Life lately...

Time is flying by!

Thanksgiving is TWO DAYS AWAY!!!!

wow.

 Last week, our court did a neighborhood potluck, so I tried my hand at these rolls.

Delicious!!!!  Baby C helped cook, and it was so fun.

This past weekend, we got to watch my cute little brothers while my parents were on a cruise in Europe.  

It was so fun!  Baby C LOVED playing with both of them, and loved being able to run around a big house.  I loved having people to play with, since Mr. H has still been so busy.

We played battleship, monopoly, mario kart and watched Nacho Libre. :)  

I also was able to throw my friend S a baby shower.  It was really fun to see some old friends.

My brothers and Mr. H really helped me with that---I seriously have the best family.

My parents had an awesome time on their cruise, and brought us back amazing pastries, chocolate and cute aprons. :)

Mr. H was called to be the 2nd counselor in our bishopric for our church.  He is excited, and I know he will do such a great job.  Mostly it will be fun to make faces at him in sacrament meeting while he is on the stand. :)

We have a fun filled week ahead of us, with thanksgiving and a trip to Moab coming up.

So I did a random photo shoot of baby C on the playground.  Gotta live up the nice weather while we can. 

I'm loving the stage that he is in.  He has recently started folding his arms on his own before we eat now.  We were so excited that some of our parenting rubbed off!  He is such a sweetheart and we constantly tell ourselves how lucky we are to have him. :)

Book Review Thursday #2

Not much to report here on the home front.

Baby C and I have had to stay inside for most of the week.

Boo.

We did head down to City Creek Mall the other day, and we enjoyed the Christmas decorations.

He was a great sport as I tried on red lipstick, Anthropologie dresses and perused Forever 21.  

Basically all the things Mr. H would not have had fun doing with me. :)

We also got to go to little brother O's band concert tonight.  

It was AMAZING.  He did such a good job. 

Baby C danced to all the songs and clapped dutifully.  He was awesome.

Since we have stayed inside most of the week

I have read a LOT.

It's not technically Thursday, but it's close enough.

Book #1

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

Mr. H loves this book.  He wants to go see the movie, and I have this thing about needing to read the book before I see it on the big screen.  I'm not a huge fan of Card as an author, so I was a bit hesitant.  Fantasy/Sci Fi isn't really my thing either, but I decided to give it a go.  

The story is really sad and depressing.  I thought it was clever and had a good message, but the overall feel of the book was a little dark and violent for my taste.  I would recommend this book to thinkers. (Like MR. H)  It definitely was a social commentary, and I thought it was executed well.  

***

Book #2

"The Rithmatist" by Brandon Sanderson

So this was another book recommended by Mr. H.  It was in the whole fantasy/sci-fi genre again, and so I was very VERY hesitant.  But, I had a rainy afternoon, so I gave it a go.

I was impressed.  The story was extremely clever, and it had a really fun tone throughout.  There were a lot of diagram thingies which didn't grab my attention as much, but I enjoyed the story.  It was interesting, light, and fast paced.  This is a good one.

****

Book #3

"All But My Life" by Gerda Weissman Klein

This book was much more up my alley.  It was a holocaust memoir, and I was surprised I hadn't already read it.  I really enjoyed it.  It was from a female girl perspective, and I appreciated the happy ending.  I love seeing different parts of that war, and I thought she presented a totally new story for me. It wasn't horribly graphic, and I thought the tone was much more hopeful than some of the other holocaust literature I've read.

****

Happy Reading!

*=not worth your time

**=ok, not recommendable

***=I'll recommend it, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I wished

****=I really enjoyed it

*****=Loved it! Everyone should read it!!!

Haircut Blues

I haven't cut my hair in one YEAR.

That's a long time.  

It's gotten really long, and I knew something had to be done.

I've always gone to a nice salon, paying around $25-which included a lovely scalp massage, washing my hair, and then styling it when done.  The salon was lovely, the hair dressers cheerful, etc.

For some dumb reason I decided $25 on a haircut once a year was too expensive.

So I tried out a local cheap hair salon.  

I figured they couldn't mess my hair up too bad and I might be pleasantly surprised.

When I arrived I quickly realized that this was not like a salon I was used to.  No pretty music, plush seats, fancy products.  The stylists all looked like they were having really bad days.  And nobody looked happy they were getting their hair cut. 

When I got to the girl I was assigned to, she asked me a couple of questions about my hair.  I had intentionally not washed it, as they have always washed my hair in the past. 

She informed me that my hair was too long and it would be easier to just cut it dry.  

How embarrassing.  

So I sat there with my oily, gross post work-out hair and let her try to comb it out.

My hair cut took approx. 15 minutes.

The whole time she was just trying to sell me their salon's products.

No friendly, salon chit-chat.

I walked out with my same gross hair cut in a boxy, blunt cut and paid $17!!!!

So my advice:

If you enjoy the magic of having your hair feel amazing and look beautiful, pay the extra $8 and go to a nicer salon.  

I didn't know I appreciated the magic of a nice salon, 

but there is magic in a nice salon. 

Go somewhere where it makes you want to come home and take pictures on your photo booth of yourself.

photo taken in 2009.  That is a happy customer right there :)

If you like getting your haircut, go somewhere where they like cutting it.   

Lost camera frustration

My camera has dissapeared. 

I don't understand how it happened.  One morning I had it, and now it is nowhere to be found.

As Mr. H would say, "Story of YOUR life" :)

I had a lot of cute pictures from this past weekend, so hopefully when the camera resurfaces those will appear in a post.

Things have been busy here as usual.  

Mr. H has a lot of stress, and it's starting to wear him out!

We're excited for the upcoming holiday.  

