Flashback Friday

Oh yeah, today is Friday, I get to flashback!

Here is a wedding themed Flashback. Here is my younger sister and I, taken when I was having my bridals done at Antelope Island. My mom thought this would be funny for me to see later. I was in the middle of posing for the photographer, so Erin posed for my mom. Ha ha.
This is at our wedding dinner (the night before our wedding day). We got to have it at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was fantastic!!!
Warning: here is Josh and me kissing, right after we fed each other our cake. I don't know why the goofy faces, probably excitement and pure bliss.

I love my husband very much, and I am so grateful that we were able to be sealed in the temple, it gives me great comfort knowing that he's mine forever! I love you, Josh.

It's already Christmas*time?

I just finished reading my friend Em's blog, and I am all of a sudden feeling very behind. IT'S NOT EVEN DECEMBER, YET!!! What's up with that?

We have all but started on Christmas. No Christmas decorations. (ok, 1 decoration up: the lights outside). No Christmas tree. No Christmas cards in the making. No gifts bought.

And, we have less time than all you normal people that stay home for Christmas. Because we are leaving our house and going back to our "home" in Utah for Christmas on the 17th. OH, and it's our 4th year wedding anniversary on the 16th! Ay-yay-yay.

However, today we discussed how much $$$ we are going to spend. Which is a very big deal, so we have one of the biggest marital-strife-causing-problems taken care of. I am very happy about that.

I'm off to the races. At the store checkouts.

Thanksgiving Recap, full of surprises

This past week was quite an adventure, we had surprise after surprise. Our first surprise was with Cindy (sorry, no pictures of that). She didn't know we were coming. Josh's dad arranged everything. Our flight landed around 4:15 pm and we didn't get to Josh's parent's home until 6 pm (horrible Utah traffic). When we walked in the door we tip-toed around the corner while Cindy went on about their new puppy peeing all over. When she saw us she stopped right. where. she. was. Her jaw dropped and you could tell that she didn't know what to think, she was so full of shock!!! Of course, we said, "Surprise, Happy early Birthday!" Cindy came rushing over and gave us all the best hugs.

We had a wonderful time that night, Josh's brother Jake and his wife Lea came over with their 3 girls, and we had a nice time just hanging out and touching base.

The next day I called my mom up to ask her a random Thanksgiving-related question, just to find out if she was at work or not. She was at home, so we arrived there and got the lovely reaction from my mom: screaming and jumping up and down. It was perfect! Here is a picture taken a couple minutes after our arrival:


We spent the day there hanging out, going to the grocery store for last-minute Thanksgiving items and surprising my brother Kim at his job, and then my bro-in-law Jason and his kids at their home. We just hung out and enjoyed one another's company.



Here are some adorable pictures taken at random moments. Breakfast time in Josh's old high chair:

Reading a book with Grammy, a favorite past-time of Conrad's as of late.

Spending time with Grampy. Conrad is shiny and clean right out of the tub.
Here is the Thanksgiving Dinner Table, moments before the big feast
Here is the kid's Thanksgiving dinner table, during the feast. Notice the 2 "girls" on the right, those are the twins Parker and Carson. They grew their hair out since we saw them last so we kept teasing them and teasing them calling them "Parkerina and Carsonrina"
Here are the 3 babies, all born around the same time. L-R: McKall, Conrad and Katie.

McKall and Conrad. Conrad was going to trade some food to McKall so he could get down, but I stopped him in the nick of time. (something about growing teeth makes him not want to eat. Yes, he got another tooth while on this trip. So, now he has 14 teeth).
ONTO THE NEXT SURPRISE:
Announcing the upcoming arrival with:

Josh's side:
After Thanksgiving dinner with Josh's family we have a tradition of going around the circle and telling what we are thankful for. Josh and I planned on this happening, so while Josh was telling everyone what he was thankful for he said, "I'm thankful for Conrad, and I'm thankful that we're gonna have another one this May!" It was perfect! They all were surprised and so happy for us.

Ali's side:
We were planning on eating pie with my family Thanksgiving evening at my Aunt's house, but by the time we were ready to go over there, they had all finished and gone home, so we decided that night to just wait until Christmas to tell my family. After stewing and contemplating we decided we better tell them before they found out from somewhere else. So, we decided to tell them before we left. This is what we came up with...

I wrote a poem, and Josh made it into a cryptogram (through a website).

