nice little side job after I've graduated. Anyway, that's my current life story in a few short sentences...

-I had no running pictures, but I did have a swimming one from my triathlon! :)

Sorry for the delay of posting to our blog. Unfortunately, I seem to be in charge of the blog and that means it takes way too long to get any sort of update on our lives. We're doing well, though! Adam is busy taking classes and working as much as he can. I'm taking 4 classes this semester (it's my last semester on campus, wahoo!) and running around chasing Hallie and trying to get all the day-to-day stuff done. Adam and I really try to spend as much time as we can with Hallie and each other, which leaves very little time for anything else. Hallie just turned one a couple of weeks ago, it was a fabulous birthday! It was really more of a celebration for us parents (and especially me) of making it through the first year. whew. It was a rough year, but Hallie's all smiles and she's just a complete joy these days... now if only the rest of my children could be born one year old...

Already a girl, through and through

Hallie's already talking on the phone, and loving every second of it.

Video time

Here's our babe walkin around. It's a little fuzzy, but you can tell she's walking like a champ!

Hallie's hobbies

Hallie enjoys eating... and pointing. She's rather multi-dimensional.

Mom and I are pretty good buds. We hang out all day long, play games, she even feeds me, dresses me, naps me, makes sure I don't die, and changes most of my diapers. Yaaaay mom!

Yup, that's my name on my forehead... in mom's lipstick.

She's wearing pigtails!! What a cutie! It took me about an hour to get them in, they're just ribbons and a little hairspray, but it was worth it, for that one day.

Hallie's going as a giraffe for Halloween!! Compliments of Roy and Brenna. I must admit, she's just about the cutest giraffe I've ever seen.

Anniversary-- This nifty little cave led to an underground volcanic crater with very warm, clean water where we got to swim for about an hour. If you were slightly cooler than us, you could snorkle or even scuba dive in the water.

Adam and I got to spend 24 glorious hours together last month celebrating the 2 year anniversary of our marriage. We went up to the Homestead resort near Park City and completely spoiled ourselves, it was fantastic!

fetch Hallie, fetch! good girl!

yummy yummy!

my favorite place to hang out while mom does the laundry

And the third...

'do number 2

Hallie's fabulous hairdos, part one