Christmas Time!

I love Christmas! Jessica and I have been having a blast doing all sorts of fun things. We decorated some ornaments, made snowflakes out of pipe cleaners (thanks for the idea Kim!), and today we made sugar cookies. Jessica just makes the season so much fun.

And doesn't she just look ADORABLE in her Christmas outfit? Thanks Grandma!

An unusual Thanksgiving

Wow! Three posts in a little over 24 hours! I swear I'm done for a while now. :)

Here's what Thanksgiving was like at our house:


It was actually kind of nice to have a relaxing day (since Jessica and Michael were sick with food poisoning/stomach flu/something). Jessica and Michael both slept in until past 9am, both took long naps, and we just kind of all hung out together. We're just grateful it happened now and not in a couple of weeks during finals.

We had a big dinner thing planned with some other couples, but obviously that didn't work out for us. They were so nice to bring us some food. Thanks guys!

Oreo Turkeys

This past Monday some friends invited us over to make these cute Oreo Turkeys! And since Thanksgiving has a little more downtime this year compared to most (see previous post), I got some digital scrapbooking done from the fun event!

Thanksgiving

Why am I posting about Thanksgiving at 5:30 in the morning? Well, I just got back from the store to purchase Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what's on the menu today for Michael and Jessica:

Baby Names

Michael and I have been trying to come up names for our baby boy. We have a few we're throwing around, but nothing feels exactly right yet. Jessica has been trying her best to help. Here are her ideas:

Daddy
Jesus
Mommy
Eyebrow
Jessica
Care Bears
Snowflake

Somehow none of them really felt quite right either. Any suggestions from those of you out there? "Michael" will almost for sure be the middle name.

We don't want to talk about it

Family Pictures

We got our family pictures for the year taken over the weekend. They turned out AMAZING! We took them at the UofI arboretum. The fall colors were just gorgeous! And unlike last time we had pictures done, Jessica was actually being very cooperative. :) Enjoy!

Crafty, Crafty Me!

This past weekend our ward did Super Saturday (a Saturday devoted to making a variety of crafts, etc.). So fun! I made some "Autumn" blocks (ignore the colored-on mini pumpkin in the picture) and a mat for our "The Living Christ." I was in craft-mode after that. I used some similar wooden blocks to the ones I'd used before and made a winter decoration as well. I was pretty impressed with my own craftiness. :) A friend of ours had a super cute apron for her little girl. I've been wanting to copy it for a while, but we don't have our sewing machine here. I finally borrowed one and got that project done as well. It's been a fun weekend for me.

What a Week!!

We have had quite the past week. On Wednesday we made a last minute trip to the San Francisco area for a funeral. It was the first really sad funeral I've ever been to, but it was great to see family. Jessica loved playing with her cousins.

Jessica, Emma, and Tyler

On the way down, we stopped off in NV to stay the night with some relatives. It was SO fun! Thanks Jim, Shar, Emily, and Nick for not only giving us a place to sleep, but also a lot of excitement. We spent the night carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin pie.

Since we were in the area, we decided to spend the morning after the funeral in San Francisco. We didn't have much time, but we loved wandering around Fisherman's Warf/Pier 39. Jessica loved all the seals. It's hilarious to hear her imitate them. We had a lunch of clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl - YUM!


Halloween was so much better than I ever could have expected. Jessica was born to trick-or-treat. She was a kitty this year.

Every time she was given candy she would gasp and giggle her little head off. It never got old for her, even as her bucket got so heavy that we thought she'd start complaining (she didn't). I think she made the day for a lot of people.


On the ride back home we were telling her about Christmas coming up. She told us that she wanted to be a spider for Christmas. I think dressing up for every holiday sounds like a great idea. :)

18 hours in the car later and we were back home. Whew! It was quite the weekend, but we're so glad we were able to go!

Jessica Fun

If BYU football's got you down, take a look at this and hopefully it will make you smile. Jessica's new love is Dancing with the Stars, but if there's anything more appealing to her than watching Cloris Leachman do some hideous dance, it's the High School Musical's bread commercial that is invariably on some time during the show. She asks to watch this commercial more than Dora the Explorer and likes to mimic the moves she sees. I get a kick out of it every time.

Jessica getting down with her bad self.

21 1/2 weeks

I guess it's about time for the belly shot. I feel like I'm kind of big for only half-way through, but no worries. With Jessica I think I got a picture of me like this every month. I haven't been quite so diligent, so don't expect this too often. :)

All Grown Up!

Jessica is such a little kid now. Gone forever is pretty much every remnant of her babyhood. These past few days and weeks have been full of a lot of transitions for her. I'm so glad she's handling them so well.

First off is the whole potty-training thing. I tried her on it too early before and decided to hold off until we got here to get going again. I can definitely tell she's older. Progress is coming much faster and I finally feel confident that we won't have to have two kids in diapers.

