Sunday Ramblings

To start off, I just want to mention how disappointed I am in our storm-less weekend. So much for our "90% chance of rain" yesterday and today. Ryan and I laughed on friday about the weather man putting the "90%" up on the forecast because it seems like if it's that high it should just be a done deal and no percentage is needed, am I right? Well it's sunday afternoon and we didn't see any rain at all! It's right back to the beautiful blue sky as usual. I guess that's why they said there was a CHANCE of showers ... I'm grateful for our nice weather - I just miss rain so much.

Ryan joined Weight Watchers about 6 weeks ago, and he's already lost 15 pounds! He's doing so well and looks great! I'm a proud wifey. He's a couple pounds away from making it back into the zone that the Biggest Loser contestants call "ONE-derland", meaning in the 100's. Keep up the great work, bud!

Grace has shocked us with her sleep patterns lately! I have been pushing her morning and afternoon naps later in the day (hoping to mesh them into one long one in the near future) which pushes her bedtime to about 8:30 or 9pm. By doing that she has been taking much longer naps AND sleeping in until 8 or 8:30am each morning! It's so awesome! She was beginning to make a habit of 6:30am wake-up time before the change, so I feel very spoiled "sleeping in" an extra hour or so. Hopefully we can start making her bedtime earlier and she'll still sleep in. That would be perfect all around.

Just this morning our car passed the 70,000 mile mark. That's a lot of miles and mostly all of them we put on ourselves from driving between Vegas and SLC so many times. When we bought it roughly 4 years ago it only had 18,ooo. We're both so grateful that we've made it through that many miles with very few repairs and issues. knock on wood...

This month Ryan's rotation was with Dr. Galin and the other OMM teachers/doctors at the Touro clinic. He's received lots of praise from them, even the mean one who wasn't nice to him in the beginning of the month. He has even pulled out his OMM table a couple times this month and worked on whatever back, neck or rib issues I was having at the time with much more confidence than ever before. Tomorrow the doctors at the clinic are taking him out for sushi since it is his last day with them. :) He must have made a good impression. I'm so grateful for my smarty-pants husband who is becoming a great doctor!

Speaking of that... this time next year we will have just gone through the DO match and be gearing up for the MD match. Ryan is looking at mostly (if not all) MD residencies, but we'll have friends counting on both. It's such a strange and sobering thought. The next big chunk of this career path and our future as a family is decided on in one year from now. Scary! And exciting!

Thanks for checking in. :)

Kyle & Katelyn Come to Visit

Kyle and Katelyn (Ryan's younger brother and his wife) came to visit us over the President's Day weekend. This is the 3rd year in a row Kyle has come for that particular weekend, and the 2nd in a row that they've come together! Last year they weren't even engaged yet, and they say that taking that trip to come stay with us was one of the deciding factors in knowing they wanted to get married. :) We're SO happy that they can come here and visit us and get a much-needed vacation. They are one of the busiest newlywed couples we know, and they deserve some time away from work and school!!

They drove in late friday night, so on saturday we took them over to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and the Cactus Garden. Unfortunately, since it was saturday and a holiday weekend, nobody was actually working in the factory... so there was nothing cool to see. But we did get 2 pieces of chocolate for free at the end of the self-guided tour! Yum! Outside it was super windy and we just about blew away while we walked around the Cactus Garden.

Afterwards, we weren't ready to go home and put Grace down for her nap yet, so we headed over to a park. Grace had such a blast, especially with all the extra attention!

Grace and I spent a good amount of time on the springy motorcycle thing (not sure what that's called). We got that spring going like crazy and honestly it was so much fun - even for me! Grace did not want to get off or get in the car to go home.
She loves her uncle "kuh" and aunt "kuhkuh". Grace learned their names over the weekend and now asks for them throughout the day. She was quick to give them "loves" while they were here.
On Saturday night, K&K and Ryan and I went to BJ's Restaurant and had a great dinner! We wanted to get pizookies SO BAD for dessert (well I guess it was mostly me) but the service was super slow and we needed to get Grace from our friend's house. So instead we picked her up and headed to Coldstone. Kyle and Katelyn had a giftcard and treated us all to some ice cream. Thanks guys! We went home and watched Unstoppable after Grace was in bed.

