Merry Chirstmas

Dear Santa,

This is the first time I've sat on your lap and am not too sure about this. Your beard is kind of scratchy, you smell a little funny, and mom and dad keep squawking to try and make me smile.

However, I hear you are the guy who can get kids the things their parents won't let them have. I've been pretty good this year so I would like to ask for some more plastic bags to play with. Everyone keeps taking them away. Also, can I have some of those chocolate covered raisins? Mom and dad are pretty stingy with those treasures. Lastly and most importantly, can I please have some of rascal's dog food? Every time I get my hands on some, someone pries it from my mouth.

Sincerely,

Little Bug

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid happens to be my favorite childhood Disney movie. When I was 8 years old, I made my poor brother-in-law watch it with me as I sang and acted out all the parts. Needless to say, I've been pretty excited to show all the classics to Little Bug. Yesterday I decided for whatever reason it was a good day to open her eyes to the world of Disney, specifically The Little Mermaid. I couldn't help but to take a snapshot of her pleased face. And for those who are completely horrified that I decided to show my 1 year old a movie, don't worry, Andrew agrees and is also horrified:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we headed over to Utah to celebrate Thanksgiving with Andrew's family. It was really tasty this year. The older I get, the more I realize how great this holiday is. Andrew's been sold on the Thanksgiving for years already. You got to hand it to the pilgrims.

Little Bug was able to partake in the goodness this time. Pretty sure we could not get her to stop eating the turkey. Her cheeks were filled with meat like a little chipmunk!

And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm grateful, for everything.

Baby it's cold outside

While in Utah, Little Bug had the chance to touch snow for the first time. This is how it went:

Pretty sure she caught on fast that it was cold.

Indefinable monetary value

We had the chance to head down to BYU while visiting Andrew's parents for Thanksgiving. I just can't help but to smile when I see these photos.

364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds...wait for it...surprise!

Well, the big day has come and gone. It has been a year since Little Bug's birth. We kind of hope her second year goes a little slower 'cause that first one flew right by! It has been such a fun year. Right from the start she has been a complete joy. We're so glad you are ours Little Bug!

She was also a very lucky girl in that she got to celebrate her big day twice; a party with each side of the family! And I was definitely excited to dress her up in her tutu for both events.

She was not so sure about either of her cakes, but she certainly enjoyed the candles. She also loved her presents. Andrew and I have not purchased many toys, so she was excited for some new stimulation!

Party number two.

Happy birthday Little Bug!

I knew she had been quiet for too long...

This is what happens when your child discovers the thrill of toilet water.

She gets plunked in the bath immediately.

"And that poor dog, Dodo!"

For our anniversary I gave Andrew Wicked tickets. Now that I think about it, giving tickets for a show as a present is a great way to get another date out of the deal:) So, last weekend we dressed ourselves up and headed over to San Fransisco. Well, we actually stopped by a Wendy's drive through on the way over. We were short on time and hungry. We did that the last time we went to a musical and it just seemed fitting to do it again. It really was a wonderful and enjoyable way to spend the evening together.

3 Years

I came in a little late and sat down. I am always running late Sunday mornings. Once I got myself situated I looked up and noticed there was someone new in the crowd that day. Although I could only see the back of this gentleman's head, he looked to be quite cute. After Sacrament meeting ended I thought I should introduce myself. After all, I was the activity committee co-chair and it was my job to try and make everyone feel included and welcomed. At least that's what I told myself. After the prayer ended I promptly stood up and walked over to the new guy. His name was Andrew and I thought he seemed quite nice and good looking to boot.

It so happened that it was quite an exciting A's baseball season that year. So, exciting in fact that the A's had a shot of making it to the playoffs. I admit I was spending most of my time either at school or at the ball park. I made it to church on Sundays, but the rest of the week I was MIA. To Andrew, I had disappeared. Well, the A's did not go far in the post season and I quickly found myself attending church activities again. According to Andrew I had returned! Soon after, I began receiving text messages from him...and then more text messages from him. Annoyingly, he only sent me texts for two months! I have since learned that he got in trouble for the increased cell phone bill.

Then one day as I was hopping out of my car to go take a final, I got a call from him. This was something I could not pass up! He proceeded to ask me out and I remember quite vividly putting an emphasis on how I would love to go out with him. The date was set for the following week and I was excited to say the least.

Months previously, I received a blessing from my father which stated that if I remained active in all of my church activities, I would soon meet my eternal companion. It could not have been more right. About a year and a half later we were married November 4, 2006.

We celebrated the date by going out to one of our favorite restaurants. Then we came back to our apartment and had the same type of cake that we had on our wedding day. It was nice to spend the evening recalling all our wonderful moments together. So here's to all the years that come!