Second, she has made the complete transition into a "big girl bed."

She had been sleeping on her little princess bed (see the post from her birthday), but it really wasn't big enough/comfortable enough for long term. Yesterday we got her the real deal. She fell asleep so fast last night, which is a miracle considering...

Jessica is off her pacifier!!!! This really is huge. She only used it for sleeping, but she was beyond attached to that thing. She had three. Over the past week or so we would have her throw away one of them at a time. A couple of days ago she went outside with us and we threw the last one in the dumpster.

I was so proud of her. The only problem? When I put her in bed that night we read a story, said prayers, etc and I was walking out of the room when she's like, "Mommy, we forgot my binky." I don't think she understood that she had thrown away the last one. Let's just say it was a very late night for her. She finally conked at 10:30 in our bed. She hasn't had a nap until today - she wasn't quite tired enough to relax w/o the binky. I guess only skipping two days isn't bad. But today she took a very normal nap and last night she fell asleep no problems. I am soooo happy about this and so proud of her!

Our little man!

I guess I just need to say... HOORAY!! We are both soo excited. Jessica is still a little confused and I think nervous, so she just ignores us when we talk about it. :) As far as they can tell, he looks healthy and perfect. The due date is February 21st - Jessica's half birthday! So we're hoping for a due date birth. Here's some picts of the cute little dude! Any name ideas?

Less than a week!

It's pretty crazy how much faster I feel like this pregnancy is going compared to the last one. We find out if we're having a boy or a girl next Friday! I can't believe it's already time for that! So take a minute and vote in our poll to let me know what you think.

Oh, and if you ever get wondering how far along I am (I know you all are just losing sleep over this one when you lose track), you can go to the very bottom of our blog and check out the ticker.

In other news - Jessica's language skills are cracking me up. She says the funniest things and I love to see how her mind works. Here are the best from the past little while.

* "Look little trains!" She was looking in a hymn book at the notes. Think about it. Too funny.

* I handed Jessica a pair of her underwear to put on her baby doll. I told her that it was a "big girl." She was not happy! "NO! Baby not a big girl! She a baby! Jessica a big girl!"

* "Look! I have a big tummy. There's a baby in there. Oh no! Baby! Come back! Baby is hiding."

* My dip is broken!" She was all out of ranch to dip her veggies in.

* "The dream that you wish will come true!" She was watching "Dancing with the Stars."

Go Cougars!

Now that we can watch BYU football at home, Jessica and I were able to start our own little tradition this year. Because it involves running, singing, and a little celebratory dancing (but not too much celebration), she loves it. Here's the deal - after every BYU touchdown, we'll run around the couch singing the BYU fight song ("Rise and Shout") topping off the gala with this...




Well if you've been watching BYU this year, you know that we've done this a few times, and by a few times, I mean 24 times, and I worry that Jessica might just be getting a little tired of it. As such, I better get this posted now just in case our little daddy-daughter tradition doesn't make it past the November 22 shellacking of that "little brother" university. Speaking of which...

Right before leaving Idaho Falls this summer, I found my office in complete disarray.

Wow, and it's not like I did anything to deserve this either except put a little "Lord's University" sticker on a co-worker's car window. I called it my daily service project.

Well I definitely got one-upped, but don't worry Sky, I'll be back in December during the break so we can watch the Utes in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl as they take on the ever mighty UTEP Miners. Oh I love football season.

Midnight Sun

OK, I'll clarify this by saying that I'm a nerd. But it's ok, because I know that a lot of you reading this will understand my nerdiness. I am actually really bummed right now. Here's why: Stephenie Meyer (the author of the Twilight books - or the "sparkly vampire books" as Michael likes to call them) has been working on rewriting Twilight from Edward's perspective rather than Bella's. She posted the first chapter on her website and I was SOO excited for it to get done and published, although I knew it would be a while. I randomly went on her website yesterday. I guess a copy of one of her drafts got leaked and spread all over the Internet. She is so upset she's decided not to finish writing it at all. The only slightly good thing is that she decided to post what she had so that people wouldn't go out looking for the illegally distributed copy. It's really good, but be warned that it definitelly isn't the whole book and it ends at a very annoying part. Anyways, for any of you who want to read it, here's the link. Thanks for putting up with my nerdiness. :)

Ready or not - here comes #2!

I may have some people upset at me for taking so long to announce this, but we... are... pregnant!! OK, the picture probably was a big hint. :) We are due Feb. 22, so we're about 15 or 16 weeks along or so. I would have announced sooner, but I wanted to wait until we got into the doctor here and they were booked longer out than I expected. We're all sooo excited! Ready or not, here we go!

A Career... wow!

