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.