Hemostats=chip clip

You know it's a weird day
when
you start using hemostats as chip clips.
I seriously did this the other day...
on purpose.
I even said out loud
"really?"
Yes really.

On the other hand,
where did all of the chip clips
disappear to?
Cheese louise!

Merry Christmas from Zayden!

We aren't visiting family this Christmas (ew,Grinches!), so I will shower my fam with pictures of the Little Man since you don't get to see him in his cute outfit.(plus my mom likes to use my blog as her brag book at work). We went to my mom's ward last Sunday and everyone loved him. All he wanted to do was stand up and smile at all the ladies behind him. He's getting a little temper...I tell him I'll give him spankins, but my threats have not worked yet...I will include a picture of one of his arched back moments.

Enjoy the chubby cheeked monster.....and Merry Christmas!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Stuff

I love people watching. I could do it for hours...as long as I have Depends on. People are hilarious. The other day I saw a guy cross country skiing on the SIDEWALK. Yeah. The side walk that was pure ice with some patches of dry cement poking through......was he for real? I almost wrecked because I had to do a quadruple take to make sure my eyes were not fooling me. He was having the hardest time too. It was the classic one step forward two steps back routine. I laughed and wished I had someone in the passenger seat to be a witness such humor.

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated. I am slightly disappointed in it this year....it didn't turn out as magnificent as I had dreamed. Once again, Dan tried to put tinsel on it while my back was turned. I'm not a fan of tinsel and Dan cannot believe his ears when I tell him that. We're not in 1980 anymore honey buns! Here's the ironic thing about it.....I bought a little tree last year for Dan to put all of his ornaments on....he has family guy ornaments, and Phoenix Suns stuff, and Superman crap (crap? did I say that out loud?) that he likes to put on our big tree. Then he tops it off with tinsel. Basically all of my hard work of coordinating colors and schemes is completely ruined by his lovely, un-matching stuff. So I thought having his own personal tree would somehow fix all of my problems. It didn't. He hates it. In fact, he looked at it and said "that looks stupid." Oh, and to top it all off....he didn't even put tinsel on his tree! What?! I'm so confused. Now all the sudden I am the one concerned that we have no tinsel on the freakin' tree! He's at work today.....by the time he gets home tomorrow morning there will be tinsel lovingly wrapped around his tree. I refuse to be tinsel-less!

Have you heard the new David Archuleta Christmas From the Heart CD? Its great! We bought it last night and listened to it in the car all the way home. Then Dan told me he could "out sing David." I died laughing.

Here's the little monster, growing up oh so fast. (I realize he's in a pink bouncer...it's a hand-me-down from little Miss Ady.)

Speaking of the Littly Missy.....here she is, milking a fake cow...and talking to a fake sheep.

Hope your Christmas is Magical!

Thankgivin'

We drove to Arizona for Thanksgiving this year....yes, I said DROVE. Eleven hours in a car is not awesome. We made it, but I don't plan on making this a yearly tradition. Flying is heavenly, and I like heavenly things. We actually hardly took any pictures this year. We were there for 5 days and only came home with two pictures. In our defense we really only saw Dan's whole family once for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving Day.

Dan and McKenna. We were outside helping Joey hang up lights.



Matt has an awesome air soft gun. I could do some damage with that thing!




My favorite picture of Dan. Everyone else in the picture is smiling nicely.....then there's Dan.
(bad picture quality...I was taking a picture of a picture.)


We saw the END of a rainbow!! It was so cool! Although, there was no gold...and no leprechaun.

While we were in Arizona, Josh, Michelle, and Ady came to see my mom in Utah. I will have to post pictures of their happenings another day. I talked to Ady on the phone while we were traveling home and she asked "Aunt Julie, are you coming home from Arizona's house?" lol, the innocent mind of a three year old.

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!

My Newphew is Famous-ish

Little Man is famous....ok, maybe not FAMOUS, but close. His picture was on the morning talk show STUDIO 5 today!! I entered him in to win a basket of goodies & with that entry I had to submit a picture. (The drawing was random, it wasn't based off the picture or he WOULD have won ;) Well we didn't win the basket, but they chose a few of their favorite pictures to display on the show and his was one of them! I guess his five minutes of fame can be checked off his bucket list.....at 6 months old. (I'm still waiting for my moment.....at 303 months old.)

Here's the picture I submitted......

Awwwwww!

The joys of life

Fall always seems to make me feel more thankful.....maybe it's Thanksgiving....maybe it's the cool weather....maybe I'm just crazy...who knows?

Here are some things that I have been grateful for this month...