Well, we did it. We took the job in Idaho Falls. Michael's enjoyed working there these past few summers and they're giving him a great opportunity to work closely with one of the founding partners of the firm. So it's a good situation. It feels so strange after all these years of "studenthood" to finally be moving into the "real" working world. We both agree that we'll miss S. California a lot (especially San Diego), but that'll just give us an excuse to go and visit a lot. :) Anyways - congrats Michael! I'm proud of you babe!

It's Birthday Time!!

We can't believe it - our little Jessica is 2 years old! Wow! Time flies. I can hardly believe it when I look at her and there is no baby left in her - she's all toddler. We had a pretty mellow celebration since we really don't know enough people for her to have friends over. In the morning she got her big present - a princess couch/chair. It looks like a little love seat and then can fold out into kind of a bed.
We really didn't expect her to actually use it as a bed, but she had insisted since then - she loves it!! It was so cute to see her excitement when she walked out of her room and saw it. Pure joy. Kids are the best! That night we did cake (which she calls "happy birthday cake") and one more present (just some lollipops).

She LOVES to blow out candles on cakes. She had practice in Idaho Falls and in LA, so she was VERY excited about that part. We feel so lucky to have this cute little girl in our family. Happy Birthday Little Bug!


Oh, and the other day I was wanting to do my nails. Jessica decided that sounded like a great idea. So I was dumb and let her do my nails. It was super funny. Of course she had a melt-down when I made her stop and it took me FOREVER to get it all off, but she had a blast, and I guess that's what matters. I just love what a girlie-girl she is.

We Made It!

Well, me made it here to Moscow, ID. Actually, we came Friday, but as you can guess, it's been a little crazy since then. So far we really like it. VERY different than San Diego, but we expected that. It's a really small town, but it's kind of fun. We like our new place too. It's a two bedroom!! The first time since Jessica was born! I'll post pictures as soon as we get a real internet connection, as opposed to this "stolen" wireless.

As I mentioned before, we sold most of our big things back in LA, so we've been on constant lookout for furniture. We're close to being ready. We have an inflatable mattress for us (which is actually really comfortable). We'll hang onto that for a while - until we find a really good deal on a real mattress. Jessica is in her pack-n-play and totally content. We bought a card table and chairs for the dining room. Luckily there's a Good Will close by, so Michael got a TV stand there. And here comes the funny part - we got a TV. No, not just any TV. We got a "half of our furnishing budget" TV. Michael is beyond excited for football season to start, so we had a compromise a while back - if we got into Idaho and saved the money there, we could get a nice TV and maybe Direct TV (and thus BYU football). Let's see if I can get this picture of the TV to post.
Wow - it worked. Cool. Anyways, Michael is loving it. The only problem is that we just have rabbit ears right now, so we don't get a whole lot of channels, not even NBC. So it's been kind of annoying to miss track on the Olympics, but we're surviving. :) We feel pretty dumb having a nice TV and no couch, but it's in the plans still.

Michael is off to orientation today. He figures he'll skip out on most of it. He doesn't feel like he really needs to go to a class on "what to expect from law school" or "law school study habits." He's kind of experienced there. But he'll get his ID card and all that.

Like I said, we'll post more pictures of our place later (once it looks a little more complete).

Jammy!!!

This is Jan Jorgensen. He plays football (very well) for BYU. I used to be his biology tutor. Nice guy - really. He's actually not as weird as you'd think looking at this picture. When I first met him I thought his name was Jam. Don't ask me why, but I did. So that's what I called him - over and over. He was so nice he didn't even mention it. While Michael and I were in San Diego, BYU held a fireside with the football team. Let's just say that Michael thinks Jan is cool, really cool. Like, he kind of idolizes the boy. :) So when I offered to go up with him after the fireside to say hi, he was just a little (ok, like a LOT) excited. It was pouring rain and we were stuck outside for a while trying to get in. I suggested leaving a couple of times, but I could tell the thought of leaving without meeting his beloved "Jam" vexed Michael greatly. SO we waited and finally got a chance to meet the man himself. Michael still talks about how he "actually got to touch Jan Jorensen!" Now with the start of football season just a couple of weeks away, Michael couldn't be more excited about seeing his good buddy every week. What can I say... my husband is cute. So here's to BYU football and our pal Jammy!

LA Trip Recap

Wow! I am a slacker. This trip happened end of July, but I've been busy with... I dunno, life I guess. :) As most of you know, Michael was accepted into the University of Idaho as a visiting law student for our last year of school. So we checked out what it would cost us to move our stuff up from our storage unit in SD. It was seriously going to be like $2500 +. We were shocked! So we came to the conclusion that we just needed to sell all but the necessities and try and fit our life into one car load. Crazy, I know. But we pretty much just have second-hand type stuff for the most part, so the decision wasn't really that hard. We drove the car down as far as LA, where Michael's parents live, and then the boys went to SD to get everything. I feel REALLY bad that I didn't come too and say goodbye to all of you in SD, but I really didn't think Jessica would deal with another car ride after 14 hours in the car already. I promise at graduation in May I'll make connections! That night we sorted through everything and then did a garage sale/Craig's List sale the next day. Whew!! I am so glad it's over. It was surprising too how easy the sorting process was. I think we were both prepared for it, so there was seriously no drama and disagreements about stuff. That was nice. The next day Michael drove all of our things back up here to Idaho and I stayed and played for a week. FUN!! I had missed the beach, so this was needed. We flew home a few days later, much more relaxed and refreshed.

