My Pretty Princess

It's a Christmas miracle!

I can't believe Christmas is already over. It was a good one though. I had a lot of fun shopping, decorating, and baking. I think I baked more this year than ever. I made poppyseed bread, Swedish ginger cookies, brownies with mint frosting, and sugar cookies. The sugar cookie recipe made so many that they were all over the kitchen counter and table. Ada kept grabbing them off the table, and she ended up eating six of them! Looks like she takes after her mom. Tyler was around a little more than in years past, so it was fun to have him help with the tree and some shopping. We had a little scare at the mall, but all ended well. We purchased some earrings for Rachelle to go along with a sweater we bought her. When we left the mall, they weren't in my purse, so I thought they fell out. I called the Lost and Found, but there was no luck. I was bummed because I HATE losing things. I'm still bitter over losing a book and headband of Ada's at the Huntsman Center last year. But a couple days later, Tyler took Ada to the mall, and when he pulled out her stroller, the earrings were in the bottom! I was so happy. I love Christmas miracles!

There were lots of great highlights from this holiday season. We went to several family parties, I went to breakfast with my friends, BYU got super lucky and won their bowl game, and all the usual festivities turned out great. It was so fun to see Ada open presents and play with them. She got a few Elmo books and an Elmo toy, which she was so excited about. She is obsessed, and she's never even seen Sesame Street! She got lots of fun toys, some dress-ups, and a surprise from my parents that I like more than she does. They got her a Gund bear like the one they gave me when I turned one (it's just a little bigger than mine). I guess you can't find them anywhere anymore, so they got it on eBay. I still have mine, although it has definitely seen better days. It was my favorite toy ever, and I used to carry it with my EVERYWHERE and sleep with it. His name is Bue (that's how I said 'bear' when I got him) and he's always had special meaning to me. I hope Ada grows to like hers a little more. She has lots of stuffed animals, so it may just be another one to her. But I was very pleased!

Christmas Eve and Day were great. We saw all of our family members (except for Abby, but we got to talk to her on the phone). We ate lots of good food and had fun being with everyone. I got some money and some clothes, and Tyler got lots of money to buy a Wii. I also got him Jazz tickets for the Trailblazers game on New Year's Eve. We're excited to go, especially since we ended up going to the game last night too! The Jazz beat the Mavericks and it was lots of fun, so we're looking forward to going again. Hopefully everyone else had as great a day as we did!

Thoughts on Austin

We had a good time in Austin. You can read all about it on Tyler's blog. Ada was SO good for our parents while we were gone. We couldn't have asked for her to be better. She was happy, well-behaved, and she slept really well. That made me feel better, because I was pretty tearful when we had to leave her. What a sweetie.

Here are a few observations (although I feel like I still didn't get to see much of the city):

-The freeway system there is screwy. If we ever move there, I think I'll get lost every time I drive.

-All of the traffic lights are turned on their sides.
-All of the fire hydrants are silver (or at least once were).
-It was freezing, but it still didn't feel like Christmas since there was no snow. It wasn't as cold as it is here, but the crazy wind made it feel colder.

Tyler was really impressed with National Instruments, so we'll see what happens. I hear that people are friendly there, housing is cheap, there's a great music scene, it's one of the prettiest places in Texas, and people who've lived or been there just love it. So if we do end up there, maybe things won't be so bad.

Well, it's about time!

In January 2006 I decided to start reading the Old Testament since I'd never read it in its entirety and we were studying it in Sunday School. Well, almost two years later, I finally finished it! It didn't spark my interest enough to want to read great lengths at a time, so I read one or two chapters a day. (I did read the Book of Mormon simultaneously. I needed to feel like I was getting something out of the scriptures!) I sometimes feel like I have ADHD and have a hard time concentrating on things, especially scripture reading. It's something I need to improve on. I know I could (and should) have gotten more out of it than I did, but I'm proud to say that at least I've read it.

Disgust

When my brother was in college, he and his friends always got together to play basketball. They gave themselves names of NBA players that they hated the most. My brother was Tim Duncan and his best friend was Rick Fox. I can't remember who the others were. If I were to get in on that action, I would DEFINITELY be Manu Ginobili. I just can't stand the guy. I actually loathe most of the players on the Spurs (see this link). My four least favorite NBA players are Spurs, in fact:

1. Manu Ginobili-- One of the biggest floppers in the league. Why isn't he a starter?
2. Bruce Bowen-- I can't stand his facial expressions, and he's been known to be dirty
3. Tim Duncan-- Big-time whiner. He shows no emotion except to open his eyes really wide and hold out his hands, like he's saying, "Who, me?"
4. Robert Horry-- "Cheap-shot Bob". Also a big flopper.

