So spoiled

Like I've mention before, Michael loves to spoil his girls. Sometimes he has to do it rather forcefully (at least in my case; Jessica's usually pretty willing). Today he was able to convince both of us we needed spoiling.

We began our morning off at Wal-Mart where Jessica got to pick out a new toy because of some serious potty-time success (I'll spare you the details). She's a girl of simple desires and all she wanted was a shovel. I couldn't believe it when we actually found sand toys this time of year! She's been loving using her shovel and sand bucket out in the snow. Cute kid.

On the drive home we were passing by the mall. "Do you want to go and get some shoes for you?" Michael asked. Wow. He was raised well. Actually, I've been in search of some good basic black dress shoes for a while and everything is either frumpy or not "basic" enough. So he convinced me to search. Here's what I came home with:

Did I need new red shoes? No. But they are SO cute! Plus I have some other shoes in this brand (red ones, actually), and I know they don't kill my feet and they last well. And even though they're the same, they look different enough that I'm not worried about it. AND they were on sale. Do you see the thought process that I was going through? I was trying to decide which to get (the black ones that I needed or the red ones I really wanted more). And then both the salesman (predictably) and Michael said, "Just get both." I'll admit it - the second Michael noticed they came in both colors, I knew this would be the end result. Oh well, Happy Valentine's Day to me! :)

Michael was on a roll and apparently didn't feel like stopping with the spoiling. But I am huge, so clothes shopping for me is currently out of the question. So he dragged (drug?) us into Old Navy (huge clearance sale going on by the way) where we got Jessica a sweater and the little baby-to-be a couple of shirts. While I was looking at some of the baby boy clearance, Jessica comes up to me with this big old bouncy ball (from those vending machines). There really is no stopping my man sometimes. :)

Our last stop (Michael initiated of course) was this little arcade in the mall. Mostly Jessica loved just sitting on the rides, but Michael even let her clink in some quarters on one of them.



Michael, I love you babe. Thanks for knowing when your girls need a little TLC (and some shoes). :)

Push-Ups

For Christmas Michael got some of those "Perfect Push-up" things. He's been awesome about using them, but apparently Jessica decided they weren't hard enough. It's been so kind of her to help him out. :)

Glasses and a new dress

Jessica loves trying to be helpful. Every morning when she comes to wake us up she'll hand me my glasses. Lately she likes to put them on herself. I don't have a strong enough Rx that she seems too bothered. I got some cute picts of her when she wore them for a couple minutes the other day. Don't worry, we don't let her wear them often or for very long. :)


The other day while I was asleep Michael decided that Jessica needed a new dress. My man LOVES to spoil his girls - sometimes a little too much. :) Here's the adorable thing Jessica ended up with.

Jessica's Scrapbook

After working so hard to get all caught up with our family scrapbook I realized how behind I was on Jessica's. I DO NOT want to have to play catch-up once the little man is born, because it would be much less likely to happen. So I've been trying to do her book May 2008 until now. Fun, fun. But I decided to just do it the same way and size as the family book so hopefully I can reuse layouts. I love digital. Anyways, I just thought I'd share a little of what I've done. I have a lot to learn and a lot better to get, but I'm loving having a semi-useful hobby. :)

Our Little Singer

Jessica loves to sing. And the crazy thing is how quickly she learns new songs. Here's her latest. I swear I heard her up singing until after 10:00 last night.

BAR

We're in the process of getting Michael all registered and what-not for the BAR exam. One of the things they want us to do is list all of the addresses where he has lived for the past 10 years, including dates he was there. Are you kidding me!? I've been very impressed with my journaling skills when it comes to writing down dates while we've been married, but that's not even half of that time. And what about the mission?! Addresses in the middle of nowhere Honduras!? We already have 22 addresses/locations listed. And that counts the mission as 1. Yes, we've spent a lot of summers in random here and there places, but can I tell you how excited I am to finally just live in one place for an extended period of time? Even just staying in the same city would be nice. So if you are one of those friends of ours doing the law school thing, be aware that this is in your future. I'd start prepping now. OK, I'm done complaining. :)

2008 Blurb Book

I got my 2008 scrapbook/Blurb book in the mail today, all printed out and beautiful! If any of you haven't heard about this yet, basically I make digital scrapbooking pages, place them in a program called BookSmart (through Blurb.com) and they print out a nice book. Love it! Here's some of the book:

The Front Cover

The Back Cover

Thanks again Amberlynn for introducing me to this fabulous thing!

Harry Potter

Well, I finished the Harry Potter series after starting only about a month or so back. Or, as Michael said, "Congratulations. Now you can graduate from the 5th grade." I love you too babe. :) Anyways, I loved them and if you're one of those rare people like me who hadn't read them, I definitely recommend them. Anyone know any other good books?

December

Wow! It's almost been a month since my last post! That feels like forever to me. December has been pretty busy. We'll have put about 3000 miles on our poor car by the time we're back home in a week.

After Michael's last final we headed out of town. We got away later than we expected, so we ended up having to grab a hotel for the night rather than make it all the way to my parent's place. It got down to -20 degrees that night where we were! Crazy cold.

We spent a little less than a week with my parents. I got to celebrate my birthday there. 24 years old! Some of you may laugh, but I'm feeling really old now. Not the cutest picture, but oh well.


We did a mini-Christmas before we left. Jessica loves her doll things she got, especially the stroller. Thanks!

Then it was off to spend some time with Michael's family. More driving... and more... and more. But it felt so good to be in some beautiful weather. Jessica LOVED playing with her cousins. She and Emma would spend at least an hour every night in the bathtub.  The night of Christmas Eve we went to the temple to wander around and look at the lights. Afterwards we had hot chocolate and snacks. It's one of my favorite traditions.


Christmas itself was super fun! It's always nice to be around little kids on Christmas and see their excitement. We kept it pretty simple this year for Jessica. We gave her some coloring stuff, stickers, a baby doll, some snacks, a book, and a kids makeup set (which she and Emma got lots of use out of). From others she got some cute princess dolls, bath stuff, an adorable cape, and I'm sure some more. She was in heaven!

For the most part, Michael and I decided to save aside some money and choose some things after Christmas. But we each got a couple things for each other. We're one of those weird couples that is totally fine with getting/giving exercise stuff. Michael got me some and weights as well as some books I'd wanted. I gave Michael some of those "Perfect Pushup" things as well as a shirt and some stuff for his new Mexican-cooking obsession. The funny thing about the push-up things is that Michael's sister got her husband the same thing! We're going to have ourselves some buff husbands. :)


Michael's little brother Adam has his mission farewell (or whatever it's called now) the Sunday after Christmas. It was great to be able to be there and hear him speak. He'll be an incredible missionary and we're all so proud of him. We took some great pictures before church that day.


Adam went into the MTC that Wednesday. It was my fourth time there. I don't think it ever gets any easier to say goodbye. We're proud of him.


After the MTC we went over to the BYU Bookstore to wander a little bit. Jessica was being a little pig all day and I was totally on my last nerve with her. Next thing I know she just head-butts me as hard as she could. It came as such a shock I started to cry. I felt like such a nerd. Then we ran into some friends of our from back in San Diego. So there I was all red-eyed and whatever. Angela, I swear I'm not that much of a head-case most of the time! :) It was so good to see them anyways.

Last night we made the drive back to my parent's place. Michael will be working for about a week. Then it's back to school for out LAST semester! Hooray! I am so looking forward to having a real job and finally being done with school!