Little Bug= Ladybug for Halloween

It seemed fitting to dress Little Bug up as a bug for Halloween. In case there is slight confusion, she is a Ladybug just a brown and pink one. So, we got to sewing her little ladybug shell, treat bag, and antenna. I'm not going to lie, neither Andrew or I really sew. It was like the blind leading the blind here, but Andrew managed the creation of the pattern and somehow I was able to sew the few pieces together.

Here we are, all ready to hit up some trunks for our home wards Halloween trunk or treating. I have to admit, we were both pretty excited to be able to eat most of Little Bug's candy this year.

Here is Little Bug pulling Andrew to get going on the trunk or treating! She was ready to fill that treat bag.

Enjoying the fruits of her labors.

We're thinking it was the sugar high or possibly her new found freedom, but after trunk or treating Little Bug could not be stopped from walking around the church grounds.

I managed to get one photo of her resting from all her running around.

Can't wait till next year!

A new phase

We're a little late posting this, but our Little Bug has recently learned to walk! She took her first steps October 15th.

To preface the story we need to tell you that Little Bug absolutely loves playing with my makeup containers. She was happily walking around with the support of our couches, which she had been doing for a few weeks already, when she looked up and saw me carrying away the makeup. She must have panicked at thought of losing the makeup toys because she forgot to hold onto the couch as and she took her first determined steps towards me.

Now it was accidental, but it opened her eyes to the concept of unassisted walking. Since then, she has been practicing the art of walking and has now decided crawling is for babies. Before she learned to walk she could stand up and grab for things, but now she is getting so fast at getting into things we can hardly keep up. Just last week we noticed she was chewing on some tape and a few days later I discovered she had a chocolate wrapper in her mouth! Obviously these are baby "no no's."

We're all adjusting to the latest developments around here.

The first video is Little Bug before she took her first steps and the second video is of her walking around before trunk or treating;

Pumpkiny Patch

I was uber-excited to go to a pumpkin patch this year. I realize it's all going over Little Bug's head, but there's still something really fun about taking your kid to a pumpkin patch for the first time. Little Bug's favorite part was watching all of the other kids. In fact the kids were so enthralling that it was really hard to get her to even look at the camera and for those that know her, she's usually a perfect little ham.

While at the pumpkin patch I started really getting in the mood for some pumpkin bread, you know the kind with the chocolate chips. Yum. While vocalizing such thoughts, Andrew informed me pumpkins weren't even edible. For a second there I really thought he believed they couldn't be eaten. He was adamant. It was then I remembered he's just not a fan of pumpkin flavored treats. I'm pretty excited that means I get to eat an entire loaf of pumpkin bread myself, that and the quart of pumpkin ice cream in the freezer.

Bodega Bay

For my birthday, Andrew took me to Bodega Bay for just a little get away. It was our first over night without Little Bug. On our way up, it hit us how strange and of course wonderful, it was going to be to sleep in the next morning. That is until we woke up at 7am like clockwork. We thought such a thing might happen. Despite this fact, it was a very nice and relaxing get away. Thanks for spoiling me Andrew!

And just for kicks, here's Andrew scared of the waves crashing around him! You can't see the details too well, but that would be him with his mouth wide open screaming. Go ahead and click to enlarge.

Slurpee

The other night Andrew and I decided to go for a little walk and get ourselves a Slurpee to share. We were clinging onto the last feelings of summer. We decided to give Little Bug just a taste.

Here she is getting every last drop.

Apple cobbler

I made some apple cobbler the other day. We bought some apples from Costco the other week that turned out not to be very tasty. This was my way of trying to make them tasty. After making the cobbler, I warned Andrew that the apples weren't the best and I would probably toss out whatever he didn't eat. A couple hours later I found this;

Just in case it is not clear enough, Andrew just ate all of the crumb topping. Looks like he really took my warning to heart.

mm mm yum - so gritty and tasty

We took Little Bug to the park for the first time on Saturday. I was pretty darn excited, even more excited than Little Bug, which actually lead to a huge let down. She really didn't know what to make of things, except the sand, which she loved eating.

Tasty goodness

Warning: If you are hungry or trying to eat more healthily, I don't suggest reading this post. Seeing sweets when hungry always makes me crave desserts rather that real food. Like when I go to the grocery store when hungry, never a good idea. I inevitably end up coming home with a bag of Oreo cookies or worse.

