On the move!

A little while ago, I predicted that Emilie would be crawling by Christmas. She had perfected her backwards crawling by then, but only took one or two lunges forward. Until now! I tried for a while to get a short video of her crawling, but of course she would hear none of that, but I got some pictures that captured her cute crawling prowess. (I think I was using the wrong bate for the video - it turns out that the CAMERA is best to lure babies, not toys! Silly me!)We've had to do something to keep us entertained today. Not only is it cold outside, but Emilie has come down with a cold herself and is quite needy today, poor girl. Plus, I think she's teething some more, so it's just loads of fun around here. :)

In with the new

As the year is quickly drawing to a close, it's always interesting to ponder on the events of the past year and look ahead to what lies ahead. 2008 has been a pretty crazy year with so much going on - an uncertain but very positive pregnancy, a new baby who is ridiculously adorable, a little boy who keeps growing up way too fast, new employment and employment opportunities, a new address with new friends to meet, new experiences, new traditions, and on and on. I think over all, it has been a very good year!

At the rate we're going, I am certain that next year will bring with it its own set of challenges and trials, but we're going to also have many wonderful memories and experiences. With the kids' birthdays right around the corner, I can just feel the clock speeding up.

But with all the things over which I will have no control, one thing that I can control is FOOD. I am making a public declaration of a goal of mine for 2009 along with a preliminary list of my rules that I will be sticking to and am asking you, dear blog reader, to support me and encourage me in my upcoming quest. So, without further ado, here is my official 2009 set of rules for myself and my family:

• Family meals in 2009 will be homecooked (mostly by me, unless it involves the grill, then Jarom will be assisting)
• Once a month we will be allowed to get a Costco pizza.
• Once a month we can gorge ourselves on tacos from Del Taco if it's Taco Tuesday night.
• We can go out to eat if we are invited (especially if someone else is buying!) or to celebrate a family member's birthday, but not just because I don't feel like cooking.
• My weekly food budget is not to exceed $60.

I have started going a softer version of this since we've moved and no longer have fast food nearby, and I think it's been a good change for our family. Isaac was getting way too familiar with chicken nuggets, "swench swies" and Sprite. So I am going to make a plan and stick with it and will no doubt make mention of it in my postings. Wish me luck!

I'll try again in a few years

Yesterday we realized that putting up the cute netting over Emilie's bed might be a little bit too mature for a little girl, so we took it down for now. Once she's a little bit older, we can put it back up. What do you think?
This year we hosted the Sugden Christmas party, and even though it was a bit stressful putting together a soiree for nearly 30 people, it turned out great and it seemed like everyone had a good time. The best part? Camie's leftover cookies!!! Her peppermint swirl cookies are on the top of my list of favorite things about Christmas. I made the Pioneer Woman's cake balls and they seemed to go over quite well. I took this shot yesterday. These are all gone now. My nephew took this shot of the cousins playing on the stairs, how cute are they? (We took a family picture before, that's why everyone's outfits are coordinating!) Everyone loves Uncle Chris! (I had no idea so many people fit on my couch!)

Merry Christmas everyone! Here are a few picture highlights from our Holiday celebrations!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

I'm famous!

My picture of the snowy grill made it onto news tonight! I submitted it on KSL's website and they showed it as an example of the nearly foot of snow we received out here! I'm cool.

Let it snow! and snow, and snow, and snow...

I watched the news last night and knew that a storm was heading our way, so when it was already snowing when I got up, I wasn't surprised. But the snow has been falling all day, and as you can see, it has piled up! Here is what our deck looks like:This was after about a half hour of shoveling. The snow is so dense, it is taking much longer to shovel. I'm thinking a snow blower might not be so bad. My back is too sore to shovel much more for now. I'll let Jarom take a turn. We've had four big storms in the last two weeks and it is taking its toll!!! But hey, who needs a gym membership?Here are some pics from our Christmas party with Jarom's family last night. Here is Emilie in her little Christmas dress and her fabulous shoes from Curby's Closet and her Ribbies Clippies in her hair! I tried getting a pic of all the grandkids in their cute Christmas clothes, but it just wasn't happening. This is the best one I could get. (Isaac, Emilie, and Michaela)Isaac was VERY excited to open his presents. I can't wait to see what he is like on Christmas day!