I love Grace's mouth full of ice cream in this pic. Plus, you can't tell very well, but Katelyn let me do her hair that morning. :) She had never tried using a defuser to wave/curl her hair. So we tried it and it turned out so cute!

"Don't mind if I do."

On Sunday we all went to church and Grace was a good girl in all the meetings - We didn't have to take her to the foyer once! That's a successful sunday in my book. ;) We hung around the house, played games, k&k went on a walk, Grace took a nap, and I made dinner.

After Grace was in bed we broke out the games! We played "Snorta!" which we got for Christmas from Jason&Jacey. It was SO MUCH FUN. It makes you feel like an idiot, especially trying to make any animal noise to comes to mind because you can't remember which one you need to win. It's hilarious and we laughed all night! We also played a little "poop head" and "pounce". So fun!

Thanks for coming, Kyle & Katelyn!!

We had such a great time and hope you can come down again soon.

15 Months

Grace is so much fun these days! But then she can switch on me in a second and push all the right buttons to drive me nuts. haha. She's just learning so much, including all of her boundaries and our rules. I love watching her learn how things work, or what things are called. I read in a parenting article that kids at her age can get easily frustrated by simply not knowing what things are around them. I've been making an effort to talk to her all the time about what I'm doing during daily activities and tell her the names of objects wherever we are. I can see her trying to soak it all up and it's so rewarding! :)
Recently Grace discovered that she can put her hands inside her shoes and walk them around on the ground. Where did she come up with that?! Seriously, we've never done that before. It's hilarious to see her discover something... and then keep doing it over and over because she knows it makes me laugh. Now she is obsessed with my shoes and walks around the house in whatever pair of flats (they're the easiest to get into) that are usually sitting by our door.
Grace's favorite toys lately are her LittlePeople castle blocks, baby doll and stroller, and her LittlePeople farm sets. She still takes 2 naps, both last somewhere between 45 mins to an hour and a half each, and then she sleeps at night from 8 pm til 7 pm (usually). Sometimes she'll wake up at 6 or 6:30 which I really dislike. I'm fine with 2 naps still as long as she actually sleeps... but I'm slowly pushing her morning nap later and later to try and phase out the second one someday. She just isn't proving to me that she can take one single long nap versus two short ones. She eats a TON! I swear she eats the same amount that I do. She goes through lots of milk each week, plenty of goldfish, graham crackers, and cheerios, but still eats anything I make for dinner. Lately she's enjoyed broccoli cheese soup, coconut curry soup, spicy mexican rice, chicken, pork, peanut butter, any kind of pasta, any kind of fruit, and the list goes on. She never ceases to amaze me with what she actually will eat. I'm so grateful to have such a good eater!

She's pretty good at asking for things. I can usually tell what it is she wants to play with or eat, whether it's a sign she does, or points to the fridge (for milk), points to where we keep crackers, or says something with her limited vocabulary. It's so cute! Things she can say that we understand:

-diaper

-bubble

-cheese (chzzz)

-Jesus (jzzss)

-baby (rocking her arms back and forth)

-duck ("duh")

-Parker (the little boy I babysit - "bah-ber")

-milk ("mmmmuh")

-binkie ("buh")

-wow (usually referring to something pretty, a light, or if she thinks something is neat)

-yes (stomping her feet and bobbing her whole body up and down... no simple head bob for this silly girl)

Ryan loves getting her to shriek and squeal! He'll toss her around and make her do spins, which she just LOVES. She has also started in on the screaming phase. She just screams really high pitched while she's playing or if she wants something, or for whatever reason. But the funniest new noise she makes is when she does her super-high-pitched-10-year-old girly giggles. I was even pushing her in the stroller around our complex when we saw some young boys playing football. Grace saw them before I did and started up with her girly-giggles. My goodness. She's going to be one of THOSE girls. haha

Grace was giving Parker "loves"/hugs. What'd I tell ya?