There are a few Warriors players that I can't stand, but there's no comparison to how I feel about the Spurs. I've decided that I can't watch the Jazz play the Spurs anymore. There's too much hatred that boils inside me.

Random Thoughts

- All of our Christmas decorations are up. It's making me so excited! I'm getting close to finishing our shopping, and I made Christmas cards yesterday. I want to get in the kitchen and bake like crazy.
- Tyler finishes the semester next week. He's taking his first final right now. I can't wait! We're celebrating with a free trip to Austin. Ada will be left behind. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
- BYU plays UCLA AGAIN? Bummer. They don't even have a head coach. Hopefully the Cougs will demolish them, as well as in September when they have to play for a THIRD time in one year.
- BYU's basketball team is also ranked and looking good. I'm going to see them play #10 Michigan State at ESA on Saturday. It will be a tough game, but hopefully a good one.
- I bought an entire maternity outfit yesterday for $16. Ross is the best! Jeans were $9 and a shirt was $7. The jeans are WAY better than the pricier ones I got two years ago at Motherhood.
- We got the first big snow over the weekend. Ada enjoyed playing outside with Tyler, and laughed like crazy when he would put his face in the snow to eat it.

"Two of 'um"

Ada's vocabulary is taking off like crazy! She's starting to put words together and say three-syllable words. She's not always consistent, but what child is? Words she's said for a while include 'all done', 'thank you', and 'more please', but recently she's said things like 'pretty flower' and our favorite, 'two of 'um'. She picked that one up from me. I say that to her when she's holding two of something, and I didn't think much of it until she started saying it back! She actually seems to know what it means. For example, the other day I asked her where her ear was and she pointed to it. She then pointed to her other ear and said, "Two of 'um". It's so cute! Her three-syllable words are 'basketball', 'applesauce', and 'animal'. She can tell the difference between football and basketball on TV (you can tell what we watch around here). It's so fun to watch her learn. She's a sweetie!

Illness & a scare

Most readers probably know by now that we're expecting another baby. Yes, we probably are crazy! Well, we had a bit of a scare Friday night. I started bleeding and it seemed like a significant amount, so I called the on-call doctor. She didn't say much except that it might be a miscarriage and there's nothing we can do. That night I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and puked. That didn't seem to correlate with miscarriage, so I had a little hope. I then proceeded to puke ten more times until morning and I didn't feel well at all. When I got Ada out of bed, however, she had puked in bed and didn't seem to feel well either. She puked more throughout the day and we found out Cheryce's whole family had been up puking too. So there went my hope! I did stop bleeding though, so that was something. I had to wait until Monday to call the doctor again and they had me come in for a blood test. Then Tyler got sick that night! No fun. Tuesday they said that the blood test looked good and they scheduled me for an ultrasound for this morning. We went and saw the baby and heard the heartbeat and everything finally seems good. Except that instead of being 9 weeks 2 days like I thought, they said I was 7 weeks 5 days. Interesting. I guess I'll have to wait until my first appointment on the 12th to talk to my doctor. At least I know what's going on now and all is well! We've been so blessed.

It finally snowed around here and it's so pretty. I hate driving in it (I always drive like a grandma because I'm scared of sliding) but it makes the Christmas season seem more real. I turned on Christmas music today and put up some decorations. I still have to wait for Tyler to carry up our mammoth tree (which is sitting in the trunk-- we have to store it at my parents' house because we have no room), but the apartment looks nice. Now I just need to get started on shopping!

It IS rivalry week...

Just wanted to post a reminder of one of my favorite sports moments ever. Can't wait for the game tomorrow!

Welcome Baby Sally!

My little sister Emily and her husband Neal had their first baby yesterday! Sally Mae Peterson (named after my Grandma Dickson) was 7 lb 14 oz and she's a cutie. She looks like her daddy to me. I can't wait to meet her next month!

Here's a video of Ada dancing to Coldplay and saying hi to her new cousin: