Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!
We had a great Christmas at my mom's house in Spokane.
There was a lot of snow and lots of help with Dallas. He loves his aunts and uncles. In fact he was never put down. Good thing we don't live there or else he would never learn to crawl or walk.

7 inches

I decided to get my hair cut since it's been a while.....a really long while! I don't do much with my hair (I have never even colored it!) and I sometimes forget to go and get it cut.

I ended up cutting 7 inches off this time! Kayla (my hairdresser) decided to blow dry my hair since I hardly ever do that and it's such a drastic change! Most people have to look at me twice to make sure it's really me. :)

I figured I'd better posts photos of my hair straight because tomorrow, it's going back to curly! We'll see how short it looks once the curls set in. I lose almost 2 inches due to the curls. It sure felt nice to play with it tonight and be able to run my fingers through it. Maybe I'll be blow drying it more often now that it isn't so long!

The Graduate!

Congrats Toby!

He graduated in August with his Masters in Business Administration but they didn't have a graduation ceremony until December. He decided to walk (since neither one of us did with our Bachelors degrees) and it was great to go to the ceremony. He wore the Master's Hood. The Business color for graduation is called Drab, and it sort of looked that way! The back of his hood is blue and orange for Boise State. His tassel was also Drab, so we made sure to buy him a bright orange and blue one for his diploma. We had Tory and Elizabeth (Toby's twin) babysit Dallas so it was like a little date! After the graduation, we went to dinner at PF Changs. We love that place.

We're so proud of you Toby and all the hard work you have done to get your MBA! Let the new adventures begin!!
Standing in front of the Bronco.

The Brand's. Toby had classes with Mike and they become good buddies during the two years at Boise State.

Toby and I-it was so cold outside!

***Doesn't he look sooo good?!?!

Hey Santa!

At the mall and decided to stop in and see Santa. The only thing he told me (no "hi" "hello") was "don't let him pull my beard!" Well, check out the photo. Where's Dallas' hand??? On the beard!
*this is scanned....the photo looks a bit better.

DEAR DALLAS.....

Dear Dallas,

If you poo ONE MORE TIME in the tub, you'll be getting coal for Christmas......

Santa

***Do not let the cute photo below fool you. For the past few days my sweet Dallas has pooed in the tub. I'm guessing this is a conditioned response and I NEED to fix it. My tub has never been cleaner, but this is not the way I wish to get my tub cleaned. I am SICK and TIRED of holding a wet slippery naked baby and fishing out poo.....only to have to clean the tub along with all the toys in it. I need HELP! Any ideas on how to stop this? He might be taking COLD baths from now on!!!!!

Simplify

I've been so busy (and gone) this Christmas season, I decided to not go all out with decorations or baking. The best part? I don't feel guilty! I guess I'm working on my given good. I did however want my house to look a little like Christmas so I got out our little 3 foot Christmas tree and put up lights. The only ornaments that are on it though are Dallas' and a few that I got this year. I also have a wonderful real wreath on my front door that I bought at Costco-it smells so nice and I'll have it all through January too. The other thing out is my BEAUTIFUL Nativity scene that my Mom got for me a few years ago. It is so great to walk into our place and have this be the first thing you see. I also bought Dallas a Little People Nativity and he has fun eating and throwing the pieces everyday. At night, I have to walk through the house to pick up the pieces and rearrange them. Only to have him destroy it the next day!

Not having a lot decor up has made me reflect on what Christmas is really about and how thankful I am for this season. I truly love celebrating Christ's birth and how lucky I am to have a testimony of the restored gospel.

Silly Kid

What we do during the day....
Play in the swing so Mom can do the dishes....for 5 minutes

Love the diaper box! It's my train that Mom pulls around. It's a favorite toy. (why buy any real toys?)

"I don't want anymore dinner!!"

It's the Griswold's!

We have a tradition of watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every year for Christmas. Chevy Chase stars as the totally insane Clark Griswold who tries to create a wonderful Christmas for his family but screws everything up, all the time. Such a funny movie. You can catch my family quoting the movie all year long ("Why is the carpet wet, Todd??? I don't know, Margo!") and even comparing our own family to the Griswold's. We can be quite crazy sometimes.

