Flip Flopper

I FINALLY saw New Moon Saturday night with some of my best girlfriends. Now, I’m not a huge Robert Pattinson fan, but I was always Team Edward based on the books. And really, they could have picked a hotter Edward, IMO. I didn’t even think Jacob was that cute in Twilight. His nose was too big or something.

Anyway, he must have hit puberty big time since the first movie because this kid is HOT. One shirtless scene and I was sitting on the opposite bench, 100% Team Jacob. Of course, he’s charming and funny and all that which makes him all the better, but come on, look at those abs.

Yes, I realize he’s a tender 17 years old and I’m pushing 29. So sue me. I’d hit it in one hot second. I hate dogs, but he might just be changing my mind…

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at home with our friends. It was a perfect day. Started with the Macy’s parade and a morning of last minute preparations. My turkey took a little longer than anticipated to cook so we ate later than planned, but when doesn’t it happen that way? We also had a ton of food. All delicious. It must be a Thanksgiving law, to have too much food. I mean, when have you ever gone to Thanksgiving dinner and ran out of something. “Whoops! No more turkey left! Oh no! We ran out of sweet potatoes!” Never happens. At least not for my family. Better to have too much than not enough, right?

Summer loved sweet potatoes. No surprise, since they’re filled with butter and brown sugar! She’s been feeling a little sickly lately, and I started to get sick last night. Carter was sick too, so it’s just a matter of time before everyone who was here is sick, I’m sure. Time to Lysol the house tomorrow!!

Thanksgiving is a great holiday for so many reasons. First and foremost, it’s a day to be totally aware of our blessings and show gratitude for all we have. And secondly, it’s a day dedicated to FOOD! It’s essentially like a 2nd Christmas without the stress of gift-giving! Score! I love being such good friends with girlfriends who are as obsessed with food as I am. Everything we ate today was seriously divine. I’m grateful today for good friends, good food, and good conversation. (Oh, and did I mention Joel did ALL the dishes?? Grateful for that, too!!)

Check out my sweet place cards! Thanks, Martha!My beautiful birdie.  Not quite sure what to make of mashed potatoes… 

Hula!

Since we didn’t get to officially celebrate Derrick’s last precious moments in his 20’s since we were in Florida, we had a belated birthday bash for his this past weekend. What better way to ring in his 30’s than with a luau? Especially since it’s cold here already!

Thanks to the Patten’s for lending the awesome Tiki Torches!

We had roasted pork, rice, pineapple, salad, and pina coladas (thanks to expert bartender Mark!). Casey and Emily emerged as the hula hoop champions, although I did debate revoking Casey’s title after he cheated and bumped into me causing my hoop to fall.

We had some great Hawaiian outfits, which I failed to capture on film. I’m so sad about that. Everyone did get lei’d, however! We even had a pinata, which was a little stubborn and had to be thrown against the wall. Now I have stubborn sucker pieces stuck to my craft room floor.

 

     

We had a great time with our friends and we’re so glad everyone was able to make it!

 

Steal my camera, expect to pay for it!

Ten Years

I can’t believe I graduated High School ten years ago. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday and then sometimes it really does feel like forever. Either way, I always knew I wanted to go to my 10 year reunion. I mean, my family moved away my first semester of college so I never even got to go home there for Christmas that first year. So I never really got to see anyone once I graduated and left for BYU. Plus, who doesn’t want to go to Florida??

Since we had two free tickets from those morons at AirTran from when they botched up our trip back in June, we used those. And our awesome friends Bob & Suzanne let us crash at their house AND let us use one of their cars the whole time. So….a pretty cheap trip!

We went to Orlando one day (the one day it was absolutely FREEZING…thanks to a tropical storm in the Gulf). We walked around Downtown Disney which was a ton of fun, despite being so cold. Summer did great, and I seriously started crying when I saw some workers dressed up with a wand filled with glitter sprinkling it on little girls’ heads. One day!!! My little girl will be running up and getting glitter in her hair! It was so adorable. Derrick just rolled his eyes. We ate at a really good sandwich shop there, called The Earl of Sandwich. And of course had to get a hot fudge brownie sundae at Ghirardelli. Then we checked out the Orlando Temple and headed home.