*I found my wedding ring! I'm always losing things....it drives me (as well as my husband) INSANE. In fact, this is how bad it has become---I hate when Dan is at work because that means he will not be home to keep track of my glasses for me.....all four pair. (How can a person lose 4 pairs of glasses in one day? I'm still trying to figure it out!)*

**That brings me to the next thing on my list......Dan. Oh, what would I do without him? Sometimes I really just want to smack him....but most of the time he's quite fun to have around ;). Along with being the guardian of my glasses, he is also my dictionary, encyclopedia, handy man, auto mechanic, Book of Mormon Scholar, and my bunk mate. Oh yes ladies, all of this wrapped into one man.....how lucky can one girl be?!**

***Sleep has been my friend this month. I started going to clinicals just once per week and it has been a wonderful thing!***

****A clean house. As you know, we're selling our condo. This place has to be ready for someone to look at 24/7. I thoroughly enjoy the fresh lines on the carpet from the vacuum....On that note, have I ever told you how much I love vacuuming? Seriously. I got this fantastic vacuum for my wedding (from my fave person Ginny) and it has a canister instead of a bag. This means I get to see all of my filth each time I vacuum! Sometimes I'm amazed at what it picks up. We don't even wear shoes in our house and it STILL picks up enormous amounts of who-knows-what?!****

*****Children's Church songs. I've been playing them for Little Man when I babysit him. I'm impressed at how many I still remember! I'm also impressed at the messages in the songs....so simple and easy to understand.....I guess that's why they are children's songs....If you haven't listened to them in awhile, I highly recommend them*****

******The lady from The Biggest Loser...I believe her name is Abby? (Yes, I love reality TV.....don't pretend like you don't). She is amazing! Her husband and 2 kids died in a car accident two years ago. Her outlook on life=amazing. I highly recommend this show too.....I also recommend eating something healthy while watching it. I tried ice cream once and every bite was full of guilt******

*******This Little Missy..that hates her picture taken*******

********And this Little Man..... with chubby cheeks********

September in October

I started this post the end of September...and here it is October...Hm, where does time go?

Here's a brief summary of events for Septiembre 2009....(oh yes, my Spanish kicks in every now and again)

We put our house up for sale! It took Dan 2 months to convince me to do it, but I gave in....stubborn? Slightly......

My mom got a new car. So sporty and cute.



Dan went to a day long fire school and loved it. They had 4 houses for the firefighters to do damage to and he took full advantage.



Dan taught me about "man planning"... it's not like "women planning". Apparently they don't plan out every detail...who knew?

I found this website http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ and almost peed my pants laughing!

Zayden's Torticollis seems to be better...although he does have lazy days sometimes.

Dan changed his first diaper....oh wow....lets just say packing tape was involved.

A pretty boring month if I don't say so myself! October will be better.....only because I have pictures of Zayden and Adyson to add!

Out with the buzz, in with the music

How cool is it that my washer and dryer sing to me instead of buzz? So clever.

Love Sweet Love

I have been wanting a new washer and dryer since we moved over a year ago. We have been using the oldest washer and dryer known to man. Last week it took 6 hours to dry 1 load of towels...yeah....6 hours....I totally wanted to kill myself. So, in an effort to save my life, we bought these puppies.....

How excited am I???? Pretty much I want to quit school and my job so I can stay home and do laundry all day. The best part is we got an awesome deal on them (and you all know how much a love a good deal)! They were marked $599.99 each. With all the rebates, sales, and coupons, we got them for a little over $700 for both. PLUS they are only supposed to cost $13 a YEAR to operate! Amazing.

Anyone want to bring their laundry over?

Facebook

I think facebook needs to establish some ground rules....and make every person take an oath to oblige. This site is getting out of control. Every time I get on facebook I threaten to cancel my account. I don't know 'who' I threaten....I just say out loud "why the #$!! do I keep getting on this thing!?!". Then I show The Hubs things that people say, or pictures that people post and he says "Why the #$!! do you keep getting on this thing?!" Then we get into an argument about facebook and I find myself defending it, and sticking up for it, while trying to convince him to sign up for it. Yeah, that's all we need....TWO facebook accounts in our household. Sometimes I wonder if people actually have REAL face-to-face conversations with their husbands and children anymore. My sources say no. This can't be good. So, in an effort to save facebooker marriages and family relationships...and to learn how to be a less annoying facebooker... I have established some rules for you......oh yes, these ARE official.



