Happy New Year

There are several things that I have neglected to post recently. Henry turned 2 (end of September). I had this whole long thing about him being 2 and his birthday party. Halloween has come and gone, without so much as a single picture. November, also picture and post-less. Christmas, and the whole month it gets, same thing. Oh well. The truth is, it's been a busy few months and sometimes you just have to prioritize and, for me, the blog isn't usually at/near the top of the list.

I do however like keeping a historical record of/for my family.

September

September brought Henry's birthday. He loved his "beep beep" cake and scored big time, present wise. Presents were wrapped in various paper, but he wasn't interested in opening them if they weren't wrapped in "beep beep" paper. We had to cover presents in "beep beep" paper and pretend like it was so that he would be interested.





He started to get up in the middle of naps, move to the hall, then resume his nap. I do remember the floor being a great place for a nap.

October

In October, we enjoyed a beautiful Indian Summer, followed by Halloween festivities. Henry was a puppy for Halloween. It was hard to get a good shot of him as a puppy, seeing as how he doesn't like having things on his head. (It is actually very odd that he will wear the army helmet. This is a very rare picture.)





November

Not much happened in November. Henry's stuffed monkey, aka "Ha Ha", went on a lot of our errands with us this month. One trip, he got to wear Henry's pjs. Henry watched a whole lot of Tangled. Our copy is about worn out already. Also, we got to put up our Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend. Henry LOVED Christmas things this year! I'm glad we got the season started asap. It was a fun Christmas year.





December

December has been pretty exciting, but VERY busy. Biggest news: I got my real estate license!! It's official!! I can now sell houses in Utah!! So, if you're looking to buy or sell, you know who to call!! It's taken a lot of time and work this year, but it's finally done. I'm pretty excited about it. I think I will really enjoy it.

Henry LOVES trains, or "choo choos". He got to ride the Polar Express this year. It's an old train, all decorated for Christmas. We got cookies, drank hot chocolate, sang songs, and MET SANTA!! He knew Henry's name and gave him a bell. Henry still talks about it every day!

Christmas was fun. We spent Christmas eve at Nate's parents, eating the traditional Christmas Eve supper, exchanging a few gifts, and reading the Christmas story. It was a lovely evening. Emily and Ian came down from Idaho later that night and spent Christmas day with us. I'm glad they could come. It made Christmas extra special.

Extra Pockets

I thought of another plus to winter yesterday. This would be my Winter Happy Thought #3.

As much as I dislike jackets, at least they provide extra pockets so I don’t have to carry everything around with me. My dislike of carrying a purse all the time stems from the same dislike of carrying a jacket all of the time. I just don’t care for extra stuff. When I go shopping I prefer to stick my ID and debit card in my back pocket and go in accessory free. I don’t, however, like to unbutton and re-button back pocket buttons and somehow all of my pants have back pocket buttons. (I dislike doing this because you forget to re-button once and you end up with the corners of the button flap all curled up, never to lay totally flat again. My bum already pokes out enough without the help of unruly fabric.) Hence being glad for jacket/sweater pockets. Home Depot was much more enjoyable last night without my purse.

Am I the only girl in the world that does not care for accessories? I enjoy myself a nice pair of earrings and (before Henry came along and started pulling on jewelry) a nice necklace, but besides that, not so much. Even rings. Before I got married, the only ring I remember wearing for more than a week was a CTR ring I got for Christmas some time during our Fox Run years. (Middle school, maybe? I don’t remember ages, just where we lived at the time). That one I wore off and on for a long time. Maybe I’m weird. Oh well. At least my hands are free to enjoy stores AND keep my son from running around like a wild child.

Winter Happy Thought II

This is only day #2 and I have another winter happy thought. You get better gas mileage! No A.C = less $$ on gas. Yay!