Another fun thing about this age is that she's become the mommy-mimic, or my little helper. She spilled a little milk on the floor so I handed her a paper towel, showed her what to do, and she went right to work wiping up the spill! ... Unfortunately then she continued to make her milk spill so there was something to wipe up. What a fun game. Grace also likes to "help" me while I'm doing laundry. She help with anything from trying so hard to close the dryer door while I'm switching loads, to putting clothes in the machines, to handing me clothes from the basket while I'm folding them. SOMETIMES she'll help me put a couple of her toys in a basket, but that's a work in progress.
We sure love our little girl! She's so big and I just can't believe how quickly she grows and learns. I'm so grateful to be her mom. :)

Valentine's Day

knock knock...

Who is it? or... WHAT is it?

A package for Grace from the "Invisible Man"!

Who is that?! And where did he go?

The Invisible Man only drops packages off on Valentine's Day to his favorite little ones. In all my years as a kid, I've never seen him making his deliveries... so he's either invisible or just really fast!

Momentarily sad from being told to come back inside...

What's inside the package?

A baby doll!

Super fab sunglasses (which she wears all the time now),

heart-necklaces,

and fruit snacks!

It was really fun to keep that tradition going (started by my Grandpa Matheson many years ago)! Anyway, for dinner that night I made homemade spaghetti and meat sauce, whole wheat noodles (not homemade), and heart-shaped rolls.

For FHE we made valentines for each other and ate homemade vanilla pudding with strawberries and whipped topping. Mmmmm...

A happy happy birthday to YOU from me!

Today is my sister's 30th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINDS! We have had so many great times and special moments together and I honestly wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for her. She is one of my very best friends, even with the 7 year age difference, and I'm grateful we have become "friends" of these last several years - instead of just "sisters".

I'm so happy that "I chose you in heaven"... hehe ... and that we have all of Eternity to spend together.

When I was very young, Lindsey and I shared a room. She would sing primary songs to me at night while I fell asleep. To this day I can't sing or hear "A Child's Prayer" without thinking of her.

(Lindsey 8, Jamie 1)

Even though she was much older and "cooler" than me, sometimes we would be allies in plotting against our 3 brothers. She showed me how to chew on paper to make them jealous, thinking we had gum and they didn't. (yuck)

On my parents' date nights, Lindsey was always our sitter - or our "second mom". All of us kids loved those nights! It meant Totinos pizzas or Mac-n-Cheese, and lots of fun.

When we were a bit older, and in different rooms, I would go look through her clothes while she wasn't home, or her jewelry, her lotions, etc, because I thought everything was so neat! I wanted to be just like her and wear what she thought was cute and cool.

I wanted to play the piano because Lindsey was so good at it! I wanted to sing just like her. I wanted to hang out with her and her girlfriends when they had parties and sleepovers. I wanted to write in my journal every single day like she did!

One day in middle school I actually stole and wore her running shoes to school... because, OF COURSE, they were cooler than mine! I got in deep trouble for it though.

Lindsey offered to do my hair for my 8th Grade Graduation, and even found ribbon to tie in it that matched my new outfit. I felt like the prettiest girl there.

(Jamie 5?, Lindsey 12?)

I started listening to Dave Matthews Band back in the day because she (and my brothers) did... and that made it cool.

She let me sit on her bed with her and talk about the new boy she'd met in her Institute class, and who she was falling so hard for! I heard every bit of the dating stories over those few weeks before they got engaged and felt so special that she would include me!

She and her husband asked me to be their helper while they took their bridals after their wedding. I got to carry her bouquet and be a part of such a special experience for them!

When Lindsey was so sick with the flu that she wasn't able to nurse her baby or get any rest, she called me to come take care of things while she slept. I felt like the luckiest sister/aunt in the world that she knew she could rely on me to help out like that.