1.) This is not TWITTER. If you want to update your status every 2.4 seconds, start tweeting! To be quite frank, no one really cares about EVERY aspect of your life...I know, surprising huh? We don't need play by plays. One or two status updates every one or two days is sufficient. (Just an FYI for you offenders-there is a little button called "hide" next to your name...I'm pretty sure many of your friends use this option).



2.) This is not FLICKR. We don't need 400 pictures of you...and we REALLY don't need 156 pictures of you taking a picture of yourself. 400 pictures does not equal a cool, popular person with lots of friends. 400 pictures equals you taking too many pictures to try and convince facebook "friends" that you actually have a life.



3.) This is not the psychiatrists office. Keep your personal problems, well, personal. If you need counseling, facebook is not the place to find it. Try the yellow pages.....LDS family services.....Google......anywhere but facebook. Please. I get so uncomfortable/embarrassed for people that air their dirty laundry on their status updates. There is a time and there is a place for situations like this....facebook is not the time or the place.



4.) The results to facebook quizzes aren't real. Don't take these as personal revelation. They're just for fun.... (Yes, I have seen MANY people talk about these like they are real.)



5.) While we're on the subject of quizzes, lets try to keep them to a minimum, eh? For the love, I do not need 35 quiz results bombarding my news feed....don't you know I have 15 status updates to read about Suzie's divorce plans?



6.) Don't whine and expect people to comment on your wall if you never comment on their wall. Enough said.



7.) Facebook is not a place to get attention. It's just not.


8.) This is not your bedroom. I don't care about what you and your husband did last night.....seriously, I don't, not even a little bit.


9.) Facebook is not AKA: A Love Letter to Your Spouse. A cute little "happy anniversary, I love you" here and there is appropriate....but a "I have lain awake many sleepless nights trying to compose words that might adequately describe the feelings of my heart that I have for you..." is not appropriate. Again, that time and place issue goes into effect here.

10.) No pictures is also an issue. Lets get real with each other once and for all, the only reason we all got facebook accounts is so we could see how fat our high school buddies got. 400 pictures is too many, zero pictures is not enough. If you're going to judge all the fatty's from high school, make sure there is ample opportunity for them to do the same.

Ten rules seems to be adequate....for now. I wouldn't want to overwhelm any one. I've come to the conclusion that if you are offended by this post, you're probably the one breaking all of these official facebook rules. So save the hate mail and go update your status instead....you know you want to.

Going Private

I'm going to make my blog private now. If you want to continue to see my blog you have to leave me a comment with your email address, or email me at ju71@hotmail.com. I know there are a lot of blog stalkers out there (including me), and I am totally ok with it. Even if you've never left me a comment (or never will) I will still add you...unless you're a whack job. There are very few people on my list of "deny access" =)

Just sayin'

Can I brag for a moment? Of course I can. It's my blog, I can do what I want.

The other day my mom and I were looking for for a vase, so we stopped at the Salvation Army to see if they had one we liked.....oh yes, I shop there. When we walked in they had a bunch of new items from Target out on tables. Tons of stuff...clothes, shoes, napkins, swimming suits, everything. Everything still had the tags on it and everything was 50%! Here's what we found...

We got all of this for $28!

The waffle maker was only $8...it's a flip one, like at hotels. The waffles are HUGE! I saw it at Shopko for $39.99 on sale!

The bumbo.....$10! It was still in the box, never been used, no tears, stains, nothing. How cool is that? (for those of you that don't know what a bumbo is, it's the green chair thing on the left. They're $40 at Walmart....oh, and they're the coolest thing ever invented for kids.)

All the clothes were $.50-$1.50. We got a couple of skirts, some shirts, swimming suits, a jacket, and some shorts for Adyson and Zayden.

Sometimes I impress myself =)

While I'm bragging I will show you some pictures I found that I forgot about from Joni's shower a few months ago. My mom did all of this, even the diaper cake. Isn't she great?

I'm done boasting now....feel free to brag on your blog....afterall, it is your blog and you can do what you want!

He loves me....he loves me not.....

He loves me!

Camp Nah Nah Mah

Dan's work asked for volunteers to make and serve breakfast for the kids at the SLC burn camp. The real name of this camp is NAH NAH MAH....I'm not making this up. Dan asked me to go with him because only 3 guys signed up and 2 of them cancelled. Luckily, more showed up than signed up. I'm glad that Dan likes to volunteer and do things like this (even if it means waking up at 5am). A little service is good for the soul!

Do you see why we don't get family pictures taken?

(I was actually really glad to see the reflectors on his jacket work so well)

Z'ster overload...no seriously.

