We're home!

We had such a fun Christmas this year with Matt's family. We just flew home last night, and it was really nice to sleep back in our own beds. We were able to stay longer this trip than we usually get to and it was really nice. Hallie made out like a bandit with presents, we had to pack one and a half suit cases of just her presents (you think her aunts and grandparents love her or what?) and Matt and I didn't do too badly ourselves. Matt got a new digital camera from his parents which we were really in need of and they got me a 28 gage shot gun. When we go camping with them I really love shooting clay pigeons but I always borrow someone elses gun, so now I have my own! :) Fun. Basically Christmas was really good and Hallie even got to go and ride her aunt Katie's horse. Here are some pics.

Belly Butt

Hallie's new favorite thing to show people, her "belly butt". The scary thing is when she tries to find other people's belly butt, particularly at church, and starts lifting up women's skirts. Poor Jessica was one of her victims at church a week and a half ago, she was actually the first victim when we discovered that Hallie thought the quickest way to find a woman's belly button at church was to go up their skirt. It was really funny. As long as I'm talking about Hallie (lets get real, she's all I talk about) she has also become OBSESSED with "Choco milk" (thank you Matt) and won't drink milk without choco. She stands in front of the refrigerator, because she knows the chocolate milk mix is on top of the fridge, and cries and yells and stamps her feet begging for "Choco". And me, being the good disciplinarian that I am, and wanting to teach her that she doesn't get what she wants by throwing fits...I give it to her to make her stop begging. At least I'm AWARE it's bad parenting and plan to nip it in the bud at some point. Just not right now when I constantly feel like I'm on the verge of throwing up. Right now, I'll do anything...ANYTHING, as quickly as I can to make her happy so I can continue hovering close to a good throw up place. Considering getting pregnant? Let me remind you if this isn't your first and warn you if it is....it sucks. Find a way to get a nasty case of food poisining and as you're throwing up and feeling nausious all day just think, this is what I will feel like for 3 months of pregnancy at least. Just giving you something positive to think about. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Ahhh, finally, Christmas season is here. Love it. We set up our cute, fake, Christmas tree tonight and it made me so happy. Now all we need is some ornaments to go on it. I think I'll go to Target tonight. Scratch that, I don't want to get the crap beaten out of me by all the Thanksgiving Day weekend shoppers. I'll wait till monday.
This is my Grown-Up Christmas List:
1. To not feel sick at all with this pregnancy (pleeease santa!)
2. To get my Honda Odyssey mini-van. (I'm obsessed with them)
3. To not gain 75 lbs with this pregnancy (PRETTY please santa!)
4. No more lives torn apart...and wars would never start...and time would heal all hearts! (you know, the Moriah Carey song, I don't know if she's the original singer).
5. A large, unexpected sum of money dropped in our mail slot would be nice. :)
6. A maid to come and clean our little apartment that I can't seem to keep clean by myself.
7. A full day of sleeping with NO interuptions from ANYONE. (Santa...I would do anything for you in exchange for this one).
8. A plastic surgeon standing by to fix what having Hallie did to my body and what this next one will surely make worse. :)
9. For Matt not to have to work anymore and to just be with me all the time. (I'm sure his Christmas list will cancel this request out).
10. Another wonderful, healthy, beautiful, fun, naughty in a good way, yummy baby in July.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hallie's Big Announcement...

Shots...ouchie

Hallie has been coughing for like 2 and half months now. I've already had her to the Dr. once and he said that there was nothing wrong with her. So I finally got brave enough to take her back today (I'm always afraid I'll look like a crazy mom). He told me to try over the counter Claritin and if it isn't better by Friday, to take her to get a chest x-ray. Fair enough. But then I just had to ask.... When we were living in our last apartment they made us sign a paper saying that there was lead based paint in the apartments. So ever since then I've been worried, What if Hallie has lead poising? That can lower a childs IQ you know. So I asked him about it, and he told me I should have her checked for just incase. Do you know how they check that? They draw their blood from their arm. So he sent me right over to the lab, the whole way there I just knew I was going to pass out when they did it. I also knew Hallie was going to think I was a horrible mother for letting these people hurt her like that. It was horrible. She stuck out her bottom lip like her little heart was broken. I had her feet pinned between my legs, her left arm under my armpit, and had to hold her right arm straight with my two hands. So I was the awful mom letting this scary lady with really long finger nails hurt my baby. I told the nurse I didn't think I could watch, she said I had to so I could hold Hallie's arm really still. When she put that needle in....I almost passed out. But it was over before I knew it and we were out of there. I got her some healthy chicken nuggets for being such a good girl. :) So for both our sakes....I hope we don't have to do that again for a long time!

Best Friends.....usually. :)

Julie just sent me this picture and I loved it so I wanted to post it. This was about a month ago at the beach in the Laguna. Love you Jules!

The Whole Fam Damily

Wedding Weekend.