Winter Happy Thoughts

A few days ago, I wrote this big long thing about winter. It was mostly about how much I dislike different aspects of the season, such as how I don’t like being concerned with the conditions of the roads and planning my life accordingly and how much I dislike things such as coats, shoes, socks, etc. Instead of posting all of my winter grievances, I’ve decided to stick that one in my journal and not subject my (limited) internet audience to my hatred of beef with winter.
Instead, I will skip to the positive parts of that never to be published post. The whole point of it, before it turned into a vent-fest, was to share my winter plan. I have decided that it might be beneficial to note down anything that I think I like about winter. Any time I think “I love that…” or “It’s so nice that..”, and it has to do with snow or cold, I am going to take note and share it. At the end of the winter, I am going to compile it so that I can pull it out next winter and remind myself about all the happy things about winter.

As a side note, I believe in setting realistic goals. It is unrealistic for me to say that I will try to not have a negative thought about winter. Complaining is just going to happen. My realistic goal, for this year, is to take note of and appreciate the positive aspects of winter.

So my #1, favorite thing about winter is:

You get to LEAVE YOUR GROCERIES IN THE CAR!!! You can leave them there for hours! You can go to Costco, buy a bag of chicken, and then decide you aren’t quite ready to go home yet and that you should take advantage of being out of the house and the already spent gas and go to the mall. Not that you need to, you just want to walk around for a while and look at all the pretty things. Also you can buy your groceries, remember you were supposed to buy the dog his special, hypo-allergenic food at some other store besides the grocery store, and go (even take your time) because nothing’s going bad in a trunk that’s colder than your refrigerator at home. Honestly, this is the only thing I miss about winter when it’s over. Summer requires a little more planning in the sequence and timing of city outings.

Well, there’s my #1 FAVORITE THING about winter. Honestly, at this moment I am having a hard time even imagining that my list is going to be very long, but we’ll see. I am sure I will still snarl at the snow. I’ll curse having to drive anywhere with snow on the roads. I’ll swear about every time I have to gather all of the accessories necessary to keep a toddler (and myself) warm and healthy/alive in a trip out of the house. I’ll want to leave the state and realize we’re pretty much snowed in this (thankfully large) valley. By March I will feel completely distant from any sort of civilization that cannot see a giant rock wall (mountains) just to the east. By April or May, when it starts warming up just enough to guarantee that all of the moisture that comes through here will undoubtedly turn into a snowy mess, I will want to move someplace warm and sunny even if it costs me my right arm. But summer will come again (spring is just snow with the occasional teaser day of “warmth”). I’ll almost cry out of happiness when the tree outside starts to turn green. (Okay, Utah has more than one tree, but not by many. I will count them next time I have a good vantage point and let you know an exact number. Just kidding.) I’ll break out my slippers and enjoy another 4 or 5 months before it starts snowing again. Happy day!!



P.S. I don’t hate living here. There are a lot of pros. I just get a little grumpy when I think about winter, so I’m going to stop now and get back to what I should be doing.

P.P.S. Yes, this is shorter than the original post on the subject.

MIA

I have been very much a MIA blogger this summer, but especially the last month. Working on two... I'm not going to try to catch up on everything we've been up to, just because that sounds like a lot of work to cover nothing particularly exciting.

In general, we're just doing our thing and enjoying summer! Nate is working and being employee extraordinaire.

I'm still working on becoming a real estate agent. I stink at test taking. Always have, so the last little bit of this process where I have to take and pass a bazillion tests is starting to get old. I'm making progress, but when you stink at testing plus you're out of practice, it can be difficult. If only I could just skip this part!

Henry is just busy growing up. We started potty training last month. We've now progressed to minimal accidents at home, occasional accidents outside (why would you stop playing long enough to go to the bathroom?), and knowing the location and quickest route to every restroom at all of the stores we even occasionally visit. I think today was our first accident free church block and it didn't involve me leaving primary every 30 seconds to pry him out of Nursery to visit the restroom! Go Henry!! Henry's been up to other fun stuff, but his birthday is coming up and I'll save it for then.

