I promised a while back....

that I would post more of our pictures back from November. Picasa will only let me do 4 per post, so I am stopping at two posts. That's it. It's about time I move on to the present in this blog, right?

more....

During the trip...

We really had such a nice time on our Utah trip --we always do. Tessa enjoyed playing with all of her cousins, and she adores her grandparents. I don't even know if she would have missed Jake and myself at all for those two weeks if we hadn't been there with her.

I wish I'd taken more pictures of some of the things we did and some of the people we were able to see. I'm a dummy when it comes to remembering to pull out the camera.

Here are the cousins opening jammies:

It's fun to watch Simone and Tessa play together.In princess heaven with an early Christmas at Jake's parents. Christmas morning at Gma Lori's and Papa Duke's.
Christmas breakfast with more cousins.

I was able to spend some good times with my brother and my sister. I think one of my favorite images from the trip was watching my husband, bro, sis, and mom rocking out together on RockBand.
At my dad's house and loving on Capri --Brandon and Ranell's baby girl.
She enjoyed the snow the few times I was nice enough to be outside in it with her.

Dad took us to Hardware Ranch to go on a sleigh ride and see the elk.

Back at the Jake's mom and dad's. You know your very masculine cousins love you when they agree to watch Sleeping Beauty with you.
Other highlights include but are not limited to:

Seeing Jake's brother in Cash on Delivery at Hale.

A date night with the friends.

Games, games, games.

A full 19 person family picture.

Lunch at Settebello.

Tessa bossing Papa Duke around.

Rock Band, like I said.

The Nativity reenactment.

Responses to our pregnancy news.

Seeing friends we just love --especially ones I hadn't seen in quite some time.

Grandparent (Tessa's greats) visits.

Our nieces and nephews.

Before the trip

Sponge curlers can do some amazing things, including making your kid look like Medusa. This was after church the Sunday before Christmas, so her hair had plenty of time to calm down by this point. When I took her curlers out before we left, I plopped that wreath on her to soften the curl wad look. I think it worked. She was happy. She called it her Princess Chrispas Crown. (To those of you who have known me waaay too long. Yes, that would be the the same hair wreath from our stake production of SCROOGE. Our wooden giraffe has been wearing it each Christmas.)

Okay, so this weird nose honking kiss? I don't get it either. WHAT was she doing? Giving my nose a Christmas blessing?

Rewind to December

I told you I'd eventually get to this. :) Tessa had a little birthday party at the beginning of December when she turned two years old. We all had a really good time and were grateful to her friends' parents for coming along with their kids and helping us celebrate.

Princesses and cupcakes. It doesn't get much better than this.

Why I haven't blogged in a while...

Here's a hint.

Here's another one. Have you got it yet?

It's hard to want to blog when you are a nauseated pile of a person. (I have silently kept up with all of you, though!) I started to feel a little better when we left on our trip to Utah right before Christmas. At that point I didn't think it wise to publish online that we were away for two weeks. ......you know, all those lurking stalkers waiting to rob my house and steal all our valuables, like..... our 19 inch television.
Anywho, I have quite a bit to catch you up on. It's coming soon.
Oh, and due date for now: July 16. Two weeks before Jake takes the Bar Exam. Mwa ha hahahahahaha!
We wanted a chance to tell our family in person during our trip before announcing to all of blogdom.
I'd like to leave you with some advice I'll certainly apply to my life until after July. Very wise. Very wise. Now after July, it's back to street performing.

Clean House

I have three shows I really like. One of them I catch when I can on the Style Network; it's called Clean House. I love it. It's very formulaic but fun (for me) too, cheesy jokes and all. Here's the formula:

1. A messy family is introduced.

2. The Clean House cast comes to the house to meet the family and check out the mayhem.

3. They begin trying to get the family to let go of the clutter they don't need. (You'd be surprised at the emotional connection people make with the strangest things.)The hostess sits the family down to discover what is causing all of the foolishness and gives them straight talk counsel.

4. They have a huge yard sale. Whatever they don't sell goes to charity. The money they make from the yard sale is matched by the show for the first thousand dollars. This is the money they will use to organize and redecorate 2-3 rooms in the house.

5. The family is sent to a hotel for a couple days while the entire Clean House crew proceeds to clean, organize, and decorate the home.

6. The family comes back for reveal day. Most love the transformation, and hopefully they are motivated to not be clutter slobs anymore.

So, with that said... Sometimes when I watch the show and it gets to the family in the hotel part, the owners of the home will start expressing how nervous they are about how the house is going to be decorated. What if they don't like it? They have picky tastes, etc.

This is where my confusion comes into play. If your home is so packed with trash and clutter that you've got cat poop tucked away for years or a massive ant problem in your kitchen or an overwhelming stench of garbage or you can't sleep on your own bed because there are too many things on top and no where else to put it or the list goes on..... and people are willing to step in and clean up your nasty mess, wouldn't you just be grateful? Who cares if the paint color is one you wouldn't choose yourself? ANYTHING would be an improvement from the pile that it was before. Most of the people on the show are very grateful for the help even before they see the transformation, but a few of them... I tell you. I think that you've lost any credibility as far as your own home design goes once you can't tell what type of flooring you have because there is too much junk covering it.

Sidenote: Why do so many of the people on this show have doll collections? Interesting coincidence, don't you think?

Also, if you ever have a chance to watch one of the 2 messiest home in the country episodes, do it. It will make you feel like your home is a shining beacon of clean.