We went over on Saturday for lunch at my parent's place and Cindy (Josh's mom) brought along this cryptogram and said to my mom "Here Jane, this cryptogram has a really neat message, I wanted you to try it because I think you'll like it." Once my mom finished it (after a lot of distractions) she had the lovely Jane reaction, jumping up and down, though holding in the screams (she didn't want to give it away). The cryptogram read:

"Little kids are so much fun, we decided to have another one.
You could say it's a silly way to announce it will be here the end of May."

WHEW! I got the surprises out of the way, finally! It's been driving me crazy to get it blogged as soon as I could, but I've been busy getting un-packed and re-settled and shelves stocked with groceries. Would you like to know more about the pregnancy? You don't have to push me too hard to tell you!

We originally were going to wait to announce until we went home for Christmas (when I would be about 18 weeks along) but since we went home for Thanksgiving we thought it would be a relief to do it then! I didn't know if I would be able to hide it all that time! It's been hard enough already! I've had multiple people mentioning that we should have another baby, and all I could do was play it neutral and say something like, "Yeah, we'd like another one," when HELLO it was already on it's way!

As far as symptoms go, I threw up a handful of times, all in the middle of the night like at 2 am. Probably because I was so hungry I became nauseated. My appetite was way decreased, and so I lost probably 2 lbs in the first trimester (instead of gaining the average of 2-4 lbs, or 10 lbs like I did with Conrad). I still am a little bit picky sometimes. I didn't get sick at all with Conrad, I just ate and ate and ate. And I gained 40 lbs. :S I'm pretty determined not to do that again. That is pretty much it.

Was this baby planned? Hmm, sure. Originally I wanted to wait until after Christmas to start trying, but Josh thought that a summer baby would be a better idea (he has a "break" during his first summer). Josh won, but I am happy he did because it really will be a great time to have another baby. I am very excited just to have another one! And Conrad would love a younger sibling (I hope!). Conrad is such a good boy, though, so I am not worried about having my hands tied too tightly.

The end. For now.

The Announcement of all announcements

I'm pregnant. I'm 14 1/2 weeks pregnant now, due May 22nd. We are scheduled for an ultrasound on Friday, December 14th to find out what it is.

Conrad will be 20 months older than his sibling, so... not way too bad. But, I'm sure it won't be easy!

I will post more of our Thanksgiving trip soon!

Surprise Surprise

We flew home to Utah for Thanksgiving!!!

Josh's dad, Scott called us on Sunday night and asked us what we thought about flying home as a surprise and gift for Josh's mom, Cindy (her birthday is Friday). Of course, we were ecstatic and said yes. I didn't sleep for 2 nights because I was so excited for the surprise!!! (And to see everybody!)

I didn't take any pictures of the surprises, sorry because I know a picture is worth a thousand words.

Scott gave a gift that just spreads happiness everywhere. He did a good job, didn't he?

THANK YOU SCOTTIE! We love you! Way to go!

We are all so happy and glad to be here, we can't wait for the big Thanksgiving dinner!!!

Chompers

No wonder Conrad hasn't been eating well lately. He's got a cold, and I just noticed 2 more teeth appearing on the top of his mouth. Poor guy, I hope this doesn't affect his Thanksgiving meal too much. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Flashback Friday

I am joining the club of Flashback Friday-ers. Thanks Kori, for the invite! This is what we were involved with a year ago. Conrad's blessing. Here he is with his 2 cousins on Josh's side. He was pretty sad to be stuck in between the 2 girl cousins. ;)
Here is my dad, Conrad's dad, and Josh's dad. And Conrad-and Parker, too. (look closely)
Here is my mom, Conrad's mom, and Josh's mom. And of course, Conrad.
That was a nice first flashback wasn't it?

Pumpkin Flowers?

Is that what I think it is? Pumpkins growing on a stem? Josh thinks it is just pumpkins that were cut before they were fully grown, still attached to their vine. Hey bro-in-law Jason, have you ever seen these before? I thought they were so cool I bought them to show off. I may be a bit impulsive and fickle. But I do other good things, like make cloud cookies and maui mex. (see below posts).

Cloud Cookies

A simple and favorite cake mix-cookie recipe
Ingredients:
1 package yellow cake mix
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs, well-beaten
2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl combine cake mix, butter, eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls of batter ongo ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool slightly on cookie sheets prior to transferring to cooling racks. Makes appx. 2 dozen cookies.

These are perfect for when you need something easy and quick and SO DELICIOUS! They are a refreshing change from regular old chocolate chip cookies.

Maui Mex

Think Taco Salad meets Hawaiian Haystacks.