So Lara got married this past Saturday. It was awesome. The whole thing was gorgeous, they were so happy, the food was so good. Everyone had a really good time. The wedding and the reception were at this beautiful house in San Clemente over looking the ocean. Her colors were white. All the flowers were white, everything. It was a gorgeous sunny day (maybe a little too sunny, we were all really hot) and everything was perfect. Here are some random pics, I don't have many of Lara, and non of Lara and Steve, but I'll get some more soon.

As sick as a...

DOG! I'm so stinkin sick. My nose has been running, my sinuses are stuffy, my nose is running, and I'm coughing like crazy. Amy is right, the sick leave package as a Mom is pretty crappy. Although I was lucky enough to take some time off yesterday when Mary came and picked up Hallie in the morning and took her to my parents house for the day so I could get some R and R. Although it was a little lacking in the relaxation category. Anyways, I'm actually feeling a little better today. Still coughing and nose running, but I FEEL ok. We had a fun night last night. Daniel and Alicia, Brady and Jessica, Joey and Christina, Kelly and Scott, John and Trina, and David all came over and we ordered pizza, and talked, and played catch phrase. We all had a really good time. Owen and Ada and Hallie all played together (as well as 2 two year olds and a one year old can play together without a riot breaking out :) ) And all of us semi-grown ups had a really good time. I love getting lots of people together and having fun. On another subject, Lara is getting married on Saturday and I feel like, being her favorite sister, I have not done nearly enough to help. :) J/K (about the favorite sister thing) But seriously I have done almost nothing to contribute and every time I ask her if there is anything I can do she just shrugs her shoulders and says, "not really". Her and Steve have pretty much done this whole thing on their own. I'm really happy for her and I really like Steve. I think they will be really good for eachother and really happy together. Well, I need to spend some time on the floor with Hallie.

Hallie at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Shooting with Matt and his Mom Hallie and her Cousin Broadie

Fun Camping Weekend

Matt's parents really were missing Hallie so they flew us out to go camping with them this weekend. They own some property up in the mountains near Salina. So we flew out Wednesday night and got back last night. We had a really good time! We shot a lot of shot guns and had really good food and visited with Matt's family and his grandparents. Hallie got kind of traumatized though. We were in Matt's parent's camper (which is about 3-4 feet up off the ground and has metal steps going up to it) and Hallie pushed on the screen door and fell out and hit her face on the bottom metal step on her way down. It was HORRIBLE! We thought she had broken her nose. It kept bleeding and it swelled up instantly and looked like it was broken. Matt's Mom was saying that if it didn't stop bleeding we were going to need to take her to an emergency room. I was FREAKING out (but maintained a calm face) and Hallie wasn't doing so good either. But after a few minutes the blood started to slow down and the swelling started to go down. She doesn't seem to have broken it (but I'm still taking her to the doctor today) but she did take all the skin off her nose. Poor little thing. But it gets worse. Just before we were about to leave to drive down the mountain we were playing with sparklers and Matt was holding Hallie, just after his sparkler went out he was holding it with his other hand and holding it pretty far away from her, but she lunged for it and grabbed it and burned her hand pretty bad. Matt felt horrible, but it really wasn't his fault. It was an accident. So basically...Hallie is a mess and it looks like we beat her or something. Other than those two awful events, we had a really good time and it was really good to see Matt's family. Here are some pics...

Back in business!

Guess what happened today....we got INTERNET and CABLE!!! YAY!!! My life as a monk is over. So we are in our new place now out in Tustin and I love, love, LOVE it. It is so cute, and 400 dollars a month cheaper than our last place. It is also WAY nicer than our last place. We painted some really cute colors and hung pictures and Matt is going to buy sod so we'll have a lawn in our back yard (that's right, we have a back yard). Right now the back yard is just dirt. The first thing I want to buy after we get a lawn....a slide. One of those little plastic ones. Hallie really loves climbing the play ground equipment at the park and going down the slides all by herself. It actually makes me a little nervous, but she is so stinkin independent. Basically, life is good. Hallie has her own bedroom (it's actually our walk in closet...but she doesn't know the difference), we have a really big living room, all brand new appliances, a DISHWASHER, and a fireplace!!!! YAY. Life is so good right now. I haven't felt like I had a home since we left our cute apartment in Rexburg almost a year and a half ago. Finally, I feel home again. Our ward is awesome. TONS of young couple with young kids and play groups and what not. There are two hundred and fifty members that live in our apartment complex, which is great. Our friend's front door and our front door literally face eachother. And Hallie loves to over to their house and play with Aida (their two year old)'s toys, and loves to have her come over here. Their age difference is really funny because Aida is two and ALL two year olds don't like to share, and Hallie is 1 and all one year olds go up and just take things away from people. But neither of them understands the other one. It is really funny. So basically, life is good. We are SOOO happy. We love Tustin, all the cute shops and restaurants, and people. It's a really nice area. So there is the update on our lives. To sum it up in one word.... amazing.