Friday and Saturday were the reunion festivities. Friday night was a meet and greet at our old high school hangout. Probably the best of the 3 events planned. (Except for my brief moment of painful embarrassment.)  I didn’t really know who was going to show up for the reunion, but I knew my best friend Gail was and that was really all I cared about. I hadn’t seen her in 9 YEARS. But when we saw each other it could have been 9 days. It was so great to catch up with her and meet her husband and I seriously just love this girl. She took me in, no questions asked, when I was the new girl at school and immediately started filling me in on who was who and who was with who and who hated who. Got that? :) We were in band together, both played flute, and just had a great time together in high school, and at the reunion.

Gail & Me

With high school girlfriends

Marty, Gail & Me—Drum Major, Band Lt., and Band Cpt. Band dorks all around!

So….seeing Gail and a few other of my friends was really the highlight. Sad to say, the reunion as an event totally sucked. Like I said, the meet and greet was really informal but the best part. Saturday afternoon there was a BBQ on the beach, where about 7 classmates showed up. Um….lame. Luckily I convinced Gail and our friend Will to show up and not leave me hanging. So, that was a bust. Then, that night was the dinner at a bar/grill on the beach. There were NO signs, NO introductions, NO welcomes, NOTHING. A quick group picture (if you call telling everyone to stand “over there” with no order, tall people in front, short people—ME—in back, and then 15 cameras going off simultaneously a group picture), and then people started going through the buffet line. I paid $40 bucks for corn and pasta?? There was no slide show, no program, absolutely nothing. After people finished eating they went outside to the bar and started drinking. Sweet, my favorite thing to do.

I don’t know what I was expecting, I guess. Derrick tried to warn me that the people planning it probably have no experience planning events. In our church, members are given lots of responsibilities. We’re taught tons of things that prove to be truly useful throughout the rest of our lives. Public speaking, delegating, planning activities, making decorations out of egg cartons,etc. All useful stuff. Still, I was let down.

Also, and this may come as a shock to many of you, but I didn’t really run with the popular crowd in high school. Gail was on the golf team, which had popular kids on it, and so they all knew me through Gail, but I wasn’t really one of them. Mostly just cool by association, and not even really that cool. So the problem with Saturday night was that most of the people there were people that were popular in high school. And now they can all legally drink. Luckily I had Gail and Will and a few other friends to hang out with, and especially Derrick, who, bless his heart was attending this great event on HIS 30th BIRTHDAY. I know, I owe him. Big time.

The rest of the weekend we spent with old friends and just enjoyed the weather. I got to see one of my other best friends Lenora and her family, which is always a great time. We went down to the beach and watched the sunset Sunday night. Always gorgeous. Oh, and her kids are sooo adorable. Seriously cute. We planned on going to the beach Monday but Summer woke up with a 102.6 fever so we just stayed at home.

Lenora & Me

Easton & Summer, who is eating sand for the first time

It’s always good to go back to Florida. It’s just filled with so many great memories for me. And even if nobody I knew is even there anymore, it just has this feeling about it. It feels like going home.

Blah blah, enough of this gushy stuff. Onto more pictures!

All of these were taken at Clearwater Beach

    

       

Reunion faux pas

So we're in Florida for my ten year reunion, right? Check out this little
convo I had last night in the bathroom:

Me: Hi!
Classmate with pregnant belly: Hi.
Me: When are you due?
Classmate who now hates me: I'm not.
Me: Oh, well you still look darling. I'm sorry.
Classmate who wants to kill me: silent

My good friend Gail was in the stall and heard this all go down and was
trying not to laugh while I hurried and washed my hands and got the heck
outta there.

Turns out my other friend Katrina asked her the same thing. So I don't feel
as bad, but then I feel worse for her that it happened more than once. In
my defense, her shirt was not helping her cause. And as a woman, I know
that you have to be pretty certain before you ask a question like that. And
I thought I was.