Ingredients:
tortilla chips, crunched in your hand
shredded lettuce
Small browned pieces of Chicken, salted and peppered
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
canned pineapple chunks (reserve the juice)
optional: tomatoes, olives, salsa and sour cream

Directions:
Layer above items on your plate, top with dressing

Dressing Ingredients:
Pineapple juice from the canned pineapple above
brown sugar
mayonnaise

Directions:
Add mayonnaise and brown sugar to pineapple juice reserves. How much you add depends on how much pineapple juice you have to start with. The ending consistency should be semi-runny. Not thick like Kraft's Ranch Dressing. But a bit more runny. Don't add too much brown sugar (I made that mistake) or else it will be way too sweet. But pile the dressing on your Maui Mex at the end because this is what makes the salad GREAT!

I don't know where this recipe comes from, but my mom made up the name. Give all the credit to her when you try this and love it!

Flip-Flop + Update on random things

I admit it, I am a flip-flopper. Not just like whoever-that-guy-was-that-lost-to-Bush-in-2002, but, just... like an ordinary girl/woman.

I went back to my original template for multiple reasons.
1-It took longer for my page to load up on the screen,
2-I really love this template,
3-It wasn't so easy to read. Particularly if you're on dial-up, then the fancy scrapbook background wouldn't show up (for a long time, probably). Thanks, Grandma W for letting me know so I could fix it.

I hosted an Arbonne party today. Not because I am in love with the stuff (it's super expensive) but because I wanted to help out a girl in the townhomes get her career going. It was an ok party. Just your typical womanly get together where you smile a lot and say nice things to each other, and hopefully the consultant gets somebody to buy something. (I could've cared less if anybody bought anything). Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I am doing productive things with my time while my husband is gone. Not just sitting around moping and wishing something would happen to me (like my blog's description says. By the way, that's just a line from a movie, don't think it's my real-life slogan!).

Conrad is sick with a cold. Every time he sneezes (and it's often) he has you-know-what fly down to his shirt collar. No joke. He's a constant slime faucet.
He also has been wheezing and coughing. I wonder if it's just a change of the season because he's had it for a while (and his boogers aren't green all the time) or if it's allergies. OR maybe IT IS just a cold and he caught it when I decided to do something good for myself (like go to the gym) and took him to the daycare.

He's as happy as can be, even throughout the cutting of 3 more teeth. We are now going through the stage where everything he sees he says "wa wa," or "da da" or "fa fa" or "ba ba" and expects me to repeat back whatever it is he's seeing, correctly. Here are the ones I know:
da da= a picture of someone
fa fa = flower
buh buh= pumpkin
fah fah= froggy
dah dah= doggy
and of course, ma ma= banana. Not what you'd exect, right?

Josh is doing very well in school. He just called me and told me his grade on his section final. I won't tell you the specifics, but he's passing with flying colors! Thanks to any and all of our family members that keep us in their prayers. You are all in ours.

p.s. happy anniversaries to my older sis jeni and her husband jason today, and belated wishes to my older brother kim the boy and his wife brindy yesterday. you guys are old.

Ah, finally.

I finally finished customizing my blog. I hope you all enjoy reading my blog, and that this new look doesn't interfere with your decision to check my blog out! I love all your comments! (Welcome to my blog, Aunt Shelley! That was so cool to see that you visited! You and your girls should make blogs, too, so I can see what's going on!)

We made official plans for Thanksgiving, and I am so excited. We are going to drive about 2 1/2 hours South to Webb City, Missouri where my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Duane live. We will spend it with them and a few of their friends! Don't worry, I won't abandon ship and not post about it! (This is one of my favorite pastimes!)

On a sidenote, I tried spot-cleaning our carpet today with OXICLEAN! (you have to put an exclamation mark after that word, it's just required), and my carpet now has very lightly colored spots in random places. Not only did it take the spot out, but it lightened the whole area around it, too. Any good tips out there?

Remember how cute and tiny he used to be? Now he's just cute and big, and lots more fun! (That picture is for the grandma's, I know they love it!)

Answer to Josh's Question of the Week

Question:
What causes eye twitches?

Answer:
fatigue, caffeine and stress.
(the majority of you got it right!)
The treatment involves massaging the eyelid from side to side. I tried it, it worked, but only for a little while. So, next time you have an eye twitch, try massaging it from side to side.

I do not have a new question, yet. Josh has yet to think of one. I will post it ASAP. Sorry to any of you that are easily disappointed!

Conrad broke 3 teeth through in the past week and a half or so. I noticed the 3rd one tonight. Yipee! Conrad's growing up! And his favorite word the past few days is "Yeah." He'll nod and say it over and over. Sometimes when you ask him a question he'll do it! It makes asking silly questions a lot of fun!

btw (by the way)

I hope you enjoy my playlist (the music playing) on my sidebar. I know I was soo excited when I was making it!
To Amy: I had to experiment with templates to get it to finally show a little bit more than what it was originally. It seems as though a lot of Blogger's templates are narrow narrow narrow, so they cut off sidebar items a little bit. That's all I did. (Oh, and I tried the scrapbook background again, and it didn't cover my entire background, so I just gave up. I'll have to ask Aubre [hey aubre, how do you get it to cover the entire background?]).

Fall day pictures

Here is a collection of pictures we took Thursday night, the weather was soo nice we couldn't resist. And I was getting a little cabin fever.
Conrad kept trying to eat the stick, and I wouldn't let him. Here he is protesting. Big.

I hope you enjoyed looking at them as much as we had taking them!

a little preview

We took some pictures tonight, and I just wanted to post a few for now to give y'all a little preview of more to come!
Above I am consoling Conrad. He's got a few teeth breaking through right now, so pretty much every little thing is a huge thing to him. (I took his stick away and he got upset)
Just a fatherly moment. Captured in a portrait.
Cute Mr. D happy again. :) (for those of you that don't know, Mr. D is short for Mr. Delightful, nicknamed by his Grandma Cindy).

The weather was SOOO nice today, about 65 degrees and sunny. We wanted to capture the fall leaves FINALLY falling on such a lovely day.

Figuring

To any of you who checked my blog tonight (Tuesday anytime between 7:30 pm and 11:30 pm) I am sorry about my blog. I learned how to create a different background from my good friend Aubre (that lives about 50 feet away, 5 doors down... how convenient!) and so I've been playing around with it.
I am apologizing because the backgrounds I chose were too busy. It was hard to read the screen. So, in the meantime I am reverting back to my original blog template (I love it) until I can find a different one I like.

In the meantime I have to brag. While I was gone (learning new blogging skills) Josh took care of Conrad. Guess what Conrad did? He told Josh he was poopy! He started saying "puh puh" over and over again, and then walked over to the stairs to go up to his changing table in his bedroom. Josh smelled him, and he was poopy! I keep laughing because I cannot believe he did that! I think it's amazing because 1. He recognized he was poopy, 2. He remembered the word "poopy", 3. He SAID the word "poopy" and 4. He knew where to go to take care of it!

That's the thing he learned today. Every day, it's something new I tell ya.

By the way, be sure to "vote" your answer on Josh's Question of the week on my sidebar! Scroll down through my posts to see the answer to last week's question, too! (Oh, and read my comments, I added something I forgot to mention in the post).

New Week, New Survey Question

Josh's Question of the Week this week is not 100% from what he learned in school. I actually had an eye twitch that wouldn't end for like... ever. So, when I was going through trying to get rid of it I asked him what caused it, and I did some research. You will find out the answer from me this next Sunday or Monday, (unless you do your own research!)
Josh has a test tomorrow morning, so he's been studying like crazy tonight and- as a result, brought on a massive headache, so I decided to let him have a break.
I hope to have a genuine Josh question next week. Sorry!

(To find the answer to last week's question scroll down a few posts.)

November Roses

The weather has been unseasonably warm here in Kansas City. I'm not complaining! It could be like this! I love it. I took this picture this morning, November 5th. Pretty crazy stuff. Too bad for the roses that tonight it's supposed to get below freezing, luckily for me I cut them and put them in a vase on my kitchen table. :)

Sunday's Adventures

This past weekend my brother Ethan and his wife Kim (the girl) stopped in to give us a visit on their way to Florida. Ethan is going through rotations of optometry school. His school is in Oregon, they just did a rotation in Utah, and now they're going to Florida! Talk about moving across country. After Florida they'll go back to Idaho. Finally, they finish with a 3 year pay-back to the Air Force. They're not sure where they'll be for those 3 years, yet.

While they were here we decided to let them take advantage of the historical LDS church sites close to our house. First we went to the Independence Visitor's Center. They have this fun section where kids can pretend to be pioneers and play on things like this:
(Conrad got to drive a wagon around at the Independence Visitor's Center.)
Or, they can pretend to live in a log cabin:

While we were there we took a tour about The Dead Sea Scrolls. They didn't have the real deal there, but I learned a few interesting things. Poor Conrad was at this point hungry and tired of being in his stroller, so I escaped the tour early and let him run around.