So lately, I have been wanting my family's homemade cran-raspberry ice cream. I have never made it before and I thought it would be a tasty treat. I have since realized it's essentially frozen whip cream with added sugar and flavoring. I mean who wouldn't like that?! Andrew and I don't actually have an ice cream maker and when I mentioned to Andrew that I was going to buy one, the idea was quickly vetoed. Evidently you don't need an ice cream maker when you have a mass supply of liquid nitrogen. So after a very long day on Saturday, we thought it might be fun to try it out. Andrew brought some liquid nitrogen home and it was definitely faster and more fun than a traditional ice cream maker. The resulting ice cream was creamy, really creamy. So much so, that the next time I make it, I will definitely not be using the full portion of whipping cream. Yeah it was tasty, I just feel really guilty eating it. I happily ate it all weekend long and I just had a bowl of it for lunch.

And that definitely is a parking citation pictured right above Andrew's head...we were at a service project at Fairyland and I was only a couple minutes late getting out to the meter. So, while we were painting it up in Fairyland we got a ticket! Yeah, I'm still grumpy about it. Such a bummer, it's like we got charged for doing the city of Oakland a favor.

Just being silly...it really was a long Saturday.

The tasty masterpiece! I'm telling you it's good! Here's the recipe if interested;
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups heavy whipping cream
1 can of cran-raspberry frozen concentrate juice
1 bag of frozen raspberries (smash them)
2 eggs (we didn't add this...kinda grossed us out)
1 1/4 cups milk

If the ice cream wasn't bad enough, I spent the preceding days making a bunch of tarts. Really, a lot of tarts. My parents hosted an open house for a fellow who just got married in the ward and somehow I ended up signing myself up to make dessert. It actually wasn't too bad and ended up being pretty fun...it was just a two day process.

Here are all the tarts filled and ready to be decorated. The kitchen was a nightmare, maybe I should have taken a picture of that?

And the tarts after completion! There were 14 of them. I just wish I had the photography skills to make a really pretty picture out of them. One ended up breaking...ok, I 'accidently' broke it while trying to stack them back in the fridge again. I quickly just claimed that one for Andrew and I...so it worked out well. Click HERE it you are interested in the recipi. All I can say is we are really looking forward to this weekend for some rest!

I want those ribbons!

Little Bug attended her first birthday party this weekend! I thought maybe such a moment should be documented. Her favorite part was the ribbons on all the presents. In fact, she got into a fight with the birthday boy trying to play with them.

Not to worry, she was closely monitored while playing with all those ribbons!

hmmm...it is hard to tell from this picture, but Little Bug has cupcake all over her face. The little stinker rejected the cake and would only eat the frosting. Then when driving in the car the day after the party, I discovered Andrew's cupcake stump. Evidently he also just ate the top part with the frosting and left the cake part untouched! Andrew has sabotaged Bug's taste buds and he could not be more proud.

Happy Birthday!

It was Andrew's 29th birthday last week. And as he likes to say, he is now only 12 months away from being 30. Happy birthday love, Little Bug and I are so grateful for you!

Alleluia, blessed day...or whatever other praising word you can think of

We finally took on the task of redoing our kitchen...in case you didn't remember, our kitchen was umm . . .just bad. Of course we thought it would take a day to get most of it done (we prepped the whole week beforehand), but as home repairs usually go, we ran into some snags along the way. Snags like, the new counter tops not being the same width as the old ones, the sink not fitting against the counter, the old plumbing crumbling apart, and lots of fun leaks. But it's now done! So, here we go on a pic by pic step of our process.

The first step was getting out this built in bookshelf/pantry thing. I really want to emphasize 'thing' here cause really, what was it!?! I'm still sitting here wondering who in their right mind would have stuck it in. Luckily, it came out easy, just needed some pushing, which I was happy to render.

Here's the pic without the pantry. It really did wonders to not have it there.

Yep, here would be a close up of the kitchen. Excuse the fact I was cooking dinner at the time.

You really didn't get it wrong, this was all the counter space we had. Are you noticing the exposed wood? There was also a 12 by 12 inch patch of the laminate that simply lifted off. Lovely.

Here are the new counter tops! We were also able to extend them two feet, which really doubled our counter space. Ok, not quite doubled, but it certainly helped. Taking the sink off the angle also really helped open up some counter space.

Putting in a new back splash! I was very surprised how fun this was.

Then we added some paint...Andrew was quite thrilled he only had to cut the top corner of the wall. And quite frankly, I don't blame him. We are really all painted out over here. You'll notice that Andrew is under the sink. I have to give him major props for spending hmmm, probably a few good long hours under there.

Here's the final masterpiece! After we were all done, we were sitting on the couch just staring at the kitchen...yes it still has some quirks, but we concluded that at least now its got some redeeming qualities. And I'm pretty sure I could go give that dishwasher a kiss right now.