Interesting stats!

I love Google, especially Google reader and Google analytics. Reader is the only way I can keep up with the blogs I like to follow (if you don't already subscribe, I HIGHLY recommend doing so). And Analytics are just cool to see how many people visit your blog, where they are from, and where they found you. So just for kicks and giggles, I thought I would share the top five blogs that are bringing traffic my way for the month of December:

#1. Brooke (23 referrals)
#2. Jenny (18 referrals)
#3. Eniko (17 referrals)
#4. Camie (14 referrals)
#5. John (12 referrals)

Wow, I'm feeling the love! Thanks for visitng!

My pages are done!

I finished up my scrapbook pages for my family scrapbook exchange at our Christmas party, so I thought I would share them with you! And if you are in my family seeing these, then just humor me and act surprised when you see them next week. :) You can click on the images and it will bring up the larger image so you can read the text. (you can see last years pages here)

I won again!

Holy cow, I can't believe my luck! I won another blog give away, this time from Tangled and True! I won two sets of Ribbies Clippies, aren't they adorable? And now that Emilie is getting more hair, she's going to be even more stinkin cute than usual. What am I going to do with so much cuteness?My million dollar baby bouncer hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure I'll blog all about it when it does get here and all my life's problems are solved.

Until then, I'm taking Emilie to the doctor today. I think she's getting an ear infection, poor girl!

Win a Christmas Bear

Have I told you enough how cute my aunt Chris's shop Curby's Closet is? Well, she's giving away a darling Christmas bear on her blog and you can sign up to win it! Seriously cute stuff.

Temple Square

Ever since I was a little girl, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was to visit Temple Square as a family to see the Christmas lights. And pretty much every year since we've been married, we've managed to always make at least one trip downtown to see the beautiful lights.

Last year, we took TRAX downtown, and Isaac had so much fun riding the train, so we took it again this year. The kids did ok, but both got pretty squirmy towards the end. On the way home, though, it was nice because I could feed Emilie and she actually fell asleep in my arms. I love the pretty nativity they put up in the reflection pool this year! A helicopter kept circling overhead and Isaac was so excited to watch it fly around. Here is is standing with his little friend Will - he and his parents and baby brother came along with us tonight. I had a hard time getting a shot of jus the two kids because the battery in my camera was getting a bit temperamental and by now the kids were a bit tired, so this was the best I could get.The most beautiful full moon was out tonight, and positioned behind the temple with the lights and everything else was just amazing to see.And last but not least, I wanted to share a few insights I had tonight while we visited the Christus statue. As we reached the top of the landing, all the little kids just ran up to get as close as possible. Isaac even climbed under the ropes because he wanted to get up to the statue and touch it. My first instinct was to grab him and scold him, but then I had a glimpse into what it must have been like when the Savior said to suffer the little children to come unto him, and took them into his arms and blessed them. I think that he is happy that kids are so instinctively drawn to him and feel happy being up close to him, both literally and spiritually. I can learn so much from these beautiful children.

The other thing I noticed about the statue was how Christ's toes are sculpted. It's a silly thing to notice, but his pinky toe is kid of curved under the next toe. It's such a minor thing, and it's not to say that our Lord and Savior has crooked toes, but if he does, I think it's neat to think that his toes have the same quirky variations that we all have. And maybe some of the features on my body that I may not consider to be perfect might not be so imperfect after all.

Update

At dinner time, I checked Emilie's mouth again, and sure enough, that second cute little tooth has poked through the surface! I know it's not a big deal to most people, but I get pretty darn excited about these kinds of things. :) Now that it is through, I'm hoping that she is going to have a better day tomorrow, especially since we are going to Temple Square tomorrow nights to see the LIGHTS!