Jessica LOVES bath time - especially in Grandma's big tub!

Michael's day to try out his new surfboard

The ward was having a Pioneer Day party while we were there.
Aren't the hats hot?

Jessica LOVED celebrating her Papa's birthday. He let her help blow out the candles and everything. She still asks for "Happy Birthday Cake," and one of her new favorite bedtime songs is "Happy Birthday."

Fun at the beach!

Jessica discovered Grandma's lipstick and was having a blast putting it on us. Silly girl! And yes, that should say "S.W.A.K." (sealed with a kiss), not S.W.A.C.K. (which Michael and I decided means "sealed with a crusty kiss."

We Are All Enlisted - Mormon Military Spouses

My sister is amazing. I am always in awe of the things she does/has done/plans to do/puts up with, etc. Her husband is in the military and she decided there is a lack of good online resources for LDS military spouses - so she's trying to do her part. She just started a blog called We Are All Enlisted (http://weareallenlisted.blogspot.com). She's just started out, but she's working on discussing things like, How do you really do food storage when your always moving? Do you bless a new baby/baptize you child if the father is deployed? Stuff like that. I encourage everyone to have a look, especially any military spouses. I can't really pretend to understand all the struggles, etc that go along with that situation, but I know she'd love comments and contributions from those of you who have "been there."

Merry Christmas!!

In August?! Yep. Michael had a REALLY good Christmas this year. We were in LA a couple weekends ago in order to grab our stuff from good old San Diego. We realized it would cost us like $3K to move it to Idaho, so we just did our best to sort and sell. But anyways! Christmas...

Since Michael's parents knew he would be far away from the ocean come Christmas time, they decided to get him his present early - a new surfboard!!!

To say we were surprised is beyond an understatement. He was one happy little boy in a candy store. I'll post pictures of the rest of the weekend (including surfing picts) in a while.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Jessica's Prayer

We are in the middle/end of a super crazy weekend.  But I'll get to that once I'm back in ID (I'm in LA right now).  I just had to write really fast about the sweetest thing Jessica did tonight.  We were saying a prayer before she went to sleep.  I started out, "Dear Heavenly Father..."  And she just randomly decided to take if from there:  "Thank you for Daddy, and thank you for Carly, and thank you for money, and thank you for Carly.  In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."  SO CUTE!!  Her Aunt Carly had just been playing with her, helping her put money in a bank.  I love how her sweet little mind works!

My Favorite Sites

I just thought I would share some of my favorite web sites with everyone. Most are already listed under my links, but here they are anyways.

Bakerella I just recently discovered this site. It has some really fun and creative baking ideas. Desserts mostly, which is of course the most fun. She has one recipe for this Reese's cake. I don't even know if I could do it justice describing it. Check it out because it looks amazing!!

She Does Hair I'm so looking forward to using this one when Jessica gets a little more hair. OK, she probably already has enough hair, just not enough patience to sit through me really doing her hair. The site just has some really fun and creative do's for little girls.

Blue Dandelion A friend of mine from SD makes these awesome hair bows and stuff. They make me want to be more creative and crafty.

SugarDoodle This site has some great ideas for church related things. I know Primary people who use it every week for sharing time. :)

All Recipes There are a ton of places like this online - just good all around recipe sites. It's just nice to have a place to be able to go and figure out something quick, healthy, or just fun.

I would love to hear from all you all out there about some other places that are fun/useful/whatever.

Hales Family Reunion

This past weekend the three of us (and Michael's younger brother) made the 10 hour+ drive from ID to Lake Tahoe. It ended up being a super fun event, complete with boat rides, hikes, good food, and lots of cousins. Jessica loved all of the attention.

Playing at the lake

Getting a ride from Grandma

The boys making the jump

Playing in the sand

Jessica, Papa, Tyler, and Emma

Jessica loved playing with Michael's cousins.

A BIG Popsicle - she was in heaven

Jessica, Tyler, Papa, and Emma

So proud of herself as she walked through the water.

Jessica is in time-out at the lake for throwing sand. :)

Jessica and Michael

Cousins - Emma, Tyler, and Jessica

I don't know if you noticed or not, but yes, Jessica really does have 3 swimming suits. I'm not sure why a 2 year old needs 3 swimming suits, but I guess that's besides the point. Thanks Grandma for ALL of them! :)