Anyways, Clark puts up a million Christmas lights on his house and so anytime we see homes that have that many lights we always remember the movie. The other night Toby and I were driving in a neighborhood and I think we found Griswold's match. You could see this house a mile away and the photo doesn't do justice. They even had lights on the sidewalks! I wish I would've had my nice camera to capture the truly insane house, but I didn't. When we got to our friends, they told us that the guy works for Idaho Power! Hope they give him a discount on his electricity bill!

Oreo Dips

You want these? Go to the cooking blog to see how! They are SOOO yummy! I got the recipe from my friend Heather.

Expected Good vs. Given Good

I've had to do a bit of readjusting since having Dallas. It's something I have struggled with and am working on everyday. It's the expected good vs. given good. How I want things to turn out vs. how they actually turn out. If I could learn this lesson just once, my life would be a lot better.

Expected Good--I expect to get all ready for the day and create a huge "to do" list and have a bunch of errands to run AND have a nice hot dinner on the table when Toby gets home ALL THE WHILE, Dallas will be happy playing by himself and take good naps.

The Given Good-- I take a shower, mark one of two things off my list(one load of laundry), maybe get one errand in and have an idea for dinner and Dallas not happy playing by himself nor taking good naps.

You see my problem? I am slowly learning to change my expected good and then I'm not so disappointed with the given good. But, I am a slow learner.........

exhausted

reasons why I'm not posting.....

1. The holidays. Too much to do, not enough time.

2. Traveling. I'm only home for two weeks before I leave again for Christmas. And my two weeks are almost up.

3. My 6 month old son. Maybe staying up rocking him till 2:30am because he simply REFUSES to go to sleep could be the main reason. I'm totally exhausted trying to get this kid to sleep through the night. We live in an apartment so letting him cry it out isn't as ideal as I would like it to be. As I laid him in his bed last night, I crawled into mine, only to hear him wake up at 2:45. NOT FUN, NOT HAPPY. Was he awake at 6:30 this morning? You bet ya, ready to play. ugh!

To see photos from my Thanksgiving (since I left them all at home) check out my Mom's blog. There you'll find Julie and Ryan's wedding, Thanksgiving and my siblings birthdays.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Andrew (17) and Katie (14)!

Pictures and fun things to come! I'm off making cakes and yummy treats for my siblings. Will post later!

***well maybe much later-my cousin is getting married tomorrow.....so check on Sunday for posts.

Baby Food

We decided to try and make some baby food--sounded easy enough! What a mess we made! We made butternut squash and sweet potatoes. I cut and boiled them and then we put them in the blender. I had bought some Tupperware that look like ice cube trays except that they are for baby food. They are in 2 oz sections and have a lid to cover them. Then you just stick it in the freezer to freeze and when they are frozen, I stick them in a bag labeled what they are. Pretty easy and super cheap! I also bought a travel food processor to take with me on trips. That way I can just feed him what we are eating. So far, he seems to like my food. Looks like Toby does too!

For Andrew dd of d

One from the archives-you'll still have to teach him how to long board!

For Katie- dd of d

Katie-

Hi! Bathtime is my favorite part of the day. I'll only do tummy time if it's in the tub. Looking forward to playing in Grandma Lovey's tub!

See you soon.

Love Dallas

For Melissa-dd of d

Hi Melissa! I'm excited to play with you this weekend!

***These pj's are from Aunt Shana. I taught with her when we lived in Vegas, and she is one of our very good friends. She has two cute dogs-Louie and Romeo and these jammies remind us of her babes!

For Megan- dd of d

Only 5 more days till you can change his diaper girls!

I wanted to get a photo of him in his cute church outfit, but he was not cooperating with me at all. He was too busy trying to get to his new shoes....so here is a photo of them (we got them in black too-got to stay stylish!) and here is a photo of him trying to play with them. Don't mind my half made bed....we have early church!

DD of D

Daily Dose of Dallas.....

My sisters are freaking out because it's been over 6 weeks since they have seen baby D. Therefore, they're requesting a Daily Dose of Dallas until I come home for Thanksgiving. Here you go girls!

***He just ate rice cereal and squash for dinner--hence why he's naked! The boy sure can get dirty at dinner time!

Hurry Fast!

You can make a free 8x11 photo book at Snapfish! Coupon ends Friday and the book must be made by Sunday the 16th. Click here for more info.

***Just looked into it and found that you do have to pay for shipping....but that may not be too expensive so it's worth trying!

Poo

Disclaimer-This is like a family journal and therefore I need to write things down that I wish to remember. Although I'm not too sure about this one! Feel free to skip this post!