Milestones

Monday was a very cranky day for Emilie, and later that evening, I found out why: her first tooth came in! We couldn't see it yet at that point, but we could sure feel it! I tried taking a picture of it this morning, and it's hard to tell, but you can kind of make out her first little pearly white. She's having another pretty cranky day today and I wonder if her neighboring tooth is ready to come through. You can feel it under her gums, so if it's not today, it will be soon.Another milestone is right around the corner - crawling. She will pull herself up onto her hands and knees, rock back and forth, then go back onto her tummy and scoot backwards. I predict that she will be crawling by Christmas. She moves around all over the place, but she gets frustrated because she can only move backwards and sideways, but once she can master going ahead, I think she will be unstoppable. Time to get the baby gate installed.And what's not to love about that smile?!?

Um, yum!

Lats night I was really craving a chocolate milkshake, and was really tempted to have Jarom bring me one back as he was heading home from Lowes, but then I remembered seeing this recipe on Hillbilly Housewife and thought I would give it a try.

They turned out so good last night, so we made them again tonight, but my blender gave out on me at the end and totally died! I guess I made it a little too thick. Totally worth it though. They taste a lot like Wendy's frostie's, only better. And I have a bunch of dry milk I need to use up because I've had it sitting around for a while, so it's a great way to use up some of that and get some fresher milk.

Here is the recipe for her Magic Milkshake:

• 1-1/2 to 2 cups ice water
• 1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 to 1-1/2 trays of ice cubes, as much as you can spare
• 2 tablespoons corn oil plus a 5-second squirt of non-stick spray for emulsification purposes

Place all of the ingredients into the blender, including the oil and the non-stick spray. Use less water for thicker milk shakes and more water for shakes that are easy on your blender motor. The blender should be about 3/4's full. Place the lid on. Process for a full 2 minutes. Pour into cups and serve. Makes 4 - 12oz servings.

Look what will soon be under my tree!

My amazingly talented and crafty Aunt Chris has done it again. Look what she is selling in her Etsy shop:She is making Emilie a red pair for Christmas and those adorable zebra shoes for every other day. I can hardly wait until they arrive!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Even though the snow flakes haven't been as plentiful around here yet, Christmas is in the air and the fun has already started! Every morning, Isaac is so excited for his Advent Calender chocolate and we usually sing a Christmas song or two so that he can learn them.

Yesterday, we had a fun playgroup with his buddies at Jenny's house and we made some cute little snowmen marshmallow things. Here is Isaac with his masterpiece (moments before it was destroyed).
Then on Thursday, Isaac's cousin Kylan (who is four months older) turned 4 and we had a fun time playing with him and his sisters at Jungle Jim's. I'm in denial that Isaac's 4th birthday party is just around the corner.Then this morning, we had a fun little Christmas party for all the preemie graduates from the University Hospital's NBICU. When Isaac was in the hospital, we made friends with the most wonderful family from England. Julie and I spent hours together watching her little Maya and my little Isaac as they went through their ups and downs, and through the years we have kept in contact. They spent the last year and a half in England waiting for visas to come back, and finally a few weeks ago, they were able to return to Utah. I have been so anxious to see Julie and Maya again, it was such a joyful reunion! Here I am with Julie (and Emilie who was munching on my gingerbread cookie. She stole it from me, I didn't hand it to her.). All these cute little kiddos were in the NBICU at the same time. Maya is on the left side, then two kids I didn't really know too well, then my tall boy Isaac. It's just amazing that kids born so early with so many problems at birth can turn out so well!Maya was in love with Emilie and loved talking to her and playing with her! And I couldn't get over how cute it is to hear a beautiful English accent coming from such a cute little mouth. We had to leave the party early so that we could go to a friend's son's baptism, and Isaac was very sad because Santa hadn't arrived yet. They had baskets of toys for him to pass out to the kids, and we were able to get a cement truck for Isaac before we left, and that helped make up for some of the disappointment, but on our way out the building, just feet from the door, I heard some bells jingling, and sure enough, out of an elevator came Santa and Mrs. Claus! They were so kind and let Isaac come over and see Santa. We snapped a quick picture and Isaac was very happy. Afterwards, he said that Santa is "a very nice uncle!" And so he is.