Baby C and I are plugging along, doing things like getting the car fixed, having "C and Mommy Time", and searching for mommy's camera. 

But every day at 10:45, this happens.

He was a little unsure of what I was doing here...

Favorite book + More surprised baby face!

About to sleep for 3 hours! :)

Baby C is a joy to put to sleep.  Seriously, Mr. H and I talk about how it's one of our favorite jobs ever.

I know random pictures, but I wanted to remember this little routine for forever.

Also:

for you moms out there:

How cute is that.

Happy Friday!

15 MONTHS

I used to do a photo shoot every month on Baby C's birthday.  

I would then video him and tell the updates.

But---you can only do that for so long. :)  

However, today is baby C's 15 month birthday, and he has been doing so many cute things I still wanted to document some of them.

BABY C LOVES:

-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  STILL!  His new thing is when you finish the book, he will tell you "no, no, no" and then make you read it again.

-Itsy Bitsy Spider-another book that we sing to him

-Good Night Moon- Mr. H loves this one too

-Bananas!

-playing hide and seek with mommy

-cuddling!!! He will come up to you and lean his head on your shoulder, or let you snuggle him for about five minutes.  I'm loving it!

-being chased!  He gets really excited when you say "I'm going to get you!"

-Peek a boo---he knows this is his cutest trick.

-when daddy gets home

-holding a fork while he eats his food with his fingers

-avocados

-his blanket and crib

-his binky and bottle...need to work on these

-his reflection in the mirror

-holding multiple objects in one hand and running around carrying them

-singing songs

-grandparent's house

-throwing things in the garbage can

BABY C DISLIKES

-getting medicine

-being told 'no'

-getting something taken away (like mom's cell phone, wallet, etc.)

-sharing his toys (working on this too...)

-when mom or dad leaves

-the doctor

MILESTONES

-we're working on body parts-and he can do his eyes and mouth

-He can say: "Mom", "Dad", "more", "ball", "done", "banana" "no"

-He loves waving goodbye and hello

-He gives really good gooey kisses

-He wakes up around 7:30 or 8, takes a nap at 10:45 and another around 3:30 and is in bed at eight.

He is waking up one to two times a night though.

-He loves crawling up stairs, can't go down them yet.

-He is good at communicating what he does not want, by us asking him and him saying "no no no" until we get it right :)

Baby C is such a good boy.  He is so fun to be with every day and I love him so much.  

New favorite pose

Hooray for little boys!

-

Happy Birthday O!

 Today is my little brother O's birthday.

He has always been such a tease :)

I can't believe he is sixteen.

O was due on Halloween, and I remember trick or treating with my mom, hoping that she would go into labor that night.  But we had to wait a little longer, and O was born on the fourth.

He was the CUTEST baby.  O was so happy, and always was smiling.  

They will forever be this big in my heart. 

O has always been so sensitive and caring about all of us.  

He is really smart, and shares a love of reading with me.

He has a HUGE imagination!!!

He has always had fun ideas to make adventure!

He is really talented, recently playing in the regional high school marching band competition.  

Anyway, we love you O!

Happy Birthday!!!!

month of GRATITUDE

Happy Sunday.

We've had Stake Conference this past weekend.

We've talked a lot about Family History, 

being better wives and husbands, 

and coming closer to our Savior.

But this quote really stood out to me today:

Happy Sunday!

Introduction Part 2

More picture overload.

Baby boy was on his way, August 6th.  I was induced that morning.

C was born, and was the most beautiful baby boy there ever was.

Mr. H started school, and we began our new adventure of being parents.

We went on our first family vacation down to Cedar City.

Uncle S left on his mission

We had our first Christmas with our little Santa baby

We had Easter with our families.

We went on a family vacation to San Diego

And now little C is going to be one.  It is amazing to me how quickly time flies.  

Halloween

 This past October was a really great month in terms of celebrating for us.  

I actually decorated the apartment, which was kind of a first for me. :)

Yesterday we picked Mr. H up from work and headed up to visit our families.  

For our costumes, we decided to go STAR WARS

Mr. H was so excited.  We sewed a jedi robe and tunic for him.   He told me it had always been a childhood dream of his to go as a jedi. :)

The beard was grown out for the costume.  Mr. H was stoked. 

I went as Princess Leia, and then Baby C was a baby ewok.  

Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi

Our little Ewok...who was kind of a sad little Ewok. 

It was so fun to all dress up together.  

We had such a fun Halloween-themed dinner with Mr. H's family.  

Grandma T had witches fingers, beef stew and cool dry ice root beer.

It was nice to be able to see them and spend some time with them.

We got dressed up and it was fun for baby C to be the center of attention of the cameras.

Since Mr. H and I used to only live six housed down from each other, we trick or treated down to my family's house.  Baby C didn't really understand the concept, but it was fun to see our old neighbors.  

I do have to say, I haven't been trick or treating in 11 years, and it did feel a little weird to knock on someone's door and be in a costume and ask for candy.  ha.  

We trick or treated to my parents house and they were so cute with baby C.  Baby C immediately knew where all their toys were, and we all chatted, took pictures and ate pomegranets. It would have been my parents first Halloween just them, but luckily they had us to crash it. :)

Then we headed up to our neighbor's for donuts.  3 years ago, on Halloween, Mr. H invited me to come to his house to see each other for the first time after his mission.  

I was so nervous to see him, but we gave each other awkward hugs and went down to the basement.  We immediately started talking like we had always been best friends. 

That night I knew that Mr. H was like coming home for me.  

Anyway, that night we went to this same neighbor's house for donuts.  We were such an awkward couple, not dating yet, but together.  Our neighbors were so sweet to us and I love that they are part of our Halloween tradition. :)

Hope you all had a great Halloween!