Zayden is getting so big! He's almost 3 months, and we just love him to pieces. Seriously, could a little boy get any cuter? I think not.

On to the other pictures that make me smile.....




Zayden got blessed while we were in Cleveland. His tux was freakin' adorable. We put it on him in the store and said "Awwwwww" in unison (the cashier too). My mom sewed the pants into shorts and it seriously couldn't have been any cuter. Oh, and the shoes you ask? Brand new. Yard sale. 50 cents. Just sayin'.

K, so he wasn't really digging "picture time" after the blessing. BUT he didn't cry once while being blessed! Oh what a blessing.....no pun intended.

Don't mind the gangsta signs he's throwin'

Spencer blessed him...and did a really great job. Thank you so much!

This is his first fireworks show. I know he looks kind of frightened in this picture, but he really wasn't. My sister was trying to cover his ears with the blanket, and he wasn't liking that. He really liked the fireworks! I was surprised. (Did I mention how awesome Cleveland fireworks are? Seriously, even 2 month old babies like them...that's how cool they are.)

Happy little man

The best babysitter in Emery County. (my cousin's daughter) She loved Zayden and took such good care of him during the softball game. Isn't she cute?


Happy to be with Grandma Dene



Warm and cozy in a towel at Grandma's


This picture needs an explanation. No, we are not torturing him....ok, maybe a little....but it was for a good reason...I swear. You see, when Zayden was born he had the cutest head of hair. I usually don't like it when baby's have hair, but his was adorable. Then one day Joni gave him a bath and his hair started falling out in handfuls. To be quite frank, he looked like a doofus. He had bald patches all over his head. So, we took some action and shaved it. He HATED it at first......


...then he kinda liked the vibrating massage. I am happy to report that the shaving did some good. His hair has grown in and he's back to his non-doofus self! He'll thank me later...I just know it!

He also got to meet his Great Grandma Fletcher for the first time (my dad's mom). He slept right through it...good thing we have cameras to catch these moments as proof.

Then he got to meet some more of the Fletcher side. Aunt Sherrie and Cousin Heather...pretty sure he slept through this as well...

Look at those chubby cheeks. Could you just eat them? I do.

Grandma Dene is so funny

Precious baby. In his Bumbo already!



I'm pretty sure this picture is going the wrong way....and the dog is getting a little close to his head....don't worry, I'll discuss this situation with Grandma Dene A-SAP =). Zayden is holding his new softie...we usually don't like pooh bear stuff, but isn't he cute with it?

Laughing at Grandma again!


A big boy in his bumbo! Seriously, why don't they make these for adults?

By the way, we do realize his neck is crooked.....it ads character, leave him alone.....jk. He had his first physical therapy appointment today...and he slept all the way through it. He is such a good baby. I told someone the other day that I'm not having kids because my brother and sister already took the cute, good babies from heaven (Yes, there were only two...sorry.) .

Bundled up & ready for a walk. Don't ask me why we have to wear jackets in July around here....I'm not in charge of the thermostat.

I'm BIZZY

I'm so behind on blogging....and homework...and dishes....and one of the tubs has had AJAX sitting in it since last night....but I just had to show you all how cute my niece is. We went to visit her and Josh a couple of weekends ago. She's getting so big! She's got her daddy wrapped around her cute little finger. She adores him. EVERYTHING she does she has to "go show daddy" and EVERYWHERE she goes "is daddy coming?"

We had a little birthday celebration for her and she loved loved loved blowing out the candles. She made us sing "you've had a birthday" over and over and over so she (and daddy, of course) could blow out the candles over and over and over.

We also took her to the park to play. Josh showed her how to roll down the hill and she loved it.
Every time she got to the bottom of the hill she'd say "Daddy I'm bizzy now!"

Now...onto the pictures that make me smile....




















Lighting the candles















Getting excited!
















She was excited/embarrassed while we sang to her.
















Making a wish!

Tinker Bell cake (the second day)

Mmmmmm. Eatin frosting of Tink's legs

I love this picture. So cute. Rollin rollin rollin.
















I'm so "bizzy" my head is spinnin'

















The never ending game of "CHASE ME!"

Look at those chubby little fingers

Blowin bubbles....where are they?

Sweet

Isn't she lovely?

Bubbles. Again, where are they?


She LOVES the swing. We had to bribe her with bubbles to get off.

I had to include this because it makes me laugh. These are her art projects that she made with all of her new art supplies she got from Grandma Dene. The one on the left has a tag that she took off her new outfit lol.

Once again, I realize the pictures are all messed up. I tried for an hour to fix it. The captions for the pictures are under the pictures.