Just to let you know

So we have been considering a change of venue for work the last little while. Jarom's company was looking for someone to head over to the Czech Republic for a short-term assignment to get their office over there to work better with the group over here, and Jarom applied for the job knowing how desperately I want to get back to Europe (and Prague, does it get more beautiful than that?!?!?). We had discussed all the issues about how it would affect our personal lives, the kids, our home, and thought that it would be too great of an opportunity to pass up. At the same time, Jarom also had an interview with a company in Salt Lake that would also offer a great job opportunity and we started the waiting game.

Then yesterday, the job offer from the company in Salt Lake came, so he sat down and discussed things with his manager and found out a few things about the Prague job that were a little disappointing (namely SALARY), so we thought about it long and hard last night and felt good about Jarom accepting the position in Salt Lake. It will be a lot more challenging than his current job, and he'll be working with a bunch of guys he worked with at Linux Networx.

So for those of you who knew that we were considering relocating, we have yet again let that ship sail and we are staying put. Jarom will probably start his new job at the first of the new year. I don't know why each time we have been slated to accept a job somewhere else, it always works out better to just stay put. Maybe this is just where we are meant to stay.

And on a totally different note, a few people have asked where I got the cute stickers I put on my van:
I ordered them from Hollydoodle because they were the very, very cutest ones I have ever seen and since they are original designs, no one else has the same ones. And I love her cat design, too cute for words.

Status update

I should have been a bit more productive with work this weekend, but it felt nice to take a little time for myself and work on some personal projects, especially my family scrapbook pages! I have five pages I want to do this year (cover page and 4 personal) and I am already done with three and the other two are well on their way. I was having major issues with Photoshop dying on me until my brilliant hubby found out that the driver for my keyboard was causing the editor to crash constantly and modified how things were installed. And voila, no more crashing! I love being able to be creative and get my projects done! I will post the pages as soon as they are all finished. I should do more scrapbooking, but I just don't have time to do too much, so I am happy with myself to make my year-in-review pages for the family. It's quite satisfying, and we all love looking through the book. I also have some sewing projects under way for Christmas that I will hopefully get done tomorrow with Rachele.

So here are some pics that I thought I would share that have nothing at all to do with what I just wrote:

Isaac found some old sunglasses left over from his 2nd birthday and he and Emlie had fun wearing them. Emilie actually really liked wearing them and was a bit put out when I took them off her.
This is how adorable Emilie was last Sunday for church. She looked equally smashing in her little black velvet and plaid dress she wore today, but I didn't take a picture. I sure love all these cute dresses!!!Then also last Sunday, April, my old mission companion, came through Utah to go to the airport to see her family for Thanksgiving, and she stopped by for a visit, had dinner with us, and let us meet her boyfriend. I loved seeing my Sora and remembering the good old days.

Let there be turkey!

I was shoked to step on the scale this morning and see that I was down two pounds, don't know how that happened, especially considering we had TWO huge Thanksgiving feasts yesterday! But hey, I will just add that to my list of more things to be grateful for. :)

This is how our morning started (and remarkably similiar to how this morning is going too):
We first drove over to Michele's house and mingled with the fam. Here's Jarom talking with my "little" nephew Gevan. When on earth did he get so tall?!?And my super-woman sister Michele and her culinary prowesss.
John, Jeff, Dad, and Chris. What a group of handsome boys! After we had lunch with my family, we prayed that our food would digest quickly, and headed over to Jarom's parents for dinner part II. By now the kids were pretty tired, so I didn't get as many pictures, but here we are the "kids" table, minus Jenny who was taking care of Michaela, and Isaac who lost interest in eating and needed to play with trucks. *sigh* I gave Emilie a pickle spear and she LOVED sucking on it. It kept her occupied for quite a while so I could eat my dinner! I love that face she was making.
The kids slept the whole way home and handled the festivities pretty well. Today they are both still out of sorts, but we're putting up our Christmas tree tonight and I'm sure that will bring out some happy faces.