Refrigerator-less

So we've been renting a fridge for the past 3 1/2 months and since we are moving to a new apartment we decided it is probably time to buy one rather than rent one. (NO apartments in CA have refrigerators in them). So we are moving out on Saturdays, but guess what day they are picking up the rental? Tomorrow...Thursday. So that means we will have no fridge for two days. This should be fun. Also, I had a girl call me a few weeks ago that got my name through a friend of a friend and wants me to do her hair and ALL of her bridesmaids hair for her wedding. Most people would just turn her down since it is the same day that I'm going to be moving, but I LOVE having the extra money from doing hair and I just couldn't say no to that many up-do's. So this Saturday I'm doing a bride and five bridesmaids hair starting at 4:00am and working on that until 8:30am. Then going straight home and moving (again). I'm dreading this weekend like no other. But I'm really excited to get into our new place finally.

IKEA

What a day I have had. On Mimi's days off....I'm her official playmate. Since I "don't do anything". :) So today she decided we were going to Ikea. Matt and I redid Shauna's old bedroom so Mimi wants book shelves or something to go in there. When my Mom heard we were going she decided that since she had never been to Ikea she wanted to come too. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. My Mom had Lucy (her three year old daycare kid) with her, I had Hallie, and Mimi had to be pushed in a wheel chair. Have you ever tried to keep a one year old, three year old, and 76 year old happy in Ikea? Not easy. Hallie does NOT want to be in the cart or carried. She wants to WALK! And she doesn't want to hold your hand, she wants to go wherever she wants to go. Lucy kept asking when we were going to get to the playground, and Mimi liked every single piece of furniture she saw except for the ones that I like. :) Since Matt and I worked so hard to redo that room I informed Mimi that she couldn't put any old lady, ugly stuff in there. So we can't seem to agree on colors, curtains, furniture, etc. It's actually pretty funny. Anything I like...she says "It's UUUgly" (emphasis on the uuuu). Anything she likes would no way match the room and the wall that I painted tan and she rolls her eyes everytime I inform her that what she likes would not look good in the room. It's really hard for her to fight her compulsion to decorate everything in blue. :) Anyways, by the end Hallie was having a melt down and Mimi wasn't done shopping, so my Mom took Hallie home with her and I stayed and took Mimi through more of Ikea. So it was a crazy trip, but lunch at Ikea was good. I'll post a pic of Shauna's old room when it's finished. The end. :)

Gotta love Julie...

So Julie came into town last night late and called me this morning while I was at the Mall with Hallie and wanted to hang out. So I met up with her at my Parent's house and put Hallie down for a nap there. Then the two of us went out to spend the rest of the afternoon together. It was so fun. We went to the Bella Terra and did some window shopping and Julie took me out to lunch for Greek food. Then we did more window shopping and I tried on this REALLY cute coat. But decided right away that I couldn't afford it and put it back. Then I went to the dressing room to try something else on, and when I came out....Julie had bought the coat for me!!! Is that the nicest thing you've ever heard of? I wanted to cry. I love new things!!!! And I love that Julie would do something like that for me. Plus we've been so tight financially lately and I haven't bought myself something in what seems like FOREVER. So basically, Julie made my day and I love her to pieces. After that we went to the mall and did some more walking around and shopping. It was great.

Glamour Shots for Mary...oooo lala

So we did Mary's glamour shots the other day, they turned out really cute. She's really lucky to be so good looking. :) We got into the apartments that we have been waiting to get into FOREVER!! We are so excited. There are a lot of young, lds, couples who live there and it is the most reasonably priced place anywhere around here. So we can hopefully, finally, start saving some money. Hallie is sick and the grouchiest baby ever. It's so hard to feel bad for her when she is constantly whining and crying. I just want her to get better so I don't have to deal with it anymore. Does that make me a bad mom? :) That must be why I had a baby...to teach me a little more compassion, or empathy, or sympathy, or whatever. Anywho, here are Mary's gorgeous glamour shots....

Yet another.....fun day at the beach. :)

Matt and Hallie and I decided to spend another beautiful Saturday at the beach. We loaded up our bikes and headed down to crystal cove in laguna beach. We actually ended up carrying the bikes more than riding them (the trails there went exactly bicycle friendly). But we found a perfect spot on the beach and set up camp for the rest of the day. Matt packed us a yummy lunch so we played in the water and ate penut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit snacks and apples and cheese sticks. Hallie chased the seagulls all over the beach and was THRILLED when she realized how close they would get to you if you feed them cheese (I hope cheese doesn't make birds sick). She sat it her Daddy's lap while the waves washed up on them and even go a little brave and started walking towards them on her own. Matt would hold her like she was an airplane and run as fast as he could after the flocks of seagulls sitting on the beach and she would laugh and laugh as they all took flight to get away from them. What was I doing this whole time? Taking pictures of course. :) It was another great day at the beach.

Matt and I on my Birthday!

Happy birthday to us

She's showing you how old she is :)