Due to the slow and painful death of our camera, I don't have many pictures from the last couple of months. It's not totally dead, but IF it doesn't shut off when you push the picture taking button, the display goes black so it's a surprise what comes out.

Here is what I do have pictures of. Don't worry. There really aren't many.

Sorry for the poor quality.
Moving toddler + dumb camera = this picture
I made that giant ruler! It's a growth chart that looks like an old wooden ruler. Now, if we ever move, we don't have to leave kids measurements in a door frame. I think it's darker in the picture than in real life.

I just thought that was funny. He walked around like that for a while that day. It was entertaining. You can see his training potty in the background. He picked it out and it sat in our kitchen until this past week. It makes sounds when you potty in it.

I made this too! It's car seat liner with a rubbery table cloth bottom to keep Henry's car seat from stinking up our car if he has an accident while we're on the road. I just take it out, put the other one in and wash the wet one.

We went camping in Idaho last weekend! Mama was up there, taking Chelsie back to school. This is the only picture we got because of our sad camera, but I think it's a sweet one. G.G. is reading Henry his new truck book. (Note the teeny bit of yellow under the blue blanket at the head of the bed. That is one of a few of Henry's trucks that he felt needed to be nearby while he slept).

Lunch!

Today I was looking on the Weight Watchers website for a good recipe that would use up the rest of our arugula. I found this exciting little recipe. I picked the tomatoes out of our garden and we even made bread this weekend, so I happened to have fresh french bread. I ate the tomato arugula mixture with a spoon and about ate it up before the toast part was ready. After I put the tomato mixture on the toast it was even more amazing. Yumm!! It was so yummy, I even blogged about it. Amazing, I know.

Just in case you're interested, here is the recipe.

4 med plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped (I did not seed them)
2 C fresh arugula, chopped
1/2 C grated Parmesan
1T extra virgin olive oil
2t balsamic vinegar, white variety (I did not use the white variety)
1/4t kosher salt
1/4t black pepper
4 slices of Italian Bread (about 3/4 inch thick)
1 clove of garlic, halved (I used the chopped garlic stuff from the bottle in my fridge)

Combine the first 7 ingredients. Let stand 20 min.

Preheat broiler or prepare grill.

Rub bread with cut side of garlic and toast 2-3 min.

Top with tomato mixture.

Enjoy!

Teton Vacation! (Part 2)

Saturday, we failed to take pictures again. Nate, Henry, and I went to Jackson Hole and walked around. After walking around for about 5.2 seconds, we decided that it was Park City, a mall, and a town square with antlers, combined into one. We kept walking around (why not?) , but didn't for long. We then decided to ask a local where the best bbq place was. She directed us to the old Village Inn building (where we had eaten before). It was pretty yummy! Henry got corn on the cob and was in heaven!

Later, we met up with Mama, Daddy, Chelsie and Caleb, and went on a picnic on the Idaho side of the Tetons. It was a pretty camp site. I wouldn't mind camping there some day, but given the bear warning signs, I'll be taking some bear mace with me.

Sunday, we went to church.

We also went on a ride up the tram in Teton Village. Mama, Daddy, Chelsie, Caleb, Nate, Henry and I all went to the Wyoming side of the mountains. It was worth the view and the opportunity to take a short hike on top of one of the summits of the Tetons.

Daddy and Henry riding up to the top together and checking out the view! This is a closed in tram. There was no risk of falling out.


View from the top.


L-R: Daddy, Mama, Chelsie, Henry, Me, Random guy in pink shirt
You can see the little hike we went on. We walked down a big-ish hill, wrapped around, then walked back up a smaller hill.


We went up a lot higher than I thought we were going to. It was a fun little adventure!

Monday it was time to go home. We packed up and cleaned out the condo "cabin" we rented, had lunch at a park in Rexburg, said bye to everyone and headed home. It was sad that Emily couldn't join us for a lot of the fun stuff and that Ian couldn't join us for any of it, but we're glad he's home from the hospital and getting better. I'm sure we'll do fun stuff again!

Driving Home