Alpine Slide, fall 2008

On the hardest night I ever experienced during high school, I called my sister. She stayed on the phone with me in the middle of the night and let me cry, talk, and cry some more. It takes a special person to be someone's shoulder when they need it - WHENEVER they need.

Lindsey has been such an amazing help to me through the last 5 years as I've gotten married, adjusted to all that it brings, moved a few times, helped me learn to cook while I was a newly wed (she even showed me how to brown ground beef! haha), and especially has been a HUGE help as I became a mom.

Pregnant buddies... and Thomas, fall 2009

On those extremely rough days after Grace was born and still in the hospital, my sister would call me - everyday! She would let me talk and complain and vent and cry... and most importantly, she would cry with me. I'd never so fully understood "mourning with those who mourn" until she showed me that pure love.

Lindsey - I love you. I hope you have a WONDERFUL birthday and that you know how loved you are!

Spring!

Oh wait... It's only February??

Right.

We have had gorgeous weather lately. In January we had some days in the 70s! It's just craziness. Right now we're having a couple days of a cold-spell (highs in the 40s, which have broken records) but I really am counting my blessing that we're not below zero or single digits like everybody else in our family right now. I know everybody is so tired of winter, and even the Today Show with Hoda and Kathie Lee this morning was a beach party. They were wearing swim suits... awkward... but I know the whole country is fed up with winter. So ya know what that means?? You need to come here and play with us! I just had to throw that out there. Also, I know I'm bragging a little about the nice weather... but please remember that we are doomed to our 7 month-long season from h-e-double-hockey-sticks that is almost unbearable. So please let me brag for the couple months I can! ;)

A few weeks ago Ryan and Grace and I ventured out to the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas. It's a couple hundred acres of museums, learning centers, and gardens that teach about sustainability and about the history of the valley/city. They were running a deal in January where adults got in for the kids' price, so it was nice and cheap! We saw pretty much everything there except for the outer gardens and "wetlands", I think they were called. Wetlands in Vegas? Yeah, I know. I didn't get to see it with my own eyes, but they claim it's there! Anyway we had a really great time walking through all the exhibits, learning about being "green", about the history of water use compared to population (holy cow, we use a lot of water here), saw a bird show, and ate our picnic lunches at the playground. There is tons to see there! I totally recommend it to anyone, especially when they run a good deal.

When we walked in to the preserve I told Ryan it felt like we were entering Jurassic Park. Maybe it's because this is what you see from the freeway.

This was a flash-flood demonstration. It was really cool!

Ryan was showing us how to use the human sun dial they painted on the ground.

Grace is waving "Hello" to everyone in Salt Lake!

I love Valentine's Day decorations. It's so fun to have hearts and "love" themed decor up! It's too bad it doesn't last for very long though. It's kind of like Thanksgiving... mashed between other holidays so you can't keep those decoration up very long before putting up the next ones. I had only one thing for love-day decor and I decided to make a few things this year. I made a "Heart Felt" wreath (how-to found here) and it felt good to get those creative juices flowing again. It's been awhile since I sat down to do a new craft like that.

(p.s. For anyone who I may have told that Joann's is the only place to find the heart-shaped wreaths, I was wrong. I just saw some at Hobby Lobby.)

After doing that I didn't want to quit yet and wanted to make a few more things. I made a paper heart garland (since I had everything for it on hand).

Then when I was walking through Hobby Lobby I saw on their wall of Valentine's Day decorations they had this cute heart-shaped box! It was decorated and had a ribbon around the outside of it. I thought to myself "Hey, I can do that!" I went straight over to the aisles of chipboard boxes, paper, paint, and embellishments (most of which were 50% off) and had a great time making it into something. I know it looks pretty cheeze-ball, and maybe the thick red ribbon was a little much, but it's what I had on hand... Plus Valentine's Day is pretty cheezy itself, right?

Well, anyway, I like it. :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, everyone!