For two days now, Dallas has pooed in the tub. The first one was on Sunday and I yelled for Toby to help me clean it up. That one wasn't so bad.
Then yesterday, the kid decides to do it again.....IT WAS DISGUSTING! I've been mixing Pear Juice in his cereal to help him be regular and yesterday it just kept coming and coming. It was a little bit green and gooey and when I picked him up to hold him and get him out of the nasty water, he pooed on my hands and arm! EWWWWW! Trying to pick up the poo from the tub was a nightmare too because when I went to pick it up, it would just fall apart. Now all you who know me, know I can't stand bodily functions (the reason I didn't become a nurse!) and this about put me over the edge. It was so hard holding a wet naked baby in one arm and clean the tub in the other. GROSS. Thank you so much for that experience Dallas. I realllllllly appreciate it.

***Before I started mixing pear juice in his cereal, he would have the worst farts ever-had Toby been home, I would've blamed them on him! They stunk sooooooo bad. One time I put Dallas down for a nap and covered his bed with blankets so he couldn't see me (he wasn't quite asleep yet and he would keep his eyes open if I was in the room). When it was time to wake up, I went in there and almost gaged. He had farted and it stunk up the whole room. When I pulled back the blanket, I about died! No wonder he was bawling-he was probably gaging on the fumes. Poor kid! It smelled as if something died in his bed and sat there for ages, but it was only a fart!

Kiddie Kandids

We were shopping at the mall a few days before Halloween and were stopped by the people at Kiddie Kandids. They wanted to take Dallas' picture (for free) so we went in. This is what we got......and they made him cry. He refused to smile and when they got close to him, he would burst into tears!
Oh well, good thing his mother is a photographer!

Colt

Earlier this fall, I took Colt's senior photos. His mom works with Toby. It was quite the cold and windy day, but we got some great shots. We went in an alley way and there was the coolest graffiti! That's where we got some of my favorite shots. To see more, click here.

Visit from Heatha

Heather or "Heatha" as we like to call her, came into town last weekend for a quick visit. She worked with Toby in the Cath lab and we miss her! She is from New Zealand and is working over here in the US as a nurse. We used to love to hear her talk and listen to her funny stories. We were able to go and meet her with some of the people from the Cath lab and it was great to have her meet Dallas. We sure miss you Heatha!

It was great to spend the afternoon with her. We just sat and talked with her. Poor Toby was the only guy. Oh well-he was her favorite! :) (out of the men in the Cath Lab)
Grandma Diane! She is our Grandma here in Boise. She also works with Toby in the Lab and since Dallas doesn't have any grandma's here in town, she has become one! We sure love our Grandma Diane.

High Chair Time!

We finally got a high chair. Dallas loves sitting in it and it gives me a few extra minutes during the day to cook dinner without having to hold him. I think he likes to be high up instead of on the ground or in the bumbo.

Eating rice cereal. Having him in the high chair makes feeding time much easier!

Just playing! Must always have something in my mouth......Toby can't wait for this hat to fit.....still have a way to go.

After Halloween-Halloween Party

Saturday night, Karen and Ken hosted an after Halloween-Halloween party. Karen is a nurse who works with Toby. We decided to wear the same costumes (we're only creative once) and headed out the door. Poor Dallas had to have his face painted one more time!
This party was so much fun. People got a little bit crazy (must of been all that Halloween candy), and we spent the night eating yummy food and playing Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Have you ever played that??? It was so funny watching people try to sing and play in the band. Many a times, did they get booed off the stage!

Dave and Fawn-they went as characters from Reno 911 on Comedy Central. Dave is Lt. Jim Dangle. Never seen the show but apparently he looks exactly like him....especially with the short shorts and mustache.....

Pirate Robin, #43, and a biased ref (go Steelers!)

Amy looking scary!
Miss Robin the Pirate

Off with his head!

Toni as a Flapper Girl

Karen and Ken-hosts of the party. They were rockers.

Family Guy-(Eric---I don't watch STUPID cartoons)

John and Lori with their kids. John refused to dress up.... oh well, Daniel and Andrea did and they are sooo dang cute!

Paige and Brice went as Bikers. Very cool outfits and love the tattoos. Brice even grew his hair out and then shaved it into a mowhawk. Notice that Dallas is sporting the mowhawk too! Lovin' the drums

Rockin' awayThe group. We are one good lookin' bunch! :) It was a great post Halloween Bash.