I pretty much avoided her the rest of the weekend.

Not popular then, not popular now...

10 months!

Double digit months! Our darling Miss Summer still continues to entertain us on a daily basis. Her new trick is to yell short outbursts as loud as she can, usually in quiet settings, like church. She has discovered her voice for sure. Sometimes, it drives me absolutely crazy.

She can roll from her back to her tummy, which she will do in her crib and I always find her sleeping on her tummy. I think she sleeps better that way, except when she gets her arms or legs stuck between the slats. Too bad it took her so long to figure that out. Thing is, when she first started doing that she would wake up soaking wet from pee. The diaper soaked through and her jammies and sheets would be wet. Not a fun thing to change at 5 am. I tried plastic pants—no dice. Finally I just put on two diapers and it works like a champ.

She eats like a horse. Half her day is spent in her high chair eating, as you can see from most of these pictures . Breakfast is usually a container of yogurt, a slice of bread, a banana, and maybe a bowl of Cheerios. And she would keep eating I’m sure if I let her. Needless to say, she has developed quite the gut on herself. She also starting to feel really heavy and solid. I don’t have an official weight for her, but I’d say she’s well over 15 pounds.

She has 3 teeth, two on the bottom and one on her upper left. Tonight she started grinding them together while I was feeding her applesauce and it sent shivers through my whole body. I had to give up and have Derrick finish feeding her. SO NASTY. But her little teeth are pretty cute.

She’s a pretty spunky little kid, and is always giving us crazy faces. We went to Holy Hill to check out the fall colors a few weeks back and I got these two faces from her.

It was pretty chilly that day. Starting out she was doing pretty well.

By the end she wasn’t really having it anymore.  She’s not crawling yet, but she’s definitely getting much more mobile. She scoots on her bum a little and will bend waaaaay over to try and get something just out of her reach.

It’s hard to believe she’s 10 months old already. She is looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby. It’s amazing how fast they change.

We sure do love this girl though, and even if she drives me crazy by the end of some days, she has a great dad who loves to play with her when he gets home and gives me a break. She’s always thrilled to see him, and by 5:30, so am I!

Love you, Summer Love!

Halloweenie!

I can’t believe Halloween has already come and gone! It’s all downhill from here as far as holidays go. 2010 will be here before we know it. Yikesabee! (Movie anyone?)

We dressed our little chickadee up as, well, a chickadee! She was happy as a clam wearing it and I think she looked hysterical and awesome.

  We took her trick-or-treating up and down our street and took our new neighbors treats and introduced ourselves. So far everyone seems really nice. So far.

We had an impromptu Halloween dinner party and managed to have quite the menagerie of animals. A butterfly, chicken, and two monkeys. I loved seeing these kiddos all dressed up.

Speaking of kids dressed up, what the H is up with kids’ Halloween “costumes” these days? Half the kids that came wore absolutely NO COSTUME or the barest minimum of what could be considered a costume. I straight up called them out and asked them what they were supposed to be. They had no answer. No free candy if you don’t do the work! Put on a freaking costume! Beads and a ball cap do NOT a costume make. Neither does a Farve jersey. I also had quite a few kids with 2 bags “for their sick brother/sister”. Why didn’t I think of that scam when I was little? Pish posh. Oh well. There were some cute costumes though,and either way I LOVED having tick-or-treaters come to our house!! So fun! We totally ran out of candy though…next year we will have to really stock up!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween and scored some sweet candy!

Dining Room Makeover

Friday Derrick took the day off and we tackled our first home improvement project together: painting. Neither one of us has any real painting experience, but I watch so much freaking HGTV I’m essentially a pro in my mind. We got the paint and primer all in one and two coats and 8 hours later we were done! It’s far from perfect, but for our first real painting job, I think it looks fantastic. Plus, we didn’t fight and we still liked each other at the end of the day! Bonus.

Before: A sea of orange

After: Cool, calming gray

What do you think??