Giving Thanks

In honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow, I've been pondering some of the things in my life that I'm thankful for. Besides the obvious things to be grateful for (awesome kids, wonderful hubby, etc.), I thought I would share some of the less-obvious things that are on my gratitude list:

• Frozen turkeys. My first Thanksgiving in Romania, my district of missionaries thought it would be fun to create a full-blown American feast, complete with turkey, so we went to the piata and bought "Domnul Cluck-Cluck" and with the help of Mircea, slaughtered that poor beast, plucked, gutted, and cleaned him. I stuffed and baked him along with making all the other fixings, and had a wonderful meal (after all day of cooking!). After that, I vowed I would never again go through so much work to cook a turkey.
• Nail clippers/hair clippers. I can't stand long toe nails or long hair on my boys. I am so grateful that I can keep toe nails short and unruly Hatch hair under submission.
• Snow plows. I hate driving in snow. Hate it. Thank you, snow plows, for at least making snowy roads feasible.
• Chocolate.
• Modern medicine. Without it, I would not have Isaac and Emilie wearing me out all the time.
• Hot showers
  
• Books. Especially audio books, since that is how I digest my daily dose of literature these days.
  
• My iPod and the public library system (for the previous point).
• Sharp knives. I found a little knife sharpener at Ikea not too long ago and gave all my knives a quick sharpening and they are now like brand new again. Now I can slice and dice like all those over-priced and under-dressed chefs on the food network again.
• Memory foam. Don't understand it, but I can't sleep without it.

I guess that is my list for now. I should run downstairs and put my pies in the fridge for tomorrow. It was all I could do to not munch on them tonight. I can't wait for all the feasting tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving!

So lucky, and I'm not even Julie!

My sister-in-law Julie has the craziest luck when it comes to winning stuff! She and her husband literally win contests every week. They've won big gift cards to Home Depot, a week-long all-expenses paid trip to Disneyland, event tickets, restaurant gift cards, and on and on and on. We always joke that if there is a contest, they are automatically slated to win, and it's almost disappointing when they don't win. Not me, I hardly win anything, I'm just not that lucky. I did win a box of chocolates from around the world from the Utah Chocolate Show folks one time, and that was SOOOO good, but that was about as far as my luck went. Until yesterday!!! Look what is coming to my house soon!!!!!I love seeing the cool stuff over at Cool Mom Picks and dreaming about what it would be like to have unlimited funds to spoil my kids with all the amazing neat stuff out there made for moms and kids. They have a lot of giveaways and when I have time, I like to enter a contest or two, hoping, but not really expecting much more of it. Well, yesterday afternoon, I got an email that I am the proud new owner of this awesome Babybjorn Baby SitterBalance! (retail price of $169.95 *cough* *cough*) I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it! And since it is designed to be used up to age 2, Emilie can still get a lot of use out of it! Look out, Julie, my luck is changing!

Tagged

Charlotte tagged me, although her instructions were a little vague, so I will comply and share a picture from my stash and will pass along the challenge to anyone else out there who feels so inclined to participate. Just go to your pictures, 6th folder, 6th picture, and post it on your blog. If you accept this challenge, leave me a comment so I can see your random pic!

This little gem was taken at Jarom's brother's house. They just got a cat condo for their lucky cats and Isaac had to climb it. I think he spends a little too much time with Gabby.

I said yes

Eight years ago tomorrow morning, a very handsome young man met me at my parents' house, offered me a dozen of the most beautiful red long-stemmed roses, escorted me to his shiny black car, and drove me to the Bountiful Temple. Inside, we changed into beautiful white clothes, knelt across each other at the altar surrounded by our family and friends, and we agreed to commit our lives to one another. In the last eight years we have:

• Moved six times
• Bought two houses
  
• Gone through eight cars
• Got a cat
• Had three beautiful children
• Gained a pound or two
• Shared many laughs, many tears
• Collectively traveled to 18 states in the US, and one business trip for Jarom to France
  
• Gone through seven hospital stays
• Had at least eight different jobs

And through it all, I still love this crazy, brilliant, wonderful man that I bound myself to so many years ago. Thank you for marrying me, Love, Happy Anniversary!