After that Josh and I took Conrad back to the car for lunch and a nap. Ethan and Kim were able to go visit the Community of Christ Temple. They did a "session." ;) ha ha.

Our next destination was the Liberty Jail. We had a history buff tour guide who seemed to talk forever. Or maybe it was the fact that Conrad was a wreck because his nap was only 1/2 hour long, so me and Josh took turns following our restless little guy around the place.

The Liberty Jail is an amazing place to go. It makes you have a lot more reverence towards our Prophet Joseph Smith.

Kim the girl and I stopped to have our picture taken in front of the main demonstration for the Jail. Behind us you see mannequins. One is of the prophet Joseph, and a few other gentlemen that stayed with him in the jail.

After the Liberty Jail we came back home, had hot chocolate and dinner, then enjoyed one another's company. It is so uplifting to have visits from family members. Between Ethan and Kim, and my cousin Chelsea I am floating on air! Only 6 more weeks until we are "home" for Christmas!

Our visitors brought Conrad's belated Birthday present, see his excitement here!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Answer to Josh's Question of the Week

Ok, I really shouldn't be doing this right now because I'm supposed to be making 4 freezer meals (a relief society activity) to trade with other women tonight. So, I am going to be as brief as I can be. And I am also going to post about this last weekend (my bro and sis-in-law visited) as soon as I can.

Josh's Question of the Week was:
What is the optimal age range for women to combat Osteoporosis?
Answer: 15-30.

It's actually 13-30, but if I put that it would be obvious.

You need 1000 mg daily. An 8 oz. cup of milk provides 300 mg. So, all you ladies out there in this age range... possibly bearing children need to drink 3 glasses of milk every day. Then, have other dairy products (yogurt, cheese or etc.) to fill in the other small void. This is very important to me right now, I had a great grandma die from breaking her hip bone (indirectly, she had complications that led to her death).

I will post the next question probably tomorrow.

Link

I really enjoyed reading THIS. Something about going back to KSL's Studio 5 Website makes me happy. Other mom's out there will enjoy this, too!

My Little Sponge

Take a look at what Conrad can do. He's soaking it all in.

Halloween Night

Here's our little fireman. We got this outfit as a gift at a babyshower. I really wish I could remember who gave it to me so I could tell them "thanks" again. It saved me $ and energy in a field of creativity that is non-existent.
Yes, I dressed up for Halloween!
That's pretty much it... I put lipstick and earings on. I wore my nicest outfit. Did anyone notice? Nope. Which is weird because I never dress up. You would think people would notice! Josh saw me and gave me a raised eyebrow like, "Why are you wearing that to go trick or treating?" He thought I was lame. He didn't say that, but I could tell that's what he was thinking! I thought he was lame, though - for not dressing up!

For dinner, our friends served us a lovely meal of Jack-o-Lantern Pizza. It was scrumptions!
I made Pumpkin Gobs for dessert, and they turned out pretty good. I got the recipe here.

Here are some of Conrad's comrads. Will (in orange) was a dragon, he just didn't have his costume on, yet.
Here is another one of Conrad's comrads: Davis. He was a monkey. What a fun bunch of boys Conrad gets to hang out with!
I saw these 2 little birdies and had to capture a snapshot. Garrison is a chick (the older one in the back) and Loralei is a little duckling. Not the greatest shot, but you do what you can do with a wiggly almost-2-year-old.All in all it was a good night. We went down our streeet and to a couple other houses. I felt pretty silly pushing Conrad in a stroller going trick-or-treating. I blew my cover a couple of times by saying something like, "Ooh, I haven't gotten that kind yet! Uh, I mean, Conrad hasn't gotten that kind yet!" So today I have had a few pieces of chocolates. I went to the gym, though, so it's just replacing what I burned off.

What I am most happy about, however, is that Josh is taking 2 Practicals (tests) today, right now as I type. He has been kind of a different person this past week. He has one more test tomorrow, and it's a big one. It's a F I N A L! That means that after his test, he can relax this weekend and not worry about studying ANYTHING! Which leads me to something I am so excited for!!! We have more visitors coming! Ethan and Kim will be here Saturday night until Monday morning, and I am so happy to see them! My funny brother and my sweet, dear sister-in-law! We are planning on going and seeing some historical church sites like the Liberty Jail, and the Independence Visitor's center, and perhaps even Adam Ohndi-Ahman. I hope I remember my camera! Anyway, so I need to go and find a substitute teacher for my nursery class. Wish me good luck!