few more sneaks...

Here's a few more! Hope you enjoy them--it was fun (despite the FREEZING weather)!

Well, only one more-blogger is being dumb. You'll see the rest tomorrow!

Oh the joys.....

The JOY of having a very small (too small) two bedroom apartment....
Dallas is now sleeping in the spare bedroom/his room and has been for the past month. This is great....unless I want to get to ANYTHING and EVERYTHING including my computer. He is a light sleeper so no go on being in there while he takes naps or sleeps at night. This limits my computer time (blogging-no posts-no comments along with playing-photo stuff) to little to none while he is awake. So frustrating! I can't WAIT to have a bigger place.
Today I laid him down in my room because I need to get some photos done and I couldn't wait any longer. He is rolling so I am paranoid that he'll fall off my bed and keep checking in on him!


The JOY of having your toe nail ripped off.....
because you thought you could do surgery yourself and try to get an ingrown out. Haven't had toe problems before now, and the pain of having a shot to numb my toe was not too pleasant. I would've taken the epidural shot in my spine instead of a shot to my toe. IT HURT THAT BAD. For those of you who would like to see a photo scroll down. For those of you who do not-close your eyes for a little bit until you get to my next "joy"

























































The JOY of living in an apartment.....
I had just got out of the shower, baby is sleeping, put a load of laundry in and shut the door when I heard a loud bang and then whoosh-a flood is now in my laundry room/kitchen AND seeping THROUGH the walls into my bathroom. WHAT THE HECK!?! The lovely maintenance men working on an apartment upstairs thought it was a good idea to drain the water tank (all 40 gallons) and hope that it just went down the pipes....not realizing that the pipes can't take that much pressure or water and instead it came all to my place. I was so mad. Everything was soaked and I was left with a huge watery mess. Had I not of called the complex right away and told them to stop-they would've drained the entire tank! Good thing I was home or else my whole place would have been flooded.
Not a happy camper.....can't wait to own my home.....I had some choice words for the lovely workers.

The JOY of Winter.....
I am so sick of being cold. Enough said.


The JOY of turning 26....
This was such a hard birthday for me! I felt soooo old and little bit sad that my twenties seem to be flying out the window. It was my golden birthday, I turned 26 on the 26 and I did get lots of phone calls, cards and a yummy chocolate cake made by Toby. We celebrated by going out on a date on Saturday and went to PF Changs and to a movie. I also got 26 beautiful red roses. I love flowers and they smelled so great!


Cute cake that Toby made me. He put sprinkles on it to spell out 26 and then used 26 candles and wrote on it I love you. Too cute! I sure did marry well. He's a wonderful husband and dad.

and now for a positive joy....

The STEELERS are going to the SUPER BOWL!

They are my favorite team-I was born a Steelers fan thanks to my parents who grew up in Pittsburgh. Can't wait to celebrate with a party and watch them win! It will be a great game-we have our work cut out for us and if the Cardinals were playing anyone else, I'd want them to win--but got to go with my boys! Go Black and Gold!

sneak peak

I was able to take Brandon and Heather's engagement photos today despite it being SUNNY and FREEZING! We had a great time and I love those guys. We met when Toby and I were serving in the singles ward and they are getting married in March.

Here's a sneak peak-I'll post more tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMMY

Dallas and I wanted to wish Tammy a happy 26th birthday. She is the best mom and wife in the world. Thanks for all you do for us. You make our days brighter and full of fun. Our faces light up with smiles whenever we see you. We love you very very much. Hope your day is so special and extra fun. We wish you the best 26th year a person can have. LOVE YOU!!!!
Toby and Dallas

OUCH!

Let's just say that getting the shot to numb my toe was WAY WORSE than getting the epidural when Dallas was born. OUCH.


****I'm home now. After being gone for 12 days babysitting while my parents were relaxing on the beaches of Hawaii. So not fair--they came back with great tans, beautiful photos, and lots of fun memories while I settled fights, dealt with 2 hormonal teenagers, made dinners, did lots of laundry and kept a baby happy. Whew! I think my parents had the better deal!

Hopefully there will be more posts in the future! Off to elevate my foot and put the baby to bed. I did come home to flowers and an early birthday cake from Toby. I sure did marry good!

SUPER BOWL!!!

What can I say??? The STEELERS kicked some butt on Sunday's game. Wasn't it great?!?!?! We took these photos for my parent's Christmas card this past year. How fitting..... :)

he he he. my cousin sent this photo to me. doesn't it look like a raven??? hope we kick their butts on sunday!

Digital Scrapbooking

Trying out the digital scrapbooking program I got Mom for her birthday. Not too shabby!

Fun in the Snow!

My parents live in Spokane Valley and they have been on national news for the amount of snow they received in December. Over 36 inches!!! It was beautiful and amazing. Toby and I were lucky enough to fly in and out of Spokane for Christmas in between snow storms so we were able to enjoy the winter wonderland!

Dallas says - "So this is what my parents do while I'm taking a nap! I want to play too!"

Love the air Toby got!

I landed on my tailbone. It hurt sooo bad!

We had SNOW much fun!

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.........